Showing results by author "Oswald Sobrino" in All Categories

Baruch de Spinoza (also known as Benedict or Bento de Spinoza;1632-1677) is a titan of philosophy who drew on his Sephardic Jewish background and on his education in the classics and in philosophy at the hands of an ex-Jesuit. He grew up speaking Portuguese in Amsterdam but was educated in Spanish and Hebrew. A quiet, calm man, Spinoza nevertheless angered the theological authorities of his Sephardic community of Portuguese and Spanish Jews. The result was a harsh decree of excommunication. Many consider his greatest work to be his Ethics (1677), published posthumously. In this work, he ...

This book continues my series on 5 lessons from great thinkers where I choose five brief passages from one or more works of a great thinker to engage in critical reflection, discussion, and commentary enticing readers to further explore their writings. This short book on the Austrian philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), who was associated with Cambridge University, explores five themes in his later philosophy: language games, meaning as use of a word, what is thinking, understanding a rule or series, and the nature of philosophy. Wittgenstein's writings are not easy to ...

This book is the second in my series on "5 Lessons" from famous writers. The first book in the 5 Lessons series is 5 Lessons from Augustine published in 2011 and based on the Confessions of St. Augustine. This second book 5 Lessons from Seneca is based on five of the Stoic philosopher Seneca's Moral Letters (also known as the Letters on Ethics or Moral Epistles). It discusses shrewd and practical lessons on the passage of time, on friendship, on anxiety, on courage, and on aging. For further insight on Seneca, see Seneca and Roman Slavery Under Nero's Rule (2022) also by Oswald Sobrino at ...

Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) was a French philosopher prominent in the twentieth century. He is still known as a Christian existentialist although he later rejected that label. His father was a non-practicing Catholic; his mother's family was Jewish. Since his mother died when Marcel was a very young child, his maternal aunt raised him--at some point she converted to a liberal form of Protestantism. From this eclectic background, Marcel himself eventually converted to Catholicism as a mature man and thinker. The basic outline of his philosophy had already been set before his conversion. This ...

This short book considers a short (about thirty-seven page) speech given by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) in 1945. In this speech, "Existentialism is a Humanism," Sartre defended existentialism against its critics. I consider what lessons of wisdom we can take from Sartre's speech. But I do that in a critical way--not in the sense of being hostile or negative but in the sense of examining and weighing what Sartre says to see where I agree and where I disagree. Like him or not, Sartre is a great thinker who is worth considering even if you may reject some or all...

This small book is a commentary on the first published book of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset in which he draws philosophical insights from the classic novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616). José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) was a Spanish philosopher who anticipated many of the themes of later, more famous existentialists such as Heidegger. In the Meditations on Quixote (1914), Ortega anticipates many of the philosophical ideas that he developed during the rest of his life. Reading Ortega's insights will deepen your experience of daily life as you learn to ...

This book considers one of the most important philosophers: G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831). With the aid of Hegel scholarship, we are able to gain a fair appreciation of his important role in the history of Western philosophy. This book focuses on Hegel's Introduction to The Lectures on the History of Philosophy, in which Hegel provides his view of the history of philosophy as the unfolding of Spirit's self-understanding as conscious thought or reason. Spirit is for Hegel the Absolute, being, what is ultimately real; Spirit is a version of God. Spirit is also reason. Hegel sees the self-...

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was both a naturalist as an exact and sensitive observer of plants and animals and an astute social critic who questioned the economic excesses and preoccupations of his contemporaries, especially in his classic work Walden published in 1854. Many today rightly see him as a forerunner of environmentalism. He also wrote a famous essay entitled "Civil Disobedience" that inspired major social movements in the twentieth century. Thoreau had a short and somewhat difficult life and died of tuberculosis at the age of 44. In that short time, he sought to squeeze the ...

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is most famous for his classic Critique of Pure Reason which is a complex and difficult work setting forth how the categories of our understanding yield knowledge through sense experience. Yet, later in life, he also completed his work on ethics by publishing The Metaphysics of Morals (in German: Metaphysik der Sitten), which was the culmination of his previous writings and lectures on ethics. 5 Lessons from Kant discusses five themes in this culminating ethical work: 1. Moral Philosophy as External Law and as Ethics; 2. The Categorical Imperative; 3. Domestic and ...

The Spanish existentialist philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) lectured on metaphysics at the University of Madrid in the nineteen thirties. 5 Lessons from Ortega comments on five distinctive passages in his published university lectures on metaphysics and invites the reader to further explore the philosophical writings of Ortega y Gasset. All passages are directly translated from the original Spanish. Ortega provides an original perspective on metaphysics (the philosophical study of ultimate reality or being) that is clear, incisive, and understandable unlike the works of some ...

