{"title":"Who Owns French Brain Science? Neurophysiologists' Response to Cyberneticians in the 1950s French National Daily Press.","authors":"Jean-Gaël Barbara","doi":"10.1353/jhi.2026.a1003013","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper examines the contested reception of cybernetics in 1950s France, focusing on how French neurophysiologists strategically engaged with cybernetic metaphors to assert disciplinary authority over the study of the brain. While early press enthusiasm embraced cybernetic analogies, figures like Alfred Fessard and Henri Gastaut leveraged public debate to promote a neurophysiology grounded in experimental rigor and national scientific traditions. Tracing key moments in press discourse, scientific symposia, and institutional developments, the paper argues that French neurophysiologists helped shape a new science of the brain-not by rejecting cybernetics outright but by reframing it within their epistemological and professional priorities.</p>","PeriodicalId":47274,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS","volume":"87 4","pages":"817-848"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2026.a1003013","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
This paper examines the contested reception of cybernetics in 1950s France, focusing on how French neurophysiologists strategically engaged with cybernetic metaphors to assert disciplinary authority over the study of the brain. While early press enthusiasm embraced cybernetic analogies, figures like Alfred Fessard and Henri Gastaut leveraged public debate to promote a neurophysiology grounded in experimental rigor and national scientific traditions. Tracing key moments in press discourse, scientific symposia, and institutional developments, the paper argues that French neurophysiologists helped shape a new science of the brain-not by rejecting cybernetics outright but by reframing it within their epistemological and professional priorities.
期刊介绍：
Since its inception in 1940, the Journal of the History of Ideas has served as a medium for the publication of research in intellectual history that is of common interest to scholars and students in a wide range of fields. It is committed to encouraging diversity in regional coverage, chronological range, and methodological approaches. JHI defines intellectual history expansively and ecumenically, including the histories of philosophy, of literature and the arts, of the natural and social sciences, of religion, and of political thought. It also encourages scholarship at the intersections of cultural and intellectual history — for example, the history of the book and of visual culture.
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