Book Description
Trusted by professors of the humanities survey course for over twenty years, CULTURE AND VALUES covers Western cultures along with important non-Western cultures, providing students solid, accessible introductions to art, music, philosophy, literature, and more. Available in two volumes, or as an alternate single volume without end-of-chapter readings, this text remains the most readable and reliable textbook for college and university students in the integrated humanities.
Book Description
Trusted by professors of the humanities survey course for over twenty years, CULTURE AND VALUES covers Western cultures along with important non-Western cultures, providing students solid, accessible introductions to art, music, philosophy, literature, and more. Available in two volumes, or as an alternate single volume without end-of-chapter readings, this text remains the most readable and reliable textbook for college and university students in the integrated humanities.
Amazon.com
The Condition of Postmodernity is David Harvey's seminal history of our most equivocal of eras. What does postmodernism mean? Where did it come from? Harvey, a professor of geography and a key mover behind extending the scope and influence of the discipline of geography itself, does a thorough job here delineating the passage through to postmodernity and the economic, social, and political changes that underscored and accompanied it. As he clearly states, the rise in postmodernist cultural forms is related to a new intensity in what Harvey terms "time-space compression," but this new intensity is a qualitative rather than quantitative change in social organization, and it does not point to an era beyond capitalism as "the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation" remain unchanged. Unlike Fredric Jameson (whose equally rewarding Postmodernism stands as the twin pillar to Harvey's critique), who explicitly relies on Ernest Mandel's periodization of late capitalism, Harvey eschews a narrowly economic focus, the limits and contradictions of production that have led to the rise in the service sector, and takes a more multidisciplinary approach to his history. As comfortable discussing Manet as he is labor markets, Harvey is an excellent writer, and The Condition of Postmodernity is an exceptionally informative and enjoyable read. --Mark Thwaite, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
A great deal has been written on what has variously been described as the post-modern condition and on post-modern culture, architecture, art and society. In this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience. But the book is much more than this: in the course of his investigation the author provides a social and semantic history - from the Enlightenment to the present - of modernism and its expression in political and social ideas and movements, as well as in art, literature and architecture. He considers in particular how the meaning and perception of time and space themselves vary over time and space, and shows that this variance affects individual values and social processes of the most fundamental kind. This book will be widely welcomed, not only for its clear and critical account of the arguments surrounding the propositions of modernity and post-modernity, but as an incisive contribution to the history of ideas and their relation to social and political change.
Customer Reviews:
Good lord.......2005-09-16
Wow, this book is about as dense as the crust of the earth. It takes at least a few reads over to understand what the arguments are. While the arguments in this book are very well articulated, I found myself wanting to shoot myself in the face sometimes while reading this book. It can be really boring, but brings up some very interesting ideas of 80's culture and society.
Po-Mo Schmomo?.......2003-03-04
Ask ten academics about what to call our present fin-de-siecle epoch and you'll get ten different labels, but "postmodernism" seems always the default term. Although it's twelve years old, Harvey's book is the best I've read about the pluralistic fabric we daily inhabit. It's edifyingly reader-friendly (especially compared to some of the Franco-drunk rhetoricians out there trying to get a handle on our current world). In precise prose Harvey outlines the shift to our information-as-capital paradigm since the mid-sixties, and the causes of the growth of the temp sector and "just-in-time" production capabilities. Harvey traces the arrival of "flexible accumulation" to the collapse of Fordist production practices in the 1966-73 waves of recession, but covers far more than just economic factors--architecture, art, literature, cinema--without any self-conscious Neo-Marxist whistling-in-the-dark. In his project to articulate a new (meta?)narrative, Harvey's book will probably give post-structuralists a new constellation of ideas to obfuscate with hip terminology and dense prose...
Manuel Castell's "The Rise of the Network Society" is another good book along these lines.
Best overview of modern/postmodern condition I have found.......2002-08-22
This is a great overview of concepts that are, by definition, very fractured. Harvey clarifies and pulls together a number of seemingly disparate elements in a masterful manner. Though this book could work as a good introduction to these concepts, I think readers with some background in the major writers of modernism and postmodernism will get more out of it. Dogmatic postmodernists may be put off that Harvey has the "temerity" to suggest that postmodernism might be an extension of modernism or that he finds some good in modernism and some excesses in postmodern approaches but, they should get over themselves and realize that their insistence that "all meta-narratives are bad" is their own meta-narrative. Overall, Harvey manages to convincingly express his ideas while maintaining a remarkably evenhanded approach. I especially enjoy the fact that he avoids the postmodernist tendency to ignore the complexities of modernism and, thus create a postmodern meta-narrative about the modernist project.
