A love of ‘words as words’: metaphor, analogy and the brain in the work of Thomas Willis (1621 - 1675)
Abstract
Thomas Willis is commonly used as a touchstone for the modern brain sciences: his
Cerebri anatome (1664) is celebrated as having placed the brain on its ‘modern footing,’
while Willis is referred to as the ‘founding father’ of neuroscience. Driven by a set of
present-centred and medically orientated concerns, great emphasis has traditionally been
placed upon Willis’s neuro-anatomy as a precursor to our own ways of thinking about
the ‘neurological brain’. Such approaches have tended to neglect Willis’s broader
theoretical contributions, particularly his physiological theories, or have failed to consider
how (distinctly early modern) concepts around the soul informed Willis’s interpretation
of the anatomical brain. This thesis re-examines Willis through his use of metaphors and
analogies, exploring the relationship between his use of language and his physical
practices around the brain (dissection, chemical experiment). Although recent
scholarship on Willis has turned to social or cultural history approaches, there has yet to
be a detailed examination of Willis’s use of language. Ideas around the appropriate use of
metaphor and analogy in scientific writing have long informed responses to Willis. His
credibility has been undermined by suggestions of theoretical embellishment and
imaginative speculation – charges that necessarily pick up on the use of analogical
reasoning. In contrast, this thesis argues that Willis’s concept of the brain cannot be
viewed independently of the ways in which it was described and represented: rather than
mere ornaments, metaphor and analogy were an essential part of Willis’s conceptual
architecture and tools by which the brain (as an object of knowledge) was made to exist
in the world. Willis’s use of language embeds his knowledge within a specific set of
intellectual, cultural and material contexts of the late seventeenth century. His ideas
around the brain cannot, therefore, be straightforwardly appropriated as part of our own
understanding of neurology.
Authors
O'Neal, RebeccaCollections
- Theses [3593]