Dr. Ernest Becker (September 27, 1924, Massachusetts - March 6, 1974, Vancouver, British Columbia) was a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scientific thinker and writer.
Becker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Jewish immigrant parents. After completing military service, in which he served in the infantry and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he attended Syracuse University in New York. Upon graduation he joined the US Embassy in Paris as an administrative officer. In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology. He completed his Ph.D. in 1960. The first of his nine books, Zen, A Rational Critique (1961) was based on his doctoral dissertation. After Syracuse, he became a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC (Canada).
Becker came to the recognition that psychological inquiry inevitably comes to a dead end beyond which belief systems must be invoked to satisfy the human psyche. The reach of such a perspective consequently encompasses science and religion, even to what Sam Keen suggests is Becker's greatest achievement, the creation of the "science of evil." In formulating his theories Becker drew on the work of Soren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Erich Fromm, and especially Otto Rank. Becker came to believe that a person's character is essentially formed around the process of denying his own mortality, that this denial is necessary for the person to function in the world, and that this character-armor prevents genuine self-knowledge. Much of the evil in the world, he believed, was a consequence of this need to deny death.
Because of his breadth of vision and avoidance of social science specialization, Becker was an academic outcast in the last decade of his life. It was only with the award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his 1973 book, The Denial of Death (two months after his own death from cancer at the age of 49) that he gained wider recognition. Escape From Evil (1975) was intended as a significant extension of the line of reasoning begun in Denial of Death, developing the social and cultural implications of the concepts explored in the earlier book. Although the manuscript's second half was left unfinished at the time of his death, it was completed from what manuscript existed as well as from notes on the unfinished chapter.
The Ernest Becker Foundation [1] is devoted to multidisciplinary inquiries into human behavior, with a particular focus on contributing to the reduction of violence in human society, using Becker's basic ideas to support research and application at the interfaces of science, the humanities, social action and religion.
Some of the above information is from the EBF website and used by permission.
