Thinking about Thinking: Mind and Meaning in the Era of Techno-Nihilism
Ebook
Thinking About Thinking: Mind and Meaning in the Era of Techno-Nihilism addresses our existential crisis by reminding us of the conditions for meaning that have been obscured by the modern technological mentality. Madden weaves together disparate insights from Wittgenstein, Hegel, Aristotle, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Sophocles, and others in an attempt to account for our mindedness in terms of its inextricable connection to a world capable of inspiring our care. The mind is not a discrete entity locked behind the skull or withdrawn into a ghostly realm, but a participation in an inheritance (biological and cultural) held in common with other participants, and taking responsibility for that world is crucial for the meaning. The ever-increasing technological mediation of our lives undermines this worldliness. We are subsequently "losing our minds," and as our mindedness fades, so goes our sense of dignity and value. Madden makes this case deploying insights from phenomenology, analytic philosophy, Aristotelianism, neuroscience, and cognitive science, and along the way confronts the mind-body problem, freedom, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and nihilism. More importantly, he invites the reader into an accessible dialogue concerning issues of grave importance to the meaning of our lives.
“Whereas after the Enlightenment it became possible to question and wonder whether human life has any ultimate meaning, if any at all, today the very notion of humanity is under attack. Drawing from Aristotle to Merleau-Ponty, and Aquinas, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Solzhenitsyn in between, James Madden shows how resuscitating human thinking preserves our humanity. For anyone in the wilderness, who has been looking for a fellow traveler, Thinking about Thinking is that companion.”
—Steven DeLay, editor of Finding Meaning: Philosophy in Crisis
“Thinking about Thinking is an astonishingly cogent analysis of some of the most prescient thinkers of technology, from Wittgenstein to a rare treatment of Keiji Nishitani. Thinking about Thinking is a written form of the Socratic dialectic, and Madden challenges his reader to engage in meta-thinking as a shared critical practice and as the necessary antidote to the sad suffering that is specific to our time.”
—Diana Pasulka, author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology
- Title: Thinking about Thinking: Mind and Meaning in the Era of Techno-Nihilism
- Author: James D. Madden
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666754209, 9781666754186, 1666754188, 9781666754193, 1666754196, 166675420X
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666754209
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-12-05T22:04:09Z
James D. Madden is professor of philosophy at Benedictine College. He is the author of Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind (2013) along with articles on the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of religion. He lives in Atchison, Kansas, with his wife and their children. You may find out more about his work at jdmadden.com.