The Myths We Live By
eBook - ePub

The Myths We Live By

  1. 278 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Myths We Live By

About this book

With a new Introduction by the author

'An elegant and sane little book. – The New Statesman

Myths, as Mary Midgley argues in this powerful book, are everywhere. In political thought they sit at the heart of theories of human nature and the social contract; in economics in the pursuit of self interest; and in science the idea of human beings as machines, which originates in the seventeenth century, is a today a potent force. Far from being the opposite of science, however, Midgley argues that myth is a central part of it. Myths are neither lies nor mere stories but a network of powerful symbols for interpreting the world. Tackling a dazzling array of subjects such as philosophy, evolutionary psychology, animals, consciousness and the environment in her customary razor-sharp prose, The Myths We Live By reminds us of the powerful role of symbolism and the need to take our imaginative life seriously.

Mary Midgley is a moral philosopher and the author of many books including Wickedness, Evolution as a Religion, Beast and Man and Science and Poetry. All are published in Routledge Classics.

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Yes, you can access The Myths We Live By by Mary Midgley in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Philosophy History & Theory. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2011
eBook ISBN
9781136807527

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  6. FOREWORD TO THE ROUTLEDGE CLASSICS EDITION
  7. 1 How myths work
  8. 2 Our place in the world
  9. 3 Progress, science and modernity
  10. 4 Thought has many forms
  11. 5 The aims of reduction
  12. 6 Dualistic dilemmas
  13. 7 Motives, materialism and megalomania
  14. 8 What action is
  15. 9 Tidying the inner scene: why memes?
  16. 10 The sleep of reason produces monsters
  17. 11 Getting rid of the ego
  18. 12 Cultural evolution?
  19. 13 Selecting the selectors
  20. 14 Is reason sex-linked?
  21. 15 The journey from freedom to desolation
  22. 16 Biotechnology and the yuk factor
  23. 17 The new alchemy
  24. 18 The supernatural engineer
  25. 19 Heaven and earth, an awkward history
  26. 20 Science looks both ways
  27. 21 Are you an animal?
  28. 22 Problems about parsimony
  29. 23 Denying animal consciousness
  30. 24 Beasts versus the biosphere?
  31. 25 Some practical dilemmas
  32. 26 Problems of living with otherness
  33. 27 Changing ideas of wildness
  34. NOTES
  35. INDEX