Romantic Systematics and the Genealogy of Thought: The Formal Roots of a Cognitive History of Images

摘要

Across the arts, theory of design, and new media studies a history of the senses is springing up. Simultaneously, the multiplying brain sciences are developing a finer neurobiology of feeling. Yet, not since the Romantics has there been such Kierkegaardian urgency in determining the place of the singular being within a heterogeneous and indifferent universe. We are warned that the concept of the "person" is in deep philosophical trouble, and that the nature of "personhood" needs to be questioned in relation to neurochemical and other invasions of the body. Extravagant claims of intimate detection, especially, surround neuroimaging techniques (PET, fMRI, near-infrared spectroscopy). While reminiscent of nineteenth-century claustral phrenology, today's high-tech version asserts the inescapable link between minute brain-activation patterns and highly individuated personality traits like risk aversion, guilt, pessimism, persistence, and empathy.