The Birth and Death of Meaning, Ernest Becker
The Birth and Death of Meaning, Ernest Becker
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The Birth and Death of Meaning
An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man; 2nd Edition

Author: Ernest Becker

Narrator: Chris Sorensen

Unabridged: 8 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/24/2020


Synopsis

The Birth and Death of Meaning uses the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and psychiatry to explain what makes people act the way they do.

About Ernest Becker

After receiving a PhD in cultural anthropology from Syracuse University, Ernest Becker (1924-1974) taught at the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State College, and Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is survived by his wife, Marie, and a foundation that bears his name-The Ernest Becker Foundation.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Leon on October 12, 2014

An absolutely amazing work. In the introduction, Becker sets out to answer the question "Why do people do what they do?" What follows, across 200 pages, is a remarkably well-constructed and well-written study on the development of selfhood and culture. Becker's work is truly interdisciplinary and dr......more

Goodreads review by Alins on December 07, 2010

After reading "The Birth and Death of Meaning" along with "The Denial of Death", Ernest Becker quickly became one of my personal heroes. Who else would have had the guts to write something so penetrating, so frightening, so threatening to the mechanisms we use every day to cope with life? Becker mak......more

Goodreads review by Rudy on June 20, 2017

I remember really liking this book when I was in undergrad and feeling very inspired about its message on how to find meaning in the modern world. Recently, I tried re-reading the first few chapters and felt very disenchanted by what turned out to be a horribly facile take on evolution and the cogni......more

Goodreads review by Tyler on March 19, 2020

Becker uses a multidisciplinary approach to explore questions of human meaning and existence through the lens of culture. Here is an outline of his arguments: PASS THE PARADOX PLEASE Becker begins by laying out a psychological theory of man predicated on Existentialist schools of thought (Kierkegaard)......more

Goodreads review by Shafaat on February 15, 2018

You can read texts of great literature, the novelists, the existentialists etc; to understand what is the human condition. But in my opinion, no amount of reading fictional literature can compare to what psychology and anthropology can offer on this topic, probably because they have a more systemati......more