- Table View
- List View
On Freedom, Love, and Power
by Jacques Ellul Willem H. VanderburgOne of the most important and original thinkers of the twentieth century, Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) was a noted sociologist, historian, law professor, and self-described "Christian anarchist." At the University of Bordeaux, Ellul taught and wrote extensively on the relationship between technology and contemporary culture, the tenets of the Christian faith, and the principles of human freedom and responsibility. On Freedom, Love, and Power is the transcription of a series of talks given by Ellul in 1974 in which he refines and clarifies some of his most controversial insights on the Jewish and Christian Bibles and their relevance to contemporary society.This expanded edition of Ellul's talks features additional material, previously unavailable, that focuses on Christianity's potential service to humanity as a community that exemplifies a society where people are reconciled with one another and with God.
On Freedom, Love, and Power
by Dominique North-Ellul Jacques Ellul Yves Ellul Willem H. Vanderburg Jean EllulJacques Ellul (1912-1994) was a French law professor, historian, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. During the Second World War, he was active in the French resistance; his efforts to save Jews during this time eventually earned him the title "Righteous Among the Nations." A towering intellectual figure, Ellul taught in Paris and at the University of Bordeaux, wrote and published extensively, and engaged throughout his career in a dialogue between the realities of technology and contemporary life, the tenets of the Christian faith, and the principles of human freedom. Transcribed here for the first time, this series of talks refines and clarifies some of Ellul's most controversial insights into what it means to understand and live out God's wishes.Ellul's evaluation of a number of interrelated books of Scripture, including Genesis, Job, Matthew, and John, challenges Jewish and Christian orthodoxies and more progressive interpretations alike by claiming that the Judeo-Christian tradition is both anti-moral and anti-religious. Promoting a life based on freedom and love, Ellul's thinking opens the door to, in his words, "thinking globally and acting locally."
On Freud (Insubordinations: Italian Radical Thought)
by Elvio FachinelliWritings on Freud by Italy&’s leading psychoanalyst of the twentieth century.Elvio Fachinelli was one of the most original and controversial Italian psychoanalysts of the twentieth century. He viewed psychoanalytic theory as inextricably linked to the concrete experience of everyday reality and as a crucial compass for understanding the social and political turmoil of his era. This compact volume collects Fachinelli&’s writing on Freud, offering readers both an accessible and engaging introduction to Freud&’s thinking and an overview of Fachinelli&’s own main ideas. Written between 1966 and 1989, these essays serve to introduce readers to some of the most provocative aspects of Fachinelli&’s critiques of psychoanalysis and society. On Freud includes a long essay on Freud that weaves the theoretical foundations of psychoanalysis together with a surprising number of idiosyncratic observations about Freud the person. In it, Fachinelli offers a series of parallax perspectives: Freud the conquistador, who leads psychoanalysis to the exploration of new fields of knowledge; Freud the archaeologist, who discovers antithetical and incongruous elements in the territory of the unconscious; and Freud the Victorian, whose bourgeois values clashed with the revolutionary character of his discovery. Other essays include an assessment of psychoanalysis as a general social phenomenon that is increasingly showing its historical limits; a discussion of an encounter between Freud and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke; Fachinelli&’s pointed account of Freud&’s view of psychoanalysis for &“the poor&”; and an examination of the importance of the element of surprise—for both analyst and analysand—in analysis. Without surprise, Fachinelli writes, psychanalysis is just a &“ministering and administering of knowledge, a repetition of the already known.&” This edition includes an authoritative survey of Fachinelli&’s work and insight into how it continues to be relevant today.
On Friendship
by Michel De MontaigneThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are. Michel de Montaigne was the originator of the modern essay form; in these diverse pieces he expresses his views on relationships, contemplates the idea that man is no different from any animal, argues that all cultures should be respected, and attempts, by an exploration of himself, to understand the nature of humanity.
