The purpose of this engaging book is twofold: to explain and justify the primary objects and methods of the discipline of philosophy, and to show how philosophy is relevant to a person's life and happiness. Both purposes are implied in the idea of wisdom in its theoretical and existential dimensions. Philosophy is the 'love of wisdom, ' and wisdom involves coming into a right relation to the world of beauty, goodness, and truth
From the dawn of Western thought to the present day, The Love of Wisdom tells the story of philosophy as something intensely theological, both in its insights and its wrong turns. The book will be invaluable for any student of theology or intellectual history, and for anyone who wants to see the intellectual cogency of the Christian faith at its best. The intellectual tradition of the Church emerges clearly from this book as one of the glories of the Christian inheritance.
This Christian-based introduction to philosophy textbook is all the more appealing to its student audience for including humor and popular culture illustrations to teach important concepts.
A Faithful Guide to Philosophy is the only British Christian introduction to philosophy, a book that will be used as a course textbook and by church study groups and individual readers alike. It covers a broad range of subjects of central importance to the Christian worldview, and will be prized by many.
Since its inception, philosophy has struggled to perfect individual understanding through discussion and dialogue based in personal, poetic, or dramatic investigation. The positions of such philosophers as Socrates, Spinoza, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida differ in almost every respect, yet these thinkers all share a common method of practicing philosophy--not as a detached, intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art. What is the love that turns into knowledge and how is the knowledge we seek already a form of love? Reading key texts from Socrates to Derrida, this book addresses the fundamental tension between love and knowledge that informs the history of Western philosophy. LoveKnowledge returns to the long tradition of philosophy as an exercise not only of the mind but also of the soul, asking whether philosophy can shape and inform our lives and communities.
Marie-Louise von Franz (1915-1998) is remembered as one of the most beloved and perhaps most important of Carl Jung's students. Her more than twenty books have inspired more than two generations of readers, many of whom found their way into Jungian psychology through her compassionate and profound insights. She lived in Kusnacht, Switzerland, and was a scholar of Medieval Latin as well as a major figure in analytical psychology. She met Jung in 1933 and worked with him from 1934 until his death in 1961. A founder of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, she published works on a wide range of subjects, including dreams, alchemy, personality typology, myths, and, most famously, fairy tales. Emmanuel Kennedy-Xypolitas has assembled a commemorative volume in memory of Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz. Comprised of fifty-five essays, poems, and reminiscences, it also gathers material documenting her life and work, including a biographical sketch and chronology, eulogies, birthday addresses, personal impressions, reactions from the Jungian community to the news of her death, reviews and lists of her published work in English, including books, articles, and films. This is an important volume for the many readers of Jungian literature who have over the years come to appreciate the depth of insight and compassion of Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz. It is also an excellent introduction for those who are new to this important pioneer of the Jungian movement.
The Catholic Church has always recognized that philosophy is necessary both to understand the faith as well as to defend it. The need for a philosophically informed faith has become more acute with the rise of secularism. Seat of Wisdom demonstrates that the philosophical principles developed in the Catholic tradition, especially as articulated in Thomism, provide the intellectual foundation for belief in God and are also the only reliable basis for a fully coherent vision of man’s place in the world. Seat of Wisdom begins with an exploration of the relationship between faith and reason. Philosophy’s essential role is to discover the rational principles underlying the intelligible order of reality. These principles act as a bridge connecting science and religious faith, enabling the believer to integrate all facets of human experience. Each of those first principles, as expressed in the transcendental properties, are then analyzed as the basis of the major philosophical disciplines. Starting with metaphysics’ study of being, the argument proceeds to consider the true, the good, and the beautiful in terms of epistemology, anthropology, ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. Lastly, these principles are shown to point to God as creator. The strength of the Catholic philosophical tradition is evident when contrasted with reductive theories which fail to account for the breadth of human experience. Consequently, each chapter will introduce influential philosophers whose inadequate theories inform contemporary assumptions. Against this, the Thomistic argument is elucidated as being inclusive of the insights of the reductive position. It will be seen that this “both/and” approach is the only way to do justice to the glory of God and the gift of creation. Religion is prey to skepticism when it is isolated from the rest of knowledge. This integrative argument, uniting discussions of nature, politics, and theology according to common principles, enables the reader to grasp the unity of wisdom. Moreover, by engaging alternative positions, it provides the reader with tools to defend the Catholic worldview against those reductive philosophies which only deprive life of its full meaning.
Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', not in a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of erôs. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater.
The renowned French philosopher’s “ode to love’s power to unite in the face of eternity, and its optimism in the face of pain” (Publishers Weekly). In a world rife with consumerism, where online dating promises risk-free romance and love is all too often seen as a mere variant of desire and hedonism, Alain Badiou believes that love is under threat. Taking to heart Rimbaud’s famous line “love needs reinventing,” In Praise of Love is the celebrated French intellectual’s passionate treatise in defense of love. For Badiou, love is an existential project, a constantly unfolding quest for truth. This quest begins with the chance encounter, an event that forever changes two individuals, challenging them “to see the world from the point of view of two rather than one.” This, Badiou believes, is love’s most essential transforming power. Through thought-provoking dialogue edited from a conversation between Badiou and Truong, a vibrant cast of thinkers are invoked: Kierkegaard, Plato, de Beauvoir, Proust, and more, create a new narrative of love in the face of twenty-first-century modernity. Moving, zealous, and wise, Badiou’s “paean to the anticapitalist, antiessentialist, unifying power of love” urges us not to fear it but to see it as a magnificent undertaking that compels us to explore others and to move away from an obsession with ourselves (Publishers Weekly). “Finally, the cure for the pornographic, utilitarian exchange of favors to which love has been reduced in America. Alain Badiou is our philosopher of love.” —Simon Critchley, author of The Faith of the Faithless
O divine Wisdom, Lord of heaven and earth, I humbly beg pardon for my audacity in attempting to speak of your perfections, ignorant and sinful as I am. I beg you not to consider the darkness of my mind or the uncleanness of my lips unless it be to take them away with a glance of your eyes and a breath of your mouth. Aeterna Press