Excellent overview of modernity and post-modernity.......2001-11-27
David Harvey's "Condition of Post-Modernity" provides excellent representational cases to show the differences between modernity and post-modernity. Although sometimes difficult to follow (I had problems with the chapter pertaining to architecture), Harvey uses enough examples (i.e., economics, art, cinema, etc.) to make sure one understands the differences between post-modernism and modernism. The economic chapter, "Fordism and Flexible Accumulation" is particulary good and shows the gradual transformation from a modernist to a post-modernist economy and society. I was disappointed, however, that Harvey didn't have a complete section focused towards the differences between modernist and post-modernist lit.
Excellent overview of modernity and post-modernity.......2001-11-27
David Harvey's "Condition of Post-Modernity" provides excellent representational cases to show the differences between modernity and post-modernity. Although sometimes difficult to follow (I had problems with the chapter pertaining to architecture), Harvey uses enough examples (i.e., economics, art, cinema, etc.) to make sure one understands the differences between post-modernism and modernism. The economic chapter, "Fordism and Flexible Accumulation" is particulary good and shows the gradual transformation from a moderninst to a post-modernist economy and society. I was disappointed, however, that Harvey didn't have a complete section focused towards the differences between modernist and post-modernist lit.
Book Description
Trusted by professors of the humanities survey course for over twenty years, CULTURE AND VALUES covers Western cultures along with important non-Western cultures, providing students solid, accessible introductions to art, music, philosophy, literature, and more. Available in two volumes, or as an alternate single volume without end-of-chapter readings, this text remains the most readable and reliable textbook for college and university students in the integrated humanities.
Book Description
"[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.
Customer Reviews:
pity about the lapse into new age speculation.......2007-09-29
I won't write much here as many have done a great job of summation, however I did just want to voice my disappointment with the epilogue. Much of the book seems to have the intellectual and reasearch rigour I like to see in such books, but the new age nonsense really leads me to question his credibility and so doubt I read till I reached it. Though its obviously not as up to date or the same in its attempted scope I would personally recommend Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" for a more insightful look at Western thought or even Watson's "Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud".
A Nice Survey and More Importantly, Critique of the Western Mind.......2007-08-17
Tarnas begins with Plato, working backward and forward from him. Plato's Forms, in particular, set the stage for the rest of the book, in my view. According to Plato, there are transcendent Forms for 'Man', 'Tree', 'Woman', for example, that the soul was exposed to before birth and remembers later in life. These Forms are timeless, trancendent and most, Beautiful.
Aristotle, the tenth in line from Pythagoras, quickly relegates Plato's Forms to the particular, noting their birth, maturation and decay within the object with no recourse to a transcendent realm.
The important thing is, in the greek rationalism of both Plato and Aristotle, the world is knowable and is a Cosmos, an ordered whole that can be readily understood by the human mind.
The philosophies of Plato and Aristotle move to the Arabics during the Dark Ages, until the medieval times, when the Arabics courteously return the two behemoths to western civilization where St. Augustine applies Platonic thought to theology, while St. Thomas Aquinas later does the same with Aristotle.
Somewhere in the mix, Ockham applies his razor to the idea of the Forms, being the first to deny a Form's transcendent or immanent reality, but rather positing that the Form is a construct of the human mind. Party pooper.
Modern science, which has divested the world of anything human,where the universe now contains no spirit or transcendent form, sets it's sights on a disenchanted universe that is now viewed as being mechanistic at best, lifeless at worst.
Man is taken, by way of Copernicus, then Kepler and Galileo, from being the absolute center of the Ptolemaic universe, to being a nondescript inhabitant on a planet moving about a sun, which is one of potentially millions of such stars in the now vast space of the experienced world.
During the Enlightenment, man having eaten the soul of the Cosmos and stolen it's intelligence and claimed it for himself, suddenly turns the lense on himself thorugh Descartes and Kant.
