Celebrated scholar Joseph Campbell shares his intimate and inspiring reflections on the art of living in this beautifully packaged book, part of a new series to be based on his unpublished writings.

    Shikwa (1909) and Jawab-i-Shikwa (1913) extol the legacy of Islam and its civilising role in history, bemoan the fate of Muslims everywhere, and squarely confront the dilemmas of Islam in modern times. Shikwa is thus, in the form of a complaint to Allah for having let down the Muslims and Jawab-i-Shikwa is Allah's reply to the poet's complaint.

    This accessible book has been on the US bestseller lists consistently for four years now. In The Wisdom of No Escape, bestselling author Pema Ch?dr?n shows us the profound value of our situation of 'no exit' from the ups and downs of life.This book is about saying yes to life in all its manifestations ? about making friends with ourselves and our world and embracing the potent mixture of joy, suffering, brilliance, and confusion that characterizes the human experience.It urges us to wake up wholeheartedly to everything and to use the abundant, richly textured fabric of everyday life as our primary spiritual teacher and guide. ?

    In thirty-one meditations, he implores his  readers with his usual pithiness to break through  illusion, the great obstacle to love. "Love  springs from awareness," de Mello insists, saying  that it is only when we see others as they are  that we can begin to really love. But not only must  we seek to see others with clarity, we must examine  ourselves without misconception. The task,  however, is not easy. "The most painful act,"  de Mello says, "is the act of seeing. But in  that act of seeing that love is born." Anthony  De Mello was the director of the Sadhana Institute  of Pastoral Counseling in Poona, India, and  authored several books. The Way To Love  is his last.

    Although we are unaware of it, our brains sift through and discard billions of pieces of data in order to allow us to understand the world around us. In fact, most of what we call thought is actually the unconscious discarding of information. What our consciousness rejects constitutes the most valuable part of ourselves, the "Me" that the "I" draws on for most of our actions--fluent speech, riding a bicycle, anything involving expertise. No wonder that, in this age of information, so many of us feel empty and dissatisfied. As engaging as it is insightful, this important book encourages us to rely more on what our instincts and our senses tell us so that we can better appreciate the richness of human life.

    Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.

    Kind, purposeful, and illuminating—here is an abundant treasure of traditional gathas (teachings) that unify meditation practice with the challenges we face in today's world.Enhanced features include Vietnamese music from Plum Village, video footage of Thich Nhat Hanh about mindfulness, and a text interview with the author.Course objectives:Describe how Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings can help the listener to achieve a more authentic self• List the traditional teachings (gathas) described by Thich Nhat Hanh• Utilize breathing techniques to deal with issues such as pain, anger and maintaining strength in times of difficulty• List the aforementioned techniques• Demonstrate how to maintain being in the present, not getting lost in the past or caught up in the futureNote: These CD-ROM-format enhanced CDs contain audio, music, and video clips and are meant to be played on your computer, using an Internet connection, speakers, and Real Player programs, which are free for download. Enhanced content is exclusive to CD version

    His work spans some sixty years and includes original work on a diverse range of subjects, from dialectical materialism to architecture, urbanism and the experience of everyday life. The Production of Space is his major philosophical work and its translation has been long awaited by scholars in many different fields. The book is a search for a reconciliation between mental space (the space of the philosophers) and real space (the physical and social spheres in which we all live). In the course of his exploration, Henri Lefebvre moves from metaphysical and ideological considerations of the meaning of space to its experience in the everyday life of home and city. He seeks, in other words, to bridge the gap between the realms of theory and practice, between the mental and the social, and between philosophy and reality. In doing so, he ranges through art, literature, architecture and economics, and further provides a powerful antidote to the sterile and obfuscatory methods and theories characteristic of much recent continental philosophy. This is a work of great vision and incisiveness. It is also characterized by its author's wit and by anecdote, as well as by a deftness of style which Donald Nicholson-Smith's sensitive translation precisely captures.

    Here are audio cassettes of which Campbell brings listeners in touch with our mythic heritage.

    A magnificent compilation of sacred writings from all traditions and the perfect companion to Stephen Mitchell's poetry collection, The Enlightened Heart, and the bestselling Tao Te ChingA collection of prose--discourses, sermons, essays, and aphorisms--includes texts and authors such as the Hindu, Confucian, and Buddhist sciptures, Heraclitus and Plato, Chuang-tzu, Jesus, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Symeon the New Theologian, the Chinese Zen masters, and others.

    Assembled in Signposts in a Strange Land, these essays on language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South display the imaginative versatility of an author considered by many to be one the greatest modern American writers.

    His acclaimed works and celebrated collaborations with Félix Guattari have established him as a seminal figure in the fields of literary criticism and philosophy. The long-awaited publication of What Is Philosophy? in English marks the culmination of Deleuze's career.Deleuze and Guattari differentiate between philosophy, science, and the arts, seeing as means of confronting chaos, and challenge the common view that philosophy is an extension of logic. The authors also discuss the similarities and distinctions between creative and philosophical writing. Fresh anecdotes from the history of philosophy illuminate the book, along with engaging discussions of composers, painters, writers, and architects.A milestone in Deleuze's collaboration with Guattari, What Is Philosophy? brings a new perspective to Deleuze's studies of cinema, painting, and music, while setting a brilliant capstone upon his work.

    A blueprint for social change, World as Lover, World as Self shows how we can reverse the destructive attitudes that threaten our world.

    Disillusioned with his life, unable to bridge the gap between knowing and doing, Dan sets out on a worldwide quest to rediscover his sense of purpose and source of inspiration.A buried memory sends Dan on a search for a woman shaman, deep in a Hawaiian rain forest. She is the gateway to all his hopes and his fears — and only she can prepare him for what is to come.In worlds of shadow and light, Dan encounters inner tests, mortal challenges, shocking revelations, and unforgettable characters as he ascends the warrior’s path to wisdom and peace. This is the sacred journey we all share, the journey to the Light that shines at the heart of all our lives.

    Opposing this materialist view is the idea that condemns a boundless appetite for more and better goods and distrusts "improvements" that only feed desire. Tracing the opposition to the idea of progress from Rousseau through Montesquieu to Carlyle, Max Weber and G.D.H. Cole, Lasch finds much that is desirable in a turn toward moral conservatism, toward a lower-middle-class culture that features egalitarianism, workmanship and loyalty, and recognizes the danger of resentment of the material goods of others.

