Maine de Biran and Gall’s phrenology: the origins of a debate about the localization of mental faculties

In March 1808 at the Institut de France, the German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828), together with his assistant Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776–1832), unveiled his rather controversial doctrine about the localization of brain functions, by combining histological data with cranioscopical observations. This doctrine was based on the discovery of discrete regions of the cerebral cortex, where innate universal faculties or aptitudes were supposed to be located. However, a commission designated by the Institut itself judged Gall’s theory to be completely devoid of scientific value. Some months later, the French spiritualist philosopher Maine de Biran (1766–1824) submitted some Observations sur les divisions organiques du cerveau to the members of the Medical Society of Bergerac, of which he was the president. This paper assesses Maine de Biran’s rejection of Gall’s organologie against the background of his knowledge of the current scientific debates concerning localization theories. The paper argues that Biran’s main purpose was to defend the existence of a close relationship between physiology and psychology, medicine and metaphysics.