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The Contemplative Philosopher
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Book Synopsis Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation by : Matthew D. Walker
Download or read book Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation written by Matthew D. Walker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an original, up-to-date, and systematic account of Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good.
Book Synopsis Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy by : Peter Cheyne
Download or read book Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy written by Peter Cheyne and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-01-16 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'PHILOSOPHY, or the doctrine and discipline of ideas' as S. T. Coleridge understood it, is the theme of this book. It considers the most vital and mature vein of Coleridge's thought to be 'the contemplation of ideas objectively, as existing powers'. A theory of ideas emerges in critical engagement with thinkers including Plato, Plotinus, B�hme, Kant, and Schelling. A commitment to the transcendence of reason, central to what he calls 'the spiritual platonic old England', distinguishes him from his German contemporaries. The book also engages with Coleridge's poetry, especially in a culminating chapter dedicated to the 'Limbo' sequence. This book pursues a theory of contemplation that draws from Coleridge's theories of imagination and the 'Ideas of Reason' in his published texts and extensively from his thoughts as they developed throughout unpublished works, fragments, letters, and notebooks. He posited a hierarchy of cognition from basic sense intuition to the apprehension of scientific, ethical, and theological ideas. The structure of the book follows this thesis, beginning with sense data, moving upwards into aesthetic experience, imagination, and reason, with final chapters on formal logic and poetry that constellate the contemplation of ideas. Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy is not just a work of history of philosophy, it addresses a figure whose thinking is of continuing interest, arguing that contemplation of ideas and values has consequences for everyday morality and aesthetics, as well as metaphysics. The volume will be of interest to philosophers, intellectual historians, scholars of religion, and of literature.
Book Synopsis Action, Contemplation, and Happiness by : C. D. C. Reeve
Download or read book Action, Contemplation, and Happiness written by C. D. C. Reeve and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of practical wisdom is one of Aristotle's greatest inventions. It has inspired philosophers as diverse as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Michael Thompson, and John McDowell. Now a leading scholar of ancient philosophy offers a challenge to received accounts of practical wisdom by situating it in the larger context of Aristotle's views on knowledge and reality. That happiness is the end pursued by practical wisdom is commonly agreed. What is disputed is whether happiness is to be found in the practical life of political action, in which we exhibit courage, temperance, and other virtues of character, or in the contemplative life, where theoretical wisdom is the essential virtue. C. D. C. Reeve argues that the dichotomy is bogus, that these lives are in fact parts of a single life, which is the best human one. In support of this view, he develops innovative accounts of many of the central notions in Aristotle's metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology, including matter and form, scientific knowledge, dialectic, educatedness, perception, understanding, political science, practical truth, deliberation, and deliberate choice. These accounts are based directly on freshly translated passages from many of Aristotle's writings. Action, Contemplation, and Happiness is an accessible essay not just on practical wisdom but on Aristotle's philosophy as a whole.
Book Synopsis Philosophical Contemplation by : Ran Lahav
Download or read book Philosophical Contemplation written by Ran Lahav and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophical contemplation means reflecting on fundamental life-issues from our inner depth. It takes us beyond our ordinary thought-patterns to new realms of understanding. When we contemplate on the writings of great philosophers of the past, we participate in the grand human choir and its encounter with the fundamental coordinates of human reality. This booklet is a practical and theoretical guide to philosophical contemplation, designed for beginning and experienced contemplators, philosophers and non-philosophers. It explains general principles, basic concepts, and a variety of practical techniques.
Book Synopsis Death, Contemplation and Schopenhauer by : R. Raj Singh
Download or read book Death, Contemplation and Schopenhauer written by R. Raj Singh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The connections between death, contemplation and the contemplative life have been a recurrent theme in the canons of both western and eastern philosophical thought. This book examines the classical sources of this philosophical literature, in particular Plato's Phaedo and the Katha Upanishad and then proceeds to a sustained analysis and critical assessment of the sources and standpoints of a single thinker, Arthur Schopenhauer, whose work comprehensively pursues this problem. Going beyond the well examined western influences on Schopenhauer, Singh offers an in-depth account of Schopenhauer's references to eastern thought and a comprehensive examination of his eastern sources, particularly Vedanta and Buddhism. The book traces the pivotal issue of death through the whole range of Schopenhauer's writings uncovering the deeper connotations of his crucial notion of the will-to-live.
