- Table View
- List View
Our American Story: The Search for a Shared National Narrative
by Joshua A. ClaybournOver the past few decades, the complicated divides of geography, class, religion, and race created deep fractures in the United States, each side fighting to advance its own mythology and political interests. We lack a central story, a common ground we can celebrate and enrich with deeper meaning. Unable to agree on first principles, we cannot agree on what it means to be American. As we dismantle or disregard symbols and themes that previously united us, can we replace them with stories and rites that unite our tribes and maintain meaning in our American identity? Against this backdrop, Our American Story features leading thinkers from across the political spectrum—Jim Banks, Pulitzer Prize–winner David W. Blight, Spencer P. Boyer, Eleanor Clift, John C. Danforth, Cody Delistraty, Richard A. Epstein, Nikolas Gvosdev, Cherie Harder, Jason Kuznicki, Gerard N. Magliocca, Markos Moulitsas, Ilya Somin, Cass R. Sunstein, Alan Taylor, James V. Wertsch, Gordon S. Wood, and Ali Wyne. Each draws on expertise within their respective fields of history, law, politics, and public policy to contribute a unique perspective about the American story. This collection explores whether a unifying story can be achieved and, if so, what that story could be.
Our Ancient Wars: Rethinking War Through The Classics
by Victor Caston Silke-Maria WeineckMany famous texts from classical antiquity-by historians like Thucydides, tragedians like Sophocles and Euripides, the comic poet Aristophanes, the philosopher Plato, and, above all, Homer-present powerful and profound accounts of wartime experience, both on and off the battlefield. These texts also provide useful ways of thinking about the complexities and consequences of wars throughout history, and the concept of war broadly construed, providing vital new perspectives on conflict in our own era. Our Ancient Wars features essays by top scholars from across academic disciplines- classicists and historians, philosophers and political theorists, literary scholars, some with firsthand experience of war and some without-engaging with classical texts to understand how differently they were read in other times and places. Contributors articulate difficult but necessary questions about contemporary conceptions of war and conflict. Book jacket.
Our Bodies, Whose Property?
by Anne PhillipsAn argument against treating our bodies as commoditiesNo one wants to be treated like an object, regarded as an item of property, or put up for sale. Yet many people frame personal autonomy in terms of self-ownership, representing themselves as property owners with the right to do as they wish with their bodies. Others do not use the language of property, but are similarly insistent on the rights of free individuals to decide for themselves whether to engage in commercial transactions for sex, reproduction, or organ sales. Drawing on analyses of rape, surrogacy, and markets in human organs, Our Bodies, Whose Property? challenges notions of freedom based on ownership of our bodies and argues against the normalization of markets in bodily services and parts. Anne Phillips explores the risks associated with metaphors of property and the reasons why the commodification of the body remains problematic.What, she asks, is wrong with thinking of oneself as the owner of one's body? What is wrong with making our bodies available for rent or sale? What, if anything, is the difference between markets in sex, reproduction, or human body parts, and the other markets we commonly applaud? Phillips contends that body markets occupy the outer edges of a continuum that is, in some way, a feature of all labor markets. But she also emphasizes that we all have bodies, and considers the implications of this otherwise banal fact for equality. Bodies remind us of shared vulnerability, alerting us to the common experience of living as embodied beings in the same world.Examining the complex issue of body exceptionalism, Our Bodies, Whose Property? demonstrates that treating the body as property makes human equality harder to comprehend.
Our Broad Present
by Hans Ulrich GumbrechtConsidering a range of present-day phenomena, from the immediacy effects of literature to the impact of hypercommunication, globalization, and sports, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht notes an important shift in our relationship to history and the passage of time. Although we continue to use concepts inherited from a "historicist" viewpoint, a notion of time articulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the actual construction of time in which we live in today, which shapes our perceptions, experiences, and actions, is no longer historicist. Without fully realizing it, we now inhabit a new, unnamed space in which the "closed future" and "ever-available past" (a past we have not managed to leave behind) converge to produce an "ever-broadening present of simultaneities."This profound change to a key dimension of our existence has complex consequences for the way in which we think about ourselves and our relation to the material world. At the same time, the ubiquity of digital media has eliminated our tactile sense of physical space, altering our perception of our world. Gumbrecht draws on his mastery of the philosophy of language to enrich his everyday observations, traveling to Disneyland, a small town in Louisiana, and the center of Vienna to produce striking sketches of our broad presence in the world.
