HISTNEUR-L: The History of Neuroscience Internet Forum

'Symbolic' function

• Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 15:39:26 -0800 (PST)
• To: histneur-l@library.ucla.edu
• From: Eric Thomson <ethomson@sdcc3.ucsd.edu>
• Subject: 'Symbolic' function
• Message-ID: Pine.SUN.3.95q.980131152825.10228B-100000@sdcc3.ucsd.edu

Does anyone know of any articles looking at the demise of the view that
the brain has a general 'symbolic' or 'categorial' function, endorsed by
people like Goldstein and Head in the thirties?  If nobody has written
such a review, I am thinking about writing one (and its relation to the
anti-localizationist tendencies of the time), so if anyone knows of any
references I should look at, please let me know. 

It is interesting that this view was later used by philosophers
like Cassirer (*Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Vol. III*), Merleau-Ponty
(*Structure of Behavior*, *Phenomenology of Perception*), and Langer
(*Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling*) to support a certain view of
cognition. 

Best,
Eric Thomson
Philosophy/Cognitive Science
University of California
San Diego