Book Synopsis Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation by : Matthew D. Walker
Download or read book Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation written by Matthew D. Walker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionally, Aristotle is held to believe that philosophical contemplation is valuable for its own sake, but ultimately useless. In this volume, Matthew D. Walker offers a fresh, systematic account of Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good. The book situates Aristotle's views against the background of his wider philosophy, and examines the complete range of available textual evidence (including neglected passages from Aristotle's Protrepticus). On this basis, Walker argues that contemplation also benefits humans as perishable living organisms by actively guiding human life activity, including human self-maintenance. Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good thus cohere with his broader thinking about how living organisms live well. A novel exploration of Aristotle's views on theory and practice, this volume will interest scholars and students of both ancient Greek ethics and natural philosophy. It will also appeal to those working in other disciplines including classics, ethics, and political theory.
Book Synopsis Nature, Contemplation, and the One by : John N. Deck
Download or read book Nature, Contemplation, and the One written by John N. Deck and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1967-12-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plotinus has been so highly regarded as a mystic that his importance as a philosopher has sometimes been thrown into eclipse. Yet neoplatonic philosophy lives in and through his works; indeed, his original development of Platonic and Aristotelian themes stands as a kind of summation of Greek philosophy as it first came to be known in the Christian West. In Nature, Contemplation, and the One, Professor Deck has undertaken a reappraisal of Plotinus' thought from the standpoint of a central doctrine in the Enneads, that of nature as contemplation. This new view enables him to show that the producing of the physical world by means of contemplation is an internally consistent doctrine with ramifications throughout the Plotinian view of being, causality, and the generation of a plural universe by the self-subsistent One. The result is a systematic account of Plotinus' major teachings, and a fresh view of their meaning and philosophic importance. Professor Deck has appended a new translation of the parts of the Enneads which are central to the doctrine of nature as contemplation, and his study proceeds by careful reference to the original texts. Students, philosophers, and historians will welcome this important and unusually clear-headed approach to a major figure in Western thought.
Book Synopsis Theoria, Praxis, and the Contemplative Life after Plato and Aristotle by : Thomas Bénatouïl
Download or read book Theoria, Praxis, and the Contemplative Life after Plato and Aristotle written by Thomas Bénatouïl and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-04-19 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies of the notion of theoria and of the contemplative life have often been restricted to Plato and Aristotle. This volume shows that aspirations to contemplation and the life of the intellect survived long after the classical period, turning into topics of heated debates, powerful arguments and original applications throughout the Hellenistic, imperial, and late antique periods. The introduction attempts to reconstruct all the problems pertaining to the contemplative life in Antiquity, and the twelve papers, written by distinguished scholars, offer a thorough study of the appropriation, criticism and transformation of Plato’s and Aristotle’s positions on the contemplative life, including its epistemological and metaphysical foundation. The volume ranges from Theophrastus to the end of Antiquity, including Jewish and Christian authors, with a focus on Platonism from Cicero to Damascius.
Book Synopsis Action Versus Contemplation by : Jennifer Summit
Download or read book Action Versus Contemplation written by Jennifer Summit and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” Blaise Pascal wrote in 1654. But then there’s Walt Whitman, in 1856: “Whoever you are, come forth! Or man or woman come forth! / You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house.” It is truly an ancient debate: Is it better to be active or contemplative? To do or to think? To make an impact, or to understand the world more deeply? Aristotle argued for contemplation as the highest state of human flourishing. But it was through action that his student Alexander the Great conquered the known world. Which should we aim at? Centuries later, this argument underlies a surprising number of the questions we face in contemporary life. Should students study the humanities, or train for a job? Should adults work for money or for meaning? And in tumultuous times, should any of us sit on the sidelines, pondering great books, or throw ourselves into protests and petition drives? With Action versus Contemplation, Jennifer Summit and Blakey Vermeule address the question in a refreshingly unexpected way: by refusing to take sides. Rather, they argue for a rethinking of the very opposition. The active and the contemplative can—and should—be vibrantly alive in each of us, fused rather than sundered. Writing in a personable, accessible style, Summit and Vermeule guide readers through the long history of this debate from Plato to Pixar, drawing compelling connections to the questions and problems of today. Rather than playing one against the other, they argue, we can discover how the two can nourish, invigorate, and give meaning to each other, as they have for the many writers, artists, and thinkers, past and present, whose examples give the book its rich, lively texture of interplay and reference. This is not a self-help book. It won’t give you instructions on how to live your life. Instead, it will do something better: it will remind you of the richness of a life that embraces action and contemplation, company and solitude, living in the moment and planning for the future. Which is better? Readers of this book will discover the answer: both.
