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Title details for All Things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus - Available

All Things Shining

Reading the Western Canon to Find Meaning in a Secular World

by Hubert Dreyfus
Sean Dorrance Kelly
Audiobook
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1 of 1 copy available
The religious turn to their faith to find meaning. But what about the many people who lead secular lives and are also hungry for meaning? What guides, what approaches are available to them? Distinguished philosophers, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly explain that a secular life charged with meaning is indeed within reach. It is achieved by a passionate, skillful engagement with the people, events, and wonders present in the most ordinary days-an approach to meaning that modern Western culture seems to have abandoned. Dreyfus and Kelly use some of the greatest works of the Western Canon to trace the way we lost this passionate engagement to our surroundings and to show us how to get it back. Taking us on a journey from the wonder and openness of Homer's polytheistic world, to the monotheism of Dante, to the nihilism of Kant, to the pantheism of Melville, and finally to the spiritual difficulties of the world evoked by modern authors such as David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Gilbert, All Things Shining will change the way we understand our culture, our history, our sacred practices, and ourselves, and offer a new-and very old-way to celebrate a secular existence.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 12, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781611744538
      • File size: 247320 KB
      • Duration: 08:35:14

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Dreyfus and Kelly present an intriguing argument, based in Western literary and philosophical classics, for avoiding nihilism and being engaged with, and finding meaning in, the world as it is. David Drummond narrates at a slightly elevated pitch of excitement, as if urging someone to hurry. Despite the potential urgency of the book's message, its tone is thoughtful and analytical. The uneasy fit makes Drummond's manner seem all the more artificial. There are several prominent mispronunciations, but an egregious mistake is the word "agape," Christian love. However, Drummond's energy doesn't let the book lag, and his clarity is admirable. The basic job of conveying the book is roughly but effectively done. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 30, 2011
      Dreyfus and Kelly re-evaluate such classics as Melville's Moby Dick, Homer's Odyssey, and Dante's Divine Comedy to give modern readers a sense of "the wonder we were once capable of." The authors do not push to recover religion but rather to repossess the moods and intensity of the ancient Greeks and shrug off what they perceive to be the present age's epidemic of apathy and nihilism. By juxtaposing canonized authors with David Foster Wallaceâand even Elizabeth GilbertâDreyfus and Kelly explain, expand, and give direction in how to live in a secular age. David Drummond's voice sounds both famous and familiarâas if constantly narrating a movie trailer. As professional as he sounds, over long periods of time it becomes difficult to decipher what is urgent and important when everything sounds so portentous, and movements between chapters and jumps between authors make the listening tricky; it's not always easy to discern where the argument is going and from where it originated without pages to reference. A Free Press hardcover.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 29, 2010
      Eminently qualified philosophers Dreyfus (U.C. Berkeley) and Kelly (Harvard) attempt to trace the decline of the West from the heroic, inspired age of Homer to our secularized, nihilistic age without a sense of transcendence and exultation. Unlike the ancient Greeks, the authors claim, today we lack a sense of the meaningfulness of life, of being called by a transcendent force. They probe this loss through a nonchronological roll call of writers, thinkers, and religious figures central to Western culture: Homer, Jesus, St. Paul, Dante, Luther, Descartes, Melville, and, representing today's unheroic age, David Foster Wallace But this sincere book reads more like a series of set pieces. Ambitious it is, but by turns it drifts or jumps, giving a sense of randomness to its argument. Late in the book, a long section on Moby-Dick notes, "Ahab is a combination of Kant's theory of human beings as autonomous selves and Dante's religious hope for eternal bliss." Such grand statements are not backed by a fully coherent, or a gracefully structured and proportioned argument.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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