George Henry Lewes (1817–1878): Embodied Cognition, Vitalism, and the Evolution of Symbolic Perception
Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience January 1, 2014 Elfed Huw Price
George Henry Lewes' writings on the mind-body problem, especially in his five-volume Problems of Life and Mind, remain relevant today. The author argues that Lewes rejected extreme cerebrocentrism, instead viewing the mind as embodied, with its somatic substrate extending beyond the brain to the rest of the body. Lewes also contended that living creatures' mechanisms are qualitatively different from and 'incalculable' compared to machines. Finally, he proposed that humans' capacity for ideation (symbolic thought) and immersion in the 'Social Medium' (culture) are defining characteristics of humankind.