"How does thinking illuminate the spiritual view of life? How does a close examination of key spiritual thinkers help us to live in the modern world? And in what way does philosophy enhance spirituality? In this book, Richard White answers these questions by analysing a range of important philosophers, from Schopenhauer in the first half of the 19th century to Irigaray in the present day. Each chapter examines the work of a single writer and one closely associated theme, such as Nietzsche on generosity, Benjamin on wisdom, and Derrida on mourning. The author looks at philosophy and spirituality in the tradition of continental philosophy, and he views spirituality as something that can be separated from religion. With the rise of reductive scientific materialism becoming ever more prevalent in modern society, White seeks to recover the idea of a spiritual tradition which is not otherworldly but philosophical in nature. The thinkers discussed in this book articulate some of the deepest possibilities of human existence. Spiritual Philosophers offers an approach to philosophy as a spiritual practice, which the author sees as an integral part of our life. As a pioneering work in an emerging field - the philosophy of spirituality -- this book contributes to several key debates surrounding spirituality, theology and the role of philosophy in the contemporary world."--

How does thinking illuminate the spiritual view of life? How does a close examination of key spiritual thinkers help us to live in the modern world? And in what way does philosophy enhance spirituality? In this book, Richard White answers these questions by analysing a range of important philosophers, from Schopenhauer in the first half of the 19th century to Irigaray in the present day. Each chapter examines the work of a single writer and one closely associated theme, such as Nietzsche on generosity, Benjamin on wisdom, and Derrida on mourning. The author looks at philosophy and spirituality in the tradition of continental philosophy, and he views spirituality as something that can be separated from religion. With the rise of reductive scientific materialism becoming ever more prevalent in modern society, White seeks to recover the idea of a spiritual tradition which is not otherworldly but philosophical in nature. The thinkers discussed in this book articulate some of the deepest possibilities of human existence. Spiritual Philosophers offers an approach to philosophy as a spiritual practice, which the author sees as an integral part of our life. As a pioneering work in an emerging field – the philosophy of spirituality -- this book contributes to several key debates surrounding spirituality, theology and the role of philosophy in the contemporary world.

What is God? What does it mean to believe in God? What happens to God after the death of God? This book examines “the death of God” from a philosophical standpoint. It focuses on monotheism, polytheism, and nature, and it discusses the renewed importance of spirituality—and the “spiritual but not religious”—in response to the death of God. In recent years, religious belief has been in decline, but secularism cannot satisfy our spiritual needs. We are now living in a “post-secular” age in which the relationship between philosophy, spirituality, and religion must be re-examined. As an exploratory essay, this book engages the reader at a profound level, and considers a variety of modern thinkers, including Nietzsche, Hegel, Freud, Levinas, Assmann, and Buber. It offers a sustained meditation on the origin of God, the death of God, and the future of “God” as a guiding ideal.

The study intervenes in a field hitherto dominated by formal and historical analyses of the literary letter. Across the five case studies, the method of reading epistolarity as a motif is applied to a selection of American novels published after 1990: Nick Bantock’s Griffin & Sabine series (1991-2016), Gordon Lish’s Epigraph (1996), Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea (2001), Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead (2004), and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017). The texts encompass considerable formal and thematic variations: Bantock seeks a return to the literary letter; Lish and Dunn test the limitations of letters for conveying individual experience to a distant other; Robinson and Erdrich envision epistolarity as an address to a future. Exploring the employment of epistolarity as a motif, the study offers an interpretation of the messages these fictions extend for readers in a post-letter world. Communication technologies and practices may change, but epistolarity as a motif - a reprise of a scene of encounter that depends on keeping a distance between addresser and addressee – remains a deeply compelling site of inquiry in twenty-first-century literature.

With this book we see a philosopher well steeped in the Western tradition thinking through ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe, and urging us all at the dawn of a new century to rediscover indigenous Asian cultures. Yogic tradition, according to Irigaray, can provide an invaluable means for restoring the vital link between the present and eternity—and for re-envisioning the patriarchal traditions of the West. Western, logocentric rationality tends to abstract the teachings of yoga from its everyday practice—most importantly, from the cultivation of breath. Lacking actual, personal experience with yoga or other Eastern spiritual practices, the Western philosophers who have tried to address Hindu and Buddhist teachings—particularly Schopenhauer—have frequently gone astray. Not so, Luce Irigaray. Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world. She looks toward the indigenous, pre-Aryan cultures of India—which, she argues, have maintained an essentially creative ethic of sexual difference predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine. Irigaray's focus on breath in this book is a natural outgrowth of the attention that she has given in previous books to the elements—air, water, and fire. By returning to fundamental human experiences—breathing and the fact of sexual difference—she finds a way out of the endless sociologizing abstractions of much contemporary thought to rethink questions of race, ethnicity, and globalization.

Bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, Intermedialities: Philosophy, Arts, Politics is a comprehensive collection devoted to the new field of research called 'intermedialities.' The concept of intermedialities stresses the necessity of situating philosophical and political debates on social relations in the divergent contexts of media theories, avant-garde artistic practices, continental philosophy, feminism, and political theory. The 'intermedial' approach to social relations does not focus on the shared identity but instead on the epistemological, ethical, and political status of inter (being-in-between). At stake here are the political analyses of new modes of being in common that transcend national boundaries, the critique of the new forms of domination that accompany them, and the search for new emancipatory possibilities. Opening a new approach to social relations, intermedialities investigates not only engagements between already constituted positions but even more the interval, antagonism, and differences that form and decenter these positions. Consequently, in opposition to the resurgence of cultural and ethnic particularisms and to the leveling of difference produced by globalization, the political and ethical analysis of the 'in-between' enables a conception of community based on difference, exposure, and interaction with others rather than on an identification with a shared identity. Investigations of 'in-betweenness,' both as medium specific and between heterogeneous 'sites' of inquiry, range here from philosophical conceptuality to artistic practices, from the political circulation of money and power to the operation of new technologies. They inevitably invoke the crucial role of embodiment in creative thought and collective acting. As a mediating instance between the psyche and society, matter and spirit, nature and culture, and biology and technology, the body is another interval forming and informed by socio-linguistic relations. As these complex intersections between media, materiality, art, and the philosophy and politics of the in-between suggest, the project of intermedialities provides new ways of rethinking relations among arts, politics, and science.

Religious themes have permeated Luce Irigary's thought from the beginning, but this book is the only major study of this dimension of her work -- both her rejection of traditional western religions, and her recent explorations of eastern religions.

Studying with Husserl in Göttingen, becoming a Carmelite nun, and finally meeting her death in Auschwitz, the multifaceted life of Edith Stein (1891-1942) is well known. But what about her writing? Have the different aspects of her scholarship received sufficient attention? Peter Tyler thinks not, and by drawing on previously untranslated and neglected sources, he reveals how Stein's work lies at the interface of philosophy, psychology, and theology. Bringing Stein into conversation with a range of scholars and traditions, this book investigates two core elements of her thinking. From Nietzsche to Aquinas, psychoanalysis to the philosophy of the soul, and even the striking parallels between Stein's thought and Buddhist teaching, Tyler first unveils the interdisciplinary nature of what he terms her 'spiritual anthropology'. Second, he also explores her symbolic mentality. Articulating its poetic roots with the help of English poetry and medieval theology, he introduces Stein's self-named 'philosophy of life'. Considered in the context of her own times, The Living Philosophy of Edith Stein unearths Stein's valuable contributions to numerous subjects that are still of great importance today, including not only the philosophies of mind and religion, but also social and political thought and the role of women in society. By examining the richness of her thinking, informed by three disciplines and the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century, Tyler shows us how Edith Stein is the guide we all need, as we seek to develop our own philosophy for life in the contemporary world.

The Heart of Wisdom explores the intersection of philosophy and spirituality. Though spirituality is a concept often viewed with skepticism by philosophers and others, spiritual concerns are prominent in many people’s lives, whether or not they ascribe to a religious creed. This book examines spiritual concepts like generosity, suffering, and joy, incorporating the various perspectives of great philosophers, including Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Derrida, as well as Eastern wisdom traditions, including Buddhism and Vedanta philosophy.

The Mysticism of Ordinary Life: Theology, Philosophy, and Feminism presents a new vision of Christian mystical theology. It offers critical interpretations of Catholic theologians, postmodern philosophers, and intersectional feminists who draw on mystical traditions to affirm ordinary life. It raises questions about normativity, gender, and race, while arguing that the everyday experience of the grace of divine union can be an empowering source of social transformation. It develops Christian teachings about the Word made flesh, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the Christian spiritual life, while exploring the mystical significance of philosophical discourses about immanence, alterity, in-betweenness, nothingness, and embodiment. The discussion of Latino/a and Black sources in North America expands the Western mystical canon and opens new horizons for interdisciplinary dialogue. The volume challenges contemporary culture to recognize and draw inspiration from quotidian manifestations of the unknown God of incarnate love. It includes detailed studies of Grace Jantzen, Amy Hollywood, Catherine Keller, Karl Rahner, Adrienne von Speyr, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Michel Henry, Michel de Certeau, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Gloría Anzaldúa, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Alice Walker, M. Shawn Copeland, and more.