The Emotional Brain:

From the Humanities to Neuroscience and Back Again

19-20 May 2011, Kraków

In the past, emotions and feelings belonged to the domain of the humanities. They were analyzed by philosophers and cherished by poets, while the sciences looked at them with suspicion or simply ignored them.

The 'affective revolution’ of the 1990s changed all this. Neuroscientists have showed us that emotions and feelings can be investigated with empirical methods. Moreover, they proved that the role of emotions is essential both for our perception of the world and for our social institutions. The challenge that we face today may be described as follows. Can both disciplines – the humanities and neuroscience – enrich and educate each other and close the gap between the Geisteswissenschaften and Naturwissenschaften. Or maybe it is neuroscience that will dominate the reflection over the human emotional life? Or possibly it will stay as it is: two separate disciplines, two separate methods, with no real point of contact?

Source: Conference Website