Contemplating the Ancients

Contemplating the Ancients PDF Author: Audrey G. Spiro
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520065673
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
"This book offers, on a high level of scholarship, what the Chinese art field most needs: a thorough and penetrating study of a single major work, a study that illuminates not only the work itself but also a lot of surrounding territory. Methodologically sophisticated and written in a lively style, it is worth reading."--James Cahill, University of California "This book offers, on a high level of scholarship, what the Chinese art field most needs: a thorough and penetrating study of a single major work, a study that illuminates not only the work itself but also a lot of surrounding territory. Methodologically sophisticated and written in a lively style, it is worth reading."--James Cahill, University of California

Action Versus Contemplation

Action Versus Contemplation PDF Author: Jennifer Summit
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022603237X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” Blaise Pascal wrote in 1654. But then there’s Walt Whitman, in 1856: “Whoever you are, come forth! Or man or woman come forth! / You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house.” It is truly an ancient debate: Is it better to be active or contemplative? To do or to think? To make an impact, or to understand the world more deeply? Aristotle argued for contemplation as the highest state of human flourishing. But it was through action that his student Alexander the Great conquered the known world. Which should we aim at? Centuries later, this argument underlies a surprising number of the questions we face in contemporary life. Should students study the humanities, or train for a job? Should adults work for money or for meaning? And in tumultuous times, should any of us sit on the sidelines, pondering great books, or throw ourselves into protests and petition drives? With Action versus Contemplation, Jennifer Summit and Blakey Vermeule address the question in a refreshingly unexpected way: by refusing to take sides. Rather, they argue for a rethinking of the very opposition. The active and the contemplative can—and should—be vibrantly alive in each of us, fused rather than sundered. Writing in a personable, accessible style, Summit and Vermeule guide readers through the long history of this debate from Plato to Pixar, drawing compelling connections to the questions and problems of today. Rather than playing one against the other, they argue, we can discover how the two can nourish, invigorate, and give meaning to each other, as they have for the many writers, artists, and thinkers, past and present, whose examples give the book its rich, lively texture of interplay and reference. This is not a self-help book. It won’t give you instructions on how to live your life. Instead, it will do something better: it will remind you of the richness of a life that embraces action and contemplation, company and solitude, living in the moment and planning for the future. Which is better? Readers of this book will discover the answer: both.

Contemplating Christ

Contemplating Christ PDF Author: Vincent Pizzuto
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814647294
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
The incarnation has made mystics of us all. What if we read the gospels as if that were true? In his book Contemplating Christ,Vincent Pizzuto offers an exploration of the interior life for modern contemplatives that is as beautiful as it is compelling. With an emphasis on the gospels and Christian mystical tradition, his book explores ancient themes in new and surprising ways. Drawing on his rich experience as an academic and priest, Pizzuto gradually unfolds the Christian mystery of deification to which the whole of biblical revelation and the Christian contemplative life are ordered: through the incarnation, we have all been made “other Christs” in the world.

Contemplating Friendship in Aristotle's Ethics

Contemplating Friendship in Aristotle's Ethics PDF Author: Ann Ward
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438462670
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
Examines how Aristotle posits political philosophy and the experience of friendship as a means to bind strictly intellectual virtue with morality. In this book, Ann Ward explores Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, focusing on the progressive structure of the argument. Aristotle begins by giving an account of moral virtue from the perspective of the moral agent, only to find that the account itself highlights fundamental tensions within the virtues that push the moral agent into the realm of intellectual virtue. However, the existence of an intellectual realm separate from the moral realm can lead to lack of self-restraint. Aristotle, Ward argues, locates political philosophy and the experience of friendship as possible solutions to the problem of lack of self-restraint, since political philosophy thinks about the human things in a universal way, and friendship grounds the pursuit of the good which is happiness understood as contemplation. Ward concludes that Aristotle’s philosophy of friendship points to the embodied intellect of timocratic friends and mothers in their activity of mothering as engaging in the highest form of contemplation and thus living the happiest life.

Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation

Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation PDF Author: Matthew D. Walker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108421105
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
Provides an original, up-to-date, and systematic account of Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy : Volume XXXIV

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy : Volume XXXIV PDF Author: David Sedley
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191562661
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback. 'The serial Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (OSAP) is fairly regarded as the leading venue for publication in ancient philosophy. It is where one looks to find the state-of-the-art. That the serial, which presents itself more as an anthology than as a journal, has traditionally allowed space for lengthier studies, has tended only to add to its prestige; it is as if OSAP thus declares that, since it allows as much space as the merits of the subject require, it can be more entirely devoted to the best and most serious scholarship.' Michael Pakaluk, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Action, Contemplation, and Happiness

Action, Contemplation, and Happiness PDF Author: C. D. C. Reeve
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674065476
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
The notion of practical wisdom is one of Aristotle's greatest inventions. It has inspired philosophers as diverse as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Michael Thompson, and John McDowell. Now a leading scholar of ancient philosophy offers a challenge to received accounts of practical wisdom by situating it in the larger context of Aristotle's views on knowledge and reality. That happiness is the end pursued by practical wisdom is commonly agreed. What is disputed is whether happiness is to be found in the practical life of political action, in which we exhibit courage, temperance, and other virtues of character, or in the contemplative life, where theoretical wisdom is the essential virtue. C. D. C. Reeve argues that the dichotomy is bogus, that these lives are in fact parts of a single life, which is the best human one. In support of this view, he develops innovative accounts of many of the central notions in Aristotle's metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology, including matter and form, scientific knowledge, dialectic, educatedness, perception, understanding, political science, practical truth, deliberation, and deliberate choice. These accounts are based directly on freshly translated passages from many of Aristotle's writings. Action, Contemplation, and Happiness is an accessible essay not just on practical wisdom but on Aristotle's philosophy as a whole.

Outer Beauty, Inner Joy

Outer Beauty, Inner Joy PDF Author: Julianne Davidow
Publisher: Bunker Hill Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781593730864
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Outer Beauty Inner Joy is an inspiring volume in which the author has garnered the wisdom of Renaissance writers and artists into a contemplative modern-day book of hours. Using the visual beauty of Renaissance masterpieces and the wisdom of the poets and artists of the time, it provides readers with a fresh and positive new outlook for their spiritual life.

Ancient Models of Mind

Ancient Models of Mind PDF Author: Andrea Nightingale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139489763
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
How does God think? How, ideally, does a human mind function? Must a gap remain between these two paradigms of rationality? Such questions exercised the greatest ancient philosophers, including those featured in this book: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Plotinus. This volume encompasses a series of studies by leading scholars, revisiting key moments of ancient philosophy and highlighting the theme of human and divine rationality in both moral and cognitive psychology. It is a tribute to Professor A. A. Long, and reflects multiple themes of his own work.

Hollow Men

Hollow Men PDF Author: Susan Gaylard
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823251748
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
Analyzes texts and art objects from the 15th to the late 16th centuries to show that Renaissance theories of emulating classical heroes generated a deep skepticism about representation, as these theories forced men to construct a public image that seemed fixed but could adapt to changing circumstances.