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Deconstruction in a Nutshell |
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Jacques Derrida |
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Want a short introduction to deconstruction? Read this book! |
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Burger’s Daughter |
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Nadine Gordimer |
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An intriguing philosophical novel about South African events. |
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Cure or Heal? |
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Avicenna |
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A sensitive and thoughtful book on psychotherapy, which influenced R.D. Laing and many others. |
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Death of the Family |
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James Agee |
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A book examining the nature of the family as an agent of alienation, acting for the social capitalist order to generate alienation n the individual — leading to dissociations and mental illness in many individuals. |
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Despair and the Return of Hope |
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Peter Shabad's remarkable new book reminds us of the reach and the resonance of the language of psychoanalysis at its best. His subject, in a sense, is the retreat from sociability; and his descriptions of what he calls the "desperate morality of survival," of the ways in which the troubled person cures himself by segregating his experience and then can't find a cure for his self cure, are among the most powerful in contemporary psychoanalysis. This is a book not merely for psychoanalysts, but for anyone interested in the roots of contemporary morality. – Adam Phillips |
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Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit |
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Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (also known as The Phenomenology of Mind) is a philosophical work that explores the development of human consciousness and the evolution of human societies. Hegel's aim in this work is to provide a comprehensive account of human experience and knowledge, and to show how human consciousness evolves over time. At the heart of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is the idea that human consciousness progresses through a series of stages, each of which represents a new level of understanding of the world. These stages include: 1. Sense-certainty: In this stage, human consciousness is focused on the immediate sensory experience of the world. 2. Perception: In this stage, human consciousness begins to recognize the relationships between sensory experiences and objects in the world. 3. Understanding: In this stage, human consciousness develops the ability to abstract concepts and ideas from sensory experiences. 4. Self-consciousness: In this stage, human consciousness becomes aware of itself as a thinking, feeling entity. 5. Reason: In this stage, human consciousness begins to understand the world in terms of abstract concepts and universal principles. 6. Spirit: In this final stage, human consciousness recognizes the interconnectivity of all things and understands the world as a dynamic, evolving system. According to Hegel, each stage of consciousness builds upon the previous stage, leading to a progressively deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the world. However, this process is not linear or straightforward, but rather involves a series of contradictions and conflicts that must be overcome in order to achieve a higher level of understanding. Overall, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is a complex and multifaceted work that explores the nature of human consciousness and its development over time. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. |
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Interpretation of Dreams |
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The first ground-breaking book by Freud, introducing the fundamental ideas of psychoanalysis. This is the early version of Freud's theories, when he was still searching for answers, weighing this idea against that, searching for answers. You can read this book a bit like a detective story, working along with Freud to try to understand individual dreams, as well as the function of dreaming itself, as part of the conscious-unconscious makeup of the mind. |
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Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis |
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Freud's complete works consist of 24 volumes (The Standard Edition). Where to start to understand Freud, when you don't have tome to read all of those 24 volumes? This book is a great place to start. Freud lays out his ideas and methodology in a concise way, making them readily understandable to any student wanting to understand psychoanalysis. |
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Is It Righteous To Be? |
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A book of interviews with the philosopher Emanuel Levinas. This is a great introduction to the thought of one of the greatest philosophers of the last century. Levinas’ critical philosophical text, Totality and Infinity, and Otherwise Than Being are important to read to understand his thought, but not at all easy for the beginner to work through. However, in Is It Righteous To Be? you can get a good idea what concerns Levinas, and hear the repeated themes that run through his work. Also, it is wonderful to learn more about Levinas' life, growing up in Lithuania, then living in France; being imprisoned by the Nazis, and so on. Levinas was one of the fortunate students to attend the early Heidegger lectures in Germany just after the publication of Being and Time, the classic Heidegger text. Levinas helped popularize Heidegger's work in France, but he was deeply disillusioned by Heidegger's dalliance with the Nazis in 1932. Puzzled how such a brilliant person could be seduced by Nazi ideology, Levinas began a project of rethinking western philosophy, eventually arriving at the formulations presented in Totality and Infinity, a critique of Heidegger's phenomenology, and of western philosophy in general. In Totality and Infinity, Levinas presents his philosophy which came to be called "Ethics as First Philosophy". Levinas puts Ethics (one’s responsibility for the Other) first, before reason begins, thus subverting the way morality and truth have been thought traditionally in western philosophy. You can join us at the Philosophy Café for discussions of this book during February and March, 2005 at the Amazon Café, in Brooklyn, New York. (Email murray@LivingPhilosophy.org for details) |
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Just Listening |
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Steven Gans and Leon Redler |
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The format of this book is very simple. It is an edited record of conversations I enjoyed with Steve Gans and Leon Redler, two psychotherapists most well-know for their work with R.D. Laing in the sixties, seventies and eighties, and their continuing allegiance to many of the ideas and practices he developed. But they are not mere Laingians. |
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Laws of Form |
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Review pending |
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Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence |
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Levinas wrote Totality and Infinity — a book where he introduces the idea of the face-to-face, and the concept of Ethics as first philosophy. Derrida responded to this work, in an essay titled Violence and Metaphysics. Based on this critiuque and other influences, Levinas wanted to revise his thinking. This profound book reveals the results of that revision of his thinking. |
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Playing and Reality |
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Review pending |
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Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis |
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Review pending. |
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Reason and Violence |
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Review pending. |
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Self and Others |
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R.D. Laing |
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Review pending. |
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Specters of Marx |
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Jacques Derrida |
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Review pending. |
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Synchronicity |
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C.G. Jung |
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Review pending. |
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The Book of the It |
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George Groddeck |
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This book appeared before Freud developed his theories of psychoanalysis. It is said that Freud got the idea of the "id" from Groddeck's book. "The Book of the It" could have been called "The Book of the Id". Groddeck is a fascinating writer,, He writes of medical cases he's encountered, where the problems stem from unanswered and uncoscious forces, emanating from "das es" (the It). |
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The Divided Self |
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R.D. Laing |
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Review pending. |
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The Invisibles: Voodoo Gods in Haiti |
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Francis Huxley |
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Review pending. |
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The Nature of the Self |
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Francis Mott |
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This book was very popular around The Philadelphia Association in London n the 1970s. If we take the idea from psychoanalysis that our history in some way determines or influences our present being, than Francis Mott takes the idea to its logical extreme — life in the womb. it’s a fascinating read. Much of what Mott speculates on can be taken as exactly that — speculative. But if you let your imagination run free, then much of what Mott conjures up has plausibility.. Perhaps it's especially useful in drawing parallels with visions of people in psychotic states. It's a fascinating read. R.D. Laing was inspired by this book and other works in the intra-uterine world in which we began our life’s journey. The influence is seen in Laing’s book, “The Facts Of Life”. |
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The Myth of Mental Illness |
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Thomas Szasz |
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Review pending. |
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The Raven and the Writing Desk |
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Francis Huxley |
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A witty and perceptive investigation of Alice, and her adventures underground, and all the people and creatures she met there. Francis Huxley starts from a riddle — the one the Mad Hatter poses at the Tea Party: Why is a raven like a writing desk? Alice's spirits are momentarily lifted when the Mad Hatter offers to present a riddle, but disappointed when the riddle is not answered, and the Hatter and the others at the The Tea Party return to their hijinx, ignoring Alice's pleas for an answer. Many commentators on Alice have tried to answer the riddle, but somehow no answer seems to fit satisfactorily. Huxley helps us, in this book by proposing rules of nonsense, by means of which we can understnd the goings on in Alice's adventures. or., can we? Are we always constrained by the double-bind of Rule 42 (see the courtroom scene).? |
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The Republic of Plato – Allan Bloom |
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Plato (Tr: Alan Bloom) |
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There are innumerable translations of Plato's Republic into English (the Jowett and the Cornford being the best known). But Professor Allan Bloom's version will be the only available translation which attempts to be strictly literal. Recent translators of the Republic have assumed – implicitly or explicitly – that they had a perfectly adequate idea as to what Plato meant, and that the only problem was to render this meaning into the most readable English. Professor Bloom, on the other hand, as a result of his study of classical thought, is persuaded that the Platonic teachings are peculiarly difficult and that neither he nor any other translator possesses a full understanding of them. Moreover, Professor Bloom is convinced that the Platonic dialogues are written on several levels and that the text is never as simple and straightforward as it seems at a cursory glance. He has therefore provided those of us who do not read Greek with the closest translation of the original that has yet been published in English, in order that we can come to our own interpretations rather than be dependent on the translator's incomplete interpretation. In addition to the text itself there is a rich and invaluable interpretive essay – as well as indexes and a glossary of terms – which will better enable the student to approach the heart of Plato's intention. |
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The Way of the Sacred |
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Francis Huxley |
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Review pending. |
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Thus Spoke Zarathustra |
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Friedrich Nietzsche |
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Review pending. |
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Totality and Infinity |
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Emanuel Levinas |
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Review pending. |
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Umfaan’s Heroes |
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Jon Elkon |
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Review pending. |
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Wittgenstein and Psychoanalysis |
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John Heaton |
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Review pending. |
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Writing and Difference |
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Jacques Derrida |
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Review pending. |
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Credo |
Karnac Books |
Andrew Feldmar |
9781800132443 |
An outline of the life and psychotherapeutic practice of Andrew Feldmar |
