Best of
Philosophy

1933

On the Heights of Despair


Emil M. Cioran - 1933
    It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a theoretician of despair, for whom writing and philosophy both share the "lyrical virtues" that alone lead to a metaphysical revelation."No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."—Bill Marx, Boston Phoenix"The dark, existential despair of Romanian philosopher Cioran's short meditations is paradoxically bracing and life-affirming. . . . Puts him in the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."—Publishers Weekly, starred review"This is self-pity as epigram, the sort of dyspeptic pronouncement that gets most people kicked out of bed but that has kept Mr. Cioran going for the rest of his life."—Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review

The Last Messiah


Peter Wessel Zapffe - 1933
    (4 ignoble truths?)Fans of Nietzsche and E.M. Cioran will devour this text greedily. A short essay, but hits hard, leaving a lasting impact.Enjoy!

Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics


Alfred Korzybski - 1933
    

Saint Thomas Aquinas


G.K. Chesterton - 1933
    Chesterton's brilliant sketch of the life and thought of Thomas Aquinas is as relevant today as when it was published in 1933. Then it earned the praise of such distinguished writers as Etienne Gilson, Jacques Martain, and Anton Pegis as the best book ever written on the great thirteenth-century Dominican. Today Chesterton's classic stands poised to reveal Thomas to a new generation. Chesterton's Aquinas is a man of mystery. Born into a noble Neapolitan family, Thomas chose the life of a mendicant friar. Lumbering and shy -- his classmates dubbed him "the Dumb Ox" -- he led a revolution in Christian thought. Possessed of the rarest brilliance, he found the highest truth in the humblest object. Having spent his life amid the vast intricacies of reason, he asked on his deathbed to have read aloud the Song of Songs, the most passionate book in the Bible.As Albert the Great, Thomas's teacher, predicted, the Dumb Ox has bellowed down the ages to our own day. Chesterton's book will enlighten those who would consign Thomas to the obscurity of medieval times. It will confound those who would use Thomas to bolster arid schemes of Christian rationalism. Rather, it will introduce the wondrous mystery of the man who, after a life of unparalleled genius, was seized by a vision of the Unknown and said, "I can write no more. I have seen things which make all my writings like straw."

Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, 3 Vols


Werner Wilhelm Jaeger - 1933
    A profound & timeless study of the foundation of Western Civilization.

In Praise of Shadows


Jun'ichirō Tanizaki - 1933
    The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight, and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure.

Dionysus: Myth and Cult


Walter F. Otto - 1933
    Otto recreates the theological world of ancient Greek religion. Otto's provocative starting point is to accept the immanent reality of the gods. To understand the cult of Dionysus, it is necessary to reimagine the original vision of the god. Otto challenges us to understand the power of this vision not as a bloodless abstraction but as a force animating belief, to see the myth and art of Dionysus as a passionate search to regain the power of the lost god.

On the Nature of the Gods. Academics


Marcus Tullius Cicero - 1933
    In his political speeches especially and in his correspondence we see the excitement, tension and intrigue of politics and the part he played in the turmoil of the time. Of about 106 speeches, delivered before the Roman people or the Senate if they were political, before jurors if judicial, 58 survive (a few of them incompletely). In the fourteenth century Petrarch and other Italian humanists discovered manuscripts containing more than 900 letters of which more than 800 were written by Cicero and nearly 100 by others to him. These afford a revelation of the man all the more striking because most were not written for publication. Six rhetorical works survive and another in fragments. Philosophical works include seven extant major compositions and a number of others; and some lost. There is also poetry, some original, some as translations from the Greek.The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero is in twenty-nine volumes.

The Mass Psychology of Fascism


Wilhelm Reich - 1933
    "Fascism is only the organized political expression of the structure of the average man's character. It is the basic emotional civilization and its mechanistic-mystical conception of life."Responsibility for the elimination of fascism thus results with the masses of average people who might otherwise support and champion it.

The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1932


C.G. Jung - 1933
    Jung's insistence on the psychogenic and symbolic significance of such states is even more timely now than then. As R. D. Laing stated... 'It was Jung who broke the ground here, but few followed him.'"--From the introduction by Sonu ShamdasaniJung's seminar on Kundalini yoga, presented to the Psychological Club in Zurich in 1932, has been widely regarded as a milestone in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought and of the symbolic transformations of inner experience. Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model for the developmental phases of higher consciousness, and he interpreted its symbols in terms of the process of individuation. With sensitivity toward a new generation's interest in alternative religions and psychological exploration, Sonu Shamdasani has brought together the lectures and discussions from this seminar. In this volume, he re-creates for today's reader the fascination with which many intellectuals of prewar Europe regarded Eastern spirituality as they discovered more and more of its resources, from yoga to tantric texts. Reconstructing this seminar through new documentation, Shamdasani explains, in his introduction, why Jung thought that the comprehension of Eastern thought was essential if Western psychology was to develop. He goes on to orient today's audience toward an appreciation of some of the questions that stirred the minds of Jung and his seminar group: What is the relation between Eastern schools of liberation and Western psychotherapy? What connection is there between esoteric religious traditions and spontaneous individual experience? What light do the symbols of Kundalini yoga shed on conditions diagnosed as psychotic? Not only were these questions important to analysts in the 1930s but, as Shamdasani stresses, they continue to have psychological relevance for readers on the threshold of the twenty-first century. This volume also offers newly translated material from Jung's German language seminars, a seminar by the indologist Wilhelm Hauer presented in conjunction with that of Jung, illustrations of the cakras, and Sir John Woodroffe's classic translation of the tantric text, the Sat-cakra Nirupana. ?

