The Secular Mind

by Robert Coles

Book Overview

Does the business of daily living distance us from life's mysteries? Do most Americans value spiritual thinking more as a hobby than as an all-encompassing approach to life? Will the concept of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691058059
• ISBN13: 9780691058054
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

quirky insight into fundamental questions

I am a Robert Coles fan. I remember him as the most inspiring lecturer at Harvard with his quiet and sincere voice. That said I have found most of his writing a disappointment. Finally, with "The Secular Mind" Coles has written a book that is accessible; it may not be as stirring as his lectures (which might show just how important his actual voice is), but at least with this book the reader can get a sense of the quirky and exciting way Coles strives to address the most basic human questions.The reason this book succeeds more than his others is, I think, because it retains much of the spirit of his lectures. Coles takes a few simple questions: what is the difference between the religious life and the secular life? When, how and why has the secular way of thinking become more dominant in the last two hundred years? How do we deal with these changes given our shared desire for faith and purpose? Coles then consider how many thinkers he respects, including William Carlos Williams, Anna Freud, Dorthy Day, and Walker Percy, have responded to these questions. Part of what is unique about Coles is that he had the chutzpah to seek out and spend plenty of time with these thinkers. The result is a book that is intimate as well as profound. But this book is not without its faults. I don't understand why Coles insists on making his books so inaccessible. For one thing, this book lacks any kind of index. And then there are his sentences. He can't resist the parenthetical. At every turn there is a clause within a clause. This sentence about George Elliot is typical: "She was, of course, decades ahead of Freud, in her acknowledgement, that way, of the unconscious, its raw power constantly assertive, no matter our notion of ourselves as in (conscious) control of what we say or do." (p. 65) On balance, Coles is an interesting thinker, willing to raise the most profound personal questions about faith and purpose, and this book is a nice taste of his way of talking and thinking.