The Harpsichord Brain
Instrumental Models of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century France
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3496182 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Edward Halley Barnet (St. John's School, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 114 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 769-790 |
| Publication date | 2023-12-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/727681 |
| OpenAlex | W4389775722 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 38 |
This essay explores the use of stringed instruments (and in particular the harpsichord) as models of brain and cognitive function in eighteenth-century French medicine and natural philosophy. These comparisons were founded in part on the anatomical investigations of the latter half of the seventeenth century, which had established both the "fibrous" structure of the white and gray matter of the cerebrum and the vibratory movement the brain underwent in the performance of its functions. Musical instruments—and in particular the harpsichord—helped these philosophers speculate about how the brain worked as the material instrument of sensation and thought: they were machines at once mechanical and affective, grounded in the materiality of their wooden boards and metal strings, yet symbolizing the rational—and immaterial—harmonies of music
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Epistemology · Harmony (Music · Harpsichord · Literature · Musical · Natural Philosophy · Piano · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · History of Medicine Studies · Philosophy
Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment
The ‘Physiology of the Understanding’ and the ‘Mechanics of the Soul’
Bodies of Thought
Technological Metaphors and the Anatomy of Representations in Eighteenth-Century French Materialism and Dualist Mechanism
Science in the Age of Sensibility
Motus Tonicus
Omnis Fibra Ex Fibra
Ideas in the Brain
Early vibration theory
Composing the World
Jean Astruc (1684—1766)
The Anatomy of Difference
The Brain and the Unconscious Soul in Eighteenth-Century Nervous Physiology
What Ever Happened to Francis Glisson? Albrecht Haller and the Fate of Eighteenth-Century Irritability
Man - A Musical Instrument
Music as a Model in Early Science
Theories of Perception and the Physiology of Mind in the Late Eighteenth Century
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |