Craig E. Stephenson, Possession: Jung's Comparative Anatomy of the Psyche. London & New...

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 46(3), 314–315 Summer 2010Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/jhbs.20443© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Eugene Taylor. The Mystery of Personality: A History of Psychodynamic Theories. NewYork: Springer, 2009. 470 pp. $119.00 (hardcover). ISBN-13: 978-0387981031.

In my undergraduate history of psychology seminar, I help students identify three typesof historical thinking—descriptions, explanations, and implications. If the first two addresswhat happened and why, the third tries to get at the “so what” question: what might a specificanalysis tell us about the ways in which psychology and history shape each other over time?Eugene Taylor’s The Mystery of Personality: A History of Psychodynamic Theories is a vol-ume that is heavy in its description and explanation, but also offers some interesting possi-bilities regarding what it means to understand persons.

As an established and well-respected authority on William James and late-nineteenth-century American psychology, Taylor casts the history of modern personality theories throughthe lens of “three streams” or traditions—experimental (academic laboratory psychologies),clinical (person-centered psychologies), and experiential (psychospiritual folk psychologies).While most histories of psychology treat personality solely in the context of the clinical stream,his narrative embodies the dynamic feel of its subject by constantly stressing the interplayamong the three streams. For example, a major theme of The Mystery of Personality is thetension created by varying conceptions of science that individuals seeking to understand per-sonality assume. Positivistic experimentalists, interpretive psychoanalysts, and spiritualisticseekers each contribute in Taylor’s broad treatment of psychology’s exploration of the person.

Inverting the priorities found in standard history of psychology texts, Taylor shows thatmodern, scientific studies of personality modeled after German laboratory psychologyemerge two to three decades after physicians and psychical researchers have made significantcontributions to understanding the coherence and malleability of personality. Important alsois his distillation and clarification of conceptions of the unconscious and mind–body relationsthat predate Freud. As his story moves from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, psycho-dynamic approaches to personality take center stage and represent, in ways, the confluence ofthe three streams into a struggle to articulate a personally, and perhaps transcendently, mean-ingful science of the person. A real contribution of this book is Taylor’s detailed treatment ofdozens of contributors—some well known, others not—to the development of dynamicallyand humanistically oriented theories of personality. Although at times depth is sacrificed forbreadth (e.g., Taylor’s limited treatment of Harry Stack Sullivan), his ability to interconnectthe influences of experimental psychiatry, existential philosophy, and early gender psychol-ogy bring to light individuals and movements that are ripe for further historical examination.

Given Taylor’s previous work, it is not surprising that spirituality and religion—includingWestern, Eastern, and other indigenous traditions—consistently shape psychology’s under-standing of what being a person means in The Mystery of Personality. The third stream isshown to exert its historical influence in a variety of ways, via cultural moralities of personalfulfillment, the deep symbolism of Jungian archetypes, and the expansiveness of esoteric andmind-altering experiences. As a champion of freeing the history of psychology from the nar-row confines of the academic experimental tradition, Taylor succeeds in connecting it tosomething broader than itself by focusing on the interplay of what is typically taken to be theborder between science and non-science.

While it may seem that the heady days of mid- to late-twentieth-century personality psy-chologies have been eclipsed by contemporary neuroscience and positive psychology, Taylorconcludes by reviewing these two recent trends, reinforcing the sense that the science andpractice of psychology will continue to be influenced by the cultural and historical contin-gency of personhood itself. Maybe that is one of the main reasons that the mystery of per-sonality hasn’t been solved, despite our best intentions and efforts. For me, this implicationprovides the perfect complement to the descriptive and explanatory strengths of The Mysteryof Personality.

Reviewed by TREY BUCHANAN, Department of Psychology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.

Richard P. Bentall. Doctoring the Mind: Is Our Current Treatment of Mental Illness ReallyAny Good? New York: New York University Press, 2009. 364 pp. $29.95 (hardcover).ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-9148-6.

The recent volume of Richard P. Bentall, psychologist and professor of clinical psychol-ogy at the University of Bangor (Wales), resumes some subjects of the author’s previous book,Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature (Bentall, 2003). These two volumes seemaimed to demystify the nosographic models, theories, and therapeutics of contemporary main-stream psychiatry. While Madness Explained was mainly orientated to an analytic critique ofcontemporary psychopathological descriptions, Doctoring the Mind is a detailed analysis of current theoretical and therapeutic models of psychiatry. Moreover, the book is morebenevolent toward clinical psychology than mainstream psychiatry.

Doctoring the Mind is divided into three parts: the first, titled “An Illusion of Progress,”is a short critical history of psychiatry (pp. 3–86). In the second part, “Three Myths aboutMental Illness,” Bentall analyzes the deficiencies of three pillars of psychiatry and of con-temporary psychopathology: 1. the classificatory system of mental illnesses; 2. the search forgenetic bases of mental diseases in order to state that they are biological illnesses; 3. the be-lief of experimental psychiatry that mental diseases are brain diseases (pp. 89–182). The thirdpart of the book, titled “Medicines for Madness,” is a critical review of pharmacological andpsychological therapies (pp. 185–288).

“An Illusion of Progress” is a schematic analysis of Whig history of psychiatry that forBentall is well represented by Michael H. Stone’s (1997) Healing the Mind: History ofPsychiatry from Antiquity to the Present and Edward Shorter’s (1997) A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. The key to interpretation ofthis part of the book seems to be the attempt to show that in psychiatry “the production of theknowledge” did not correspond to “real” progress in models of and therapies for psychosis.

The author states that the evidence of the failure of psychiatric treatments is that in thecourse of the twentieth-century rates of psychiatric diagnosis—instead of decreasing—have in-creased in a remarkable manner (for example, the United States has seen a growth of about 600%from 1955 to 2003) (p. 18). Then Bentall traces a short story of the bugs of psychiatric tech-nologies (electro-convulsive therapy [ECT], prefrontal leucotomy, and insulin coma therapy),

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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs

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describing the fortune of the psychopathology of Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926) and the strangehistory of the discovery of the behavioral use of phenothiazines by Henri Laborit (1914–1995).Among other therapeutic innovations, the author describes psychological ones and in particularcognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and client- (or person-) centered psychotherapy (pp. 49–68).This very short history of “psychiatry” and “clinical psychology” concludes with the statementthat anti-psychiatry—founded by Ronald D. Laing (1927–1989), Thomas Szasz, and FrancoBasaglia (1924–1980)—could be considered a valid alternative approach to classical psychiatry,even if in recent years it has been eclipsed by the “triumph” of biological psychiatry (pp. 69–86).

