The Mind and the Brain

Alfred Binet
The Mind and the Brain, by
Alfred Binet

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Binet
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Title: The Mind and the Brain Being the Authorised Translation of
L'Âme et le Corps
Author: Alfred Binet

Release Date: April 14, 2007 [eBook #21077]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Transcriber's Note:
References are made to footnotes in other footnotes and index. The
footnotes are serially numbered and placed at the end of each chapter.
Consequently the references in the footnotes and index have been
corrected to indicate the footnote number.

International Scientific Series.
Volume LXXXIX.
(The International Scientific Series)
Edited by F. Legge
THE MIND AND THE BRAIN
by
ALFRED BINET
Directeur du Laboratoire de Psychologie à la Sorbonne
Being the Authorised Translation of
L'Âme et le Corps

London Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd Dryden House,
Gerrard Street, W. 1907

CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE DEFINITION OF MATTER
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The distinction between mind and matter--Knowable not
homogeneous--Criterion employed, enumeration not concepts
CHAPTER II
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS ONLY
SENSATION
Modern theories of matter--Outer world only known to us by our
sensations--Instances--Mill's approval of proposition, and its
defects--Nervous system only intermediary between self and outer
world--The great X of Matter--Nervous system does not give us true
image--Müller's law of specificity of the nerves--The nervous system
itself a sensation--Relations of sensation with the unknowable the affair
of metaphysics
CHAPTER III
THE MECHANICAL THEORIES OF MATTER ARE ONLY
SYMBOLS
Physicists vainly endeavour to reduce the rôle of
sensation--Mathematical, energetical, and mechanical theories of
universe--Mechanical model formed from sensation--Instance of
tuning-fork--No one sensation any right to hegemony over others

CHAPTER IV
ANSWERS TO SOME OBJECTIONS, AND SUMMARY
Objections of spiritualists--Of German authors who contend that
nervous system does give true image--Of metaphysicians--Common
ground of objection that nervous system not intermediary--Answer to
this--Summary of preceding chapters
BOOK II
THE DEFINITION OF MIND
CHAPTER I
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN COGNITION AND ITS OBJECT
Necessity for inventory of mental phenomena--Objects of cognition
and acts of cognition--Definition of consciousness
CHAPTER II
DEFINITION OF SENSATION
Sensation defined by experimental psychology--A state of
consciousness--Considered self-evident by Mill, Renouvier, and
Hume--Psycho-physical according to Reid and Hamilton--Reasons in
favour of last definition--Other opinions examined and refuted
CHAPTER III
DEFINITION OF THE IMAGE
Perception and ideation cannot be separated--Perception constituted by
addition of image to sensation--Hallucinations--Objections anticipated
and answered
CHAPTER IV

DEFINITION OF THE EMOTIONS
Contrary opinions as to nature of emotions--Emotion a phenomenon sui
generis--Intellectualist theory of emotion supported by Lange and
James--Is emotion only a perception? Is effort?--Question left
unanswered
CHAPTER V
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE RELATION
SUBJECT-OBJECT
Can thoughts be divided into subject and object?--This division cannot
apply to the consciousness--Subject of cognition itself an
object--James' opinion examined--Opinion that subject is spiritual
substance and consciousness its faculty refuted
CHAPTER VI
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--CATEGORIES OF THE
UNDERSTANDING
Principle of relativity doubted--Tables of categories: Aristotle, Kant,
and Renouvier--Kantian idealism--Phenomenism of Berkeley examined
and rejected--Argument of a priorists--The intelligence only an
inactive consciousness--Huxley's epiphenomenal consciousness--Is the
consciousness necessary?--Impossibility of answering this question
CHAPTER VII
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE SEPARABILITY
OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ITS OBJECT--DISCUSSION OF
IDEALISM
Can the consciousness be separated from its object?--Idealists consider
the object a modality of the consciousness and thus inseparable, from
it--Futility of this doctrine--Object can exist without consciousness

CHAPTER VIII
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE SEPARATION OF
THE CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ITS OBJECT--THE
UNCONSCIOUS
Can ideas exist without consciousness?--No consciousness without an
object--Can the consciousness die?--Enfeeblement of consciousness
how accounted for--Doubling of consciousness in hysterics--Relations
of physiological phenomena to consciousness--Consciousness cannot
become unconscious and yet exist
CHAPTER IX
DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Difficulty of defining psychology--Definition by
substance--Psychology not the science of the soul--Definition by
enumeration: its error--Definition by method contradicts idea of
consciousness--Externospection and introspection sometimes
confused--Definition by content--Facts cannot be divided into those of
consciousness and of unconsciousness--Descartes' definition of
psychology insufficient--"Within and without" simile
unanalogous--Definition by point of view--Inconsistencies of
Ebbinghaus' contention--W. James' teleological theory--Definition by
the peculiar nature of mental laws only one possible: why?
BOOK III
THE UNION OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY
CHAPTER I
THE MIND HAS AN INCOMPLETE LIFE
Problem of union of mind
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