On Friendship
by Alexander NehamasFriends are a constant feature of our lives, yet friendship itself is difficult to define. Even Michel de Montaigne, author of the seminal essay "Of Friendship,” found it nearly impossible to account for the great friendship of his life. Why is something so commonplace and universal so hard to grasp? What is it about the nature of friendship that proves so elusive? In On Friendship, the acclaimed philosopher Alexander Nehamas launches an original and far- ranging investigation of friendship. Exploring the long history of philosophical thinking on the subject, from Aristotle to Emerson and beyond, and drawing on examples from literature, art, drama, and his own life, Nehamas shows that for centuries, friendship was as much a public relationship as it was a private one-inseparable from politics and commerce, favors and perks. Now that it is more firmly in the private realm, Nehamas holds, close friendship is central to the good life. Profound and affecting, On Friendship sheds light on why we love our friends-and how they determine who we are, and who we might become.
On Friendship: One Hundred Maxims for a Chinese Prince
by Matteo Ricci"On Friendship, with its total of one hundred sayings, is the perfect gift for friends."-Feng Yingjing, renowned scholar and civic official, 1601Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) is best known as the Italian Jesuit missionary who brought Christianity to China. He also published a landmark text on friendship-the first book to be written in Chinese by a European-that instantly became a late Ming best seller. On Friendship distilled the best ideas on friendship from Renaissance Latin texts into one hundred pure and provocative Chinese maxims. Written in a masterful classical style, Ricci's sayings established his reputation as a great sage and the sentiments still ring true.Available for the first time in English, On Friendship matches a carefully edited Chinese text with a facing-page English translation and includes notes on sources and biographical, historical, and cultural information. Still admired in China for its sophistication and inspirational wisdom, On Friendship is a delightful cross-cultural work by a crucial and fascinating historical figure. It is also an excellent tool for learning Chinese, pairing a superb model of the classical language with an accessible and accurate translation.
On Gaslighting (Insights: Philosophy in Focus)
by Kate AbramsonA philosopher examines the complicated phenomenon of gaslighting&“Gaslighting&” is suddenly in everyone&’s vocabulary. It&’s written about, talked about, tweeted about, even sung about (in &“Gaslighting&” by The Chicks). It&’s become shorthand for being manipulated by someone who insists that up is down, hot is cold, dark is light—someone who isn&’t just lying about such things, but trying to drive you crazy. The term has its origins in a 1944 film in which a husband does exactly that to his wife, his crazy-making efforts symbolized by the rise and fall of the gaslights in their home. In this timely and provocative book, Kate Abramson examines gaslighting from a philosophical perspective, investigating it as a distinctive moral phenomenon.Gaslighting, Abramson writes, is best understood as a form of interpersonal interaction, a particular way of fundamentally undermining someone. The gaslighter, Abramson argues, aims to make his target experience herself as incapable of reasoning, perceiving, or reacting in ways that would allow her to form appropriate beliefs, perceptions, or emotions in the first place. He seeks not only to induce in her this unmoored sense of herself but also to make it a reality. Using examples and analysis, Abramson gives an account of gaslighting and its immorality, and argues that such a discussion can help us understand other aspects of social life—from racism and sexism to the structure of interpersonal trust.
On The Genealogy Of Morals: A Polemic. By Way Of Clarification And Supplement To My Last Book Beyond Good And Evil (Oxford World's Classics)
by Friedrich Nietzsche Douglas Smith<P>Reason, seriousness, mastery over the emotions, the whole murky affair which goes by the name of thought, all the privileges and showpieces of man: what a high price has been paid for them! How much blood and horror is at the bottom of all "good things!"' On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. <P>The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question.<P> The Genealogy is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. <P>This edition places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience. <P>ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. <P>Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
On Generation and Corruption
by AristotleOUR next task is to study coming-to-be and passing-away. We are to distinguish the causes, and to state the definitions, of these processes considered in general-as changes predicable uniformly of all the things that come-to-be and pass-away by nature. Further, we are to study growth and "alteration." We must inquire what each of them is; and whether "alteration" is to be identified with coming-to-be, or whether to these different names there correspond two separate processes with distinct natures.
On Genesis: Two Books On Genesis: Against The Manichees And On The Literal Interpretation Of Genesis: An Unfinished Book
by Saint AugustineThis volume brings these three works together for the first time in English and provides a valuable and comprehensive introduction to each one.
