Thomas Fuchs, "Defence of the human being; Foundations of an Embodied Anthropology"
"Verteidigung des Menschen; Grundlagen einer verkörperten Anthropologie" ((Suhrkamp Paperback Science 2311)
In his book, the Heidelberg philosopher, psychiatrist and psychotherapist Prof Thomas Fuchs defends a humanistic view of the human being. Not an abstract inwardness, disembodied consciousness or pure spirit are the guiding ideas of such a humanistic view of man, but his concrete bodily existence.
The author writes this typically philosophical book by beginning with an explanation of some controversial philosophical concepts, then using his additional training as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist to expand on these philosophical concepts and illustrate them with examples, and only then does he look for a better explanation for his main thesis than the scientific one. In doing so, he actually arrives at the best connection with my Universal Philosophy of Life (which is based on my Unified Physics) that I have read in today's philosophical literature.
If he enriches his main thesis with the Universal Hierarchy of energetic matter-mind quanta, he will also be able to simplify many of his previous arguments considerably. The concepts of corporeality and vitality that are most important to him will then appear directly as the natural creations based on the brain and super-brain quanta. The climax of his explanation of his main thesis, the recognition of the importance of the "cyclic time of life", also finds its natural basis in the Universal Time Scale of the Cosmic Hierarchy of the Solar System.
Thanks to the author's experience in psychiatry and psychotherapy, I also benefited from reading this book. It has motivated me to update my Unified Definition of Global and Individual Human Consciousness terminologically. This definition bases Global Consciousness on the Universal Creative Potential of Unified Physics, Quantum Creativity, and on its two inseparable creations, the spatial extension to Matter, and the temporal extension to Spirit. In my definition, Individual Consciousness is based on the corresponding relation of these three concepts (creativity, matter and spirit) for a living individual. In English I used the terms soul, body and mind. In German, however, only the first two of these terms were clear from the outset: "Seele" and "Körper". Instead of English "mind", I only found the German term "Verstand", which I was and still am not very happy with. Professor Fuchs' book gave me the impetus to use the term "Psyche" instead of "Verstand". For example, on page 266 of the book we read: "that we must understand the brain as a relational organ - as an organ of the psyche not as a supposedly localisable inner world, but of the psyche as an overarching, embodied and interactive life process."
Maybe also in English terminology we will agree soon to replace the term "mind" with the term "psyche".
