by Richard John Neuhaus ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2009
A manifesto for Christians who share Neuhaus’ theology, and for opponents with an academic bent who enjoy an intellectual...
The recently deceased neoconservative intellectual offers a philosophical blueprint for his Catholicism and his stranger-in-a-strange-land relationship with America.
Catholic priest and George W. Bush confidante Neuhaus (Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy and the Splendor of Truth, 2006, etc.) says that American Christians are exiles in this imperfect life and country as they await the End Time and the promised City of God. He explains how he reconciles this world with his religious aspirations, disputing the outlook of liberal Christians and secularists along the way. Those familiar with his work might expect some culture-war bomb-throwing, and Neuhaus lobs a few at abortion rights and stem-cell research, but the book is primarily a theological summation. Indeed, the author’s lengthy musings may seem pedantic to those without a strong interest in philosophy. One chapter takes more than 30 pages to answer the question, “Can an Atheist Be a Good Citizen?” Neuhaus, who founded and edited the ecumenical journal First Things, is generous in granting the objections to his case, and readers who don’t share his premises might nonetheless be persuaded by his arguments. On the atheist question, for example, he admits that Christians have committed crimes as grievous as those of nonbelievers. He insists nonetheless that atheists can’t be good citizens, because citizenship requires “a morally compelling” defense of democracy that “draw[s] authority from that which is higher than ourselves.” He doesn’t mention Alan Dershowitz’s secular defense, which notes that undemocratic, rights-denying societies inevitably disintegrate—and that our God-fearing founders, who tolerated certain injustices, weren’t always compelling exemplars of democracy. Neuhaus argues, correctly, that America is “an incorrigibly and pervasively religious society.” It is also pervasively uninterested in worrying about things like the worthiness of atheists to be citizens, which may have contributed to the author’s sense of alienation.
A manifesto for Christians who share Neuhaus’ theology, and for opponents with an academic bent who enjoy an intellectual dust-up.Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-465-01367-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2009
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
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by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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