Our Broad Present: Time and Contemporary Culture (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
by Hans Ulrich GumbrechtConsidering a range of present-day phenomena, from the immediacy effects of literature to the impact of hypercommunication, globalization, and sports, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht notes an important shift in our relationship to history and the passage of time. Although we continue to use concepts inherited from a "historicist" viewpoint, a notion of time articulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the actual construction of time in which we live in today, which shapes our perceptions, experiences, and actions, is no longer historicist. Without fully realizing it, we now inhabit a new, unnamed space in which the "closed future" and "ever-available past" (a past we have not managed to leave behind) converge to produce an "ever-broadening present of simultaneities." This profound change to a key dimension of our existence has complex consequences for the way in which we think about ourselves and our relation to the material world. At the same time, the ubiquity of digital media has eliminated our tactile sense of physical space, altering our perception of our world. Gumbrecht draws on his mastery of the philosophy of language to enrich his everyday observations, traveling to Disneyland, a small town in Louisiana, and the center of Vienna to produce striking sketches of our broad presence in the world.
Our Church: A Personal History of the Church of England
by Roger ScrutonFor most people in England today, the church is simply the empty building at the end of the road, visited for the first time, if at all, when dead. It offers its sacraments to a population that lives without rites of passage, and which regards the National Health Service rather than the National Church as its true spiritual guardian. Here, Scruton argues that the Anglican Church is the forlorn trustee of an architectural and artistic inheritance that remains one of the treasures of European civilization. He contends that it is a still point in the centre of English culture and that its defining texts, the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer are the sources from which much of our national identity derives. At once an elegy to a vanishing world and a clarion call to recognize Anglicanism's continuing relevance, Our Church is a graceful and persuasive book.
Our Common Denominator: Human Universals Revisited
by Christoph AntweilerSince the politicization of anthropology in the 1970s, most anthropologists have been reluctant to approach the topic of universals-that is, phenomena that occur regularly in all known human societies. In this volume, Christoph Antweiler reasserts the importance of these cross-cultural commonalities for anthropological research and for life and co-existence beyond the academy. The question presented here is how anthropology can help us approach humanity in its entirety, understanding the world less as a globe, with an emphasis on differences, but as a planet, from a vantage point open to commonalities.
Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America
by Michael D. BreidenbachHow early American Catholics justified secularism and overcame suspicions of disloyalty, transforming ideas of religious liberty in the process. In colonial America, Catholics were presumed dangerous until proven loyal. Yet Catholics went on to sign the Declaration of Independence and helped to finalize the First Amendment to the Constitution. What explains this remarkable transformation? Michael Breidenbach shows how Catholic leaders emphasized their church’s own traditions—rather than Enlightenment liberalism—to secure the religious liberty that enabled their incorporation in American life. Catholics responded to charges of disloyalty by denying papal infallibility and the pope’s authority to intervene in civil affairs. Rome staunchly rejected such dissent, but reform-minded Catholics justified their stance by looking to conciliarism, an intellectual tradition rooted in medieval Catholic thought yet compatible with a republican view of temporal independence and church-state separation. Drawing on new archival material, Breidenbach finds that early American Catholic leaders, including Maryland founder Cecil Calvert and members of the prominent Carroll family, relied on the conciliarist tradition to help institute religious toleration, including the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The critical role of Catholics in establishing American church–state separation enjoins us to revise not only our sense of who the American founders were, but also our understanding of the sources of secularism. Church–state separation in America, generally understood as the product of a Protestant-driven Enlightenment, was in key respects derived from Catholic thinking. Our Dear-Bought Liberty therefore offers a dramatic departure from received wisdom, suggesting that religious liberty in America was not bestowed by liberal consensus but partly defined through the ingenuity of a persecuted minority.
