Man on his Nature

Nobel Prize winner Charles Sherrington considers the nature of the mind and its relationship to life and matter.

Charles Scott, Sir Sherrington (Author)

9781108005241, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

444 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.5 cm, 0.56 kg

Based on the Gifford Lectures of 1937–8 in Edinburgh, Nobel Prize winner Charles Sherrington's 1940 study addresses the nature of the mind and its relationship to life and matter. The book centres on the writings of the little-known sixteenth-century physician Jean Fernel. After setting out Fernel's views on the nature of man, Sherrington proceeds to develop his own thoughts, drawing upon a wide variety of philosophical theories. Using Fernel as a historical case study, the book demonstrates how any scientific outlook is always part of its age, and shows how views on the eternal enigmas of mankind, mind and life have changed radically over time. Sherrington's book is important in the history of ideas for its assessment of the value of advances in natural science as a framework for the development of natural theology.

Preface
1. Nature and tradition
2. The natural and superstition
3. Life in little
4. The wisdom of the body
5. Earth's reshuffling
6. A whole presupposed of its parts
7. The brain and its work
8. The organ of liaison
9. Brain collaborates with psyche
10. Earth's alchemy
11. Two ways of one mind
12. Conflict with nature
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]