Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind by George Makari

Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind Reviews

• 
  Todd Stockslager

  Review Title: Making up the mind
  
  Makari writes a fascinating history for the first 300 pages that then gets lost in a tangle of names and theories. And in the end he buries his most important conclusion in a footnote. So I down graded Soul Machine to 3 stars but still find it was stimulating reading.
  
  The topic of the mind, brain, and soul while the subject of 200 - 300 years old history in this book is as current as today's website headlines on the near-frantic pace of scientific advance in fields of neuroscience, DNA mapping and theories and debates on radical materialism. Makari's history is essential grounding in the topic, and has much to say as a cautionary tale for those today who say there is no mind, emotion, soul, or free will, but only chemicals and nerve endings:
  

  Over the last three decades, impressive advances in computing and nueroimaging again have engendered the dream of eliminating the psyche. A flurry of new fields, such as neuroaesthetics and neuroethics, hold out that promise. If history is to be our guide, their efforts will be long on promissory notes and not much else. For to date, there is no valid neuroscientific account for consciousness or human agency.

  
  History must be our guide, and in fact this very connection between history and today's headlines are why I picked this book off the new book shelf of my local library. And this statement is exactly right and should have been expanded into a separate chapter instead of buried in a footnote on p. 596.
  
  On the positive side, the history gets off to a slam bang start because just like the science, the philosophy, religion, and politics are right out of today's headlines. Through most of human history, the "me" who thinks and is conscious has been defined as the soul, which makes it subject to guidance, education, punishment, and correction by the church. As Enlightenment thinkers in the 17th and 18th century began to position the "me" in the mind, now a whole world of possibilities was opened up. "I think, therefore I am", Descartes famous cogito, ergo sum, was more than just a bumper sticker; it was a harbinger of revolutions. Quite literally, as Founding Philosophers such as David Hume and John Locke wrote not only the political foundations of the new American and French republics, but grounded their theories of equality and democratic participation in these new theories of the mind which they helped to create and shape.
  
  The connection between mind and politics is fascinating as Makari traces its roots through
  

  philosophy: do we now have both mind and soul? How do we define them and what makes humans different than animals, or are we different?

  
  

  then medicine: if things formerly defined as witchcraft or demon possession are now states of an ill or demented mind can we and how can we treat it?,

  
  

  then science: if there is a mind, is it material and where is it in the body?

  
  Each of these aspects of idea were sharply debated, careers made and destroyed , and lives lost as kings and clerics tried to defend their right of rule and religion over the souls of the people they claimed. The ideas and ideals of the American Revolution we accept as universal God-granted rights were in fact hard fought and still questioned when the French Revolution veered into first anarchy then governmental terror then Napoleonic dictatorship then royal restoration at great price in lives and disillusionment. Makari refers to a "post-enlightenment" retrenchment of the ideas and ideals of the mind as later writers shaped by different European cultural and political heritages took up the questions of the mind and reached different conclusions. A couple of medical and scientific dead ends (mesmerism and phrenology) are given chapters showing examples of ideals and science gone wrong, providing foreboding pointers toward modern fascism in the form of Hitler's and the Islamic State's attempts to redefine rights by racial or religious boundaries.
  
  After the foundational sections on the English and French philosophers and thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries, the later chapters get bogged down in names and theories that haven't had the same lasting or wide spread impact. And when Makari failed to expand the ideas in the footnote I quoted above to bring the history into its present-day application to neurological and quantum physics theory and research I was left disappointed. But the historical context is so vital that I can still recommend this book to those who are thinking seriously about the present and the future of the mind.
• 
  Mahdi Sadrnezhaad

  This book is one of the greatest history of philosophy books I ever read. It is a combination study of medicine, psychology, and ideology. It goes throw every single thinker, physician, philosopher, and priest have an impact or proposal to nature of mind, conscience and mental health and shows why that person from that person perspective, the base of environment, era, challenges and motives they come up with a specific answer to the problem of mind and main importantly mental health. I may need to read this book several times again. It is full of desired details.
• 
  Gary Beauregard Bottomley

  The author starts the book with Hobbes (1650) and ends it with the Romantics (1810) and a little past that with the study of phrenology. I love books about the Enlightenment. As far as I'm concerned a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for liberal democracy was to first have an Enlightenment.
  