Our Debt to the Future: Royal Society of Canada, Symposium presented on the Seventy-fifth Anniversary 1957 (The Royal Society of Canada Special Publications #2)
by E.G.D. MurrayAT ITS ANNUAL MEETING in 1957, the Royal Society of Canada, celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of its foundation, departed from the accustomed pattern of its meetings. Instead of assembling in separate sections, Fellows from each Section of the Society were asked to contribute to a conspectus, focused by their specialized knowledge and trained discrimination, to reveal to the Society and to others certain trends and tendencies in Canada. Subjects and contributors are: "These Seventy-Five Years" (Presidential Address by W. A. Mackintosh); "The Roles of the Scientist and the Scholar in Canada's Future" (W. A. Mackintosh, David L. Thomson); "The Penalties of Ignorance of Man's Biological Dependence" (E. G. D. Murray, K. W. Neatby, I. McT. Cowan, G. H. Ettinger, R. H. Manske); "The Social Impact of Modern Technology" (N. A. M. MacKenzie, V. W. Bladen, E. W. R. Steacie, W. H. Watson); "Our Economic Potential in the Light of Science" (H. C. Gunning, J. E. Hawley, L. M. Pidgeon, B. S. Keirstead, Maurice Lamontagne); "Human Values and the Evolution of Society" (G.-H. Lévesque, T. W. M. Cameron, A. S. P. Woodhouse, R. Elie, Roy Daniells); "Let Us Look to Our Human Resources" (F. H. Underhill, J. K. W. Ferguson, L.-P. Dugal, W. B. Lewis). The volume is further prefaced by the address given by His Excellency the Right Honourable Vicent Massey, Governor-General of Canada, "The Weighing of Ayre."
Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
by Danielle AllenWinner of the Zócalo Book Prize Shortlisted for the 2015 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, Society of American Historians "A tour de force. . . . No one has ever written a book on the Declaration quite like this one."--Gordon Wood, New York Review of Books Featured on the front page of the New York Times, Our Declaration is already regarded as a seminal work that reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text. Combining a personal account of teaching the Declaration with a vivid evocation of the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen, a political philosopher renowned for her work on justice and citizenship reveals our nation's founding text to be an animating force that not only changed the world more than two-hundred years ago, but also still can. Challenging conventional wisdom, she boldly makes the case that the Declaration is a document as much about political equality as about individual liberty. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Our Declaration is an "uncommonly elegant, incisive, and often poetic primer on America's cardinal text" (David M. Kennedy).
Our Deepest Desires: How the Christian Story Fulfills Human Aspirations
by Gregory E. GanssleAs human beings, we are created with desires. We all long for meaningful relationships, lives that reflect goodness, engagements with beauty, and the freedom to pursue our lives with integrity. But where can our restless hearts find fulfillment for these universal longings? Philosopher and apologist Greg Ganssle argues that our widely shared human aspirations are best understood and explained in the light of the Christian story. With grace and insight, Ganssle explains how the good news of Jesus Christ makes sense of—and fulfills—our deepest desires. It is only in the particular claims of the Christian faith, he argues, that our universal human aspirations can find fulfillment and our restless hearts will be at peace.
Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent
by E. J. DionneOur Divided Political Heart will be the must-read book of the 2012 election campaign. Offering an incisive analysis of how hyper-individualism is poisoning the nation's political atmosphere, E. J. Dionne Jr. argues that Americans can't agree on who we are because we can't agree on who we've been, or what it is, philosophically and spiritually, that makes us Americans. Dionne takes on the Tea Party's distortions of American history and shows that the true American tradition points not to radical individualism, but to a balance between our love of individualism and our devotion to community. Dionne offers both a fascinating tour of American history-from the Founding Fathers to Clay and Lincoln and on to the Populists, the Progressives and the New Dealers-and also an analysis of our current politics that shatters conventional wisdom. The true American idea, far from endorsing government inaction or indifference, has always viewed the federal government as an active and constructive partner with the rest of society in promoting prosperity, opportunity, and American greatness. The ability of the American system to self-correct is its greatest asset and Dionne challenges progressives to embrace the American story. Our fractious but productive past offers us the resources both to rediscover the idea of progress and to put an end to our fears of decline. Our Divided Political Heart will be required reading for all who seek a path out of our current impasse.
Our Divine Double
by Charles M. StangWhat if you were to discover that you were only one half of a whole--that you had a divine double? In the second and third centuries CE, Charles Stang shows, this idea gripped the religious imagination of the Eastern Mediterranean, offering a distinctive understanding of the self that has survived in various forms down to the present.