The second part, “Three Myths about Mental Illness,” is essentially a critique of psy-chopathological classification—e.g. the DSM. Bentall remarks that over-detailed nosographicsystems cannot systematically capture co-occuring symptoms and organize them under defi-nite diagnostic labels. Moreover, the author maintains that there are individuals livingnormally with such psychological symptoms as hallucinations, and that there are self-helpgroups, particularly in Britain, that form networks of voice-hearers (Hearing Voices Network)(p. 107).

Chapters 6 and 7 are the most complex and, in some respects, the most controversial. InChapter 7, Bentall supplies an attentive description of genetic studies in the field of psychia-try. This chapter is excessively schematic and would need a deeper analysis of such alternativesto genetic psychopathology as attachment theory (pp.113–147). On the other hand, Chapter 7contains an interesting critical discussion of the limits of neurochemical theories of psychosisand of diagnostic images—particularly by the fMRI (pp. 148–165). The concluding sectionof the chapter shows some hypothetical psychological models of paranoia and hallucinations.The author discusses a pragmatic approach to psychopathological symptoms, focused on cog-nitive activity rather than on classifications of behaviors and “syndromes.” Bentall attemptsto deconstruct the DSM’s classifications of pathological behaviors, stating that they are reac-tions and cognitive interpretations of unfortunate life events and experiences that individualscan accept by means of psychotherapy or other therapeutic procedures including the tempo-rary use of drugs (pp. 165–182).

The long, final part of the book presents an original history of the randomized controlledtrial (RCT). This may be the most interesting part of the volume, where the author truthfullydiscusses the use of new drugs from a neuroscientific point of view and shows that, particu-larly for antidepressant drugs, the promises of healing have not been fulfilled. Bentall warnsmainly against the side effects of long-term therapy with antipsychotics (pp. 214–241). Theauthor is critical also with respect to research in psychotherapy—with a benevolent eye to-wards cognitive behavior therapy (CBT)—and, nevertheless, focuses on some data acquiredabout the effectiveness of evidence-based psychotherapies. In particular the volume is en-lightening about the importance of the therapist instead of general theoretical variables ofpsychotherapies (pp. 242–288). Bentall hopes that a new pragmatic approach based on theanalysis and resolution of psychological symptoms by means of psychotherapy, of self-helpgroup networks, and also by means of a “safe” use of drugs, will improve the life quality ofpatients in a depsychiatrized/deinstituzionalized context.

It is necessary to say that Bentall’s book is nicely written and articulated; however, it de-serves some criticisms. From the point of view of the historian of the psychology, Bentallunfortunately does not re-examine the connections among psychiatry, antipsychiatry, andclinical psychology. Doctoring the Mind lacks references regarding contemporary critical his-tory of psychology and psychopathology (e.g., Ian Hacking or Nikolas Rose). On the otherhand, the author forgets that the antipsychiatry approach was part of a particular openly antipositivist philosophical context. Reference to Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966),

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Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), and Martin Heidegger(1889–1976) are essential to deeply understand the antipsychiatric movement. These scholarssustained an antipositivist and antipsychological point of view and were the masters of thetwentieth-century antipsychiatrists (e.g., for about 20 years the Italian antipsychiatristsopposed the law n. 56 that in 1989 institutionalized the profession of psychology).

On the contrary, the recent history of psychology and psychopathology demonstratedthat a better point of reference was nineteenth-century medicine and psychiatry. In fact, thenineteenth-century medical research for new cures often sustained the first European gener-ation of “clinical psychologists” and “psychotherapists” (Gauchet & Swain, 1980;Dowbiggin, 1991; Fauvel, 2004).

In conclusion, Doctoring the Mind is a very good and provocative book—written by apsychologist—containing many interesting and well-written pages but showing a consider-able need—also shared with contemporary mainstream experimental psychology—for a moreadequate historical examination.

REFERENCES

Bentall, P. B. (2003). Madness explained: Psychosis and human nature. London: Allen Lane.Dowbiggin, I. (1991). Inheriting madness: Professionalization and psychiatric knowledge in nineteenth-century

France. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Fauvel, A. (2004). Aliénistes contre psychiatres. La médicine mentale en crise (1890–1914) [Alienists vs. psychia-

trists. The crisis of mental medicine (1890–1914)]. Psychologie clinique, 17, 61–76.Gauchet, M., & Swain, G. (1980). La pratique de l’esprit humain. L’institution asilaire et la révolution démocratique

[The practice of human spirit. The mental hospital and the democratic revolution]. Paris: Gallimard.Shorter, E. (1997). A history of psychiatry: From the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac. New York: Wiley.Stone, M. H. (1997). Healing the mind: A history of psychiatry from antiquity to the present. New York: Wiley.

Reviewed by RENATO FOSCHI, Aggregate Professor, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy.

Lynn K. Nyhart. Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 423 pp. � xiv. $45.00 (hardcover). ISBN978-0226610894.

In her wonderfully written book, Lynn Nyhart charts the rise of the “biological perspec-tive” in Germany from the 1880s to the 1920s. She argues that this view—of a dynamic,interconnected natural world of which humans were an integral part—originated among out-siders to the dominant university establishment: taxidermists, zookeepers, popularizers, mu-seum men, and elementary schoolteachers. From these populist origins, the view eventuallybecame enshrined in the canon of elite academic science in Germany as the organizing con-cept of animal ecology.

Nyhart’s argument has three key elements, evident in every one of her chapters. First, sheis interested in pursuing the interconnections among all kinds of popular science, whethermuseum dioramas, reconstructed habitats in zoos or aquaria, print media, or school curricula.Second, she demonstrates the clear “trickle up” effect of this popular work. Here is a case ofpopular science first opposing, then revolutionizing, and finally being fully incorporated into

elite science: “an unexpected direction,” as Nyhart puts it, “for the creation and flow ofknowledge” (p. 18). Third, she connects the biological perspective to its social context, argu-ing that it had a distinctly “modern” aspect. The view of the functional relationships amongorganisms elucidated in this science had its counterpart in the modernist social relations ofStuttgart and Kiel, cities where the new view first took firm hold.

Nyhart’s book thus provides an intellectual history of the biological perspective, focus-ing on the small number of men, outsiders to the establishment, who promulgated it; an in-stitutional history of the museums, zoos, and schools where they worked; and an account ofhow this dynamic conception of nature spread into and reformed elite science. The early chap-ters (2 and 3) discuss the career of Philipp Leopold Martin, a taxidermist who argued for a“lively” way of reconstructing and displaying animals—an approach he contrasted to the“deadening science” of systematics and to its treatment of animals as mere specimens (p. 36).His was an artistic, imaginative and even at times sensationalizing approach: one that the pub-lic could appreciate and understand, and would pay to see exemplified. In a striking departurefrom its counterpart in American museums, Martin’s work often included humans in its rep-resentation of nature. Nyhart shows that Martin’s work as a zoo planner and nature protec-tionist drew on the values of “practical natural history” evident in his taxidermy: aestheticpresentation of animals in their natural surroundings, connected with each other and withtheir environment. As did many other naturalists from similarly humble backgrounds, Martinmoved among the different sites of practical natural history in order to make a living.

