Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self (The Terry Lectures Series) [Paperback]

Marilynne Robinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 2011 | Series: The Terry Lectures Series

In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought—science, religion, and consciousness. Crafted with the same care and insight as her award-winning novels, Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson’s view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest. Instead, in its purest form, science represents a search for answers. It engages the problem of knowledge, an aspect of the mystery of consciousness, rather than providing a simple and final model of reality.

By defending the importance of individual reflection, Robinson celebrates the power and variety of human consciousness in the tradition of William James. She explores the nature of subjectivity and considers the culture in which Sigmund Freud was situated and its influence on his model of self and civilization. Through keen interpretations of language, emotion, science, and poetry, Absence of Mind restores human consciousness to its central place in the religion-science debate.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Robinson's new nonfiction work is drawn from her 2009 Terry lectures at Yale. More precisely, they are "lectures on religion in the light of science and philosophy." The charge is ambitious, and Robinson brings to the task a suitably wide-ranging perspective. She takes aim at the modern scholarly propensity to debunk, a practice she calls "flawed learnedness." It pitches out the babies of human insight with the bathwater of the past, preferring what she calls "parascience," a kind of pseudoscience that prizes certainty. This "parascience" is a latecomer in human thought, the product of only the last 150 years or so. Because it closes off questions, it's not even scientific. Nor does it allow space for the human mind and all the mind has produced in history and civilization. This is heady stuff that will particularly appeal to those familiar with the history of ideas and the many thinkers she cites, and to anyone willing to ponder broadly and humanistically about imponderable matters. Those who savor Robinson's clear prose will also be gratified; her mind, in thought, is elegant.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"'Robinson makes the case with exceptional elegance and authority - the authority not only of one of the unmistakably great novelists of the age but of a clear and logical mind that is wholly intolerant of intellectual cliche... This book has a greater density (and sophistication) of argument than many three times its length; but it is one of the most significant contributions yet to the current quarrels about faith, science and rationality.' (Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Daily Telegraph) 'I'm enjoying arguing and agreeing with Marilynne Robinson's Absence of Mind.' (Zadie Smith, The Observer) 'Robinson's argument is prophetic, profound, eloquent, succinct, powerful and timely.' (Karen Armstrong, The Guardian) 'I have barely scratched the surface of this dense and yet endlessly entertaining little book. Marilynne Robinson is herself the best evidence of her own thesis - the exceptional mystery of the human mind'. (Bryan Appleyard, Literary Review) 'I enjoyed reading Absence of Mind. The reason: it is always a pleasure to keep company with a person who takes ideas seriously.' (Siri Hustvedt, Financial Times) 'Robinson is one of the greatest Christian thinkers alive today... Absence of Mind is a slim but compelling volume.' (Luke Coppen, Catholic Herald)"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (June 28, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300171471
• ISBN-13: 978-0300171471
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.5 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #267,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the bestselling novels Home, Gilead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), Housekeeping, and two books of nonfiction, Mother Country and The Death of Adam. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 121 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Affirmation of mind April 20, 2010

By R. Taggart

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

In quintessential Robinsonian non-fiction style (intelligent, well-read, affirmative, sarcastic), Marilynne Robinson refutes an atheism which posits itself as scientific. The book is not a vindication of religion or of theology, per se, but rather a rejection of what Robinson calls the "parascientific" nature of writings which seek to deny much of human experience. It is an affirmation of the complexity of the mind and of existence. My least favorite chapter was "The Freudian Self," but it was insightful in its own right. "The Strange History of Altruism" and "Thinking Again" were both very good. Fans of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett will find something worth considering in this tendentious yet radiant prose.

74 of 97 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Take That, Reverend Paley May 11, 2010

By Ben B. Barnes

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This little volume by an accomplished novelist ("Gilead," "Housekeeping," "Home") is her erudite and intriguing venture into philosophy and metaphysics, taking the Good Housekeeping broom to the likes of Freud and Nietzsche while seeming to be cautiously protective of spirituality in general, Descartes and Jung in particular.

The work, published by Yale Press, consists of four loosely coupled essays, any one of which can stand alone, titled "On Human Nature," "The Strange History of Altruism," "The Freudian Self," and "Thinking Again."

In attempting to find a pithy phrase to convey the thrust of Robinson's work, I am of necessity reduced to oversimplification. Suffice it to say she agrees with the position which I believe has been stated repeatedly and effectively by Professor Seale, that science is only a tool which we use to chip away at the shadows, never an end or a solution in itself.

One of Robinson's paragraphs may replace Mark Twain's account of Tom whitewashing the fence as my favorite ever. From "Thinking Again:"

". . . What is man? One answer on offer is, An organism whose haunting questions perhaps ought not to be meaningful to the organ that generates them, lacking as it is in any means of "solving" them. Another answer might be, It is still too soon to tell. We might be the creature who brings life on this planet to an end, and we might be the creature who awakens to the privileges that inhere in our nature - selfhood, consciousness, even our biologically anomalous craving for "the truth" - and enjoys and enhances them. Mysteriously, neither possibility precludes the other. . . ."

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars To force the mind to do its own thinking July 23, 2010

By Gordon Hill

Format:Hardcover

It was Whitehead, as I recall, who said, "The sole purpose of reading is to force the mind to do its own thinking." Absence of Mind can do that. Whether you agree with the premises, observations and conclusions may be less important than that this book can, if you read it, without prejudice, intent on considering her journey through human nature and the exploration of what it is to be fully human.

