Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Peterson,Jordan B.

• ISBN13: 9780415922227
• ISBN10: 0415922224
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-03-24
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Why have people from different cultures and eras formulated myths and stories with similar structures? What does this similarity tell us about the mind, morality, and the structure of the world itself?Maps of Meaningoffers a provocative new hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths and religious stories have long narrated. Drawing insights from the worlds of neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Jordan B. Peterson argues that myths and religious stories have a structure determined by the nature of the mind, and play a key role in the regulation of human emotions. Ambitious in scope and daring in its exploration of ideas,Maps of Meaningpresents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.

Table of Contents

Preface: Descensus ad Inferos

Maps of Experience: Object and Meaning

Maps of Meaning: Three Levels of Analysis

Normal and Revolutionary Life: Two Prosaic Stories

Neuropsychological Function: The Nature of the Mind

Mythological Representation: The Constitutent Elements of Experience

Apprenticeship and Enculturation: Adoption of a Shared Map

The Appearance of Anomaly: Challenge to the Shared

Map

Introduction: The Paradigmatic

Structure of the Known Particular Forms of Anomaly

The Rise of Self-Reference, and the Permanent

Contamination of Anomaly with Death

The Hostile Brothers: Archetypes of Response to the Unknown

Introduction: The Hero and the Adversary

The Adversary: Emergence Development and Representation

Heroic Adaptation: Voluntary Reconstruction of the Map of Meaning

Conclusion: The Divinity of Interest

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