Ebook: Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures

Neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism—the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable components—has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. He draws on his Nobel Prize-winning work revealing the neurobiological underpinnings of learning and memory in sea slugs to shed light on the complex workings of the mental processes of higher animals.

The Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel shows how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. He illustrates how reductionism—distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller components—has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths.