Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts

Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy : A Companion Work to C.G. Jung's Mysterium Conjunctionis (Studies in Jungian Psychology) Review

Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy : A Companion Work to C.G. Jung's Mysterium Conjunctionis (Studies in Jungian Psychology)
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Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy : A Companion Work to C.G. Jung's Mysterium Conjunctionis (Studies in Jungian Psychology) ReviewNo one really knows who wrote the astonishing thirteenth-century treatise RISING DAWN (Aurora Consurgens), although the work is attributed to Thomas Aquinas, an attribution the Catholic Church has been at pains to deny. This translation starts with the text (it reads like a series of revelations and parables steeped in biblical quotations) followed by the depth-psychological commentary of von Franz. Of all the second-generation Jungians, perhaps only Edward Edinger matches her in clarity. In brilliance no one does.
Quite a few Jungians of my acquaintance haven't read this book even though it was intended as a supplement to Jung's MYSTERIUM CONIUNCTIONIS, the last of his longer works and his last word on the relationship between alchemy and the unconscious. Perhaps it's because the book is not an alchemical treatise; it is, as the commentator notes in an introduction, a rush of revelation by a man who resorted to both Christian and alchemical symbolism to come to grips with what must have been an overpowering confrontation with the numen--in this case Sophia, the Gnostic goddess of Wisdom and, in the Old Testament, the feminine counterpart to God.
As I read, however, I found myself continually distracted by the damnable Jungian habit of footnoting everything (a dozen per page) as well as by the commentator's inability to write one page without quoting Jung: a sad and unfortunate habit given her obvious wealth of knowledge and psychological depth. It's clear too that she did an enormous amount of theological and alchemical research and, I suspect, furnished Jung with a fair bulk of what showed up in his tomes on the art of alchemy.
Although this doesn't count against the book's commentary, this doctor of depth psychology finds himself wondering why none of the psychological interpretations take Sophia, the metals, and the Earth at their word. Again and again, references to the aliveness of these substances are interpreted as the alchemist's projection onto matter. But what if the alchemist wasn't projecting?Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy : A Companion Work to C.G. Jung's Mysterium Conjunctionis (Studies in Jungian Psychology) Overview

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The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume I the Spell of Plato, and Volume II the High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath Review

The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume I the Spell of Plato, and Volume II the High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath
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The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume I the Spell of Plato, and Volume II the High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath ReviewIt is an education in itself.It's not an easy book, but it's readable, not a dense academic tome. Afterwards, you'll understand economics and history much better.
Popper is probably the last century's most eminent philosopher, but this is really a book about politics and history. He talks about how governments change and evolve, how you balance human and economic freedom, and freedom vs. social responsibility, and other very practical topics.
Best of all, it's not a preachy book that has an axe to grind. It's not trying to suck you into the author's viewpoint with bad logic and emotional arguments. I think that you could read it from anywhere on the political spectrum, and get something out of the book.The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume I the Spell of Plato, and Volume II the High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath Overview

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The Open Society and its Enemies: Volume I: The Spell of Plato Review

The Open Society and its Enemies: Volume I: The Spell of Plato
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The Open Society and its Enemies: Volume I: The Spell of Plato ReviewThis book by Karl Popper is my favorite reading in 2009. Times were tough in Athens when Plato was writing. The democracy which gave Socrates the hemlock was quite bitter about the kind of government that had replaced the previous democracy. Popper was bitter about the totalitarian forces the democracies fought during World War II. Plato's ideal of an ideal form of government was looking back to a time that democratic forces could never establish in times as chaotic as our present situation.
The political thinking of Plato is as much philosophy as most political thinkers are willing to consider. Popper makes challenges that inspire me in my bitter reactions to the kind of political appeals that are still being made to attempt to unite people within a society that has remnants of the inequalities that Plato wished to exclude for ideal situations. The life of the mind can be pleasant for those who like things well, but history is not the kind of study that will be well liked by everybody. The deep questions in philosophy may spring from attempts to catch up with thinkers who tried to escape for perils that were obvious for anyone attempting to extend reality into a future at a time when leaders shifted and shuffled continuously, and perhaps more so and faster from now on than ever before.The Open Society and its Enemies: Volume I: The Spell of Plato Overview

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The Spell of Religion: And the Battle over Gay Marriage Review

The Spell of Religion: And the Battle over Gay Marriage
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The Spell of Religion: And the Battle over Gay Marriage ReviewThe Spell of Religion is highly recommended (the book that is) and it is truly comforting to know that more and more straight people from religious backgrounds are taking such a bold stance for gay rights/marriage as Sheri Lynne Lawson does here. We in the gay community know that one of our fiercest enemies is the right-wing conservative-evangelical clan. We don't hate them but they sure are hell bent to oppress and suppress the gay community as much as they can. They don't want gay folk to have the same opportunity to love and marriage as they do; no they want that for themselves and we can't share that unless we magically change our sexual orientation which we know is impossible and God does not hear those prayers when we ask to redo his creation. An important point made in this book is how much damage is done to each gay person who is deprived of Love and marriage. An excerpt by a Mike Kessler from her book reads, "Do not expect of others what you would not expect of yourself. Do not expect others to live a life of loneliness, deprived of love and affection, merely because their love is different from yours. Please show that you value compassion thought and love, not blind unquestionable obedience to impossible and cruel expectations."
Sheri expounds on this point by saying how much damage has been done through the years to the gay community and how the churches have indoctrinated their congregations toward this type of suffering and that they are the ones that need to get on their knees and pray for forgiveness for every heart they have shattered, for every soul drowning in the fear of never knowing God's love because they are gay.
I could go on and on but please check this book out. I wish every church member in America would read it and Sheri would also like every Mormon church goer to read it. She was deeply hurt by the passage of prop 8 as all of us in the gay community. She being an "ex-mormon" and knowing all the money pumped in to stop gay marriage in CA made her heart sick too.
As you read this book you will see the kindness, honesty and integrity this woman has and the fighting spirit that is in her as she stands up for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all of us in America!
This book is now part of my most favorite books in my library. I encourage you all to read it and get your friends, family and church members to read it. If they have an open heart they just might begin to learn about compassion.The Spell of Religion: And the Battle over Gay Marriage Overview

