I agree with the prior reviewers. I would have to say that this is one of the ten greatest books I have read in my whole life. Fingarette's synthesis of psychoanalysis, existential philosophy, and Hindu and Buddhist spiritual and religious doctrines and the use of each of these frameworks to help interpret the others is one of the most comprehensive and satisfying accounts I have encountered of the nature of psychological and spiritual development. Indeed it is the only satisfactory account I know of the nature of the kinds of change that people undergo in psychonalysis. It has always been a great sadness to me that this book is not more widely known and appreciated.

This extraordinary book, first published in 1963, deserves to be more widely known. Readers interested in psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, transpersonal psychology, religious experience, practical spiritualities, and studies of mysticism would all find in this wonderful book a coherent, deeply thoughtful, and utterly lucid account of the range of what is possible for human consciousness of what is real and of the stages through which one journeys on the way to "spiritual illumination and the apprehension of the divine." Someone should do us all a favor and bring this book back into print!

The final chapter of this book is the most enlightened discussion of mystical experience I have ever read. The goal of mysticism is identified as the elimination of intra-psychic conflicts and the attainment of a mature and natural state of mind, which is also the goal of psychoanalysis. I have never found any real exception to this in the teachings of Zen Masters. This chapter greatly illuminates all wisdom literature and is literally the best thing I have ever read by a Western philosopher. A work of exceptional maturity.

This is the best discussion of death ever written by a Western philosopher. The author has an exceptionally clear grasp of the fact that I can see my consciousness either as contained within the world or as the container of the world. It is unfortunate that he cannot decide which of these views has metaphysical priority. For the knowledge of immortality is the knowledge of the metaphysical truth that the world is contained within my consciousness.

I think, Mr. Fingarette has as much authority to write on a subject of alcoholism, as he has on subjects of cancer, schizophrenia, or multiple sclerosis. It is remarkable that most books about alocoholism, written by professionals with doctoral degrees in clinical psychology, or medicine, enequivocally explain and support the scientific approach to achoholism as a disease, and as subject of psychiatry. And the medieval idea that alcoholism is a flaw of character, controllable by the power of will is, as always has been, proclaimed by the vocal laymen like Mr. Fingarette.

All major and most authoritative medical resources, such as American Medical Association and American Society of Addiction Medicine define alcoholism as a disease which is independent of and uncontrollable by human will and effort.

To the contrary, many laywriters and self-proclaimed experts of the human psyche attempt to trash the minds of their readers with false, couterscientific and socially dangerous ideas, which have already put staggering numbers (exceeding one hundred thousand by some sources) of mental patients behind prison bars, making the USA a focus of critique and condemnation of many human right organizations, such as our very own, US (NYC)-based Amnesty International

BTW, I have read Mr. Fingarette's book thoroughly and could find not even a single truly scientific evidence supporting his populist, but badly amatorish philosophy.

Better get this outstanding, easy-to-read, yet written by professionals book on alcoholism: Beyond the Influence : Understanding and Defeating Alcoholism by Katherine Ketcham, et al., available on amazon.com

After reading Fingarette's essay "Alcoholism and Self-Deception" in _Self-Deception and Self-Understanding_, I was eager for more of his unique and interesting perspective on problem drinking. In this short and very readable book, Fingarette steadily and easily demolishes the prevailing opinion that alcoholism is a disease in which the alcoholic loses control over his drinking. (The scientific community long ago abandoned this view, but it lives on as dogma through the recovery movement.) Fingarette instead explains problem drinking as the result of choices that elevate drinking into a "central activity" in the drinker's life. He argues that the motivations for the choices that make drinking a core value are as many and varied as are the individuals making them. My only serious objection to the book comes in the final chapter on social policy; Fingarette would seem to be happy to turn this country into a totalitarian state to prevent some people from making stupid choices about alcohol. Despite that flaw, _Heavy Drinking_ presents an impressive and well-reasoned case against the disease model of problem drinking.

In 7 chapters, Herbert Fingarette, formerly a professor of philosophy at UC Santa Barbara, dispels the myth that alcoholism is a disease, while taking very seriously the social problem of alcoholic behavior.

In 1960 E. M. Jellinek published a book titled THE DISEASE CONCEPT OF ALCOHOLISM (p. 20). Alcoholics Anonymous members adopted this book as their scientific basis for asserting that alcoholism is a disease. But Jellinek's data was compiled by interviewing A.A. members. Thus, his conclusions were based on the reasoning of the very people who came to endorse his book. Furthermore, his research was based on only 98 interviews.

