Category Archives: book reviews

Thoughts About and Beyond Boundaries

Posted on October 22, 2024 by Abigail

I’ve just finished reading consecutively a book that previously, from time to time over the years, I’ve only browsed through. The very title, The Afterdeath Journal of An American Philosopher: The Worldview of Williams James, might scare off any readers … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 19th-century philosophy, academic feminism, after death communications, alternate healers, alternative medicine, American philosopher, background assumptions in feminism, background assumptions in science, background assumptions in scientific investigation, beyond boundaries, beyond limits, competitve struggle as masculine, conventional cancer treatment, cooperation as feminine, cooperation in evolution, cooperation in population dynamics, creativity and self-doubt, creativity linked to neurosis, creativity vs reductionism, cultural and personal dichotomies, cultural boundaries of experience, cultural history and personal history, current philosophic fashions, Darwin and Freud in culture, Darwinian determinism, different life problematics, ecology, false gods, Freudian determinism, genetics, Henry James, life stories, limitations as opportunities, limits of alternative medicine, limits of modern psychology, Making Sense of My Life: A Memoir by Evelyn Fox Keller, medical humiliation Catholic Jewish and Protestant, merits of William James, metaphoric interpretations of evolution, neurotic affectations, novelistic characters, novelistic life stories, novelistic stories, open-mindedness, population dynamics, psychic communications, psychic healers, reductionism of Darwin, reductionism of Freud, reductionist psychologies, resource scarcity, science and epistemology, search and destroy cancer treatments, search for truth, self-determination undermined, self-trust, self-trust undermined, sociology of medicine, The Afterdeath Journal of An American Philosopher: The Worldview of Williams James by Jane Roberts, three sectarian branches of medical humiliation, William James, William James from the afterlife | Leave a comment

Feminism without Contradictions

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Abigail

In “Thought Faces the Future,” my column of October 1, only one short paragraph was devoted to philosophic feminism. All I said was that, by continuing to define womanhood as completely “socially constructed,” current feminist theory has left real-life women … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "Feminism Without Contradictions", "Philosophic Foundations of Feminism", 18th-century feminists, 19th-century feminists, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Feminism Without Contradictions", adultery, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, contradiction- what?, contradictions of feminism, defending victimized women, defining contradiction, divorce for adultery, fellowship of the oppressed, Feminism, feminism and medical reforms, feminism and privacy, feminism and victimhood, feminism and women in prisons, feminism and women's sports, feminism’s contradictions, feminism’s future, feminist fashion statement, feminist Founding Mother, feminist husband, feminist ideology, feminist stories, feminist theory, feminists who insult women, gender identity, how to be a woman, husbands who betray, looking for Mr. Right, marriage and feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft, men as not the enemy, mother-daughter love, mother’s love, New York’s “Top of the Sixes”, oppressed as oppressor, overcoming bourgeois morality, perils of women, post-feminism, post-feminist stories, predicaments of women, private lives of feminists, professional betrayal, psychiatric malpractice, reassessing feminism, romantic poets and feminism, safety pin skirt, second wave feminists, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, sisterhood is powerful, supportive husband, The End of Woman by Carrie Gress, the problematic of woman, the situation of women, transitioning genders, womanhood as socially constructed, women controlling women, women friends, women in novels, women’s conversations, women’s faith, women’s faith in love, women’s fears, women’s hopes, women’s lives as a problematic, women’s memoirs, women’s private conversations, women’s social vulnerability | 2 Comments

Thought Faces the Future

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Abigail

One of the reasons that, back in my professorial days, I thought studying philosophy was beneficial was that a culture’s preferences and beliefs could be tracked to its underlying assumptions. A culture rests on what it thinks is true and … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romantic love, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged A.J. Ayer’s after-death experience, acupuncture’s holistic view, American Philosophical Association, APA’s Proceedings and Addresses, bad money drives out good, benefits of philosophy, brute power vs functional power, cancel-culture, cultural cowardice, cultural mediocrity, culture of intimidation, current cultural theme, current intellectual theme, dismissing Ayer’s after-death experience, explaining away new data, fashions in oppression, feminism’s real-world failings, feminism’s unanticipated side-effects, foundational views in culture, Gramsci’s hegemonic powers, how philosophy can help life, humanities vulnerable to intimidation, intellectual dead end, Jean-Paul Sartre, mapping knowledge, mapping what we do and don’t know, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, mechanism vs holism, mending fractures and the mechanistic view, NY Times Book Review, oppressor vs oppressed, philosophy and cultural diagnostic, philosophy and the zeitgeist, philosophy at the frontier of thought, philosophy immune to intimidation, philosophy unscathed by culture of intimidation, philosophy’s frontier problems, philosophy’s key to effective living, philosophy’s real task, postmodernism and power-relations, postmodernism and the play of interpretations, postmodernism vs objectivity, premonitions and time-bound human experience, reconceiving feminist theory, Sartre and defining one’s self, Sartre and irreducible freedom, Sartre and personal freedom, Sartre as cultural trendsetter, Sartre’s key insight, Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex, the invisible oppressed, The New York Review of Books | 1 Comment

