The Two Greatest Ideas: How Our Grasp of the Universe and Our Minds Changed Everything

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Two simple yet tremendously powerful ideas that shaped virtually every aspect of civilization

This book is a breathtaking examination of the two greatest ideas in human history. The first is the idea that the human mind can grasp the universe. The second is the idea that the human mind can grasp itself. Acclaimed philosopher Linda Zagzebski shows how the first unleashed a cultural awakening that swept across the world in the first millennium BCE, giving birth to philosophy, mathematics, science, and virtually all the major world religions. It dominated until the Renaissance, when the discovery of subjectivity profoundly transformed the arts and sciences. This second great idea governed our perception of reality up until the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Zagzebski explores how the interplay of the two ideas led to conflicts that have left us ambivalent about the relationship between the mind and the universe, and have given rise to a host of moral and political rifts over the deepest questions human beings face. Should we organize civil society around the ideal of living in harmony with the world or that of individual autonomy Zagzebski explains how the two greatest ideas continue to divide us today over issues such as abortion, the environment, free speech, and racial and gender identity.

This panoramic book reveals what is missing in our conception of ourselves and the world, and imagines a not-too-distant future when a third great idea, the idea that human minds can grasp each other, will help us gain an idea of the whole of reality.

Reviews

"A profoundly insightful and indeed magisterial new book. . . . [The Two Greatest Ideas] is a wild and informative ride through the centuries and up to what may intellectually come next in the human adventure. It was a marvel of an experience."---Tom V. Morris, Plato's Lemonade Stand: Stirring Change into Something Great
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Zagzebski offers a fascinating meta-level view of these two foundational ideas, taking readers on a journey that includes the many connections between cultural developments, not least the current politically polarized situation in the US. The book is well written and should be accessible to intelligent lay readers.

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"A brilliant, panoramic and original contribution to the history of ideas, providing a new framework that sheds light on many of our current social and political tensions."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

Author Bio

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is George Lynn Cross Research Professor Emerita and the Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics Emerita at the University of Oklahoma. Her many books include Virtues of the Mind, Exemplarist Moral Theory, and Epistemic Authority. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.