Ironies of Faith

Download Ironies of Faith PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1684516234
Total Pages : 429 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (845 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Ironies of Faith by : Anthony Esolen

Download or read book Ironies of Faith written by Anthony Esolen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ironies of Faith, celebrated Dante scholar and translator Anthony Esolen provides a profound meditation upon the use and place of irony in Christian art and in the Christian life. Beginning with an extended analysis of irony as an essentially dramatic device, Esolen explores those manifestations of irony that appear prominently in Christian thinking and art: ironies of time (for Christians believe in divine Providence, but live in a world whose moments pass away); ironies of power (for Christians believe in an almighty God who took on human flesh, and whose "weakness" is stronger than our greatest enemy, death); ironies of love (for man seldom knows whom to love, or how, or even whom it is that in the depths of his heart he loves best); and the figure of the Child (for Christians ever hear the warning voice of their Savior, who says that unless we become like unto one of these little ones, we shall not enter the Kingdom of God). Esolen's finely wrought study draws from Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolkien, Mauriac, Milton Herbert, Hopkins, and Dostoyevsky, among others, including the anonymous author of the medieval poem Pearl. Such authors, Anthony Esolen believes, teach us that the last laugh is on the world, because that grim old world, taking itself so seriously that even its laughter is a sneer, will finally - despite its proud resistance - be redeemed. That is the ultimate irony of faith. Readers who treasure the Christian literary tradition should not miss this illuminating book.

Images of Faith

Download Images of Faith PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Images of Faith by : William F. Lynch

Download or read book Images of Faith written by William F. Lynch and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Divine Irony

Download Divine Irony PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Susquehanna University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781575910321
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (13 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Divine Irony by : Glenn Stanfield Holland

Download or read book Divine Irony written by Glenn Stanfield Holland and published by Susquehanna University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultimately, irony appears to be a term with no definitive meaning, the product of a critical enterprise that over time identified particular literary devices and perspectives a irony."--BOOK JACKET.

The Ironic Christian's Companion

Download The Ironic Christian's Companion PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101664711
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Ironic Christian's Companion by : Patrick Henry

Download or read book The Ironic Christian's Companion written by Patrick Henry and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-02-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prominent religious scholar who isn't afraid to shake our assumptions and probe our imaginations, Patrick Henry has written a guide for the "ironic Christian"—one who strives to integrate truth with faith, to let an expanding knowledge of the world translate into an expanded understanding of God. Drawing on the works of a diverse group of writers and thinkers, from C.S. Lewis and Julian of Norwich to Anne Sexton, Yogi Berra, and Dr. Seuss, he explores the ways in which we can maintain our belief in a God defined by mysteriousness. With humor, humility, and courage, he asks us to join him in this spiritual quest—and in the dizzying, thrilling leaps that faith invites.

Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative

Download Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Fortress Press
ISBN 13 : 1451484321
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative by : InHee C. Berg

Download or read book Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative written by InHee C. Berg and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Irony (as used here) is a rhetorical and literary device for revealing “what is hidden behind what is seen.” It thus offers the reader a superior understanding by means of the distinction between reality and its shadow. The book provides a history of different definitions of irony, from Aristophanes to Booth; discusses the constitutive formal elements of irony and the functions of irony; then studies particular aspects of the Matthean Passion Narrative that require the reader to recognize a deeper truth beneath the surface of the narrative.