Becker also wrote The Birth and Death of Meaning which gets its title from the concept of man moving away from the simple minded ape into a world of symbols and illusions, and then deconstructing those illusions through his own evolving intellect.
Flight From Death (2006) is a documentary film directed by Patrick Shen, based on Becker's work, and partially funded by the Ernest Becker Foundation
读毕此书,叹为观止,从此不再看心理学方面的书。——吴思 确实是一本不错的书,看序言就很受启发。后面的,得多读几遍,才有感悟。 人民出版社出哲学书,还是挺有震撼力的。 译者也真够权威,看得开。
评分我正在读这本书的原版,有时会将汉译本拿来比对,于是发现几处译文颇令我困惑。 比如第二章第三节“死亡恐惧的消失”第一段,汉译本为: “然而,随着儿童的成长,恶梦越来越频繁地出现,而某些儿童的恶梦又比另一些更多。” 原文为:Yet, the n...
评分读毕此书,叹为观止,从此不再看心理学方面的书。——吴思 确实是一本不错的书,看序言就很受启发。后面的,得多读几遍,才有感悟。 人民出版社出哲学书,还是挺有震撼力的。 译者也真够权威,看得开。
评分我得说,这本书的阅读体验是充满挑战性的,它拒绝给你任何简单的慰藉或一锤定音的结论。我感觉自己像是在一个巨大的、布满古老壁画的地下墓穴中探险,光线忽明忽暗,你必须全神贯注,否则就会错过墙角那些刻着极其关键的符号。作者的行文风格极其跳跃,他能在前一页还是对古希腊哲学家某种生命观的严谨考据,下一页就突然切换到一段充满魔幻现实主义色彩的现代都市寓言,将个体在钢筋水泥丛林中的疏离感与永恒的命题联系起来。这种跨越时空的对话,初读时会让人感到困惑,仿佛在同时倾听多条互相干扰的广播频道。但坚持读下去后,你会发现,正是这种看似不协调的碎片化叙事,最贴切地反映了我们身处的世界——一个由无数破碎信息和不同时间线交织构成的巨大拼贴画。这本书的价值不在于提供答案,而在于它构建了一种全新的提问框架,迫使你重新审校你对“存在”的定义。读完后,我感觉自己对周遭事物的敏感度都提高了,对那些习以为常的循环和重复产生了强烈的疏离感,这是一种令人不安,却又无比清醒的状态。
评分坦白讲,这本书的学术气息是相当浓厚的,甚至在某些章节,我不得不借助网络工具去理解作者引用的那些晦涩难懂的典籍和理论模型。它不是那种能在咖啡馆里闲适翻阅的消遣之作,更像是需要一张大桌子铺开,旁边备着厚厚的笔记本来梳理脉络的学术研讨材料。我特别欣赏作者在处理不同文化背景下的死亡观念时所展现出的那种克制而尊重的态度,没有将任何一种体系置于高位进行审判。他如同一个技艺高超的织工,将东方神秘主义的循环观、西方启蒙运动的线性进步史观,以及现代科学对生命边界的界定,巧妙地编织进同一个宏大的讨论结构里。其中关于“意义的熵减”这一概念的推导,逻辑链条之严密,令我叹为观止,尽管过程艰涩,但一旦理解,便会感到一种豁然开朗的智力愉悦。这本书对阅读者的耐心和知识储备有着极高的要求,但对于那些热衷于哲学思辨和历史溯源的深度读者来说,它无疑是一座亟待攀登的高峰。
评分这本厚重的精装书,封面设计得极为简约,黑色的底子上只有一行苍劲有力的白色隶书体标题,让人在书店的货架上瞥一眼,便觉心头一紧,仿佛被某种古老的、沉重的使命感攫住。我最初是抱着一种审视的态度翻开它的,毕竟在这个信息爆炸的时代,一本敢于直面如此宏大主题的作品,往往容易流于空泛或故作高深。然而,开篇的几章,作者便展现出一种近乎偏执的细腻,他并非直接探讨“终结”本身,而是巧妙地将视角拉回到那些在时间洪流中试图留下痕迹的个体身上。那些关于遗忘的恐惧、关于记忆如何成为对抗虚无的最后堡垒的探讨,尤其触动人心。作者的笔触时而如同手术刀般精准地剖析人类心理的幽微之处,时而又化为史诗般的叙事,描绘文明在漫长岁月中留下的残骸与辉煌的交织。我印象最深的是其中一段对“不朽的幻觉”的描绘,那种建立在艺术、爱情或意识形态之上的脆弱防御机制,被揭示得淋漓尽致,让人在阅读时不由自主地反思自己生命中那些自以为坚不可摧的支撑点。这本书的结构如同一个精密的迷宫,层层深入,每走一步都伴随着对自我认知边界的拓展,绝非轻松的读物,但其带来的精神上的震撼与回味却是持久而深刻的。
评分这是一部极具野心的作品,作者似乎试图以一己之力,建立起一座横跨人类文明所有重要思想流派的知识桥梁。我发现作者在引用文学典故和艺术鉴赏方面,其广度令人咋舌,从古代的史诗残篇到当代实验艺术的解构,无一不被纳入其宏大论述的棋盘之中。这本书的阅读体验,更像是在参与一场顶级智者之间的沙龙辩论,只不过辩论的主题是永恒的、无可回避的那个终极议题。作者行文时,偶尔会流露出一种略带傲慢的自信,仿佛他已经比我们更早地看穿了时间的本质,而我们只是在跟随他的指引,试图窥视那被遮蔽的真相。虽然这种“导师”式的口吻偶尔会让人有些不适,但不得不承认,他引导我们所到达的那些思想高地,确实是常人难以企及的。总而言之,这本书的阅读过程是一场严酷的智力马拉松,它检验的不仅是你的理解力,更是你面对生命终极困境时的心智韧性。它不适合寻求简单答案的人,但对于那些渴望进行一场深刻的自我对话的求知者而言,它是一份沉甸甸的馈赠。
评分这本书给我带来的最直接感受是“沉重”与“光亮”的辩证统一。它的文字风格是极其富有节奏感的,作者善于使用长句和排比,营造出一种庄严的、近乎吟诵的氛围,仿佛在耳边低语着宇宙深处的秘密。但有趣的是,在探讨生命终结的阴影时,作者却总能精准地捕捉到那些微小、近乎于偶然的生命瞬间——比如清晨第一缕穿过窗帘的阳光,孩子无忧无虑的笑声,或者一次不期而遇的善意——并赋予它们一种超越性的意义。这些瞬间,如同深海中的磷光,虽然无法驱散整体的黑暗,却足以证明光的存在。我尤其喜欢他描述“告别”的段落,那种处理得当的哀伤并非软弱,而是一种对“存在过”这一事实的最高致敬。这本书最终指向的,与其说是对虚无的恐惧,不如说是一种对当下、对每一个被赋予的“现在”的极致珍视。它没有给我提供一个逃避的出口,而是将我牢牢地固定在“此刻”,要求我以最饱满的姿态去体验生命的所有面向。
评分看的pdf 每每自己没看懂的就给了低分,这样是不是不好。。再读再读
评分一本值得再三阅读的书。
评分生存的意义
评分道理横铺面大,观点也立体深刻,就是读起来比较吃力,消化比较缓慢。这种书可能都是这样吧,需要花个半年时间慢慢啃食,隔几年重新读又会有新的营养。
评分引起我强烈共鸣的是导言…越到后面就越艰涩难懂。我想原著语言也许难,但翻译也应该是个问题。有空还是看看原著吧。大概就能知道是谁的问题了~
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