These past fifty years have seen incredible advances in mankind's scientific knowledge. We can now replace knees, hips, and other joints inside the human body, and we use robots to do critical parts of the surgeries. We are using retroviruses to actually rewrite the DNA within living patients, in order to make their bodies more effective in fighting diseases. We have seen subatomic particles, during their brief appearances, in our supercollider. We have captured images of the moment when two hydrogen nuclei fuse into one helium nucleus. We can speak to anyone in the world if they are in possession of a handheld cell phone. We have orbiting observatories that allow us to see galaxies that are over 13 billion lightyears away, and we have sent probes to other planets even landing one on a comet. With all this new knowledge, and much more, it's time to ask, has any of this information helped us to answer those age-old questions about the purpose of life, the existence of God, the origins of the universe, and our role within it all? In this book, the author emphatically answers yes! We now have enough scientific facts to answer most of those questions. And in a clear and easily readable way, he explains what we now know and how each of us can use these new insights, in order to improve our lives tremendously. This work in intended to improve your life. In fact, I am sure it will.

Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Alan Charles Kors / Just and Arbitrary Authority in Enlightenment Thought -- 2. Richard Kennington / Bacon's Reform of Nature -- 3. Pamela Kraus / Method and Metaphysics: The Foundation of Philosophy in the Discourse on Method -- 4. Robert P. Kraynak / Hobbes and the Dogmatism of the Enlightenment -- 5. John C. Mccarthy / Pascal on Certainty and Utility -- 6. Paul J. Bagley / Spinoza, Biblical Criticism, and the Enlightenment -- 7. Philippe Raynaud / Leibniz, Reason -- and Evil -- 8. F.J. Crosson / Hume's Unnatural Religion (Some Humean Footnotes) -- 9. Terence E. Marshall / Poetry and Praxis in Rousseau's Emile: Human Rights and the Sentiment of Humanity -- 10. Kenneth L. Schmitz / Lessing at God's Left Hand -- 11. John R. Silber / Kant and the Mythic Roots of Morality -- 12. Nicholas Capaldi / The Enlightenment Project in Twentieth-Century Philosophy -- Contributors -- Bibliography -- Index

How to put Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory—which synthesizes the teachings of the world’s great wisdom traditions—into practice in all aspects of everyday life, so you can reach your full human potential “A masterpiece guide of grounded, intelligent, self-transforming wisdom integrating the insights of all the great traditions of truth.” —Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit Over the last thirty-five years, Ken Wilber has developed an Integral “theory of everything” that makes sense of how all the world’s knowledge systems—East and West; ancient, modern, and postmodern—fit together and can elevate our awareness. Drawing on science, psychology, human development, spirituality, religion, and dozens of other fields, Integral Theory is a revolutionary framework for understanding ourselves and the world we live in. Now there is a way to not just think Integrally, but to embody an Integral worldview in your everyday life. Integral Life Practice is not just a new approach to self-development and higher awareness, but a way of making sense of—and making best use of—the existing treasure trove of insights, methods, and practices for cultivating a more enlightened life. It offers a uniquely adaptive approach to awakened living that’s suitable for everyone: people with busy careers and families, college students, retirees, even hardcore athletes and yogis. It’s geared for devout—and irreverent—people of any religion, or no religion! This highly flexible system will help you develop your physical health, spiritual awareness, emotional balance, mental clarity, relational joy, and energy level, within a framework that integrates all aspects of your life. Combining original exercises, vivid examples, cutting-edge theory, and illustrative graphics, Integral Life Practice is the ultimate handbook for realizing freedom and fullness in the 21st century.

