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Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence
by Shai Held&“Through Heschel, Held&’s work reaches out more broadly to treat us to a profound discussion of the great issues in contemporary Jewish theology&” (Arthur Green, Hebrew College Rabbinical School). Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) was a prolific scholar, impassioned theologian, and prominent activist who participated in the black civil rights movement and the campaign against the Vietnam War. He has been hailed as a hero, honored as a visionary, and endlessly quoted as a devotional writer. In this sympathetic, yet critical, examination, Shai Held elicits the overarching themes and unity of Heschel&’s incisive and insightful thought. Focusing on the idea of transcendence—or the movement from self-centeredness to God-centeredness—Held puts Heschel into dialogue with contemporary Jewish thinkers, Christian theologians, devotional writers, and philosophers of religion. &“Shai Held&’s book is a master class in one of the most significant Jewish voices of our time.&” —Tablet &“In this lucid and elegant study, one of the keenest minds in Jewish theology in our time probes the vision of one of the most profound spiritual writers of the twentieth century, uncovering a unity that others have missed and shedding light not only on Heschel but also on the characteristically modern habits of mind that impede the knowledge of God. The book is especially valuable for the connections it draws with other philosophers, theologians, and spiritual writers, Jewish and Christian. Enthusiastically recommended!&” —Jon D. Levenson, Harvard University &“[A] thoughtful, illuminating new study of Heschel&’s thought . . . It is one of the many virtues of Shai Held&’s book that it helps us to place Heschel alongside not only Kaplan but Halevi, Horovitz, and Rav Nahman―as well as the Psalmist.&” —Jewish Review of Books
Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre
by Chantal Bilodeau Larry TremblayAbsurd, hilarious and haunting, Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre is an unforgettable mystery that asks the question: How can we ever know who we are and what is true when the world we know is shifting beneath us? Its answer is simple: John Wilkes Booth was the ?rst American star-the actor who kidnapped reality to transform it into theatre.
Abraham's Children
by Kelly James ClarkScarcely any country in today's world can claim to be free of intolerance. Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, Sudan, the Balkans, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and the Caucasus are just some of the areas of intractable conflict apparently inspired or exacerbated by religious differences. Can devoted Jews, Christians, or Muslims remain true to their own fundamental beliefs and practices, yet also find paths toward liberty, tolerance, and respect for those of other faiths? In this vitally important book, fifteen influential practitioners of the Abrahamic religions address religious liberty and tolerance from the perspectives of their own faith traditions. Former president Jimmy Carter, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Indonesia’s first democratically elected president, Abdurrahman Wahid, and the other writers draw on their personal experiences and on the sacred writings that are central in their own religious lives. Rather than relying on "pure reason," as secularists might prefer, the contributors celebrate religious traditions and find within them a way toward mutual peace, uncompromised liberty, and principled tolerance. Offering a counterbalance to incendiary religious leaders who cite Holy Writ to justify intolerance and violence, the contributors reveal how tolerance and respect for believers in other faiths stand at the core of the Abrahamic traditions.
Abrahamic Reflections on Randomness and Providence
by Kelly James Clark Jeffrey KoperskiThis open access book addresses the question of how God can providentially govern apparently ungovernable randomness. Medieval theologians confidently held that God is provident, that is, God is the ultimate cause of or is responsible for everything that happens. However, scientific advances since the 19th century pose serious challenges to traditional views of providence. From Darwinian evolution to quantum mechanics, randomness has become an essential part of the scientific worldview. An interdisciplinary team of Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars—biologists, physicists, philosophers and theologians—addresses questions of randomness and providence.
Abregé de philosophie
by Dieudonné NassaL'objectif majeur de ce document est de donner aux candidats au baccalauréat les moyens de réussir l'épreuve de philosophie. Il est aussi, destiné aux élèves des classes de première dans un style simplifié pour comprendre les notions du programme et pour les élèves des classes de seconde, l'essentiel à maîtriser et à retenir sur les principaux auteurs. Le document comprend plusieurs éléments d'informations qui sont les suivants : -la méthodologie de la dissertation et du commentaire de texte ; -des cours développés entièrement, de même que des résumés de cours ; -des textes et des sujets de réflexion ; -une présentation des principaux auteurs du programme.
