Abstract
Recent literature on the role of pictorial representation in the life sciences has focused on the relationship between detailed representations of empirical data and more abstract, formal representations of theory. The standard argument is that in both a historical and epistemic sense, this relationship is a directional one: beginning with raw, unmediated images and moving towards diagrams that are more interpreted and more theoretically rich. Using the neural network diagrams of Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts as a case study, I argue that while in the empirical sciences, pictorial representation tends to move from data to theory, in areas of the life sciences that are predominantly theoretical, when abstraction occurs at the outset, the relationship between detail and abstraction in pictorial representations can be of a different character.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abraham T.H. 2002. “(Physio)logical circuits: The intellectual origins of the McCulloch-Pitts neural networks,”. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 38: 3–25.
Apter J. 1945. “The projection of the retina on the superior colliculus of cats,”. Journal of Neurophysiology 8: 123–134.
Boring E.G. 1929. A History of Experimental Psychology. Century Co., New York.
Brodmann K. 1909/1994. Localization in the Cerebral Cortex (Garey L.J.). Smith-Gordon, London.
Cambrosio A. 2000. “Argumentation, representation, intervention: les roles de l'imagerie dans des discours scientifiques,”. ASp 27/30: 95–112.
Campbell A.W. 1905. Histological Studies on the Localization of Cerebral Function. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Dusser de Barenne J.G. 1924. “Experimental researches on sensory localization in the cerebral cortex of the monkey (Macacus),” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 96:., pp. 272–291.
Frank R.G. 1994. “Instruments, nerve action, and the all-or-none principle,”. Osiris 9: 208–235.
Gombrich E. 1961. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. 2nd edn. Bollingen Foundation, New York, revised.
Griesemer J.R. 1991. “Must scientific diagrams be eliminable? The case of path analysis,”. Biology and Philosophy 6: 155–180.
Heims and Steve J. 1991. The Cybernetics Group: Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Klüver H. 1942. “Functional significance of the geniculo-striate system” Biological Symposia VII: Visual Mechanisms. J. Cattell Press, Lancaster, PA, pp. 253–299.
Lettvin J.Y. 1989. “Warren and Walter,”. In: McCulloch Rook (ed.), The Collected Works of Warren S. McCulloch Vol. II. Intersystems Publications, Salinas, CA, pp. 515–529.
Lorente de No R. 1933a. “The vestibulo-ocular reflex arc,”. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 30: 245–291.
Lorente de No R. 1933b. “Studies on the structure of the cerebral cortex,”. Journal fur Psychologie und Neurologie 45: 381–438.
Lynch M. 1991. “Science in the age of mechanical reproduction: Moral and epistemic relations between diagrams and photographs,”. Biology and Philosophy 6: 205–226.
Lynch M. 1990. “The externalized retina: Selection and mathematization in the visual documentation of objects in the life sciences,”. In: Lynch Michael and Woolgar Steve (eds), Representation in Scientific Practice. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 153–186.
Maienschein J. 1991. “From presentation to representation in E.B. Wilson's The Cell”. Biology and Philosophy 6: 227–254.
McCulloch.S. 1989 [1974]. “Recollections of the many sources of cybernetics,”. In: McCulloch Rook (ed.), The Collected Works of Warren S. McCulloch Vol. I. Intersystems Publications, Salinas, CA, pp. 21–49.
McCulloch W.S. 1965. “What's in the brain that ink may character?”. In: McCulloch W.S. (ed.), Embodiments of mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (Originally presented at the International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Jerusalem, Israel, August 28, 1964).
McCulloch W.S. and Pitts W. 1943. “A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity,”. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 5: 115–133.
O'Leary J.L. and Bishop G.H. 1941. “The optically excitable cortex of the rabbit,”. Journal of Comparative Neurology 68: 423–478.
Pitts W. and McCulloch W.S. 1947. “How we know universals: The perception of auditory and visual forms,”. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 9: 127–147.
Ramón y Cajal S. 1995 [1911]. Histology of the Nervous System of Man and Vertebrates. Oxford University Press, New York, Trans. from the French by Neely Swanson and Larry W. Swanson. 2 vols.
Ramón y Cajal R. 1900. Die Sehrinde. Barth, Leipzig.
Rudwick M.J.S. 1976. “The emergence of a visual language for geological science 1760–1840,”. History of Science xiv: 149–195.
Sargent P. 1996. “On the use of visualization in the practice of science,”. Philosophy of Science 63: S230–S238.
Turing A.M. 1936–7. “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem” Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Series 2. 42: 230–265.
Von Bonin G., Garol H.W. and McCulloch W.S. 1942. “The functional organization of the occipital lobe,” Biological Symposia VII: Visual Mechanisms. J. Cattell Press, Lancaster, PA, pp. 165–192.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Abraham, T.H. From theory to data: Representing neurons in the 1940s. Biology & Philosophy 18, 415–426 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024147708370
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024147708370