Prof Linda Zagzebski – The Two Greatest Ideas: Grasping the Universe and our own Minds
Can the human mind grasp the Universe, and can it grasp itself?
The Two Greatest Ideas is a breath-taking examination of the two greatest ideas in human history. The first is the idea that the human mind can grasp the universe. The second is the idea that the human mind can grasp itself. Acclaimed philosopher Linda Zagzebski shows how the first unleashed a cultural awakening that swept across the world in the first millennium BCE, giving birth to philosophy, mathematics, science, and virtually all the major world religions. It dominated until the Renaissance, when the discovery of subjectivity profoundly transformed the arts and sciences. This second great idea governed our perception of reality up until the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Zagzebski explores how the interplay of the two ideas led to conflicts that have left us ambivalent about the relationship between the mind and the universe, and have given rise to a host of moral and political rifts over the deepest questions human beings face. Should we organize civil society around the ideal of living in harmony with the world or that of individual autonomy? Zagzebski explains how the two greatest ideas continue to divide us today over issues such as abortion, the environment, free speech, and racial and gender identity.
This panoramic book reveals what is missing in our conception of ourselves and the world, and imagines a not-too-distant future when a third great idea, the idea that human minds can grasp each other, will help us gain an idea of the whole of reality.
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About the speaker:
Linda Zagzebski is George Lynn Cross Research Professor emerita and Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics emerita at the University of Oklahoma. She has authored many books in epistemology, philosophy of religion, and ethics. Her most recent books include The Two Greatest Ideas: How Our Grasp of the Universe and Our Minds Changed Everything (Princeton University Press, 2021), and two collections of her papers published by Oxford: Epistemic Values (2020), a collection of her epistemology papers, and God, Knowledge, and the Good (2022), a collection of her philosophy of religion papers.
Her newest book, Omnisubjectivity: An Essay on God and Subjectivity, will be published this summer by Oxford University Press. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, past President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and past President of the American Philosophical Association Central Division. She has held many lectureships, including the Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews, the Soochow Lectures in Taipei, the Romanell Lectures of Phi Beta Kappa, the Joseph Lectures at the Gregorian University, Rome, the Cardinal Mercier Chair Lectures at the University of Leuven, the Wilde Lectures in Natural Religion at Oxford, and the Donnellan Lectures at Trinity College, Dublin.
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Speaker
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Linda ZagzebskiProfessor emerita
Linda Zagzebski is George Lynn Cross Research Professor emerita and Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics emerita at the University of Oklahoma. She has authored many books in epistemology, philosophy of religion, and ethics. Her most recent books include The Two Greatest Ideas: How Our Grasp of the Universe and Our Minds Changed Everything (Princeton University Press, 2021), and two collections of her papers published by Oxford: Epistemic Values (2020), a collection of her epistemology papers, and God, Knowledge, and the Good (2022), a collection of her philosophy of religion papers.
Her newest book, Omnisubjectivity: An Essay on God and Subjectivity, will be published this summer by Oxford University Press. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, past President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and past President of the American Philosophical Association Central Division. She has held many lectureships, including the Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews, the Soochow Lectures in Taipei, the Romanell Lectures of Phi Beta Kappa, the Joseph Lectures at the Gregorian University, Rome, the Cardinal Mercier Chair Lectures at the University of Leuven, the Wilde Lectures in Natural Religion at Oxford, and the Donnellan Lectures at Trinity College, Dublin.
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