How did this popular and populist science, then, get transformed into a discipline thatcould be valued in an academic setting? Nyhart devotes her next three chapters (4, 5, and 6) toanswering this question. She argues that Karl Mobius, schoolteacher, aquarium developer, andultimately professor at the University of Berlin, was both a key player in this transformationand an exemplar in his own career of the shift from popular to elite forms. In his naturalisticapproach to the aquarium, his teaching (which forced him to consider the broad picture of na-ture and not specialize) and his own research in marine invertebrates, Mobius straddled thepopular and scholarly in a way that Martin never did. Mobius’s concept of “biocoenosis” (liv-ing community)—first developed in a report on the oyster industry—established him as a pio-neer in ecological theory. The concept emphasized function, the work done by organisms inconcert with others, rather than their ancestry or heritage. Nyhart argues that the conceptspread rapidly in part because of its “social resonances” (p. 160) with a modernizing society,in which one’s functional relationships and dependencies, rather than one’s family name, de-termined one’s worth. Mobius’s own upward mobility provided a striking case in point.

Nyhart shows how the biological perspective spread by examining the work of FriedrichJunge, a schoolteacher whose biology curriculum for primary and middle schools madeMobius’s concept standard even as it altered it in important ways. Junge made the “livingcommunity” concept teach moral lessons, inculcating in students a sense of their place withina larger whole and what they owed to others. Nature provided the model for human behavior,and the community took priority over the individual. Nyhart notes that the links Junge forgedbetween the living community concept and the character- and citizen-building emphases ofthe contemporary Heimat, or “homeland,” movement persisted into the Weimar and Nazi pe-riods. That the biological perspective and the living community concepts were open to multi-ple readings were also crucial to their success.

Natural history museums were another key venue for the spread of the biological perspec-tive and for the growth of its academic respectability. As they gained governmental supportbetween 1880 and 1900 and as museum curators became increasingly professionalized, the bi-ological perspective began to get promoted now with didactic aims, “no longer an oppositional

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outsider’s position . . . [but] an integral part of the picture of nature presented to the public” (p. 250). The division of museum collections into specimens for research and specimens fordisplay reinforced the separation of lay visitors from professionals, and enhanced the curator’sposition as public expert on nature. In Chapter 7 Nyhart explores how the human relations tonature were also always salient in these public displays, in the museums at Bremen, Altona, andat the University of Berlin. In her final chapters (8–10), Nyhart explains how the biologicalperspective became incorporated into the science of academic ecology, developing its own spe-cialized language to set it apart from popular portrayals of nature. Having repudiated the static“systematic” approach to nature dominant in mid-nineteenth-century Germany, the biologicalperspective by the 1920s had bifurcated into academic ecology, on the one hand, and, on theother, into a popular view of nature that we take so much for granted today that it is nearly in-visible. Modern Nature offers a key contribution to our understanding of relationships betweenpopular and elite sciences, a revealing contrast to the history of ecology and nature study inAnglo-American contexts, and a model for the way historians need to connect people, ideas,institutions, and social context.

Reviewed by NADINE WEIDMAN, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University,Cambridge, MA.

Daniel Geary. Radical Ambition: C. Wright Mills, the Left, and American Social Thought.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009. 277 pp. $29.95 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-520-25836-5.

It would be wrong to say that sociologist and public intellectual C. Wright Mills(1916–1962) has ever been forgotten. During his life, and long past death, his work and writ-ings have been the subject of plentiful controversy and romantic projection. This has been no-ticeable in biographies of Mills, and becomes especially apparent in Irving Louis Horowitz’sC. Wright Mills: An American Utopian (1983), which casts Mills as something of a megalo-maniac. Recent history has seen a distinct uptick in the attention paid to Mills’s life and work.Daniel Geary’s Radical Ambition represents a new biographical take on Mills, one that em-phasizes Mills’s identity as a sociologist, and his continuity with broader trends in Americanpolitical culture.

For a biography that was written partly in an attempt to counter those who make C. Wright Mills out to be a romanticized, motorcycle-driving rebel with only passing connec-tions to the sociological tradition, it is fitting that Radical Ambition attends so closely toMills’s experiences in the 1930s and early 1940s, when he was a student at the University ofTexas, and then the University of Wisconsin. If there is a case to be made that Mills was apractitioner of the truly “sociological” imagination, this would be the period to find suchcommitments and ideals. Geary notes that Mills “developed his major themes, ideas, and ap-proaches in an academic context” (p. 14) and he does a good job covering the sources ofMills’s appreciation for philosophical pragmatism, a tradition that came to Mills largely fromtwo philosophers at the University of Texas: George Gentry and David Miller (p. 17). When

blended with the ideas of Mills’s sociological mentor at Texas, University of Chicago–trainedWarner Gettys, the pragmatist emphasis became a persistent part of Mills’s thought. Gearysuggests that this pragmatist thrust in Mills’s ideas was part of what led him to take such apublic role. It was pragmatism, Geary argues, that “suggested to” Mills the “key public andpolitical role that the social scientist could play” (p. 43). At the University of Wisconsin,where Mills earned his Ph.D., things were more embattled, as he found himself gravitating to-ward Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, and repulsed from numerous tendencies inAmerican sociology, leading to no small amount of friction with, for example, his disserta-tion advisor Howard P. Becker.

Geary dedicates an entire chapter of Radical Ambition to the argument that the “influ-ence of Max Weber, filtered through Mills’s interactions with the German émigré sociologistHans Gerth, encouraged him to ask big questions about large-scale social trends” (p. 45). Itis on this assertion that much of the weight of Geary’s argument regarding the sociologicalidentity of Mills rests. With Mills tied to Weber via Gerth, Geary sees a way to establishMills’s approach as sociological through association with one of the “holy trinity” of socio-logical thinkers. The same argument positions Weber’s ideas as perhaps surprisingly radical-izing. As Geary puts it, “In the work of Weber, whom Gerth and Mills would describe as ‘adisillusioned liberal,’ Mills believed he found the sociological tools necessary to constructsuch a tough-minded analysis of the location of social power in American society” (p. 47).Geary quickly moves on to Mills’s increasingly popular and political writings of the early1940s, to argue that Mills’s place as a maverick and public-minded sociologist came from par-ticular components of sociological thought (and not merely from, say, contemporary currentsof political thought). It works, though I believe Geary’s case could have been strengthened bypaying more attention to the relationship between Gerth and Mills.

