Proust Was a Neuroscientist
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Review
A precocious and engaging book that tries to mend the century-old tear between literary and scientific cultures . . . Lehrer is smart, and there are some fun moments in these pages. --New York Times Book Review
Unlike many popularisers of science, Lehrer finds equal and complementary value in our available ways of considering the universe. --Financial Times
Lehrer is a dazzlingly clever young man whose writing bears witness to both the clarity of his scientific training and the humanity of his literary studies. The Whitmanesque electricity of all the thought and heart he has put into this book fizzes from each sentence. --Telegraph Review
Perceptive and skilfully persuasive. --The Times
The self-help book to end all self-help books . . . A sort of one-man third culture, healing the rift between the sciences and humanities by communicating and contrasting their values in a way that renders them comprehensible to partisans of either camp .
--The Guardian
Unlike many popularisers of science, Lehrer finds equal and complementary value in our available ways of considering the universe. --Financial Times
Lehrer is a dazzlingly clever young man whose writing bears witness to both the clarity of his scientific training and the humanity of his literary studies. The Whitmanesque electricity of all the thought and heart he has put into this book fizzes from each sentence. --Telegraph Review
Perceptive and skilfully persuasive. --The Times
The self-help book to end all self-help books . . . A sort of one-man third culture, healing the rift between the sciences and humanities by communicating and contrasting their values in a way that renders them comprehensible to partisans of either camp .
--The Guardian
Product Description
Is science the only path to knowledge? In this sparkling and provocative book Jonah Lehrer, author of The Decisive Moment, explains that when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of celebrated writers, painters and composers, Lehrer shows us how artists have discovered truths about the human mind - real, tangible truths - that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot understood the brain's malleable nature; how the French chef Escoffier intuited umami (the fifth taste); how Cezanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Virginia Woolf pierced the mysteries of consciousness. It's a riveting tale of art trumping science, again and again.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
lehrer's book is a gem; reading it a joyful series of "aha's". trained as a humanist, i have long taken great and guilty pleasure in reading about the brain, its physiology and development, while entertaining a sneaky suspicion that this reading is not so different from perusing "la princesse de clèves" or "the house of mirth".
lehrer connects the dots for me, starting by opening up the possibility that artists - not just the novelists i was thinking of, but painters, composers, poets, you name it - are working on the same topics, with the same legitimacy and epistemological justification and import as scientists.
he may not be the first either artist or scientist to do so, but the comprehensive scope of his book, drawing on so many artists and scientific angles is, in my experience, unique.
his final call for a "fourth culture" that truly seeks to draw on the investigations and insights of both art and science, respecting different approaches, methodologies and epistemologies is most inspiring. all i want to know is, where do i sign up? i suspect the first step is to review this book in greater depth, as soon as time permits: till now, just read it!
lehrer connects the dots for me, starting by opening up the possibility that artists - not just the novelists i was thinking of, but painters, composers, poets, you name it - are working on the same topics, with the same legitimacy and epistemological justification and import as scientists.
he may not be the first either artist or scientist to do so, but the comprehensive scope of his book, drawing on so many artists and scientific angles is, in my experience, unique.
his final call for a "fourth culture" that truly seeks to draw on the investigations and insights of both art and science, respecting different approaches, methodologies and epistemologies is most inspiring. all i want to know is, where do i sign up? i suspect the first step is to review this book in greater depth, as soon as time permits: till now, just read it!
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Intelligently written, with both a coherent and insightful argument, this book was a refreshing antidote to all those repetitive pop-science articles stretched to book length.
By making both evidence-based connections and robust literary analysis it bridges a much needed gap between arts and science. As an arts educated person now working in the sciences, its non reductionist approach was highly refreshing. And I think to the more science focussed, less aware of these great artists through not having studied them, it still brings enough human insight and rigorous thinking in the field of neuroscience to be of interest.
What I most enjoyed is a modern science book saying: It's OK to accept that some truths about the self are profoundly unknowable, and that there is no single version of the truth of the self owned exclusively by arts or science. That acknowledgement doesn't necessarily make you a whacko-lite science hating fruitcake - for often where intense introspection of the artist has led, experimentation and evidence based conclusions from science have followed.
The two fields gain from exposure to each other. The author's fourth way of thinking convinced me - where do I sign up?
By making both evidence-based connections and robust literary analysis it bridges a much needed gap between arts and science. As an arts educated person now working in the sciences, its non reductionist approach was highly refreshing. And I think to the more science focussed, less aware of these great artists through not having studied them, it still brings enough human insight and rigorous thinking in the field of neuroscience to be of interest.
What I most enjoyed is a modern science book saying: It's OK to accept that some truths about the self are profoundly unknowable, and that there is no single version of the truth of the self owned exclusively by arts or science. That acknowledgement doesn't necessarily make you a whacko-lite science hating fruitcake - for often where intense introspection of the artist has led, experimentation and evidence based conclusions from science have followed.
The two fields gain from exposure to each other. The author's fourth way of thinking convinced me - where do I sign up?
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book provides the thoughts and beliefs of various twentieth centuary artists who recognised essential spiritual truths from their personal life expereinces and works. These can now be related to their thought processes and contain information that neuroscience is only just discovering.
The chapters are split between 8 artists of the time including artists, poets, musicians and authors. These include Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, George Elliot, Marcel Proust. This book is a wonderful read.
Walt Whitman's poetic hypothesis (my favourite) - the idea that feelings begin in the flesh is described and explained. 'The spirit recieves from the body just as much as it gives to the body.'
This is then related forward to the work of Damasio, a neuroscientist, who has researched into the etiology of feelings, calling it 'the body loop.' Therefore 'the mind and body are insepable and in his veiw , the mind stalks the flesh, from our muscles we steal our moods.'
The chapters are split between 8 artists of the time including artists, poets, musicians and authors. These include Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, George Elliot, Marcel Proust. This book is a wonderful read.
Walt Whitman's poetic hypothesis (my favourite) - the idea that feelings begin in the flesh is described and explained. 'The spirit recieves from the body just as much as it gives to the body.'
This is then related forward to the work of Damasio, a neuroscientist, who has researched into the etiology of feelings, calling it 'the body loop.' Therefore 'the mind and body are insepable and in his veiw , the mind stalks the flesh, from our muscles we steal our moods.'
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