Doesn't everyone need Wisdom and Enlightenment in the 21st Century? Throughout life, an independent mind is usually interested in two ever-burning questions: What is truth and what is good? Both these pursuits have been monopolized, rst by science and other by religion. Every institution eventually becomes soulless and ossified, as well as tyrannical over the freedom of mind and soul. Nothing can be taken for granted. Every one of us must keep asking, "What is truth and what is good?" We must not halt at our current stage of understanding. There is always more to learn, whether it is knowledge or ethics. The author writes his views about time, space, the cosmos, and about man-woman relationships, what he found in the history of India, Muslims, and the United States, and how we can make a better world for everyone. We human beings have an ever-burning desire for knowledge and truth. We all belong to same species and evolved from the same batch of organisms, thus there is no justification for gender and caste inequalities in the world. We have evolved so we can look after the interests of the whole living world, nature, and environment. We must work to end the exploitation of animals, the plunder of natural resources, and eliminate pollution. This book further elaborates the views expressed in the author's earlier book Sharda Herstory of Cruelty, which was written to show the suffering, hatred, and folly of human beings.

The premise of Darkened Enlightenment is to highlight the fact that there currently exist a number of socio-political forces that have the design, or ultimate consequence, of trying to extinguish the light of reason and rationality. The book presents a critique of modernity and provides a socio-political and cultural analysis of world society in the early twenty-first century. Specifically, this analysis examines the deterioration of democracy, human rights, and rational thought. Key features include a combination of academic analysis that draws on numerous and specific examples of the growing darkness that surrounds us along with a balanced practical, everyday-life approach to the study of the socio-political world we live in through the use of popular culture references and featured boxes. The general audience will also be intrigued by these same topics that concern academics including: a discussion on the meaning of "fake news"; attacks on the media and a declaration of the news media as the "enemy of the people"; the rise of populism and nationalism around the world; the deterioration of freedom and human rights globally; the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor; attempts to devalue education; a growing disbelief in science; attacks on the environment; pseudoscience as a by-product of unreasoned and irrational thinking; the political swamp; the power elites and the deep state; and the variations of Big Business that impact our daily lives. This book will make a great contribution to such fields as sociology, philosophy, political science, environmental science, public administration, economics, psychology, and cultural studies.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian explores history’s most daring and transformational intellectual movement, the European and American Enlightenment. In this engaging, provocative history, James MacGregor Burns illuminates the two-hundred-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, when audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World. They transformed thought, overturned governments, and inspired visionary political experiments. Fire and Light brings to life the revolutionary leaders who, armed with a new sense of human possibility, created the modern world. Burns traces the origins of a distinctive American Enlightenment to men like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and their early encounters with incendiary European ideas about liberty and equality. It was these thinker-activists who framed the United States as a grand and continuing experiment in Enlightenment principles. Today the same principles have taken on new urgency around the world: in the turmoil of the Arab world, in the former Soviet Union, and in China, as well as in the United States itself. What should a nation be? What should citizens expect from their government? Who should lead, and how can leadership be made both effective and accountable? What is happiness, and what can the state contribute to it? Burns’s exploration of the ideals and arguments that formed the bedrock of our modern world shines a new light on these ever-important questions. Praise for Fire and Light “With this profound and magnificent book, Burns takes us into the fire’s center. . . . Essential for deciphering the challenges of the world we will live in tomorrow.” —Michael Beschloss, New York Times–bestselling author of Presidential Courage “James MacGregor Burns is a national treasure, and Fire and Light is the elegiac capstone to a career devoted to understanding the seminal ideas that made America—for better and for worse—what it is.” —Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author of Revolutionary Summer “[A] captivating tale. . . . Briskly and beautifully told. . . . Superb.” —Publishers Weekly

In Evolutionary Enlightenment, Andrew Cohen redefines spiritual awakening for our contemporary world—a world characterized by exponential change and an ever-expanding appreciation for the processes of evolution. Cohen’s message is simple, yet profound: Life is evolution, and enlightenment is about waking up to this fundamentally creative impulse as your own deepest, most authentic self. Through five tenets for living an enlightened life, Cohen will empower you to wholeheartedly participate in the process of change as your own spiritual practice. Evolutionary Enlightenment not only makes deep sense of life today; it will show you how to play an active role in shaping the world of tomorrow.