The Extended Human
The Extended Human
Some ideas are old. Some are ancient. The ones that survive thousands of years of scrutiny tend to be the ones worth paying attention to.
We live in an age of information overload — endless content, endless opinions, endless advice. Most of it will be forgotten within a week. The thinkers gathered here are different. Their ideas have been tested across centuries, across cultures, across the full range of human experience. They were not writing self-help books. They were grappling with the deepest questions of human existence.
What each of them offers is not a programme to follow but a way of seeing — a set of lenses through which to examine your own life more clearly. Used alongside modern science, they form something more valuable than either alone: a coherent philosophy of living well, for longer.
The Swiss psychiatrist who mapped the unconscious mind — the Shadow, the Persona, the archetypes, and the Self. His concept of individuation — becoming who you truly are — remains the most compelling framework for the second half of life.
Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher. His private journal — Meditations — was never intended for publication. It is perhaps the most honest record of a human being trying, daily, to live up to his own values. A practical manual for equanimity, purpose, and the management of the mind.
Viennese psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and founder of Logotherapy. Frankl's work argues that the primary human drive is not pleasure or power, but meaning. His book Man's Search for Meaning — written from the experience of Auschwitz — is one of the most important texts of the twentieth century.
Mathematician, philosopher, Nobel laureate, and one of the twentieth century's great minds. His Conquest of Happiness is a bracingly clear-eyed analysis of what actually makes people unhappy — and what can be done about it. Unsentimental, wise, and surprisingly funny.
The former slave who became one of the greatest Stoic teachers. His Enchiridion on the dichotomy of control is the foundation of modern cognitive behavioural therapy.
Coming soonFather of American psychology. His work on habit, attention, and the will to believe connects nineteenth-century philosophy directly to modern neuroscience.
Coming soonThe inventor of the essay form and the first modern thinker to take his own inner life as a serious subject of inquiry. Deeply relevant to ageing, identity, and self-acceptance.
Coming soon