Professor Kenneth Gallagher provides a detailed and clear elucidation of the master of Christian Existentialism Gabriel Marcel."THE PRINCIPAL AIM OF A BOOK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF GABRIEL MARCEL ought to be to send the reader back to the original works in all their non-expoundable concreteness. Actually, in the case of this relentlessly unsystematic thinker, even to speak of "his philosophy" has a hollow ring, for it suggests just the kind of carefully constructed edifice of doctrine w...

I hope that this book will be widely read, and I especially commend it to four classes of persons: I. For myself I have come across nothing more important than M. Marcel’s writings here and elsewhere on the problem of metaphysics. I say problem advisedly: for we are all of us these days in the end puzzled as to what exactly metaphysics is. The strict Thomist has his answer: so has the positivist: so too the Biblical theologian who is much too ready to find in the decay of ontology an argum...

MAN AGAINST MASS SOCIETY focuses on the "mass man," who has been dehumanized in a society which reduces the person to the functions he performs, in which he has no distinctive worth and cannot claim to be unique and irreplaceable, and whose tragic result is that he may accept this abstract view of himself as final.

A paradox resides at the heart of the philosophy of Gabriel Marcel. That paradox, writes Kenneth T. Gallagher, is this: “Elusiveness is an essential constituent of his thought, and any exposition which sought to eliminate it would be self-defeating.” Any competent and coherent study of Marcel’s thought thus requires a deep dive into this paradox in order to access its meaning. In these pages, Gallagher brings that source to light with a patient progression through the catalog of themes, id...

The central theme of this important book is that we are paying the price of an arrogance that refuses to recognize mystery. The author invites the reader to enter into the argument that he holds with himself on a great number of problems. Written in the early 1950s, Marcel’s discussion of these topics are remarkably contemporary, e.g.:* Our crisis is a metaphysical, not merely social, one.* What a man is depends partly on what he thinks he is, and a materialistic philosophy...

In this powerful classic, the eminent Swiss philosopher Max Picard argues that though the “flight from God” is not a phenomenon unique to this age, man has nevertheless put himself and society in an extremely dangerous situation with the progressive secularization of Western culture. In the age of faith, Picard says, a man had to make a conscious decision to separate himself from the world of faith. Today, the world, not just the individual, is in flight, and men must extricate themselves ...

Psychological Types is one of Jung's most important and famous works. First published in English by Routledge in the early 1920s it appeared after Jung's so-called fallow period, during which he published little, and it is perhaps the first significant book to appear after his own confrontation with the unconscious. It is the book that introduced the world to the terms 'extravert' and 'introvert'. Though very much associated with the unconscious, in Psychological Types Ju...

One of the most important of Jung's longer works, and probably the most famous of his books, Psychological Types appeared in German in 1921 after a "fallow period" of eight years during which Jung had published little. He called it "the fruit of nearly twenty years' work in the domain of practical psychology," and in his autobiography he wrote: "This work sprang originally from my need to define the ways in which my outlook differed from Freud's and Adler's. In attempting to answe...

In Philosophy: Principles and Problems Roger Scruton shares the ideas and arguments which initially attracted him to the subject and those which have engaged his attention throughout his career. Through discussions of major philosophers, Kant and Wittgenstein in particular, he attempts to show how philosophy is relevant to life in the modern world. The topics he discusses range from the nature of truth, to Music, History, sex, morality and God. Read this book, therefore, to share ...

This volume has become known as perhaps the best introduction to Jung's work. In these famous essays. "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" and "On the Psychology of the Unconscious," he presented the essential core of his system. Historically, they mark the end of Jung's intimate association with Freud and sum up his attempt to integrate the psychological schools of Freud and Adler into a comprehensive framework.This is the first paperback publication of this key wor...

In his famous seminar on ethics, Jacques Lacan uses this question as his departure point for a re-examination of Freud's work and the experience of psychoanalysis in relation to ethics. Delving into the psychoanalyst's inevitable involvement with ethical questions, Lacan clarifies many of his key concepts. During the seminar he discusses the problem of sublimation, the paradox of jouissance, the essence of tragedy, and the tragic dimension of analytical experience. One of the most influent...

Modern history is haunted by the disasters of the century—world wars, concentration camps, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust—grief, anger, terror, and loss beyond words, but still close, still impending. How can we write or think about disaster when by its very nature it defies speech and compels silence, burns books and shatters meaning?The Writing of the Disaster reflects upon efforts to abide in disaster’s infinite threat. First published in French in 1980, it takes up the m...