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Namah Vol. 25, Issue 4, 15th January 2018

to a select wealthy few. This may have changed This was first established by Descartes’ focus
with the invention of improved agricultural on rationalism and then later solidified by the
techniques (e.g. the heavy plough with wheels), British empiricists’ notion that knowledge
improved energy devices (e.g. the windmill), of the world must be acquired through
improved clothing (via the spinning wheel of the senses(12, 13). Ultimately, these two
India) and improved transportation (e.g. the ideas seem to have coalesced to solidify the
horseshoe and the compass), which enhanced sciences, which use reason to interpret natural
the physical living conditions of human beings information acquired by the physical senses.
at the time (9). Via this enhancement, human
beings were now freed to dedicate their The European Enlightenment (18th and 19th
energies to intellectual pursuits, which were centuries) continued with its trend to use
also more accessible now due to the invention science to establish objective physical truths,
of the printing press in Europe by Johannes but now began to apply them to human
Gutenberg in the1450s (10). psychology. For instance, this time period
saw a significant amount of ground-breaking
Advances in the use of reason and science research conducted on the human nervous
continued to increase drastically in Europe system. Examples include Robert Whytt’s
during the Renaissance and Enlightenment(11). identification of the relationship between
This period found society’s intellectuals as no the spinal cord and the reflexes; the Bell-
longer scholar-clerics, but rather scholars who Magendie law showing that different spinal
were secular in nature. These intellectuals cord roots were related to sensation and
continued to erode the ecclesiastical power movement; and Hermann von Helmholtz’s
through their search for objective truth, research in the area of visual and auditory
which sought to emphasise the importance of perception (14).
science and the human reason and do away
with a reliance on authority for knowledge. Further strengthening the physical sciences’
The Renaissance and Enlightenment brought objective ability to progressively identify
sufficient development in reason and science human psychology were theories of localised
to shift Europe from the age of the ethical brain function. Phrenology, founded by Josef
and conventional to the age of individualism Gall and popularised by Johann Spurzheim,
and reason. established that different parts of the brain
had different functions that could be deter-
The age of individualism and reason in mined by examining the form of the human
Europe skull (15). Science continued to refine this
theory through the use of cerebral ablations,
The age of individualism and reason is marked identified by Pierre Flourens, which disproved
by a movement away from the mind’s blind many of phrenology’s prejudiced assumptions
acceptance of facts and laws to the mind’s but did verify the truth of localised brain
intense questioning of all that is. During the function in the brain itself (16). Additional
Renaissance, the establishment of structured cases, such as the famous case of Phineas
truths — verifiable with the human reason and Gage, illustrated the relationship between
later by empiricism — came to predominate. the brain and personality (17). At this point

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