- 256 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Proust Was a Neuroscientist
About this book
The
New York Timesābestselling author provides an "entertaining" look at how artists enlighten us about the workings of the brain (
New York magazine).
Ā
In this book, the author of How We Decide and Imagine: How Creativity Works "writes skillfully and coherently about both art and science"āand about the connections between the two ( Entertainment Weekly).
Ā
In this technology-driven age, it's tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, it's cured countless diseases and sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer explains, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first.
Ā
Taking a group of artistsāa painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelistsāLehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain's malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how CĆ©zanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of languageāa full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists.
Ā
More broadly, Lehrer shows that there's a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both to brilliant effect.
Ā
"His book marks the arrival of an important new thinkerĀ .Ā .Ā . Wise and fresh." ā Los Angeles Times
Ā
In this book, the author of How We Decide and Imagine: How Creativity Works "writes skillfully and coherently about both art and science"āand about the connections between the two ( Entertainment Weekly).
Ā
In this technology-driven age, it's tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, it's cured countless diseases and sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer explains, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first.
Ā
Taking a group of artistsāa painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelistsāLehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain's malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how CĆ©zanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of languageāa full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists.
Ā
More broadly, Lehrer shows that there's a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both to brilliant effect.
Ā
"His book marks the arrival of an important new thinkerĀ .Ā .Ā . Wise and fresh." ā Los Angeles Times
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Literary Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraphs
- Prelude
- Chapter 1: Walt Whitman
- Chapter 2: George Eliot
- Chapter 3: Auguste Escoffier
- Chapter 4: Marcel Proust
- Chapter 5: Paul CĆ©zanne
- Chapter 6: Igor Stravinsky
- Chapter 7: Gertrude Stein
- Chapter 8: Virginia Woolf
- Coda
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
- Footnotes