To Change the World

Download To Change the World PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199745390
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis To Change the World by : James Davison Hunter

Download or read book To Change the World written by James Davison Hunter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-14 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive--and provocative--answers to these questions. Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the most popular models of world-changing among Christians today, highlighting the ways they are inherently flawed and therefore incapable of generating the change to which they aspire. Because change implies power, all Christian eventually embrace strategies of political engagement. Hunter offers a trenchant critique of the political theologies of the Christian Right and Left and the Neo-Anabaptists, taking on many respected leaders, from Charles Colson to Jim Wallis and Stanley Hauerwas. Hunter argues that all too often these political theologies worsen the very problems they are designed to solve. What is really needed is a different paradigm of Christian engagement with the world, one that Hunter calls "faithful presence"--an ideal of Christian practice that is not only individual but institutional; a model that plays out not only in all relationships but in our work and all spheres of social life. He offers real-life examples, large and small, of what can be accomplished through the practice of "faithful presence." Such practices will be more fruitful, Hunter argues, more exemplary, and more deeply transfiguring than any more overtly ambitious attempts can ever be. Written with keen insight, deep faith, and profound historical grasp, To Change the World will forever change the way Christians view and talk about their role in the modern world.

The Irony of the Cross

Download The Irony of the Cross PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781543211962
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (119 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Irony of the Cross by : Paul D. Shirley

Download or read book The Irony of the Cross written by Paul D. Shirley and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-02-17 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cross of Christ is the greatest irony in the history of the universe. It is far too easy to lose track of the paradoxical details of Christ's death. Familiarity replaces what should be shock as we read through the Passion narrative. The Irony of the Cross puts the shock back in the cross by highlighting the ironies of Christ's death. Examining Mark 15:21-29, this book identifies eleven ironies of the cross that will deepen your understanding of the death of Christ and the gospel of grace. Each of these presents Jesus eschewing the prerogatives of his power for the salvation of his people. There is no other point in time when Christ was more emptied and stripped of his divine dignity, and yet there is no other place where Christ's glory is more prominently displayed.

Irony and Jesus

Download Irony and Jesus PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781955821155
Total Pages : 142 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (211 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Irony and Jesus by : Rob Gieselmann

Download or read book Irony and Jesus written by Rob Gieselmann and published by . This book was released on 2019-12-08 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did Jesus really expect people to sell all their possessions, or to hate their fathers and mothers? Or...is it possible that both Jesus and the gospel writers used literary devices to layer a variety of meanings into the fabric of Jesus' life and the stories he told? On the surface, the stories appear to mean one thing, but beneath the surface surprises lurk! In this book, Rob Gieselmann, presents parables, stories, and actions of Jesus to re-view them in the light of irony. In Irony and Jesus, you will find eleven instances of stories found in the gospels, plus one found in the Good Friday tradition, explored through interpretations often ignored or hidden by mainstream interpreters. For example, when Jesus scolded Peter for lacking faith while walking on water, Peter sank. What if Jesus scolded Peter not for his immature faith's inability to hold him afloat, but instead because Peter lacked the faith necessary to stay in the boat? We often treat scripture as a judgmental school teacher rather than as a gentle mentor leading us into a more mature experience of faith. Yet, so much of Jesus and his words, are, in the end, about the fact that God really does love everybody--everybody, scandalously, which must mean, in the end, that God loves you, just as you are. What if you read scripture through that lens, rather than the more typical judgmental lens? A lens like that can change a life. As Rob likes to say, "I am not literal about scripture; I am not literal about hierarchical authority; I am literal about grace." In these pages, you will discover a literal grace to renew your faith. A priest in the Episcopal Church, Rob has taught Scripture for over twenty years, encouraging students to look behind scripture's veil of words to discover creative and unexpected wisdom. His previous books include, The Episcopal Call to Love, and A Walk Through the Churchyard.

Prospects Of Power

Download Prospects Of Power PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813156882
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Prospects Of Power by : John Snyder

