This study investigates the loss of religion's traditional power in a culture characterized by a "normal nihilism" - a situation in which one's commitment to a set of values is all one has and traditional religion is just a means of interpretation.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Serious inquiry into meaning; accessible,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Plain Sense of Things: The Fate of Religion in an Age of Normal Nihilism (Paperback)
This book was written by my professor and advisor in Philosophy. He is an amazing teacher, and much this comes across in this book. The subject of the book is a relevant one, and the perspective he offers is refreshing. His book largely deals with the question, "How do we give our lives meaning in an age where religion has lost its POWER?" He examines how this loss of power has come about in broad terms, and sees our society as one in which beliefs about the world are all devalued and convenient, available to anyone to pick and choose like clothes in a shopping mall. Dr. Edwards does not put up with philosophical talk that does not have real meaning or relevance to one's life. He speaks plainly, and he will make you think.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exquisite,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Plain Sense of Things: The Fate of Religion in an Age of Normal Nihilism (Hardcover)
A rare, relevant, perhaps even urgent, achievement. Edwards skillfully and lucidly negotiates the complexities of, elicits the subtle kinships amongst, several philosophical diagnosticians of western culture, among whom Nietzsche, Heidegger and Kierkegaard figure most prominently. Edwards' ambition and ability far exceeds the merely expository. He weaves a compelling tale, drawn from various threads of the West's philosophical heritage, of how we -- a powerfully invitational 'we' whose reach proves to be remarkably broad -- came to our present state of reflective malaise which seems to aggravate our obdurate hankering for the ineffable, under the shadow of which stands much of contemporary "unbelief," however robust. With canny persistence, Edwards pursues several important consequences of this situation, exposes their risks, and elegantly conjures, from what he has gleaned from his philosophical forebears, a vision of rigor, of the piety that inspires rigor, divested of those commitments which no longer survive the imperatives of truthfulness.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A work that makes you slap your head and yell "YES!",
By Alternator Trouble (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Plain Sense of Things: The Fate of Religion in an Age of Normal Nihilism (Paperback)
I was introduced to this text in a class taught by Richard Rorty from whom James Edwards draws much of his discourse. The book was almost revelatory in its effect on me. It eloquently (though sometimes difficultly) expressed feelings and thoughts I'd had my entire life but could never fully express. He writes to "End of Century Western Intellectuals" which refers to all those who have intuitvely searched for some sort of "meaning" or "truth" but who have likely found most ostensible sources of such meaning to be hollow and weak. You will not find truth here either but you might find the explanation as to why that might be OK.
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First Sentence:
The practice of religion has long been an incitement to philosophy, and most of that philosophy, whether apologetic or skeptical, has concerned itself with the truth of religious claims: claims about divine existence; claims about divine nature; claims about divine intention and demand. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
The practice of religion has long been an incitement to philosophy, and most of that philosophy, whether apologetic or skeptical, has concerned itself with the truth of religious claims: claims about divine existence; claims about divine nature; claims about divine intention and demand. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
11
books
cite this book:
See all 11 books citing this book
- A Companion to Heidegger (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy) by Hubert L. Dreyfus in Front Matter, and page 467
- Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified by Stanley Hauerwas on page 196, and page 197
- Prozac as a Way of Life (Studies in Social Medicine) by Carl Elliott on page 71
- Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream by Carl Elliott in Back Matter
- Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South by Ralph C. Wood on page 21
See all 11 books citing this book
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