The Mirror and the Mind : A History of Self-Recognition in the Human Sciences - Professor Katja Guenther

The Mirror and the Mind

A History of Self-Recognition in the Human Sciences

By: Professor Katja Guenther

Paperback | 5 March 2025

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $54.99

$41.90

24%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $10.47 with

 or 

Available: 5th March 2025

Preorder. Will ship when available.

How the classic mirror test served as a portal for scientists to explore questions of self-awareness

Since the late eighteenth century, scientists have placed subjects-humans, infants, animals, and robots-in front of mirrors in order to look for signs of self-recognition. Mirrors served as the possible means for answering the question: What makes us human? In The Mirror and the Mind, Katja Guenther traces the history of the mirror self-recognition test, exploring how researchers from a range of disciplines-psychoanalysis, psychiatry, developmental and animal psychology, cybernetics, anthropology, and neuroscience-came to read the peculiar behaviors elicited by mirrors. Investigating the ways mirrors could lead to both identification and misidentification, Guenther looks at how such experiments ultimately failed to determine human specificity.

The mirror test was thrust into the limelight when Charles Darwin challenged the idea that language sets humans apart. Thereafter the mirror, previously a recurrent if marginal scientific tool, became dominant in attempts to demarcate humans from other animals. But because researchers could not rely on language to determine what their nonspeaking subjects were experiencing, they had to come up with significant innovations, including notation strategies, testing protocols, and the linking of scientific theories across disciplines. From the robotic tortoises of Grey Walter and the mark test of Beulah Amsterdam and Gordon Gallup, to anorexia research and mirror neurons, the mirror test offers a window into the emergence of such fields as biology, psychology, psychiatry, animal studies, cognitive science, and neuroscience.

The Mirror and the Mind offers an intriguing history of experiments in self-awareness and the advancements of the human sciences across more than a century.

More in Animal Behaviour

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating - Elisabeth Tova Bailey

RRP $22.95

$21.80

The Selfish Gene : 40th Anniversary Edition - Richard Dawkins
The Ultimate Guide to Raising a Puppy - Victoria Stilwell

RRP $29.99

$26.75

11%
OFF
Bird Minds : Cognition and Behaviour of Australian Native Birds - Gisela Kaplan
Playing Possum : How Animals Understand Death - Susana Mons

RRP $49.99

$40.50

19%
OFF
The Happiness of Dogs - Mark Rowlands

RRP $34.99

$33.25

Cats : Facts at Your Fingertips - DK
The Life of Birds - David Attenborough

RRP $37.99

$33.90

11%
OFF
Honeybee Democracy - Thomas D. Seeley

RRP $49.99

$40.50

19%
OFF
The Bird Way - Jennifer Ackerman

Paperback

RRP $35.00

$31.75

Tales Of A Vet Nurse - Jade Pengelly

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Equine Clinical Medicine, Surgery and Reproduction : 2nd edition - Graham Munroe