RT journal article
T1 Making the Brain, Concealing the Subject: A Dialogue between Epistemological History and Decolonial theory
A1 Rosa Macías, Tomás de la
A2 Neurociencias
K1 neuroscience
K1 Lorraine Daston
K1 decolonial
K1 brain
K1 scientific object
AB In recent decades, knowledge about the brain has transformed radically, enabling neuroscience to venture into domains traditionally reserved for the humanities and social sciences. This expansion has prompted critiques regarding the potential implications and consequences of neuroscience’s engagement with domains such as education, law, politics, and the self. Building on these concerns, this study seeks to foster a dialogue between two onto-epistemological perspectives: (1) the epistemological history of the making of scientific objects and objectivity ideals and (2) decolonial and postcolonial reflections on knowledge and its history. The former illuminates the ontology of the brain as an object conceived as ahistorical, serving as a condition of possibility for neuroscience. This configuration facilitates flourishing objectivity. The latter reveals how these elements function as power technologies, thus presenting modern science and its objects as universal, valid, and inevitable. The brain serves as a case study for a dialogue that reveals how the construction of scientific objects coincides with subject concealment. Specifically, modern subjectivity is hidden behind these objects, whereas subjects external to modernity are excluded from scientific endeavors. The genesis of objectivity unfolds alongside European imperial expansion, anchoring the modern brain’s epistemic authority within the historical processes that have enabled its universalization.
YR 2025
FD 2025-12-17
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/38754
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/38754
LA eng
NO The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Juan de la Cierva’ grant n. JDC2022-048427-I  financed  by  (MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033)  and  by  European  Social Fund (FSE+).
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 10-may-2026