1 comments about A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises (The Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures).

1. Stanley Cavell stands as one of the most acute interpreters of the human condition that America has ever produced. _A Pitch of Philosophy_ is part autobiography, part exegesis, and part philosophical reflection on selfhood and identity. Combining reflection on the course of his own life with philosophical work of the highest order, Cavell weaves a compelling tale of what it means to come to know oneself, and to come to know oneself as a philosopher. Against what can be seen as the existential sterility of modern Anglo-American analytic philosophy, Cavell awakens the reader to the intimate connection between philosophy and autobiography. Along the way he candidly reveals to the reader the ways in which his own life has been a gradual acceptance of the inheritance of American philosophy. Cavell's may be the most distinctive American voice in the chorus of modern philosophy to have yet been heard, and _A Pitch of Philosophy_ stands as the crown jewel of his life's work.

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1 comments about War Diaries: Notebooks from a Phony War, 1939-40.

1. The main title of this book can be a little misleading, for the entries date from 1939-40, before the war in France really heated up. Sartre saw no action during this period (he was in his early 30s), but he WAS in military service on the front during the "phony war." Mostly, he had a lot of time to think and write.

   Sartre worked on some of the foundations for _Being and Nothingness_ and existential theory in general, so there's some of that here, but this is a marvelously HUMAN document. As well as the sort of intellectual blasts one expects from him (Flaubert's _A Sentimental Education_ is deemed to be "clumsy, disagreeable ... utterly idiotic"), Sartre writes of his insecurities ("In relation to Gauguin, Van Gogh and Rimbaud, I have a distinct inferiority complex because they managed to destroy themselves"; "It's true, I'm not authentic. With everything that I feel, before actually feeling it I know that I'm feeling it ... I fool people: I look like a sensitive person but I'm barren ... I am nothing but pride and lucidity").

   There's a lot about his love of women and burning desire for beauty -- to be IN something beautiful; and his total failure at friendships with men, save for what he termed women-men ("an extremely rare species, standing out from the rest thanks to their physical charm or sometimes beauty, and to a host of inner riches which the common run of men know nothing of ... I'm a woman-man myself, I think, for all my ugliness").

   Sometimes he is flip, sounding more like he's trying out aphorisms for size ("I would condemn someone definitively for a linguistic mannerism, but not because I'd seen him murder his mother"), and sometimes simple and sincere ("A day begun with a breakfast is a lucky day"). Above all, he broods on the nature of freedom and authenticity. This is a much more accessible work than much of his fiction or polished essays.

1 comments about Moments of Truth: Excerpts from Autobiography of a Yogi.

1. Meditation leads to Superconsciousness and for many people an experience of bliss and ecstacy that surpasses understanding. Imagination and sleep lead to the subconsciousness. Meditation leads to actual God contact! Paramahansa Yogananda infused truely dead dogmatic and old crystalized forms with a Spirit and life that had been missing for many of us in religious words and phrases that had lost their meaning. This man of God, lived what he spoke and through his autobiography more people will awaken to greater "consciousness"(another word for "Soul"). This book, "Autobiography of a Yogi," is infused with Light and Love Divine literally. Here true seekers will be true finders. Since the book is authorized by Self Realization Fellowship (his only true organization authorized by him to promote his teachings) one will find the super jet plane path off the wheel of birth and death (reincarnation). A true teacher such as Yogananda is rarer than you might imagine. And Autobiography of a Yogi (his evolution/remembrance) was written in a manner that was for me, very entertaining! More fun than Science Fiction--because it is TRUE! This is possibly, a starting point for the change you have unknowingly wanted all your life. Yoganada brings from the East light that reveals to us more than we may have known about our Western path. The blend of the two paths is Light Divine. I've read it three times. And all my friends and family agree--Yogananda was an enlightened being. A true gift from God. Leading many souls back to God. (Buy it, read it, contemplate it. Come to it with an open mind and heart). Fear not--it is a great read! 5 Stars!

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No comments about The Correspondance of William James: April 1908-August 1910 (Correspondence of William James).

3 comments about Cuss!: A Hiker's Journal - Along the Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

1. Amazing how what can often be the most important and gives us the best lessons can be considered to be the mundane-this book immortalizes the everyday and its lessons that too many of us take for granted. This book speaks-it's real, it's honest and that is a hell of a statememt.
   Highly recommended.



