- Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Arkana; New edition edition (7 Dec 1989)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140191925
- ISBN-13: 978-0140191929
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.7 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 545,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Koestler examines the notion that the parts of the human brain-structure which account for reason and emotion are not fully coordinated. This kind of deficiency may explain the paranoia, violence, and insanity that are central parts of human history, according to Koestler's challenging analysis of the human predicament.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
An important books that trashes Behavioural psychology and highlights some of the problems that still remain in Darwin's theory. Very readable and highly recommended.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
As a young, lost university student, I find this book so sacred! Arthur Koestler's alternative hypothesis to Darwin's evolution theory( The 'Holon' sub-struture and its hierarchy, eg: A human is a holon, a whole individual yet just a sub-structure of society too) is excellent, and so is his criticisms of the behaviourist theory. I cannot say in so few words, how this book has changed my perspective on life and the reason for our existence, Questioning whether we were just a big mistake of evolution! Although it written quite a while ago, this book is still relevant today. Quite a excellent read for budding scientists and philosiphers, although it creates many questions as it answers( I couldn't believe it when the last page so suddenly appeared). This book emcompasses so many various subjects about human life and their roots(emotion,power,sex,war, etc) it is difficult to stress them all. However this is one of those books you HAVE to read. Quote: (on the brain) "we have still only learned to utilise a very small fraction of its estimated hundreds thousand million circuits....it is entirely unprecedented that evolution should provide a species with a organ which it does not know how to use;a luxury organ..."
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I only heard about this Arthur Koestler character last year when I read a few reviews that described him as a rapist, a forgotten fashion and a quack proponent of a neo-Lamarckian Creationism, like one of those New Age gurus one falls for during late adolescence, a philosophical equivalent of the glandular fever, but to whom, once read, one develops a lifelong immunity. Koester, according to the hand clappers, has sunk into oblivion quicker than a pebble in a pond (in other words, he was rubbish).
I bought this book anyway, not just because of the great Gilbert Ryle and Sting title, but because I was bored and when I'm bored I click away on Amazon. Rather than having a little giggle with the rest of today's self assured journalist writers, I was pleasantly surprised by this Arthur Koestler. I will not go into a review here, rather, I will just like to say that this Koestler guy can think deep and weighty imponderables. I do not agree with his clunking pessimism, but I have read a ton of academic guys, like Pinker and Dennett, and the rest, and I can confidently say that this Arthur Koestler bloke is, if not better, then on a par with the `phalanx of mediocrity'. Pinker has just published an optimistic book on human nature, now in the Ghost in the Machine, there is a chapter called The Predicament of Man (you can find it on line), I have yet find an answer to Koestler simple questions. Steve Pinker, to my mind anyway, just ignores the `truths' that Koestler lists in this chapter. He wrote it 40 years ago and it's the freshest look on our sorry state I have come across. No wonder it is ignored so loudly, Koestler was that smart and there is nothing New Age about his writings.
In our culture, if you get a job writing book reviews in the New York Times or The Guardian, then you have `made it'. Arthur Koestler also dabbled in reviews, but that was one of his hobbies, rather than his 'look at me' job. Before his sojourn in the news papers, Arthur Koestler wrote a book comparable to Orwell and Huxley and The Darkness at Noon is only dated because it was of its time. To my mind, Darkness is a better piece than Huxley and Orwell.
One more moan about this fallen into oblivion business I mentioned above. The mathematician, Clifford Pickover, recently wrote a book called A Beginner's Guide to Immortality: Extraordinary People, Alien Brains, and Quantum Resurrection, apart from the New Age title, Pickover listed the top ten bestselling authors from about 100 years ago and they are now forgotten. Happens to us all I suppose.
I bought this book anyway, not just because of the great Gilbert Ryle and Sting title, but because I was bored and when I'm bored I click away on Amazon. Rather than having a little giggle with the rest of today's self assured journalist writers, I was pleasantly surprised by this Arthur Koestler. I will not go into a review here, rather, I will just like to say that this Koestler guy can think deep and weighty imponderables. I do not agree with his clunking pessimism, but I have read a ton of academic guys, like Pinker and Dennett, and the rest, and I can confidently say that this Arthur Koestler bloke is, if not better, then on a par with the `phalanx of mediocrity'. Pinker has just published an optimistic book on human nature, now in the Ghost in the Machine, there is a chapter called The Predicament of Man (you can find it on line), I have yet find an answer to Koestler simple questions. Steve Pinker, to my mind anyway, just ignores the `truths' that Koestler lists in this chapter. He wrote it 40 years ago and it's the freshest look on our sorry state I have come across. No wonder it is ignored so loudly, Koestler was that smart and there is nothing New Age about his writings.
In our culture, if you get a job writing book reviews in the New York Times or The Guardian, then you have `made it'. Arthur Koestler also dabbled in reviews, but that was one of his hobbies, rather than his 'look at me' job. Before his sojourn in the news papers, Arthur Koestler wrote a book comparable to Orwell and Huxley and The Darkness at Noon is only dated because it was of its time. To my mind, Darkness is a better piece than Huxley and Orwell.
One more moan about this fallen into oblivion business I mentioned above. The mathematician, Clifford Pickover, recently wrote a book called A Beginner's Guide to Immortality: Extraordinary People, Alien Brains, and Quantum Resurrection, apart from the New Age title, Pickover listed the top ten bestselling authors from about 100 years ago and they are now forgotten. Happens to us all I suppose.
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