The Farther Reaches of Human Nature

You might have heard of "Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs" beginning with food, shelter etc. In that pyramid of needs, you couldn't strive for spirituality, for example, until your shelter needs were met.This book is different. It is a collection of later essays mostly about spiritual needs. In these essays, the pyramid is flipped-- as if the spiritual needs are the base of the pyramid rather than food and shelter.Maslow comments on things other psychologists in the sixties were commenting on: existentialism, creativity..Existentialism here is defined as the study of human need for meaning. Where some use the term existentialism to mean the position that humans need meaning and there is no inherent meaning (authors like Camus, Kafka and Douglas Adams), Maslow agrees with Viktor Frankl in saying that life does have inherent meaning and Existentialism is the study of what that meaning is and how to get it. Hence the title, "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature." Human Nature is not fallen, doomed, or inherently separate from meaning, but human nature is capable, naturally drawn and inherently connected.By the way this book is not available for kindle. Why not? Please click the button if you'd like to see this as a kindle book. It certainly deserves to be read by a new generation of readers, at a time when inherent meaning is again questioned.

This book is a collection of previously published articles and other material. I had read parts of The Farther Reaches of Human Nature back in the mid-1980s, along with his Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences, which I really enjoyed back then. Despite my being a grad student in economics, I thought Maslow had something to tell us, and I believe he still does today. I've recently returned to Father Reaches (and I just bought a copy for my son) and at this point I feel it contains Maslow's best statements on self-actualization, creativity, transcendence, and metamotivation.

I can always count on amazon.com to offer exactly what I need as soon as possible.Maslow is terribly important to me...I dealt with Z-theory organizations three decades ago. I had a Z theory organization (with robotics ) at that time. My brother, president of a consulting firm, was trying to get Z theory organization at several US companies plus one in Germany and one in Italy.This is so important to Maslow's higher forms of being. Without Maslow, I was lost.By the way, his wife mentioned three more levels of Maslow...in an article after he died. Amazing! It just has not been released to date.

Abraham Maslow's understanding of human values, such as Truth, Goodness, Beauty and Justice rises above all writers I have read. This book is extremely brave and forthright, as it contains Maslow's most insightful notes and they were published by his wife, Bertha, after his death! This is a master work and challenging to the psychological and philosophical and scientific professions. Maslow shows how the human values of being are also FACTS! His work can be scientifically replicated and verified according to the most rigorous scientific methods of the 19th century. Maslow said that education without values is highly destructive and dangerous. So, what are they teaching at Harvard that caused the global financial meltdown which has thrown millions of people out of work? Maslow's work is a classic--a must read--by anyone who cares, loves and wants to advance the forward days of humankind.

This book was unfortunately not finished by Maslow. The first part of the book is a philosophically profound book about human nature, that answered many ontological and epistemological questions for me.The first part of the book was extremely well written, and it contained truly revolutionary ideas. Most of us think of Maslow's contribution as "the pyramid of the hierarchy of needs", since that is probably what is usually taught about him. But this book is much more than that, and it delves insightfully into the realization of the full human potential, including knowing, perceiving, being, needs, metaneeds, aesthetics, etc.Because the book is an unedited, unfinished draft of a book, the second part reads like it. It is difficult to enjoy the last half of the book because it reads as the personal notes of a writer planning his essay. Despite its "annotated outline" format, one can still get glimpses of sheer genius in those notes, and it truly is a shame and a loss for our intellectual inheritance that the book wasn't finished. Of course, as unedited notes often do, these contain material that is deleterious to the overall quality of Maslows well-thought ideas. The editors (or perhaps un-editors) failed in this respect.It is remarkable how timeless, elegant, and structured the first finished part of the book is, in contrast with some of the "culturally dated" second part of the book.None-the-less, this book is well worth the time to read it. It is a brilliant piece of work, and Maslow is truly one of the great psychologist-philosophers of the 20th century.

My brother is a major on Psychology and absolutely loves this book!! Thankyou!!

Helps lay a foundation to getting your life back.

This book in particular never ceases to inspire interesting thoughts. A refreshing perspective even if one does not agree with Maslow's approach.