     Provides in-depth and cutting-edge treatment of natural theology's main arguments Includes contributions from first-rate philosophers well known for their work on the relevant topics Updates relevant arguments in light of the most current, state-of-the-art philosophical and scientific discussions Stands in useful contrast and opposition to the arguments of the 'new atheists'

    As we read the wisdom of these peoples, it is possible to feel a reconnection with our land and ourselves. This beautiful collection of the best of Native American wisdom features the thoughts of Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, Black Elk, Ohiyesa, and many others on Native American ways of living, learning, and dying. Taken from orations, recorded observations of life and social affairs, and other first-person testimonies, this book selects a wide range of Native American wisdom and distills it to its essence in short, digestible quotes that are meaningful and timeless -- perhaps even more timely now than when they were written.

    The authors argue that only by having a sense of common ground between mind in Science and mind in experience can our understanding of cognition be more complete. Toward that end, they develop a dialogue between cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology and situate it in relation to other traditions such as phenomenology and psychoanalysis.

    Now, two of the world's most eminent thinkers -- University of London physicists David Bohm, a former protege of Einstein's and one of the world's most respected quantum physicists, and Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, one of the architects of our modern understanding of the brain -- believe that the universe itself may be a giant hologram, quite literally a kind of image or construct created, at least in part, by the human mind. This remarkable new way of looking at the universe explains not only many of the unsolved puzzles of physics, but also such mysterious occurrences as telepathy, out-of-body and near death experiences, "lucid" dreams, and even religious and mystical experiences such as feelings of cosmic unity and miraculous healings.

    Cleary's insightful translation of these two classic Chinese texts is further enhanced by his informative introduction and commentary.

    Drawing on a striking array of documents, Tzvetan Todorov reconstructs a vivid portrait of the conduct of those who ran the camps and those who suffered their outrages. Challenging the widespread view that moral life was extinguished in the extreme circumstances of the camps, he uncovers instead a rich moral universe, composed not of grand acts of heroism but of ordinary gestures of dignity and care, compassion and solidarity.A complex and profound study, Facing the Extreme restores a lost dimension to this anguished history, even as it offers an eloquent plea for the recognition of everyday virtues as a basis for contemporary morality.

    India's tolerant and diverse vision of the Divine is all here: meditative, devotional, philosophical, scriptural and yogic.

    G. Jung laid the groundwork for a psychology of the spirit. The excerpts here illuminate the concept of the unconscious, the central pillar of his work, and display ample evidence of the spontaneous spiritual and religious activities of the human mind. This compact volume will serve as an ideal introduction to Jung's basic concepts.Part I of this book, "On the Nature and Functioning of the Psyche, " contains material from four works: "Symbols of Transformation, " "On the Nature of the Psyche, " "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious, " and "Psychological Types." Also included in Part I are "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious" and "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype." Part II, "On Pathology and Therapy, " includes "On the Nature of Dreams, " "On the Pathogenesis of Schizophrenia, " selections from "Psychology of the Transference." In Part III appear "Introduction to the Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy" and two sections of "Psychology and Religion." Part IV, called "On Human Development, " consists of the essay "Marriage as a Psychological Relationship."

    Here for the first time the concepts and insights of general systems theory are presented in tandem with those of the Buddha. The interdependence of all beings provides the context for clarifying both the role of meditative practice and guidelines for effective action on behalf of the common good. (Suny Series, Buddhist Studies) (SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies)

    Over 600 passages were studied in all, and the aspects of choiceless awareness most frequently addressed by Krishnamurti were noted and then selected for this book.

    This thought-provoking and inspirational volume will provide strength and encouragement to anyone searching for insight.

    From Christianity to Islam to Humanism to Marxism to the New Age to Postmodernism, Understanding the Times provides Christians with a readable, comprehensive treatment of the most significant religious worldviews operating in Western Civilization.

    

    300 famous, infamous and obscure people ponder the mystery of life and its meaning.

    Victor, Illich celebrates the culture of the book from the twelfth century to the present. Hugh's work, at once an encyclopedia and guide to the art of reading, reveals a twelfth-century revolution as sweeping as that brought about by the invention of the printing press and equal in magnitude only to the changes of the computer age—the transition from reading as a vocal activity done in the monastery to reading as a predominantly silent activity performed by and for individuals.

    Now Lao-tzu's further teachings on the Tao, or Way, are presented here in the first English translation of the Chinese text known as the Wen-tzu. Although previously ignored by Western scholars, the Wen-tzu has long been revered by the Chinese as one of the great classics of ancient Taoism. In it, Lao-tzu shows that the cultivation of simplicity and spontaneity is essential to both the enlightened individual and the wise leader. This timeless work will appeal to a broad audience of contemporary readers who have come to consider Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching a classic on the art of living.

    It aims to demonstrate that serious philosophical inquiry may be perplexing, but is ultimately enlightening and liberating.

    A well-known popularizer of Eastern philosophy presents his classic comparison of Judeo-Christian, Hindu, and Taoist views of the universe.

    A s a young man, Jiddu Krishnamurti was "discovered" by the leaders of the Theosophical Society and proclaimed the next World Leader. He went on to live the life of a prophet and influenced, through his speeches and writings, millions. In Commentaries on Living, the author addresses the issues confronting every man and women. In 88 short essays, he address such issues as: Gossip and Worry, The Rich and the Poor, Virtue, Love in Relationship, Belief, Silence, The Self, Fear and much more.

    This is the first truly accessible edition of Emerson's work, revealing him to be one of America's wisest teachers.

    Individuals, however, often misread situations, and many disagreements can be explained by people appealing, knowingly and unknowingly, to different principles. On Justification is the first English translation of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s ambitious theoretical examination of these phenomena, a book that has already had a huge impact on French sociology and is likely to have a similar influence in the English-speaking world.In this foundational work of post-Bourdieu sociology, the authors examine a wide range of situations where people justify their actions. The authors argue that justifications fall into six main logics exemplified by six authors: civic (Rousseau), market (Adam Smith), industrial (Saint-Simon), domestic (Bossuet), inspiration (Augustine), and fame (Hobbes). The authors show how these justifications conflict, as people compete to legitimize their views of a situation.On Justification is likely to spark important debates across the social sciences.