Download or read book Prospects Of Power written by John Snyder and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genre -- the articulation of "kind" -- is one of the oldest and most continuous subjects of theoretical and critical commentary. Yet from Romanticism to postmodernism, the concept of genre has been punched with so many holes that today it hardly seems graspable, let alone viable. By combining theory with dialectical literary histories of three significantly different genres -- tragedy, satire, and the essay -- John Snyder reconstructs genre as the figural deployment of symbolic power. One purpose of this approach is to reconcile the recent dismantling of representational and classificatory genres with the incipient notion in post-Althusser Marxism that genre is the crucial mediation between history and aesthetics. Snyder extends certain implications of Aristotle, Benjamin, Bakhtin, Foucault, and Serres. He also offers the first antisystem yet comprehensive genre theory to serve as a fully distinct alternate to Frye's formalist and Genette's structuralist schemes. Finally, Snyder's theory of genre as power opens a way to a fundamentally new theory of literature itself: that aesthetic language deployed as power organizes itself as generic intervention. Three historically dynamic configurations establish the range of all possible genres -- tragedy as power politically deployed as mimesis, satire as power rationally deployed as rhetoric, and the essay as power textually deployed as constative rhetoric. Specific analyses developing this important new theory cover a broad spectrum of literature, from classical to contemporary. Other genres, different media, and a variety of subgenres and modes political and religious -- all acquire fresh significance from the elaborations of Snyder's three selected genres.

The Ironic Hume

Download The Ironic Hume PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292741529
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Ironic Hume by : John Valdimir Price

Download or read book The Ironic Hume written by John Valdimir Price and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1965-01-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the seemingly bland assertions and bald statements of the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume contain more than the mind immediately perceives. Author John Valdimir Price contends that an understanding of Hume's writings cannot be separated from an understanding of his life. By examining the works of Hume, Price shows the way in which an ironic way of seeing events and an ironic mode of expression permeated Hume's life and writings. Price examines Hume's irony as it is exhibited in letters to his friends and in his writings concerned with morality, people, philosophy, politics, history, and above all religion. Hume's opinions on life in general are stated in works ranging from the Treatise of Human Nature and the Essays, Moral and Political, through the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and the Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals, to the Dialogue and Four Dissertations of his maturity. Price feels that Hume's recognition of the ironic in life came about from his perception of the disproportion between human hopes and human accomplishments. The rhetorical consequences of applying reason to a duality in human nature creates the ironic mode. Hume conceived man's opposing tendencies as his willingness to commit himself orally to a concept, a dogma, an idea, or an ideology, and his unwillingness to involve himself in the logical and rhetorical implications of articulating those principles. Hume's use of the ironic mode in his writings provides him with a means of challenging certain dogmatic assumptions common to thought, particularly to traditional religious thought; it acts as a mask for his sceptical intentions, and it is an implied criticism of many ideas. In his political writing, Hume frequently implied that the question under argument was almost too ridiculous to deserve serious treatment. This tactic was effectively employed in the Account of Stewart, in which Hume came to the defense of a friend. In his most profitable venture, the History of England, Hume not only used irony to advantage, but developed a new approach to the writing of history—the use of narrative. He presented history as a series of more or less connected events, not as a series of "right" or "wrong" attitudes. The author believes that Hume's initial religious scepticism, combined with the predominant satiric-ironic mode in the literature of his time, led him to seek irony as a method of self expression. This scepticism, which permeated all of Hume's attitudes toward life, reached its most complete expression in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, which accepted reason as its guide, but also accepted experience as its master.

The Atlantic Monthly

Download The Atlantic Monthly PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 778 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (31 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Atlantic Monthly by :

Download or read book The Atlantic Monthly written by and published by . This book was released on 1870 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Intellect Encounters Faith - A Synthesis

Download Intellect Encounters Faith - A Synthesis PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443870366
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Intellect Encounters Faith - A Synthesis by : J. Harold Ellens

