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The subtitle to this excellent text is The Invention of the Modern Mind … odd on a first reading—is the mind invented? Is it not just a given? Or, might it be a construct, so to speak, a child of society, religion, cultural mores, and the observing and naming self? All of which is to say that this text takes the reader on a journey from understanding the vital principle of life as the immortal rational soul—in Western societies—to the contemporary understanding of mind as a vital principal in an alive body without the promise of or recourse to any transcendent reality. It's sometimes a bumpy ride; the author outlines, starting with Thomas Hobbs, the fierce