    Now the translation of the eminent classicist C. D. Yonge is available in an affordable, easy-to-read edition, with a new foreword and newly translated passages, and containing supposed fragments of Philo's writings from ancient authors such as John of Damascus. The title and arrangement of the writings have been standardized according to scholarly conventions.A contemporary of Paul and Jesus, Philo Judaeus, of Alexandria, Egypt, is unquestionably among the most important writers for historians and students of Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity. Although Philo does not explicitly mention Jesus, or Paul, or any of the followers of Jesus, Philo lived in their world. It is from Philo, for example, that we learn about how, like the Gospel of John, Jews (and Greeks) in the Greco-Roman world spoke of the creative force of God as God's "Logos." Philo, too, employs interpretive strategies that parallel those of the author of Hebrews. Most scholars would agree that Philo and the author of Hebrews are drawing from the same, or at least similar, traditions of Hellenistic Judaism. With these kind of connections to the world of Judaism and early Christianity, Philo cannot be ignored.

    Tim Macartney-Snape AM, who says of the book `Griffith's explanations have clarified so much that was inexplicable about myself and what goes on in the world. It is like having mist lift from country you've never seen in clear weather. This book could well have as much impact on humanity as the Bible.' It examines issues such as science & religion, politics and psychiatry.Beyond The Human Condition received many reviews, reproduced below: ‘[Griffith] gives us a genuinely original and inspiring way of understanding ourselves and our place in the universe.’The late Professor Charles Birch, Templeton-prize winner and world-renowned biologist________________________________________‘Mr. Griffith makes several original claims in the book, and advances a thought-provoking hypothesis about the origins of human angst from the process of empathy-related indoctrination and learning that is unique and interesting…Mr. Griffith’s book is provocative and well-written, and surfaces a large number of important issues in an intelligent manner. His project is important to think about, and while there are some things to debate from a scientific and philosophical perspective in his book Beyond The Human Condition, there is also much that would be considered true by members of the relevant scientific disciplines.’ Dr William Casebeer, Cognitive scientist and philosopher; USAF, Chief of Eurasian Intelligence Analysis, NATO Military Headquarters________________________________________‘Beyond…contains an interesting and thoughtful combination of materials and I hope it will be successful and widely read.’Professor Adrienne Zihlman, Professor of Anthropology at UCLA Santa Cruz________________________________________‘Mr. Griffith’s work is important and significant to my field of psychiatry. I also consider that it is of significance to all of science. In my view, it explains the nature of “The Human Condition”.The first two books I read, 'Free' and 'Beyond', are amazing platforms which describe the basic findings made and explanations put forward, by Mr Griffith. Mr Griffith’s subsequent writings do not change in basic concept but we see increasing elaboration, background and opportunity scientifically to understand the Human Condition and ameliorate it. These writings in many ways further basic evolutionary concepts and thus are seen by some as controversial, but the majority of scientists, anthropologists and sociologists whom I know to have considered these works have become very excited and perhaps had their own thinking take a leap forward as they have read and re-read Mr Griffith’s work. Even the nay-sayers, in my view, have not been able to put forward evidence which refutes Mr Griffith’s ideas in a scientific way. The persons who have taken negative views of Mr. Griffith’s notions are not to be belittled, but in no criticism that I have seen is there a truly scientific rebuttal. In my opinion, the scientific validity of Mr Griffith’s work is supported in every way possible, from archaeology, primatology, genetics and evolutionary facts.’ Professor Prosen concluded that ‘In my opinion, Mr Griffith’s work, including 'Beyond', is of the highest scientific merit.’ Professor Harry Prosen, former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association; Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin________________________________________‘Griffith’s explanations have clarified so much that was inexplicable about myself and what goes on in the world. It is like having mist lift from country you’ve never seen in clear weather. This book could well have as much impact on humanity as the Bible.’Tim Macartney-Snape, twice-honoured Order of Australia recipient, world renowned mountaineer, biologist, author and a founding director of the WTM/FHA________________________________________I too have always been puzzled by the innate cruelty that seems to be incorporated in much of human nature, particularly in our dealings with the other creatures of the earth. I commend you for probing this phenomenon.’Daphne Sheldrick, renowned African conservationist and founder of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Nairobi ________________________________________‘Your book is certainly thought-provoking and will no doubt be the subject of much debate within the scientific and general communities. My congratulations.’R. J. L. Hawke, the then, Prime Minister of Australia________________________________________‘…the line of reasoning in 'Beyond the Human Condition' is exactly continuous…[Jeremy Griffith] accurately accounts for data from the fossil record...from the behavioral ecology of living primates (especially great ape behavior), and from comparative anatomy…I am able to relate his arguments to my own understanding of the issues he raises. His focus on the evolution of consciousness is a central theme in evolutionary anthropology. His attempts to explain the evolution of bipedality, matriarchal social systems, comparative primate life histories (how long is infancy, childhood, adolescence, etc) draw from established and central references on these topics in the professional literature (such as the publications of Adolph Schultz, Roger Lewin, Adrienne Zihlman, Frances White, Randall Susman and Diane Fossey).’Professor Walter Hartwig, Associate Professor and Chair of Department of Basic Sciences, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Touro University, California________________________________________‘On 29 Sept 1992, Jeremy Griffith presented his new book, 'Beyond The Human Condition', at a special Kenya Museum Society lecture. Once in a long while you come across an “aha” book. Every few pages of Jeremy Griffith’s biological synthesis of human behaviour stretching back millions of years, I found myself, a scientific layman, saying, “aha, that makes sense!"'Doug Rigby, Swara, East African Wildlife Society magazine________________________________________‘I’ve looked at your book but I’m unable to review it because its subject is too daunting.’Journalist Jane Frazer, in 1991 after she had been asked to review Jeremy Griffith’s book by her literary editor at The Australian newspaper________________________________________‘He has been hailed as a prophet. His theories reconcile science and religion, idealism and realism, good and evil, holism and mechanism, instinct and intellect…His book Beyond The Human Condition…quotes freely from the Bible, Sir Laurens van der Post, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Richard Leakey, Bob Dylan, Eugene Marais, Einstein, Olive Schreiner and Dian Fossey, along with a host of other sources. It also draws on practical anthropological and zoological studies to explain our self-destructive behaviour…Despite the biblical illustrations, Griffith’s philosophy is free from religious cant. It explains how the Green and New Age movements contain portions of the truth, and offers rational and logical answers. Chanting mantras or the wearing of saffron robes is not required… A final analogy—fitting when Griffith is a former rugby player who once made the Wallaby trials—is that for the last two million years mankind has been playing a ferocious football game with no purpose, rules or result. Many of us are so exhausted and embattled from being at the bottom of the scrum that we have lost our ideals. Now Griffith is offering to blow the final whistle and send us to the showers.’ Journalist Rowan Dodds, The New Zealand Herald newspaper________________________________________‘The closer we get to the edge of existence the more we appear to need to explain where we have been—presumably in the hope it will show us where we are going. Out of the horror have emerged seers and philosophers offering solace to anyone tormented by the idea that the world has become too complex for us to deal with. Many of these are charlatans …Fortunately, there are also some thinkers of such stature that their thoughts may genuinely change the way of the world. With his new book Jeremy Griffith is seeking to join these ranks…like many significant works, it [Beyond] prompts responses from the reader like “why didn’t I think of that?”…It is a bold and inspiring work.’ Journalist Mark Thornton, The West Australian newspaper________________________________________‘Mr Griffith’s work is extraordinarily insightful and I am quite pleased to have the benefit of his wisdom.’James Balog, an award-winning photographer for National Geographic magazine

