Maps of Meaning
Upcoming & Recent Lectures:
December 15th, 2012: Big Ideas: Jordan Peterson on Redemption and Psychology in Christianity
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief is a book, a university course, a 14-part TV series, and several TV Ontario Big Ideas lectures.
The book, the course, and the TV lectures are devoted to people who are interested in existential meaning and the nature of good and evil.
Dr. Peterson's Professor Page
You can find Maps of Meaning at these book stores
- Amazon.com
- Hardcover
- Paperback
- Kindle
- Apple iBooks Store
Abstract: This course is based on the book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. Maps of Meaning lays bare the grammar of mythology, and describes the relevance of that grammar for interpretation of narrative and religion, comprehension of ideological identification, and understanding of the role that individual choice plays in the maintenance, transformation and destiny of social systems.
Professor: Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
TA: Alex Guindon
Related Publications:
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief - Precis - 1999
Abstract:
It is not clear either that the categories "given" to us by our senses, or those abstracted out for us by the processes of scientific investigation, constitute the most "real" or even the most "useful" modes of apprehending the fundamental nature of being or experience. It appears, instead, that the categories offered by traditional myths and religious systems might play that role, despite the initial unpalatability of such a suggestion. Such systems of apprehension present the world as a place of constant moral striving, conducted against a background of interplay between the "divine forces" of order and chaos (Peterson, 1999a).
Neuropsychology and Mythology of Motivation for Group Aggression - 1999
Abstract:
A. B_____v has told how executions were carried out at Adak-a camp on the Pechora River. They would take the opposition members "with their things" out of the camp compound on a prisoner transport at night. And outside the compound stood the small house of the Third Section. The condemned men were taken into a room one at a time, and there the camp guards sprang on them. Their mouths were stuffed with something soft and their arms were bound with cords behind their backs. Then they were led out into the courtyard, where harnessed carts were waiting.
Commentary - Metaphoric threat is more real than real threat - 2000
Abstract:
Dreams represent threat, but appear to do so metaphorically more often than realistically. The metaphoric representation of threat allows it to be conceptualized in a manner that is constant across situations (as what is common to all threats begins to be understood and portrayed). This also means that response to threat can come to be represented in some way that works across situations. Conscious access to dream imagery, and subsequent social communication of that imagery, can facilitate this generalized adaptive process, by allowing the communicative dreamer access to the problem solving resources of the community.
The Functional Neuroanatomy and Psychopharmacology of Predatory and Defensive Aggression - 2004
Abstract:
Human neuroscientists are frequently cortex-centric, concentrating on the large prefrontal, temporal and parietal cortices that distinguish man most clearly from the animals – or, if not that, studying the structure and function of the underlying limbic system. But the really important circuitry, phylogenetically ancient and extremely sophisticated, is deep down in the central nervous system, near the brain stem. When the chips are down, it is the hypothalamus that is in control, not the cortex (and, if not the hypothalamus, then the periaqueductal gray (PAG), or something else equally demanding, interesting, and unpleasant).
Play and the Regulation of Aggression - 2005
Abstract:
Since the 1960's, our culture has leaned powerfully towards the developmental philosophy of Rousseau: children are naturally self-regulating, creative, positive and good. Only the arbitrary forces of culture make them bad. Carl Rogers (1989, p. x), a psychologist perhaps more responsible than any other for the promotion of Rousseau's viewpoint, makes the following observation: Man is a "basically trustworthy member of the human species, whose deepest characteristics tend toward development, differentiation, cooperative relationships... whose impulses tend naturally to harmonize into a complex and changing pattern of self- regulation.
Peacemaking among higher-order primates - 2006
Abstract:
Facts are facts. Opinions about the facts differ. It is therefore the job of the peacemaker to bridge the gap between opinions, and in that manner, bring about reconciliation. This much seems obvious. But what if the facts themselves differ? What if the basis for the disagreement is so profound that the world arrays itself differently for each antagonist – and worse: what if the disagreement extends beyond the antagonist, to the peacemaker, who sees the facts themselves in a manner that neither antagonist can accept? What then?
Religion, Sovereignty, Natural Rights, and the Constituent Elements of Experience - 2006
Abstract:
It is commonly held that the idea of natural rights originated with the ancient Greeks, and was given full form by more modern philosophers such as John Locke, who believed that natural rights were apprehen- sible primarily to reason. The problem with this broad position is three- fold: first, it is predicated on the presumption that the idea of rights is modern, biologically speaking (only twenty three hundred years sep- arates us from the Greeks, and three hundred from the English liber- als); second, it makes it appear that reason and right are integrally, even causally, linked; finally, it legitimizes debate about just what rights might be, even in their most fundamental essence.
A Psycho-ontological Analysis of Genesis 2-6. - 2007
Abstract:
Individuals operating within the scientific paradigm presume that the world is made of matter. Although the perspective engendered by this presupposition is very powerful, it excludes value and subjective experience from its fundamental ontology. In addition, it provides very little guidance with regards to the fundamentals of ethical action. Individuals within the religious paradigm, by contrast, presume that the world is made out of what matters.