Download or read book Intellect Encounters Faith - A Synthesis written by J. Harold Ellens and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intellect Encounters Faith – A Synthesis is a Festschrift crafted to honor a renaissance man: a literary tribute to Dr. Jay Harold Ellens that has been long overdue. While attending the 2014 International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature at the University of Vienna (July 6–10), Professor Ellens celebrated his eighty-second birthday. He is still a most engaged and active scholar, practicing clinical psychologist, and military chaplain (with the rank of Colonel). He publishes widely in Second Temple Judaism, and works that are on the cusp between religious studies/history of religions and psychology, as well as spirituality. He is a marvel to behold and is an excellent, indefatigable Vorbild for both professional colleagues, as well as an ever-growing number of aspiring scholars he mentors. He is the model of the modern peripatetic scholar. The Festschrift acknowledges the major foci of Professor Doctor Ellens’ own work: Psychology, Religious Literature, and Military History. Moreover, there are included in this volume several personal reflections by some of his friends and colleagues, also. The essays/chapters contained herein are works of deep and broad scholarship. Yet, they are deeply personal tributes to a master pedagogue who has touched many lives in many walks of life. All, however, reflect Professor Ellens’ influence on the contributors as if one is looking at them through their writings and seeing him. The reader will find this a most informative volume, and will return to it often as an up-to-date reference work on trends in religious studies, psychology, psychology of religion(s), and even the archaeology of the Second Jewish Temple period. One will discover between these covers a rare and valuable reference work that honors a rare, prolific, and generous man.

The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination

Download The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780814325131
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (251 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination by : Morton Gurewitch

Download or read book The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination written by Morton Gurewitch and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination examines and illuminates the role which the ironic temper plays in the creation of complex literary comedy. The book focuses on ironic comedy, though not of the kind that is characterized by the surprises and shocks, the incongruities and reversals, of circumstantial irony. Circumstantial—or situational—irony cannot stand alone; it serves, for example, the aggressive functions of satire, or the irrational impulses of farce, or the benevolent, whimsical, or pain-defeating energies of humor.

Modern American Religion, Volume 1

Download Modern American Religion, Volume 1 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226508931
Total Pages : 393 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (89 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Modern American Religion, Volume 1 by : Martin E. Marty

Download or read book Modern American Religion, Volume 1 written by Martin E. Marty and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1987-05-12 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin E. Marty argues that religion in twentieth-century America was essentially shaped by its encounter with modernity. In this first volume, he records and explores the diverse ways in which American religion embraced, rejected, or cautiously accepted the modern world. "Marty writes with the highest standards of scholarship and with his customary stylistic grace. No series of books is likely to tell us as much about the religious condition of our own time as "Modern American Religion."—Robert L. Spaeth, Minneapolis Star Tribune "The wealth of material and depth of insight are beyond reproach. This book will clearly stand as an important meteorological guide to the storm front of modernity as it swept Americans into the twentieth century."—Belden C. Lane, Review of Religions "Whatever one thinks about Marty's theological or philosophical position as a historian, the charm of his friendly circumspective approach to American religious history is irresistible."—John E. Wilson, Theological Studies "Marty attempts to impose historical order on the divergent ways a century of Americans have themselves tried to find order in their worlds. . . . [He] meets the challenge deftly. . . . It is a book relevant to our time. . . . Engages the heart and mind jointly."—Andy Solomon, Houston Post

Building the Human City

Download Building the Human City PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1498239137
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (982 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Building the Human City by : Dr. John F. Kane

Download or read book Building the Human City written by Dr. John F. Kane and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-03-30 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building the Human City is a first overview of the award-winning yet quite diverse works of Jesuit philosopher William F. Lynch. Writing from the 1950s to the mid-1980s, Lynch was among the first to warn against the fierce polarizations prevalent in our culture wars and political life. He called for a transformation of artistic and intellectual sensibilities and imaginations through the healing discernments and critical ironies of an Ignatian (and Socratic) spirituality. Yet the breadth of his concerns (from cinema and literature to mental health and hope to secularization and faith) as well as the depth of his thought (philosophical as much as theological) led to little initial awareness of the overall vision uniting his writings. This book, while exploring that vision, also argues that the spirituality Lynch proposes is more needed today than when he first wrote.

