Ontology Books - Page 3

The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality

Joseph Chilton Pearce, Thom Hartmann

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The classic work that shaped the thought of a generation with its powerful insights into the true nature of mind and reality.

• Defines culture as a "cosmic egg" structured by the mind's drive for logical ordering of its universe.

• Provides techniques allowing individuals to break through the vicious circle of logic-based systems to attain expanded ways of creative living and learning.

The sum total of our notions of what the world is--and what we perceive its full potential to be--form a shell of rational thought in which we reside. This logical universe creates a vicious circle of reasoning that robs our minds of power and prevents us from reaching our true potential. To step beyond that circle requires a centering and focus that today's society assaults on every level. Through the insights of Teilhard, Tillich, Jung, Jesus, Carlos Castaneda, and others, Joseph Chilton Pearce provides a mode of thinking through which imagination can escape the mundane shell of current construct reality and leap into a new phase of human evolution.

This enormously popular New Age classic is finally available again to challenge the assumptions of a new generation of readers and help them develop their potential through new creative modes of thinking. With a masterful synthesis of recent discoveries in physics, biology, and psychology, Pearce reveals the extraordinary relationship of mind and reality and nature's blueprint for a self-transcending humanity.

The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness

Jean-Paul Sartre

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

mind blowing 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 35 people found this review helpful.

transcending the ego, is the state to which 'organized' religions preach, whether christian, jew, muslim, hindu, buddhist, shamin. this little book is so deep, with so few words, it is astounding. read this and the second half of Flatlander by Abbott.

An Existential Classic 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 16 people found this review helpful.

The Transendence of the Ego is the heart and soul of Sartre's philosopy. It is a classic and a must for anyone who wants to delve deeper in his/her understanding of Sartre's other philosophical views. It is a wonderful thesis, more or less an expanded introduction to Being and Nothingness.

Editorial Review:

First published in France in 1937, this important essay marked a turning point in Sartre’s philosophical development. Before writing it, he had been closely allied with phenomenologists such as Husserl and Heidegger. Here, however, Sartre attacked Husserl’s notion of a transcendental ego. The break with Husserl, in turn, facilitated Sartre’s transition from phenomenology to the existentialist doctrines of his masterwork, Being and Nothingness, which was completed a few years later while the author was a prisoner of war.

This student-friendly edition of The Transcendence of the Ego also includes an introduction and notes/annotations by the translators.

Ten Theories of Human Nature

Leslie Stevenson, David L. Haberman

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

With over a quarter of a million copies sold since 1974, Seven Theories of Human Nature was a remarkably popular introduction to key points of Western thought. Now completely revised, taking into account the most recent scholarship, and expanded to include Eastern thinkers, Ten Theories of Human Nature is more appealing than ever, with added chapters on Hinduism and Confucianism as well as a new chapter on Kant.
The virtues of the book remain the same, compressing into a small space the essence of such thinkers as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Jean Paul Sartre, B.F. Skinner, and Konrad Lorenz. Moreover, the authors juxtapose the ideas of these and other thinkers in a way that helps us to understand how humanity has struggled to comprehend its nature. We see, for instance, how Skinner's theories, which assert the primacy of learned behavior, are undercut by Lorenz's studies of animals, which suggest that complex behavior can occur prior to learning. To bring these comparisons into sharp relief, the book examines each theorist on four points on the nature of the universe, on the nature of humanity, on the ills of the world, and on the proposed cure for these ills. And at the same time, we are treated to fascinating analyses of some of the most influential books ever written, from Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression, to Plato's Republic and The Bible.
Ten Theories of Human Nature will engage anyone curious about who we are, what motivates us, and how we can understand and improve the world.

Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being in Time, Division I.

Hubert L. Dreyfus

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Being-in-the-World is a guide to one of the most influential philosophical works of this century: Division I of Part One of Being and Time, where Martin Heidegger works out an original and powerful account of being-in-the-world which he then uses to ground a profound critique of traditional ontology and epistemology. Hubert Dreyfus's commentary opens the way for a new appreciation of this difficult philosopher, revealing a rigorous and illuminating vocabulary that is indispensable for talking about the phenomenon of world.