2. Poverty, living on the streets, drug use, alcoholism, sex, laughter, poetry, a disposable god, a muse called Shokya Candalla -- this book has everything! E.K. Willey's prose is a new and bright light in the world of writing. No matter the tragic self-contradictory world he exploits, his humor is indeed its saving grace. If you don't mind a little cussing here and there, and a little dose of vulgarity mixed in with your common sense, then I implore you to read this book. If you're lucky enough to have friends, you'll be imploring them to do the same.



3. I have literally been in search of this book for years, and didn't even realize this till I was halfway through it. I've studied self-help books, religions, Yoga, acupressure, herbs and all sorts of means to improve my life, but when I read CUSS!, it came clear to me that my efforts were far too forced; that my very efforts to reach the goal were precisely what kept me from it. That goal being, simply, peace. But CUSS! is not just one of the greatest self-help books in disguise, it's a magnificent story to boot. Written in American slang, E.K. Willey takes us to the streets of America, as well as the mountains, canyons, caves, and deserts. A 12 year search for God, or at least a girlfriend. A crash course on American Zen, Shokya Candalla style, whom he considers to be his "true self". Throw one disposable god in for good measure - called the goc (the god of circumstance) - and now you have one of the most original books on the market today. I'm praying to God right now that this E.K. Willey is with us for many years, because if he is, methinks we're all in for a big surprise.

1 comments about Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews.

1. Sartre scholar Ronald Aronson errs immediately in his intro to Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews by writing that questions about these interviews can be "posed dispassionately" now, meaning, of course, that they can be posed objectively & thereby synopsizes all that has made American liberal education the grand failure that it is. Moreover, Sartre might have disapproved. What did he write about "committed literature?"

   In the weeks before his death, Sartre and long-time personal secy Benny Levy recorded a series of discussions, in the form of interviews, some of which were published in a Paris weekly newspaper. Levy, a former Maoist student leader (for the contemporary American student, Maoist student leader is probably as archaic or unknown a term as internal combustion engine) & ardent student of Sartre, fairly attacked the blind & aging writer/philosopher, at times engaging him, at times bullying him.

   Thruout the interviews (which take up, really, just one-fourth of the entire book [hence 3 stars]; the rest is all intro commentary & postscripts), Sartre seemed to hold his own, citing the errors of Marxism, existentialism, & the left-wing political movements of the 60s & early 70s. I think the interviews offer the reader a good feel for that period (fondly known in the USA as "the 60s"), when Levy was known as Pierre Victor, Sartre was backing all kinds of radical & left-wing endeavors, & the 1968 student rebellions thruout Europe but especially in Paris threatened to topple the whole knowledge-is-power façade.

   In the end, the students failed, but the student uprisings in the USA, then & after, were a mere burlesque of those in Europe: certainly, the knowledge-is-power concept was never questioned (US students just wanted more power with their knowledge), & the smugness that allows Mr. Aronson to pose questions dispassionately has enveloped every succeeding academic iteration.

   The famous quote from Sartre's one-act play, "No Exit," was "Hell is other people." Sartre was almost 75 when these interviews took place, and then he said, "It's other people that are my old age...Old age is a reality that is mine but that others feel..." The topics that disturbed so many after the interviews were published were Judaism and Jewishness.

   Levy generalizes that Jews fear the revolutionary mob because it may become the pogrom mob; Sartre counters that "there were a considerable number of Jews in the Communist Party in 1917 [in Russia]." Personally, I am at a loss to explain why Levy was reviled by Sartre scholars: Sartre states that he was profoundly influenced by the "Jewish reality" that confronted him after the war, when he met Jews that he saw as having a destiny "beyond the ravages [of] anti-Semitism."

   Hope Now seems to me to be more of a coda to the 1972 documentary, "Sartre: By Himself," where he chatted amiably with the editorial staff of Le Temps Moderne and Simone de Beauvoir. That film depicted a leisurely afternoon with friends. Sartre with Levy seems more like colleagues at work. Unlike the current crop of celebrity academics, Sartre always appeared, to appropriate Harry Stack Sullivan's comment about schizophrenics, "simply human."

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1 comments about The Everything Great Thinkers Book: Exploring the Minds of the Men and Women Who Have Changed the Way We See the World (Everything Series).

1. This is a fun and informative book. It is both educational and funny. The pantheon of Great Thinkers included here run the gamut, and venture well beyond the predictable. Also, this book is totally unique among these various series. I recommend this book. I learned and laughed, which is my litmus test for a good read.