Wagering on Transcendence


Book Description

Wagering on Transcendence explores the question of ultimate meaning in literature. Through essays, Mount Mary College professors from various disciplines analyze several pieces of literature from a variety of genres and authors to show how each depicts the human struggle to find meaning. The essays analyze concrete examples of spiritual journeys, the ways in which nature can be an avenue of transcendence, the transforming effect that the search for meaning can have on the individual, how transcendence can be experienced through community, the roles of language and story in the quest for transcendence, and the wager itself: how our bets about the existence of the Divine determine how we live our lives.




Kant's Theory of Knowledge


Book Description

Kant's masterpiece, 'Critique of Pure Reason', is universally recognised to be among the most difficult of all philosophical writings and yet it is required reading in almost every course that covers modern philosophy. This text is designed for undergraduates to be read alongside the primary text.




Finding Myself from the Outside In


Book Description

If you ask any therapist they will say that to overcome any emotional issues and find true happiness it all starts on the inside. That your body and appearance should have nothing to do with how you feel about yourself and your life. But how can I be happy with myself when I am too fat, skinny, old, ugly.. when I don't have the man, house, money..




The Self Illusion


Book Description

Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we? The idea of a "self" has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion - it is not what it seems. Reality as we perceive it is not something that objectively exists, but something that our brains construct from moment to moment, interpreting, summarizing, and substituting information along the way. Like a science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. In The Self Illusion, Dr. Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. He explains that self is the product of our relationships and interactions with others, and it exists only in our brains. The author argues, however, that though the self is an illusion, it is one that humans cannot live without. But things are changing as our technology develops and shapes society. The social bonds and relationships that used to take time and effort to form are now undergoing a revolution as we start to put our self online. Social networking activities such as blogging, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter threaten to change the way we behave. Social networking is fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships is outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. This book ventures into unchartered territory to explain how the idea of the self will never be the same again in the online social world.







Postfoundational Phenomenology


Book Description




Embracing the Witch and the Goddess


Book Description

Embracing the Witch and the Goddess is a detailed survey of present-day feminist witches in New Zealand. It examines the attraction of witchcraft for its practitioners, and explores witches' rituals, views and beliefs about how magic works. The book provides a detailed portrait of an undocumented section of the growing neo-pagan movement, and compares the special character of New Zealand witchcraft with its counterparts in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Kathryn Rountree traces the emergence and history of feminist witchcraft, and links witchcraft with the contemporary Goddess movement. She reviews scholarly approaches on the study of witchcraft and deals with the key debates which have engaged the movement's adherents and their critics, and ultimately presents what Mary Daly declared was missing from most historical and anthropological research on witchcraft: a 'Hag-identified vision'. Based on fieldwork amongst witch practitioners, Embracing the Witch and the Goddess is an important contribution to the emerging profile of present-day witchcraft and paganism.




In the Self's Place


Book Description

In the Self's Place is an original phenomenological reading of Augustine that considers his engagement with notions of identity in Confessions. Using the Augustinian experience of confessio, Jean-Luc Marion develops a model of selfhood that examines this experience in light of the whole of the Augustinian corpus. Towards this end, Marion engages with noteworthy modern and postmodern analyses of Augustine's most "experiential" work, including the critical commentaries of Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Marion ultimately concludes that Augustine has preceded postmodernity in exploring an excess of the self over and beyond itself, and in using this alterity of the self to itself, as a driving force for creative relations with God, the world, and others. This reading establishes striking connections between accounts of selfhood across the fields of contemporary philosophy, literary studies, and Augustine's early Christianity.




Self-Help


Book Description

In Self-Help, Max Kirsten distils the powerful transformative techniques and processes he used to rebuild his life following two decades of chronic addiction. Max now combines these techniques with mind re-programming hypnotherapy to help thousands of people step out of their problems and become their own solution. Combining his unique vision with personal anecdotes and exercises that anyone can try, Max offers you the opportunity to help yourself find the unlimited power and resources you hold within. Amaze yourself with what you CAN do!




Transition, Reception and Modernism


Book Description

In this study of Yeats' poetry between 1902 and 1916, Greaves strongly reacts to the tendency in literary criticism to categorize Yeats' work as 'modernist', Instead, Greaves offer a different way of looking at the transition in Yeats' work in this period, by examining the poems in the context of Yeats' life. As a result, the figure of Yeats the poet is resurrected from the exhaustive category of 'modernism' and the complex connections between the figure of Yeats within the poems and its relationship with the Yeats who exists outside them is revealed.




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