Romantic Irony

Download Romantic Irony PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027286167
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Romantic Irony by : Frederick Garber

Download or read book Romantic Irony written by Frederick Garber and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first collaborative international reading of irony as a major phenomenon in Romantic art and thought. The volume identifies key predecessor moments that excited Romantic authors and the emergence of a distinctly Romantic theory and practice of irony spreading to all literary genres. Not only the influential pioneer German, British, and French varieties, but also manifestations in northern, eastern, and southern parts of Europe as well as in North America, are considered. A set of concluding “syntheses” treat the shaping power of Romantic irony in narrative modes, music, the fine arts, and theater – innovations that will deeply influence Modernism. Thus the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach elaborated in the twenty chapters of Romantic Irony, as lead volume in the five-volume Romanticism series, establishes a significant new range for comparative literature studies in dealing with a complex literary movement. SPECIAL OFFER: 30% discount for a complete set order (5 vols.).The Romanticism series in the Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages is the result of a remarkable international collaboration. The editorial team coordinated the efforts of over 100 experts from more than two dozen countries to produce five independently conceived, yet interrelated volumes that show not only how Romanticism developed and spread in its principal European homelands and throughout the New World, but also the ways in which the affected literatures in reaction to Romanticism have redefined themselves on into Modernism. A glance at the index of each volume quickly reveals the extraordinary richness of the series’ total contents. Romantic Irony sets the broader experimental parameters of comparison by concentrating on the myriad expressions of “irony” as one of the major impulses in the Romantic philosophical and artistic revolution, and by combining cross-cultural and interdisciplinary studies with special attention also to literatures in less widely diffused language streams. Romantic Drama traces creative innovations that deeply altered the understanding of genre at large, fed popular imagination through vehicles like the opera, and laid the foundations for a modernist theater of the absurd. Romantic Poetry demonstrates deep patterns and a sharing of crucial themes of the revolutionary age which underlie the lyrical expression that flourished in so many languages and environments. Nonfictional Romantic Prose assists us in coping with the vast array of writings from the personal and intimate sphere to modes of public discourse, including Romanticism’s own self-commentary in theoretical statements on the arts, society, life, the sciences, and more. Nor are the discursive dimensions of imaginative literature neglected in the closing volume, Romantic Prose Fiction, where the basic Romantic themes and story types (the romance, novel, novella, short story, and other narrative forms) are considered throughout Europe and the New World. This enormous realm is seen not just in terms of Romantic theorizing, but in the light of the impact of Romantic ideas and narration on later generations. As an aid to readers, the introduction to Romantic Prose Fiction explains the relationships among the volumes in the series and carries a listing of their tables of contents in an appendix. No other series exists comparable to these volumes which treat the entirety of Romanticism as a cultural happening across the whole breadth of the “Old” and “New” Worlds and thus render a complex picture of European spiritual strivings in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, a heritage still very close to our age.

Eros and Irony

Download Eros and Irony PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438405480
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eros and Irony by : David L. Hall

Download or read book Eros and Irony written by David L. Hall and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1983-06-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The conception of culture and philosophy's role within it developed in this work permits interesting formulations of a number of important issues and concepts: the relations between the utopian and utilitarian functions of philosophic theory; the character of the aesthetic and mystical sensibilities; the meaning and function of metaphor and of irony; the value of theoretical consensus; the nature of philosophic communication; and the distinctive relation of Plato and Socrates as a model for philosophic activity." — David L. Hall With Eros and Irony, David Hall re-evaluates the cultural role of philosophy, probing to the very heart of questions in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of culture. Two central arguments structure the book: the first is that in modern culture the autonomy of the aesthetic and religious sensibilities has been seriously qualified by an overemphasis on narrowly rational moral interests. The second is that philosophic activity must be construed in terms of two conflicting elements: the desire for completeness of understanding, and the failure to achieve such understanding. Hall provides a historical survey of philosophic thought, encompassing Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Whitehead. He also avails himself of sources outside of philosophy, in such diverse fields as poetry, psychology, physics, and Eastern religion, to create a work that not only addresses key issues in philosophy, but also has deep implications for science, art, religion, morality, and cultural self-understanding.