On Global Justice
by Mathias RisseDebates about global justice have traditionally fallen into two camps. Statists believe that principles of justice can only be held among those who share a state. Those who fall outside this realm are merely owed charity. Cosmopolitans, on the other hand, believe that justice applies equally among all human beings. On Global Justice shifts the terms of this debate and shows how both views are unsatisfactory. Stressing humanity's collective ownership of the earth, Mathias Risse offers a new theory of global distributive justice--what he calls pluralist internationalism--where in different contexts, different principles of justice apply. Arguing that statists and cosmopolitans seek overarching answers to problems that vary too widely for one single justice relationship, Risse explores who should have how much of what we all need and care about, ranging from income and rights to spaces and resources of the earth. He acknowledges that especially demanding redistributive principles apply among those who share a country, but those who share a country also have obligations of justice to those who do not because of a universal humanity, common political and economic orders, and a linked global trading system. Risse's inquiries about ownership of the earth give insights into immigration, obligations to future generations, and obligations arising from climate change. He considers issues such as fairness in trade, responsibilities of the WTO, intellectual property rights, labor rights, whether there ought to be states at all, and global inequality, and he develops a new foundational theory of human rights.
On God: An Uncommon Conversation
by Norman Mailer J. Michael Lennon"I see God," wrote Norman Mailer, "as a Creator, as the greatest artist. I see human beings as His most developed artworks." In these moving, amusing, and probing dialogues conducted in the years before his death, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, rejecting both organized religion and atheism. He avows that sensual pleasures were bestowed on us by God; he finds fault with the Ten Commandments; and he holds that technology was the Devil's most brilliant creation. In short, Mailer is original and unpredictable in this inspiring journey, in which "God needs us as much as we need God."
On God, Space, and Time
by Akiva VromanFor Akiva Jaap Vroman "a day in the infinite past" is nonsense. All the days that have elapsed belong to a past of countable days; they started on a first day a finite number of days ago. Time began this first day. It follows that an eternal past does not exist. Vroman bases his reasoning on a simple mathematical law: an infinite quantity remains the same infinite quantity if a finite quantity, however large, is subtracted from it. On God, Space, and Time devotes itself to this proof.On God, Space, and Time is rooted in the epistemological thinking of Immanuel Kant and Jean Piaget and the law of Leucippus, and draws from the somewhat disparate fields of psychology, physiology, mathematics, and physics.
On Gödel and the Nonexistence of Time – Gödel und die Nichtexistenz der Zeit: Kurt Gödel essay competition 2021 – Kurt-Gödel-Preis 2021
by Oliver Passon Christoph Benzmüller Brigitte FalkenburgKurt Gödel was not just a brilliant logician but contributed also important results to the general theory of relativity. In the 1940s he found a solution to Einstein's field equations which (roughly speaking) allows for time-travel, i.e. compromises our very notion of time. This book brings together the contributions to the Kurt Gödel essay competition on the question: "What does it mean for our world view if, according to Gödel, we also assume the non-existence of time?” Kurt Gödel war nicht nur ein brillanter Logiker, sondern trug auch wichtige Ergebnisse zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie bei. In den 1940er Jahren fand er eine Lösung für die Einsteinschen Feldgleichungen, die (grob gesagt) Zeitreisen ermöglicht, d.h. unsere Vorstellung von Zeit in Frage stellt. Dieses Buch versammelt die Beiträge zum Kurt-Gödel-Aufsatzwettbewerb zu der Frage: "Was bedeutet es für unser Weltbild, wenn wir mit Gödel die Nichtexistenz der Zeit annehmen?"
On Goethe (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by Walter BenjaminOn Goethe contains the full range of Walter Benjamin's reflections on the central figure in modern German culture. The writings in this volume—newly translated, fully annotated, and framed by an extensive introduction—display a variety of styles and cover a vast array of topics. The collection revolves around two strikingly different essays. Whereas "Goethe's Elective Affinities" develops a theory of critique in which a work is illuminated wholly from within itself, an article Benjamin wrote on Goethe for the Soviet Encyclopedia represents his first large-scale attempt to elaborate a historical-materialist methodology. The other thirty translations stand in similarly productive tension with one another. Some are concerned with concepts of beauty and categories of the aesthetic, others with the relation of art to politics and the status of "classical authors" in contemporary culture, and still others with what remains of humanistic traditions in the wake of their disappearance under fascist regimes and what synthesis is required for the construction of a historical object. The volume provides a glimpse into the laboratory of Benjamin's thought, while granting readers a series of insights into the epochal phenomena that gather around the name "Goethe."
