Evil

Evil
Author: Luke Russell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198712480

When asked to describe wartime atrocities, acts of terrorism, and serial killers, many of us reach for the word "evil." But what does it mean to say that an action or a person is evil? Some philosophers have claimed that there is no such thing as evil, and that thinking in terms of evil is simplistic and dangerous. In response to this sceptical challenge, Luke Russell shows that concept of evil has a legitimate place within contemporary secular moral thought. In this book he addresses questions concerning the nature of evil action, such as whether evil actions must be incomprehensible, whether evil actions can be banal, and whether there is a psychological hallmark that distinguishes evils from other wrongs. Russell also explores issues regarding the nature of evil persons, including whether every evil person is an evildoer, whether every evil person is irredeemable, and whether a person could be evil merely in virtue of having evil feelings. The concept of evil is extreme, and is easily misused. Nonetheless, Russell suggests that it has an important role to play when it comes to evaluating and explaining the worst kind of wrongdoing.

Shadow Sophia

Shadow Sophia
Author: Celia E. Deane-Drummond
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2021-02-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 019258152X

Why do humans who seem to be exemplars of virtue also have the capacity to act in atrocious ways? What are the roots of tendencies for sin and evil? A popular assumption is that it is our animalistic natures that are responsible for human immorality and sin, while our moral nature curtails and contains such tendencies through human powers of freedom and higher reason. This book challenges such assumptions as being far too simplistic. Through a careful engagement with evolutionary and psychological literature, Celia Deane-Drummond argues that tendencies towards vice are, more often than not, distortions of the very virtues that are capable of making us good. After beginning with Augustine's classic theory of original sin, the book probes the philosophical implications of sin's origins in dialogue with the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Different vices are treated in both individual and collective settings in keeping with a multispecies approach. Areas covered include selfishness, pride, violence, anger, injustice, greed, envy, gluttony, deception, lying, lust, despair, anxiety, and sloth. The work of Thomas Aquinas helps to illuminate and clarify much of this discussion on vice, including those vices which are more distinctive for human persons in community with other beings. Such an approach amounts to a search for the shadow side of human nature, shadow sophia. Facing that shadow is part of a fuller understanding of what makes us human and thus this book is a contribution to both theological anthropology and theological ethics.

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost
Author: John Milton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 682
Release: 1750
Genre:
ISBN:

Kakos

Kakos
Author: Ineke Sluiter
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2008
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004166246

The fourth in a series that explores cultural and ethical values in Classical Antiquity, this volume examines the negative foils, the anti-values, against which positive value notions are conceptualized and calibrated in Classical Antiquity. Eighteen chapters address this theme from different perspectives a "historical, literary, legal and philosophical. What makes someone into a prototypically a ~bada (TM) citizen? Or an abomination of a scholar? What is the relationship between ugliness and value? How do icons of sexual perversion, monstruous emperors and detestable habits function in philosophical and rhetorical prose? The book illuminates the many rhetorical manifestations of the concept of a ~badnessa (TM) in classical antiquity in a variety of domains.

Destruction and Creation

Destruction and Creation
Author: Mary Ann Mattoon
Publisher: Daimon
Total Pages: 640
Release: 1999
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 3856305831

The 14th Congress for Analytical Psychology was held 23-28 August 1998 in the ancient city of Florence, Italy. The theme, 'Destruction and Creation: Personal and Cultural Transformations', is especially appropriate to the Italian setting, with that nation's history of destruction, both from nature and from human activity, and its tradition -- especially in Florence -- of creative individuals and institutions. The theme is fitting, also, to the context of Jungian psychology, with its emphasis on these and other pairs of opposites, with their integral role in psychic wholeness. Acknowledging, also, that destruction is indispensable to creation, some Jungians prefer the term 'creative unconscious' to the traditional 'collective unconscious'.

Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook

Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook
Author: Jane Garry
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351576151

This is an authoritative presentation and discussion of the most basic thematic elements universally found in folklore and literature. The reference provides a detailed analysis of the most common archetypes or motifs found in the folklore of selected communities around the world. Each entry is written by a noted authority in the field, and includes accompanying reference citations. Entries are keyed to the Motif-Index of Folk Literature by Stith Thompson and grouped according to that Index's scheme. The reference also includes an introductory essay on the concepts of archetypes and motifs and the scholarship associated with them. This is the only book in English on motifs and themes that is completely folklore oriented, deals with motif numbers, and is tied to the Thompson Motif-Index. It includes in-depth examination of such motifs as: Bewitching; Chance and Fate; Choice of Roads; Death or Departure of the Gods; the Double; Ghosts and Other Revenants; the Hero Cycle; Journey to the Otherworld; Magic Invulnerability; Soothsayer; Transformation; Tricksters.

The Works

The Works
Author: Jeremy Bentham
Publisher:
Total Pages: 634
Release: 1843
Genre:
ISBN:

On Augustine

On Augustine
Author: Rowan Williams
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2016-04-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1472925289

Since his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury and his return to academic life (Master of Magdalene College Cambridge) Rowan Williams has demonstrated a massive new surge of intellectual energy. In this new book he turns his attention to St Augustine. St Augustine not only shaped the development of Western theology, he also made a major contribution to political theory (City of God) and through his Confessions to the understanding of human psychology. Rowan Williams has an entirely fresh perspective on these matters and the chapter titles in this new book demonstrate this at a glance - 'Language Reality and Desire', 'Politics and the Soul', 'Paradoxes of Self Knowledge', 'Insubstantial Evil'. As with his previous titles, Dostoevsky, The Edge of Words and Faith in the Public Square this new study is sure to be a major contribution on a compelling subject.

Counseling and Psychotherapy

Counseling and Psychotherapy
Author: Siang-Yang Tan
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 798
Release: 2022-04-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493435078

This substantially revised and updated edition of a widely used textbook covers the major approaches to counseling and psychotherapy from a Christian perspective, with hypothetical verbatim transcripts of interventions for each major approach and the latest empirical or research findings on their effectiveness. The second edition covers therapies and techniques that are increasing in use, reduces coverage of techniques that are waning in importance, and includes a discussion of lay counseling. The book presents a Christian approach to counseling and psychotherapy that is Christ-centered, biblically based, and Spirit-filled.