title: Neural veils and the will to historical critique: why historians of science need to take the neuro-turn seriously.
abstract: Taking the neuro-turn is like becoming the victim of mind parasites. It's unwilled (although there are those who will it at a superficial level for various strategic reasons). You can't see mind parasites; they make you think things without allowing you to know why you think them. Indeed, they generate the cognitive inability to be other than delighted with the circumstances of your affected cognition. It's not as if you can take off your thinking cap and shoo the pests away. You can't see them--or even know that you could want to. You can't stand on the outside looking in at your cognitive processes. But historically speaking, you are also inside a (broadly postmodern) culture and (broadly neoliberal) socioeconomic order that places the legitimacy of the neuro beyond critique. And the neuro-turn does more: it delegitimizes critique itself, at least as we have known it since Marx. This essay briefly explores how we got here, what the "here" is, and what its implications are for historical critique.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cooter
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain; D003071:Cognition; D003469:Culture; D049673:History, 20th Century; D040821:Human Characteristics; D006801:Humans; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000266:history*; D010684:Philosophy; D012586:Science / Q000266:history*