The Philosopher's Beach Book invites you to relax and think; to wiggle your toes in the sand (literally or metaphorically) and reflect on the meaning of life. Have you ever stretched out on a holiday beach or taken a relaxed stroll in the evening, musing on your life 'back home' - your family, your work, your values - and wondered if it all makes sense? This book invites you to ask questions; to explore the assumptions of everyday life; to challenge your own values. You may go on holiday to see something new, but it also offers you a new perspective on the familiar. From the distance of your (literal or metaphorical) beach, now is the chance to give life a gentle, intellectual prod.
"It is a great pity that we in the United States do not have our own Roger Scruton. As his . . . collection of essays reminds us, he is an accomplished philosopher who writes trenchantly about many important political, social and religious issues, who cares passionately about art and culture and who is also a brilliant conservative polemicist. . . . "Mr. Scruton has two great virtues as a critic. One is his ability to combine a delicate appreciation of culture with the robust analytical skills of a trained philosopher. . . . "Mr. Scruton's other great virtue is his habit of assessing things from the inside, taking them on their own terms. If his judgments are often harsh, one nevertheless comes away feeling that he has made the best case possible for his subject. This makes his criticism more devastating yet also more generous than the criticism of most other commentator." - Roger Kimball, New York Times Book Review "Each essay has been constructed with considerable care, and the positions taken are clearly stated and soundly argued. . . . He shows . . . that the philosopher-critic is alive and well. . . . Recommended for all academic libraries." - Library Journal " Scruton] writes eloquently of the way in which social bonds, if refashioned in contractual form. 'become profane, a system of fa ade, a Disneyland version of what was formerly dignified and monumental.'" - Peter Clarke, London Review of Books
What's the point of studying philosophy when we have theology? Philosophy sometimes suffers from an inferiority complex in the church. But Paul Copan contends that it is possible to affirm theology's preeminence without diminishing the contribution of philosophy. This brief introduction surveys philosophy's basic aims and defends its function in the Christian life.
This book explores the metaphysical, epistemological, and hermeneutical theories of Schelling's final system concerning the nature and meaning of religious mythology. This perspective is not surprising since Schelling regarded religion (not science or philosophy) as embodying the most complete manifestation of truth. Beach examines Schelling's novel attempt to account for the changing historical forms of religion in terms of a complex theory of dynamic spiritual powers, or "potencies." He shows that these are not mere representations, ideas, or projected feelings created by ancient myth-makers for the benefit of a credulous populace. Instead, Beach demonstrates that these potencies should be seen as animate powers inhabiting the unconscious strata of a people's collective mind.
Two experienced educators offer an up-to-date introduction to philosophy from a Christian perspective that covers the four major areas of philosophical thought: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and ethics. Written from an analytic perspective, the book introduces key concepts and issues within the main areas of philosophical inquiry in a comprehensive yet accessible way, inviting readers on a quest for goodness, truth, and beauty that ultimately points to Jesus as the source of all.
A science fiction epic from "the best writer in America" (Tom Clancy)—Hugo and Nebula award-winning author John Varley. Fleeing Earth after an alien invasion, the human race stands on the threshold of evolution. Their new home is Luna, a moon colony blessed with creature comforts, prolonged lifespans, digital memories, and instant sex changes. But the people of Luna are bored, restless, suicidal—and so is the computer that monitors their existence...
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Folly Beach is a book-length personal essay about overcoming fears of mortality and loss through creativity. It begins when writer Steven Harvey, strumming his ukulele, watches his granddaughter dance on the boardwalk of his beach rental and has the uncanny sense that he is waving goodbye to all that matters. This valedictory feeling clings throughout the week to happy activities with his family. Having just retired from a lifetime of college teaching, he remembers his last classes and the last books he taught. All seems to be slipping away, a common feeling no doubt for many who retire. Folly Beach never loses sight of the inevitable losses that the passage of time brings, and the wistful feeling never entirely goes away, but loss doesn't have the last word. Instead the book breathes new life into the old truth that the end is not as important as the many creative ways we get there: children, poetry, cross-rhythms, kitesurfing, wave-hopping, and late night conversation as moonlit breakers lap the shore to name a few. In the face of the grim, Folly Beach holds up the human capacity to create as our sufficient joy. It is the thought of architectural follies inspired by the name of the beach that keeps the feelings of loss at bay. Harvey finds himself looking up those useless and at times poignant buildings that do little more than celebrate their own creation and devises ways for the family to build their own. An elaborate fort made of sand, flattened and swept away by the tides, is a kind of doomed folly on a small scale, but in the making of it Harvey and his family become part of a boundlessly creative universe, and the realization of that simple truth serves as a balm.