  It takes John Locke (not the character from "Lost", but the philosopher) to introduce the word "mind" and "consciousness" into our lexicon. At the start of the Enlightenment witchcraft and mental illnesses coming from the devil were both considered real, by the end both were considered explainable within purely natural terms.
  
  I wouldn't call this a philosophy book though the author does use the philosophers as a device so he can can introduce doctors, scientist and other practitioners of the time period and show how they thought about dealing with problems of the mind.
  
  Usually, most books I read seem to be rehashes of other books I have read but not this one. He doesn't seem to miss a person relevant to the story. That's sort of a problem with this book. That makes this book read more like an Encyclopedia presented in chronological order. I think the author missed a real opportunity by not tying his story neatly together in a comprehensive narrative. He hints at how he could have done that in the epilogue by identifying the dichotomies that exist through out his story: mind/body, nature/nurture, deterministic/free will, and secular/faith. I think he could have written a masterpiece if he took a stand on each dichotomy and wrote a book with his bias inserted and making it part of the narrative.
  
  As it is, I liked the book, and would recommend it to others, but warn the listener that at times it seemed like reading an Encyclopedia (something I like to do, but I realize not every one enjoys that as much as I do).
• 
  Elizabeth

  I admit to skipping whole sections of chapters so perhaps I should not even comment on the book. Lots of history, with the ultimate conclusion that we are sort of in the same place in the understanding of the human mind as we were back during the tumult of the enlightenment - just with more tools and information adding to the arguments.
• 
  Toño Piñeiro

  ♠️9 de picas♠️
  
  
  
  Estamos frente a un libro peculiar y sumamente interesante. Alma máquina de George Makari es un estudio completo (que no exhaustivo) de la historia de la "mente" y como este concepto tan común, corriente y sobado fue sustituyendo paulatinamente al de "alma" de tintes más bien teológicos.
  
  Desde una perspectiva histórica y bien documentada, el autor se embarca (y nosotros con él) a un viaje para conocer la evolución del concepto de mente y su eterna rivalidad con el de alma: desde el dualismo cartesiano, hasta la frenología pasando por la Ilustración y el idealismo alemán . Escribiendo con soltura, Markari expone y aterriza temas e ideas que para el común de los mortales pueden sonar ajenos o excesivamente complejos; su afán de divulgación es mayor que el de erudición y eso, como lector neofito en el tema, lo agradezco muchísimo.
  
  A ratos gracioso, a ratos sesudo y seco, Alma máquina es un logro que nos ayuda a penetrar en el pensamiento contemporáneo buscando sus orígenes y demostrándonos que aquella vieja dualidad cartesiana sigue vigente, que el romanticismo modeló la base para todos los 'ismos' con la llegada del siglo XX; que la frenología aseguraba el orden social al fincarlo no en la organización humana, sino en la organización cerebral; en fin, creo que el libro tiene muchísima carnita y que merece ser leído por todos los que tengan intereses en la conciencia, la educación, la filosofía, la medicina (mental y no) y en general el GRAN PUBLICO que encontrará algo interesante que leer. Exige pero es generoso en su entrega.
  
  Lo recomiendo con el alma y el corazón.
  
  Y ya está.
• 
  Steve

  More history book than philosophy, and very thorough. More detail than I needed or could handle, but the main ideas stuck. Would have liked to see it keep going and link to the 20th century. In all. Glad I read it.
• 
  Nowed

  An incredible look at the historical development of the mind from the Enlightenment era to modern day neuroscience that ties in concepts of self-identity, religion, science and consciousness into a neat theme that shows the evolution of the question, "Who are we?" from centuries ago to today. It's a very long and detailed book, parts of it are dry and encyclopedic, but if you take it little by little, it becomes really enjoyable. I might honestly read it it again.
• 
  Matt

