The search for a moral standard of right and wrong which is external to any particular evaluator, thus escaping subjectivity, has a long history. Jeremy Bentham, attempting to find such a standard, opted for utilitarianism, which at least provided an inter-subjective standard of right and wrong - everything else collapses into the purely subjective principle of sympathy and antipathy. The author of this book shares Bentham's views about sympathy and antipathy and shows that the principle is alive and well in legal philosophy today

This volume offers a historical overview of some of the most significant attempts to come to grips with sympathy in Western thought from Plato to experimental economics. The contributors are leading scholars in philosophy, classics, history, economics, comparative literature, and political science.

Formerly entitled The Study of Man this lecture course, newly translated for this series, contains some of the most remarkable and significant lectures ever given by Rudolf Steiner.

A seer "sees' more than meets the eye, using the eyes of the soul along with the physical eyes. As all seeing is a form of cognition, higher seeing is the key to higher cognition or knowing. For human beings the spiritual world is hidden deep within the disguise of the world available to the senses and deep within the human psyche, and human consciousness, enmeshed as it usually is in the physical senses, cannot easily be aware of both worlds. The human soul is the link between the physical sense-imbued body and direct experience of the spirit, because it has the latent ability to focus consciousness into any number of levels. The ability to determine the focus of awareness is our great gift and our great challenge. In this practical and accessible guidebook, Dennis Klocek, building on the alchemical tradition and the Western path of initiation developed by Rudolf Steiner, shows how the soul's latent ability can be awakened by conscious acts of will and rhythmical practices. The practices begin wherever we are in our everyday lives and take the seeker through the levels of concentration--the ability to create and hold an inner image; contemplation--the ability to transform the image and make it dynamic; and meditation--the ability to reverse the image, or think it backward into inner silence. After presenting the practical exercises, along with commentary, that identify and lay out the steps, Klocek shows us how the path can be followed through to an understanding of a seemingly impenetrable alchemical image of the soul's journey as he guides us up the Alchemical Mountain to heartfelt thinking. Through such a journey, it becomes possible for human beings to live as spiritual beings among other spiritual beings. For those who are serious about developing faculties of higher knowing and seeing, The Seer's Handbook is a unique, practical, and friendly handbook of exercises, meditations, and insightful commentary that will guide both beginners and more advanced students along the path to higher worlds.

Published in 1904 (CW 10) "Not everyone can immediately achieve spiritual vision; but the discoveries of those who have it can be health-giving life nourishment for all. The results of supersensible knowledge, when properly employed in life, prove to be not impractical, but rather, practical in the highest sense.... The acquisition of higher knowledge is not the end, but the means to an end; the end consists in the attainment, thanks to this knowledge, of greater and truer self-confidence, a higher degree of courage, and a magnanimity and perseverance such as cannot, as a rule, be acquired in the lower world." This is the classic account of the modern Western esoteric path of initiation made public by Steiner in 1904. He begins with the premise that "the capacities by which we can gain insights into the higher worlds lie dormant within each one of us." Steiner carefully and precisely leads the reader from the cultivation of the fundamental soul attitudes of reverence and inner tranquility to the development of inner life through the stages of preparation, illumination, and initiation. Steiner provides practical exercises of inner and outer observation and moral development. By patiently and persistently following his guidelines, new "organs" of soul and spirit begin to form, which reveal the contours of the higher worlds thus far concealed from us. Steiner in this important work becomes a teacher, a counselor, and a friend whose advice is practical, clear, and effective. The challenges we face in life require increasingly deeper levels of understanding, and Steiner's text helps readers to cultivate the capacities for such insights and places them at the service of humanity. This is Steiner's most essential guide to the modern path of initiation he advocated throughout his life. It has been translated into many languages and has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers around the world. How to Know Higher Worlds has been admired by some of the most brilliant minds of our time. "The methods by which a student is prepared for the reception of higher knowledge are minutely prescribed. The direction he is to take is traced with unfading, everlasting letters in the worlds of the spirit where the initiates guard the higher secrets. In ancient times, anterior to our history, the temples of the spirit were also outwardly visible; today, because our life has become so unspiritual, they are not to be found in the world visible to external sight; yet they are present spiritually everywhere, and all who seek may find them." Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment is a translation from German of the written work Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten? (GA 10).