Space, Time and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow Part One (pt.1) [Paperback]

S. Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2004

1920. Volume 1 of a 2 volume set. A philosophical study of space, time and God. Contents Book I: Physical Space-Time; Perspectives and Sections of Physical Space-Time; Mental Space and Time; Mental Space-Time; Mathematical Space and Time; Relations in Space and Time; Book II: Nature of the Categories; Identity, Diversity and Existence; Universal, Particular and Individual; Relation; Order; Substance, Causality, Reciprocity; Quantity and Intensity; Whole and Parts, and Number; Motion, and the Categories in General; and The One and the Many. Volume 2 ISBN 0766187020.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

> --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing (March 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0766187012
• ISBN-13: 978-0766187016
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,270,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Revelation!, December 18, 2005

By 

An Avid Reader (Sausalito, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Space, Time and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow Part One (pt.1) (Paperback)

An awesome two volume set. One of the best treatises I have read that creates a believable synergy between science and spirituality. I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The categories of Alexander are not the laws of the knowing mind alone, July 31, 2007

By 

Didaskalex "Eusebius Alexandrinus" (Kellia on Calvary, Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Space, Time and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow Part One (pt.1) (Paperback)

"In this universe of motion and change,... Motion is the most important of these categories and in it all others - existence, universality, relation, order, substance, causality, etc. - are implied. The categories of Alexander are not the laws of the knowing mind alone, but belong to the constitution of all things objectively." S. Krishnananda

An Unexpected encounter:
I met Samuel Alexander in the least expected place, in a debate between Dr. M. Kamel Hussein* (humanist Professor of Orthopedics) and Abbas M. Elakkad*, on the pages of the leading Arabic daily AL Ahram, in 1960, about his book "The Unity of Knowledge," written in Arabic. The Egyptian humanist was accused to have adapted Alexander's main themes in his book released 1958, where he attempted to demonstrate a heirarchy of laws in nature and human existence. Alexander's scientific philosophy appealed to me and only a decade ago I was persuaded by my mentor professor Orval Wintermute, of Duke Divinity to proceed to Whitehead, as a logical step.

Metaphysical Systems :
Dr. Dorothy Emmet, Emeritus Professor of philosophy, U. of Manchester supports a good case that A. N. Whitehead and Samuel Alexander were two of the few British philosophers who produced comprehensive metaphysical systems in the early part of this century. She wrote they always spoke of each other with great respect. "Alexander indeed used to say in his last years that he considered that Whitehead had superseded him. He went so far as to say in a letter to the present writer, "I read Whitehead naturally not only to understand him but to save my own soul. I think of myself only as having done what Burke said he did for (Dr. Samuel) Johnson in conversation - 'rung the bell for him.'"

Alexander's Gifford Lectures:
Space, Time, and Deity, were first published in 1920, and re­present the culmination of Alexander's metaphysical thought, unifying in a comprehensive synthesis his epis­temology, his categorial system, his views on the tertiary qualities of truth, goodness, and beauty, and finally his novel study of the time-honored conceptions of God and "deity." The philosophical climate in British univers­ities has (then) turned to precise analytic studies of logic and mathematics.
"Next to Whitehead, Alexander is in his work and influence the strongest philosophical force
which Anglo-Saxon thinking has produced since the war. What Bergson means for French philos­ophy, that Alexander means in many respects for British philosophy. But he stands less conspicu­ously above his environment and has been much later in coming to maturity and in attaining an influential position than his more famous French contemporary, born in the same year. The influ­ence of Alexander's doctrine, moreover, has been so far confined to the Anglo-Saxon world, ..." Rudolf Metz

The creationist view:
The power of the creationist view can be better seen at the very outset of Western science in the person of John Philoponus, Aristotle's most serious critic in the early years of the sixth century Alexandria.
In response to Aristotalian error, Philoponus forged a sustained attack against Aristotle's chief proponent, Simplicius. Philoponus's application of Christian theology to physics prefigured a new era in science. The Alexandrian scholar was the first to combine scientific cosmology the Christian doctrine of creation. In doing so, Philoponus anticipated not only the findings but also the methods of modern science, what Samuel Alexander elaborated on fourteen centuries later!

*Human Conscience and Muslim-Christian Relations: Modern Egyptian Thinkers of Al-Damir (Islamic Studies Series)
God and Space-time: Deity in the philosophy of Samuel Alexander

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brief comment, October 30, 2006

By 

magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Space, Time and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow Part One (pt.1) (Paperback)

Although I don't especially ascribe to Alexander's epistemology and metaphysics, I learned a lot about the craft of doing philosophy from Alexander. His method is interesting. He moves backward and forward between deduction, induction, historical argument, and scientific and mathematical reasoning without any sense of discontinuity in order to explain and support his proposals.

In other words, he will use whatever seems appropriate and whatever works. I liked this approach, regardless of whether I would subscribe to any of his metaphysical or epistemological ideas. He is an interesting and worthwhile philosopher if only for that, and Alexander's famous signature work, Space, Time, and Deity, shows this approach at great length.

By the way, in the great John Passmore's book, One Hundred Years of Philosophy, the best book I've seen on the modern period in philosophy, Alexander is briefly discussed and is treated well. If you're not quite up to reading Alexander in the original (which can be a trying experience, to be sure), try getting a used copy of Passmore's work (which is out of print but still available used, and I've seen used copies available here on Amazon), and read the section on his philosophy there.