Frank Stahnisch presents at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin

Professor Frank Stahnisch was invited to participate in the final international research workshop of the Max Planck Research Group on “Experience in the Premodern Sciences of Soul and Body, ca. 800–1650” (chaired by Dr. Katja Krause) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Medicine in Berlin, Germany. The workshop, entitled “Knowing Nerves: Neural Epistemologies from the Ancient World to the Present”, brought together experts from the history of science, history of medicine, classics, philology, neurology, computer science, and material sciences to critically review historical views of the structure and function of the nerves from Galen’s times to modern cognitive science approaches. The research outcomes feature a new paradigm for interdisciplinary approaches to the neurosciences and show the importance of humanistic scholarship for laboratory and clinical neuroscientific research. 

The pre-circulated papers from interdisciplinary scholars considered, (1) how nerves have been experienced and understood as instruments of scientific knowledge and practice, necessary for perception, memory, and understanding; as well as (2) how nerves have been defined as objects of scientific study and description—material structures, functions, and epistemic images, models, and objects. The workshop thus enabled international experts to work on a range of humanistic and scientific approaches to the nervous system to develop a scholarly model for studying the human person and the human body as an instrument and object of science.