The Corpus and the Cortex looks at the brain and sign processing from an axial, or vertical, perspective. It is on this plane that the mind draws lines between right and wrong, pain and pleasure, and legality and lawlessness. The vertical axis also generates variations in levels of attention, ranging from the full awareness of 'higher mental faculties' to the inhibitions of hyperpolarization. Jacques Chevalier shows that the attentions and inhibitions of affect and norm are best understood at the crossroads of several disciplines, including neuropsychology, semiotics, and philosophy, and presents these analyses against the background of theories and debates concerning concepts of identity, consciousness, morality, and eroticism.