America The Philosophical

This bold, insightful book argues that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace for truth and debate. With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano—Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy—takes on the widely held belief that the United States is an anti-intellectual country. Instead he provides a richly reported overview of American thought, arguing that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers ditch artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy’s most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor. America the Philosophical is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country’s unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural clichés.

This bold, insightful book argues that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace for truth and debate. With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano—Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy—takes on the widely held belief that the United States is an anti-intellectual country. Instead he provides a richly reported overview of American thought, arguing that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers ditch artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy’s most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor. America the Philosophical is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country’s unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural clichés.

In these previously uncollected essays, Smith argues that American philosophers like Peirce, James, Royce, and Dewey have forged a unique philosophical tradition—one that is rich and complex enough to represent a genuine alternative to the analytic, phenomenological, and hermeneutical traditions which have originated in Britain or Europe. "In my judgment, John Smith has no equal today in combining two scholarly qualities: the analysis of philosophical texts with penetration and rigor, and the discernment of what it is in these texts that matters. These qualities are in evidence throughout the essays in America's Philosophical Vision. Whether he is evaluating Rorty's view of Dewey; the pragmatic theory of experience and truth; theories of freedom, creativity, and the self; Royce's conception of community; or synoptic philosophic visions, Smith always succeeds in uniting a comprehensive understanding of philosophic writings with a sure grasp of their import for human culture and aspiration. It is a great benefit to students of American thought that these papers have now been collected into one volume."—James Gouinlock, Emory University

America is five hundred years old; the United States is less than half that age. The term America was coined in 1507 to refer to a continent and a dream of a new world. People in the United States, especially government leaders, have a serious problem of regularly speaking as if their country were America. Author Gabriel Moran reflects on the use of the word America in the United States from its beginning to the present. He cites numerous examples to show the importance of distinguishing between the United States and America. The result is a different way of perceiving and understanding the history of the United States. This book is especially relevant to the current political division within the United States and some of the missteps in its foreign policy. The failure to consistently distinguish between the nation of the United States and the continent and dream America underlies nearly every political, cultural and economic problem that the country faces.

Michael and Carolyn's eyes locked. She was the most beautiful women he had ever seen. The Chronic he just blazed in the car might of influenced him a bit but in that moment he was completely enchanted. Carolyn's longing stare told him loud and clear that the attraction was mutual. If it were not for Carolyn's evil, demon possessed, homicidal boyfriend, that Michael inadvertently kills moments later, their chance encounter would have been fortuitous. Unfortunately evil had other ideas, take another host and continue it's killing spree and frame it's new friend... It's a great time A fast paced, page turning, twisted, erotic, supernatural thriller It's a great time A fast paced, hot, erotic, supernatural thriller EXCERPT: It was very dark, almost pitch black. I couldn't hear a thing, except for my heavy breathing. I was a bit nervous. I had never been in a situation like this before. The little room had the smell of old pine wood and body odor, my body odor. There wasn't any kind of air circulation in there and it was getting hotter by the moment. The only light came from the concealment screen that separated me from the priest. "Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It's been about fifteen years since my last confession." Maybe longer. "Very well, what is your confession?" The Father asked sounding half asleep. "Father I'm afraid I've done a very bad thing and I think I'm going to hell." "I see. Well my son, God weighs all sins equal and he died on the cross to take away all of our sins. All he asked for, is for you to ask for forgiveness." "I understand that. I also need some guidance." "Okay, let's start from the beginning then. Tell me your confession." "Okay Father. I'll tell you but parts of the story are a little embarrassing to admit, especially to a Priest." "Don't worry about that, you need to purge your soul, tell me everything." "Okay." It all started when I was driving through Texas. After losing my job six months ago. I've been making ends meet by helping a friend transport illegal narcotics across country, marijuana to be specific. Legal marijuana from California is in high demand on the East Coast. I transported it to a distributor in North Carolina. I was on my way back to So-Cal. I usually take HWY 40 to and from. It's the fastest route and it's clear of highway checkpoints, going out of California anyway. I made that trip four other times and I was getting a bit bored of the route, so I decided to take Interstate 10. I was driving through the long desolate part of Texas, the vast emptiness in between Houston and El Paso. The valleys were so vast that if someone dropped a nuke while you were in one there's a good chance they'd miss. I had half a tank of gas when I stopped at a BP for a fill up. With gas stations one hundred miles apart, I didn't want to chance it. After pumping my gas, I went inside for a Red Bull and a Snickers bar. That's where I saw Jezebel and it all started. "Jezebel? Was that the name she gave you or the name you gave her?" I must of stimulated a nerve. The Priest sounded interested all of a sudden. "That's the name she gave me, but not until later." Anyhow when I entered the BP's convenience store, Jezebel was leaning over the counter. She was pointing to her brand of cigarettes, Marlboro Special Blend Black. I don't know what the breakdown in communication was but the Middle Eastern attendant kept grabbing the wrong pack. Jezebel was quite the spectacle with her sun bleached blond hair, long, tan, toned, sexy legs. Her rear was firm and full in her Daisy Dukes. She was just so curvaceous and hot. At least her backside was. I was entranced, I couldn't see anything else, I was completely engrossed. I usually would have been satisfied with a glance and a few peaks while I was shopping or at check out but not this time. It was probably due to the joint I just finished off in the parking lot.