Today, the politics of alcoholism is big business (pp. 22 ff.). Conceiving of it as a disease enables treatment centers to receive payments from health insurance companies.

If somebody has cancer, you don't say, "You foolish person! You have cancer!" But when it comes to alcoholism, it is not unusual to find the relapsing drinker to be accused of having done something wrong. Many think the alcoholic, unlike the "canceric," has control. This, Fingarette argues, is in an important sense true, and shows the disanalogy between the disease of cancer and the PROBLEM of alcoholism. (Have you ever noticed that "alcoholic" is the dominant "-ic" in the U.S.? If you examine the word "alcohol," what is added to it is only "-ic." But when a person has a fancy for, say, chocolate, we don't say, "chocolatic," but rather "chocoholic." "Holic" always makes its way in, so obsessed are we as a society with alcohol.)

Heavy drinkers -- as Fingarette refers to what others call "alcoholics" -- do not become heavy drinkers for just one reason. Therefore, it is unclear that treatment should consist of just one variety. Twelve-step programs, in our society, play a role like that of various forms of fundamentalism both here and abroad, reducing problems to a formulaic response that is often insulting at best, and deadly at worst. The person is by-passed because the program directors "know" what the right thing is for the "patient" to do.

Controlled drinking programs are available in many countries (p. 128). In Europe, attitudes toward drinking are remarkably different from attitudes in the U.S., and these differences often make a difference in the way people actually drink. Stigmatizing behavior often reinforces the very negative behavior it seeks to prevent, especially in a country like the U.S. where rebellion is schizophrenically considered a virtue.

Fingarette discusses the GENETIC HYPOTHESIS on pp. 51-55. This is very important: IT HAS NOT BEEN PROVED. I have spoken with several substance abuse counselors who very nonchalantly remark, as though possessing conclusive scientific authority to do so, "It's genetic." We don't know that. We don't know that 12 steps to recovery is the gospel. Agents of recovery should consider adopting a more epistemically modest stance. But although this book would help them make a move in that direction, they can't afford to. Literally.

While thought provoking, Fingarette often misses the nuances of meaning in the text of the _Analects_, which limits the accuracy of his understanding. Further, Fingarette underestimates the difficulties inherent in dealing with a text which clearly is the work of many hands over a longer period of time, not a treatise in the western sense. This book is worth reading, but must be approached with great skepticism.

This book is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in Confucius, Confucianism, or early Chinese thought in general. It is quite convincing on some points, but also very problematic on others.

Fingarette was a mainstream Western philosopher, who said that when he first read Confucius, he found him to be a "prosaic and parochial moralizer." However, he eventually became convinced that Confucius had "an imaginative vision of man equal in its grandeur" to any that he knew.

Fingarette is at his best explaining the importance of ritual in Confucianism. Most of us nowadays think of rituals as useless affectations. However, Fingarette shows that Confucius regarded rituals (from handshaking to funerals) as an important part of being human. It is when we participate in such ritual activities that we are most distinctively human. In addition, ritual has the power to enable humans to work together without the need for coercion. Perhaps if we in the West can recover the feeling for the importance of shared, sacred rituals, we can help give more unity to our chaotic society.

Fingarette was also deeply influenced by Western behaviorism, and this leads to some of the less plausible aspects of his book. He wishes to deny that there is any "internal" dimension to Confucius' thought. If what Fingarette wishes to claim is that Confucius did not think of human psychology the way that, say, Augustine or Descartes did, then he is quite correct. (But then who is Fingarette arguing with? No serious interpreter I know of has read Confucius as a Cartesian.) However, Fingarette sometimes seems to want to claim that emotions and attitudes are, for Confucius, perfectly public states. I think that this is to project Western behaviorism onto Confucius (and behaviorism itself derives what limited plausibility it has from being a reaction to more extreme forms of Cartesianism).

Warts and all, this is still a classic book on Confucius after almost twenty years. If you want to learn more about Confucius, H.G. Creel's _Confucius and the Chinese Way_ is worth reading. For broader surveys of Confucianism, you might read Philip J. Ivanhoe's _Confucian Moral Self Cultivation_, or the anthology he and I co-edited, _Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy_.

I very much enjoyed the originality of this book. I don't agree with the author's major premise regarding the interpretation of one of the analects, but I found the originality refreshing. This should not be your first book on Confucius. But once you are comfortable in having some understanding of his teachings, at least enough understanding to recognize when Fingarette departs from orthodox interpretations, then you will greatly enjoy this book. I think it is a "must read" for serious students!