Book Synopsis Contemplative Nation by : Cass Fisher
Download or read book Contemplative Nation written by Cass Fisher and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemplative Nation challenges the long-standing view that theology is not a vital part of the Jewish tradition. For political and philosophical reasons, both scholars of Judaism and Jewish thinkers have sought to minimize the role of theology in Judaism. This book constructs a new model for understanding Jewish theological language that emphasizes the central role of theological reflection in Judaism and the close relationship between theological reflection and religious practice in the Jewish tradition. Drawing on diverse philosophical resources, Fisher's model of Jewish theology embraces the multiple forms and functions of Jewish theological language. Fisher demonstrates the utility of this model by undertaking close readings of an early rabbinic commentary on the book of Exodus (Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael ) and a work of modern philosophical theology (Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption). These readings advance the discussion of theology in rabbinics and modern Jewish thought and provide resources for constructive Jewish theology.
Book Synopsis Participating in Christ by : Michael J. Gorman
Download or read book Participating in Christ written by Michael J. Gorman and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned scholar Michael Gorman examines the important Pauline theme of participation in Christ and explores its contemporary significance for Christian life and ministry. One of the themes Gorman explores is what he calls "resurrectional cruciformity"--that participating in Christ is simultaneously dying and rising with him and that cross-shaped living, infused with the life of the resurrected Lord, is life giving. Throughout the book, Gorman demonstrates the centrality of participating in Christ for Paul's theology and spirituality.
Book Synopsis What Is Contemplation? by : Thomas Merton
Download or read book What Is Contemplation? written by Thomas Merton and published by Ravenio Books. This book was released on 1978 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are so many Christians who do not appreciate the magnificent dignity of their vocation to sanctity, to the knowledge, love and service of God. There are so many Christians who do not realize what possibilities God has placed in the life of Christian perfection — what possibilities for joy in the knowledge and love of Him. There are so many Christians who have practically no idea of the immense love of God for them, and of the power of that Love to do them good, to bring them happiness. Why do we think of the gift of contemplation, infused contemplation, mystical prayer, as something essentially strange and esoteric reserved for a small class of almost unnatural beings and prohibited to everyone else? It is perhaps because we have forgotten that contemplation is the work of the Holy Ghost acting on our souls through His gifts of Wisdom and Understanding with special intensity to increase and perfect our love for Him. These gifts are part of the normal equipment of Christian sanctity. They are given to all in Baptism, and if they are given it is presumably because God wants them to be developed. Their development will always remain the free gift of God and it is true that His wise Providence sees fit to develop them less in some saints than in others. But it is also true that God often measures His gifts by our desire to receive them, and by our cooperation with His grace, and the Holy Spirit will not waste any of His gifts on people who have little or no interest in them.
Book Synopsis D.Z. Phillips' Contemplative Philosophy of Religion by : Andy F. Sanders
Download or read book D.Z. Phillips' Contemplative Philosophy of Religion written by Andy F. Sanders and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection presents a critical discussion and exploration of the late D.Z. Phillips' contemplative approach in the philosophy of religion. What are the main characteristics of this ground-breaking approach, which is inspired by thinkers like Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein and meant as a serious, critical alternative to the mainstream way of doing philosophy of religion? What is its aim, if it is deliberately avoiding apology and defence of faith? How does Phillips' approach relate to systematic, historical and empirical theology and is it really as 'neutral' as he claims it to be? Or is he, perhaps, a certain kind of theologian? What are the implications of his contemplative philosophy for central issues of religious life today, such as petitionary prayer, the hope of 'eternal life' and radical religious diversity? The essays of six distinguished scholars from five different nations critically and sympathetically address these questions and are responded to by Phillips in essays of his own, written briefly before his sudden death in July 2006.
