As a human being, we all have experienced different emotions and probably all of us at least once have felt or thought that life is not very easy to be lived to its fullest.
In ‘Problems of Living: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Cognitive-Affective Science’, Dan J. Stein has sagaciously attempted to elegantly disentangle the enigma of the human brain, mind, and mental disorders through an insightful comprehensive multidisciplinary approach. He has gleaned insights from philosophy, clinical psychiatry, basic neuroscience, and cognitive–affective science to lay a foundation to provide a ground to the big question of whether there should be some meaning hidden behind the concept of life and if so, can we really figure it out.
Right after a captivating book title that entice the readers into reading the book round the clock, the book starts with an excerpt from ‘The Labyrinth’ where a wingless human has got lost in a maze, looking desperately baffled, and trying to use all the knowledge she/he has obtained to find her/his way out of this perplexity.
Through nine very well-structured thought-provoking chapters of the book, the readers can identify themselves with Anthropos apteros that has a good deal of doubts and questions that made him feel lost. The readers will first be introduced to various metaphors and conceptual philosophical frameworks and paradigms required to move forward to the next chapters. Through a journey setting off from the human brain to the nature of mind, pleasure, happiness, pain, suffering, reason, passion, morality, free will and truth, flavored with the author’s personal experiences, Dan J. Stein holds an integrative position that encourages the readers to think laterally instead of dichotomously.
Resting on epistemology, metaphysics, neurophilosophy, psychiatry, and ethics, this book helps Anthropos apteros to attain a better sense of direction in order to get closer to solving the puzzle and developing some metaphors for life toward human flourishing.
Written in a fathomable style and showered with thousands of references, ‘Problems of Living: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Cognitive-Affective Science’ is a book that both newcomers and the experts in the field can make the most of.
