Neuro-Humanities: The Recent Discourses on Memory and Cognition

Kwon, Teckyoung

Abstract

Investigating the human psyche in the field of natural science, William James and Sigmund Freud approached the human mind from a neuroscientific perspective. Even though the aim of each of their studies was different from one another, they both were influenced by Darwin and argued for the primacy of animal instinct over the consciousness. James called it "habit" or "the primal memory," and Freud, "the unconscious" or "the memory-trace." Those terms have become the foundations of the recent brain research, particularly in the field of neuropsychoanalysis, which has been enriched by the technology of fMRI and the PET Studies. Exploring the structure and function of the brain, this essay examines the recent brain studies in alliance with the humanities. Since memory and cognition are affected by the body and its sensory experiences, they are inevitably partial, temporal, and above all, intentional, as often called in phenomenology. Starting with an analysis of the top-down (or the down-top) functional relations of neurons, this essay then moves to an investigation of the right and left hemisphere of the brain. In the meanwhile, it also reveals why the role of the humanities is indispensable to curing the biased or unbalanced mind.