Analysis and/or Interpretation in Neurophysiology? A Transatlantic Discussion Between F. J. J. Buytendijk and K. S. Lashley, 1929–1932 (2022)
In the interwar period, biologists employed a diverse set of holistic approaches that were connected to different research methodologies. Against this background, this article explores attempts in the 1920s and 1930s to negotiate quantitative and qualitative methods in the field of neurophysiology. It focuses on the work of two scientists on different sides of the Atlantic: the Dutch animal psychologist and physiologist Frederik J.J. Buytendijk and the American neuropsychologist Karl S. Lashley, specifically analyzing their critical correspondence, 1929–1932, on the problems surrounding the term intelligence. It discusses the inexplicable anomalies in neurophysiology as well as the reliability of quantitative and qualitative methods. While in his laboratory work Lashley adhered to a strictly analytic approach, Buytendijk tried to combine quantitative methods with phenomenological and hermeneutical approaches. The starting point of their discussion is Lashley’s monograph on Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence (1929) and the rat experiments discussed therein. Buytendijk questioned the viability of the maze-learning method and the use of statistics to test intelligence in animals; he reproduced Lashley’s experiments and then confronted Lashley with his critical findings. In addition to elucidating this exchange, this paper will, more generally, shed light on the nature of the disagreements and shared assumptions prevalent among interwar neurophysiologists. In turn, it contributes to historiographical debates on localization and functionalism and the discrepancy between analytic (quantitative) and interpretative (qualitative) approaches.
...MoreArticle Jan Baedke; Christina Brandt (2022) Between the Wars, Facing a Scientific Crisis: The Theoretical and Methodological Bottleneck of Interwar Biology. Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 209-217).
Similar Citations
Book
Chantal Grell;
(2014)
Correspondance de Johannes Hevelius.Volume 1: Prolégomènes critiques
(/isis/citation/CBB265925939/)
Book
Chantal Grell;
(2017)
Correspondance de Johannes Hevelius. Volume 2: Correspondance avec la cour de France et ses agents, avec un dossier sur la querelle de la comète de 1664–1665
(/isis/citation/CBB682742550/)
Article
Tugnoli Pàttaro, Sandra;
(2010)
Alle origini della semiotica: Lady Victoria Welby corrispondente di Charles S. Peirce
(/isis/citation/CBB001034882/)
Article
Bruce, Darryl;
(1998)
The Lashley-Hull debate revisited
(/isis/citation/CBB000075754/)
Article
Weidman, Nadine;
(1994)
Mental testing and machine intelligence: The Lashley-Hull debate
(/isis/citation/CBB000033500/)
Article
Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard;
(2006)
Probability in 1919/20: The von Mises-Pólya Controversy
(/isis/citation/CBB000671181/)
Article
A. W. F. Edwards;
(2016)
Punnett's square: A postscript
(/isis/citation/CBB278214997/)
Article
Santos, Gildo Magalhães;
(2011)
A Debate on Magnetic Current: The Troubled Einstein--Ehrenhaft Correspondence
(/isis/citation/CBB001024707/)
Article
Jan Baedke;
Christina Brandt;
(2022)
Between the Wars, Facing a Scientific Crisis: The Theoretical and Methodological Bottleneck of Interwar Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB174255369/)
Article
Ute Deichmann;
(2021)
Template Theories, the Rule of Parsimony, and Disregard for Irreproducibility—The Example of Linus Pauling’s Research on Antibody Formation
(/isis/citation/CBB288024663/)
Article
Van der Veer, René;
(2000)
Tamara Dembo's European years: Working with Lewin and Buytendijk
(/isis/citation/CBB000110052/)
Book
The Editors of the Darwin Correspondence Project;
Secord, James A.;
Burkhardt, Frederick;
Charles Darwin;
(2023)
The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 30, 1882
(/isis/citation/CBB019640041/)
Thesis
Yale, Elizabeth E.;
(2008)
Manuscript Technologies: Correspondence, Collaboration, and the Constructionof Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001560657/)
Article
Jørgensen, C. Barker;
(2003)
Aspects of the History of the Nerves: Bell's Theory, the Bell-Magendie Law and Controversy, and Two Forgotten Works by P. W. Lund and D. F. Eschricht
(/isis/citation/CBB000410011/)
Chapter
Finkelstein, Gabriel;
(2014)
Emil du Bois-Reymond's Reflections on Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB001214145/)
Book
Clifford Cunningham;
(2015)
Discovery of the First Asteroid, Ceres
(/isis/citation/CBB814771092/)
Article
O. Ellegaard;
S. B. F. Dorch;
(2022)
Astronomical observatory publications: information exchange before the Internet era
(/isis/citation/CBB384040311/)
Article
Paul White;
(2022)
The Many Lives of Darwin’s Letters
(/isis/citation/CBB415627399/)
Chapter
Rhodri Lewis;
Anna Marie Roos;
Gideon Manning;
(2023)
Whose Manner of Discourse? Sir William Petty, Civility, and the Early Royal Society
(/isis/citation/CBB813427283/)
Book
Miert, Dirk van;
(2013)
Communicating Observations in Early Modern Letters, 1500--1675: Epistolography and Epistemology in the Age of the Scientific Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001551474/)
Journal of the History of Biology
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
History of Psychology
Be the first to comment!