Symbol Philosophy And The Opening Into Consciousness And Creativity

Symbol Philosophy And The Opening Into Consciousness And Creativity PDF Author: Anton G. Hardy
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1477130683
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Anton Hardy received his doctorate in psychology from Clark University. Concerned about the path psychology was taking with its focus on “behavior,” he searched for the cause of this direction in the discipline’s philosophical assumptions. These stemmed from the paradigm of “Realism,” he found, a system that denigrated everything that was mental. Looking for a paradigm that would be friendlier to psychology’s human subject, he adopted the symbol philosophy of Ernst Cassirer. He applied this paradigm to psychology in his book Psychology and the Critical Revolution, and is elaborating its implications further in the present book. The author introduces the little-known symbol philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and demonstrates how it opens the door to mental life. In clear and readable prose, he shows how symbol philosophy enables us to understand “consciousness” and “creativity,” two subjects that have long been resistant to explanation. He explores such matters as the nature of our perceiving, the way in which our concepts are formed, and the role that language plays in our seeing and thinking. Overcoming traditional divisions between “objective” and “subjective,” “I” and “world,” and “mind” and “body,” he refers frequently to our everyday experience to validate his ideas. Not since Suzanne Langer’s Philosophy in a New Key has such a vigorous effort been made to bring Cassirer’s seminal ideas before the public. The result is a breath of fresh air for a psychology that is made shallow by a narrow scientism and a philosophy that is in danger of becoming irrelevant. The author writes for the general reader rather than the professional scholar, and his prose is highly engaging and readable.

Symbol Philosophy And The Opening Into Consciousness And Creativity

Symbol Philosophy And The Opening Into Consciousness And Creativity PDF Author: Anton G. Hardy
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1477130683
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Get Book Here

Book Description
Anton Hardy received his doctorate in psychology from Clark University. Concerned about the path psychology was taking with its focus on “behavior,” he searched for the cause of this direction in the discipline’s philosophical assumptions. These stemmed from the paradigm of “Realism,” he found, a system that denigrated everything that was mental. Looking for a paradigm that would be friendlier to psychology’s human subject, he adopted the symbol philosophy of Ernst Cassirer. He applied this paradigm to psychology in his book Psychology and the Critical Revolution, and is elaborating its implications further in the present book. The author introduces the little-known symbol philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and demonstrates how it opens the door to mental life. In clear and readable prose, he shows how symbol philosophy enables us to understand “consciousness” and “creativity,” two subjects that have long been resistant to explanation. He explores such matters as the nature of our perceiving, the way in which our concepts are formed, and the role that language plays in our seeing and thinking. Overcoming traditional divisions between “objective” and “subjective,” “I” and “world,” and “mind” and “body,” he refers frequently to our everyday experience to validate his ideas. Not since Suzanne Langer’s Philosophy in a New Key has such a vigorous effort been made to bring Cassirer’s seminal ideas before the public. The result is a breath of fresh air for a psychology that is made shallow by a narrow scientism and a philosophy that is in danger of becoming irrelevant. The author writes for the general reader rather than the professional scholar, and his prose is highly engaging and readable.

Tao of Philosophy

Tao of Philosophy PDF Author: Alan Watts
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462916732
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 117

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Book Description
The Tao of Philosophy is a literary adaptation of talks selected to introduce the new "Love of Wisdom" series by Alan Watts to today's audiences. The following chapters provide rich examples of the way in which the philosophy of the Tao is as contemporary today as it was when it flourished in China thousands of years ago. Perhaps most significantly, these selections offer modern society a clearer understanding of what it will take for a successful reintegration of humans in nature.

The Republican Character

The Republican Character PDF Author: Anton G. Hardy
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1493194941
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
An unsettling feature of our nations politics in the last fourteen years has been the behavior of Congressional Republicans. Mired in ideology and often disconnected from reality, they have repeatedly distorted facts, disdained scientific evidence, and refused to participate in governing. The author describes his reactions to the events of this period as they unfolded in time and shows how the various traits and behaviors that these Republicans exhibit stem from a certain kind of character syndrome.

The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 2

The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 2 PDF Author: Ernst Cassirer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000001105
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
"The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is one of the landmarks of twentieth century philosophy. Drawing from the influential work of Wilhelm Dilthey, it transformed neo-Kantianism into a new robust philosophy of culture. The second volume, on Mythical Thinking, analyzes the fundamental layers of perception and expression as well as the articulations with religion and the dialectic with other forms, essentially language and art. The intellectual breadth of the volume is remarkable. It initiated the debate with Martin Heidegger and prompted a long-lasting meditation by Hans Blumenberg. We are only beginning to recognize its importance for our understanding of the power of images in the construction of aesthetics, the self, and the socio-political world. It initiated a discussion within French sociology (Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss) that ultimately resurfaced in Pierre Bourdieu, while today it is considered as a resourceful path for cultural and critical theory (Drucilla Cornell and Kenneth M. Panfilio). Finally, this volume also offers solid grounds for a political critique of Nazism - specifically: Alfred Rosenberg’s Myth of the 20th Century and Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf - as well as the new emerging totalitarian ideologies." Fabien Capeilleres, Professor of Philosophy, editor of the French edition of Cassirer’s Works. This new translation makes Cassirer’s seminal work available to a new generation of scholars. Each volume includes a translator’s introduction by Steve G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter E. Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and an index.

