Our brains: transparency within bounds

Gerald Wolf

European Review, 2004, vol. 12, issue 1, 35-44

Abstract: We already have considerable insight into the working of the brain, that part of our body which generates the mind, which makes us hope and wish and feel, and finally allows us to comprehend ourselves as ‘Self’. However, the big questions about what thinking, consciousness and emotions really consist of cannot be answered yet. Continued research on the brain persists, tackling one of the greatest challenges for the human mind, namely: to discover its own preconditions, to unravel its own prerequisites. May we hope (or fear) that, in the future, brain research we will be able to give the final answer to that everlasting question of philosophy ‘What makes us human?’ Or is there an epistemological barrier when we look at the human brain and the subjectivity generated by it? There are fundamental cognitive problems regarding the extreme complexity of the brain's system and the brain–mind question. On the other hand, the findings of brain research are already so compelling that their interpretations should be guidelines for the humanities and the social sciences.

Date: 2004
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