    This book provides an accelerated sampling of Dr. Tae Yun Kim's philosophy and teachings on how to succeed in the modern day world. Her motto, "He can do, She can do, Why not me!" embodies her belief that every person has incredible inner power! Classic Wisdom from a Master!Dr. Tae Yun Kim is one of the highest ranking martial artists in the world, and the first Korean Female Master. Her "Seven Steps to Inner Power" book is a distillation of her life's work-a guide for overcoming limitations, developing spiritual and mental power, and attaining mastery in life. In this book, she shows you how to apply the powerful techniques of visualization, concentration, and meditation on a daily basis to tap into the strength within you - leading to a deeper sense of joy, peace, and purpose. Practice the techniques to develop greater levels of achievement. Discover your strengths and weaknesses and become who you want to become. Read these books - guides to overcoming limitations, developing mental power, and attaining mastery in life! 1st Book - Seven Steps to Inner Power2nd Book - The Silent Master3rd Book - The First Element

    He argues for concentrating on higher and more basic values: individual capabilities and freedom to achieve objectives. By concentrating on the equity and efficiency of social arrangements in promoting freedoms and capabilities of individuals, Sen adds an important new angle to arguments about such vital issues as gender inequalities, welfare policies, affirmative action, and public provision of health care and education.

    Throughout this important and insightful work, Shioda Sensei relates many stories about the time he spent training directly with the founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba Sensei, about his war-time experiences and about his years as the Headmaster of the Yoshinkan. He also uses countless anecdotes to convey important insights into the functioning and application of Aikido techniques. Aikido Shugyo will inspire anyone interested in traditional martial arts with its lessons, its history, and its straight-forward approach to the application of Aikido techniques.

    Here are case studies in which myths have helped Dr. May's patients make sense out of an often senseless world.

    This volume fulfills his wish. Not intended as a textbook about psychoanalytic therapy, these reflections provide welcome new information about Fromm the therapist and the way he dealt with the psychological suffering of his patients. As Fromm envisioned, each chapter is structured to capture the informality and intimacy of his psychoanalytic work so that readers get a new and different sense of Fromm's humanism, honesty and insight. These talks and seminars, given by Fromm between 1964 and his death in 1980, deal with the issues between analyst and analysand that go to the heart of the psychoanalytic process. For Fromm, the analyst is his or her own next patient, as the patient becomes his or her analyst.

    This volume, complete with a 9th century Quranic manuscript, explores the significance of the most recurrent symbols and archetypes in human history and elaborates a compelling theory for why symbolism plays such an essential role in human life. The work explores certain basic aspects of symbolism in relation to the Divinity, the hierarchy of the universe, the function of human faculties and qualities, the human condition, natural objects, works of art, and the final end—all with reference to the great living religions of the world, and in particular to Christianity and Islam.

    His four essays on Heidegger include "Philosophy as Science, as Metaphor and as Politics" and "Heidegger, Kundera, and Dickens;" three essays on Derrida (including "Deconstruction and Circumvention" and "Is Derrida a Transcendental Philosopher?") are followed by a discussion of the uses to which Paul de Man and his followers have put certain Derridean ideas. Rorty's concluding essays broaden outward with an essay on "Freud and Moral Deliberation" and essays discussing the social theories and political attitudes of various contemporary figures--Foucault, Lyotard, Habermas, Unger, and Castoriadis.

    The author provides a comprehensive tour of otherworldly journeys common from immemorial times among shamans, magicians, and witches, and illustrates their connection with such modern phenomena as altered states of consciousness, out-of-body experiences, and near-death experiences.

    Covering the origins of apocalypticism from Hebrew prophecy through antiquity and early Christianity to its medieval revival in Joachim of Fiore, Taubes reveals its later secularized forms in Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard. His aim is to show the lasting influence of revolutionary, messianic teleology on Western philosophy, history, and politics.Combining painstaking scholarship with an unmatched scope of reference, Taubes takes a comprehensive approach to the twin focuses of political theology and philosophy of history. He argues that acceptance of the idea that time will one day come to an end has profound implications for political thought. If natural time is experienced as an eternal cycle of events, "history" is the realm of time in which human actions can make decisions to alter the progression of events. This philosophy asks that individuals take responsibility for their own actions and resist authority that claims to act on their behalf. Whereas universal history is written by the victors, the messianic or apocalyptic event enters history and gives a voice to the oppressed.