  An erudite, witty, balanced and lively history of the mind/body problem. If you only read one book about how we arrived at our current understanding (or lack of it) of the mind, and therefore who we are, read this. It's really (Western) philosophy of mind in a rich historical context covering the late medieval period to mid-19th century in detail, with a brilliant epilogue that both summarises conclusions and links each school of thought to its 20th/21st century descendants. But that makes it sound drier than it is. This is juicy writing that orients anyone who truly wishes to understand the world. Eminently quotable I've no doubt Makari's gems will become perennials in the work of journalists, non-fiction writers and academics for many years to come. Philosophers will benefit from the history, politics, science and biography they may have missed. Scientists will benefit from the history and the very clear demarcation of unresolved arguments that materialists like to ignore. Intellectuals of a spiritual bent will find much to ponder. Anyone who works with people suffering mental ill-health will be fascinated, appalled, inspired and challenged by turns. If there were six stars I'd award them.
• 
  Neal Alexander

  Starting with John Locke, early modern philosophers split the old idea of “soul” into two: religion got left with a vague spiritual essence, while the rational part of the soul was hived off into something called “mind”, which became a suitable subject of medical and scientific investigation. “Mind” gradually became established in the popular imagination so that, for example, “Over the course of the next decades, the terror of madness would begin to compete with the religious terror of damnation.” In fact, the book is a history not just of psychiatry (to use an anachronistic term) but also of philosophy, religion and politics in Western Europe. So, for example, the author argues that, “in 18th-century Britain, the political experiment of toleration went hand in hand with an increased scrutiny of the sanity of citizens”, because the limit of tolerance was where madness was defined to start.
  
  So it’s a broad and insightful read; my only reservations are about the structure and editing. It’s not clear why 19th century phrenology is the closing point of the story. And not all the material is essential: one 18th century French author seems to be mentioned only so that Makari can quote the scathing put-downs he provoked.
  
• 
  Mishehu

  Soul Machine was a massive slog of a read. Though bursting at the seams with erudition, my pleasure in reading this book was inversely proportion to the mass of its author's learning. The ideal reader of Soul Machine, I'd wager, is someone very well-versed in Enlightenment history and the early history of the mind sciences, but even such a reader might be underwhelmed. Why? Because the book has no obvious animating thesis. Vast stretches of it read like a cornucopia of facts and observations pertaining to a cast of thousands scattered across both time and space. It's very difficult, as a non-specialist reader to make sense of the fine distinctions (scientific, ideological, etc.) that Makari draws. And any given page of the book is generally rife with them. Makari is less a guide through this abstruse material than he is an encyclopedist, one who notes to the reader's attention every detail of his evidently exhaustive research, but offers the reader little scaffolding to assimilate them. The book, in brief, feels more like a massive cabinet of curiousities than it does a cogent systematic history. Plus three stars from this reader because the book is packed with fascinating information, and, despite the foregoing criticisms, certain stretches of it are both clear and compelling.
• 
  Sebastian Camacho Millan

  En Alma máquina, George Makari nos narra cómo en los albores de la modernidad el concepto de alma fue poco a poco sustituido por el de mente, y cómo esta fue desligándose de lo divino para devenir natural, biológica.
  Este ensayo histórico nos lleva desde la antigua Grecia con los filosos socráticos hasta el siglo XVIII con la frenología.
  El nacimiento de la mente moderna vino acompañado de duras pugnas religiosas, filosóficas y científicas, fue un camino lleno de avances y retrocesos, muchas veces estrechamente vinculados a los vaivenes históricos, políticos y sociales del momento, tal como ocurrió, por ejemplo, con la Ilustración o la Revolución francesa. Por esta obra monumental desfilan figuras como Hobbes, Locke y Spinoza, o Rousseau y los filósofos idealistas alemanes, hasta desembocar en el psicoanálisis y la neurociencia de nuestro tiempo.
  Grandioso libro.
  Altamente recomendado.
• 
  Iftekhar Sayeed

  Soul Machine is currently relevant to South Asia, where djinns occur outside zoos, prayers heal the sick, holy men heal the infertile and the psychotic.
  
  This lack of instrumental rationality means that a Hobbesian state - secular and rational, covering territory where the sovereign’s writ runs for the Salus populi - is missing in South Asia. Language and religion compete for the loyalty to the state.
  
  Hence, the lawlessness in South Asia.
  