Absence in Science, Security and Policy: From Research Agendas to Global Strategy (Global Issues)
by Brian Rappert Brian BalmerThis book explores the absent and missing in debates about science and security. Through varied case studies, including biological and chemical weapons control, science journalism, nanotechnology research and neuroethics, the contributors explore how matters become absent, ignored or forgotten and the implications for ethics, policy and society.The chapter 'Sensing Absence: How to See What Isn't There in the Study of Science and Security' is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.
Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self
by Marilynne RobinsonEssays from the lectures delivered at Yale University, the Dwight Harrington Terry Foundation. Includes bibliographical references.
Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self
by Marilynne RobinsonIn this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought--science, religion, and consciousness. Crafted with the same care and insight as her award-winning novels, Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson's view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest. Instead, in its purest form, science represents a search for answers. It engages the problem of knowledge, an aspect of the mystery of consciousness, rather than providing a simple and final model of reality. By defending the importance of individual reflection, Robinson celebrates the power and variety of human consciousness in the tradition of William James. She explores the nature of subjectivity and considers the culture in which Sigmund Freud was situated and its influence on his model of self and civilization. Through keen interpretations of language, emotion, science, and poetry, Absence of Mind restores human consciousness to its central place in the religion-science debate.
Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East
by Byung-Chul HanWestern thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centred not on essence but on absence. The fundamental topos of Far Eastern thinking is not being but ‘the way’ (dao), which lacks the solidity and fixedness of essence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwelling and wandering. ‘A Zen monk should be without fixed abode, like the clouds, and without fixed support, like water’, said the Japanese Zen master Dōgen. Drawing on this fundamental distinction between essence and absence, Byung-Chul Han explores the differences between Western and Far Eastern philosophy, aesthetics, architecture and art, shedding fresh light on a culture of absence that may at first sight appear strange and unfamiliar to those in the West whose ways of thinking have been shaped for centuries by the preoccupation with essence.
Absentees: On Variously Missing Persons
by Daniel Heller-RoazenAn intellectually adventurous account of the role of nonpersons that explores their depiction in literature and challenges how they are defined in philosophy, law, and anthropology In thirteen interlocking chapters, Absentees explores the role of the missing in human communities, asking an urgent question: How does a person become a nonperson, whether by disappearance, disenfranchisement, or civil, social, or biological death? Only somebody can become a “nobody,” but, as Daniel Heller-Roazen shows, the ways of being a nonperson are as diverse and complex as they are mysterious and unpredictable. Heller-Roazen treats the variously missing persons of the subtitle in three parts: Vanishings, Lessenings, and Survivals. In each section and with multiple transhistorical and transcultural examples, he challenges the categories that define nonpersons in philosophy, ethics, law, and anthropology. Exclusion, infamy, and stigma; mortuary beliefs and customs; children’s games and state censuses; ghosts and “dead souls” illustrate the lives of those lacking or denied full personhood. In the archives of fiction, Heller-Roazen uncovers figurations of the missing—from Helen of Argos in Troy or Egypt to Hawthorne’s Wakefield, Swift’s Captain Gulliver, Kafka’s undead hunter Gracchus, and Chamisso’s long-lived shadowless Peter Schlemihl. Readers of The Enemy of All and No One’s Ways will find a continuation of those books’ intense intellectual adventures, with unexpected questions and arguments arising every step of the way. In a unique voice, Heller-Roazen’s thought and writing capture the intricacies of the all-too-human absent and absented.
Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx (Currencies: New Thinking for Financial Times)
by Michael LazarusKarl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how freedom and rational agency are impacted by a social world formed by value under capitalism, with consequences for philosophy today. Michael Lazarus situates Marx within a shared tradition of ethical inquiry, placing him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. Lazarus traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx's work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, two of the most profound critics of modern politics and ethics. Ultimately, the book claims that Marx's value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement. In this normative interpretation of Marx, Lazarus integrates recent moral philosophy with a historically specific analysis of capitalism as a social form of life. He challenges contemporary political and economic theory to insist that any conception of modern life needs to account for capitalism. With a robust critique of capitalism derived from the determinations of what Marx calls the "form of value," Lazarus argues for an ethical life beyond capital.
Absolute Fiction: Idealist Philosophy and British Literature (SUNY series, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century)
by Justin PrystashExplores the coevolution of Absolute idealist philosophy and British fiction from the Romantic period forward.Absolute Fiction examines the principal form of idealism in the modern period, Absolute idealism, which posits that mind and matter must be understood in relation to all of reality-the universe, the Absolute. This premise was variously articulated by philosophers and writers from Germany, Britain, India, and beyond. Absolute Fiction traces a genealogy from the creative adoption of Hinduism and German Idealism by Coleridge and Carlyle to Aldous Huxley's novelization of Advaita Vedānta. Justin Prystash argues that canonical figures, such as Hegel and George Eliot, as well as overlooked ones, such as May Sinclair and Anukul Chandra Mukerji, found in the Absolute a provocation to account for more and more swaths of reality-accounts that required, at the limits of philosophy, fictional prosthetics. The thematic and formal experimentation of Romanticism, realism, science fiction, horror/weird fiction, and modernism all draw upon Absolute idealism to reconceive subjectivity and ethics. These experiments, far from being antithetical to contemporary literary criticism, reveal it to be more idealist than many would like to acknowledge.
Absolute Recoil
by Slavoj ZizekPhilosophical materialism in all its forms - from scientific naturalism to Deleuzian New Materialism - has failed to meet the key theoretical and political challenges of the modern world. This is the burden of philosopher Slavoj i ek's argument in this pathbreaking and eclectic new work. Recent history has seen developments such as quantum physics and Freudian psychoanalysis, not to speak of the failure of twentieth-century communism, shake our understanding of existence.In the process, the dominant tradition in Western philosophy lost its moorings. To bring materialism up to date, i ek - himself a committed materialist and communist - proposes a radical revision of our intellectual heritage. He argues that dialectical materialism is the only true philosophical inheritor of what Hegel designated the "speculative" approach in thought.Absolute Recoil is a startling reformulation of the basis and possibilities of contemporary philosophy. While focusing on how to overcome the transcendental approach without regressing to naïve, pre-Kantian realism, i ek offers a series of excursions into today's political, artistic, and ideological landscape, from Arnold Schoenberg's music to the films of Ernst Lubitsch.From the Hardcover edition.
Absolute Tao
by Osho Osho International FoundationMoving beyond the usual interpretations of this classic Chinese text -- that of using it as an indicator of what to do next or attempting to predict the future -- Osho is using the Tao Te Ching as Lao Tzu intended: to ignite the flame of individual awareness and insight.His commentaries on these seven verses burn through every idea we may hold about ourselves until we can see with the same crystal clear light as Lao Tzu.
Abstract Entities (New Problems of Philosophy)
by Sam CowlingThink of a number, any number, or properties like fragility and humanity. These and other abstract entities are radically different from concrete entities like electrons and elbows. While concrete entities are located in space and time, have causes and effects, and are known through empirical means, abstract entities like meanings and possibilities are remarkably different. They seem to be immutable and imperceptible and to exist "outside" of space and time. This book provides a comprehensive critical assessment of the problems raised by abstract entities and the debates about existence, truth, and knowledge that surround them. It sets out the key issues that inform the metaphysical disagreement between platonists who accept abstract entities and nominalists who deny abstract entities exist. Beginning with the essentials of the platonist–nominalist debate, it explores the key arguments and issues informing the contemporary debate over abstract reality: arguments for platonism and their connections to semantics, science, and metaphysical explanation the abstract–concrete distinction and views about the nature of abstract reality epistemological puzzles surrounding our knowledge of mathematical entities and other abstract entities. arguments for nominalism premised upon concerns about paradox, parsimony, infinite regresses, underdetermination, and causal isolation nominalist options that seek to dispense with abstract entities. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, Abstract Entities is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and authoritative introduction to the problems raised by abstract entities.