Not only is the Cosmos dead and lifeless and altogether inhuman, but man is incapable of perceiving said Cosmos in an objective way. Man inherently attaches Reality to the universe by viewing the world through the apriori lenses of time, space, cause and effect and so on.
So now, we have a dead and lifeless vast impersonal universe inhabited by man, who, due to his psychological makeup, can never understand said world objectively.
Nietzsche sounds the death knell. He says God is dead, but really, it is man, glourious understanding, at one with the world, man who is crucified. Nietzsche pronounces the birth of the modern era, where not by intelligence, which has been discounted, not by religion, which is suffering cognitive disonance due to the emerging scientific worldview (Darwinism, Atomism, the everexpanding nothingness peered at through ever stronger telescopic lenses), but sheer Will that will decide who is right.
Finally on to the postmodern picture. History has been dominated by white european males. Not only is the universe (and man) unknowable, but we don't even know the proper questions to ask. Language is a prison, seeking to encapsulate experience and reduce Reality to the constructs of the human mind. Western man, through the prevailing dichotomy of his science and religion, has raped women, the environment, destroyed the ozone, produced the atomic bomb, and on and on. No one has hold of the Truth. Truth is provincial, localized and relative, dependent upon a contingent human being. No world view has precedence over another. There is no prevailing meta-narrative that can capture global humanity and unite it.
But dear reader, there is hope. There is hope from the beginning pages of this book through to the epilogue. Tarnas wisely weaves a thread throughout that offers a glimpse into a potential new birth for mankind. Tarnas points out history seems to be coming to a culmination, something is definitely on the horizon for all of us.
I leave it to you, to read this wonderful book, to discover what possibilities (if not facts) lie ahead for humanity.
The book is well worth the read.
Informative, but hard to read........2007-07-02
A great account of Western history, but with too many unnecessary words and too many complex sentences. The wording of the book makes it a lot less enjoyable than it should be. I wish I could find a similar book without Tarnas' annoying writing style.
"Wordy" but informative.......2007-06-27
I got this book because it was required text for a graduate course that I am taking with the University of Denver. I initially found the sentence construction distracting-- The author uses such complex sentences with so many extraneous words that at times it is difficult to follow his meaning; however, once you get used to the author's writing style, it is easy to follow. The book is a fascinating detail of how people in the Western world have come to think and believe as they do. It outlines the great philosophers and thought movements throughout time, beginning with the Greeks. The author also explains why there is such a dichotomy in Western thinking today. This is a "must read" for anyone interested in Western philosophy, and for anyone who simply wants to understand why it is so difficult for the East and West to understand one another. This book would be a good companion to "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
Excellent.......2007-01-13
An amazingly articulate, well-written treatise on the origins of Western thought. Where our ideas originate from is fantastically revealed. Although a challenging read, this book is delightful to encounter.
Book Description
Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - in the wake of the Scientific Revolution - of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief, by the new philosophy and the philosophies, culminating in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. In this revolutionary process which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, slavery, and ecclesiastical authority, as well as man's asendancy over woman and theology's domination over education and study, substituting the modern principles of equality, democracy, and universality, the Radical Enlightenment played a crucially important part. Despite the present-day interest in the revolutions of the late eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have been astonishingly little studied, doubtless largely because if its very wide international sweep and the obvious difficulties of fitting it into the restrictive conventions of 'national history' which until recently tended to dominate all historiography. The greatest obstacle to the Radical Enlightenment finding its proper place in modern historical writing is simply that it was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettrie and Diderot, two of its key exponents, particular stress is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating.......2007-10-07
An interesting and well written history of the radical Enlightenment - the growth of atheism and deism in particular. The author writes engagingly and makes what could otherwise be a tedious subject interesting. I found the descriptions of how philosophy books were literally smuggled into countries as contraband quite intriguing and more than a bit amusing.
Two notes of caution, however: First, be at least somewhat familiar with the basics of western philosophy. Either have taken a college-level course in it or read a basic book on the topic such as Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy. Second (and this is only a minor complaint) the author provides copious quotes, mostly in French, without translation. While it is possible to figure out the gist of most of these from the context, it is somewhat annoying at times. The assumption seems to be that if you're studying philosophy, you must speak French.
