The Physiology of Truth: Neuroscience and Human Knowledge

by Jean-Pierre Changeux, M.B. DeBevoise (Translator)

In this wide-ranging book, one of the boldest thinkers in modern neuroscience confronts an ancient philosophical can we know the world as it really is? Drawing on provocative new findings about the psychophysiology of perception and judgment in both human and nonhuman primates, and also on the cultural history of science, Jean-Pierre Changeux makes a powerful case for the reality of scientific progress and argues that it forms the basis for a coherent and universal theory of human rights. On this view, belief in objective knowledge is not a mere ideological slogan or a naïve confusion; it is a characteristic feature of human cognition throughout evolution, and the scientific method its most sophisticated embodiment. Seeking to reconcile science and humanism, Changeux holds that the capacity to recognize truths that are independent of subjective personal experience constitutes the foundation of a human civil society.

Genres: Neuroscience, Philosophy, Science, Psychology, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 27, 2002

About the author

est un neurobiologiste français connu pour sa recherche dans plusieurs domaines de la biologie, de la structure et de la fonction des protéines (en particulier les protéines allostériques), au développement précoce du système nerveux jusqu’aux fonctions cognitives. Bien que célèbre dans les sciences biologiques pour le modèle Monod-Wyman-Changeux, il est aussi reconnu pour l’identification et la purification du récepteur nicotinique de l’acétylcholine et la théorie de l’épigénèse par stabilisation sélective des synapses. Changeux est connu du public non scientifique pour des idées concernant la relation entre l’esprit et le cerveau. Comme il l’écrit dans son livre Matière à pensée, Changeux défend la conception selon laquelle le système nerveux est actif plutôt que réactif et que l’interaction avec l’environnement, au lieu d’être instructive, résulte de la sélection de représentations internes préexistantes. Il est membre de l'Académie des sciences depuis 1986.

Reviews

[Josh]

This book suffers from the same ailment as Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, i.e. the first three quarters are a masterpiece of elucidation of dynamical biological systems, painting a clear and provocative picture of the continuum between the physical and life sciences and cognition. Unfortunately, after building up a nuanced account which is holistic yet doesn't hold back on detailed analyses of illustrative examples, both books overreach their areas of expertise and expound on the cultural and 'humanistic' interpretations and implications of the biological framework which they have built up. The resulting chapters are not bad, they just pale in comparison to the rest of the books, and in my mind detract from an otherwise amazing book.

There are, to be fair, many parts of The Physiology of Truth which I found lacking (which I will go into below), but I would urge anyone interested in cognitive science to read this.

We've been warned not to judge a book by it's cover, so I'd propose instead to judge a book by its references, and by that metric this is homerun. Like any good scientific book, Changeux incorporates much of his own research; but it is the brilliant and interweaving incorporation of many philosophers and great scientific thinkers which make this book as intriguing as it is: Detlev Arendt, Alan Turing, Jacques Monod, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Dennett, Stanislas Dehaene, Simon Baron-Cohen, Paul Grice, Chris & Uta Frith, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dan Sperber & Deirdre Wilson, Francisco Varela, Zenon Pylyshyn, C. F. von Economo, Edelman & Tononi, Francis Crick, John Searle, Immanuel Kant, Sutton & Barto, Jerry Fodor, John Locke, Karl Friston, Wolfram Schultz, Fred Dretske, David Hume, Eric Kandel, Baruch Spinoza, Albert Einstein, Denis Diderot, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Donald Hebb, etc. etc. etc. — the magic is that Changeux does not merely quote and reference these great thinkers, but engages with them in a dialectic which guides the reader through a history of our conception of mind and truth, with brilliant and illuminating insights along the way.

We might also be wary of judging a book by its title, but

Some of the parts I didn't like:
- as with most theoretical work with consciousness, I was left unsatisfied and felt that if he had instead used the phrase 'higher-level cognitive processes' then I would have no issue with his line of argumentation; but as it stands I am not convinced that anything in this book can directly address the problem of consciousness.
- although he does identify the social value of 'mythic thinking', and moreover the social role inherent in human cognition and truth-seeking, he seems to disregard the possibility of alternative ways of knowing. Perhaps this is just a 'woke' sentiment, but I do think there are important and valid contributions that non-scientific ways of knowing confer to our understanding of the world
- the lack of language as an object of analysis insofar as it pertains to the physiology of truth. Even though Changeux recognizes the "decisive role that language plays in testing the correctness of individual perceptions of the world," language is left entirely out of the picture.
- the diagrams were usually interesting and informative, but often poorly articulated, and always inadequately contextualized.

"'Science,' Gaston Bachelard declared in the introduction to (1953), 'does not have the philosophy it deserves.'" ... "In short, they set up a straw man—a 'matterless materialism.'" - p. 7

Diderot's 'molécules sensibles' ... "At the heart of informed materialism is the notion that the capacity for organization is an essential part of the very definition of matter." - p. 8

"Despite the importance of their function, in normal and pathological states of the brain alike, glial cells are not sufficiently taken into account by neural network models." - p. 13