As Mills began writing for audiences outside the profession, it would be tempting to sup-pose that he had given up somewhat on sociology proper. Geary will have none of it. To thecontrary, he argues that “Mills’s writings for left-wing magazines are better seen as public so-ciology, making the methods and insights of contemporary social science available outside theacademy” (p. 57). Geary pursues this argument at length, in terms very much consonant withMichael Burawoy’s (2005) use of the term “public sociology” (Burawoy does offer an en-dorsement on the back cover). The argument goes like this: Mills very much bought into thepromise of sociology, identified with the profession, and saw his popular work not as a de-parture so much as an extension of sociology’s promise to call citizens’ minds to attention. Inother words, Geary’s argument is dedicated to showing us that sociology has always had apublic potential, and that the professional and the public need not necessarily compete againsteach other in a zero-sum game. The call of the public (amongst other things) led Mills to be-come alienated from his department at Columbia, and Geary does a sensible job constructingMills’s conflicts with Paul Lazarsfeld and the somewhat more complicated relationship withRobert K. Merton.

It is important to point out that Geary’s method for studying C. Wright Mills leads him toplace great emphasis on things that Mills wrote in his numerous popular articles and books.By this I mean that Geary’s focus on public-ness leads him to spend relatively less time thansome other biographers on Mills’s connections to his family and friends, or to his colleagues(friend and foe alike). So, we get very long stretches of Radical Ambition dedicated simply towhat Mills was saying in books like The New Men of Power, White Collar, The Power Elite,and in numerous popular articles. This is not a sinful omission, and Geary’s summaries of theseessential writings read quite smoothly. At the very least, Radical Ambition is a good place toturn for deft summaries of Mills’s major writings. On the other hand, some historians of the

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field will search in vain for a more contextualized understanding of the origins of Mills’sthought. There is an irony here, as Geary’s central goal is very much concerned with dero-manticizing our sense of Mills, and his method for pursuing this goal leads him to separateMills out from his surroundings through an emphasis on his public writings. This issue of field-to-ground relationship is a familiar one in biographical history, and Geary could have ad-dressed this more explicitly.

If the focus on public-ness leads to some historiographical problems, it also has its shareof benefits. One thing that makes Radical Ambition stand out is Geary’s concern with Mills’slater work, and his connection—rightly made out to be significant, but not definitive—to “theemergence of a Global New Left” (p. 179) in the late 1950s and 1960s. Here Geary shows usthe peregrinations of Mills as he traveled in Europe, interacted with the British andContinental New Left, and developed a fresh understanding of the place of the intellectual,the role of sociology, and the political field of the time. Mills’s oft-neglected books TheCauses of World War Three and Listen, Yankee get special consideration here, and Geary noteshow these books highlight Mills in his most public/political mode. This focus on Mills’s latework is fitting, given Geary’s concerns regarding public-ness, and Geary does an excellent jobin this section demonstrating Mills’s connections to other early New Left figures includingLeszek Kolakowski and Ralph Miliband.

Radical Ambition is a biography of C. Wright Mills that makes clear its partiality: theemphasis is on three things—Mills’s roots in sociology, his understanding of the proper roleof the intellectual as someone who addresses a broader public, and the connection betweenthese two things. Those looking for a consideration of Mills as public sociologist need lookno further.

REFERENCES

Burawoy, M. (2005). For public sociology. American Sociological Review, 70, 4–28.Horowitz, I. L. (1983). C. Wright Mills: An American utopian. New York: Free Press.

Reviewed by DAVID W. PARK, Associate Professor of Communication, Lake Forest College,Lake Forest, IL.

Nicole H. Rafter (Ed.). The Origins of Criminology: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2009.348 pp. $49.95 (paperback). ISBN-13: 978-0415451116.

With centuries of diverse scholarship, the history of criminology tells a fascinating story.Unlike other disciplines, the emergence of criminology can be viewed as an amalgamatedmountain of knowledge borrowed from all sciences—natural, social, and behavioral—andcrafted to provide insight, answers, and solutions to everyday dilemmas in society—crime, vi-olence, and justice. Penned in a time unknown to advanced technology, produced in numer-ous languages, and published in all corners of the globe, tracing the origins of criminologyand providing a complete profile of the discipline may appear, to some, as a goliath researchendeavor. However, in her book The Origins of Criminology: A Reader, Nicole Rafter takes

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on this seemingly daunting challenge of identifying, selecting, translating, and collating anarray of both major and minor historical works from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries inorder to demonstrate their significance to criminology.

Rafter’s perseverance culminates with a book containing sixty-one readings within ten thematic sections. Part I, “Eighteenth-Century Predecessors,” contains three chapters—thelife and dying speech of a black man executed for rape, Beccaria’s thoughts on preventingcrime, and physiognomy by Lavater—a section, as Rafter explains, “designed to merely give aswift impression of the highly diverse kinds of discourse on crime found in the period leadingup to the one covered here” (p. xxi). One such example is Part II, “Phrenology,” which de-scribes the scientific measurement of skull sizes in relation to criminality by Spurzheim,Capen, Sampson, and Farnham. A more specific focus on the brain itself ensues in Part III,“Moral and Mental Insanity,” beginning with the legal development of the moral insanity con-cept followed by research on pathological and psychological causes of crime, with chaptersfrom Rush, Pinel, Prichard, Tuke, Krafft-Ebing, Lombroso, Ferrerro, and Despine. In consid-eration of the entire human body, Part IV, “Evolution, Degeneration, and Heredity” begins withMorel’s theory and causes of degeneration, further drawn upon by Thomson’s chapter on crim-inal psychology, and how such immoral characteristics may be inherited over time, asexplained by Darwin, “recommendations for eugenic solutions to criminality . . . [with] humanbreeding . . . to regenerate or improve human stock” (pp. 103–104) by Maudsley, closing withDugsdale’s infamous “Jukes” family case study and a book dedication to Lombroso by Nordau.

