'Reflex - in a Strict Sense'. Ivan Michajlovic Secenov and the Founding Myths of the 'Russian reflex empire'

摘要

This paper aims to reconstruct Ivan Michajlovic Secenov's impact on reflex theory by looking at the different narratives which constitute his specific position in the history of science, where he is considered the Russian er of a purely materialist framing of consciousness and behaviour, the father figure of objective psychology, and the predecessor of the 'great' Ivan Pavlov. I argue that Secenov himself was very much aware of the symbolic significance of the term "reflex" and that the rhetorical strategies in his opus magnum, The Reflexes of the Brain (1863), deliberately enforce the precarious twofold potential of reflexological conceptions as psycho-physiological structures as well as social programs. Also within the cultural and political settings of the 19(th) and 20(th) century, Secenov's comprehensive and multifaceted research work in the field of nerve physiology was gradually reduced to a strong, ideologically interpretable message: "All movements bearing the name of voluntary in physiology are reflex in a strict sense".