Philosophy's Loss, Neurology's Gain: The Endeavor of John Hughlings-Jackson

The year 2011 marked the centenary of the death of one of the founders of British neurology, John Hughlings-Jackson (1835-1911). By common consent he was a great clinician. But he was more. He endeavored to use clinical observations to throw light on one of the great problems of the modern world, the problem of mind. Hughlings-Jackson's daily contact with mentalities warped by neurological disease caused him to ponder deeply the nature of the mind-brain relationship, nowadays often known simply as the "hard problem." In particular, he saw the danger of conflating mind and brain, a danger that has grown greater with the spectacular growth of neu-roscientific knowledge during the last century. Although Hughlings-Jackson's neurosci-entific thought is long outdated, his philosophic endeavors remain highly instructive.