Human and Animal Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy and Medicine - by Stefanie Buchenau & Roberto Lo Presti (Hardcover)

About the Book

This volume focuses on medical and philosophical debates on human intelligence and animal perception in the early modern age.

Book Synopsis

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, new anatomical investigations of the brain and the nervous system, together with a renewed interest in comparative anatomy, allowed doctors and philosophers to ground their theories on sense perception, the emergence of human intelligence, and the soul/body relationship in modern science. They investigated the anatomical structures and the physiological processes underlying the rise, differentiation, and articulation of human cognitive activities, and looked for the "anatomical roots" of the specificity of human intelligence when compared to other forms of animal sensibility.

This edited volume focuses on medical and philosophical debates on human intelligence and animal perception in the early modern age, providing fresh insights into the influence of medical discourse on the rise of modern philosophical anthropology. Contributions from distinguished historians of philosophy and medicine focus on sixteenth-century zoological, psychological, and embryological discourses on man; the impact of mechanism and comparative anatomy on philosophical conceptions of body and soul; and the key status of sensibility in the medical and philosophical enlightenment.

Review Quotes

Animal and Human Cognition offers fresh insights into a much-discussed topic.-- "Bulletin of the History of Medicine"

Human & Animal Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy & Medicine has much to offer to historians through its close philosophical examinations of what may be conceived as part of biology during the early modern period. . . .The essays beautifully speak across disciplinary approaches and breathe life into old questions. . . .The volume. . .is valuable for those historians of the life sciences interested in expanding their perspectives on the fascinating, messy, nuanced debates of the early modern period.-- "Journal of the History of Biology"

A very welcome addition to the growing literature that takes seriously medicine's importance in early modern thought. Touching on vital themes of human-animal relations not just in the histories of philosophy and medicine but in a variety of disciplines, this book deserves close and deep study.-- "Benjamin Goldberg, University of South Florida"

This volume makes an original contribution to the rising scholarship of the anthropological difference in early modern thinking and its intersection with philosophy, medicine, and other fields. This is serious, innovative, and rewarding international scholarship. It adds historical depth to the constantly growing and highly important global study of human-animal relations.-- "Markus Wild, University of Basel"

About the Author

Stefanie Buchenau (Editor)
Stefanie Buchenau is maitre de conferences, Departement d'Etudes germaniques, Universite Paris 8-Saint Denis.

Roberto Lo Presti (Editor)
Roberto Lo Presti is lecturer at the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Institut fur Klassische Philologie.