Neuroscience can be hypnotic. The science can make us fall into a trance, as coloured images light up the darkest reaches of our cerebral cortex and hold up a dual and near-irresistible promise. An explicit promise, to reveal who we really are, and an implicit one, to help us make better decisions based on this self-knowledge. The reality, beyond the trance, is that progress in neuroscience is—literally—providing us with an image of humanity (and a new vocabulary) that transforms our understanding of what it is to be human, of how we imagine ourselves and of how we conceive our relationship with others.

It is both the potential of such an understanding, as well as its possible pitfalls that the six specially commissioned pieces of Prospect’s supplement—listed below—explore. The promise of neuroscience is that in trying to tell us who we are, it really tells us more about who we can