The Mind at Work

»Mind and consciousness didn`t fall from the sky, but gradually formed from the evolution of the nervous system.« This is what brain researchers demonstrated in 2004.

This discovery as well didn`t fall out of the sky, but was the result of a 200-year history. During that time, the theories of brain researchers, with which they attempted to localize in the brain speech, thought, imagination, morality, and feelings, were at no time independent of the cultural, social, and political environments in which the researchers undertook their investigations.

The cerebralization of the human being is an on-going and possibly non-ending endeavor of modern times. Lurking within fascinating insights are dangers of overloading the concept of »brain« with symbols, meanings, and values which may awaken inordinate expectations that cannot be fulfilled or that lead to ticklish biopolitical claims. Anthropological assertions concerning brain research for their part cross and re-cross the border between science and fiction. Against the background of these debates, Michael Hagner makes a plea for a patient and (self)-critical encounter with their conclusions.

»The history of science, as Michael Hagner presents it, is the self-enlightenment of scientific civilization.« 
Die Zeit, on Geniale Gehirne (Brilliant Brains)

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Michael Hagner
born in 1960, is a professor for scientific research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. His publications include Homo cerebralis. Der Wandel vom Seelenorgan zum Gehirn (Homo cerebralis: The Transformation from the Organ of the Soul into the Brain) (1997); Einstein on the Beach. Der Physiker als Phänomen (Einstein on the Beach: The Physicist as Phenomenon) (editor, 2005).

Published by Wallstein
- Der falsche Körper. Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der Monstrositäten (Contributions to the History of Monstrosities) (editor)
- Ecce cortex. Beiträge zur Geschichte des modernen Gehirns (Contributions to the History of the Modern Brain) (editor)
- Geniale Gehirne. Zur Geschichte der Elitegehirnforschung (Brilliant Brains: On the History of Elite Brain Research)