After covering various individual characteristics, Rafter now turns to societal conditionsand their effects on crime in Part V, “The Underclass and the Underworld,” which includes se-lective examples of the Irish by Fry and Gurney, the Negro in Philadelphia by DuBois, andcase studies of the criminal underclass in London, New York, and Manchester, England byMayhew and Binny, Crapsey, and Engels, respectively. Since Rafter compiled this bookchronologically, Part VI, “Criminal Anthropology,” while it is seemingly a continuation ofPart II, instead demonstrates another surge of scholarship on the topic in the latter eighteenthcentury, making these two related sections the majority and perhaps the most interesting ofthe readings comprising this book. Thomson introduces the section by describing the paral-lels of degeneration theory to criminal anthropology, showing how criminality is thereforehereditary, which provides the framework for the research by Lombroso and Ferrero, withEuropean and American replications by Benedikt, Tarnowsky, Eillis, and MacDonald, andclosing with arguments presented by critics Manouvrier, Lacassagne, and Wines, who favormore sociological explanations. Part VII, “Habitual Criminals and their Identification,” openswith comments regarding habitual offenders from Mayhew and Binny’s study of London’s un-derworld, a continuation of Thomson’s chapter to show how “a relatively small number of ha-bitual offenders commit a majority of crimes” (p. 212), followed by excerpts from Lombrosoon habitual offending before closing with two methods of identifying offenders: taking bodymeasurements of those arrested—called anthropometry—by Bertillon, and the first uses offingerprinting by Galton.

With chapters thus far concerned with identifying criminogenic characteristics, Part VIIIfocuses on preventing offenders from reproduction through eugenics. Spurzheim’s openingchapter, written in 1828, demonstrates how the concept of eugenics existed before the term was coined in 1892, followed by Darwin’s idea of preserving the strong and thwarting theweak—criminals—through natural selection for the betterment of society. Lowell recom-mended that the state should preclude “men and women who are diseased and vicious toreproduce their kind” (p. 245), while Galton provided suggestions for “breeding betterhumans” (p. 249), Boies advocated for sterilization of degenerates, and McKim drastically

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proposed “death by gassing for a large proportion of the criminal population” (p. 260). In PartIX, “criminal statistics,” Guerry described the first collection in France and patterns heobserved, followed by Quetelet’s reasons why statistics are more reliable than studying indi-vidual crimes. Fletcher and Carpenter explained how statistics were applied in England toidentify causes of crime and also evaluate prevention strategies, and Wines, who “reproducedparts of an 1880 U.S. Census on criminals shows how America was behind in organizing a na-tionwide, ongoing survey of offenders in analyzing crime and data sociologically” (p. 269),and the section closes with Ferri’s thoughts of statistics for identifying social causes of crime.Finally, Part X considers a number of sociological causes of crime, for example: sex differ-ences by Lieber, Mayhew, and Binny; poverty by Dubois; urbanization by Engels; imitationby Tarde; along with methods of social control by Ross; and Durkheim, who considered crimeas a normal and useful phenomenon; with closing remarks on crime statistics by Ferri.

Overall, Rafter has produced a historically rich, intellectually stimulating, logically or-dered, and easily understandable book, which clearly demonstrates a high level of research,selectivity, translation, and compilation of numerous readings, undoubtedly living up to thisbook’s title. Each section and chapter contains a brief introduction, with the latter also de-scribing the source of information and rationale for inclusion and exclusion of certain parts.Many chapters are brief and highlight key excerpts from original manuscripts, which areaided with subheadings and enhanced with graphics where necessary. The diversity of topicsin this book, of course, reaches far beyond an audience of criminology, and as such, appealsto a number of individuals—students, historians, researchers, and teachers—in many disci-plines, while providing a captivating journey through criminology for lay readers.

Reviewed by MICHAEL J. PUNISKIS, Middlesex University, London, m.puniskis@mdx.ac.uk.

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen. Making Minds and Madness: From Hysteria to Depression.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 276 pp. $108.00 (hardcover).ISBN-13: 978-0521888639.

This is a well-argued collection of essays on the social construction of mental illness. Theauthor, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, is a professor of French and comparative literature at theUniversity of Wisconsin and the author of several books on the history of psychiatry. His back-ground in comparative literature is excellent preparation for an analysis of how social contextmight influence attitudes toward mental disorders. He builds his argument for the social con-struction of mental disorders by documenting the historical attitudes toward aberrant behaviorand referencing the reifying effect of placing a diagnostic label on a collection of behaviors.

One of the most successful examples of his approach is the excellent chapter on the his-tory of multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder. The authorwisely chooses to chronicle the case study of “Sybil” as an especially clear example of how asociety can come to believe in the possibility of a disorder and subsequently discover epidemiclevels of its citizens showing these very symptoms. Borch-Jacobsen begins with Morton Princeand ends with an illustration of the therapist–patient dance that mutually manufactured the dis-order in the first place. Along with a dissection of the contradictions and controversies of the

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Sybil case, he includes an account of the false memory epidemic, certainly a related phenom-enon. This chapter, translated by Grant Mandarino, is a pleasure to read. It is presented in anengaging manner with considerable humor.

Chapter 5, “The Bernheim Effect,” first published in French in 1997, takes up the argumentof the existence of hypnosis as a special altered state of consciousness. Here, Borch-Jacobsenhas chosen an example of the possible manufacturing of a mental phenomenon that, unlike theSybil case, may generate some argument against his thesis of social construction. Also unlike the Sybil case, this chapter presents material that is likely to be new to the generalreader. The special or altered state theory of hypnosis has raged for years but Borch-Jacobsenmakes no reference to this continuing controversy. He approaches this subject from an earlierhistorical perspective, which does provide interesting background but leaves the reader withthe impression that the author is presenting a controversy that has no contemporary counter-part. The author begins his analysis with an explanation of the Salpêtrière/Nancy controversyand soon turns, as the title suggests, to a fairly extensive overview of the work of HippolyteBernheim. Bernheim struggled with the implications of defining hypnosis purely in terms ofsuggestibility. As Borch-Jacobsen points out, suggestibility leads one into a very unsatisfac-tory, circular argument. Why would a hypnotic subject agree to be hypnotized except that heis suggestible in the first place? How can obeying a hypnotist’s command be differentiatedfrom complying with a simple request to pass the salt? When Bernheim realizes that the be-havior of his hypnotic subjects is at least strongly influenced, perhaps totally produced by hisown suggestions, Borch-Jacobsen credits him with the first recognition of the experimentereffect.

