Dialectic Spiritualism

Spirituality and Dialectics is a passionate and rigorous argument against nihilism and a manifesto for the party of meaning and hope. It demonstrates how we can ground principles of meaning and value, against the aesthetic and intellectual hegemony of the enlightenment--culminating most currently through postmodernity, as a basis for the critique of all present injustice. What emerges is a vision of a new social order that permits the full development of human social capacities.

Over the ages, a number of versions of the Ramayan have been written by great sages such as Valmiki and Tulsidas. All versions provide a multidimensional view of the perfect life. In Living Thoughts of the Ramayana, Sukhadeva enlightens the reader about the real nature of the man and the world. He aims at reforming the present worldconsciousness and ultimately creating universal peace and happiness. Notably free from doctrines, this work is a penetrating study of the importance of the Ramayana and its relevance to social structures, political administration and spirituality. The teachings of Swami Vivelananada are also an important source of inspiration for the author. All readers will enrich their live both materially and spiritually by reading this unique work.

Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Wiener is considered the originator of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the organization of society. Wiener thought on a grand scale and stressed the adaptation of technical concepts from pure mathematics and electrical engineering outside their technical contexts. Masani's interesting and thoughtful book analyses both Wiener's mathematical and his nonmathematical ideas in sympathetic and sensitive detail. Readers will find much to appreciate in this book, in addition to the discussion of Wiener's technical research.

Oliver O Donovan is widely regarded as one of the preeminent Protestant Christian ethicists of our time. His teaching and scholarship have exerted a profound influence on countless moral theologians. This volume honoring O Donovan shows how the various contributors -- themselves distinguished scholars -- have developed their own thinking through serious engagement with O Donovan s work. Significantly, they build upon, expand, and critique the agenda for Christian ethics that O Donovan has been instrumental in constructing. As Robert Song and Brent Waters say in their introduction, To genuinely honor O Donovan, one cannot remain content with reciting but must risk one s own exposition. Contributors: Nigel Biggar Brian Brock Jonathan Chaplin Eric Gregory Shinji Kayama Jean-Yves Lacoste Joan O Donovan Oliver O Donovan Robert Song Hans Ulrich Bernd Wannenwetsch Brent Waters John Webster Rowan Williams John Witte Jr. Holger Zaborowski

Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason ranks with Being and Nothingness as a work of major philosophical significance, but it has been largely neglected. The first volume, published in 1960, was dismissed as a Marxist work at a time when structuralism was coming into vogue; the incomplete second volume has only recently been published in France. In this commentary on the first volume, Joseph S. Catalano restores the Critique to its deserved place among Sartre’s works and within philosophical discourse as a whole. Sartre attempts one of the most needed tasks of our times, Catalano asserts—the delivery of history into the hands of the average person. Sartre’s concern in the Critique is with the historical significance of everyday life. Can we, he asks, as individuals or even collectively, direct the course of our history? A historical context for our lives is given to us at birth, but we sustain that context with even our most mundane actions—buying a newspaper, waiting in line, eating a meal. In looking at history, Sartre argues, reason can never separate the historical situation of the investigator from the investigation. Thus reason falls into a dialectic, always depending upon the past for guidance but always being reshaped by the present. Clearly showing the influence of Marx on Sartre’s thought, the Critique adds the historical dimension lacking in Being and Nothingness. In placing the Critique within the corpus of Sartre’s philosophical writings, Catalano argues that it represents a development rather than a break from Sartre’s existentialist phase. Catalano has organized his commentary to follow the Critique and has supplied clear examples and concrete expositions of the most difficult ideas. He explicates the dialogue between Marx and Sartre that is internal to the text, and he also discusses Sartre’s Search for Method, which is published separately from the Critique in English editions.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.