Abstract Objects (Elements in Metaphysics)
by David LigginsPhilosophers often debate the existence of such things as numbers and propositions, and say that if these objects exist, they are abstract. But what does it mean to call something 'abstract'? And do we have good reason to believe in the existence of abstract objects? This Element addresses those questions, putting newcomers to these debates in a position to understand what they concern and what are the most influential considerations at work in this area of metaphysics. It also provides advice on which lines of discussion promise to be the most fruitful.
Abstract Objects: For and Against (Synthese Library #422)
by José L. Falguera Concha Martínez-VidalThis volume examines the question “Do abstract objects exist?”, presenting new work from contributing authors across different branches of philosophy. The introduction overviews philosophical debate which considers: what objects qualify as abstract, what do we mean by the word "exist” and indeed, what evidence should count in favor or against the thesis that abstract objects exist. Through subsequent chapters readers will discover the ubiquity of abstract objects as each philosophical field is considered.Given the ubiquitous use of expressions that purportedly refer to abstract objects, we think that it is relevant to attend to the controversy between those who want to advocate the existence of abstract objects and those who stand against them. Contributions to this volume depict positions and debates that directly or indirectly involve taking one position or other about abstract objects of different kinds and categories. The volume provides a variety of samples of how positions for or against abstract objects can be used in different areas of philosophy in relation to different matters.
Abstract State Machines, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, and Z: 5th International Conference, ABZ 2016, Linz, Austria, May 23-27, 2016, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #9675)
by Michael Butler Klaus-Dieter Schewe Atif Mashkoor Miklos BiroThis bookconstitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on AbstractState Machines, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, and Z, ABZ 2016, held in Linz, Austria, inMay 2016. The 17 full and 15 short papers presented in this volume were carefullyreviewed and selected from 61 submissions. They record the latest researchdevelopments in state-based formal methods Abstract State Machines, Alloy, B,Circus, Event-B, TLS+, VDM and Z.
Abstract State Machines, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, and Z: 5th International Conference, Abz 2016, Linz, Austria, May 23-27, 2016, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #9675)
by Michael Butler Atif Mashkoor Miklos Biro Laus-Dieter ScheweThis book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Abstract State Machines, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, and Z, ABZ 2016, held in Linz, Austria, in May 2016. <P><P> The 17 full and 15 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 61 submissions. They record the latest research developments in state-based formal methods Abstract State Machines, Alloy, B, Circus, Event-B, TLS+, VDM and Z.
Abstraction in Science and Art: Philosophical Perspectives (Routledge Research in Aesthetics)
by Chiara Ambrosio Julia Sánchez-DoradoThis volume explores the roles and uses of abstraction in scientific and artistic practice. Conceived as an interdisciplinary dialogue between experts across histories and philosophies of art and science, this collection of essays draws on the shared premise that abstraction is a rich and generative process, not reducible to the mere omission of details in a representation.When scientists attempt to make sense of complex natural phenomena, they often produce highly abstract models of them. In the history and philosophy of art, there is a long tradition of debate on the function of abstraction, and – more recently – its relation with theories of depiction. Adopting a process-oriented perspective, the chapters in this volume explore the epistemic potential of a diversity of practices of abstracting. The systematic analysis of a wide range of historical cases, from early twentieth-century abstractionist painting to contemporary abstract photography, and from nineteenth-century physics to recent research in biology and neurosciences, invites the reader to reflect on the material lives of abstraction through concrete artefacts, experimental practices, and theoretical and aesthetic achievements.Abstraction in Science and Art: Philosophical Perspectives will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of science, and epistemology, as well as to historians of science and art, and to practicing artists and scientists interested in exploring foundational questions at the heart of the creative practice of abstracting.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.Open access for this book was funded by University College London.
