PT II —

II. Brown, Process and the Authentic Life Jason W. Brown, Process and the Authentic Life. Toward a Psychology of Value, Frankfurt / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Process Thought II, 2005. (700 p. ; ISBN 3-937202-73-0 ; 119 €) The thesis advanced in this book is that feeling and cognition actualize through a process that originates in older brain formations and develops outward through limbic and cortical fields through the self-concept and private space into (as) the world. An iteration of this transition deposits acts, objects, feelings and utterances. Value is a mode of conceptual feeling that depends on the dominant phase in this transition : from desire through interest to object worth. Among the topics covered are subjective time and change, the epochal nature of objects and their temporal extensibility and the evolution of value from inorganic matter into organic form. The theory of microgenesis informs this work. According to this theory, acts and objects evolve in milliseconds through phases that replicate patterns in forebrain evolution. The progression in the actualization of the mind/brain state is from archaic to recent in brain formation, from unity to diversity, from past to present and from mind to world. An account is given of the diversity of felt experience avoiding the reductionist moves characteristic of biological materialism and the inherent dualism of psychoanalytic and related theories. This book is intended for any reader interested in the psychology of the inner life and philosophy of mind, including philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists and others with an interest in problems of value and moral feeling. Table of contents Foreword (Maria Pachalska) Author’s Preface Introduction Chapter 1. Microgenetic theory : reflections and prospects Chapter 2. The nature of the symptom Chapter 3. Microgenetic approach to time and memory Chapter 4. What is an object ? Chapter 5. Self, subject and subjectivity Chapter 6. Affect and idea Chapter 7. Value in mind and nature Chapter 8. A world of value Chapter 9. From drive to desire Chapter 10. Custom and evolutionary naturalism Chapter 11. Actualization and causality Chapter 12. Autonomy and compassion Chapter 13. The grounds of rational decision Chapter 14. What is a good act ? Chapter 15. The ideal Chapter 16. From intention to obligation Chapter 17. Taste and manners Chapter 18. Moral conflict Chapter 19. Morality and suicide Chapter 20. Luck and the pursuit of happiness Chapter 21. Efficacy and illusions Chapter 22. Thought and action Chapter 23. Moral dimensions of aesthetic experience Chapter 24. The illusory and the real Chapter 25. Wholeness and the creative life Chapter 26. The nature of existence Chapter 27. Reflections on Immortality References