Ancient Books - Page 17

A Student's Guide to the History And Philosophy of Yoga

Peter Connolly

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Editorial Review:

The word 'yoga' conjures up in the minds of many Westerners images of people performing exercises and adopting unusual, sometimes contortive postures. Such exercises and postures do have a place within the practice of yoga, but it is much more than that. Indeed, the early literature on yoga describes and defines it as a form of mental rather than physical discipline. Yoga is also associated with the Indian subcontinent and the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. This book therefore concentrates on the evolution of yoga in the context of Indian culture, though the final chapters also explore some of its links with non-Indian mystical traditions and some of its developments outside of India during the modern period. The book is aimed at both university students taking courses in Comparative Religion and Philosophy and practitioners of yoga who seek to go beyond the activity and explore its spiritual dimensions. Hence, it presents yoga in the context of its historical evolution in India and seeks to explain the nature of its associations with various metaphysical doctrines. The work also draws upon a number of conceptual schemes designed to facilitate comparative study. Some of these are employed throughout the book so as to link the material from each chapter together within a common framework.

The Yoga of the Nine Emotions: The Tantric Practice of Rasa Sadhana

Peter Marchand

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A guide to changing negative emotions and promoting happiness using traditional Tantric and Ayurvedic practices

• Details the 9 Rasas that represent our basic emotions

• Offers emotional fasting exercises and daily routines for emotional well-being

• Shows how Rasa Sadhana can be integrated with other yoga practices

• Based on the teachings of Harish Johari

Rasas are the essence of our emotions that exist in both the body and the mind. The Tantric tradition recognizes 9 Rasas that represent our basic emotions: love, humor, wonder, courage, calmness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. Those who practice Rasa Sadhana learn to overcome negative emotions in order to pursue better health, enhanced spiritual growth, and enduring happiness.

Our emotions are continuously affected by the interplay of our senses, the elements, food, and the life force in our body. In The Yoga of the Nine Emotions, Peter Marchand offers many practical physiological and philosophical tools from Tantric and Ayurvedic traditions that can help readers change their emotional patterns. He explains the nature and purpose of each Rasa and how we can strengthen or weaken one Rasa through another. He also offers Ayurvedic cooking guidelines and daily routines for balancing sensory input and strengthening emotional health, including fasting from negative emotions as well as how to energize positive ones. As we master our emotions through the practice of Rasa Sadhana, we gain true control of our lives and our relationships with others.

Plato's Republic: A Study

Stanley Rosen

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Editorial Review:

In this book a distinguished philosopher offers a comprehensive interpretation of Plato’s most controversial dialogue. Treating the Republic as a unity and focusing on the dramatic form as the presentation of the argument, Stanley Rosen challenges earlier analyses of the Republic (including the ironic reading of Leo Strauss and his disciples) and argues that the key to understanding the dialogue is to grasp the author’s intention in composing it, in particular whether Plato believed that the city constructed in the Republic is possible and desirable.

Rosen demonstrates that the fundamental principles underlying the just city are theoretically attractive but that the attempt to enact them in practice leads to conceptual incoherence and political disaster. The Republic, says Rosen, is a vivid illustration of the irreconcilability of philosophy and political practice.

Philo: Volume IX, Every Good Man is Free. On the Contemplative Life. On the Eternity of the World. Against Flaccus. Apology for the Jews. On Providence (Loeb Classical Library No. 363)

Philo

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The philosopher Philo was born about 20 BCE to a prominent Jewish family in Alexandria, the chief home of the Jewish Diaspora as well as the chief center of Hellenistic culture; he was trained in Greek as well as Jewish learning. In attempting to reconcile biblical teachings with Greek philosophy he developed ideas that had wide influence on Christian and Jewish religious thought.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the works of Philo is in ten volumes and two supplements, distributed as follows. Volume I: Creation; Interpretation of Genesis II and III. II: On the Cherubim; The Sacrifices of Abel and Cain; The Worse Attacks the Better; The Posterity and Exile of Cain; On the Giants. III: The Unchangeableness of God; On Husbandry; Noah's Work as a Planter; On Drunkenness; On Sobriety. IV: The Confusion of Tongues; The Migration of Abraham; The Heir of Divine Things; On the Preliminary Studies. V: On Flight and Finding; Change of Names; On Dreams. VI: Abraham; Joseph; Moses. VII: The Decalogue; On Special Laws Books I–III. VIII: On Special Laws Book IV; On the Virtues; Rewards and Punishments. IX: Every Good Man Is Free; The Contemplative Life; The Eternity of the World; Against Flaccus; Apology for the Jews; On Providence. X: On the Embassy to Gaius; indexes. Supplement I: Questions on Genesis. II: Questions on Exodus; index to supplements.

Plato : Parmenides (Focus Philosophical Library)

Plato

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History of Greek Philosophy (Volume 1)

W. K. C. Guthrie

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Outstanding 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 18 people found this review helpful.

This six-volume history of Greek philosophy, which Guthrie unfortunately left unfinished, is a monument of scholarship. His knowledge of Greek is staggering, his treatments are thorough, and he is generally careful to let you know where the facts leave off and interpretations begin. My one reservation is that he sometimes betrays more interest in historical minutiae than in philosophy; for instance, his treatment of Plato (vols. 4-5) attaches far too much importance to the order in which the dialogues were written (as if we could be really sure of that!). And there's no question that these books are expensive and meant only for the serious student. But if Greek philosophy is your passion, you can't overlook these volumes.

