Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

Overview

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 structure of the world itself? From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415922227
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/24/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	564
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Jordan B. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and Professor at the University of Toronto and was formerly at Harvard University. He has published numerous articles on drug abuse, alcoholism and aggression.

Table of Contents

Preface: Descensus ad Inferos

1. Maps of Experience: Object and Meaning

2. 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

3. Apprenticeship and Enculturation: Adoption of a Shared Map

4. 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

5. 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

Editorial Reviews

A far-reaching, illuminating study synthesizing research and analysis from many disciplines<-->neuroscience, archaeology, literature, religion, mythology<-->to delineate, or the primary structures of human behavior and motivation. Peterson, a clinical psychologist and professor at the U. of Toronto, offers bountiful food for thought, for both professional and lay readers, in writing that is clear and jargon-free, but nevertheless conveys the complexity and subtlety of his thinking. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"The book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul-searching and experience...with patients who include prisoners, alcoholics and the mentally ill." — Montreal Gazette
"This is not a book to be abstracted and summarized. Rather it should be read at leisure...and employed as a stimulus and reference to expand one's own maps of meaning. I plan to return to Peterson's musings and mapping many times over the next few years." — Am J Psychiatry
"...a brilliant enlargement of our understanding of human motivation...a beautiful work." — Sheldon H. White, Harvard University
"...unique...a brilliant new synthesis of the meaning of mythologies and our human need to relate in story form the deep structure of our experiences." — Keith Oatley, University of Toronto

From the Publisher