Our species is misnamed. Though sapiens define human beings as “wise” what humans do particularly well is to prospect the future. We are Homo Prospectus. In this ebook, Martin E. P. Seligman, Peter Railton, Roy F. Baumeister, and Chandra Sripada argue it is anticipating and analysing future possibilities for the guidance of thought and action that is the cornerstone of human success.
Much of the history of psychology has been led by a framework in which people’s behavior is driven by past history (memory) and present circumstances (perception and motivation). Homo Prospectus, (PDF) reevaluates this idea, pushing the focus to the future front and center and opening discussion of a new field of Psychology and Neuroscience.
The authors probe into four modes in which prospection operates: the implicit mind, deliberate thought, mind-wandering, and collective (social) imagination. They then examine prospection’s role in some of life’s most enduring questions: Why do people think about the future? What is the nature of intuition, and how might it function in ethics? Do we have free will? How does emotion function in human psychology? Does our creativity change with age? Is there a common causal process in different psychopathologies?
In this extraordinary convergence of research in philosophy, statistics, decision theory, psychology, and neuroscience, Homo Prospectus shows how human prospection fundamentally redesigns our understanding of key cognitive processes, thereby enhancing individual and social functioning. It aims to galvanize interest in this new science from scholars in psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience as well as an educated public curious about what makes humanity what it is.
Reviews
“An important insight about how the mind works presented with a string of fascinating discoveries and a refreshingly interdisciplinary approach.” — Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, and author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works
“As a whole, the chapters cover a huge wealth of issues psychological, philosophical, and neuroscientific all pertaining to prospection in varying degrees. Each chapter is chock-full of insightful observations that help build the case for prospection as a significant psychological phenomenon. As such, the volume provides a major contribution to psychological science.” — PsycCRITIQUES
“Homo Prospectus is a revolutionary ebook that capitalizes on 21st-century fMRI studies and user-friendly philosophy to create a paradigm shift that may make the ebook the most influential psychological textbook since Skinner’s Science and Human Behavior. The concept of prospection developed in Homo Prospectus, of being drawn by the future, instead of-as both Freud and Skinner would have it-being driven by the past, shows a true paradigm shift not only for academics and clinicians but for the general reader.” — George E. Vaillant, MD, Author of Triumphs of Experience
“One of the greatest satisfactions in the life of the mind is learning something that feels deeply true, even familiar, that we never actually thought before when an ebook articulates intuitions that we never quite knew we had. Homo Prospectus does just this. . . . The authors are outstanding philosophers and psychologists who write beautifully. The ebook convincingly shows that fast intuitive thinking is in fact comprehensive, complicated, and well-informed, and applies this insight to domains ranging from morality to successful aging.” — Phoebe Ellsworth, Ph.D., Frank Murphy Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Law, University of Michigan Law School
NOTE: The product includes the ebook, Homo Prospectus in PDF. No access codes are included.
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