The Two Greatest Ideas : : How Our Grasp of the Universe and Our Minds Changed Everything / / Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Soochow University Lectures in Philosophy ; 1
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.) :; 11 b/w illus.
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Chapter one The Two Greatest Ideas: An Overview of the Narrative --; Chapter two The World Precedes the Mind: The Primacy of the First Great Idea (First millennium BCE to the renaissance) --; Chapter three The Mind Precedes the World: The Primacy of the Second Great Idea (The renaissance to the 20th century) --; Chapter four The Moral Legacy: Autonomy vs. Harmony with the World --; Chapter five Can We Grasp All of Reality? --; Chapter six The Future: A Third Greatest Idea --; Notes --; Bibliography --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780691211244; 9783110739121
• DOI: 10.1515/9780691211244?locatt=mode:legacy
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski.

Two simple yet tremendously powerful ideas that shaped virtually every aspect of civilizationThis book is a breathtaking examination of the two greatest ideas in human history. The first is the idea that the human mind can grasp the universe. The second is the idea that the human mind can grasp itself. Acclaimed philosopher Linda Zagzebski shows how the first unleashed a cultural awakening that swept across the world in the first millennium BCE, giving birth to philosophy, mathematics, science, and virtually all the major world religions. It dominated until the Renaissance, when the discovery of subjectivity profoundly transformed the arts and sciences. This second great idea governed our perception of reality up until the dawn of the twenty-first century.Zagzebski explores how the interplay of the two ideas led to conflicts that have left us ambivalent about the relationship between the mind and the universe, and have given rise to a host of moral and political rifts over the deepest questions human beings face. Should we organize civil society around the ideal of living in harmony with the world or that of individual autonomy? Zagzebski explains how these two powerful ideas continue to divide us today over issues such as abortion, the environment, free speech, and racial and gender identity.This panoramic book reveals what is missing in our conception of ourselves and the world, and imagines a not-too-distant future when a third great idea, the idea that human minds can grasp each other, will help us gain an idea of the whole of reality.