    The Collected Works have been carefully authenticated against existing transcripts and tapes. Each volume includes a frontispiece photograph of Krishnamurti, with question and subject indexes at the end. The content of each volume is not limited to the subject of the title, but rather offers a unique view of Krishnamurti’s extraordinary teachings in selected years.

    In his new collection of essays, Bateson, author of the enormously influential book Steps to an Ecology of Mind, takes readers further along the pathways by which he arrived at his now-famous synthesis, and continues to illuminate such diverse fields as biology, anthropology, psychiatry, and linguistics.

    They look at the delusions, assumptions and wrong thinking that has led human beings to live in this turmoil, confusion and anguish.

    Recently published for the first time in France, letters written by Simone de Beauvoir to one of the world's most acclaimed philosophers shed light on their relationship and her obsessive need to communicate with him.

    This has not happened and today we no longer believe it ever will. In this book, now available in paperback, Bauman argues that our postmodern age is the time for reconciliation with ambivalence, we must learn how to live in an incurably ambiguous world.

    For the question of painting is, at its heart, a question of visibility—of appearance. As such, the painting is a privileged case of the phenomenon; the painting becomes an index for investigating the conditions of appearance—or what Marion describes as "phenomenality" in general.In The Crossing of the Visible, Marion takes up just such a project. The natural outgrowth of his earlier reflections on icons, these four studies carefully consider the history of painting—from classical to contemporary—as a fund for phenomenological reflection on the conditions of (in)visibility. Ranging across artists from Raphael to Rothko, Caravaggio to Pollock, The Crossing of the Visible offers both a critique of contemporary accounts of the visual and a constructive alternative. According to Marion, the proper response to the "nihilism" of postmodernity is not iconoclasm, but rather a radically iconic account of the visual and the arts that opens them to the invisible.

    Yet even as he grapples with the challenges of political change, he affirms his belief in a politics motivated by moral responsibility; in an economy tempered by compassion; and in the central roles of art and culture in the transformation of society. Summer Meditations is not only a timely and necessary testament of events in Eastern Europe but a profound reflection upon the nature and practice of politics and a stirring call for morality, civility, and openness in public life throughout the world.

    Here Gibran is the poetic, philosophical moralist, grounded in Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity, questing for the best in humanity, refusing to separate man from the natural world. The ordinary work and life of man has the potential to be inherently noble, Gibran believes, if man could only enact his affairs with the sublimity of nature's creations. The Eye of the Prophet is a treasury of wisdom, lyrical joy, and inspiration. With its forceful and rhythmic language, it speaks to our challenging times as a worthy companion to the The Prophet.

    Book by Torkom Saraydarian

    In these 10 essays he explores the ethical and political dimensions of the modernity/postmodernity debates. Bernstein argues that modernity/postmodernity should be understood as a pervasive mood - what Heidegger calls a Stimmung - one that is amorphous, shifting, and protean but that nevetheless exerts a powerful influence on our current ways of thinking and acting. Focusing on such thinkers as Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Rorty, and Habermas, Bernstein seeks to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of their work and to highlight the ways in which they have contributed to the formation of a new and distinctive constellation of ideas and themes.EssaysPhilosophy, History, and Critique - The Rage Against Reason - Incommensurability and Otherness Revisited - Heidegger's Silence? Ethos and Technology - Foucault: Critique as a Philosophic Ethos - Serious Play: The Ethical-Political Horizon of Derrida - An Allegory of Modernity/Postmodernity: Habermas and Derrida - One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: Rorty on Liberal Democracy - Rorty's Liberal Utopia, Reconciliation/Rupture

    Ten of the essays have never appeared before in English. "Exemplary. . . . It should be celebrated." —Arthur C. Danto, New York Times Book Review"This book . . . express[es] Kolakowski's thought on God, man, reason, history, moral truth and original sin, prompted by observation of the dramatic struggle among Christianity, the Enlightenment and modern totalitarianism. It is a wonderful collection of topics." —Thomas Nagel, Times Literary Supplement"No better antidote to bumper-sticker thinking exists than this collection of 24 'appeals for moderation in consistency,' and never has such an antidote been needed more than it is now." —Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune"Whether learned or humorous, these essays offer gems in prose of diamond hardness, precision, and brilliance." —Thomas D'Evelyn, The Christian Science MonitorA "Notable Books of the Year 1991" selection, New York Times Book Review—a "Noted with Pleasure" selection, New York Times Book Review—a "Summer Reading 1991" selection, New York Times Book Review—a "Books of the Year" selection, The Times.

    Drawing on religion, mythology, and science, a molecular biologist examines man's fear of death on both a personal and a universal level.

    Under each verse have been given a few lines in prose to help the reader grasp the underlying import of the message of the sain-poet.

    Hegel (1770-1831) has been made even more comprehensive through the addition of four new chapters. New edition of a classic introduction to Hegel. Enables students to engage with many aspects of Hegel's philosophy. Covers the whole range of Hegel's mature thought. Relates Hegel's ideas to other thinkers, such as Luther, Descartes and Kant. Offers a distinctive and challenging interpretation of Hegel's work.

    An intellectual history, it draws together evidence from philosophy, anthropology, theology, literature, ecology, cultural geography, and archaeology to provide a new scientifically and philosophically informed understanding of humankind’s relationship to nature. Oelschlaeger begins by examining the culture of prehistoric hunter-gatherers, whose totems symbolized the idea of organic unity between humankind and wild nature, and idea that the author believes is essential to any attempt to define human potential. He next traces how the transformation of these hunter-gatherers into farmers led to a new awareness of distinctions between humankind and nature, and how Hellenism and Judeo-Christianity later introduced the unprecedented concept that nature was valueless until humanized. Oelschlaeger discusses the concept of wilderness in relation to the rise of classical science and modernism, and shows that opposition to “modernism” arose almost immediately from scientific, literary, and philosophical communities. He provides new and, in some cases, revisionist studies of the seminal American figures Thoreau, Muir, and Leopold, and he gives fresh readings of America’s two prodigious wilderness poets Robinson Jeffers and Gary Snyder. He concludes with a searching look at the relationship of evolutionary thought to our postmodern effort to reconceptualize ourselves as civilized beings who remain, in some ways, natural animals.

