Synthesis of contraries: Hughlings Jackson on sensory-motor representation in the brain

This paper examines the concept of representation in the brain which occurs in the writings of the neurologist John Hughlings Jackson (1835–1911). Jackson was immersed in Victorian physiological psychology, a hybrid of British associationism and a reflex theory of the operation of the nervous system. Furthermore, Jackson was deeply influenced by Herbert Spencer, and I argue that Spencer's progressivist evolutionary ideas are in tension with the more mechanistic approach of the reflex theory. I also discuss Jackson's legacy in the 20th century and the longstanding debate about localisation of function in the brain