Julian Jaynes
Julian Jaynes | |
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Born | |
Died | November 21, 1997 | (aged 77)
Alma mater |
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Occupation(s) | Psychologist, writer |
Julian Jaynes (February 27, 1920 – November 21, 1997) was an American researcher in
Early life
Jaynes was born and lived in
In the summer of 1939 he registered to attend
Career
He returned to Yale in 1954, working as an Instructor and Lecturer until 1960, making significant contributions in the fields of
After publishing
Research and motivations
Jaynes had dedicated years of research in psychology to the problem of consciousness
His "radical approach"
But there can be no progress in the science of consciousness until careful distinctions have been made between what is introspectable and all the hosts of other neural abilities we have come to call cognition. Consciousness is not the same as cognition and should be sharply distinguished from it.[16]
In the years following, Jaynes talked more about how consciousness began, presenting "his talk [...] widely, as word of his slightly outrageous but tantalizing theory had spread."[17] In 1972 he had delivered a paper, "The Origin of Consciousness", at Cornell University, writing: "For if consciousness is based on language, then it follows that only humans are conscious, and that we became so at some historical epoch after language was evolved."[18] This took Jaynes, as he put it, directly into "the earliest writings of mankind to see if we can find any hints as to when this important invention of consciousness might have occurred."[18] He went to ancient texts searching for early evidence of consciousness, and found what he believed to be evidence of remarkably recent voice-hearing without consciousness. In the semi-historical Greek epic the Iliad Jaynes found "the earliest writing of men in a language that we can really comprehend, [which] when looked at objectively, reveals a very different mentality from our own."[19] In a 1978 interview, Richard Rhodes reported that Jaynes "took up the study of Greek to trace Greek words for mind back to their origins. By the time he got to the Iliad, the words had become concrete, but there is no word for mind in the Iliad at all."[20]
Publications and theories
Jaynes's one and only book, published in 1976, is
Jaynes wrote an extensive afterword for the 1990 edition of his book,
Death
Jaynes died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in
Legacy
The Julian Jaynes Society was founded by Marcel Kuijsten in 1997, shortly after Jaynes's death. The society has published a number of books on Julian Jaynes's theory including foreign-language editions of Julian Jaynes's theory in French, German, and Spanish. The society also maintains a member area, with articles, lectures, and interviews on Jaynes's theory.[citation needed]
Publications
- Articles
- Jaynes, J. (1973). "The Problem of Animate Motion in the Seventeenth Century". In Henle, M.; Jaynes, J.; Sullivan, J. (eds.). Historical Conceptions of Psychology. New York: Springer Publishing Company. pp. 166–179.
- Jaynes, J. (1976). "The Evolution of Language in the Late Pleistocene". In Harnad, S.; Steklis, H. D.; Lancaster, J. B. (eds.). Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Vol. 280. pp. 312–325. .
- Books
- Jaynes, Julian (1976). The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1st ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0395329320.
- Jaynes, Julian (2012). Kuijsten, Marcel (ed.). The Julian Jaynes Collection. Julian Jaynes Society. ISBN 978-0-9790744-2-4. A collection of articles, interviews, and discussion with Julian Jaynes.
Notes
- ^ Jaynes (2000).
- ^ Jaynes (2000), p. 2.
- ^ a b c Woodward & Tower (2006).
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), pp. 21–24.
- ^ Gara (1999).
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), p. 24.
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), p. 25.
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), p. 26.
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), p. 28.
- ^ Rhodes (1978), p. 72.
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), pp. 31–34.
- ^ Morriss (1978).
- ^ Morriss (1978), p. 315.
- ^ Jaynes (2000), p. 448.
- ^ Sutherland (1989).
- ^ a b Jaynes (2000), p. 447.
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), p. 37.
- ^ a b Woodward & Tower (2006), p. 38.
- ^ Jaynes (2000), p. 82.
- ^ Rhodes (1978), p. 74.
- ^ Kuijsten (2016), Introduction.
- ^ Jones (1979), p. 2.
- ^ Jones (1979), p. 4.
- ^ Kuijsten (2006), Introduction.
- ^ Jaynes (2000), Afterword.
- ^ Woodward & Tower (2006), p. 47.
Works cited
- Gara, Larry (1999). A Few Small Candles: War Resisters of World War II Tell Their Stories. Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-621-0.
- Jaynes, Julian (2000) [1976]. ISBN 0-618-05707-2.
- Jones, William Thomas (1979). "Mr. Jaynes and the bicameral mind: a case study in the sociology of belief". Humanities Working Paper. Pasadena, California: California Institute of Technology.
- Kuijsten, Marcel (2006). Kuijsten, Marcel (ed.). Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited (First ed.). Henderson, Nevada: Julian Jaynes Society. ISBN 978-0-9790744-0-0.
- Kuijsten, Marcel (2016). Kuijsten, Marcel (ed.). Gods, Voices and the Bicameral Mind: The Theories of Julian Jaynes (1st ed.). Henderson, Nevada: Julian Jaynes Society. ISBN 978-0-9790744-3-1.
- Morriss, James E. (1978). "Reflections on Julian Jaynes's The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind: An Essay Review" (PDF). ETC: A Review of General Semantics. 35 (3): 314–327. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 14, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
- Rhodes, Richard (January–February 1978). "Alone in the country of the mind: the origin of Julian Jaynes (Interview)". Quest/78. 2 (1). Pasadena: Ambassador International Cultural Foundation: 71–78.
- ISBN 978-0-333-38829-7.
- Woodward, William R.; Tower, June F. (2006). "Julian Jaynes: Introducing His Life and Thought". In Kuijsten, Marcel (ed.). Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited. Henderson, Nevada: Julian Jaynes Society. pp. 13–68. ISBN 978-0-9790744-0-0.
Further reading
- Blackman, L. (2012). Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Mediation. SAGE Publications. pp. 154–178. ISBN 978-1473903234.
- Harnad, Stevan (2008). What It Feels Like To Hear Voices: Fond Memories of Julian Jaynes. Biennial Julian Jaynes Conference on Consciousness, 7–9 August 2008, University of Prince Edward Island. Archived from the original on March 11, 2012.
- ISBN 978-0-300-14878-7.
- ISBN 978-1594201103.
- Wilkinson, Heward (1999). "Schizophrenic Process and The Emergence of Consciousness in Recent History: The Significance for Psychotherapy of Julian Jaynes" (PDF). International Journal of Psychotherapy. 4 (1).