Symbol and Reality

Symbol and Reality PDF Author: Carl H. Hamburg
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401194610
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Since prefaces, for the most part, are written after a book is done, yet face the reader before he gets to it, it is perhaps not surprising that we usually find ourselves addressed by a more chastened and qualifying author than we eventually encounter in the ensuing pages. It is, after all, not only some readers, but the writer of a book himself who reads what he has done and failed to do. If the above is the rule, I am no exception to it. The discerning reader need not be told that the following studies differ, not only in the approaches they make to their unifying subject-matter, but also in their precision and thus adequacy of presentation. In addition to the usual reasons for this rather common shortcoming, there is an another one in the case of the present book. In spite of its comparative brevity, the time-span between its inception and termination covers some twenty years. As a result, some (historical and epistemological) sections reflect my preoccupation with CASSI RER'S eady works during student days in Germany and France. When, some ten years later, CASSIRER in a letter expressed "great joy" and anticipation for a more closely supervised con tinuation of my efforts (which, because of his untimely death, never came to pass), he gave me all the encouragement needed to go to work on a critical exposition of his "symbolic form" con cept.

Creativity and the Philosophy of C.S. Peirce

Creativity and the Philosophy of C.S. Peirce PDF Author: D.R. Anderson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401577609
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Charles Sanders Peirce is quickly becoming the dominant figure in the history of American philosophy. The breadth and depth of his work has begun to obscure even the brightest of his contemporaries. Concerning the interpretation of his work, however, there are two distinct schools. The first holds that Peirce's work is an aggregate of important but disconnected insights. The second school argues that his work is a systematic philosophy with many pieces of the overall picture still obscure or missing. It is this second view which seems to me the most reasonable, in part because it has been convincingly defended by other scholars, but most importantly because Peirce himself described his philosophy as systematic: What I would recommend is that every person who wishes to form an opinion concerning fundamental problems should first of all make a complete survey of human knowledge, should take note of all the valuable ideas in each branch of science, should observe in just what respect each has been successful and where it has failed, in order that, in the light of the thorough acquaintance so attained of the available materials for a philosophical theory and of the nature and strength of each, he may proceed to the study of what the problem of philosophy consists in, and of the proper way of solving it (6. 9) [1].

The Nature of the Creative Process in Art

The Nature of the Creative Process in Art PDF Author: Jaroslav Havelka
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401195129
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
No single factor determined the growth of this book. It may have been that as a novice researcher in Behavioral Psychology I experienced growing discontent with the direction of intellectual activity in which the accent was on methodology and measurement, with a distinct atmosphere of dogmatism, insecurity and defensiveness. The anathema of tender-mindedness was attached to any study of mental manifes tations that avoided laboratory confirmation and statistical significance. Man in his uniqueness and unpredictable potentialities remained un explored. Yet outside the systematic vivisection of variables and their measurement men of originality and genius were studying the mind in its complex yet natural interaction of aspirations, values and creative capacities. It was almost too easy for me to turn to them for the re orientation of my psychological interest, and it was not difficult to find in Freud the most daring and penetrating representant of humanistic psychology. Furthermore, it could have been the fact that Freud's thoughts on creative processes appeared to me at once starkly original and yet incomplete and fragmentary, that led me to reconsider and expand on them. Freud's fascination with culture and creativity, although frank and serious, led him to a peculiar indecisiveness and overcautiousness which was radically different from the dramatic boldness of his thera peutic methods and the depth of his personality theories.

Bodied Mindfulness

Bodied Mindfulness PDF Author: Winnie Tomm
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 1554588022
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
“I see spirituality and social change to be integrally related to each other. I believe that liberation efforts that are supported by spiritual experiences of integration promote human dignity as well as social equality.” Bodied Mindfulness combines spiritual, social and analytical perspectives to explore topics central to women’s development: spirituality, women’s bodies, cultural constructions of women’s sexuality in language, sexual ethics, the sexual contract in politics and at work, and the relation between nature and culture. It is Tomm’s deeply held conviction that women need to bring a vital spirituality to feminist social criticism in order to resolve these issues and increase their power to promote social justice and ecological balance. Tomm embraces a vast store of knowledge from diverse sources, including Buddhist, shamanist and feminist resources. In a move away from abstract theorizing, she explicitly connects theory with realities lived by women. Grounding theory in personal experience — her own and others — Tomm delivers a powerful and empowering account of women’s spirituality. The resulting ontological transformation allows women to live deeply in the body while strengthening their relation to human and non-human matter and energy. Bodied Mindfulness will be of great interest to feminist scholars in all disciplines, but most particularly to those in Women’s Studies and Religious Studies.

The Philosophy of Creativity

The Philosophy of Creativity PDF Author: Elliot Samuel Paul
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199836965
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions. The Philosophy of Creativity takes up these questions and, in doing so, illustrates the value of interdisciplinary exchange.

Eros and Creativity in Russian Religious Renewal

Eros and Creativity in Russian Religious Renewal PDF Author: Anna Lisa Crone
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047444558
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This book is a fascinating exploration of largely uncharted territory in the history of Russian religious thought. Focusing on four brilliant representatives of the "Russian religious renaissance" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--Vladimir Solovyov, Vasily Rozanov, Nikolai Berdyaev, and Boris Vysheslavtsev--Anna Lisa Crone masterfully details their efforts, which were at first quite independent of the work of Sigmund Freud and later highly critical of it, to establish the importance of the sex drive in human life and to reinterpret Christianity as a religion of the flesh as well as the spirit. Crone's use of the concept of sexual sublimation (developed by Solovyov and Rozanov before Freud had described it) and its connection with human creativity is the perfect foil for bringing out and clarifying the agreements and differences between the Russian religious thinkers on the one hand and the secular psychoanalysts such as Freud, Carl Jung, and Otto Rank on the other. New light is cast on all these figures by Crone's adroit analyses, which will also be welcomed by anyone interested in the roots of creativity, the cultural significance of sexuality, or the essence of Christianity. James P. Scanlan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, The Ohio State University