Richard Tarnas

Richard Tarnas is an American cultural historian and philosopher, born in Geneva to American parents, who teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. His book The Passion of the Western Mind (1991) is a narrative history of Western thought from ancient Greece through Christianity, the Scientific Revolution and modern science to postmodernism, widely read as an introduction. He argues that modern thought has divided a meaning-seeking self from a disenchanted cosmos. His later book Cosmos and Psyche (2006) defends archetypal astrology, which most scientists and philosophers reject.

Key ideas

• Western thought can be told as one dramatic story, from the Greek mind through Christianity to modern science and postmodernism.
• Modernity split a human subject full of meaning from a cosmos seen as meaningless.
• Postmodern thought has unsettled faith in any single objective world view.
• He proposes a 'participatory' view in which the mind takes part in disclosing the meaning of the world.

Major works

• The Passion of the Western Mind (1991)
• Prometheus the Awakener (1995)
• Cosmos and Psyche (2006)

In the Book corner

• The Passion of the Western Mind 1991 · Intermediate
  A single-volume narrative of Western thought from ancient Greece to the late twentieth century, written for students and general readers. Tarnas tells…

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