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This is an astonishing book, for its brevity, readability, depth, and importance for our time. In the short space of only 75 pages, Varela turns on its head most of today's common sense about where ethical behavior comes from, how we prepare for ethical action, and how wise and ethical people learn to be that way.
The exploration Varela reports in the three lectures reproduced here are based on recent biological evidence. In this regard, he speaks not as writer, journalist, or gifted amateur, but as one of the leading authorities on the science of mind in the world - a giant. For those who may be tempted to ignore this book because of another reviewer's dismissive comments, I recommend a quick visit, through Google, to one of the many web sites that speak of his education, accomplishments, and world-wide reputation. Try: [...]
In the second major inquiry that the book reports, Varela takes his question about ethical behavior from an inquiry into scientific and Western Philosophical traditions and connects them to an informed examination of Eastern Wisdom traditions. He is an authority there as well, a practicing Buddhist for many years, and also for many years one of the chief scientific advisors to the Dali Lama.
Varela is better known for two other important contributions - as co-author with Humberto Maturana of the ground-breaking Tree of Knowledge, in which they construct a radically new interpretation of biology that makes sense of language and cognition as biological, not metaphysical phenomena, and as the lead co-author of The Embodied Mind, in which the authors offer a new foundation for studies of the mind. The lectures offered here do not go over the same ground as the two other books, although Varela is standing on what he did before. This book is asking more sweeping questions about the construction of the human condition than did the others.
I give this elegant little book my very highest recommendation.
- Series: Writing Science
- Paperback: 96 pages
- Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (June 1, 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0804730334
- ISBN-13: 978-0804730334
- Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 5 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#318,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1825 in History & Philosophy of Science
- #1277 in Popular Psychology Counseling
- #1700 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
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