Seeking Meaning and Making Sense

Front Cover
Imprint Academic, 2008 - Philosophy - 148 pages

A collection of short essays that range across philosophy, politics, general culture, morality, science, religion and art, focusing on questions of meaning, value and understanding.

ENDORSEMENT BY

- Alan Massie

"Professor Haldane's essays are serious in the way that the great writers of the Scottish Enlightenment were serious. He asks what it means to be human in the twenty-first century, and what ethical obligations our idea of humanity imposes on us. They are provocative in the best, and only useful, sense of the word: inviting the reader to consider and respond to his arguments. Their range is wide, extending from a disquisition on the morality of stem-cell research to a very funny parody of 'The Da Vinci Code'."

THE TABLET REVIEW

The Tablet

- Christopher Howse

Jun 28, 2008

"Seeking Meaning and Making Sense [is] a series of 20 essays on philosophy that add up to an argument for the human usefulness of thinking methodically about cosmology, society, ethics, religion and art... Haldane's interests are wide, embracing popular culture, from the Exorcist to John Buchan, and taking in native thinkers from the Scottish Enlightenment ... [and] he is adept at relating the slippery field of aesthetics to a wider world view. ... These essays are entertaining [and] possess a flavour of humanity, openness, urbanity, and an underlying infectious optimism in taking the cosmos to be intelligible and ethics as possible."

THE CATHOLIC HERALD REVIEW

The Catholic Herald

- Jonathan Wright

Sep 11, 2008

From inside the book

Contents

The Search for Meaning
1
Making Sense of the Universe
9
Plain Talk and Common Sense Philosophy
17
Copyright

18 other sections not shown

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About the author (2008)

John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy, Head of the School of Philosophical and Anthropological Studies at the University of St. Andrews, and Fellow of the royal Society of Arts. He is an editor of the International Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge).

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