The Self and Its History

Abstract

HISTORIANS HAVE LONG BEEN ALLERGIC to psychological forms of explanation, so it seems unlikely that many will be eager to jump on the bandwagon of neuroscience or neurohistory. Despite many reasons for caution, an ongoing dialogue with neuroscience offers the prospect of new approaches to such perennially vexed issues as agency, experience, action, and identity. Neuroscience does not provide a handy model that historians can simply apply to their research. It functions more like psychoanalysis once did (and still does for some); as a field, it poses important questions and opens up new approaches to the mind, the self, and human behavior. Neuroscience is a fast-growing field that has gained much attention of late, especially at universities, but also among the general public. Membership in the Society for Neuroscience increased by 46 percent just between 2001 and 2010, to more than 41,000 members. 1 Research on the brain has increased exponentially since the development of new brain imaging techniques, especially the introduction of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the 1990s. Use of fMRI makes it possible to detect functional activation of different locations in the brain through measurements of blood volume changes or changes in the concentration of oxygen. In 1992, fMRI provided the experimental basis for just four publications. By 2007, the rate had reached eight per day. 2 Add to that the explosion of research at the cellular level of neurons, glial cells, and synapses in humans, mice, roundworms, sea slugs, and other animals, and the output is staggering. As might be expected, new books aiming to synthesize these studies are appearing at an accelerating rate, too. I cannot pretend to do justice here even to the synthetic works on the subject. The rapid expansion of research in neuroscience means that it is not a stable, fixed object. As historians have begun to test the waters of this field, it has rapidly become apparent that neuroscience can serve various ends; criticisms of humanists trying to engage neuroscience often include charges that they have read the wrong studies, misinterpreted the results of experiments, or worse yet, turned to neuroscience looking for a universalizing, anti-representational and anti-intentional ontology to bolster their claims. 3 But those debates notwithstanding, the question of the self is a

Conclusion

“…In 'The self and its history' (2014) she argues that 'given the uncertainties about selfhood (what it is and how it is produced), it might seem that any history of the self is next to impossible' . 46 However, one way she attempts to resolve this difficulty is to borrow from a particular reading of neuroscience: 'Despite many reasons for caution, an ongoing dialogue with neuroscience offers the prospect of new approaches to such perennially vexed issues as agency, experience, action, and identity. ' She cautions that '[n]euroscience does not provide a handy model that historians can simply apply to their research.…”

“…It functions more like psychoanalysis once did (and still does for some); as a field, it poses important questions and opens up new approaches to the mind, the self, and human behavior. ' 47 The mention of psychoanalysis is telling here -given the links between malleable selfhood, psychoanalysis, anthropology, 'culturalism' and postmodernism. Neuroscience here supplants other frames of reference, and it does not look so flexible.…”

The ‘Biological Turn’ in History Writing

“…Hunt uncritically acknowledges the methodological problem of borrowing from life sciences, remarking that critics have accused those using neuroscience of 'looking for a universalizing, anti-representational and anti-intentional ontology to bolster their claims' (Hunt, 2014 : 1576). Yet the rhetoric of Hunt and others is to use neuroscience precisely as an 'appeal to authority' -an objective other which confirms.…”

How to do the history of the self

“…There is absolutely no agreement on what the historiography of the self exactly examines, there is even no consensus about what the self is. As Lynn Hunt (2014Hunt ( : 1579 has recently stated, 'given the uncertainties about selfhood (what it is and how it is produced), it might seem that any history of the self is next to impossible'. 1 How then can we do the history of the self?…”

“…As a consequence, for instance, recent studies of the 'scholarly self', which are about social norms and selfpresentation of scholars (Paul, 2012), have little in common with Dror Wahrman's (2004: xi) 'modern self', the 'essential core' that founds human identities. The conceptual confusion has allowed one prominent historian to claim even very recently that cultural historians have investigated the self 'only secondarily, if at all' (Hunt, 2014(Hunt, : 1578.…”