Consciousness and the voices of the mind.

Abstract

Born in West Newton, Massachusetts, Julian Jaynes did his undergraduate work at Harvard and McGill and received both his master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from Yale. While the Psychology Department at Princeton, which he joined in 1964, is still his academic base, Dr. Jaynes has had numerous positions as Visiting Lecturer or Scholar in Residence in departments of philosophy, English, and archeology and in numerous medical schools. Starting out as a traditional comparative psychobiologist, his approach was to chart the evolution of consciousness by studying learning and brain function in various species, from the protozoa to worms, reptiles, and cats. Finding this approach unsatisfactory, he changed course and has more recently examined consciousness through historical analysis, introspection, and the study of language and metaphor. Dr. Jaynes has published widely, his earlier work being on topics such as imprinting in birds and the neural mediation of mating behavior in cats. His more recent work culminated in 1976 in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Elaborating upon this book are numerous more recent articles published in a diversity of journals such as The History of Ideas, Art World, and The Behavioral and Brain Sciences.