On Government
by CiceroThese pioneering writings on the mechanics, tactics, and strategies of government were devised by the Roman Republic's most enlightened thinker.
On The Government Of The Living: Lectures At The Collège De France, 1979-1980
by Michel Foucault Arnold I. Davidson Graham BurchellWith these lectures Foucault inaugurates his investigations of truth-telling in the ethical domain of practices of techniques of the self. How and why, he asks, does the government of men require those subject to power to be subjects who must tell the truth about themselves?
On Great Writing (on The Sublime)
by Longinus G. M. A. GrubeCelebrated for its own clarity and sublime style, this classic work of literary theory draws on the writings of Demosthenes, Plato, Sappho, Thucydides, Euripides, and Aeschylus, among others, to examine and delineate the essentials of a noble style. The complete translation, from the Greek of A. O. Prickard's Oxford text, features an introduction by Grube, establishing the historical and critical context of the work, and a biographical index.
On Grief and Reason: Essays
by Joseph Brodsky21 essays: Spoils of War, The Condition We Call Exile, A Place as Good as Any, Uncommon Visage, Acceptance Speech, After a Journey, Altra Ego, How to Read a Book, In Praise of Boredom, Profile of Clio, Speech at the Stadium, Collector's Item, An Immodest Proposal, Letter to a President, On Grief and Reason, Homage to Marcus Aurelius, A Cat's Meow, Wooing the Inanimate, Ninety Years Later, Letter to Horace, and In Memory of Stephen Spender.
On Habit: On Habit (Thinking in Action)
by Clare CarlisleFor Aristotle, excellence is not an act but a habit, and Hume regards habit as ‘the great guide of life’. However, for Proust habit is problematic: ‘if habit is a second nature, it prevents us from knowing our first.’ What is habit? Do habits turn us into machines or free us to do more creative things? Should religious faith be habitual? Does habit help or hinder the practice of philosophy? Why do Luther, Spinoza, Kant, Kierkegaard and Bergson all criticise habit? If habit is both a blessing and a curse, how can we live well in our habits? In this thought-provoking book Clare Carlisle examines habit from a philosophical standpoint. Beginning with a lucid appraisal of habit’s philosophical history she suggests that both receptivity and resistance to change are basic principles of habit-formation. Carlisle shows how the philosophy of habit not only anticipates the discoveries of recent neuroscience but illuminates their ethical significance. She asks whether habit is a reliable form of knowledge by examining the contrasting interpretations of habitual thinking offered by Spinoza and Hume. She then turns to the role of habit in the good life, tracing Aristotle’s legacy through the ideas of Joseph Butler, Hegel, and Félix Ravaisson, and assessing the ambivalent attitudes to habit expressed by Nietzsche and Proust. She argues that a distinction between habit and practice helps to clarify this ambivalence, particularly in the context of habit and religion, where she examines both the theology of habit and the repetitions of religious life. She concludes by considering how philosophy itself is a practice of learning to live well with habit.
On Heidegger's Being and Time
by Simon Critchley Reiner SchürmannOn Heidegger's Being and Time is an outstanding exploration of Heidegger's most important work by two major philosophers. Simon Critchley argues that we must see Being and Time as a radicalization of Husserl's phenomenology, particularly his theories of intentionality, categorial intuition, and the phenomenological concept of the a priori. This leads to a reappraisal and defense of Heidegger's conception of phenomenology. In contrast, Reiner Schürmann urges us to read Heidegger 'backward', arguing that his later work is the key to unravelling Being and Time. Through a close reading of Being and Time Schürmann demonstrates that this work is ultimately aporetic because the notion of Being elaborated in his later work is already at play within it. This is the first time that Schürmann's renowned lectures on Heidegger have been published. The book concludes with Critchley's reinterpretation of the importance of authenticity in Being and Time. Arguing for what he calls an 'originary inauthenticity', Critchley proposes a relational understanding of the key concepts of the second part of Being and Time: death, conscience and temporality.