The publication of Being and Time in 1927 turned the academic world on its head. Since then it has become a touchstone for philosophers as diverse as Marcuse, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida who seek an alternative to the rationalist Cartesian tradition of western philosophy. But Heidegger's text is notoriously dense, and his language seems to consist of unnecessarily barbaric neologisms; to the neophyte and even to those schooled in Heidegger thought, the result is often incomprehensible.

Dreyfus's approach to this daunting book is straightforward and pragmatic. He explains the text by frequent examples drawn from everyday life, and he skillfully relates Heidegger's ideas to the questions about being and mind that have preoccupied a generation of cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind.

Hubert L. Dreyfus is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Spacious Body: Explorations in Somatic Ontology

Jeffrey Maitland

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Insightful Roller coaster 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

It is interesting to observe the feelings of inadequacy arise as I attempt to harness the words to describe "The Spacious Body". A book of this depth and breadth rarely comes along as such a readable and enjoyable form. Oftentimes while reading "Spacious Body", I felt as if I were on a mental roller coaster, wondering which way was up and if I would ever catch my breath. But when the ride was over, I wanted to jump back on and do it again.
As a former Philosophy professor at Purdue University, a Rolfer and a Zen monk, Jeffrey Maitland is a master at collecting the many pieces of mind/body/spirit. In his book, Dr. Maitland generously shares insights from his own mental/physical/spiritual development, as well as case history composites, so that the reader might come to a better understanding of the relationship that each part plays in our beoming whole.
It's my bet that anyone who is on a journey will find something in this book that "speaks" to them and I highly recommend the ride.

Editorial Review:

In Spacious Body, Jeffrey Maitland brings his knowledge and personal experience of Buddhism, phenomenology, alchemy, psychoanalysis, and the bodywork system of Rolfing to bear in forging concepts adequate to an understanding of embodied experience.

On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters

J. C. F. von Schiller

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent edition of an excellent work. 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

Writing in the 1790s, Schiller united the rigorous epistemology of Kant and Fichte with Plato's dynamic account of the development of the soul to produce one of the most beautiful works of philosophy in the European tradition. The Letters on Aesthetic Education offer an interpretation of the development of the individual and the parallel development of Western civilization. These interpretations focus on the conditions that allow for mental health in a human individual and society, and especially demonstrate (as the title indicates) the crucial role of artistic experience in healthy human development. This is a great work, and a great introduction to the other German philosophers of the 19th Century (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, et al). This edition is very good: the translation is good, and it has a facing German text. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

Schiller's 1795 essay on the educative function of art is one of the most important contributions to the history of ideas in modern times. This English-German parallel text edition includes a long analytical introduction and extensive notes.

Six Great Ideas

Mortimer J. Adler

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Displays our dichotomy 4 out of 5 stars.
25 of 30 people found this review helpful.

No clearer indication of the philosophical divide in this nation can be seen than by reading the reviews in Amazon of the works of Mortimer Adler. One group of reviewers are geniunely concerned that he has a Western orientation, that he defends such ideas as democracy and capitalism, that he seems to speak for common sense, tradition and classical liberalism. There is another group that supports him wholeheartedly because of these very views and his sympathetic voice toward religion.

TEN PHILOSOPHICAL MISTAKES is an exploration of notions that he considers small mistakes that occurred in the past. The effect of these mistakes is compounded over time until they produce a difference in the way we view ourselves and our reality. He explores each of these mistakes in detail.

Guiding Adler's thinking is a reliance on the works of Aristotle and a look at both Greek and classical European methods of learning and teaching. Also important is his view of humans as rational animals who differ from other animals - not in degree but in kind.

He has made radical proposals for education and reintroducing thinking to the classroom. This is done not through a predictable "challenge to the system" but through the Socratic method. Ironically, this method was widely used in the Arab world at the height of its power before being subsumed by theocratic stipulations. This is a good book, not flawless, but one that is well worth five stars.

Editorial Review:

This enlightening study is the result of group discussions at Dr. Adler's annual seminar in Aspen, Colorado, and conversations between Dr. Adler and Bill moyers filmed for public television. 6 cassettes.

Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy

David Loy

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Fascinating but flawed 3 out of 5 stars.
17 of 25 people found this review helpful.

I am a great admirer of David Loy's work, especially his book "Lack and Transcendence." This work is chock full of fascinating information and discussions, and I have learned a great deal from it, but the material Loy presents for discussion is a good deal better than the conclusions he draws from it. Loy's philosophical background is in the Heigegger/Derrida continental tradition, and unfortunately he has inherited some of the logical sloppiness of that tradition. Worse, and this is a flaw that pervades just about the whole book, is that he seems not to fully understand that the Nagarjunian theory of the two truths means that you cannot meaningfully mix the conventional mode of discourse with the ultimate. Certainly you cannot draw logical conclusions from such a mixture. This failure to grasp the most foundational point of Madhyamika leads to a variety of confusion, such as his discusson of the role of sense organs in non-dual perception. Worse, it completely undermines the thesis of his central chapter, the Deconstruction of Dualism, in which he tries to show that fundamental identity of the different non-dual traditions he discusses: Mahayana Buddhism, Sankara's Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism. Loy's is certainly the most sophisticated attempt I have seen to defend this "perennial philosophy" blenderized view of eastern religions, but all Loy succeeds in doing is to create the proverbial the coal bin at midnight in which all cats are black.

But I still recommend this book. It is full of treasures, and it is a pleasure to enter into a mental discussion with a writer as sharp and learned as Loy.

Editorial Review:

Many Western philosophers are poorly informed about the issues involved in nonduality, since this topic is usually associated with various kinds of absolute idealism in the West, or mystical traditions in the East. Increasingly, however, this topic is finding its way into Western philosophical debates. In this "scholarly but leisurely and very readable" (Spectrum Review) analysis of the philosophies of nondualism of (Hindu) Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, and Taoism, Loy, who is a Zen practitioner, extracts what he calls "a core doctrine" of nonduality of seer and seen from these three worldviews and then applies the doctrine in various ways, including a critique of Derrida's deconstructionism. (This is an important work addressing one of the central patterns of Asian thinking.)

Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy

David Loy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Fascinating but flawed 3 out of 5 stars.
17 of 25 people found this review helpful.

I am a great admirer of David Loy's work, especially his book "Lack and Transcendence." This work is chock full of fascinating information and discussions, and I have learned a great deal from it, but the material Loy presents for discussion is a good deal better than the conclusions he draws from it. Loy's philosophical background is in the Heigegger/Derrida continental tradition, and unfortunately he has inherited some of the logical sloppiness of that tradition. Worse, and this is a flaw that pervades just about the whole book, is that he seems not to fully understand that the Nagarjunian theory of the two truths means that you cannot meaningfully mix the conventional mode of discourse with the ultimate. Certainly you cannot draw logical conclusions from such a mixture. This failure to grasp the most foundational point of Madhyamika leads to a variety of confusion, such as his discusson of the role of sense organs in non-dual perception. Worse, it completely undermines the thesis of his central chapter, the Deconstruction of Dualism, in which he tries to show that fundamental identity of the different non-dual traditions he discusses: Mahayana Buddhism, Sankara's Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism. Loy's is certainly the most sophisticated attempt I have seen to defend this "perennial philosophy" blenderized view of eastern religions, but all Loy succeeds in doing is to create the proverbial the coal bin at midnight in which all cats are black.

But I still recommend this book. It is full of treasures, and it is a pleasure to enter into a mental discussion with a writer as sharp and learned as Loy.

Editorial Review:

Many Western philosophers are poorly informed about the issues involved in nonduality, since this topic is usually associated with various kinds of absolute idealism in the West, or mystical traditions in the East. Increasingly, however, this topic is finding its way into Western philosophical debates. In this "scholarly but leisurely and very readable" (Spectrum Review) analysis of the philosophies of nondualism of (Hindu) Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, and Taoism, Loy, who is a Zen practitioner, extracts what he calls "a core doctrine" of nonduality of seer and seen from these three worldviews and then applies the doctrine in various ways, including a critique of Derrida's deconstructionism. (This is an important work addressing one of the central patterns of Asian thinking.)