Transcendence And Understanding

This book brings into conversation Western and Orthodox hermeneutical schools: one represented by Hans-Georg Gadamer and his followers, while the other school is less focused around one person and yet displays common distinct features. The main question of the book is how we can mediate not only the content of understanding of who we are in relation to each other, to the world in which we live, and to God, but also comprehend the process of understanding across various historical periods. The strengths and weaknesses of both positions are presented, and it is shown how these two hermeneutical approaches can enrich each other. The book argues that preserving both positions, and indicating how they complement each other, helps show the limits of encountering the transcendent reality that can be testified to by human language without being reduced to it as such.

". . . and it was Evening and it was Morning, the Third Day." Why was this day different from all others according to the Bible? In the Book of Genesis we are told that every plant on earth, including trees, was created on that day. In this seminal study, Jo Ann Gardner shows how the ancient Israelites, the compilers of the Hebrew Bible, not only made practical use of native plants but studied them to reveal meanings that enabled them to better understand the Biblical text. From the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve ate, to the mandrakes Rachel pleaded with her sister to share with her, to the reeds used to protect Moses when he was set adrift as an infant, deeper insights are provided regarding their significance. Seeds of Transcendence has been designed to enable readers to develop a more profound appreciation of the most influential book ever written. Over 100 full-color photos. "One of the most erudite and fascinating books I have read in recent times" -- Blu Greenberg, author of On Women and Judaism

In this definitive book on the scientifically proven health and stress-relieving benefits of Transcendental Meditation, a renowned psychiatrist and researcher explores why TM works, what it can do, and how to use it for maximum effect.

William C. Hackett’s English translation of Jean Wahl’s Existence humaine et transcendence (1944) brings back to life an all-but-forgotten book that provocatively explores the philosophical concept of transcendence. Based on what Emmanuel Levinas called “Wahl’s famous lecture” from 1937, Existence humaine et transcendence captured a watershed moment of European philosophy. Included in the book are Wahl's remarkable original lecture and the debate that ensued, with significant contributions by Gabriel Marcel and Nicolai Berdyaev, as well as letters submitted on the occasion by Heidegger, Levinas, Jaspers, and other famous figures from that era. Concerned above all with the ineradicable felt value of human experience by which any philosophical thesis is measured, Wahl makes a daring clarification of the concept of transcendence and explores its repercussions through a masterly appeal to many (often surprising) places within the entire history of Western thought. Apart from its intrinsic philosophical significance as a discussion of the concepts of being, the absolute, and transcendence, Wahl's work is valuable insofar as it became a focal point for a great many other European intellectuals. Hackett has provided an annotated introduction to orient readers to this influential work of twentieth-century French philosophy and to one of its key figures.

“Compassionate, poignant, and practical. . . . Transcending Loss will be a great blessing on your lifetime journey of recovery.”—Harold Bloomfield, MD, psychiatrist and author of How to Survive the Loss of Love and How to Heal Depression Death doesn’t end a relationship, it simply forges a new type of relationship—one based not on physical presence but on memory, spirit, and love. There are many wonderful books available that address acute grief and how to cope with it. But they often focus on crisis management and imply that there is an "end" to mourning, and fail to acknowledge grief’s ongoing impact and how it changes through the years. “This is a book about death and grief, yes, but more important, it is a book about love and hope. I have learned from my experience and interviews with courageous people about pain, struggle, resiliency, and meaning. Their stories show over time, you can learn to transcend even in spite of the pain.”—from the introduction by Ashley Davis Bush, LCSW

This book illustrates the unnaturalness of modern science and technology by tracing their cognitive, evolutionary, and religious origins. It elaborates that all premodern knowers faced inherent limits, and the West was able to develop modern science and technology because of its inherent contradictions forcing the transcendence of limitations.

''The problem of Transcendence is the problem of our time. " I Needless to say, Transcendence was a particularly lively i~sue when Karl Heim wrote these words in the mid-1930's. Within the province of philosophi cal theology and philosophy of religion, however, it is always the prob lem, as Gordon Kaufman has recently reminded us. 2Por the question concerning the nature and the reality of Transcendence has not only to do with self-transcendence, but with the being of Transcendence-Itself, that is to say, with the nature and the reality of God as experienced and understood at any given time or place. Now there are those today who would claim that any further discus sion of the latter half of this proposition, namely,Transcendence-Itse1f or God, is worthless and quite beside the point. Such persons would claim that the particular logia represented by the theological sciences has collapsed by virtue of its object having disappeared. Indeed, when one surveys the contemporary scene in philosophy and theology, there is a good deal of evidence that this is the case':"" theology of late having be come something of a "spectacle," to use Pritz Buri's term. One of the reasons for this, we here contend, is that the richness and the diversity of the meaning of Transcendence has been lost. And even though we do not here intend to resolve the issue, neither do we assume that such an enqui ry is either impossible or irrelevant.