I will undoubtedly follow this up with the author's other book on the Enlightenment in this series.
Radical, Contestable.......2007-07-16
Jonathan Israel presents his work as an important new history of the `Early' Enlightenment (1680-1740).
He has two key, inter-related theses. Firstly, that the whole of the early Enlightenment was driven by an engagement with the views of Spinoza (e.g. P.431) and secondly that the whole of the early Enlightenment, across Europe needs to be understood as a single, integrated process.
At one stage (P.456) he draws a comparison betweenSpinozism and Marxism and that gives you a good sense of how he sees Spinoza's movement.
His own background as a specialist in the Enlightenment in the Netherlands comes strongly into play and the book is at its best on this topic. The original growth of Cartesianism is taken as read. Spinoza's breach with Cartesian dualism and his counter arguments for monism are gone into in more detail . The book comes alive when discussing the popularizers of Spinoza such as Leenhof, Van Dale, Bekker, Kuyper, Van Den Enden, Meyer, Beverlaand, Goeree. Other radical figures such as Vauvenarues, de Boulainvilliars, Radicati, le Clerc take on a new significance in this light.
Such figures have been lost to history. It is a paradox of the history of philosophy that the greatest intellectual achievement often resides in defending the indefensible, putting obstacles in the path of progress. Those who championed change often achieved less of lasting intellectual quality, being too busy achieving a different world.
It is for this reason refreshing that Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Voltaire, Leibniz, Malebranche and Rousseau play a support role in this book. Soon we begin to believe that the Enlightenment may indeed have been driven forward by radical deists and atheists elaborating on Spinoza.
The argument goes too far as we slip from the 1670s and 1680s to the 1730s and 1740s. Israel is too keen to amalgamate the whole period. He fails to emphasise sufficiently that whereas Spinoza's own work, with Geulincx and Malebrance and Gassendi was part of a debate about Descartes, what came later was something different. Spinoza may have survived better in the 1730s as an icon than Descartes or Malebranche, but he was no less an historical figure. The new battle, by that time, was - as he says - a three cornered fight. But the third corner with Lockean empiricism and Leibnizian/Wolffian rationalism was an emergent mechanical materialism and not a continuing Spinozism. The two over-lapped, but were not the same.
Furthermore, Israel nowhere recognises the full force of the Newtonian-Lockean and Leibniz-Wollfian critiques of Spinoza - undermining, respectively the epistemology and concept of necessity on which Spinoza relied. The internal tensions and dialogue within Spinozism are also often lost sight of in the repeated insistence on drawing the lineage of continuity. Thus the intellectual origins of 18th century materialism are misplaced and he does not see that the changed treatment of Spinoza in the works of the moderate Enlightenment, such that he came aroudn 1730 to be treated with « meticulous care » (P.658) derives from Spinoza's increasing irrelevance.
The failure to chart as carefully as he might have the changing pattern of influence of the radicalEnlightenment reflects a certain crudity of approach which affects more substantially Israel's unwisely formulated second thesis. The idea that the early Enlightenment was a single trans-European process is simply too crude. Israel's own nation-specific chapters don't even support it. Israel speaks repeatedly of the `Republic of Letters'as an unproblematic trans-European unity. Yet the evidence is of a far more complex set of phenomena, driven not only by the interchange of ideas, but also by the precarious realities of book and manuscript circulation (often via smuggling routes) of erratic patterns of translation and survival of Latin as an international language and of local governmental and institutional politics. We never get any structured treatment of the complex inter-related systems of dialogue in secret discussion circles, in the manuscript circulation of material and in the very different published circulation of material. It is paradoxical that the national and even `local' character of the Enlightenment is so effectively lost in the midst of so sweeping and knowledgeable a survey across Europe.
A very particular and telling problem lies with defining the margins between heterodox Christianity and deist Enlightenment. Israel's account involves drawing figures like Leerhof into the deist fold while evaluating others such as Van Hatten as merely heterodox Christians. Tellingly, at one point we are assured that Stosch's stance was « philosophical not local » (P.641). We see here an artificial distinction that has less grounding in historical reality than in Israels' retrospective schema.
