The ‘Hard Problem’ and the Cartesian Strand in British Neurophysiology: Huxley, Foster, Sherrington, Eccles

Abstract

Charles Scott Sherrington’s thoughts on the so-called “hard problem”, the substance dualism of qualia and brain, are discussed in detail. Having inherited Thomas Henry Huxley’s and Michael Foster’s Cartesian approach to pre-modern neurophysiology, Sherrington was adamant that no investigation of the physiology of the brain, no matter how subtle it may be, will ever discover the ‘whisper of a thought or a feeling.’ Pre-figuring Chalmers’ ‘hard problem’, Sherrington said that the mental is not a form of energy; no analysis of the various forms of energy can take us across the gap that separates psychiatry from physiology.