Book Synopsis The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism by : Harold D. Roth
Download or read book The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism written by Harold D. Roth and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-05-01 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism, Harold D. Roth explores the origins and nature of the Daoist tradition, arguing that its creators and innovators were not abstract philosophers but, rather, mystics engaged in self-exploration and self-cultivation, which in turn provided the insights embodied in such famed works as the Daodejing and Zhuangzi. In this compilation of essays and chapters representing nearly thirty years of scholarship, Roth examines the historical and intellectual origins of Daoism and demonstrates how this distinctive philosophy emerged directly from practices that were essentially contemplative in nature. In the first part of the book, Roth applies text-critical methods to derive the hidden contemplative dimensions of classical Daoism. In the second part, he applies a "contemplative hermeneutic" to explore the relationship between contemplative practices and classical Daoist philosophy and, in so doing, brings early Daoist writings into conversation with contemporary contemplative studies. To this he adds an introduction in which he reflects on the arc and influence on the field of early Chinese thought of this rich vein of scholarship and an afterword in which he applies both interpretive methods to the vexing question of the authorship of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi. The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism brings to fruition the cumulative investigations and observations of a leading figure in the emerging field of contemplative studies as they pertain to a core component of early Chinese thought.
Book Synopsis Partakers of the Divine by : Jacob Holsinger Sherman
Download or read book Partakers of the Divine written by Jacob Holsinger Sherman and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extended essay in contemplative philosophy, the meeting of mystical and philosophical theology, Partakers of the Divine shows that Christian philosophical and contemplative practices arose together and that throughout much of Christian history philosophy, theology and contemplation remained internal to one another. Further, the relation of philosophy, theology, and contemplation to one another is of more than antiquarian interest, for it provides theologians and philosophers of religion today with a way forward beyond many of the stalemates that have beset discussions about faith and reason, the role of religion in contemporary culture, and the challenges of modernity and postmodernity.
Book Synopsis Pursuits of Wisdom by : John M. Cooper
Download or read book Pursuits of Wisdom written by John M. Cooper and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-25 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline. Distinguished philosopher John Cooper traces how, for many ancient thinkers, philosophy was not just to be studied or even used to solve particular practical problems. Rather, philosophy--not just ethics but even logic and physical theory--was literally to be lived. Yet there was great disagreement about how to live philosophically: philosophy was not one but many, mutually opposed, ways of life. Examining this tradition from its establishment by Socrates in the fifth century BCE through Plotinus in the third century CE and the eclipse of pagan philosophy by Christianity, Pursuits of Wisdom examines six central philosophies of living--Socratic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, and the Platonist life of late antiquity. The book describes the shared assumptions that allowed these thinkers to conceive of their philosophies as ways of life, as well as the distinctive ideas that led them to widely different conclusions about the best human life. Clearing up many common misperceptions and simplifications, Cooper explains in detail the Socratic devotion to philosophical discussion about human nature, human life, and human good; the Aristotelian focus on the true place of humans within the total system of the natural world; the Stoic commitment to dutifully accepting Zeus's plans; the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure through tranquil activities that exercise perception, thought, and feeling; the Skeptical eschewal of all critical reasoning in forming their beliefs; and, finally, the late Platonist emphasis on spiritual concerns and the eternal realm of Being. Pursuits of Wisdom is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding what the great philosophers of antiquity thought was the true purpose of philosophy--and of life.
Book Synopsis Contemplating Friendship in Aristotle's Ethics by : Ann Ward
Download or read book Contemplating Friendship in Aristotle's Ethics written by Ann Ward and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Ann Ward explores Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, focusing on the progressive structure of the argument. Aristotle begins by giving an account of moral virtue from the perspective of the moral agent, only to find that the account itself highlights fundamental tensions within the virtues that push the moral agent into the realm of intellectual virtue. However, the existence of an intellectual realm separate from the moral realm can lead to lack of self-restraint. Aristotle, Ward argues, locates political philosophy and the experience of friendship as possible solutions to the problem of lack of self-restraint, since political philosophy thinks about the human things in a universal way, and friendship grounds the pursuit of the good which is happiness understood as contemplation. Ward concludes that Aristotle's philosophy of friendship points to the embodied intellect of timocratic friends and mothers in their activity of mothering as engaging in the highest form of contemplation and thus living the happiest life.