On Hilbert's Sixth Problem (Synthese Library #441)
by Newton C. da Costa Francisco Antonio DoriaThis book explores the premise that a physical theory is an interpretation of the analytico–canonical formalism. Throughout the text, the investigation stresses that classical mechanics in its Lagrangian formulation is the formal backbone of theoretical physics. The authors start from a presentation of the analytico–canonical formalism for classical mechanics, and its applications in electromagnetism, Schrödinger's quantum mechanics, and field theories such as general relativity and gauge field theories, up to the Higgs mechanism.The analysis uses the main criterion used by physicists for a theory: to formulate a physical theory we write down a Lagrangian for it. A physical theory is a particular instance of the Lagrangian functional. So, there is already an unified physical theory. One only has to specify the corresponding Lagrangian (or Lagrangian density); the dynamical equations are the associated Euler–Lagrange equations. The theory of Suppes predicates as the main tool in the axiomatization and examples from the usual theories in physics. For applications, a whole plethora of results from logic that lead to interesting, and sometimes unexpected, consequences.This volume looks at where our physics happen and which mathematical universe we require for the description of our concrete physical events. It also explores if we use the constructive universe or if we need set–theoretically generic spacetimes.
On Historicizing Epistemology: An Essay (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by Hans-Jörg RheinbergerEpistemology, as generally understood by philosophers of science, is rather remote from the history of science and from historical concerns in general. Rheinberger shows that, from the late nineteenth through the late twentieth century, a parallel, alternative discourse sought to come to terms with the rather fundamental experience of the thoroughgoing scientific changes brought on by the revolution in physics. Philosophers of science and historians of science alike contributed their share to what this essay describes as an ongoing quest to historicize epistemology. Historical epistemology, in this sense, is not so concerned with the knowing subject and its mental capacities. Rather, it envisages science as an ongoing cultural endeavor and tries to assess the conditions under which the sciences in all their diversity take shape and change over time.
On Hobbes: Escaping the War of All Against All (Liveright Classics)
by Alan RyanA guiding light to America's Founding Fathers, Hobbes created the first truly modern political philosophy. In Leviathan, one of the greatest works of political philosophy of all time, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes created the idea of a "social contract" and set out to explicate a doctrine for the foundation of states and legitimate forms of government. In On Hobbes, Alan Ryan explains how Hobbes created the secular conception of the state and politics in one of the first truly modern works of political philosophy. Inverting Aristotle's view of politics, Hobbes argued that humans organize themselves into political communities not out of any sociable impulse to pursue the good life in common, but rather out of an unsociable fear of one another and for the sake of avoiding the greatest evil of all: death. Ryan explicates how modern notions of individual rights, sovereignty, representative government, and almost all liberal political theory find their foundation in the work of Hobbes. Excerpted here are: Leviathan, The Elements of Law.
On Holy Ground: The Theory And Practice Of Religious Education
by Liam GearonReligion has had notable and renewed prominence in contemporary public and political life. Religious questions have also been freshly examined in philosophy and theology, the natural sciences, the social sciences, psychology, phenomenology, politics and the arts. These fields reflect complex, multi-disciplinary understandings of religion, some hostile, some accommodating. For religious education this has all contributed to its own international renaissance. Religious education, in ensuring it is contemporary, shares with these fields the same criticality, the same distance between the study of religion and the religious life. Yet what are the grounds of this modern religious education? Through a systematic historical and contemporary cross-disciplinary analysis, answering this question is the ambitious task of the book. Chapters include: philosophy, theology and religious education the natural sciences and religious education the social sciences and religious education psychology, spirituality and religious education phenomenology and religious education the politics of religious education the aesthetics of religious education. The central problem of all modern religious education remains this: what are the grounds of religious education when religious education is no longer grounded in the religious life, in the life of the holy? Although this primarily appears to be an epistemological problem, it soon becomes a moral and existential one. The book will be of key interest to teachers, theorists and researchers working in religious education.