Character Analysis


Wilhelm Reich - 1933
    As a young clinician in the 1920s, Wihelm Reich expanded psychoanalytic resistance into the more inclusive technique of character analysis, in which the sum total of typical character attitudes developed by an individual as a blocking against emotional excitations became the object of treatment. These encrusted attitudes functioned as an "armor," which Reich later found to exist simultaneously in chronic muscular spasms. Thus mind and body came together and character analysis opened the way to a biophysical approach to disease and the prevention of it.

The Religion of Man


Rabindranath Tagore - 1933
    He appreciates the intellectual triumphs of science, but he writes as a poet and philosopher. Man must always be a music-maker and dreamer of dreams; he must never lose, in his material quests, his longing for the touch of the divine. He traces the growth of the idea of God from primitive notions to universality. Today, as he says, all barriers are down and the “the God of humanity has arrived at the gates of the ruined temple of the tribe.” His book rings with joy and affirmation overstepping all limitations of race and creed.“His estimates of western civilization are searching and some of them written in acid…one reads much between the lines-but Tagore recognizes the true strength of the west and the faults of the east. The lectures are actually a superb and haunting criticism and evaluation of life from the viewpoint of an immemorial philosophy by a wise man.” -Christian CenturyThis is a book for everyone: a book whose human interest and pervading charm assure it a wide appeal and lasting value. It is not a philosophical work, as its author repeatedly warns us; in fact, its one semi-philosophical chapter (the first) may well be omitted. Its value is religious and poetical; like the essays of Emerson, it is primarily a document of the spiritual life.” -Journal of Religion“Rich in profound thought and poetic speech…he has never written anything so penetrating and illumination on the nature of things… Tagore has seen visions, and he can paint them for us with a compelling charm due to utter simplicity and fidelity. But he has not stopped there. His reason hs entered into truth by the doors which his intuition has opened…A treasure-store of truth, beauty and wisdom.” -New Chronicle Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India. Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures.Philip Novak is the author of The World's Wisdom, a widely used anthology of the sacred texts of the world's religions and the companion reader to Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

Adventures of Ideas


Alfred North Whitehead - 1933
    One meaning is the effect of certain ideas in promoting the slow drift of mankind towards civilization. This is the Adventure of Ideas in the history of mankind. The other meaning is the author's adventure in framing a speculative scheme of ideas which shall be explanatory of the historical adventure.

The Hour of Decision: Germany and World-Historical Evolution


Oswald Spengler - 1933
    Spengler's writings had a great effect on the racial thinking of Adolf Hitler.

A Taoist Classic: Chuang-Tzu


Feng Youlan - 1933
    Chuang-tzu is the textbook he used to teach a course on Chuang Tzu in the Beijing Chinese Language School during the 1920s. The book originally contained the translation of the first seven chapters of the Chuang-tzu and an article entitled "Some Characteristics of the Philosophy of Kuo Hsiang "appeared as an appendix. Chapter Ten, "The Third Phase of Taoism: Chuang Tzu," of Fung Yu-lan's A Short History of Chinese Philosophy is included as another appendix in the present edition. The Chuang-tzu, one of China's most important Taoist works, forms a connecting link between the preceding Book of Lao Tzu and the following Book of Huai Nan Tzu. It brims with ideas by means of images, shedding light on philosophy through the aid of fables. As the seven chapters are consistent in both style and thought, they were obviously written by Chuang Tzu himself, while some of the other chapters of the original Chuang-tzu were written by scholars of later periods or of other schools. Therefore, Chuang Tzu's philosophical thought is well presented in those seven chapters, while the ideas of the other chapters were incorporated in the translator's notes. Therefore, the present volume represents ideas discussed in the thirty-three chapters in the original Chuang- tzu. Professor Fung has, in his translator's notes, made a comparative study between Western philosophical thought and that of Chuang Tzu with a view to helping readers grasp the core of Chuang Tzu's writings.

Essays in Zen Buddhism, Second Series


D.T. Suzuki - 1933
    The Koan technique is full of pitfalls, but its development was inevitable and without it Zen might not have survived. In this volume author has also included some Suiboku paintings by both Japanese and Chinese artists.

An Essay on Philosophical Method


R.G. Collingwood - 1933
    G. Collingwood's classic work of 1933, supplementing the original text with important related writings from Collingwood's manuscripts which appear here for the first time. The editors also contribute a substantial newintroduction, and the volume will be welcomed by all historians of twentieth-century philosophy.

Islands and Other Essays


Jean Grenier - 1933
    Here are the major essays by Grenier, published in France in 1959. These are lovingly written and combine the personal with the speculative. A memoir of his cat Maoulou becomes an essay on the nature of death; a series of childhood memories becomes the basis for an essay on his attraction to the void.

Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Volumes III and IV: Exact Logic (Published Papers) and the Simplest Mathematics


Charles Sanders Peirce - 1933
    It is not only of historical but of contemporary interest because of its many acute discussions of fundamental logical problems. To assist the general reader, the editors have prefixed to the text a selected list of important topics and have provided many footnotes and an exhaustive index.The present, the longest volume of the series of Peirce's Collected Papers, reveals most clearly his stature as a logician and a student of the foundations of mathematics. It includes not only some striking anticipations of recent work in logic and the foundations of mathematics but also a number of vital contributions to these subjects as now understood. In addition there is an entirely original treatment of logical diagrams which makes possible a detailed analysis of the process of reasoning and provides the link between modern logic and Peirce's conception of pragmatism. It is the most advanced and important of the volumes on exact logic.

A History Of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 2


Surendranath Dasgupta - 1933
    The volumes elaborate Buddhist and Jaina Philosophy and the six systems of Hindu thought; Samkara School of Vedanta besides the philosophy of the Yoga-vasistha and the Bhagavadgita; detailed account of the principal dualistic and pluralistic system; the Bhagavata Purana, Madhva and his school; and Southern Schools of Saivism. Each volume is devoted to the study of the particular school of thought of Indian Philosophy. 5 Volume set.

Karl Marx: Man and Fighter


Boris Nicolaevsky - 1933
    LTD. LONDON 36 Essex Street W. C. 2 First published in any language in 1936 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOREWORD STRIFE has raged about Karl Marx for decades, and never has it been so embittered as at the present day. . He has impressed his image on the time as no other man has done To some he is afiend, the arch-enemy of human civilisation, and the prince of chaos, while to others he is a far-seeing and beloved leader, guiding the human race towards a brighter future. In Russia his teachings are the official doctrines of the state, while Fascist countries wish them exterminated. In the areas under the sway of the Chinese Soviets Marxs portrait appears upon the bank-notes, while in Germany they have burned his books. Practically all the parties of the Socialist Workers International, and the Communist parties in all countries, acknowledge Marxism, the eradication of which is the sole purpose of innumerable political leagues, associations and coalitions. The French Proudhonists of the sixties, the followers of Lassalle in Germany of the seventies, the Fabians in England before the War produced their own brand of Socialism which they opposed to that of Marx. The anti-Marxism of to-day has nothing in common with those movements. He who opposes Marxism to-day does not do so because, for instance, he denies the validity of Marxs theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Similarly there are millions to-day who acknowledge Marx as their leader, but not because he solved the riddle of capitalist society. Perhaps one Socialist Jn a th9u and ha. s ever read any of JMarx s ecpnpinic vyrritingsrand of a thousand anti-Marxists notjrvtffl one. The strife no longer rages round the truth or Talsehood of the doctrine of historical materialism or the validity of the labour theory of valfce or the theory of marginal utility. These things are discussed and also not discussed. The arena in which Marx is fought about to-day is in the factories, in the parliaments and at the barricades. In both camps, the bourgeois and the Socialist, Marx is first of all, if not exclusively, the vi KARL MARX MAN AND FIGHTER the leader of the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow Capitalism. This book is intended to describe the life of Marx the fighter. We make no attempt to disguise the difficulties of such an undertaking. Marxism to use the word in its proper sense, embracing the whole of Marxs work is a whole. To divide theory from practice was completely alien to Marxs nature. How then, can his life bejmderstood cxcegt as a unity j f thought and action The man of science was not even half the man Engels said in his speech at the grave-side of his dead friend. For Marx science was an historically moving, revolutionary force. Marx was above all a revolutionary. To co-operate in one way or another in the work of bringing about the downfall of capitalist society and the state institutions which were its creations, to co-operate in the liberation of the modern proletariat, to make it conscious of its situation and its needs, and conscious of the conditions for its own emancipation that was his real life-work. 3 Marx was a Socialist before he reached real and complete understanding of the laws of development underlying bourgeois society. When he wrote the Communist Manifesto at the age of thirty he did not yet appreciate the many different forms which surplus value could assume, but the Communist Mani festo contained the whole doctrine of the class-war and showed the proletariat the historical task that itiiad to fulfil. We have written the biography of Marx as the strategist of the class struggle. The discoveries made by Marx in the course of his explorations of the anatomy of bourgeois society will only be mentioned in so far as they directly concern our subject. But the word directly need not be taken too literally...

Indian Idealism


Surendranath Dasgupta - 1933
    He sets out the various strands of idealistic thought in India which stemmed from the Upanishads (c. 700 BC) and later from Buddhism, explaining in what sense these theories can be called 'idealism', bringing out the significant contributions of each of the principal Upanishads and comparing Buddhist idealism with that of Sankara (AD 800) and some of his followers.

A History of Christian Thought, Vol 2: The West from Tertullian to Erasmus


Arthur Cushman McGiffert - 1933
    Early and Eastern, from Jesus to John of Damascus. Bibliography (p. 333-344)2. The West, from Tertullian to Erasmus. Bibliography (p. 397-411).