- Table View
- List View
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 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.
Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein? (Routledge Revivals)
by Peter MunzPeter Munz, a former student of both Popper and Wittgenstein, begins his comparison of the two great twentieth-century philosophers, by explaining that since the demise of positivism there have emerged, broadly speaking, two philosophical options: Wittgenstein, with the absolute relativism of his theory that meaning is a function of language games and that social configurations are determinants of knowledge; and Popper’s evolutionary epistemology – conscious knowledge is a special case of the relationship which exists between all living beings and their environments. Professor Munz examines and rejects the Wittgensteinian position. Instead, Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge, first published in 1985, elaborates the potentially fruitful link between Popper’s critical rationalism and Neo-Darwinism. Read in the light of the latter, Popper’s philosophy leads to the transformation of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism into ‘Hypothetical Realism’, whilst the emphasis on the biological orientation of Popper’s thought helps to illumine some difficulties in Popper’s ‘falsificationism’.
Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography
by Aviezer TuckerHow do historians, comparative linguists, biblical and textual critics and evolutionary biologists establish beliefs about the past? How do they know the past? This book presents a philosophical analysis of the disciplines that offer scientific knowledge of the past. <P><P> Using the analytic tools of contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science the book covers such topics as evidence, theory, methodology, explanation, determination and underdetermination, coincidence, contingency and counterfactuals in historiography. Aviezer Tucker's central claim is that historiography as a scientific discipline should be thought of as an effort to explain the evidence of past events. He also emphasizes the similarity between historiographic methodology to Darwinian evolutionary biology. This is an important, fresh approach to historiography and will be read by philosophers, historians and social scientists interested in the methodological foundations of their disciplines.
Our Man in Moscow: A Diplomat's Reflections on the Soviet Union
by Robert Ford"The world is large; Russia is great; death is inevitable." Almost forty years ago Robert A.D. Ford came across this sentence in a Russian school primer. It stays with him today as an example of the Russian psyche, a psyche that Ford is better equipped to explain than most. He is the only Western diplomat to have known and dealt with all the Soviet leaders from the end of the Second World War to the present: Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev. As a poet and translator of Russian poetry, he also had a special entrée into the Soviet literary world. In this memoir he offers a unique perspective on post-war Soviet politics and Russian life.
Our Money: Monetary Policy as if Democracy Matters
by Leah Rose Ely DowneyHow the creation of money and monetary policy can be more democraticThe power to create money is foundational to the state. In the United States, that power has been largely delegated to private banks governed by an independent central bank. Putting monetary policy in the hands of a set of insulated, nonelected experts has fueled the popular rejection of expertise as well as a widespread dissatisfaction with democratically elected officials. In Our Money, Leah Downey makes a principled case against central bank independence (CBI) by both challenging the economic theory behind it and developing a democratic rationale for sustaining the power of the legislature to determine who can create money and on what terms. How states govern money creation has an impact on the capacity of the people and their elected officials to steer policy over time. In a healthy democracy, Downey argues, the balance of power over money creation matters.Downey applies and develops democratic theory through an exploration of monetary policy. In so doing, she develops a novel theory of independent agencies in the context of democratic government, arguing that states can employ expertise without being ruled by experts. Downey argues that it is through iterative governance, the legislature knowing and regularly showing its power over policy, that the people can retain their democratic power to guide policy in the modern state. As for contemporary macroeconomic arguments in defense of central bank independence, Downey suggests that the purported economic benefits do not outweigh the democratic costs.
Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism (The\mit Press Ser.)
by Allen BuchananA provocative and probing argument showing how human beings can for the first time in history take charge of their moral fate.Is tribalism—the political and cultural divisions between Us and Them—an inherent part of our basic moral psychology? Many scientists link tribalism and morality, arguing that the evolved “moral mind” is tribalistic. Any escape from tribalism, according to this thinking, would be partial and fragile, because it goes against the grain of our nature. In this book, Allen Buchanan offers a counterargument: the moral mind is highly flexible, capable of both tribalism and deeply inclusive moralities, depending on the social environment in which the moral mind operates.We can't be morally tribalistic by nature, Buchanan explains, because quite recently there has been a remarkable shift away from tribalism and toward inclusiveness, as growing numbers of people acknowledge that all human beings have equal moral status, and that at least some nonhumans also have moral standing. These are what Buchanan terms the Two Great Expansions of moral regard. And yet, he argues, moral progress is not inevitable but depends partly on whether we have the good fortune to develop as moral agents in a society that provides the right conditions for realizing our moral potential. But morality need not depend on luck. We can take charge of our moral fate by deliberately shaping our social environment—by engaging in scientifically informed “moral institutional design.” For the first time in human history, human beings can determine what sort of morality is predominant in their societies and what kinds of moral agents they are.
Our Oldest Task: Making Sense of Our Place in Nature
by Eric T. Freyfogle“This is a book about nature and culture,” Eric T. Freyfogle writes, “about our place and plight on earth, and the nagging challenges we face in living on it in ways that might endure.” Challenges, he says, we are clearly failing to meet. Harking back to a key phrase from the essays of eminent American conservationist Aldo Leopold, Our Oldest Task spins together lessons from history and philosophy, the life sciences and politics, economics and cultural studies in a personal, erudite quest to understand how we might live on—and in accord with—the land. Passionate and pragmatic, extraordinarily well read and eloquent, Freyfogle details a host of forces that have produced our self-defeating ethos of human exceptionalism. It is this outlook, he argues, not a lack of scientific knowledge or inadequate technology, that is the primary cause of our ecological predicament. Seeking to comprehend both the multifaceted complexity of contemporary environmental problems and the zeitgeist as it unfolds, Freyfogle explores such diverse topics as morality, the nature of reality (and the reality of nature), animal welfare, social justice movements, and market politics. The result is a learned and inspiring rallying cry to achieve balance, a call to use our knowledge to more accurately identify the dividing line between living in and on the world and destruction. “To use nature,” Freyfogle writes, “but not to abuse it.”