Author: Donald A. Crosby
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 143840008X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 474
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Book Description
This book is our century's most comprehensive and wise treatment of nihilism in all of its guises, comparing favorably with Rosen, Cavell, and indeed with Spengler. Crosby argues that our culture is genuinely haunted by nihilism expressing itself in the fideism of fundamentalism as well as in the debilitating alienation from all orientation. This results from a one-sided development of Western culture. Unlike most writers on this topic, Crosby acknowledges many sources colluding to frame the culture of nihilism, including "the death of God," the objectification of nature, the meaninglessness of suffering in a mechanical universe, the ephemerality of time in a world where value does not accumulate, the arbitrariness of historicized reason, the reduction of value to will, and the alienation of the Cartesian ego. These sources are reviewed in the first two parts of the book with the result that the phenomenon of nihilism becomes understandable. In its third and fourth parts, Crosby provides a critical analysis of the religious and philosophical forces leading to nihilism by discussing authors from the early modern period through Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Russell, and Derrida. He shows that these forces are skewed and impoverished and should not be allowed to determine our situation. The comprehensive attention to detail and the multi-perspectival interpretation demonstrates as well as asserts the richness of the culture that puts nihilism in its place. Part Five, finally, rephrases the criticism of the sources of nihilism in positive ways. Part Four in particular is a tour de force of philosophical argument. Its richness of nuance, plurality of views examined, and adroitness of critical interpretation provide cumulatively a powerful, non-nihilistic reading of the philosophic tradition. The force of the argument derives from its comprehensive, cumulative character. Crosby distinguishes and relates five areas of nihilism: political, moral, epistemological, cosmic, and existential. Throughout the book, he illustrates and examines these as they are expressed in literature and art, in daily life and practical affairs, and in philosophy. The book is richly erudite in its marshalling of consciousness from so many domains.
Author: John Marmysz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791486281
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
Explores the concept of nihilism and argues that it need not imply despair, but can be responded to positively.
Author: Donald A. Crosby
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791475201
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
How a religion based on the sacredness of nature deals with the problem of evil.
Author: Fred Evans
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 143840218X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
Author: Karen L. Carr
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791408346
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
After a historical and conceptual overview of the changing face of nihilism in the last century, Carr examines Nietzsches diagnosis of nihilism as modernitys major crisis. She then compares the responses to nihilism given by the early Karl Barth and by Richard Rorty. To some, nihilism is losing its crisis connotations and becoming simply an unobjectionable characteristic of human life. Carr argues that this transformation ultimately absolutizes community preference and reflects an increasing inability to criticize and change the existing structures of thought. The author contends that the uncritical acceptance of nihilism, which characterizes much of postmodernism, ironically culminates in its complete oppositedogmatism.
Author: Henri de Lubac
Publisher: Ignatius Press
ISBN: 9780898704433
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 554
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Book Description
De Lubac traces the origin of 19th century attempts to construct a humanism apart from God, the sources of contemporary atheism which purports to have 'moved beyond God.' The three persons he focuses on are Feuerbach, who greatly influenced Marx; Nietzsche, who represents nihilism; and Comte, who is the father of all forms of positivism. He then shows that the only one who really responded to this ideology was Dostoevsky, a kind of prophet who criticizes in his novels this attempt to have a society without God. Despite their historical and scholarly appearance, de Lubac's work clearly refers to the present. As he investigates the sources of modern atheism, particularly in its claim to have definitely moved beyond the idea of God, he is thinking of an ideology prevalent today in East and West which regards the Christian faith as a completely outdated.
Author: Jason L. Saunders
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684836432
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
A concise selection from the standard philosophical works written after the death of Aristotle to the close of the third century, which includes the writings of seminal figures from early Christian thought. Eminent scholar Jason Saunders shows how philosophers from the Hellenistic Age greatly influenced early Christian teachings.
Author: Stuart Sovatsky
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438420714
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
Accepting relentless impermanence as the ground of human experience, Words from the Soul derives a spiritual psychology from the mystery and poignancy of time-passage itself. Drawing from Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Foucault, Dostoyevsky, Buddhism, kundalini yoga, and twenty-five years of clinical/mediation experience, the author's epigrammatic insights into our struggles with mortality, gratitude, apology, and forgiveness make this book relevant to psychotherapy and conflict resolution in a wide range of professional settings. In his exploration of the furthest-reaches of human development, Stuart Sovatsky reveals the deepest potentials of the ensouled body, transforming our views of language, sexuality, ecstatic spiritualities, and of the human life cycle.
Author: Gordon Leff
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9780874716795
Category : Civilization, Medieval
Languages : en
Pages : 666
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Book Description
Author: Song Yong
Publisher: Codhill Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
"Song Yong's strange complex stories exhibit masterful control of language and narrative drive. They explore themes of existentialism such as existential anxiety and despair and deal with the plight of helpless characters trapped in an absurd world with no way out." --Byung-Ik Kim, Former Publisher, Editor of Moonji Publications, Moonji Quarterly
