In "The 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.

About the Author
Dennis Ford is the author of Sins of Omission: A Primer on Moral Indifference (1990).

Reviews
"Ford is to be commended for condensing an enormous amount of information and making it understandable to non-experts." National Catholic Reporter



Book Information
ISBN 9780520257931
Author Dennis Ford
Format Paperback
Page Count 313
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 363g
Dimensions(mm) 210mm * 140mm * 20mm