[...] Descartes, in several letters as well as in his Treatise of Man (written before 1637) and The Passions of the Soul (1649), speculated that the soul exerted its functions “immediately” at or through the pineal gland. His model was hydrostatic. When the soul desires something, it makes the pineal gland move in such a way that it displaces the animal spirits to obtain the required effect. Memory, for example, was explained by the flow of animal spirits through pores in the brain substance: The flow widens the pores, and the widened pores then function as memory traces that are activated when the pineal gland pushes the animal spirits through them.
René Descartes, often referred to as the “Father of Modern Philosophy", a title justified for his br...
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Inspired by the homonymous book by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, this timespace presents the authors' genealogy of the cerebral subject and the influence of the neurological discourse in human sciences, mental health and culture.