    Less Is More draws us into the company of men and women from many eras and cultures, whose writings explore the virtues of simplicity and moderation in living.Confucious, Patañjali, Ovid, St. Matthew, Milarepa, Rumi, Eckhart, da Vinci, St. Teresa of Avila, Basho, Thoreau, Tagore, Suzuki, Illich, and many others share profound thoughts on our wants and needs, lifestyles and lifeworks. Here is a book to be savored in quiet moments when we reflect on our hectic pace of life; when we wonder if the race to riches is worth the struggle; or when we wonder if the earth can sustain our greed for many more generations.

    Line drawings.

    Here is Alan Watts, recorded live in seminars conducted in America and Japan, personally explaining how the Eastern view of man and his place in the world can be made meaningful to the contemporary Westerner.

    Biographical and historical data, as well as the mystic's key ideas and information about why the particular text was selected introduce each mystic to the reader.Fifty-five mystics or mystical theologians, ancient and modern, are represented, including: Origen, Augustine of Hippo, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Angela of Foligno, Catherine of Siena, the anonymous author of Cloud of Unknowing, Thomas a' Kempis, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, Therese of Lisieux, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Merton, and Karl Rahner.

    The Hour of God consists of extremely powerful short prose pieces written between 1910 and 1940 by Sri Aurobindo and published posthumously.

    Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind: The collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, Volume 2, is part of a multivolume compilation of her life's work, providing insight into the mind of a groundbreaking 20th century philosopher. This volume's work explores memory, intentionality, causality and time, delving into the language, actions, and logic of perception, sensation, and more.

    As part of the said centenary, the Government also decided to publish the Collected Works of Mahatma Phule in English— in a number of volumes.The Government, therefore, constituted the Mahatma Phule Death Centenary Committee which organised a number of functions and activities throughout the year 1990-91 to mark the occasion.I am happy to present the First Volume of the Collected Works of Mahatma Phule—namely ‘ Slavery '. This was published in Marathi in 1873. The full title of the book runs as follows :—“ Slavery (in the Civilised British Government under the cloak ofBrahmanism)—exposed by Jotirao Govindrao Phule (1873).”The prescience of Jotirao is reflected in the ‘ Dedication ’ of this slender booklet. Jotirao dedicated this book to “ the good people of the United States as a token of admiration for their sublime, disinterested and self-sacrificing devotion in the causes of Negro Slavery ”.Jotirao hated slavery in any form. Physical slavery is bad enough, but the Slavery of the mind and spirit—perpetrated in the name of Religion upon the Shudra and Ati-shudra inhabitants of India down the ages is a blot on the fair name of Hinduism. Jotirao pours ridicule and contempt upon the Aryan interlopers for their tyranny.Jotirao hoped that his countrymen will be inspired by the noble example of the American people to undo this wrong by emancipating the Shudra and Ati-shudra “ from the trammels of Brahmin thraldom ”.The Centenaiy Committee entrusted the work of translating this important volumes by Jotirao into cnglish to Barrister P. G. Patil who is an eminent Professor of English and a reverent student of the philosophy of Mahatma Phule and the Satya Shodhak Movement in Maharashtra.I do hope the younger generation of Maharashtra will study this book reverently, will imbibe its seminal teaching and will try to translate those noble ideas into their personal and social life. By so doing, they (Vi) will blaze a new trail not only in Maharashtra but in India as a whole. This will please the soul of Mahatma Phule and will enrich and ennoble the fabric of Social and Cultural life of Maharashtra.I have great pleasure in commending and recommending this important volume ‘ Slavery ’ by Mahatma Phule to the discerning people of Maharashtra in particular and of India in general.

    This is not a book of consolations and spiritual platitudes - you will find here thought provoking and perhaps life challenging statements which seem to come directly from existence itself - nagging us not to bypass them, but to let them be strong reminders to wake us from our eternal sleep in unconsciousness. The selected messages create an urgency which is very much in tune with a current world wide growing awareness - that not everything is right with us, humanity and our beautiful planet Earth. We get reminded that we have only one moment in our hands - the real moment. And we will not get this moment again. Either we live it or we leave it unlived.

    Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.At a time when the function of criticism is again coming under close skeptical scrutiny, Schlegel's unorthodox, highly original mind, as revealed in these foundational "fragments," provides the critical framework for reflecting on contemporary experimental texts.

    In the 20th century, conflicts between states took the form for the first time of total war requiring the mobilization of an entire society. This all-pervasive ideological mobilization of consciences was associated at the purely military and industrial level in a form never seen before. On the one hand, among the allied nations the ideology of war centered on the principle of "democratic intervention," the Wilsonian idea of a holy crusade able to subvert the eternally militarist and autocratic Germany and, in this way, favor a kind of great "international democratic revolution." On the other hand, in a spiral of radicalization, the German ideology of war characterized the looming conflict as a great clash between irreconcilable civilizations, faiths, world-visions, and even races. Germans affirmed not only the superiority of their culture over the enemy countries, but above all the hypothesis of a political and social model that expelled from modernity every universalistic concept of emancipation and democratization.Moving within this milieu, Heidegger's philosophy contested the cultural decadence and "massification" reigning in Western industrial society. In a sharp confrontation with the entire philosophical tradition starting from ancient Greece, he finally condemned the conceptual basis that is the foundation of the modern world as a form of degenerated Platonism in which liberal, revolutionary, and Marxist ideas, and even Nietzsche's philosophy, were involved.Contrary to the majority of interpreters of Heidegger's philosophy, Losurdo reconstructs Heidegger's political dimension and shows the influence of historical and social forces on the development of his ideas.

    But what exactly is suffering? One patient with metastatic cancer of the stomach, from which he knew he would shortly die, said he was not suffering.Another, someone who had been operated on for a minor problem--in little pain and not seemingly distressed--said that even coming into the hospital had been a source of suffering. With such varied responses to the problem of suffering, inevitable questions arise. Is it the doctor's responsibility to treat the disease or the patient? And what is the relationship between suffering and the goals of medicine?According to Dr. Eric Cassell, these are crucial questions, but unfortunately, have remained only queries void of adequate solutions. It is time for the sick person, Cassell believes, to be not merely an important concern for physicians but the central focus of medicine. With this in mind, Cassell argues for an understanding of what changes should be made in order to successfully treat the sick while alleviating suffering, and how to actually go about making these changes with methods and training techniques firmly rooted in the doctor's relationship with the patient. He uses many stories and anecdotes to demonstrate that there can be no diagnosis, search for the cause of the person's disease, prognostication, or treatment without consideration of the individual sick person. Cassell goes on to explain what needs to be known about a person, as well as the importance of recognizing the dual standing of doctors both as physician and person.Making an eloquent case for seeing the symptoms within the context of the patient's whole life and person, Cassell injects a critical element of humanism into what has become a largely technical discipline.