• 
  Amanda

  Interesting content and not awful, but rather boring for my taste.
• 
  Jesse Ballenger

  Just astonishing in its breadth, depth, and lucidity.
• 
  Marks54

  This book presents a history of thought about the human mind, or put another way a history of the mind-body problem. The chapters range from the pre-socratics, Plato, and Aristotle, to the advent of "modern" views - meaning the passage through the scholastics into the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Post-Enlightenment periods and on into the pre-history of modern psychiatry in the middle of the 19th century. The author is a professor of psychiatry and writes with special knowledge of how this history led into modern notions of science and medicine for the mind. It is a breathtaking range of people and works to cover in an overview book and Makari does his job well.
  
  The core of the book for me was the thought of the English Enlightenment with Locke and Hobbes and others, and the European developments from Descartes up through Kant and his followers. The book is a marvelous and highly readable survey of the core of classic philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. The book is different from more common introductory surveys and will provide value to those who have done some reading in the area. While specialists may or may not quibble with the details of each individual covered, few readers will fail to get something from the book. There are even sections on the history of hypnotism and phrenology.
  
  What did I like more about this book. First, Makari fits everyone he covers into ongoing discussions of the times when they flourished. What were these early scholars (and some quacks and phonies) interested in and with whom were they interacting? Makari covers these issues and helps put these long dead works in an understandable context. Second, Markari includes minor luminaries whose fame at the time did not survive done to the present day. This is extremely interesting and useful. He also explains movements of thought that were once the rage but have long since been discarded. For example, he covers the ideologues, the sensationalist, the mesmerizes, the animal magnetists, and the phrenologists. Who knew that the ideologues were once part of a serious movement?
  
  These is also a neat story in the history of ideas being told here. How does one first go about studying your own mind? ....while you are still using it?...before the working of the body are understood well at all? A second story line is that explanations of mind (or whatever it is called at the time) have huge implications for religion, politics, and ethics. Ideas that conflict with received doctrine called the authority of the church into question (and there were many varieties of churches that felt threatened). How people thought and acted - or failed to do so due to illness or choice -- affected public order and government while prompting more than a few revolutions. These side issues could get in the ways of the young doctor or priest or professor seeking to make a mark. The power structure could change sharply along the way and those who fell out risked more than a failure to receive tenure. The guillotine was invented by a French Doctor. ...and then if the science and political context is not enough, how does one go about creating a science of the mind? What is mental illness and what should/can one do about it? All of these questions have been up for grabs for a long time. Makari's book provides a wonderful tour of the drama as it unfolded.
  
  I did not expect the book to be as good as it was for a survey.
• 
  John

  Soul Machine describes the co-evolution of philosophy and science that yielded our modern scientific conception of mind as an emergent property of our physical selves. Prior to the Enlightenment physical accounts of the causes of behavior, emotions, and our sense of self were seen as blasphemous. In fact, belief in demonology, witches, and possession were the best evidence most people had for the truth of Christian dogma (i.e. we may not have miracles as evidence of god's existence but the evidence that satan exists is around us everyday). Natural accounts of these phenomena threatened the structure of western society. Soul Machine is an encyclopedic account of the thinkers and ideas that laid the groundwork for psychiatry, neuroscience and other secular scientific explorations of consciousness.
• 
  Sara Laor

  A magisterial overview of the development of the concepts of mind, soul, conscience, self and reason. It was a difficult, rather academic read but I enjoyed it. I wonder if as machines comprise an increasing part of our consciousness, new words and concepts will be invented for software-aided decision making and consciousness.
• 
  Christopher Johnson

  Wonderful book about the development of our understanding of the relationship between matter and mind; we thought they were separate, and now better understand the ways in which mind is integrally linked to matter.
• 
  Darinka Buendía

  As a Psychologist, it blowed my mind.
  As a Design Researcher, it made think about how the modern mind and interfaces are intertwined since begining of times, but now is something almost invincible because of technology.
• 
  Jane Mackay

  Fascinating from the first paragraph of the first chapter (titled "A Soiree with Mr. Spirit and Mr. Flesh").
• 
  Stephen Sowle

  Well reviewed in NY Review of Books