Coming to Mind ─ Soul and Its Body

How should we speak of bodies and souls? In Coming to Mind, Lenn E. Goodman and D. Gregory Caramenico pick their way through the minefields of materialist reductionism to present the soul not as the brain’s rival but as its partner. What acts, they argue, is what is real. The soul is not an ethereal wisp but a lively subject, emergent from the body but inadequately described in its terms.

Rooted in some of the richest philosophical and intellectual traditions of Western and Eastern philosophy, psychology, literature, and the arts and the latest findings of cognitive psychology and brain science—Coming to Mind is a subtle manifesto of a new humanism and an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the human person. Drawing on new and classical understandings of perception, consciousness, memory, agency, and creativity, Goodman and Caramenico frame a convincing argument for a dynamic and integrated self capable of language, thought, discovery, caring, and love.

Lenn E. Goodman is professor of philosophy and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. His books include Creation and Evolution; Islamic Humanism; In Defense of Truth; Jewish and Islamic Philosophy: Crosspollinations in the Classic Age; Avicenna; On Justice; and Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. He lives in Nashville, TN. D. Gregory Caramenico is an independent scholar and researcher in New York City.