Phrenology

Phrenology (from Greek: φρην, phr?n, "mind"; and λογος, logos, "study") is a theory which claims to be able to determine character, personality traits, and criminality on the basis of the shape of the head (reading "bumps"). Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall around 1800, and very popular in the 19th century, it is now discredited as a pseudoscience. Phrenology has however received credit as a protoscience for having contributed to medical science the ideas that the brain is the organ of the mind and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions.

Related Topics:
Greek - Franz Joseph Gall - 1800 - 19th century - Pseudoscience - Protoscience - Functions

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Its principles were that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that mind has a set of different mental faculties, each particular faculty being represented in a different part of the brain. These areas are proportional to a given individual's propensities and importance of a mental faculty, and the overlying skull bone reflects these differences.

Related Topics:
Brain - Mind - Mental faculties

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Phrenology, which focuses on personality and character, has to be distinguished from craniometry, which is the mere study of skull size and shape (particularly the statistically varying proportions of length to width), once intensively practised in anthropology/ethnology and sometimes utilised by racist theorising.

Related Topics:
Craniometry - Anthropology - Ethnology - Racist

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