Title: The necessity of experience /
Authors: Reed, Edward
Publisher: Yale University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: Mental Processes; Experiential learning; Experience Psychological aspects.; Human information processing; Schemas (Psychology)
Abstract: Primary experience, gained through the senses, is our most basic source for understanding reality and learning for ourselves. Our culture, however, favors the indirect knowledge gained from secondary experience, in which information is selected, modified, packaged, and presented to us by others. In this controversial book, Edward S. Reed warns that second-hand experience has become so dominant in our technological workplaces, schools, and even homes that primary experience is endangered. Reed calls for a better balance between firsthand and secondhand experience, particularly in our social institutions. He contends that without opportunities to learn directly, we become less likely to think and feel for ourselves.
Contents: Prologue: A Plea for Experience -- 1. Have You Ever Been Experienced? Philosophy Meets the Real World -- 2. The Search for a Philosophy of Experience -- 3. Fear of Uncertainty and the Flight from Experience -- 4. The Degradation of Experience in the Modern Workplace -- 5. Sharing Experience -- 6. Experience and Love of Life -- 7. Experience and the Birth of Hope -- Epilogue: Fighting for Experience.