It is strikingly illustrated in this book that when Marx's eleventh thesis on Feuerbach rejected philosophy he was rejecting a substantial, reputable tradition of philosophical militancy against revealed religion. Spinozism was a militant tradition, determined, in its day, by bravery and deception to undermine the established churches.The early Enlightment was also a period of militant deism rampant among the ruling elites, championed by figures such as Federick the Great, the Duc de Noailles and the Earl of Shaftesbury. This combination of dissent from within the ruling elite and isolated radical intellectuals is strikingly strange to us.
Despite the weaknesses of his two specific theses on this period, Israel has written a fascinating work, reminding us of that militancy, of Spinoza's central role in it and of - as so often - how the militant minority drive the moderate as well as the reactionary mainstreams.
Fascinating Intellectual History.......2007-05-12
An utterly fascinating study of intellectual history in Europe, especially Holland, on either side of the turn of the eighteenth century. "Radical Enlightenment" refers to what were perceived as hard-line attacks on authoritarian, particularly religious ideas, specifically the ideas of divine providence, the afterlife, rewards and punishments for behavior. Israel sees Spinoza as the chief philosophical force behind the radical ideas with his concept of a single substance composing the universe, i.e., pantheism is seen as atheism and is either persecuted by church and state or modified by less "radical" thinkers such as Leibniz and Wolff, Locke, and others considered part of the more "moderate" Enlightenment. Anyone interested in the development of modern ideas and the progress of knowledge or philosophy generally would be hard-pressed to find a better written, researched, or more comprehensive source for the period. Israel is obviously writing for intellectuals, but be advised that he quotes frequently from French sources and does not translate, so make sure your French is in order.
A slightly flawed masterpiece.......2005-01-05
Most people, when they think of the Enlightenment, think first of 18th France, of Voltaire and of Diderot. The late Roy Porter, in his spirited Enlightenment (Penguin paperback) claimed that the roots of the Enlightenment were actually in England. Then we have recently had James Buchan's Capital of the Mind, which claims in its subtitle that the philosophers of Edinburgh "changed the world". Jonathan Israel says that these are all parochial approaches, and that the Enlightenment was a movement whose international character he intends to illustrate. He has indeed read prodigiously in international literature: his bibliography gives 26 pages of published primary sources and 31 of secondary literature, and these include titles in Latin, English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish and Danish.
Nevertheless, what emerges quite clearly from this book is that he places the origins of the Radical Enlightenment very firmly in 17th century Holland in general and in Spinoza in particular; and although one might perhaps expect this from a historian whose previous book was an equally massive work on the Dutch Republic (OUP), he makes a totally convincing case for this. In the course of it we learn much about many Dutch thinkers. Many of them are scarcely known in this country; and there are some, like Anthonie van Dale and Frederik van Leenhof, who according to Professor Israel are almost unknown even in Holland today.
True, it is a Frenchman, René Descartes, who could be said to have planted the seeds of what would become the Enlightenment, and there is a good deal about him in the book; but the principal theatre for the debate about Descartes is again shown to be Holland, where he had moved for safety in 1628, where the Discours de la Méthode was first published in 1637, and from where it later spread to other countries. Indeed, Spinoza's first published work was The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy (1663). I think myself that the title of the book is somewhat misleading. It ought really to have been called Spinoza and the Enlightenment, since it is almost wholly devoted to his influence: all later Enlightenment thinkers of whatever nation are discussed almost exclusively in terms of the extent to which they were in agreement or disagreement with him.
That debate is described in exhaustive - I would say - exhausting - detail, since in fact the various arguments are repeated over and over again. There are principally three parties to this argument: thinkers of the Radical Enlightenment who follow Spinoza more or less all the way; those of the Moderate Enlightenment, who accept a broadly rational approach but stop short of denying a providential deity and the principal mysteries of the Christian faith; and the Conservatives or fideists who demand total acceptance of the traditional doctrines of the churches about such matters as miracles, the existence of Hell and of the Devil. Jonathan Israel patiently gives the arguments of this last group more space than most histories of the Enlightenment would do. Interestingly, many members of even the first group often denied that they were "Spinozists". That label was used by anti-rationalists, right up to eve of the French Revolution in a positively McCarthyist way to discredit even members of the second group, who themselves went out of their way to condemn Spinoza in the strongest terms. The true Spinozists often protected themselves by giving a full statement of the Spinozan positions and then following them with perfunctory or even deliberately feeble objections.
