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Author: Scott Samuelson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640711X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.
Author: Scott Samuelson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640711X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Get Book
Book Description
This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.
Author: Scott Samuelson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022613041X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 231
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Book Description
This accessible and thought-provoking introduction to philosophy shows how the eternal questions can shed light on our lives and struggles. These days, we generally leave philosophical matters to professional philosophers. Scott Samuelson thinks this is tragic, for our lives as well as for philosophy. In The Deepest Human Life, he restores philosophy to its proper place at the center of our humanity, rediscovering it as our most profound effort toward understanding, as a way of life that anyone can live. Exploring the works of some of history’s most important thinkers in the context of the everyday struggles of his students, Samuelson guides readers through the most vexing quandaries of existence—and shows just how enriching the examined life can be. Samuelson begins at the beginning: with Socrates, and the method he developed for approaching our greatest mysteries. From there he embarks on a journey through the history of philosophy, demonstrating how it is encoded in our own personal quests for meaning. Through heartbreaking stories, humanizing biographies, accessible theory, and evocative interludes like “On Wine and Bicycles” or “On Zombies and Superheroes,” Samuelson invests philosophy with the personal and vice versa. The result is a book that is at once a primer and a reassurance—that the most important questions endure, coming to life in each of us. Winner of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities
Author: Harold S. Kushner
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0805241930
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
Offers an inspirational and compassionate approach to understanding the problems of life, and argues that we should continue to believe in God's fairness.
Author: Fergus Shanahan
Publisher: Liberties Press
ISBN: 1912589168
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
The practice of medicine has advanced dramatically in recent years, but the language used to discuss illness – by medical practitioners, patients and carers – has not kept pace. As a result, clinicians and, just as importantly, patients and their relatives and carers, are not able to communicate clearly in relation to illness. The upshot is misunderstanding and confusion on all sides. In this ground-breaking book, Dr Fergus Shanahan, an eminent gastroenterologist who has practised in Ireland, the United States and Canada, and published widely around the world, looks at memoirs of illness, and outlines the lessons we can learn from a better understanding of the words we use to describe illness. He looks at the ways in which language can act as a barrier with regard to illness, and proposes practical ways in which we can dismantle these barriers. The book is written for the general reader: as Dr Shanahan puts it himself, he is "enough of an expert to be wary of experts". The Language of Illness, part manifesto, part memoir, and part instruction manual, is an appeal for the use of clearer, more holistic language, by all those involved with, and affected by, illness. Like the great American poet-doctor William Carlos Williams, he aims to help us develop a new language by means of which we can develop a new way of living with illness – which is an integral part of the human condition. Put simply, it is a book for all those who care about caring.
Author: Paul Chaloux
Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
ISBN: 1644134225
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
Suffering is one of the most challenging and inescapable mysteries of life ��� even for the innocent. Thinkers have long been vexed by the idea that a good God permits suffering, and it has been a stumbling block for many souls striving to live lives of faith. But what if we've been looking at suffering improperly all this time? What if, instead of serving as evidence against God, suffering represented the very proof of a loving God? In this transformative and enlightening book, Dr. Paul Chaloux ��� adjunct professor of theology at the Catholic University of America ��� demonstrates that suffering is not retribution from an angry, vengeful God but the saving action of a loving God who directs us away from evil and toward eternal joy in Heaven. Educated in his own ���school of suffering,��� Dr. Chaloux explains the four tasks of suffering that are essential in the economy of salvation and why, if suffering were t
Author: Martin Hägglund
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1101873736
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 466
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Book Description
Winner of the René Wellek Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Millions, and The Sydney Morning Herald This Life offers a profoundly inspiring basis for transforming our lives, demonstrating that our commitment to freedom and democracy should lead us beyond both religion and capitalism. Philosopher Martin Hägglund argues that we need to cultivate not a religious faith in eternity but a secular faith devoted to our finite life together. He shows that all spiritual questions of freedom are inseparable from economic and material conditions: what matters is how we treat one another in this life and what we do with our time. Engaging with great philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel and Marx, literary writers from Dante to Proust and Knausgaard, political economists from Mill to Keynes and Hayek, and religious thinkers from Augustine to Kierkegaard and Martin Luther King, Jr., Hägglund points the way to an emancipated life.
Author: Elaine Eachus
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1665524200
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
‘’After a disquieting trip to Palestine in 2014, which was immediately followed by the Second Intifada in Israel, she was blown off her life’s course. In turmoil she read extensively looking for a refuge from the shock of her encounters. Rumi, Wendell Berry, Richard Rohr, Mary Oliver, Thomas Merton, the liberation theologians, and mystics lifted their lights for her. Better Than Right is one woman’s steps toward meaning. Definitely not a superhighway, her story is full of twists and turns, denoting her reflections and journey to make sense of life. She walks gingerly on a path that feels like a bewildered child caught in the crossfire of a bitter divorce. Her literary camera has both wide angle and close-up lenses to catch the sweeps and the detail of her journey on the third planet from the sun. Better Than Right invites you to see if her description resonates with your experience. Better still, does her light offer solace and hope for your next mile?
Author: Wren-Lewis, Sam
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447353579
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
We appear to have more control over our lives than ever before. If we could get things right – the perfect job, relationship, family, body and mind – then we’d be happy. With enough economic growth and technological innovation, we could cure all societal ills. The Happiness Problem shows that this way of thinking is too simplistic and can even be harmful: no matter how much progress we make, we will still be vulnerable to disappointment, loss and suffering. The things we do to make us happy are merely the tip of the iceberg. Sam Wren-Lewis offers an alternative process that acknowledges insecurity and embraces uncertainty. Drawing on our psychological capacities for curiosity and compassion, he proposes that we can connect with, and gain a deeper understanding of, the personal and social challenges that define our time
Author: Howard A. Husock
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1641770597
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180
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Book Description
Billions of American tax dollars go into a vast array of programs targeting various social issues: the opioid epidemic, criminal violence, chronic unemployment, and so on. Yet the problems persist and even grow. Howard Husock argues that we have lost sight of a more powerful strategy—a preventive strategy, based on positive social norms. In the past, individuals and institutions of civil society actively promoted what may be called “bourgeois norms,” to nurture healthy habits so that social problems wouldn’t emerge in the first place. It was a formative effort. Today, a massive social service state instead takes a reformative approach to problems that have already become vexing. It offers counseling along with material support, but struggling communities have been more harmed than helped by government’s embrace. And social service agencies have a vested interest in the continuance of problems. Government can provide a financial safety net for citizens, but it cannot effectively create or promote healthy norms. Nor should it try. That formative work is best done by civil society. This book focuses on six key figures in the history of social welfare to illuminate how a norm-promoting culture was built, then lost, and how it can be revived. We read about Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children’s Aid Society; Jane Addams, founder of Hull House; Mary Richmond, a social work pioneer; Grace Abbott of the federal Children’s Bureau; Wilbur Cohen of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare; and Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone—a model for bringing real benefit to a poor community through positive social norms. We need more like it.
Author: Stephen Bevans
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666714291
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
This book is a correspondence between two theologians and friends during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–21. In it the authors reflect on the nature of God, the efficacy of prayer, the value of experience, the nature of theology itself, the importance of Christian hope, and many other topics. The style is familiar and light, rich, and full of wisdom.
