[UNION OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY IDEA IN TURKEY] Ruh ve beden. [i.e. L'âme et le corps = The mind and the brain]. Translated by Hüseyin Cahid Yalçin, (1875-1957)

ALFRED BINET, (1857-1911), Tanin Matbaasi, Istanbul, 1927.

Original grey cloth bdg. Cr. 8vo. (20 x 14 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 300 p.

First and only Turkish edition of this extremely rare first book attempting to answer questions about the Mind or the internal world of the human being, and Matter or the external environment around humans. This is later translated into Turkish by Turkish author Hüseyin Cahit Yalçin (1857-1957) and published as a book of the "Oglumun Kütüphanesi" [i.e. The Library of My Son] Series after the first Binet-Simon scale for measuring intelligence was created in 1905.

The calligraphy of the title was made by Hattat Mustafa Halim Özyazici (1898-1964). 

Alfred Binet was basically a clinical psychologist whose wide-ranging interests in learning difficulties faced by school children prompted him to undertake extensive studies in human cognition, psychology, learning, and behavior. Though he initially trained to become a lawyer, he moved to medicine and then into a largely self-taught area of psychology, which arose from his keen interest in human beings. His work also further evolved into deeply philosophical and spiritual areas of life. 

"The Mind and The Brain" was published in 1907, a few years after Alfred Binet began working on his famous intelligence scale in collaboration with his assistant Theodore Simon. In 1899, Binet took up the task of studying the relationship between education, the child, and human psychology in the French government. The country had taken huge steps towards progressive ideas about education and made it compulsory for every child to attend school between the ages of six and fourteen. It was noticed that many children were unable to cope with the normal curriculum and Binet and his committee began to work on creating a special curriculum for them so that their special needs could be addressed. Tests and experiments were conducted and the first Binet-Simon scale for measuring intelligence was created in 1905. Given this background, "The Mind and The Brain" attempts to answer questions about the Mind or the internal world of the human being, and Matter or the external environment around us. How we view, experience, internalize and symbolize objects and other people is one of the fundamental ideas explored here. Binet attempts to define what is knowledge, what is knowable, and how we classify objects in the external world. The only way we experience the external world is through our sensations, and these can be notoriously erroneous. Emotions, consciousness, spiritualism, idealism, materialism, and the modern theories associated with these are the subjects tackled by Alfred Binet. The philosophical nature of the book and the concepts expounded in it make it both an interesting and important book for any reader who seeks to know the relationship between the Self and the Other. (Source: The Union of the Soul and the Body: Conclusion: Podcasts-nu online).

Özege 17075; TBTK 6447.; We can't trace any copy in OCLC.