Despite its enormous length and the width of Israel's research, the book does remain rather narrowly focussed. The debates described in the book are largely about religion and about the challenges to deductive rationalism both from the churches and from the pragmatic schools. Such discussion as there is of Enlightenment political thought is again entirely related to the influence of or reaction against Spinoza's unfinished Tractatus Politicus. So, for instance, the debate in France between the thèse royale, the thèse nobiliaire, and democracy does not feature on its own terms. At the end there is an interesting short section on Diderot and his relationship to Spinozism; but there is nothing much of interest on Montesquieu, Voltaire, Helvétius or Holbach, all of whom are considerable figures in the history of the French Enlightenment. And there are just two references to Hume.
There are two other major criticisms: the book takes much previous knowledge for granted (for example, what exactly had been both the psychological and political teaching of Thomas Hobbes). Although there are several references to Malebranche and Malebranchisme, there is nowhere a concise account of what that philosopher taught: the "Occasionalism" for which he is famous has just two references in the index, only one of which links that doctrine with him.
However, Professor Israel has undoubteldy written a most important book which significantly shifts the focus of Enlightenment studies. For that and for his immense scholarship he deserves the praise that reviewers have heaped upon his book.
Good survey.......2003-04-18
It's a good book if you want to have an overview of the general philosophical and cultural atmosphere of the time.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful journey through the wonder of alienation.......2007-08-04
Colin Wilson probably didn't know exactly what he was doing as he wrote 'The Outsider', it seems to be the way that great writers are guided by instinct rather than detached planning. Wilson was obvoiusly passionate about his topic and his later works certainly attest to this. The idea of this philosophical work is to understand the person, who to paraphrase Leonard Cohen 'exists on the outside so you knowwhat it means to be inside'. Wilson does this through examining characters from literature (and how they were effected by those whocreated them- Barbuuse, Dovstoyevski, William Blake, T.S. Elliot, Nietzsche and Wilson himself amongst others), through case studies of the lives of Vincent Van Gogh, T E Lawrence and Vasilav Nijinski along with Gurdjieffand George Fox. Wilson makes a strong argument for his premise which was continually examined in later works. This, along with William Barrets 'Irrational Man' (another classic written in thesame year- 1958) was my introduction into the world of 'real' philosophy. This is a great work and a wonderful introduction to the theme of how to be an authentic person in a world which seems to embrace only limited and 'safe' individuality. This is a work which remains relevent, perhaps even moreso today than when written, and in my not so humble opinion should be required reading at first year university level for humanties students.
Promising analysis that ultimately falls short.......2007-07-03
Pros
- Good analysis of "the Outsider's problem" and a somewhat systematic search for a solution. Though Wilson's conclusion is inadequate in my opinion, it did get me thinking and has prompted me to explore these issues further on my own.
- Ties together the works and lives of many authors and geniuses.
- References many books throughout that the interested reader can pursue further. I have a list of about 20 books to read based on this book. The bibliography is also helpful in this regard, though not all the books he mentions are included in it.
Cons (SPOILERS!)
- The last two chapters were a major disappointment, as Wilson's answer to the problem ultimate becomes a matter of religious mysticism that, in my opinion, doesn't follow from his analysis. This is especially surprising in light of the fact that Wilson is so quick to deny the validity of religion as a solution throughout the book with little to no explanation. I'm not religious myself, but I feel that Tolstoy's non-fiction "Confession," which is actually referenced in "The Outsider," offers a fairly strong case for the need for faith in order for one's life to have meaning. This issue and, as far as I can remember, the issue of death are really not addressed.
Good solid existentialist ruminant.......2007-02-24
Perfect reading for those depressive moments in every narcissist's life. Also a must for unrecognized prophets and assorted genius types.
Beware Books By Britons.......2006-06-15
My title sums it up: While this is not a long book, it feels almost interminable; like eating a healthful meal which has the taste and consistancy of sand. This impression may be caused by the fact that it was written in a different era, or in a genre (the personal essay) in which the twists and turns of the author's thought become as important as his conclusions. I personally find this tedious.
Wilson's book is a good introduction to a large number of authors and their postitions; but it is uninspiringly written, and he is left with conclusions that are unhelpful for daily life.
