Life Conduct In Modern Times

This award-winning book investigates the critique of psychoanalysis formulated by the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) over some five decades, systematically examining Jasper’s arguments against Freud and his followers. The book traces the medico-historical roots of Jasper’s criticism of psychoanalysis and places it within the framework of scientific theory before devoting itself extensively to medico-ethical aspects of the controversy, which are ultimately treated in terms of a history of mentalities.

One of the first questions that must naturally occur to every writer who deals with the subject of this book is, what influence mere discussion and reasoning can have in promoting the happiness of men. The circumstances of our lives and the dispositions of our characters mainly determine the measure of happiness we enjoy, and mere argument about the causes of happiness and unhappiness can do little to affect them. It is impossible to read the many books that have been written on these subjects without feeling how largely they consist of mere sounding generalities which the smallest experience shows to be perfectly impotent in the face of some real and acute sorrow, and it is equally impossible to obtain any serious knowledge of the world without perceiving that a large proportion of the happiest lives and characters are to be found where introspection, self-analysis and reasonings about the good and evil of life hold the smallest place. Happiness, indeed, like health, is one of the things of which men rarely think except when it is impaired, and much that has been written on the subject has been written under the stress of some great depression. Such writers are like the man in Hogarth's picture occupying himself in the debtors' prison with plans for the payment of the National Debt. There are moments when all of us feel the force of the words of Voltaire: 'Travaillons sans raisonner, c'est le seul moyen de rendre la vie supportable.'

In this book Revered Swami Vireswarananda Maharaj gives an authentic articulation of the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda and of their relevancy in solving the spiritual problems that face us in our individual and collective lives. It contains many illuminating insights into spiritual matters and also provide practical hints to live spiritual life in a modern setting.

There are many methods that use historical semantic analysis as the key to unlocking an understanding of past epochs, concepts in the humanities, and socio-historical events, including: conceptual history, lexicometry and socio-historical discourse semantics. As diverse as these approaches are, stemming as they do from varying academic traditions, together they have proven that language is more than just a passive medium to transport meaning. Words and their meanings on the one hand, and the changes in those meanings on the other, influence socio-cultural structures, orders of knowledge, ideologies, and mentalities. In turn, socio-political achievements, ideological orientation, novel ways of thinking, and modifications of scientific knowledge and cultural practices inform and change the way words are used, leading to neologisms and semantic shifts as well as to expanded or narrowed meanings. Tracing the changes in the meaning of conversatio and its modern language derivatives, this book illustrates the productivity of historical semantic analysis for cultural studies.