Hailed for its searing emotional insights, and for theastonishing originality with which it weaves together personalhistory, cultural essay, and readings of classical texts bySophocles, Ovid, Euripides, and Sappho, The Elusive Embrace is aprofound exploration of the mysteries of identity. It is alsoa meditation in which the author uses his own divided life toinvestigate the "rich conflictedness of things," the double livesall of us lead. Daniel Mendelsohn recalls the deceptively quiet suburb where hegrew up, torn between his mathematician father's pursuit ofscientific truth and the exquisite lies spun by his Orthodox Jewishgrandfather; the streets of manhattan's newest "gay ghetto," where"desire for love" competes with "love of desire;" and the quietmoonlit house where a close friend's small son teaches him themeaning of fatherhood. And, finally, in a neglected Jewishcemetery, the author uncovers a family secret that revealsthe universal need for storytelling, for inventing myths of theself.
Conceived originally as a serious presentation of thedevelopment of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, FrederickCopleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy hasjourneyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universalacclaim as the best history of philosophy in English.
Use human means as though divine ones did not exist, and usedivine means as though there were no human ones. So wrote theJesuit scholar Baltazar Gracian some 300 years ago, in a book thatwill be compared to Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Machiavelli's ThePrince. A new translation of long lost wisdom on livingsuccessfully yet responsibly.
The ancient Taoist text that forms the central part of thisbook was discovered by Wilhelm, who recognized it as essentially apractical guide to the integration of personality. Foreword andAppendix by Carl Jung; illustrations. Translated by Cary F.Baynes.A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Conceived originally as a serious presentation of thedevelopment of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, FrederickCopleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy has journeyed farbeyond the modest purpose of its author to universalacclaimas the best history of philosophy in English. Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangledwith A.J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God andthe possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students werefed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that theirfamiliarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced tosimplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress thewrong by writing a complete history of Western philosophy, onecrackling with incident and intellectual excitement - and one thatgives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in abeautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who cameafter him.
The author's final work, presented in a one-volume edition, is arich, challenging analysis of man's mental activity, considered interms of thinking, willing, and judging. Edited by Mary McCarthy;Indices.
When it was first published in 1781, The Confessions scandalisedEurope with its emotional honesty and frank treatment of theauthor's sexual and intellectual development. Since then, it hashad a more profound impact on European thought. Rousseau leftposterity a model of the reflective life - the solitary,uncompromising individual, the enemy of servitude and habit and theselfish egoist who dedicates his life to a particular ideal. TheConfessions recreates the world in which he progressed fromincompetent engraver to grand success; his enthusiasm forexperience, his love of nature, and his uncompromising charactermake him an ideal guide to eighteenth-century Europe, and he wasthe author of some of the most profound work ever written on therelation between the individual and the state.
