Ivan Pavlov : a very short introduction / Daniel P Todes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Todes, Daniel Philip, author.

Series:

Oxford Academic.

Very short introduction

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Physiologists--Russia (Federation)--Biography.

Physiologists.

Communism and Christianity.

Scientists.

Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich, 1849-1936.

Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (152 pages) : illustrations (colour).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, [2022]

©2022

Summary:

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) is famous for his Nobel Prize-winning studies of digestion and, especially, his investigations of conditional reflexes, through which he attempted to understand and ease the "torments" of human consciousness. Based on rich archival materials, this work provides a uniquely rich and readable introduction to his life and work. The book follows Pavlov from his youth as a provincial seminarian to his scientific studies, traumas, and professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg through world war and two revolutions, international celebrity status, and his complex relationship with the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Stalin. Exploring Pavlov's quest to constrain the psyche within mechanistic law, the work explains his innovative experimental techniques and approach, discusses his interpretive practices as a physiologist, reveals the personalities and importance of his favorite experimental dogs, and analyzes his important, but little-known, experiments on chimpanzees. The work ends with a discussion of the two manuscripts on which Pavlov labored during his last days, which reveal the relationship between the great scientist's work and his psychological drive for certainty amid the unforeseeable calamities in life and express his final thoughts about the relationship between science, Christianity, and Communism.

Contents:

List of illustrations

1 Winter at Koltushi

2 Certainty: religious and scientific

3 The haunted factory

4 Pavlov's quest

5 Come the Bolsheviks

6 Nervous types

7 Year of climaxes

8 Final reflections

9 Epilogue

References

Further reading

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on Publisher website; title from home page (viewed on June 06, 2022).

ISBN:

0-19-090672-3

Publisher Number:

10.1093/actrade/9780190906696.001.0001 DOI