My five is the result of a three (for content) plus a two for her causation of me to consider possibilities I would not have explored in idle moments.

The only thing missing, for me, is a recommended reacing list to augment her revelations of the "read with caution" examples.

56 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars In Defense of Consciousness June 27, 2010

By David Cook

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It could be argued that like the American constitution, Culture relies for it's checks and balances on three branches: science, the humanities, and religion. Unbalanced, religion falters into inquisitions and holy wars; science, into eugenics and bell curves; the humanities, into übermenchen and madmen. As Aristotle's virtues rested in moderation, as Buddhism clings to the middle way, so must Culture find and maintain its equilibrium. At present, however, this equilibrium is disturbed. While hard science transforms matter into miracles, soft science maligns philosophy and religion, transforming the miracle of mind into matter if not dust, banishing the supernatural while highlighting the unnatural--the twentieth century having witnessed the ultimate flourishing of unnatural death to date.

ABSENCE OF MIND: the Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self by Pulitzer prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson provides a thoughtful case helping to restore cultural balance. She coins parascience to describe the theories of "self-declared rationalists" spreading the gospel of "objectivity" to reduce people into objects. The reasoning of her polemic is acute as she vivisects arguments to sweep aside the cultural wonders of consciousness and the human mind. She ridicules "the assumption that humankind is itself fearful, irrational, deluded and self-deceived, excepting, of course these missionaries of enlightenment [the parascientists themselves]." Always brilliant, Robinson is at times ironic, at times laugh-aloud funny. Her wit, intelligence and incisiveness seriously contest the notion that those disguising themselves in the wool of science have any monopoly on reason, logic or truth.... At its best, her prose captures the consciousness of self and what it means to be human.

ABSENCE OF MIND is four chapter defense of the human mind: "On Human Nature," exposes and criticizes modernity's theme that the mind, beguiled by evolutionary forces and a paucity of perception, cannot be trusted. " The Strange History of Altruism," questions the tendency to rationalize and spirit away human compassion on the wings of insect models. "The Freudian Self", places Freud's sexually- beleaguered unconscious mind (again, a mind discrediting human thought) in the social context of the hysteria and denial engendered by antisemitic, pre-holocaust Europe. Finally "Thinking Again" argues for the primacy of the "history of human thought" and its "ancient instinct" to ask the "greatest questions," a glory that cannot be reduced or constrained by the inadequate, parochial theories of parascience, a term that deserves to find its way into the common vocabulary of our culture, separating the dregs of ideology from the fine wine of science. Read more ›

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Where are we again? April 14, 2011

By T. Bachman

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Not being a huge fiction buff, I first became aware of Marilynne Robinson upon reading her incisive and deflating review of Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion", published in Harper's Magazine, in 2006. Agreeing with everything she said there, it was with great excitement that I opened up "Absence of Mind".

The book tempered my excitement. It is not that Robinson is off the mark in her criticisms of a fanatical (not to say idiotic) scientism which views every aspect of the universe as reducible to quarks or genes. Her skepticism is much needed, and is actually more scientific in spirit than the anti-religion polemics of the silly dogmatists-masquerading-as-scientists she targets. While there are some problems in her arguments (e.g., implausibly suggesting that Phineas Gage's behaviour may have changed not because an iron spike went through his head and caused brain damage, but because he resented having the accident), I think the biggest problem is her prose - which I am actually embarrassed to criticize, since one of her novels won a Pulitzer Prize.

But it is a problem nonetheless, at least in a collection of essays like this. I am not sure if Robinson actually speaks as she writes, or if, wandering into perhaps new territory, she has tried to compensate for a feeling of insecurity in the area of philosophical discussion. But her prose is often laborious, vague, fairly convoluted, and diffuse. Because her arguments actually boil down to a concrete and cogent state, I believe the prose with which she expresses them here should have been likewise concrete and cogent. Sadly, though I read with full focus, I often found myself wondering, "where are we again...? What is her point again...? What's the thesis statement she's trying to support...?... Where have we wandered off to..?".

This is a shame, because the pseudo-macho clods she takes aim at (Dawkins, Dennett, et al) present their genuinely inane arguments about religion with great clarity, briskness, and force. This is a big reason for their popularity (the other big reason seems to be widespread vapidity). But here, in a book whose ultimate arguments have enough merit to warrant a similarly large audience, Robinson meanders. Of course, there are passages of literary, even flowery, beauty in "Absence of Mind", but that hardly scores her points in a situation like this, because often, the beauty seems to arise from a kind of mystery about what the actual meaning of the sentence is, or at least, its relationship to the claim she is trying to support. The beauty would have been well-placed in a novel. Here, it too often obscures well-taken points.

I believe that a good literary guide for Robinson, in this arena anyway, is the British philosopher John Gray. He has made many of the same criticisms of the Dawkins crowd as Robinson has (so much so, that I wonder if Robinson has read Gray). But his more concrete, more concise prose is better suited to such discussions.

In short, the book makes some good arguments against professional atheism and scientism. But can you actually hear them through the literary noise, and then follow them, marking each step along the way? It's difficult here, but needn't have been. Read more ›