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The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato Review

The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato
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The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato ReviewThis is a paperback in two volumes: volume I subtitled "Plato", and volume II subtitled "Hegel and Marx". Each volume has a table of contents, text, addenda, truly awe-inspiring endnotes, an index of names, and of subjects. This is a review of BOTH volumes.
"If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not...to belittle them. ...we must break with the habit of deference to great men. Great men may make great mistakes..." (from the intro to the 1943 edition)
Karl Popper was fighting the war in his own way. He saw what was essentially the same in Stalin and Hitler: a monstrous confidence. They may have drawn on different philosophies of the state, but it came to the same thing in the end: wholesale murder as a tool of social engineering.
But WWII is over, and we won. Moreover, the Soviet Union has collapsed, and we won again. So what is the fuss? Relax: Marxism is dead, Platonism sounds quaint, and who the hell is Hegel, anyway?
But don't rest easy just yet, free-market man! Every four years we seem to reaffirm our need for a philosopher-king. And while the historicist faith is now all tarted-up with computers, networking, and the Fable of the Bees and re-christened "emergent order", it still leaves us feeling smug and moral in doing nothing but tending our own gardens.
Popper is pithy throughout, but I only started noting things (this time around) at the penultimate chapter of the work, 24:
"... the fight against suffering must be considered a duty, while the right to care for the happiness of others must be considered a privilege confined to the close circle of their friends."(vII, p237)
[on language, and the aim of rationalism] "... to use it plainly ... as an instrument of rational communication ... rather than as a means of 'self-expression', as the vicious romantic jargon of most of our educationists has it." (p239) See also II, pp276/7 on the aims of education.
[On bullshit] "... irrationalism will use reason too, but without any feeling of obligation."(II,240)
A brilliant look at Hegelian thinking in the sociology of knowledge (II,242/3), which must be read whole, but ends: " ... their thoughts are endowed ... with 'mystical and religious faculties' not possessed by others, and who thus claim that they 'think by God's grace'. This claim with its gentle allusion to those who do not possess God's grace, this attack upon the potential spiritual unity of mankind, is, in my opinion, as pretentious, blasphemous and anti-Christian, as it believes itself to be humble, pious, and Christian."
Popper is relentlessly brilliant in moral indignation. See his pointing out that moral futurism (e.g. 'the meek shall inherit the earth') condones the abdicating of individual moral responsibility, since one need do nothing toward this certain end. His answer: "...it is certainly possible to combine an attitude of the utmost reserve and even of contempt towards worldly success in the sense of power, glory, and wealth, with the attempt to do one's best in this world, and to further the ends one has decided to adopt...for their own sake."(II, 274)
This is one of the great works of practical philosophy of the century. Awesome in scholarship, relentless in moral vision, yet as fair-minded as his own high standards dictate, Popper has produced a book that is at once an explication of important philosophers who have had a malign impact and an attempt, largely successful, to demythologize them, and to give the average reader intellectual weapons to combat their legacy. His care is, at all times, to be clear and rational. He is concerned to communicate, not to obscure. The spirit of civilization shines through this work; it exemplifies what is best in our intellectual and spiritual heritage.
A hint: read a few of the notes to convince yourself that Popper has completely mastered his material (in several languages), that he has anticipated all the main counterarguments to his positions, and that he stands ready to defend in severe philosophical jargon anything he seems too-casually to advert to in the text. Then just read the books, and dig into the notes later, when you go back to a section for some serious research.The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato Overview

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Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Review

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
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Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon ReviewReading these reviews, it's fascinating how many people attack Dennett for things that aren't in this book.
- "Science can explain everything". But the book isn't about everything: it's about psychology and sociology, which are sciences.
- "Dennett's an atheist". Well, yes, but he acknowledges that religion is pervasive; the book is about trying to understand why people act and think the way they do, not to change what they believe. (Unless you think that to understand religious belief is to destroy it - but you'd better be able to justify that.)
- "Dennett doesn't understand philosophy". A silly accusation to make of a distinguished professor of philosophy. Yes, Dennett dismisses traditional phil.of.relig. for this debate, but that's because it has nothing to say about the phenomenon of belief.
- "Dennett's account of religion is about as reliable as a Nazi's account of Judaism". I don't understand: the definition he uses is remarkably mainstream, and owes a lot to William James.
The comon thread running through these critics is one of taboo: Dennett ought not to be investigating this stuff. Nobody offers an alternative theory, and in that respect the attacks feel a bit like Intelligent Design wedgies. The criticism is not of the idea, but the person. And (of course) nobody tries to justify the taboo.
As I wrote in the review on my blog at geoffarnold.com, the book has three sections:
- a careful definition and justification (over-cautious to an atheist like myself)
- a sample explanatory narrative, synthesizing much of the state of the art in this field, acknowledged to probably be mostly wrong, but comprehensively indicating the areas that future, better researched theories should address
- an optimistic but unconvincing plea for future dialogue.
Overall it is a solid step in the right direction.Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Overview

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