Key Ideas in Human Thought

Book by Kenneth McLeish

This book can be characterized by a phrase from the editor's introduction: "thoughts on human thoughts." McLeish, an experienced author in the humanities, enlisted two science consultants and an impressive group of 35 experts to write the entries for this volume. All but one are affiliated with British institutions. The writers represent diverse fields of inquiry: anthropology, drama, engineering, physics, philosophy, sociology, and more. Each selected the main concepts in his or her discipline. The result is an eclectic browse through 2,500 key ideas in current western academic thinking. Each of the brief entries is signed.

Concepts are listed alphabetically. Entries such as Art for Art's Sake require only one paragraph; Space and Time, three pages. The term or phrase is defined and placed in historical context, and contributors to its development are mentioned. References to related entries appear at the end of essays, and concepts within the text treated elsewhere in the volume are in boldface type. Further reading is listed at the end of some entries. The entry phrase for each concept was chosen at the discretion of the author. Phrases such as No-Ownership Theory of the Self and inverted entries such as Other Minds, Problem of illustrate the arbitrary selection of terminology. Alternate and related forms are not entered, although they may be treated in the text. An index would have been an invaluable addition to this thought-provoking volume.

This work does not replace the five- volume standby, The Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Scribner, 1973), which is more extensive but not as current. Key Ideas has entries for such topics as Sociobiology, which have emerged since the Scribner dictionary was published, but that work covers such concepts as Yin and Yang and Volunteerism, which are surprisingly missing from Key Ideas. The new edition of The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Houghton, 1993) is aimed at a distinctly North American audience. Unlike it, Key Ideas doesn't cover specific events but aims for the philosophical underpinnings of Western intellectual thought. These works complement each other. Key Ideas in Human Thought is a tantalizing work that will be an interesting addition for private as well as reference collections.