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184558

The brain as a hermeneutic device

Péter Érdi Ildikó Aradi

pp. 183-198

Abstract

One way of eliminating, at least partially, the mystery of the brain has been the application of metaphors (as suggested by Arbib's (1989) book entitled The Metaphorical Brain). First, technical devices, like telegraph circuits, holograms and of course computers, have been offered as metaphors and/or models of the brain. Second and third, theoretical notions of physics and of information theory (understood in a rather broad sense) served as analogies for characterizing neural functioning. Though the technical brain, the physical brain and the computational brain (Churchland and Sejnowski 1992) were powerful concepts, still they could not add much to the age-old philosophical questions of the brainmind problem. The philosophical brain has been approached by a variety of theories, each finally labeled as either monist or dualist, but none of them proved capable of meeting the strict criteria which the neurosciences seem to offer.

Publication details

Published in:

Kiss Olga (1999) Hermeneutics and science: proceedings of the first conference of the international society for hermeneutics and science. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 183-198

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-9293-2_15

Full citation:

Érdi Péter, Aradi Ildikó (1999) „The brain as a hermeneutic device“, In: O. Kiss (ed.), Hermeneutics and science, Dordrecht, Springer, 183–198.