Light on the Longest Hatred

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Abigail

Originally Posted on July 20, 2021 by Abigail Light on the Longest Hatred I’d intended to devote this column to leisurely reflections on what I sometimes term “the Jewish assignment” in history. Reflections prompted by a biography I’m now reading, with the title, … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, Christianity, cities, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, freedom, friendship, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, love, martyrdom, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, non-violence, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s “The Right Way to Act”, academic politics, academic union, anti-Nazi resister, armchair moralists, choice of evils, Divine mystery, Divine Presence, extremist tactics, Franz Rosenzweig, Genesis 12:3, group think, I and Thou, Israel's right to exist, Jewish disunity, Jews in history, Leo Baeck, longest hatred, Martin Buber, Michael A. Meyer's Rabbi Leo Baeck: Living a Religious Imperative in Troubled Times, opinion shapers, partnering with God, Professional Staff Congress CUNY, PSC Israel resolution, rabbinic responsibility, ritual observance, the Jewish assignment, tying past to future | Leave a comment

Philosophy’s Refugees

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Abigail

Last night, I finished reading David Edmond’s book, the one subtitled The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle, to which he gave the more sensational title, The Murder of Professor Schlick. Moritz Schlick was in his forties when he … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged academic politics, academic refugees, antisemitism and Vienna Circle, Austria’s modern political history, Can we know the past?, classical vs modern relation of philosophy students to teachers, confining truth to sense experience, consistency proof, conventional existence, Das Man, David Edmond’s The Murder of Professor Schlick, following the argument where it leads, foundationalism in philosophy, Heidegger and Husserl, Heidegger Rector at Freiburg, Heidegger’s authenticity, Heidegger’s Being toward Death, Heidegger’s betrayal of Husserl, Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, Heidegger’s Jewish students, Heidegger’s nazism, honoring one’s mentors, How reliable is history?, judgements of character, Karl Popper, knowledge of imperceptible things, knowledge of probability, knowledge of the external world, Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, logical positivism, losing the argument and winning the truth, mathematical logic, meaninglessness for Vienna Circle, metaphysics as nonsense, nazification of Vienna, occupational hazard, philosophic reductionism, philosophy and good character, political history of Vienna, refugees, refugees from nazism, Rudolf Carnap, scientific criteria of truth, shallow existence, simplification isn’t simple, Socrates Plato and Aristotle honoring their mentors, soundness of character judgements, The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle, the test of argument, truth and validity for the Vienna Circle, twentieth-century European political history, Vienna Circle, Vienna Circle against metaphysics, Vienna Circle and nonsense, Vienna Circle as refugees, Vienna Circle Certitudes vs Heideggerian Authenticity, Vienna Circle’s exclusion of nonsense, Vienna Circle’s philosophic claims, Vienna’s modern political history, winning or losing the argument, winning or losing the truth, winning the argument and losing the truth, World War II refugees | Leave a comment

