Robbins Library Notes

Via Bookforum.com: Raymond Tallis writes “The neuroscience delusion:
Neuroaesthetics is wrong about our experience of literature – and it is wrong about humanity” for the Times Literary Supplement. It’s an interesting article on how aspects of neuroscience have been transformed into “neuroaesthetics,” the literary theory du jour.

While some may balk at the whiff of Continental literary theory, Tallis offers some fascinating commentary on the present state and use of neuroscience as an explanatory model — his main criticism is that some who use neuroscience as an explanatory model assume that the field is far more advanced than it actually is. He also argues that neuroscience is not sufficient to explain the whole of human creativity. Finally, he also critiques the attempts by contemporary neuroscience to explain (or dismiss) consciousness. Tallis concludes:

At any rate, attempting to find an explanation of a sophisticated twentieth-century reader’s response to a sophisticated seventeenth-century poet in brain activity that is shared between humans and animals, and has been around for many millions of years, rather than in communities of minds that are unique to humans, seems perverse. Neuroaesthetics is wrong about the present state of neuroscience: we are not yet able to explain human consciousness, even less articulate self-consciousness as expressed in the reading and writing of poetry. It is wrong about our experience of literature. And it is wrong about humanity.

Do you think he is right, readers?