Author: Thomas Alexander
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823251209
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 457
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Book Description
Studies in the philosophy of John Dewey, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana and Native American philosophy that argue for an ecological, aesthetic form of philosophy.
Author: Thomas M. Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780823252756
Category : Aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
This book explores themes in classical American philosophy, primarily the thought of John Dewey, but also that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana, and Native American traditions. It argues that human beings have an inherent need to experience meaning and value, a 'Human Eros'. Our various cultures are symbolic environments or 'spiritual ecologies' within which the Human Eros seeks to thrive. This is how we inhabit the earth. Encircling and sustaining our cultural existence is nature, yet Western philosophy has not provided adequate conceptual models for thinking ecologically.
Author: John Kaag
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374713111
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around John Kaag is a dispirited young philosopher at sea in his marriage and his career when he stumbles upon West Wind, a ruin of an estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that belonged to the eminent Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy and a direct intellectual descendent of William James, the father of American philosophy and psychology, with whom Kaag feels a deep kinship. It is James’s question “Is life worth living?” that guides this remarkable book. The books Kaag discovers in the Hocking library are crawling with insects and full of mold. But he resolves to restore them, as he immediately recognizes their importance. Not only does the library at West Wind contain handwritten notes from Whitman and inscriptions from Frost, but there are startlingly rare first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As Kaag begins to catalog and read through these priceless volumes, he embarks on a thrilling journey that leads him to the life-affirming tenets of American philosophy—self-reliance, pragmatism, and transcendence—and to a brilliant young Kantian who joins him in the restoration of the Hocking books. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is ultimately about love, freedom, and the role that wisdom can play in turning one’s life around.
Author: Lily Pond
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
ISBN: 9780517886120
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
With more than 35,000 copies in print, Yellow Silk: Erotic Arts and Letters made the bestseller lists of both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post. This sequel presents more pieces from the award-winning magazine dedicated to the finest in erotic literature and art.
Author: Anne Carson
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1628974117
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 118
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Book Description
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time A book about romantic love, Eros the Bittersweet is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with, "It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her," Carson examines her subject from numerous points of view, creating a lyrical meditation in the tradition of William Carlos Williams's Spring and All and William H. Gass's On Being Blue. Epigrammatic, witty, ironic, and endlessly entertaining, Eros is an utterly original book.
Author: Matthew Clemente
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000731898
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
Bringing contemporary philosophers, theologians, and psychoanalysts into dialogue with works of art and literature, this work provides a fresh perspective on how humans can make sense of suffering and finitude and how our existence as sexual beings shapes our relations to one another and the divine. It attempts to establish a connection between carnal, bodily love and humanity’s relation to the divine. Relying on the works of philosophers such as Manoussakis, Kearney, and Marion and psychoanalysts such as Freud and Lacan, this book provides a possible answer to these fundamental questions and fosters further dialogue between thinkers and scholars of these different fields. The author analyzes why human sexuality implies both perversion and perfection and why it brings together humanity’s baseness and beatitude. Through it, the author taps once more into the dark mystery of Eros and Thanatos who, to paraphrase Dostoevsky, forever struggle with God on the battlefield of the human heart. This book is written primarily for scholars interested in the fields of philosophical psychology, existential philosophy, and philosophy of religion
Author: James S. Gouinlock
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615928251
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 363
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Book Description
[Gouinlock] has succeeded in naturalizing the moral life more reliably and coherently than the generation of Dewey, Santayana, and their heirs. . . . may well prove to be a landmark for the philosophical understanding of the moral conception of life in our times. - John P. Anton, University of South Florida. . . No one has done as much as Gouinlock has to tell us how our lives can be made worth living. - Peter H. Hare, State University of New York at Buffalo. . . Must reading for those interested in understanding our current problems. - John Lachs, Vanderbilt UniversityPlato defined eros as the yearning for things beautiful and good. It is on this original sense that philosopher James Gouinlock bases this insightful study of ethics and wisdom. Gouinlock argues that the only fruitful way to evaluate the norms of social life is to understand them as natural forces, not as arbitrary matters of convention or derivatives of some abstract theory. The good life and the meanings of life consist in the recognition and pursuit of values that are already resident in natural experience. Successful pursuit of them requires teaching, the accumulation of wisdom, and the cultivation of virtue. Above all is eros, the motivating force that drives us to search for life's most precious goods. In so doing we acquire a wisdom according to nature.Inspired by Greek philosophy, Gouinlock's approach avoids the pitfalls of moral systems that evolve out of abstract theorizing and tend to ignore well-established practice and conviction. Gouinlock makes the important point that social practices, like natural forces, though subject to change in varying degrees, are rarely amenable to radical overhaul. The real values of common life occur in a difficult, demanding, and often-perilous environment. This is not a context in which anything goes, for it possesses inherent constraints as well as opportunities. As Gouinlock shows in detail, there is much wisdom to be gained from understanding the distinctive functions of nature in the conduct of life.Written with clarity and eloquence, this original and fully developed philosophy of life makes fundamental philosophical arguments accessible to educated lay readers as well as to professional philosophers.James S. Gouinlock (Atlanta, GA) is professor emeritus of philosophy at Emory University and the author or editor of six books, including Rediscovering the Moral Life: Philosophy and Human Practice and The Moral Writings of John Dewey.
Author: Alan Soble
Publisher: Paragon House Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
The philosophy of loveFor centuries, popular writers and respected scholars have written about and analyzed the phenomenon of love without exhausting its potential for contemporary debate. By representing the three major traditions in the philosophy of love--Platonic eros, Christian agape, and Aristotelian philia--editor Alan Soble has not only examined the intellectual problem of what "love" is, but has designed a dialogue among the three traditions in genuine philosophical style. "Eros is acquisitive, egocentric or even selfish; agape is a giving love. Eros is an unconstant, unfaithful love, while agape is unwavering and continues to give despite ingratitude. Eros is a love that responds to the merit or value of its object; while agape creates value in its object as a result of loving it... Finally, eros is an ascending love, the human's route to God; agape is a descending love, GodÆs route to humans... Philia is caught between eros and agape."--From the Introduction to Eros, Agape and Philia ISSUES EXPLORED: --What is the state of love today as seen through the eyes of Plato, Aristotle, and Paul? --How do relations between the sexes illustrate the difficulties of love? --What are the nature and effects of exclusivity, reciprocity, and constancy? --What are the conceptual and psychological ties between sex and love? --Does it make any sense to think of love in moral terms?
Author: Don Miguel Ruiz
Publisher: Mystery School Series
ISBN: 0711267286
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 159
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Book Description
Don Miguel Ruiz, the author of the classic The Four Agreements and one of the most influential spiritual leaders in the world today, offers students of mystery a new path of knowledge through the most powerful force in the uni-verse: love.
Author: Thomas M. Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780823251223
Category : Aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
This book explores themes in classical American philosophy, primarily the thought of John Dewey, but also that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana, and Native American traditions. It argues that human beings have an inherent need to experience meaning and value, a 'Human Eros'. Our various cultures are symbolic environments or 'spiritual ecologies' within which the Human Eros seeks to thrive. This is how we inhabit the earth. Encircling and sustaining our cultural existence is nature, yet Western philosophy has not provided adequate conceptual models for thinking ecologically.