    For Manuel DeLanda, however, this new weaponry has a significance that goes far beyond military applications; he shows how it represents a profound historical shift in the relation of human beings both to machines and to information. The recent emergence of intelligent and autonomous bombs and missiles equipped with artificial perception and decision-making capabilities is, for Delanda, part of a much larger transfer of cognitive structures from humans to machines in the late twentieth century.War in the Age of Intelligent Machines provides a rich panorama of these astonishing developments; it details the mutating history of information analysis and machinic organization from the mobile siege artillery of the Renaissance, the clockwork armies of the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic campaigns, and the Nazi blitzkrieg up to present-day cybernetic battle-management systems and satellite reconnaissance networks. Much more than a history of warfare, DeLanda's account is an unprecedented philosophical and historical reflection on the changing forms through which human bodies and materials are combined, organized, deployed, and made effective.Manuel DeLanda has published essays on philosophy and film theory. He is a computer programmer and a film artist.A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books

    Diamond explains Wittgenstein's notoriously elusive later writings, explores the background to his thought in the work of Frege, and discusses ethics in a way that reflects his influence. Diamond's new reading of Wittgenstein challenges currently accepted interpretations and shows what it means to look without mythology at the coherence, commitments, and connections that are distinctive of the mind.Representation and Mind series

    

    Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, 2e presents a new interpretation of the negative and critical self-understanding characteristic of much European high culture since romanticism and especially since Nietzsche, and answers the question of why the issue of modernity became a philosophical problem in European tradition.

    Filled with moving, personal essays by concerned celebrities and thinkers, edited by Don Henley and Dave Marsh, it is a call to arms for anyone who cares about the environment and the future of the earth.

    The author, a noted literary critic, presents a selection of his thought on Balzac, Valery, Dickens, Goethe, Heine, Hoelderlin, lyric poetry, realism, the essay and the contemporary novel.

    In A Passion for God, J. Matthew Ashley edits and translates the most important of Metz's recent essays previously unavailable in English. This compelling and diverse collection reflects on such issues as the crucial place of memory in Christian faith and in society as a whole, the role of religious in the Church, the meaning of the mystical virtue of poverty of spirit and the relationship between Christianity and politics in modernity. A Passion for God includes an introduction by Ashley that surveys Metz's career in the context of postconciliar Catholic theology and offers the reader helpful advice for understanding Metz's work. Those interested in the various aspects of North American liberation as well as political or public theology will find this book to be an invaluable resource.

    A man from one of America's wealthiest families sees a picture of Albert Schweitzer and leaves his life of ease to become a physician and establish a clinic in Haiti. Most of us would say these people are experiencing midlife crises. More accurately, they have entered a deep psychological process called transformation. In Transformation: Emergence of the Self, noted analyst and author Murray Stein explains what this process is, and what it means for an individual to experience it. Transformation usually occurs at midlife, but is much more complicated than what we colloquially call a midlife crisis. Consciously working through this life stage can lead people to become who they are and have always potentially been. Indeed, Stein suggests, transformation is the essential human task. Stein first details how this process of transformation emerges and develops in an individual. Why does this transformation occur, and, more specifically, why does it so often occur in midlife? Using the example of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Stein clearly and carefully walks the reader through the hows and whys of the transformation process. Looking at C. G. Jung's life, Stein then explains how transformative images stimulate the transformation process by suggesting new ways of thinking and living. Intimate relationships, like those between a husband and a wife or a doctor and a patient, can also play a very powerful role in transformation. Finally, Stein examines the process in the lives of three important people, Jung, Picasso, and Rembrandt, whose experiences of transformation led to even greater creativity and freedom. This book is successful both as an easy-to-understand elucidation of the transformation process and as an invitation to personal change. For those people who would like to learn what a meaningful second half of life could be like, Transformation: Emergence of the Self is an inspiring place to start.

    Wei Wu Wei's final book, is an enlightened parable in the form of a conversation between an owl and a rabbit about God, love, and the way things are.

    Examining the co-birth in ancient Greece of philosophy and politics, Castoriadis shows how the Greeks' radical questioning of established ideas and institutions gave rise to the project of autonomy. The end of philosophy proclaimed by Postmodernism would mean the end of this project. That end is now hastened by the lethal expansion of technoscience, the waning of political and social conflict, and the resignation of intellectuals who blindly defend Western culture as it is or who merely denounce or deconstruct it as it has been. Discussing and criticizing Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Weber, Heidegger, and Habermas, the author of The Imaginary Institution of Society and Crossroads in the Labyrinth poses a radical challenge to our inherited philosophy.

    Krishnamurti explains that to comprehend death, which is so inseparably joined with life, we must come to it with a fresh understanding, free of learned attitude and preconceptions.On Living and Dying is a thematic selection from the seminars over Krishnamurti’s entire lifetime, drawing on talks from Bombay to Amsterdam and London to Seattle, progressing from the early thirties until the later seventies.

    Within each individual, Nagel believes, there is a division between two standpoints, the personal and the impersonal. Without the impersonal standpoint, there would be no morality, only the clash, compromise, and occasional convergence of individual perspectives. It is because a human being does not occupy only his own point of view that each of us is susceptible to the claims of others through private and public morality. Political systems, to be legitimate, must achieve an integration of these two standpoints within the individual. These ideas are applied to specific problems such as social and economic inequality, toleration, international justice, and the public support of culture. Nagel points to the problem of balancing equality and partiality as the most important issue with which political theorists are now faced.

    Indeed, it can be said that Macmurray’s philosophy is really a philosophy of community—a philosophy that relates to many contemporary philosophical and religious concerns, as well as having a bearing on current historical/sociological, political, and feminist critiques of contemporary American society.

    . . superb and highly recommended." -The Midwest Book Review

    Drawing on a wealth of data made available by the encyclopaedia, Eliade began work on what was to become this compendium, in which the major religions are arranged in an alphabetical format. The history of 33 religions and information concerning religious events, notions and personalities are listed. The dictionary is arranged in two parts, with the Macro-dictionary containing summaries and explanations of 33 world religions, including Shinto, Shamanism, Taoism, South American religions, Slavic and Baltic religions, Confucianism, Egyptian mystery and Oceanian religions. The Micro-dictionary defines terms and topics of religions as well as providing references to longer explanations in the Macro-dictionary.

    The selections are grouped under ten major metaphysical problems and each section is preceded by an introduction by the editors.

    In Liberal Nature, Rasmussen and Den Uyl set out to show that the Aristotelian approach to ethics supports the natural rights which form the most secure basis for liberal principles. The authors lay the foundations for their thesis by rebutting the most prominent arguments against the Aristotelian approach; they then offer a new interpretation for Aristotelian ethics as a natural-end ethics in which human flourishing is the ultimate moral standard.

    

    Religious institutions falter, and even progressive ideologies prove inadequate. Where are we to turn for answers? In this unique, far-reaching book, Joel Kovel says we must turn back, back to the notion of spirit and the realm of spirituality. Kovel argues that only a radical rediscovery of spirit can offer a solution to the profound spiritual crisis of our modern age.

    It is a marvelous book, in which no major aspect of Socrates career is eclipsed. The rigor of his arguments, the depth of his moral commitment and understanding, his complex relationship to Athenian ethical traditions, his rational religion: all this comes to life in writing whose vigor and lucidity put the challenge of Socrates squarely before the reader.

    Robert Thurman's translation and introduction present a strain of Indian Buddhist thought emphasizing the need for both critical reason and contemplative realization in the attainment of enlightenment. This book was originally published under the title Tsong Khapa's Speech of Gold in the "Essence of True Eloquence.""I am very happy that Tsong Khapa's masterpiece of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy has been translated into English, and can now be studied by Western philosophers and practitioners of Buddhism. It has long been one of my favorite works, and I hope that others will appreciate its deep thought and lucid insights as we have for centuries in Tibet."--From the foreword by the Dalai Lama

    Today, the being in need of care is the world. All the organizing forms that ought to enrich life with beauty, purpose, and depth no longer do so. To heal ourselves we need to reimagine the worldBeginning with the myth of Sophia, or "Soul of the World," Sardello evokes a sense that the world as filled with her presence. He goes on to suggest that the soul's primary aspects--its arts of concentration, meditation, imagination, and contemplation--do not belong simply to individual consciousness, but constitute a surrender of subjective, personal states to the consciousness that is the soul of the world. He shows how we can begin to approach daily life in a new way by practicing these arts. The chapters that follow establish a psychology of the world.Contents: The Soul and the WorldHouse and CityLearning through SoulDiseaseEconomics and MoneyTechnologyThingsViolence and the Longing for BeautyFood: A Case HistoryWorld Soul and Hermetic Consciousness

    

    He reconsiders familiar actions—from speaking and painting to smoking and telephoning—in terms of particular movement, opening a surprising new perspective on the ways we share and preserve meaning. A gesture may or may not be linked to specialized apparatus, though its form crucially affects the person who makes it.These essays, published here as a collection in English for the first time, were written over roughly a half century and reflect both an eclectic array of interests and a durable commitment to phenomenological thought. Defining gesture as “a movement of the body or of a tool attached to the body for which there is no satisfactory causal explanation,” Flusser moves around the topic from diverse points of view, angles, and distances: at times he zooms in on a modest, ordinary movement such as taking a photograph, shaving, or listening to music; at others, he pulls back to look at something as vast and varied as human “making,” embracing everything from the fashioning of simple tools to mass manufacturing. But whatever the gesture, Flusser analyzes it as the expression of a particular form of consciousness, that is, as a particular relationship between the world and the one who gestures.

    

    A feminist is a woman who does not allow anyone to think in her place."-from Hipparchia's ChoiceA work of rare insight and irreverence, Hipparchia's Choice boldly recasts the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the post-Derrideans as one of masculine texts and male problems. The position of women, therefore, is less the result of a hypothetical "femininity" and more the fault of exclusion by men. Nevertheless, women have been and continue to be drawn to "the exercise of thought." So how does a female philosopher become a conceptually adventurous woman? Focusing on the work of Sartre and Beauvoir (specifically, his sexism and her relation to it), Mich�le Le Doeuff shows how women philosophers can reclaim a place for feminist concerns. Is The Second Sex a work of philosophy, and, if so, what can it teach us about the relation of philosophy to experience? Now with a new epilogue, Hipparchia's Choice points the way toward a discipline that is accountable to history, feminism, and society.

    The answers to this question would allow humanity to make an enormous leap forward in our understanding of the principles at work in our world.For centuries, it was believed that the only scientific approach to the question "What is life?" must proceed from the Cartesian metaphor (organism as machine). Classical approaches in science, which also borrow heavily from Newtonian mechanics, are based on a process called "reductionism." The thinking was that we can better learn about an intricate, complicated system (like an organism) if we take it apart, study the components, and then reconstruct the system-thereby gaining an understanding of the whole.However, Rosen argues that reductionism does not work in biology and ignores the complexity of organisms. Life Itself, a landmark work, represents the scientific and intellectual journey that led Rosen to question reductionism and develop new scientific approaches to understanding the nature of life. Ultimately, Rosen proposes an answer to the original question about the causal basis of life in organisms. He asserts that renouncing the mechanistic and reductionistic paradigm does not mean abandoning science. Instead, Rosen offers an alternate paradigm for science that takes into account the relational impacts of organization in natural systems and is based on organized matter rather than on particulate matter alone.Central to Rosen's work is the idea of a "complex system," defined as any system that cannot be fully understood by reducing it to its parts. In this sense, complexity refers to the causal impact of organization on the system as a whole. Since both the atom and the organism can be seen to fit that description, Rosen asserts that complex organization is a general feature not just of the biosphere on Earth-but of the universe itself.