Description: This book tackles the problem of how we can understand our human world embedded in the physical universe in such a way that justice is done both to the richness, meaning and value of human life on the one hand, and what modern science tells us about the physical universe on th...
Brief description: Nicholas Maxwell has devoted much of his working life to arguing that we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that it seeks and promotes wisdom and does not just acquire knowledge. He has published eight books on this theme, including How Universities Can Help Create a Wiser World (2014) and In Praise of Natural Philosophy (2017). For 30 years he taught philosophy of science at University College London, where he is now Emeritus Reader. For more about his work, see www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom.
Review Quotes:
"A solid work of original thinking." --Choice Reviews
"Maxwell has not only succeeded in bringing together the various different subjects that make up the human world/physical universe problem in a single volume, he has done so in a comprehensive, lucid and above all readable way." --Trends In Cognitive Sciences "...a bald summary of this interesting and passionately-argued book does insufficient justice to the subtlety of many of the detailed arguments it contains." --Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy "The Human World in the Physical Universe provides the best entrance to Maxwell's world of thought. This book contains a succint but certainly not too-detailed overview of the various problems and positions in the currently flourishing philosophy of mind. It shows that despite the fact that many philosophers have declared Carteisan Dualism dead time and again, with some adjustments, the Cartesian view remains powerful and can compete effortlessly with other extant views." --Studies In History and Philosophy Of Modern Physics "Ambitious and carefully-argued. . . . I strongly recommend this book. It presents a version of compatibilism that attempts to do real justice to commonsense ideas of free will, value, and meaning, and deals with many aspects of the most fundamental problems of existence." --Journal of Consciousness Studies