The Wayward Mind: An Intimate History of the Unconscious

In this lively history of thinking about what lies behind thinking, Oxford-trained cognitive scientist Claxton (Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind) ranges across societies from ancient Egypt to 20th-century Vienna and individual thinkers from Aristotle to Eugene Gendliln to trace the long development of three broad narratives that have been used to explain the mind: the supernatural, the psychological and the biological. The author's purpose in this erudite intellectual history is not to settle the question of what lies behind our conscious selves, but to explore the richness of the untidy notions of the unconscious we have inherited. His summaries of the ideas of poets, priests, philosophers and psychiatrists are colorful and brisk but fair, and his criticisms, notably of Descartes as hyper-rational and Freud as unoriginal, are balanced by assessments of their contributions. As Claxton's survey approaches the late 20th century, he begins to speak for himself, painting an extended and especially vivid portrait of a human brain that might be capable of generating poetry and madness without angels or the id. He concludes that no single account can fulfill the complex social purpose of the stories we tell ourselves about the underlying quirkiness of our minds, but he argues persuasively that we can live fuller, happier lives by embracing that waywardness. 24 b&w illustrations.