The Search for Meaning A Short History [Paperback]

InThe Search for Meaning: A Short History,Dennis Ford explores eight approaches human beings have pursued over time to invest life with meaning and to infuse order into a seemingly chaotic universe. These include myth, philosophy, science, postmodernism, pragmatism, archetypal psychology, metaphysics, and naturalism. In engaging, companionable prose, Ford boils down these systems to their bare essentials, showing the difference between viewing the world from a religious point of view and that of a naturalist, and comparing a scientific worldview to a philosophical one. Ford investigates the contributions of the Greeks, Kant, and William James, and brings the discussion up to date with contemporary thinkers. He proffers the refreshing idea that in today's world, the answers provided by traditional religions to increasingly difficult questions have lost their currency for many and that the reductive or rationalist answers provided by science and postmodernism are themselves rife with unexamined assumptions.

Dennis Fordis the author ofSins of Omission: A Primer on Moral Indifference(1990).

The Search for Meaningreads like an adventure novel of the mind. Supremely researched and also deeply personal, Dennis Ford has succeeded in rescuing experience from meaninglessness. The book's range is unusually wide, from the classical Greeks through Kierkegaard to contemporary thinkers like Huston Smith, James Hillman, and Joseph Campbell, combining a tough yet often impassioned look at the quest for greater truth. The reader will welcome this approach, realizing that there are far more strategies 'under the sun,' than classical philosophy in the perennial search for meaning in one's life. Phil Cousineau, author ofThe Art of PilgrimageandOnce and Future Myths

Around its centerpiecemeaningthis book weaves a tapestry so encompassing, so intriguingly beautiful, I am stunned by its accomplishmentlc-