Splendours and Miseries of the Brain

List of Figures vii
<p>Note to the Reader ix</p>
<p>Acknowledgments x</p>
<p>Introduction 1</p>
<p>PART I Abstraction and the Brain 7</p>
<p>1 Abstraction 9</p>
<p>2 The Brain and its Concepts 21</p>
<p>3 Inherited Brain Concepts 26</p>
<p>4 The Distributed Knowledge–Acquiring System of the Brain 35</p>
<p>5 The Acquired Synthetic Brain Concepts 42</p>
<p>6 The Synthetic Brain Concept and the Platonic Ideal 46</p>
<p>7 Creativity and the Source of Perfection in the Brain 50</p>
<p>PART II Brain Concepts and Ambiguity 59</p>
<p>8 Ambiguity in the Brain and in Art 61</p>
<p>9 Processing and Perceptual Sites in the Brain 65</p>
<p>10 From Unambiguous to Ambiguous Knowledge 73</p>
<p>11 Higher Levels of Ambiguity 87</p>
<p>PART III Unachievable Brain Concepts 99</p>
<p>Introduction 101</p>
<p>12 Michelangelo and the Non finito 102</p>
<p>13 Paul C&eacute;zanne and the Unfinished 111</p>
<p>14 Unfinished Art in Literature 120</p>
<p>PART IV Brain Concepts of Love 129</p>
<p>Conte by Arthur Rimbaud 131</p>
<p>15 The Brain′s Concepts of Love 132</p>
<p>16 The Neural Correlates of Love 137</p>
<p>17 Brain Concepts of Unity and Annihilation in Love 150</p>
<p>18 Sacred and Profane 158</p>
<p>19 The Metamorphosis of the Brain Concept of Love in Dante 170</p>
<p>20 Wagner and Tristan und Isolde 182</p>
<p>21 Thomas Mann and Death in Venice 193</p>
<p>22 A neurobiological analysis of Freud′s Civilization and its Discontents 203</p>
<p>Notes 213</p>
<p>Index 227</p>