Despite the fact that Borch-Jacobsen is arguing for an already widely accepted thesis, hestill sometimes weakens his argument by overinclusion. In “What Made Albert Run?,” a fas-cinating chapter on the dissociative fugue state, the author includes both hysteria and psy-choses in the same category of socially constructed maladies. The symptoms associated withhysteria certainly do change in ways that mirror the changes in society’s belief system andthey therefore provide some support for Borch-Jacobsen’s argument that hysteria is sociallyconstructed. Edward Shorter, whom Borch-Jacobsen very appropriately cites, has providedextensive evidence for these changes. But then Borch-Jacobsen makes a quick leap, when inthe next sentence he argues that schizophrenia is completely socially constructed.Schizophrenia, unlike hysteria, has a long documented cross-cultural history of stable symp-toms. An internationally consistent percentage of the world’s population is thought to qualifyfor a diagnosis of schizophrenia (a disconcerting but accepted phrase for meeting the diag-nostic criteria) based on hallucinations, thought disorders, unusual language habits, and, ingeneral, a loss of contact with reality. Admittedly, some of the specific content of the halluci-nations or thought disorders has certainly changed over time. The birth of the IndustrialRevolution was accompanied by thought disorders involving intrusive machinery, for example.But thought disorders themselves do not appear to be manufactured. Some societies define thethought disorders and hallucinations that Western societies associate with schizophrenia asspecial gifts or supernatural abilities, and it must be more pleasant for someone with these ex-periences to live in one of these societies. But the fact that some societies are better than oth-ers in dealing with these experiences is not an argument for the societal manufacture of the ex-periences themselves. In this case the author has weakened his case by arguing one step too far.

Most of the essays in this collection were previously published or presented as lectures,beginning in the 1990s. Consequently, however well argued, the material is not new or, often,very controversial. A review of each of these chapters when it first appeared would probablyhave read much differently. This collection, however, may have great value in introducing this

concept to students of social history. If this is the author’s intended audience, the book can berecommended. Students of the history of psychology are already familiar with this material.

Reviewed by SHEILA O’BRIEN QUINN, PHD, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI.

Roger Smith. Being Human: Historical Knowledge and the Creation of Human Nature.New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 256 pp. $35.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-231-14166-6.

Given the staking of its disciplinary identity in science throughout the last 150 years,psychology should have a lot to learn from, as well as interest in, the relative newcomer fieldof history of science. Not least because the disciplinary identity of psychology, like what isexactly meant by “science” as the ideal to which it aspires, have been and continue to be vexedquestions. If a phrase like “human science” raises that vexation into prominence, then RogerSmith’s Being Human is the kind of writing by a historian of science that psychologists shouldread. Cogent, erudite, carefully reasoned, and clearly written, Smith’s book makes the case forhistory as a non-negligible contributor to the meaning or “nature” of “human being,” and ascentral to all the human sciences. In doing so he is proposing, at the minimum, considerationsof history as a corrective to the imbalanced understanding of human nature as basically bio-logical—an imbalanced understanding particularly prominent in psychology. Impliedthroughout, however, is a stronger thesis: that because biological discourse is itself histori-cally situated and changing, not only our conception of “human nature,” but all biological(and natural science) conceptions of their subject matter, need to be understood historically(e.g., p. 191; p. 259). In either case, whether interpreted modestly as a corrective or contro-versially as a radical challenge, the text deserves reading from a broad audience.

The case Smith makes is in most parts philosophical, but not in order to set philosophyagainst biology. Smith is making the (largely philosophical) case for history. From this pointof view, philosophical anthropology, as philosophical counter to the biologically-reductive ac-count, proposes a valuation of “human nature” as rational or moral essence that also claimsto “escape” history. It opposes biology through an appeal to reflective consciousness thatSmith also makes, for crucial to his argument is that human self-understanding and self-knowledge are active in making human nature what it is and becomes. Unlike philosophicalanthropology, however, Smith understands the reflectively-sustained circularity betweenthought and action as history, and as itself always relative to a particular historically-developed understanding—not as its ahistorical ground. Biology and philosophical anthro-pology (and also, ethical or religious idealizations of human nature in terms of free will orsome God-given attribute, alternatives which Smith notes but does not pursue in detail) are,then, rivals to Smith’s historical account.

The argument from history for the distinctiveness of the human sciences is not new; it be-gins in the sixteenth century with Vico, is given particular prominence and urgency by Dilthey atthe end of the nineteenth century, and recurs throughout the vicissitudes of the twentieth centuryin claims issuing from hermeneutics from figures like Gadamer and critiques from personages

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like Foucault. Much of the merit of this book is precisely in how Smith renews the argument. Hedoesn’t do so through a detailed recap of the various sciences that have dealt with “humanbeing”—in large part because his History of the Human Sciences (1997), a magisterial historyfrom the sixteenth century to the present, does that – but in providing the careful reasoning forhow and why that history matters. It gives the theory that was assumed in the earlier work andwhile the 1997 text was a narrative history far-ranging in its scope and careful (as well as neces-sarily lengthy) in its enumeration, the 2007 text is much more self-consciously an argument in(shorter) essay form. In doing so Smith provides considerable theoretical and bibliographic sub-stance for arguments against the still too commonplace celebratory histories that assume the pres-ent state of the discipline as criterial, substance that also serves as a cogent presentation of muchof the reasoning behind emerging critical historical approaches. Three of the chapters—on therival claims from biology and philosophical anthropology about human nature, on the theme ofreflexivity, and on the relations between the natural and the human sciences—cover a broad swath of difficulty theory and sophisticated thought with remarkable facility, laying out the in-tellectual background wherein critical reflexivity and an increasing appreciation for history hasdeveloped its force. Smith continues with a chapter on the precedents for the human sciences,claiming that while previous “arguments do not constitute a tradition properly so-called, sincethey are not connected by continuous institutional or cultural links,” their importance for estab-lishing precedent for the viability of the human sciences resides in their continuity “from Vico toGadamer” (p. 172). Thus by his final chapters that thematize history as significant knowledge inits own right, and the relationship between values and knowledge, Smith has provided both a “crit-ical mass” of theoretical work as well as a demonstrated continuity for such work to back uphis claims.

The text provides a rare working example of a mobilizing of tradition that is on the onehand self-conscious enough to be theoretically transparent rather than take that tradition forgranted, while on the other hand it, in a sense, “creates” that very tradition through the self-same movement that “mobilizes” it. The significance of this as an achievement shouldn’t beunderestimated, not least because it contrasts starkly with the dominant model of empiricalargument embodied in the natural sciences, in which technologies, methodology, and labora-tory practice come together to mobilize their traditions in some way—a way that is still notvery well understood. To what extent that way of mobilizing tradition is responsible for thecurrent form of specialized disciplinary knowledge remains an open question—and as evidentfrom the wealth of material from numerous fields that Smith brings to bear over the course ofthe book, a highly contentious issue. Much of the fighting of the recent “science wars,” theongoing controversy stirred up by science and technology studies, and a profound unease andunresolved ambivalence around “science” that debates about relativism or realism only serveto conceal, likely ride on the issue. Being Human sheds significant light on what is involved,and holds out some promise for the possibility of engaging in stimulating and intellectuallyresponsible discussion that transcends disciplinary boundaries.

