Full Description
Thinking Systematics (TSS) is conceived as a "toolkit for the mind" — designed to improve how we think about the world, analyze information and pursue our goals. Smith and Hayslip make a compelling argument that individual thinking and collective decision making are being systematically constrained within limits imposed by outmoded forms of cognition and the determination of privileged elites to perpetuate an unsustainable status quo. The dialectical reasoning advocated in this wide-ranging book aims to overcome those limits and to allow a much more profound understanding of the human condition in the 21st century. Mainstream problem-solving focuses almost exclusively on scientific/technological fixes on one side and moral/cultural remedies on the other. But to comprehend our world adequately far more serious attention must be given to the specifically social, economic and political arrangements shaping our lives. Once embraced by growing numbers of people, TSS strategies, methods and habits of thought can contribute significantly to a "new common sense" — one adequate to meeting the immense challenges facing humanity in our era.
Contents
Preface; Prologue I: : On Human Thinking, Society and a Decaying Culture ; Prologue II: : Alarming Facts about Our Perilous Age; Prologue III: : Observations on Human Potential ; Introduction ; Part I: : Thinking Systematics (TSS 1); Chapter One: : The Need in Human Thinking ; Chapter Two: : Dialectical Reason: A Brief Historical Survey; Chapter Three: : TSS and Dialectical Logic; Chapter Four: : TSS and the Environmental Crisis - A Case Study ; Part II: : Taking the Social Seriously (TSS 2); Chapter Five:: From Philosophy to Social Theory; Chapter Six: : Faith, Reason and Morality; Chapter Seven: : Evald Ilyenkov: Dialectics of the Ideal; Chapter Eight:: Dialectical Monism versus Dualism ; Part III: : Taking Socialism Seriously (TSS 3); Chapter Nine: : Marxist Socialism and TSS Dialectical Materialism ; Chapter Ten: : Arguments for Socialism; Epilogue: : TSS and Human Progress; Appendix: A TSS Seminar
