The Seat of the Soul

This article surveys metaphysical and physiolog- ical investigations of the seat of the soul. After introducing the Scholastic background of the problem (section “From the Scholastics to Vesa- lius”), I focus on the turn that is represented by Cartesian philosophy (section “The Cartesian Turn”), then address the metaphysical (section “Metaphysical Controversies”) and physiological (section “Experimental Traditions and Physiolog- ical Hypotheses”) controversies between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Kant’s criticism that the quest for the seat of the soul is an “impossible” task introduces a conclusion on the legacy of the problem in neurophysiology (section “Kant’s Critique and the Fate of the Seat of the Soul”)