Deep versus Shallow

Posted on August 13, 2024 by Abigail

One time I asked David Stove, a philosopher at Sydney University’s Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy, whether he thought there were such things as foundational truths – propositions that underlay and supported the edifice of human knowledge. … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged adolescent depth, agonizing depth, Albert Einstein, anti-semitism and the Vienna Circle, assimilating inherited stuff, assimilating one’s inheritance, Athenian Theater, barefoot tree climbing, British philosophizing, children dueling, Continental philosophizing, Darwin and the irrational, Darwinian racism, David Stove, decluttering a life, decluttering life review, deep calls to deep, deep vs shallow, Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy at Sydney University, disposing of inherited things, dueling with branches, emotional attachments vs simplifying, family inheritance, foundational truths, Frank Ramsey, Freud and modernity, Freud and the zeitgeist, Freud as fashionable, Freudian seduction, heroes and villains, how a gentleman reads philosophy, ideal simplicity and real life complexity, ignorance is bliss, implausablity of Oedipus Complex, improvised furniture, influence of theories, internalizing Freud, keeping it simple, keeping life simple and intelligible, kid stuff, kid’s naïveté vs adolescent depth, life lessons of childhood, living on a shoestring, losing your nerve, Max Planck, metaphysics as nonsense, minimalist life strategy, modernism and Sigmund Freud, modernity and the Vienna Circle, naïveté of children, Niels Bohr, Oedipus and Jocasta, Oedipus complex, Oedipus kills his father, Oedipus marries his mother, Oedipus Rex, philosophical depth vs kid stuff, philosophy and scientific progress, philosophy’s cultural imprint, pre-nazi Vienna, profaning the sacred, psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis as a science, quest for foundations, Ramsey’s Oedipus Complex, search for foundations, selling the Brooklyn Bridge, Sophocles, spareness vs the intrusions of stuff, Sydney University, the best and the brightest, the Cambridge Apostles, The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle by David Edmonds, the Trad and Mod Staff Club, the verification principle, The Vienna Circle, the Vienna Circle contra metaphysics, theory of mathematics, tragedy of King Oedipus, transvaluation of values, Vienna Circle and meaninglessness, well-balanced superficiality, Werner Heisenberg, winning by keeping your nerve | 1 Comment

Bless Me Also Father

Posted on July 9, 2024 by Abigail

In my grandfather’s Manhattan apartment overlooking Riverside Drive, the family would collect for the annual Passover celebration. Round the table were his sons and their wives, his younger daughter, my mother, along with my father, my sister and me. His … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged academic bureaucracy, anti-semitism as sibling rivalry, asking the four questions, beginning of history, book of Genesis, Christian view of history, crucifixion redeems Original Sin, family gathering, favorite child, fight for the blessing, finger of God, first sibling rivalry, fratricide, Garden of Eden, God’s favorite, Grandfather’s blessing, history differently read by Christians and Jews, How Christians set the stage for history, How Jews set the stage for history, Jacob and Esau, Jewish view of history, Jewish vs Christian differences, Jewish vs Christian expulsion from Eden, Jewish vs Christian theology, Judaism vs Christianity Re Original Sin, looking like God, matzah, mock bargaining at Passover, native born Israeli, original sin, paintings of God, Passover celebration, performative predictions, Rav Tsair, recent anti-semitism, Sabra, sabra cousin, same Biblical stories differently read, sibling rivalry in the Bible, Sistine chapel, stealing the blessing, what Abel knew that Cain did not, why Cain killed Abel | 1 Comment

What Is Truth?

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Abigail

The question, famously put to Jesus by Pontius Pilate, was prompted by Jesus’ self-report that he had come to bear witness to the truth. Without capitalizing “Truth,” so that it acquires other-worldly sound-and-light effects – isn’t bearing witness to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, acculturation and maturation, aesthetic theory, bearing witness, beyond good and evil, celebration of the novel, characters in novels, children’s adaptation to grownups, continental know-it-all, cultural history, culture and meaning, culture as influence on purpose, despair as affectation, destroying the culture, discerning life purpose, discerning one’s purpose, evil defined, evildoers and innocent purposes, evildoers attacking ordinary purpose, fashionable despair, feminine self-respect, fiction and nonfiction, good and evil, Guido Mazzoni’s Theory of the Novel, initial purposes, intellectual influence, Jesus, ladies don’t believe this creep, libertine Gnosticism, life as a journey, life as a pilgrimage, life as a quest, literary criticism, literary history, mapping and purpose, moral anomie, moral flatness, mutual influence in society, nineteenth-century novels, novelistic life stories, novels and real-life, Pontius Pilate, preferred purposes, pretense of amorality, revising purposes, seducer’s line, seducing the reader, self-definition, self-discovery, self-education, self-respect, stories true and false, story as putting purpose to the test, storylines, subjectivity mischaracterized, technique of seduction, testing purposes, the nature of evil, the novel, trials and errors, true stories, truth and falsehood, truth and postmodernism, truth vs fiction, undermining the culture, What is truth?, what you see is what you get | 3 Comments

Book Matters

Posted on June 18, 2024 by Abigail

The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest By Felix Salten, translated & introduced by Jack Zipes, illustrated by Alenka Sottler. Bambi was the first book I truly loved when it was read to me as a … Continue reading →

Posted in book reviews, books | Tagged book matters, Felix Salten's The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest | 2 Comments

Book Matters

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Abigail

Book Matters Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman by Stefan Zweig It’s impossible to write a more definitive biography of Marie Antoinette, the unluckiest Queen of France, than the one by Stefan Zweig. The biography combines the objectivity … Continue reading →

Posted in book reviews, books | Tagged Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman | Leave a comment

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Book Matters

Book Matters

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