We live on the shoulders of giants. Based on the achievements of ten selected people, the philosopher and bestselling author Michael Schmidt-Salomon traces the intellectual and cultural (higher) development of humanity towards more freedom and new knowledge. The big names do not stand alone, but for a central theme. The author explains the somewhat arbitrary selection – and puts it into perspective by mentioning other important people in all chapters who made a decisive contribution to the respective topic.
Using the examples of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Carl Sagan and Alfred Wegener, the revolution in the physical world view is traced from the interior of matter through the dynamics of the earth to the most distant universe. Epicurus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and Karl Popper are concerned with the art of living, ethics, society and critical epistemology. And without Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking insights, the evolutionary world view would not have emerged, which Julian Huxley, co-founder and first Director General of UNESCO, expanded into an evolutionary humanism. The author himself later expanded on this concept. He provides many interesting details, but not in a backward-looking way. Rather, the book is a contribution to enlightened reflection and orientation in a present day marked by multiple crises and dangerous forms of irrationalism. Rüdiger Vaas
Michael Schmidt-Salomon
The evolution of thinking
The modern worldview – and who we have to thank for it
Piper, 384 pp., € 24,–
ISBN 978-3-492072-62-5