Abstractionism (Elements in the Philosophy of Mathematics)
by Luca Zanetti Francesca BoccuniThe aim of this Element is to provide an overview of abstractionism in the philosophy of mathematics. The authors distinguish between mathematical abstractionism, which interprets mathematical theories on the basis of abstraction principles, and philosophical abstractionism, which attributes a philosophical significance to mathematical abstractionism. They then survey the main semantic, ontological, and epistemological theses that are associated with philosophical abstractionism. Finally, the authors suggest that the most recent developments in the debate pull abstractionism in different directions.
Absurdity
by Michael FoleyThe good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfilment. The bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of The Age of Absurdity - a wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of wellbeing and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life. Michael Foley examines the elusive condition of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations and 'always-on' communications technology. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and ageing are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships and perpetual youth. In conclusion, rather than denouncing and rejecting the age, Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today's world - finding happiness in its absurdity.
Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power
by Josef PieperOne of the great Catholic philosophers of our day reflects on the way language has been abused so that, instead of being a means of communicating the truth and entering more deeply into it, and of the acquisition of wisdom, it is being used to control people and manipulate them to achieve practical ends. Reality becomes intelligible through words. Man speaks so that through naming things, what is real may become intelligible. This mediating character of language, however, is being increasingly corrupted. Tyranny, propaganda, mass-media destroy and distort words. They offer us apparent realities whose fictive character threatens to become opaque. Josef Pieper shows with energetic zeal, but also with ascetical restraint, the path out of this dangerous situation. We are constrained to see things again as they are and from the truth thus grasped, to live and to work.
Abuses
by Alphonso LingisPart travelogue, part meditation, Abuses is a bold exploration of central themes in Continental philosophy by one of the most passionate and original thinkers in that tradition writing today. A gripping record of desires, obsessions, bodies, and spaces experienced in distant lands, Alphonso Lingis's book offers no less than a new approach to philosophy—aesthetic and sympathetic—which departs from the phenomenology of Levinas and Merleau-Ponty. "These were letters written to friends," Lingis writes, "from places I found myself for months at a time, about encounters that moved me and troubled me. . . . These writings also became no longer my letters. I found myself only trying to speak for others, others greeted only with passionate kisses of parting." Ranging from the elevated Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, to the living rooms of the Mexican elite, to the streets of Manila, Lingis recounts incidents of state-sponsored violence and the progressive incorporation of third-world peoples into the circuits of exchange of international capitalism. Recalling the work of such writers as Graham Greene, Kathy Acker, and Georges Bataille, Abuses contains impassioned accounts of silence, eros and identity, torture and war, the sublime, lust and joy, and human rituals surrounding carnival and death that occurred during his journeys to India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Bali, the Philippines, Antarctica, and Latin America. A deeply unsettling book by a philosopher of unusual imagination, Abuses will appeal to readers who, like its author, "may want the enigmas and want the discomfiture within oneself." This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1994.
Abwehr und Anerkennung in der Klimakrise: Wie über Wahrheiten, Fakten und Meinungen kommuniziert wird
by Barbara StrohscheinAuf Wahrheiten, Fakten und Meinungen zur Klimafrage wird häufig öffentlich wie privat mit psychischer oder sozialer Abwehr reagiert. Gestützt auf ausgewählte psychologische und philosophische Theorien sowie Datenmaterial wird in diesem Buch gezeigt, wie Abwehr zustande kommt, wie sie wirkt und wie andererseits die notwendige Anerkennung auf verschiedenen Ebenen gelingen kann. Erst durch Anerkennung werden konstruktive Diskurse möglich. Dieses Buch bietet alle Grundlagen, um Kommunikationskonflikte zwischen Abwehr und Anerkennung in der Klimakrise theoretisch und praktisch lösen zu können.