American philosopher John Rawls wrote what is probably the most significant work of political and moral philosophy of the 20th century. In 1971, Rawls published his classic work A Theory of Justice, which elaborates his conception of "justice as fairness" in the basic social structure of society. Although the book is a work on theory and rigorously sets forth a system that can pass muster with other academics in the field, the theory is immensely practical because it shows how a stable, liberal constitutional democracy can be derived from reasonable assumptions that rational persons from ...

This award-winning essay written in 1982-83, and now published as a book, affirms the relevance of John Dewey's social philosophy. John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American pragmatist philosopher who was a fixture as a public intellectual in the first half of the twentieth century and was most famous for his writings on education. Yet Dewey had a wider repertoire which included writings on epistemology (the theory of knowledge), on other philosophical topics, and on various social and political topics. This essay was the first-place winner in the 1983 John Dewey Undergraduate Essay Project ...

Thomas S. Kuhn (1922 to 1996), who finished his academic career at MIT, wrote one of the great works of the twentieth century entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions published in 1962. This major work made the word "paradigm" and the phrase "paradigm shift" part of our common language. He sought to explain as both an historian of science and as a philosopher of science how scientific communities advance their research agendas under a shared paradigm or exemplar until the discovery of anomalies lead to a crisis which is eventually resolved when a new paradigm arises. Newton and ...

This short book publishes a 1998 essay on the famous Austrian-American economist Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883 to 1950) who is renowned for his concept of "Creative Destruction" in capitalism. The essay focuses on using Schumpeter's method of socio-economic analysis to obtain insights on trends for capitalism and democracy in the 21st century. The fact that the essay is from 1998 provides an interesting way of testing the value of Schumpeter's insights to see how these insights have fared since 1998. Schumpeter is very popular among writers on business and economics because his concept of ...

This book provides readers new to Augustine with an introduction to five thought-provoking passages in the Confessions. Readers already familiar with Augustine will delight in revisiting these same passages and considering them more deeply. The author, Oswald Sobrino, holds an M.A. in Theology from a Catholic seminary, among other degrees (including a J.D.), and has studied Latin, ancient Greek, classical Hebrew, biblical Aramaic, Syriac, and French at the University of Michigan. The following "study" or "reflection" questions reflect some of the main themes of the book: 1. The Gospel calls...

This book is third in a series by Oswald Sobrino on the philosophy of José Ortega y Gasset. This latest book comments on Ortega's analysis of technology's relation to the human inventor and to the well-being of humans. Ortega's prescient analysis is valuable as we live through the artificial intelligence revolution and advances in computing power and as we face questions about the ultimate goals and ethics of new technology.

This short book (really a monograph) is the fourth in a series on the Spanish existentialist/vitalist philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), whose most famous work is The Revolt of the Masses (1930), which describes the mass man whom Ortega saw as a danger to civilization. This book seeks to critically update The Revolt of the Masses in the light of current realities such as Brexit and social media technology, while presenting the key ideas of Ortega on human life, the State, and mass mentality that are especially relevant and helpful today.

William James (1842-1910) held an M.D. degree from Harvard University but made his name as a pioneer in the new field of psychology and by having a foundational role, along with his friend C.S. Peirce and Professor John Dewey, in the American school of philosophy known as Pragmatism. James' father was an amateur theologian and writer on religious topics who strongly influenced James, while his brother was the famous novelist Henry James. Long associated with Harvard University, William James remains one--if not the foremost--of the intellect giants of that university; his home is still ...

This book is the third volume in 5 Lessons from Cervantes and presents insights from Chapters I through XLI of Part 2 of Cervantes's celebrated novel Don Quixote de La Mancha. (Previous volumes treats Part One of the novel. Volume I treats Chapters I through XIV of Part One; Volume II treats Chapters XV through LII of Part One). A future Volume IV will finish the entire novel. This series has been a personal quest for me just as the adventures of Don Quixote are his personal quest. Many view Cervantes as an unparalleled genius who authored the first modern novel in the West. Over many years...

This small but provoking book provides five passages from the writings of Paul of Tarsus, better known as St. Paul. These passages raise several issues relevant for us today: The priority of charity or love: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; Going beyond social status: Galatians 3:28; Avoiding strife: Galatians 5:19-26; A surprising inclusivity: Romans 11:25-27; The victory of humility: Philippians 2:5-11. Each passage is presented in the eloquent King James or Authorized Version of the New Testament and is followed by brief commentary focused on the contemporary significance of the passage. This book ...