Article ID: CBB000932092

The Ubiquitous Reflex and Its Critics in Post-Revolutionary Russia (2009)

unapi

Sirotkina, Irina (Author)


Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 32
Pages: 70--81


Publication Date: 2009
Edition Details: Part of a special issue: The Circulation of Reflexes in Brain Research, Art and Technology
Language: English

The Ubiquitous Reflex and Its Critics in Post-Revolutionary Russia. In the last century, the reflex was more than a scientific concept: it was a cultural idiom that could be used to various aims - political, scholarly, and artistic. In Russia in the 1920s, the reflex became a ubiquitous notion and a current word, part of the revolutionary discourse and, finally, a password to modernity. Two major factors contributed to it: physiological theories of the reflex, widespread in Russia at the early twentieth-century, and the materialist philosophy backed after the Revolution by the Communist party. Everybody who wished to be modern and materialist, in conformity with the official communist views, had to refer to reflexes. Yet, even in this period, the concept was not unproblematic and was criticized by some scientists, philosophers, artists and even Party members. In the paper, I describe both the array of uses of the term and the criticism it received in political, scientific and artistic discourses. It is not uncommon that, taking their origins in culture and common language, scientific concepts later return there in the form of metaphors. Similarly, the reflex was made into a rigorous scientific concept in the nineteenth century but, in the next century, it circulated as a cultural idiom penetrating various areas of political, artistic and academic life.

...More

Description On the various uses of the term “reflex” in political, scientific and artistic discourses.


Included in

Article Wübben, Yvonne; Vöhringer, Margarete (2009) Reflexe in Hirnforschung, Kunst und Technik. Einleitende Bemerkungen. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (p. 7). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000932092/

Similar Citations

Article Ostrovsky, M. A.; Sakina, N. L.; Chesnov, V. M.; (2011)
The Development of the Physiology of Vision in Russia in the First Decades of Soviet Power (1917--1950) (/isis/citation/CBB001211385/)

Book Carson, Cathryn; Hollinger, David A.; (2005)
Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections (/isis/citation/CBB000651435/)

Article Boris M. Hessen; (2021)
Mechanical materialism and modern physics (/isis/citation/CBB089475972/)

Article Mecacci, Luciano; (2015)
Vygotsky's Reception in the West: The Italian Case between Marxism and Communism (/isis/citation/CBB001551423/)

Article Cassata, Francesco; (2012)
The Italian Communist Party and the “Lysenko Affair” (1948--1955) (/isis/citation/CBB001250828/)

Chapter Ljudmilla Chapovalova; (2014)
Tra fantasia e realtà: lo scienziato russo nelle opere di Michail Bulgakov (/isis/citation/CBB731416132/)

Article Hu, Danian; (2007)
The Reception of Relativity in China (/isis/citation/CBB000773120/)

Book Graham, Loren R.; (2006)
Moscow Stories (/isis/citation/CBB000775223/)

Article Grigorian, N. A.; (2006)
The Scientific and Sociocultural Milieu of I. M. Sechenov (/isis/citation/CBB000930324/)

Chapter Roll-Hansen, Nils; (2011)
Lamarckism and Lysenkoism Revisited (/isis/citation/CBB001500087/)

Article Birk Engmann; (2020)
Naum Efimovich Ischlondsky: a forgotten protagonist of the concept of reflexology (/isis/citation/CBB386497772/)

Article Krementsov, Nikolai; (2008)
Hormones and the Bolsheviks: From Organotherapy to Experimental Endocrinology, 1918--1929 (/isis/citation/CBB000850413/)

Book Renato Betti; (2022)
La matematica come abitudine del pensiero. Le idee scientifiche di Pavel Florenskij (/isis/citation/CBB679923304/)

Article Crease, Robert P.; Shiltsev, Vladimir; (2013)
Pomor Polymath: The Upbringing of Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, 1711--1730 (/isis/citation/CBB001320579/)

Article Kojevnikov, Alexei; (2002)
The Great War, the Russian Civil War, and the Invention of Big Science (/isis/citation/CBB000300214/)

Book Silvano Tagliagambe; Giulia Rispoli; (2016)
La divergenza nella rivoluzione. Filosofia, scienza e teologia in Russia (1920-1940) (/isis/citation/CBB180077278/)

Book Maria Zalambani; (2022)
Letteratura e psicoanalisi in Russia all'alba del XX secolo (/isis/citation/CBB993623505/)

Authors & Contributors
Maria Zalambani
Ljudmilla Chapovalova
Engmann, Birk
Rispoli, Giulia
Bassi, Giulia
Renato Betti
Concepts
Science and politics
Science and culture
Communism
Physiology
Science and society
Science and ideology
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
Modern
18th century
Places
Soviet Union
Russia
Italy
United States
Europe
China
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment