The Magic of Unknowing: An East-West Soliloquy - Hardcover

Sprung, Mervyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0921149085 ISBN 13: 9780921149088

Verlag: Broadview Press Ltd, 1987

Inhaltsangabe

The Magic of Unknowing is a unique philosophical and literary work. Cast in the dialogue form, it unfolds in the mood of soliloquy. Mervyn Sprung has created an imaginative meeting of the minds of great western philosophers: Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Pyrrho. All are brothers, the more skeptical sons of Aristotle. Later they hear as well from Chang, a Taoist, and Nagaraj, a Buddhist, both lately adopted into the family.

The dialogue dramatises the erosion in modern times of Aristotelian rationality under the pressures of its own logic. The two eastern thinkers throw the weight of their own skepticism into the discussion at the critical point.

In the end the brothers realize that they have moved away from Western philosophy’s faith in the singular power of reason to establish truth and sense in the human world. They discover the magic of unknowing that lies in the reciprocal penetration of knowledge and behavior, each receiving its sense from the other. They discover that philosophies are not the issue of reasoning alone but are themselves already inseparably thought and action. And they realise that this entails an unheard-of future for philosophy.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mervyn Sprung, Professor Emeritus at Brock University and a former Hooker Visiting Professor at McMaster University, is the author of four previous books on eastern and comparative philosophy, including Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way: A Translation of the Prasannapada (Routledge & Kegan Paul).

Von der hinteren Coverseite

The Magic of Unknowing is a unique philosophical and literary work. Cast in the dialogue form, it unfolds in the mood of soliloquy. Mervyn Sprung has created an imaginative meeting of the minds of great western philosophers: Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Pyrrho. All are brothers, the more skeptical sons of Aristotle. Later they hear as well from Chang, a Taoist, and Nagaraj, a Buddhist, both lately adopted into the family.

The dialogue dramatises the erosion in modern times of Aristotelian rationality under the pressures of its own logic. The two eastern thinkers throw the weight of their own skepticism into the discussion at the critical point.

In the end the brothers realize that they have moved away from Western philosophy's faith in the singular power of reason to establish truth and sense in the human world. They discover the magic of unknowing that lies in the reciprocal penetration of knowledge and behavior, each receiving its sense from the other. They discover that philosophies are not the issue of reasoning alone but are themselves already inseparably thought and action. And they realise that this entails an unheard-of future for philosophy.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Broadview Press Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1987
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0921149085
• ISBN 13: 9780921149088
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
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