Check out these Books
If you're interested in a little late-summer reading, try the following titles:
(1)"Evil in Modern Thought," Susan Neiman, Princeton University Press (2002)
Neiman writes a fairly dense argument asserting that the Problem of Evil shaped the history of philosophy. She closely examines writings of Liebniz and Pope, Rousseau, Kant, Hume and Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Freud - and uses the Lisbon earthquake, Auschwitz and the September 11th terrorist attacks to demonstrate the dialogue concerning the nature of evil in the history of philosophy. She then uses this historical dialogue to account for current philosophical challenges - with the following caveat - "Learning from the history of philosophy is not a matter of appropriating it wholesale. We use insights to shed light on our own. We cannot make the same claims that even the most modern Enlightenment thinkers asserted before us. At times the most hopeful gesture we may be able to manage is not to answer whether life is justified but merely to reject the question."
If you've ever wondered why terrible (evil) things happen in our world - this would be a good book to read to start towards answering that question for yourself - though the answer you may derive may not be what you anticipated at all.
(2) "America at the Crossroads - Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy," Francis Fukuyama, Yale University Press (2006).
Dr. Fukuyama offers a sound, reasoned critique of the Neoconservative agenda - how the term "neoconservative" has been recently misappropriated by an agenda untethered from the traditional principles of neoconservatism - and how this current agenda is the wrong road both domestically and internationally.
Fukuyama is a controvsial political and economic philosopher - widely known for his treatise, "The end of history and the last man." While you may not agree with his positions - "America at the Crossroads" brings a much needed coherence to the process of thinking about domestic and foreign policy issues, including the concepts of preemptive war, domestic and international social engineering, and immigration - to name just a few.
(3) "New Seeds of Contemplation," Thomas Merton, New Directions Publishing Corporation (1961).
If you have yet to be introduced to Thomas Merton - this may not be the book to rightfully accomplish the introduction. However, I highly recommend anything written by Merton as a path to approaching your own spirituality. While Merton was a contemplative, a Trappist Monk, his writings are accessible to all regardless of religious or spiritual persuasion. Read more about Thomas Merton here : http://www.merton.org
One reason I enjoyed these three books specifically - and this type of writing in general - is they don't offer the "easy" answer. If you haven't challenged any of your personal beliefs about life and society recently - any one of these books might offer you new insights - or reaffirming insights from a different perspective.
Often what we know in the moment can be changed by additional information, a new synthesis of apparently disparate ideas, or just a voluntary review of conflicting ideas.
(1)"Evil in Modern Thought," Susan Neiman, Princeton University Press (2002)
Neiman writes a fairly dense argument asserting that the Problem of Evil shaped the history of philosophy. She closely examines writings of Liebniz and Pope, Rousseau, Kant, Hume and Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Freud - and uses the Lisbon earthquake, Auschwitz and the September 11th terrorist attacks to demonstrate the dialogue concerning the nature of evil in the history of philosophy. She then uses this historical dialogue to account for current philosophical challenges - with the following caveat - "Learning from the history of philosophy is not a matter of appropriating it wholesale. We use insights to shed light on our own. We cannot make the same claims that even the most modern Enlightenment thinkers asserted before us. At times the most hopeful gesture we may be able to manage is not to answer whether life is justified but merely to reject the question."
If you've ever wondered why terrible (evil) things happen in our world - this would be a good book to read to start towards answering that question for yourself - though the answer you may derive may not be what you anticipated at all.
(2) "America at the Crossroads - Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy," Francis Fukuyama, Yale University Press (2006).
Dr. Fukuyama offers a sound, reasoned critique of the Neoconservative agenda - how the term "neoconservative" has been recently misappropriated by an agenda untethered from the traditional principles of neoconservatism - and how this current agenda is the wrong road both domestically and internationally.
Fukuyama is a controvsial political and economic philosopher - widely known for his treatise, "The end of history and the last man." While you may not agree with his positions - "America at the Crossroads" brings a much needed coherence to the process of thinking about domestic and foreign policy issues, including the concepts of preemptive war, domestic and international social engineering, and immigration - to name just a few.
(3) "New Seeds of Contemplation," Thomas Merton, New Directions Publishing Corporation (1961).
If you have yet to be introduced to Thomas Merton - this may not be the book to rightfully accomplish the introduction. However, I highly recommend anything written by Merton as a path to approaching your own spirituality. While Merton was a contemplative, a Trappist Monk, his writings are accessible to all regardless of religious or spiritual persuasion. Read more about Thomas Merton here : http://www.merton.org
One reason I enjoyed these three books specifically - and this type of writing in general - is they don't offer the "easy" answer. If you haven't challenged any of your personal beliefs about life and society recently - any one of these books might offer you new insights - or reaffirming insights from a different perspective.
Often what we know in the moment can be changed by additional information, a new synthesis of apparently disparate ideas, or just a voluntary review of conflicting ideas.
posted by Scott Scofield | 11:28 AM
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