Psyche-Logia: Ernest Becker on Why Death Troubles Modern Man

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Ernest Becker on Why Death Troubles Modern Man

Taken from, The Denial of Death, x ii

This is an interesting observation, especially with the rise of neo-atheism, it will be interesting to see if the denial of death increases within the culture. Perhaps a return to ancient traditions, even while opposing modern conceptions of truth and reality would alleviate modern man's anxiety in considering his inevitable fate.

-Laurence

Apology

(n.)

early 15c., "defense, justification," from Late Latin apologia, from Greek apologia "a speech in defense," from apologeisthai "to speak in one's defense," from apologos "an account, story," from apo- "from, off" (see apo-) + logos "speech" (see lecture (n.)).

The original English sense of "self-justification" yielded a meaning "frank expression of regret for wrong done," first recorded 1590s, but this was not the main sense until 18c. The old sense tends to emerge in Latin form apologia (first attested in English 1784), especially since J.H. Newman's "Apologia pro Vita Sua" (1864).

Online Etymology Dictionary

On the University

“If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society... It is the education which gives a man a clear, conscious view of their own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant.”

― John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University

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Saturday, August 1, 2015

Ernest Becker on Why Death Troubles Modern Man