Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious MindDeceit, lying, and falsehoods lie at the very heart of our cultural heritage. Even the founding myth of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Adam and Eve, revolves around a lie. We have been talking, writing and singing about deception ever since Eve told God, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Our seemingly insatiable appetite for stories of deception spans the extremes of culture from King Lear to Little Red Riding Hood, retaining a grip on our imaginations despite endless repetition. These tales of deception are so enthralling because they speak to something fundamental in the human condition. The ever-present possibility of deceit is a crucial dimension of all human relationships, even the most central: our relationships with our very own selves. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 52
... ideas in psychology , in- deed , in human affairs , and David Smith's Why We Lie is an excellent synthesis of this crucial topic . The biology is up - to - date and accu- rate , the psychological implications are clearly worked out ...
... idea of the unconscious on our intellectual landscape. It is certain, though, that many of Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind.
... ideas about the unconscious mind were far off the mark. Since the 1950s, experimental psychologists have developed ideas about unconscious mental processing that are very different from the Freudian ones, and nowadays, cognitive ...
... idea that we are incorrigibly aware of the full meaning of what we say is a hangover from the antiquated, Cartesian view that the mind is transparent. These considerations open an extremely important, but all too often neglected, aspect ...
... ideas that might, at first glance, seem completely unrelated to one another, that makes this book worth reading. A book purporting to be scientific, but which builds arguments on what may seem to them to be the flimsiest of foundations ...
Contents
9 | |
29 | |
The Evolution of Machiavelli | 50 |
The Architecture of the Machiavellian Mind | 79 |
Social Poker | 104 |
Hot Gossip | 122 |
Machiavelli on the Couch | 148 |
Conspiratorial Whispers and Covert Operations | 168 |
Descartess Demon | 195 |
Index | 233 |
Other editions - View all
Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind David Livingstone Smith No preview available - 2004 |