This last ambition—of an open-ended study that moves beyond given disciplinary bound-aries and aims for integration of different forms of knowledge—is key for the whole work:Smith acknowledges that he is arguing on a very broad front, but also that “broad perspectiveshave their own discipline” (p. vi). The argument is philosophical, not in a professional sense, but“the kind any person can and must engage in if they wish to reflect on science” (p. 12). It is his-torical, which Smith claims “is not at root academic, but academic work disciplines a funda-mental dimension of human life” (p. 181). And the focus is on the human sciences, because thelatter phrase “does not describe a discipline but creates social space where disciplines seek toco-operate” (p. 213). It is this reviewer’s sense that Smith achieves to a significant extent these

admirable and ambitious aims; but to really decide this you must read the book and judge foryourself.

REFERENCE

Smith, R. (1997). The Fontana history of the human sciences. London: Fontana.

Reviewed by CHRISTOPHER PEET, Associate Professor of Psychology, The King’s UniversityCollege, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Craig E. Stephenson, Possession: Jung’s Comparative Anatomy of the Psyche. London &New York: Routledge, 2009. 200 pp. $90.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-415-44651-8. $34.95(paper). ISBN: 978-0-415-44652-5.

“What possessed me to say that?” This question is obvious enough to anyone who hearsit and a puzzle of self-knowledge to one who says it. For Stephenson, possession is “a linch-pin of Jung’s analytical psychology” (p. 1), and he examines possession historically, anthro-pologically, psychiatrically, theoretically, and theatrically, to render the term in Jungianthought more precise. The book reframes the associations of Jung with the esoteric and theoccult as his “rhetorical privileging of poetic logic and of paradox” (p. 109). This book be-longs with others that emphasize roots of Jung’s psychology in the French dissociationist psy-chology of Charcot, Janet, and Binet, as described by Ellenberger (1970) and Charet (1993),who stressed Jung’s indebtedness to spiritualism. Jung’s place in scientific psychology hasbeen marginal despite his claims of being empirical; this book strengthens the view thatJung’s psychology deserves a solid place in the human science tradition in psychology.

The book’s intent is to “anatomize” possession in Jung’s psychology and to “analogize”it by finding correspondences to it in other fields. Readers of this journal will find the sec-ond chapter especially interesting, as it addresses possession in historical context, examiningthe continuing and conflicting interpretations of a case of demonic possession amongUrsuline nuns in the 1630s at Loudun, near the towns of Richelieu and Descartes (formerlyLa Haye, Descartes’ birthplace), a symbolism Stephenson exploits admirably. The initial in-vestigation led to the execution of a local priest as a sorcerer. Even at the time, there were bothreligious (Catholic vs. Huguenot) and medical disagreements over the incident. Stephenson’shero was a Catholic priest, Jean-Joseph Surin, who instead of exorcising the demons from the prioress, Jeanne de Anges, prayed “for her devils to possess him instead, in order to take the suffering of his charge upon himself ” (p. 26). Surin as “a kind of wounded healer” (p. 27)represents an approach to possession that does not seek automatically to expel whatever is atthe heart of this intense suffering.

The following chapter develops the distinction made by Claude Lévi-Strauss between twoways cultures deal with possessions, however understood: by incorporating or by expelling the“Other” (p. 65). Surin incorporated, whereas the exorcists expelled. Anthropological investi-gations reveal a variety of Surin-like examples, including the marrying of a spirit. Stephensondraws on Jung’s diagnosis of Western consciousness as dissociated to conclude this chapter

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with a question: “Why do Western cultures pathologize certain types of cognitive functioningthat they do not value, and what is the psychological effect of this pathologizing?” (p. 70). Thequestion has been asked before, notably by Mary Watkins (1986), who covers the same issuefrom developmental and phenomenological angles, and with much the same conclusion asStephenson: self-ignorance. This chapter is notable also for the way it deals with Jung’s use ofanthropology; Stephenson shows its limitations and the ways in which the relationship betweenpsychology and anthropology can be developed.

The inclusion of dissociative trance disorder into an appendix of the DSM-IV-TR is forStephenson an opportunity for an “epistemological break” in psychiatry (although the pro-posed DSM-5 may incorporate it into dissociative identity disorder and so weaken its episte-mological potential). Significantly, Stephenson takes on the “Is it real?” question raised byHacking (1995; 1998), criticizing Hacking for stressing biological answers to that question,ignoring what from a Jungian standpoint is the reality of the psyche. Stephenson musters sup-port for the reality of dissociation, including cognitive science, to argue for the potential oftrance disorders in the DSM as an “opportunity, created by psychiatry itself, to confront thepsychogenic and sociogenic aspects of the dissociative disorders” (p. 89). The theory andpraxis of personifying in Jungian thought contributes to the deepening of this potential epis-temological break.

For the history and theory of psychology, chapter 4, “Reading Jung’s EquivocalLanguage,” is the most important and most problematic. Vico’s New Science is brought in tojustify Jungian language using both concepts and “imaginative universals” (such as the lan-guage of archetypes—gods, possessions, etc.). Stephenson argues that works like MysteriumConiunctionis (Jung, 1955–1957/1970) re-invigorate psychological discourse with their richalchemical language, but the appeal to Vico here is preaching to the choir. Nevertheless, itdoes orient the uninitiated to the fact that to read Jung means to engage the imagination aswell as the intellect. For Stephenson, the language of possession helps psychology connect tohistory (including the events at Loudun), but more important, this discourse serves a psy-chotherapeutic goal of providing distance from unconscious contents, in that one disidentifieswith them by seeing them in personified form (in active imagination, for example). After all,“the goal of psychotherapy is that the patient should become ‘self-possessed’ ” (p. 117). Fromthe Jungian standpoint, our “normal” condition is to be possessed—by moods, vices, infatu-ations, whims—and this expanded use of the metaphor of possession makes relationship towhat bedevils us possible, and makes it possible to listen to what they have to say.

The fifth chapter should appeal to historians of the human sciences as it brings into thepicture two other psychologies of possession: that of Jean-Michel Oughourlian, who drew onRené Girard’s notion of “the mimetic basis of desire and the interdividual basis of self ” (p. 131), and that of Jacob L. Moreno, the founder of psychodrama. Although not mentioned,this chapter extends the notion of possession to include Mead’s (1913) “social self.” Precedinga brief conclusion is another take on possession, this time from cinema and the theater, con-centrating on the film Opening Night from 1977, illustrating well what Stephenson refers toas the “contradiction and connection in the experience of selfhood” (p. 161).