The Outsider.......2006-03-19
I like this book, it is weird and a hard read, but I am a strange person.
Book Description
Time magazine called Mortimer J. Adler a "philosopher for everyman." In this guide to considering the big questions, Adler addresses the topics all men and women ponder in the course of life, such as "What is love?", "How do we decide the right thing to do?", and, "What does it mean to be good?" Drawing on his extensive knowledge of Western literature, history, and philosophy, the author considers what is meant by democracy, law, emotion, language, truth, and other abstract concepts in light of more than two millennia of Western civilization and discourse. Adler's essays offer a remarkable and contemplative distillation of the Great Ideas of Western Thought.
Customer Reviews:
How to Think About the Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler.......2004-06-20
This is an excellent book for academicians, journalists, historians,
philosophers, linquists and a whole host of thinkers in the
arts and sciences. The author discusses theoretic universals
in some level of detail. For instance, he roughly equates
consistency with truth. In mathematics, a proof is not complete
without enough consistent examples of an application and no
deviations from the theorem. The author discusses the distinction
between knowledge and opinion. He states succinctly that ignorance can be preferable to academic errors. In addition, he points out that opinions are accepted voluntarily. Emotions are
likened to instinct in that they are not learned. Freud discussed things to avoid; namely, bad love, pride and too much
reliance on monetary things to the exclusion of aesthetics.
The good thing is desirable over the bad. Goods are classified
into wealth, goods of the body, goods of the soul or spiritual
domain, knowledge, truth and wisdom which is the highest
form of knowing. Children spend much time learning skills;
while adults and elders develop and impart wisdom. Learning is
discovery and discussion. We learn things in the natural sciences
by observing them in a lab. For instance, a drop of blood may
be examined under the microscope for specific characteristics.
A frog may be dissected and examined under the microscope to
learn more about the vital organs-their placement and functioning.
This book is a wonderful acquisition for a continued discussion of philosophical, theoretical and scientific techniques and processes. It is a good value for the price charged.
A great "Cliff Notes" version of Adler arguments.......2003-03-24
I found this book very helpful.
I was introduced to Adler's writing about a year ago and have read 4-5 of his books, his two autobiographies, and 30 or so of his papers through the TGI website with Max W.
This book is a great summary of basic ideas in very accessible manner, such as: definition of truth; the moral *obligation* not just the right, to be controversial; crystalization of Adler's arguments against Darwin of why man's mental capabiliteis are a difference in kind and not degree from apes and other animals, etc.
The consice presentation clarified earlier readings and more than made up for any shortcomings due to editoral sloppiness, lack of charts, and difficulty in general with transcripts of a TV show.
A good book for those just beginning their reading of Adler's summary and critique of philosophy and a good reference summary book for those well read with Adler's books.
Paul Baier
Boston, MA
Basic introduction to some of Adler's Great Ideas........2002-05-04
Each chapter represents one program and most consist of a dialogue of sorts between Adler and Luckman, with Adler also answering viewer questions. But as it must already be clear what this book is, I will seek to establish why I gave it only three stars. Firstly, because Amazon does not permit assigning 3 and 1/2 stars. Second, that it is rather long considering how much there is to actually gain from it. The number of subjects that he attempts to cover reduces most of the discussions to a rather elementary introduction. This is good in the sense that it might whet the appetite, before you might get bored by a tedious analysis, but often you get a sense that Adler's final word is good enough before he moves on. Some of the brevity and incompleteness is a function of the presentation, and this limits how much you might actually gain in understanding the topics. The accurate presentation of dialogue adds nothing to the book. Probably it would be most interesting to those who are fond of Dr. Adler and like reading his other books. It is hard to recommend another book that would fulfill the same function that this one does, and this is the first of his that I've read.
Enlightening history and nice reference.......2002-01-17
This work is a handy reference to which I refer often. Adler provides a very useful "history of ideas". Each section covers what the some of the greatest thinkers have said about a particular idea, ideas such as "justice", "knowledge", "truth","God", etc. This book is a must if one wants to get a quick "birds eye" view of ideas and what great thinkers have said about them, and provides a nice springboard and direction for further study.
