Excerpt from Religion a Dialogue, and Other Essays As a third edition of this little volume is called for, I have taken the opportunity of adding two more Essays: the brief dialogue on The Failure of Philosophy, and some Observa tions on The Metaphysics of Fine Art. The latter Essay Is a rendering of such portions of a chapter in the original, entitled Zur Metaphysik des Schema, as appear to be gene rally interesting and easily intelligible. The chief statement of Schopenhauer's view of Art is to be found in his large work; but as he gives a short essay in his Parerga, I have thought it well to include it in this selection. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Today we hear renewed calls for a dialogue between science and religion: why has the old question of the relations between science and religion now returned to the public domain and what is at stake in this debate? To answer these questions, historian and sociologist of science Yves Gingras retraces the long history of the troubled relationship between science and religion, from the condemnation of Galileo for heresy in 1633 until his rehabilitation by John Paul II in 1992. He reconstructs the process of the gradual separation of science from theology and religion, showing how God and natural theology became marginalized in the scientific field in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast to the dominant trend among historians of science, Gingras argues that science and religion are social institutions that give rise to incompatible ways of knowing, rooted in different methodologies and forms of knowledge, and that there never was, and cannot be, a genuine dialogue between them. Wide-ranging and authoritative, this new book on one of the fundamental questions of Western thought will be of great interest to students and scholars of the history of science and of religion as well as to general readers who are intrigued by the new and much-publicized conversations about the alleged links between science and religion.

Stoic philosopher and tutor to the young emperor Nero, Seneca wrote moral essays - exercises in practical philosophy - on how to live in a troubled world. Strikingly applicable today, his thoughts on happiness and other subjects are here combined in a clear, modern translation with an introduction on Seneca's life and philosophy.

What if Theists and Atheists are both objectively wrong? What if the Agnostics have completely missed the point? THE ARGUMENT FROM GRAMMAR explores the omnipotent and omniscient ""God"" that is justified by reason in philosophy and religion. Brown demonstrates that we can justify this denotation in grammatical terms by recognizing in ""Subjects predicate"" a universally-valid Form of knowledge (""all knowledge"") and action (""all power""). Brown then proceeds to lay out an epistemological foundation for the human sciences, drawing upon a philosophical tradition rooted in the thought of Protagoras, Kant, Schopenhauer, and F.A. Hayek. Brown turns his critique of theism back upon the atheists in order to show how grammatical theory can also answer arguments against the God Thesis. If THE ARGUMENT FROM GRAMMAR can answer the objections of the Atheists while satisfying the Theists, then the future of the debate over the existence of a rationally-justified God shall be a debate over grammar and nothing more.

"These essays are a valuable criticism of life by a man who had a wide experience of life, a man of the world, who possessed an almost inspired faculty of observation. Schopenhauer, of all men, unmistakably observed life at first hand. There is no academic echo in his utterances; he is not one of a school; his voice has no formal intonation; it is deep, full-chested, and rings out its words with all the poignancy of individual emphasis, without bluster, but with unfailing conviction. He was for his time, and for his country, an adept at literary form; but he used it only as a means. "

Biblical stories are metaphorical. They may have been accepted as factual hundreds of years ago, but today they cannot be taken literally. Some students in religious schools even recoil from the “fairy tales” of religion, believing them to be mockeries of their intelligence. David Tacey argues that biblical language should not be read as history, and it was never intended as literal description. At best it is metaphorical, but he does not deny these stories have spiritual meaning. Religion as Metaphor argues that despite what tradition tells us, if we “believe” religious language, we miss religion’s spiritual meaning. Tacey argues that religious language was not designed to be historical reporting, but rather to resonate in the soul and direct us toward transcendent realities. Its impact was intended to be closer to poetry than theology. The book uses specific examples to make its case: Jesus, the Virgin Birth, the Kingdom of God, the Apocalypse, Satan, and the Resurrection. Tacey shows that, with the aid of contemporary thought and depth psychology, we can re-read religious stories as metaphors of the spirit and the interior life. Moving beyond literal thinking will save religion from itself.