Nonrational Logic In Contemporary Society

"Nonrational Logic in Contemporary Society explores modern examples of beliefs that defy logic but nevertheless are enthusiastically embraced by legions of contemporary people living in technologically advanced societies. The appeal of nonrational logic is based upon C.G. Jung's ideas regarding archetypes, considered to be unconscious thought and behavioural patterns universal to all of humanity and expressed in dreams, art, religion, and reports of supernatural and paranormal experiences such as the belief in UFOs, conspiracy theories associated with child sacrifice and devil worship, lizard people who secretly rule the world, and internet demons whom many insist are real. C.G. Jung insisted that archetypal reality must be acknowledged for what it is: expressions of universal truths about the human condition. Nonrational Logic includes a multitude of examples from world folklore and reports of traditional customs from around the world collected in the multivolume anthropological classic, The Golden Bough, by James Frazer, comparing these traditional reports with contemporary ones to underscore the human psyche's obsessive desire to embrace the fantastic, the extraordinary, and the unbelievable. Nonrational Logic in Contemporary Society is important reading for analytical psychologists, Jungian psychotherapists, and other professionals seeking to understand how prevalent nonrational thinking is in modern societies and how it reflects traditional expressions"--

Nonrational Logic in Contemporary Society explores modern examples of beliefs that defy logic but nevertheless are enthusiastically embraced by legions of contemporary people living in technologically advanced societies.The appeal of nonrational logic is based upon C.G. Jung’s ideas regarding archetypes, considered to be unconscious thought and behavioural patterns universal to all of humanity and expressed in dreams, art, religion, and reports of supernatural and paranormal experiences such as the belief in UFOs, conspiracy theories associated with child sacrifice and devil worship, lizard people who secretly rule the world, and internet demons whom many insist are real. C.G. Jung insisted that archetypal reality must be acknowledged for what it is: expressions of universal truths about the human condition. Nonrational Logic includes a multitude of examples from world folklore and reports of traditional customs from around the world collected in the multivolume anthropological classic, The Golden Bough, by James Frazer, comparing these traditional reports with contemporary ones to underscore the human psyche’s obsessive desire to embrace the fantastic, the extraordinary, and the unbelievable. Nonrational Logic in Contemporary Society is important reading for analytical psychologists, Jungian psychotherapists, and other professionals as well as the general public seeking to understand how prevalent nonrational thinking is in modern societies and how it reflects traditional expressions.

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A unique hybrid of text and readings, this book combines the major writings of sociology′s core classical and contemporary theorists with an historical as well as theoretical framework for understanding them. Laura Desfor Edles and Scott A Appelrouth provide not just a biographical and theoretical summary of each theorist/reading, but an overarching scaffolding which students can use to examine, compare and contrast each theorists′ major themes and concepts. No other theory text combines such student-friendly explanation and analysis with original theoretical works. Key features include: * Pedagogical devices and visual aids - charts, figures and photographs - to help summarize key concepts, illuminate complex ideas and provoke student interest * Chapters on well-known figures, such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Parsons and Foucault as well as an in-depth discussion of lesser known voices, such as Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, WEB Du Bois, and Leslie Sklair * Photos of not only the theorists, but of the historical milieu from which the theories arose as well as a glossary at the back

In The World as Idea Charles P. Webel presents an intellectual history of one of the most influential concepts known to humanity—that of "the world." Webel traces the development of "the world" through the past, depicting the history of the world as an intellectual construct from its roots in ancient creation myths of the cosmos, to contemporary speculations about multiverses. He simultaneously offers probing analyses and critiques of "the world as idea" from thinkers ranging from Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine in the Greco-Roman period to Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida in modern times. While Webel mainly focuses on Occidental philosophical, theological, and cosmological notions of worldhood and worldliness, he also highlights important non-Western equivalents prominent in Islamic and Asian spiritual traditions. This ensures the book is a unique overview of what we all take for granted in our daily existence, but seldom if ever contemplate—the world as the uniquely meaningful environment for our lives in particular and for life on Earth in general. The World as Idea will be of great interest to those interested in the "world as idea," scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and intellectual history to political and social theory, and students studying philosophy, the history of ideas, and humanities courses, both general and specialized.

This volume begins by challenging the bases of the recent scientization of sociology. Then it challenges some of the ambitious claims of recent theoretical debate. The author not only reinterprets the most important classical and modern sociological theories but extracts from the debates the elements of a more satisfactory, inclusive approach to these general theoretical points.

This book explores the main currents of European thought between 1350 and 1992, which it approaches in two principal ways: culture as produced by place and the progressive unmooring of thought from previously set religious and philosophical boundaries. The book reads the period against spatial thought’s history (spatial sciences such as geography or Euclidean geometry) to argue that Europe cannot be understood as a continent in intellectual terms or its history organized with respect to traditional spatial-geographic categories. Instead we need to understand European intellectual history in terms of a culture that defined its own place, as opposed to a place that produced a given culture. It then builds on this idea to argue that Europe’s overweening drive to know more about humanity and the cosmos continually breached the boundaries set by venerable religious and philosophical traditions. In this respect, spatial thought foregrounded the human at the unchanging’s expense, with European thought slowly becoming unmoored, as it doggedly produced knowledge at wisdom’s expense. Michael J. Sauter illustrates this by pursuing historical themes across different chapters, including European thought’s exit from the medieval period, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the Industrial Revolution, and war and culture, offering a thorough overview of European thought during this period. The book concludes by explaining how contemporary culture has forgotten what early modern thinkers such as Michel de Montaigne still knew, namely, that too little skepticism toward one’s own certainties makes one a danger to others. Offering a comprehensive introduction to European thought that stretches from the late fourteenth to the late twentieth century, this is the perfect one-volume study for students of European intellectual history.