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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > Philosophy of religion
Nihilism seems to be per definition linked to violence. Indeed, if
the nihilist is a person who acknowledges no moral or religious
authority, then what does stop him from committing any kind of
crime? Dostoevsky precisely called attention to this danger: if
there is no God and no immortality of the soul, then everything is
permitted, even anthropophagy. Nietzsche, too, emphasised, although
in different terms, the consequences deriving from the death of God
and the collapse of Judeo-Christian morality. This context shaped
the way in which philosophers, writers and artists thought about
violence, in its different manifestations, during the 20th century.
The goal of this interdisciplinary volume is to explore the various
modern and contemporary configurations of the link between violence
and nihilism as understood by philosophers and artists (in both
literature and film).
This very important work offers penetrating dialogues between the
great spiritual leader and the renowned physicist that shed light
on the fundamental nature of existence. Krishnamurti and David Bohm
probe such questions as 'why has humanity made thought so important
in every aspect of life? How does one cleanse the mind of the
'accumulation of time' and break the 'pattern of ego -centered
activity'?The Ending of Time concludes by referring to the wrong
turn humanity has taken, but does not see this as something from
which there is no escape. There is an insistence that mankind can
change fundamentally; but this requires going from one's narrow and
particular interests toward the general, and ultimately moving
still deeper into that purity of compassion, love and intelligence
that originates beyond thought, time, or even emptiness.
A thought-provoking contribution to the renaissance of interest in
Bergson, this study brings him to a new generation of readers.
Ansell-Pearson contends that there is a Bergsonian revolution, an
upheaval in philosophy comparable in significance to those that we
are more familiar with, from Kant to Nietzsche and Heidegger, that
make up our intellectual modernity. The focus of the text is on
Bergson's conception of philosophy as the discipline that seeks to
'think beyond the human condition'. Not that we are caught up in an
existential predicament when the appeal is made to think beyond the
human condition; rather that restricting philosophy to the human
condition fails to appreciate the extent to which we are not simply
creatures of habit and automatism, but also organisms involved in a
creative evolution of becoming. Ansell-Pearson introduces the work
of Bergson and core aspects of his innovative modes of thinking;
examines his interest in Epicureanism; explores his interest in the
self and in time and memory; presents Bergson on ethics and on
religion, and illuminates Bergson on the art of life.
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