Christfried Jakob on the cerebral cortex: neurobiological, neurophilosophical and neuroeducational concepts

Abstract

The present dissertation examines the culmination of Christfried‟s Jakob neurobiological, neurophilosophical and neuroeducational ideas from 1890 to 1949. His work numbers 30 books and 200 articles on developmental, evolutionary, anatomical and pathological issues in neurobiology and it further includes pioneering contributions in modern scientific fields such as educational neuroscience and neurophilosophy. We have divided Jakob‟s work into three periods. During the „early‟ period (1890–1912), Jakob mostly carried out anatomical work. In his „middle period‟ (1913–1935), he elaborated psychobiological ideas. In the „late‟ period (1936–1949), he came up with synthetic neurobiological and neurophilosophical theories. His works were written in German and Spanish and a couple of papers in French. Thus, they had scarce diffusion in the English literature. Given that Jakob‟s works still provide meaningful clues on the riddle of the human brain, an objective of this study was to render his legacy accessible by a wider audience. Accordingly, an aim of my dissertation consisted in crediting Jakob for the formulation of original ideas in evolutionary, behavioral, cognitive, affective and educational neuroscience as well as in neurophilosophy. In a broad framework, I retraced the evolution of Jakob‟s avant garde thought and bridged his still timely works with the modern literature.