Editorial Review:

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Philosophy before Plato 5 out of 5 stars.
29 of 30 people found this review helpful.

In common with so many of the other superb volumes in the Cambridge University "Companion" series, the latest addition to the line up contains scholarly information about philosophy before Plato that is both engaging and thorough. The editor has selected contributors whose names are well known within the field about which they write. Their articles neither patronize the neophyte, nor disappoint those whose learning is more advanced. After a survey of the field, discussions why the term "pre-Socratics" most often used with reference to the thinkers covered by this book is misleading and distorting, and a review of the sources of the writings (none of the original writings of these folk have survived the 2500 years that have intervened between their activity and the present) the book reviews the major fields of inquiry for the writers, and the writers themselves. Each of the articles brings new slants on old knowledge from which all but global experts will gain valuable information. There is also a superb listing of most of the literature about the period and about the scholarship on which our present understandings are based. There is no uniformity here: even at the beginning, perhaps especially at the beginning of the new endeavor that became philosophy there is a sense of excitement and discovery which the writers in this book enhance. Any student of Greek philosophy,even the most elementary survey course, will gain a lot of important knowledge from this book....

Editorial Review:

The Western tradition of philosophy began in Greece with a cluster of thinkers often called the Presocratics, whose influence has been incalculable. All these thinkers are discussed in this volume both as individuals and collectively in chapters on rational theology, epistemology, psychology, rhetoric and relativism, justice, and poetics. Assuming no knowledge of Greek or prior knowledge of the subject, this volume provides new readers with the most convenient and accessible guide to early Greek philosophy available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of early Greek thought.

Plato For Beginners

Robert Cavalier

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Editorial Review:

All philosophy is a footnote to Plato. No other person so shaped the Western world and the way we think about it. Plato’s questions remain as real for us today as they were 2500 years ago, and as human beings, we can not avoid their presence nor shirk our responsibility to attempt to answer them: What is Justice? What is Truth? What is Beauty? What kind of society should we build? How do we know what we know? Plato For Beginners introduces the reader to Socrates, Plato’s mentor whose martyrdom led Plato to formulate a new system of knowledge based on reason. Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to death for introducing other divinities. He was also found guilty of corrupting youth.
Plato For Beginners also covers the history of Greece as well as the life and ideas of this great philosopher and his influence over time, from early Christianity to the 20th century. The reader learns what he meant by Truth, Beauty, and the Good. Classical dialogues such as Symposium, Phaedo, The Apology and The Republic are all explored in the context of his time and our own.

Plato's Republic (complete)

Plato

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Editorial Review:

Plato was a teacher who used the dialogue form as a means of challenging his students to think deeply about how to live the best possible human life. Consider this hypothesis: Plato wrote each book of The Republic to be performed by actors playing the characters of Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus, Thrasymachus, and the others. When Book One was performed, he then invited his students, the brightest and best young people in Athens, critically to respond to each and every argument, issue, and question posed by the characters. Rather than passively watching and listening, they were lured into the process and challenged to evaluate and improve on the ideas presented in the performance. Based on their responses, Plato then wrote Book Two. The same process was repeated, and Book Three was generated. In this way all ten books evolved as part of a dynamic and creative dialectic intended to take place in the soul of each participant including Plato himself. That would also mean that the work is not yet finished, because each new participant joins in the ongoing process of interpretation and evaluation. In that way, Plato s ideas are inscribed in the medium of the soul, which continues to live. Agora Publications, Inc., invites you to join in this same drama that has been playing for more than 2,400 years.

Hebrew thought compared with Greek (The Library of history and doctrine)

Thorleif Boman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Not recommended. 1 out of 5 stars.
17 of 25 people found this review helpful.

Note: The arguments in this book are rejected by most. Please take that into consideration.

It is a shame that this argument is still being made today, given that it was disproven by James Barr in 1961! (cf. "The Semantics of Biblical Language")

The book by Barr is excellent. If you can get your hands on a copy, do so. It is mildly technical, but one will be able to understand the concepts without a knowledge of biblical languages.

Read James Barr's Semantics of Biblical Language 1 out of 5 stars.
17 of 23 people found this review helpful.

This book assumes the peculiarity of the Hebrew language to make a theological point. Unfortunately, the author does not make a systematic analysis of either Hebrew or Greek. The arguments of the book were completely demolished by James Barr (Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University) in his book, The Semantics of Biblical Language. While I would urge everyone to study Hebrew (and Greek) because it will open up new insights into the Scriptures, this facile treatment of Hebrew is not really worthwhile.

A must for proper interpretation of the Hebrew Bible 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 13 people found this review helpful.

A very informative book describing, with clarity and detail, the mind of the Hebrews who wrote the Bible. As you read this book you quickly discover that the authors of the Bible do not think like we do. The Biblical text comes alive as you begin to understand the philosophy of the ancient Hebrews and how they perceived life, the world and God.

If you read the Bible from our Modern Western view, your interpretation will be a Modern Western interpretation. But, if you can understand the mind of the Ancient Hebrews and read it from their perspective your interpretation will be very different and closer to what the author intended.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is seriously looking to understand the Tenach/Old Testament.