Samuel Thomas Soemmerring - Über das Organ der Seele - 1796

Samuel Thomas Soemmerring

About the organ of the soul

Koenigsberg, Nicolovius
1796

25 x 20.5cm, cardboard tape with marbled cover cover, spine label, library stamp on the endpaper and title,
VIII, 86 p., 1 sheet, 3 copper plates (designated as Tab. I, Tab. I and Tab. II); Title with kl. Water streak, panels somewhat foxed

rare EA, dedicated to "our Kant". Soemmerring advocated the thesis that the soul is located in the fluid in the cerebral ventricles. His book is the last attempt to establish a "soul organ", i.e. a certain localized structure within the brain, whereby Soemmerring shifts the place of the interaction between body and soul into the fluid of the cerebral ventricles. S. claims in introductory words to Kant's comment in the appendix that he has "the courtesy" to "not only applaud his idea, but even to expand and refine it and thus perfect it", but the latter criticizes him nonetheless sharp and accuses him of not distinguishing exactly between the seat of the soul and the seat of the soul organ. "Now the soul can only perceive itself through the inner sense, but the body ... only through the outer senses, therefore absolutely no place to determine itself, because for this purpose they make themselves the object of their own external perception and outside themselves would have to move; which contradicts itself "(p. 86). - NORMAN 1972, HIRSCH / H. V, 330, WALLER 9052