Summary Without Loss of Depth.......2001-07-04
How do you summarize a summary of 2500 years of thought? Great! Mortimer Adler was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century, primarily because of the literally ecyclopaedic nature of his knowledge. I say literally encyclopaedic because he edited the Encyclopaedia Britanica and wrote The Synopticon, a summary of Western philosophy, among the scores of other books bearing his name. He is best known for popularizing the Great Books theory of education. This is based on his own original reseach distilling the essence of Western Thought into 102 "Great Ideas." How To Think About The Great Ideas is a condensation of transcipts of a popular TV show of the 1950's, but the superficiality such an origin suggests does not permeate the book. The TV show covered only 21 of the great ideas, while the book deals with about half of the 102. The somewhat colloquial style will surprise readers who may have read Aristotle, Decartes, or Kant in full. We are not accustomed to hearing about philosophy from TV. But the simplicity of the presentation only serves to heighten the clarity of the ideas. The Great Ideas which you struggled over in college really can be discussed in ordinary language, and this is the real achievement of this book. The ideas build from the basic question of "What is truth?" to a consideration of the nature of man, human freedom, society and even a review of the arguments for the existence of God. Adler himself came to faith from agnositicism in his 80's before his recent death at the age of 98. Even so, the book is more of an invitation than an argument. It is best approached as a string of pearls, a series of thoughtful but isolated studies, rather than an essay in how to approach life or a true philosophical treatise. Refer to the Synopticon the academic treatment. But Adler never wrote just for academics. He believed philosphy is for everyone, and this book proves it. Now that Mortimer Adler has recently passed away, How To Think About The Great Ideas will remain as his exortation for all of us to lead thoughful lives.
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A Survey of Western Civilization, Vol. II
Richard Goff
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0070112312 |
Book Description
Volume two of a two volume text for the History of Western Civilization. The text contains boxed inserts, maps, section time charts, chapter opening vignettes, and four-color chapter opening illustrations. Covers 1648 to present.
Book Description
With more than two hundred entries by leading intellectuals in the French- and English-speaking world, this new volume presents the authoritative guide to twentieth-century French thought. Unrivaled in its scope and depth, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought covers and critiques the intellectual figures, movements, and publications that helped shape and define fields as diverse as history and historiography, psychoanalysis, film, literary theory, cognitive and life sciences, literary criticism, philosophy, and economics. The contributors also discuss developments in French thought on such subjects as pacifism, fashion, gastronomy, technology, and urbanism.
More than just a reference volume, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought offers original and imaginative explorations of a variety of topics. Contributors include prominent French thinkers, many of whom have played an integral role in the development of French thought, and American, British, and Canadian scholars who have been vital in the dissemination of French ideas. The book brings together such pairings as
Etienne Balibar on Althusser;
Jean Baudrillard on the futures of theory;
Judith Butler on Hegel in France;
Régis Debray on mediology;
Julia Kristeva on Proust;
Michael Morange on the life sciences;
Paul Ricoeur on ethics;
Elisabeth Roudinesco on psychoanalysis; and
Roger Shattuck on humanisms.
The book is divided into four parts:
Movements and Currents (including all the major schools of thought, such as the Annales, deconstruction, Gaullism, négritude, the New Right, psychoanalysis, and structuralism);
Themes (ideas that helped define intellectual work in the twentieth century, such as anti-Semitism, the avant-garde, everyday life, film theory, and nationalism);
Intellectuals (including critical accounts of the lives and work of such figures as Aron, Barthes, de Beauvoir, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, Kristeva, Levinas, and Proust); and
Dissemination (covering influential journals, television shows, radio programs, and newspapers).
Customer Reviews:
How to make sense of some important 20th century intellectual movements.......2006-04-05
This is an incredibly well organized and thought through reference book, not only for Francophiles, but also for everyone who is interested in - or even confused by - some of the most intriguing and complex intellectual and literary movements of the 20th century.
More than 200 articles have been written by Anglo-Saxon and French-speaking academics and non-academics. They cover 30 movements more than 60 themes, and profile around 110 intellectuals. The last part of this 787-page book touches on the role of media in the French intellectual life, from newspaper to radio and TV, via journals.
The style is enticing and to-the-point (well done to the group of editors). And each article provides a short list of useful references for those who want to learn more.
I can't see any drawback - definitely a 5-star volume.
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