For Love Of Wisdom

From the dawn of Western thought to the present day, The Love of Wisdom tells the story of philosophy as something intensely theological, both in its insights and its wrong turns. The book will be invaluable for any student of theology or intellectual history, and for anyone who wants to see the intellectual cogency of the Christian faith at its best. The intellectual tradition of the Church emerges clearly from this book as one of the glories of the Christian inheritance.

In these elegant and engaging essays, the internationally acclaimed Thomist, Josef Pieper, defines and defends philosophy as the search for and love of wisdom. True philosophy is not the work of joyless academics pondering over esoteric writings that have no relation to real life. Rather, the philosophical act, in which all reasonable men can participate, begins in wonder at what is, and gratitude for what is given, and ends in love. In his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (On the Relationship between Faith and Reason), Pope John Paul II called for a revitalization of true philosophy, for man can find fulfillment ಜonly in choosing to enter the truth, to make a home under the shade of Wisdom and dwell there.ಝ Pieperಙs essays make the same ardent and convincing plea. Josef Pieper is renowned for having popularized the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, a brilliant student of St. Thomas who, in his own voluminous works, has made the deep thought of the ಜAngelic Doctorಝ more accessible and understandable to the modern reader.

The purpose of this engaging book is twofold: to explain and justify the primary objects and methods of the discipline of philosophy, and to show how philosophy is relevant to a person's life and happiness. Both purposes are implied in the idea of wisdom in its theoretical and existential dimensions. Philosophy is the 'love of wisdom, ' and wisdom involves coming into a right relation to the world of beauty, goodness, and truth

This book lays out a new vision for the teaching of English, building on themes central to Wilhelm's influential "You Gotta BE The Book." With portraits of teachers and students, as well as practical strategies and advice, they provide a roadmap to educational transformation far beyond the field of English. --from publisher description

"The Value of Philosophy" is one of the most important chapters of Bertrand's Russell's magnum Opus, The Problems of Philosophy. As a whole, Russell focuses on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion, Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics: If it is uncertain that external objects exist, how can we then have knowledge of them but by probability. There is no reason to doubt the existence of external objects simply because of sense data.

This Christian-based introduction to philosophy textbook is all the more appealing to its student audience for including humor and popular culture illustrations to teach important concepts.

Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', not in a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of erôs. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater.

Sixty philosophers' memoirs revealing how they became philosophers and dedicated their lives to the pursuit of wisdom.