The book is challenging and stimulating, although for some readers it will require a will-ing suspension of disbelief. The book makes an important contribution to the psychothera-peutic literature, especially of course to Jungian and psychoanalytic theory. For historians ofthe human sciences, it opens a number of doors and invites continued dialogue, with self andothers.

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REFERENCES

Charet, F. X. (1993). Spiritualism and the foundations of C. G. Jung’s psychology. Albany: SUNY Press.Ellenberger, H. F. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious: The history and evolution of dynamic psychiatry. New

York: Basic Books.Hacking, I. (1995). Rewriting the soul: Multiple personality and the sciences of memory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.Hacking, I. (1998). Mad travelers: Reflections on the reality of transient mental illnesses. Charlottesville, VA:

University of Virginia Press.Jung, C. G. (1970). Mysterium coniunctionis (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., 2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press. (Original work published 1955–1957)Mead, G. H. (1913). The social self. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 10, 374–380.Watkins, M. M. (1986). Invisible guests: The development of imaginal dialogues. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.

Reviewed by ROBERT KUGELMANN, Department of Psychology, University of Dallas, Irving,Texas.

M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker. History of Cognitive Neuroscience. Chichester, WestSussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. 312 pp. $124.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-4051-8182-2.

What purpose history of science? Old-style writers adopt the present as key perspective,depicting an ever-advancing forward march. Contemporary historians usually prefer explor-ing social and cultural influences. A third tactic is also available: history to clarify conceptualframes. Do brains see, attend, remember, think, understand, translate, and emote? More to thepoint, do synaptic networks possess psychological attributes? In a provocative century-plus spanning history of empirical work in cognitive neuroscience, Maxwell Bennett and PeterHacker answer a resounding no.

This book continues the collaboration of neuroscientist Bennett and philosopher Hackerthat began with the publication of Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (2003). Thatbook was the first systematic examination of neuroscience’s conceptual structure. In Historyof Cognitive Neuroscience, the authors advance their analysis by examining major threads ofempirical investigation, outlining what investigators believed they discovered and the conclu-sions they drew, and then subjecting these investigative accounts to critical scrutiny.

Across six chapters, the authors lay out cognitive neuroscience’s empirical fabric instark, clear descriptions, attending both to biological work that explored structure and physi-ology and to psychological investigation that examined and modeled function. Perception, at-tention, memory, language, emotion, and action—and in light of the book’s critiques, I usethese terms cautiously—all get their due.

Bennett and Hacker’s unfolding of research into perceptual process illustrates the book’srecurring pattern. The received view of perception and cortical function is rooted in Britishempiricism’s claims that sense organs relay impressions to the brain and in Helmholtz’s no-tion that from these impressions arise unconscious hypotheses. Bringing the story through thetwentieth century, the authors ably, meticulously, and even-handedly describe as well as warpthe discovery of receptive fields in the primary visual cortex, of multiple pathways connectingcortical modules, and of synchronized neuronal firing among various circuits related to visual

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processing. Interwoven are descriptions of more psychologically-oriented work, including ex-plorations of the overall configuration of a scene, of patients following commissurotomy, ofthe computational view of sensory modules, of parameters related to visual search, and of ob-ject rotation studies.

Woven throughout unadorned accounts of empirical research is a contrasting weft of crit-ical analysis. Visual scenes, for example, are not mapped or represented in the brain. The au-thors admonish not confusing maps, which are created as tools by sentient beings, with thepossibility of mapping. That we can map the firing of retinal cells in the visual cortex doesnot mean that a map, or an image within a map, exists. Perceiving is not having, constructing,or mapping images. The brain contains no maps and does not create images; it enables us tosee a visible scene. Additionally, according to the authors, we eliminate the binding problemwhen we do not conceive perception as building-up variously mapped representations into aninternal image. Perceiving does not occur in creatures but by creatures.

Bennett and Hacker find ubiquitous in cognitive neuroscience a variant of a conceptualmistake noted by Aristotle: the mereological fallacy. A plane flies, not its engines, and thisprocess is wholly mechanical. A creature experiences, not its brain, and this process is whollymechanical. Creatures have a range of capabilities that are identified by what they do. Themereological error is ascribing to parts attributes more appropriately ascribed to the whole ofwhich they are parts.

Taking a cue from Wittgenstein, representations derive from rule-governed language use,descriptions are forms of words and symbols, and sentences express propositions specifyingfeature arrays. Propositions may be true or false, detailed or rough, and language arises onlywithin communities possessing rules for the combination and interpretation of symbols. Fromthis line of reasoning, Bennett and Hacker conclude that neither can the brain use symbols norcan there be symbols in the brain. Descriptions of mental representations are thus nonsense.Perhaps specific neural activity is a causal condition for seeing a tree. Perhaps functionallyrelated cell circuits fire simultaneously when we see a tree. What does not happen in ourheads is the formation of an image of a tree. The activity of circuits in the visual system rep-resents a feature of the visual field only in the same fashion that a tree ring represents rain-fall. Psychological attributes that presume interpretive creatures are rightly attributed only toa creature exercising its faculties.

Bennett and Hacker do not debate the truth or falsity of empirical claims or the nuanceof experimental design. Rather, they focus on revealing confusions that flow from ill-conceived implications drawn from experimental results. They contend that though fewresearchers now assume an immaterial, Cartesian mind that interacts with the brain to pro-duce private experience, what current researchers do seem to assume is that the brain perceivesand the brain remembers. This amounts to replacing the Cartesian mind with a symbol-manipulating brain. A subtle dualism remains in conceptual play.

Reaction to Bennett and Hacker’s initial volume was vigorous—producing a storiedsymposium at a 2004 meeting of the American Philosophical Association (recounted inBennett, Dennett, Hacker & Searle, 2007). The seventh chapter of History of CognitiveNeuroscience continues that conversation. The entire book offers—convincingly—deep un-derstanding of the history of cognitive neuroscience and—often sharply—even deeper insightinto the conceptual scaffolding underlying the endeavor. What the book does not offer is athorough history of the field; for that, look to something less polemical. But do read thisbook. Its conceptual clarity is monumental and refreshing; its contribution, potentially im-mense—if not among this generation of researchers, then surely in a generation to come.

REFERENCES

Bennett, M., Dennett, D., Hacker, P., & Searle, J. (2007). Neuroscience and philosophy: Brain, mind, and language.New York: Columbia University Press.

Bennett, M. R., & Hacker, P. M. S. (2003). Philosophical foundations of neuroscience. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Reviewed by RANDALL D. WIGHT, Professor of Psychology and Biology, Ouachita BaptistUniversity, Arkadelphia, AR.

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Craig E. Stephenson, Possession: Jung's Comparative Anatomy of the Psyche. London & New...

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