Nikolas Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached, Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2013.

The title of Nikolas Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached’s new book on contemporary neuro science captures the broad scope of the authors’ project, but belies their resolutely even-handed approach. Written in a spirit of ‘critical friendship’, the work is intended as ‘rapprochement’ between the humanities and neu science. Rose and Abi-Rached state that they intend to follow one particular OED definition of criticism ‘Rather than fault finding or passing censorious ju ment, we are critical here in the sense of “exercisin careful judgment or observation; nice, exact, ac rate, precise, punctual.”’ As such, they refrain from making bold, sweeping claims about the implication of neuroscientific research. Rose and Abi-Rached ar wary of insisting on the radical novelty of the present of overemphasizing the influence neuroscientific d course has on current understandings of subjectivit or of downplaying scientists’ own sensitivity to the limitations of their research.

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