Our Eternal Relationship: 10 Contemplations for a Connected Life
by Joseph V. McCarthyMany years ago, Joseph V. McCarthy dreamed a revelation that shattered his world-view and altered his life direction forever. After nine years as a correctional officer in the prison system, Joe left for a monastic life at Tarrawarra Abbey in Victoria, Australia. He lived as a monk for six years, immersed in a life of spiritual contemplation. During this time, he was introduced to “A Course in Miracles”. It’s message of divinity as a tangible force in the world prompted Joe to reflect on its presence in the wider community beyond the cloister. Joe left the monastery and eventually became a training officer for emergency services in a rural/tourist area. While engaged in lost person searches; flood, cliff and car crash rescues; and more, he witnessed tragic misfortune and miraculous survival. His eyes were opened to the fragility of this precious life. In his role as a spiritual director, and later as pastoral carer in a hospital, Joe realised the deep longing in all human hearts for spiritual meaning and peace. He was inspired to write ‘Our Eternal Relationship’, which shares the key insights and contemplations that were so transformative in his journey. From prison officer to monk to emergency rescuer to pastoral carer for the sick and dying, Joseph V. McCarthy has not flinched from witnessing life’s darkest pits of despair. He believes, “There is not a person in this world who does not deserve our sympathy,” and he offers simple steps towards a life of spiritual integrity and contribution, free of religious dogma.
Our Experience of God (Routledge Revivals)
by H. D. LewisFirst published in 1959, Our Experience of God examines the relationship between philosophy and religion. The author argues that, we cannot construct a religion for ourselves out of merely philosophical elements, and that the attempt to provide some philosophical or similar substitute for religion, as it normally presents itself, is misconceived. It brings themes like religion and belief; belief and mystery; religion and transcendence; history and dogma; material factors in religion; symbolism and tradition; art and religion; religion and morality; and encounter and immediacy, to show that the place of philosophy in religion is not to provide proofs for beliefs but to make more explicit for us what is the nature and status of the beliefs we do hold and commend to others. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of religion, philosophy, and theology.
Our Fundamental Problem: A Revolutionary Approach to Philosophy
by Nicholas MaxwellHow can the world we live in and see, touch, hear, and smell, the world of living things, people, consciousness, free will, meaning, and value - how can all of this exist and flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe, made up of nothing but physical entities such as electrons and quarks? How can anything be of value if everything in the universe is, ultimately, just physics? In Our Fundamental Problem Nicholas Maxwell argues that this problem of reconciling the human and physical worlds needs to take centre stage in our thinking, so that our best ideas about it interact with our attempts to solve even more important specialized problems of thought and life. When we explore this fundamental problem, Maxwell argues, revolutionary answers emerge for a wide range of questions arising in philosophy, science, social inquiry, academic inquiry as a whole, and - most important of all - our capacity to solve the global problems that threaten our future: climate change, habitat destruction, extinction of species, inequality, war, pollution of earth, sea, and air. An unorthodox introduction to philosophy, Our Fundamental Problem brings philosophy down to earth and demonstrates its vital importance for science, scholarship, education, life, and the fate of the world.
Our Fundamental Problem: A Revolutionary Approach to Philosophy
by Nicholas MaxwellHow can the world we live in and see, touch, hear, and smell, the world of living things, people, consciousness, free will, meaning, and value - how can all of this exist and flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe, made up of nothing but physical entities such as electrons and quarks? How can anything be of value if everything in the universe is, ultimately, just physics? In Our Fundamental Problem Nicholas Maxwell argues that this problem of reconciling the human and physical worlds needs to take centre stage in our thinking, so that our best ideas about it interact with our attempts to solve even more important specialized problems of thought and life. When we explore this fundamental problem, Maxwell argues, revolutionary answers emerge for a wide range of questions arising in philosophy, science, social inquiry, academic inquiry as a whole, and - most important of all - our capacity to solve the global problems that threaten our future: climate change, habitat destruction, extinction of species, inequality, war, pollution of earth, sea, and air. An unorthodox introduction to philosophy, Our Fundamental Problem brings philosophy down to earth and demonstrates its vital importance for science, scholarship, education, life, and the fate of the world.
Our Grateful Dead: Stories of Those Left Behind (Posthumanities #65)
by Vinciane DespretAn award-winning exploration of the presence of the dead in the lives of the living A common remedy after suffering the loss of a loved one is to progress through the &“stages of grief,&” with &“acceptance&” as the final stage in the process. But is it necessary to leave death behind, to stop dwelling on the dead, to get over the pain? Vinciane Despret thinks not. In her fascinating, elegantly translated book, this influential thinker argues that, in practice, people in all cultures continue to enjoy a lively, inventive, positive relationship with their dead.Through her unique storytelling woven from ethnographic sources and her own family history, Despret assembles accounts of those who have found ways to live their daily lives with their dead. She rejects the idea that one must either subscribe to &“complete mourning&” (in a sense, to get rid of the dead) or else fall into fantasy and superstition. She explores instead how the dead still play an active, tangible role through those who are living, who might assume their place in a family or in society; continue their labor or art; or thrive from a shared inheritance or an organ donation. This is supported by dreams and voices, novels, television and popular culture, the work of clairvoyants, and the everyday stories and activities of the living. For decades now, in the West, the dead have been discreet and invisible. Today, especially as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Despret suggests that perhaps we will be willing to engage with the dead in ways that bring us happiness despite our loss. Despret&’s unique method of inquiry makes her book both entertaining and instructive. Our Grateful Dead offers a new, pragmatic approach to social and cultural research and may indeed provide compassionate therapy for those of us coping with death.
Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life
by Ryan Patrick HanleyInvaluable wisdom on living a good life from the founder of modern economicsAdam Smith is best known today as the founder of modern economics, but he was also an uncommonly brilliant philosopher who was especially interested in the perennial question of how to live a good life. Our Great Purpose is a short and illuminating guide to Smith's incomparable wisdom on how to live well, written by one of today's leading Smith scholars.In this inspiring and entertaining book, Ryan Patrick Hanley describes Smith's vision of "the excellent and praiseworthy character," and draws on the philosopher's writings to show how each of us can go about developing one. For Smith, an excellent character is distinguished by qualities such as prudence, self-command, justice, and benevolence—virtues that have been extolled since antiquity. Yet Smith wrote not for the ancient polis but for the world of market society—our world—which rewards self-interest more than virtue. Hanley shows how Smith set forth a vision of the worthy life that is uniquely suited to us today.Full of invaluable insights on topics ranging from happiness and moderation to love and friendship, Our Great Purpose enables modern readers to see Smith in an entirely new light—and along the way, learn what it truly means to live a good life.
Our Human Potential: The Unassailable Path of Love, Compassion, and Meditation
by The Dalai LamaWhen His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave a series of lectures at Harvard University, they fulfilled magnificently his intention of providing an in-depth introduction to Buddhist theory and practice. He structured the presentation according to the teachings of the Four Noble Truths and expanded their meaning to cover most of the topics of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama’s combination of superb intellect, power of exposition, and practical implementation are evident in these lectures. He covers a broad spectrum of topics, including the psychology of cyclic existence, consciousness and karma, techniques for meditation, altruism, valuing enemies, wisdom, and much more. This book was previously published under the title The Dalai Lama at Harvard.
Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology
by Thomas V. MorrisMany people, even within the ranks of devout religious believers, have only the haziest conception of God. A significant number of such people admit that this vagueness about God bothers them deeply, but that they don't know how to go about getting clearer on this important idea.
Our Immoral Soul: A Manifesto of Spiritual Disobedience
by Nilton BonderRabbi Bonder turns a few conventional ideas on their heads as he identifies the forces at play in individual, social, and spiritual transformation. Many people believe that obedience to the established moral order leads to the well-being of society as well as the salvation of their souls. On the contrary, says Bonder, the human spirit is nourished by the impulse to betray and transgress the ways of the past. Even the Bible legitimizes our God-given urge to disobey in order to evolve, grow, and transcend. It is this "immoral" soul of ours that impels us to do battle with God—and out of this clash, Bonder predicts, a new humanity will emerge. In the course of discussion, he examines a variety of intriguing issues touching on religion, science, and culture, including the findings of evolutionary psychology; the relation of body and soul; infidelity in marriage; the stereotype of Jew as traitor; sacrifice and redemption in Judaism and Christianity; and the Messiah as archetypal transgressor.
Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong (Muirhead Library Of Philosophy Ser.)
by Harrison, JonathanFirst published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Our Knowledge of the External World
by Bertrand RussellOur Knowledge of the External World is a compilation of lectures Bertrand Russell delivered in the US in which he questions the very relevance and legitimacy of philosophy. In it he investigates the relationship between ‘individual’ and ‘scientific’ knowledge and questions the means in which we have come to understand our physical world. This is an explosive and controversial work that illustrates instances where the claims of philosophers have been excessive, and examines why their achievements have not been greater.
Our Knowledge of the External World: As A Field For Scientific Method In Philosophy (classic Reprint)
by Bertrand Russell'Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and acheived fewer results than any other branch of learning ... I believe that the time has now arrived when this unsatisfactory state of affairs can be brought to an end' - Bertrand Russell So begins Our Knowledge of the Eternal World, Bertrand Russell's classic attempt to show by means of examples, the nature, capacity and limitations of the logico-analytical method in philosophy.