At once narrative and reflective, Loving Immigrants in America: An Experiential Philosophy of Personal Interaction is a philosophical account of Daniel Camposʼs experience as a Latin American immigrant to the United States of America. A series of interrelated personal essays together convey this experience of walking or sauntering, going on road trips, reading American literature in the southern United States, playing association football (soccer or fútbol), churchgoing, and Latin dancing in the U.S. This book’s central motif is the caring saunterer, who is understood to be a person who makes him or herself at home anywhere, even as a Latino immigrant in the U.S. The narrative essays convey one immigrant’s experience seeking an affective, social, and intellectual home in a new land. The intertwined philosophical reflections lead to the recommendation of an ethic of love—resilient love—for the day-to-day interactions and long-term relations between immigrants and hosts in this country. The author’s aim is to establish an open and earnest philosophical dialogue with critical readers interested in the problems surrounding immigration in the U.S. today. He writes as an American philosopher—in the continental sense of North, Central, and South America—whose reflections provide an accessible and provocative angle for the development of insight into the experiences of immigrants in the United States. Thus he brings philosophical reflection drawn from experience, in the broad American tradition, to bear on current issues—on the problems of people and not of philosophers, as John Dewey might put it.

The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around John Kaag is a dispirited young philosopher at sea in his marriage and his career when he stumbles upon West Wind, a ruin of an estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that belonged to the eminent Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy and a direct intellectual descendent of William James, the father of American philosophy and psychology, with whom Kaag feels a deep kinship. It is James’s question “Is life worth living?” that guides this remarkable book. The books Kaag discovers in the Hocking library are crawling with insects and full of mold. But he resolves to restore them, as he immediately recognizes their importance. Not only does the library at West Wind contain handwritten notes from Whitman and inscriptions from Frost, but there are startlingly rare first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As Kaag begins to catalog and read through these priceless volumes, he embarks on a thrilling journey that leads him to the life-affirming tenets of American philosophy—self-reliance, pragmatism, and transcendence—and to a brilliant young Kantian who joins him in the restoration of the Hocking books. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is ultimately about love, freedom, and the role that wisdom can play in turning one’s life around.

In the first book written in English on this growing field of applied philosophy, Essays on Philosophical Counseling is a collection of 14 articles by leading philosophical counselors from five countries. The book presents the reader with the major approaches to philosophical counseling, by combing theoretical discussions with a large number of case studies. Divided into three parts, Essays on Philosophical Counseling first discusses the theoretical and historical background of philosophical counseling, then deals with the relationship between philosophical counseling and psychotherapy and last, focuses on specific types of problems and predicaments and how they are addressed philosophically. Contents: Philosophical Counseling: The General Picture; A Conceptual Framework for Philosophical Counseling: Worldview Interpretation, Ran Lahav; Philosophical Counseling in Holland: History and Open Issues, Ida Jongsma; The Training of a Philosophical Counselor, Dries Bole; Philosophical Counseling: The Arts of Ecological Relationship and Interpretation, Barbara Norman; Philosophical Counceling and Psychotherapy; Philosophy, Philosophical Practice, and Psychotherapy, Gerd A. Achenbach; Philosophical Counseling as a Critical Examination of Life-Directing Conceptions, Michael Schefczyk; Some Reflections on Philosophical Counseling and Psychotherapy, Ben Mijuskovic; Meaning Crisis: Philosophical Counseling and Psychotherapy, Steven Segal; Philosophical Counseling: Some Roles of Critical Thinking, Elliot D. Cohen; Specific Topics for Counseling; Philosophy in Marriage Counseling, Anette Prins-Bakker; Philosophical Practice, Pastoral Work, and Suicide Survivors, Will A.J.F. Gerbers; The Philosopher in the Business World as a Vision Developer, Ad Hoogendijk; On the Emergence of Ethical Counseling: Considerations and Two Case Studies, Louis Marinoff; Supplement: The Legal Perspective; Legal Issues in Philosophical Counseling, Barton Bernstein and Linda Bolin.