The Weeders, by Jules Breton, 1868.

Preamble

The Enchanted Loom

By Lewis H. Lapham

On the mind’s ability to reinterpret the past and the tenth anniversary of Lapham’s Quarterly.

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Rôle de Joko, by Charles Mazurier, c. 1826. The New York Public Library, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

The Person in the Ape

By Ferris Jabr

A history of humans trying and failing to understand the minds of apes.

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Seated Male Figure with Folded Hands (detail), by Édouard Vuillard, c. 1895. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Family of Howard Jay Barnet, in his memory, 1995.

The Difficult Task of the Future

By Damion Searls

Carl Jung’s fight to find psychological types.

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Whalers, by J.M.W. Turner, c. 1845. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1896.

Thoughts Made Visible

By Noga Arikha

Where does the mind reside?

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Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (detail), by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, special contributions and funds given or bequeathed by friends of the Museum, 1961.

The Ghost and the Princess

By Anthony Gottlieb

The correspondence of René Descartes and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia—a debate about mind, soul, and immortality.

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