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But reading Emerson directly is at once an enlightening and maddening experience: "enlightening" because Emerson was a philosopher in the best sense of the word -- a lover of wisdom -- and "maddening" because he was _not_ a philosopher in any _other_ sense of the word. He was stubbornly disinclined to argumentation or even systematic exposition; his essays read more like sermons than like philosophical arguments; he preferred to deliver himself of his oracular insights without, it seems, subjecting them either to the criticism of other minds or even to the rigors of critical self-reflection, on the view that Reason was an all but infallible source of insight into truth and its objects are known with the same immediacy with which we know that we are awake. (It is a curious view of reason which makes no allowances for improvement of one's understanding.)
As a result of this take-it-or-leave it approach, his writings are all too easy to misunderstand, and for this he must bear much of the blame. For example, his remarks on charity in "Self-reliance" have led some readers to suppose that he was opposed to charity altogether, whereas in truth he believed that we are each of us suited by talent and temperament to be "charitable" to a special class of persons for whom we are therefore _truly_ responsible. Then, too, his remark in the same essay on "a foolish consistency" has been infamously and endlessly misquoted -- but even in its proper context it invites misunderstanding by failing to pay sufficient attention to the non-foolish variety of consistency (which Emerson supposed would take care of itself more or less automatically). Here again, Emerson's account of Reason, in giving so much weight to intuition, leaves strangely little room for reflection.
But in my own opinion, at least, Emerson's insights are genuine, sometimes brilliant, and essentially right, and it would be a shame if the readers who needed him most were unable to profit from his writings merely because he had been needlessly obscure. It would be nice, then, to have from another writer the guidance that Emerson himself was unwilling or unable to provide.
As you've probably guessed by now, that's where Richard Geldard comes in.
In this volume (which is a revised edition of _The Esoteric Emerson_, so don't buy them both!) Geldard does a marvelous job of exposition. He knows his Emerson backwards and forwards, and he sets out the essential features of Emerson's thought in clear and orderly fashion, chapter by chapter.
His essential "take" on Emerson, as you can tell from his title, is that Emerson is best approached as a spiritual teacher. I think this is not only correct but even obviously so; yet it is surprising how few available critical studies of Emerson are actually written from this point of view. At any rate, Geldard's exposition will provide the reader of Emerson with a much-needed "map" of the territory traversed in his writings.
I suspect that Geldard's "map" will make Emerson available to many readers who might otherwise have found him unpalatable. Some readers may, for example, be put off by what seems to be Emerson's extraordinarily cavalier attitude toward tradition in favor of present experience.
But according to Geldard, Emerson's actual meaning was as follows: "We have to break, lovingly, the vessels of our tradition in order to become one with the source of that tradition" [p. 176]. Now, certainly there is a difference in emphasis here with the religious tradition in which Emerson was brought up. But surely this is not far from, say, the Christian doctrine that the scriptures are a closed book unless read "in the Spirit." (Granted, Emerson had much more in common with the Quakers than with the Calvinists in what he made of this point. Nevertheless it is not alien to even the most theologically conservative Christianity.)
Not being a Christian myself, though, I am interested not primarily in reconciling Emerson with Christian theology but in simple exposition of his teaching. And Geldard excels in this regard: in ten straightforward chapters he sets out the essentials of Emerson's teaching and places it into the context of his life. Not bad for 177 pages of text.
There are one or two points on which I wish Geldard had done a _little_ bit more explaining (for example, on the difference between the meanings of "idealism" in its philosophical and its popular senses), since he does not seem to be presuming any prior acquaintance with philosophy on the part of his readers. But this is just nitpicking on my part. (Hey, I have my own favorite hobby horses too.) This is a fine book and it will be of immense value to anyone who wants to understand what in the world Emerson was on about.
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anyone remotely interested in the ancient Greeks --
not merely the most famous ones of the 6th and
5th centuries B.C. Here interweave myth,
mystery, knowledge, mysticism (Pythagorean and
Orphic introductions), plus excellent explanations
of attributes and psychological aspects related
to the gods.
[here is a section from the "Introduction"]
Each site has its "myth," a term which means
a story of the life of a place, human being, or
god. All myths have meaning, and the task has
been to translate the myth into the myth-language
of our own era. For the most part, the language
of our mythology is the language of psychology.
And of course there are several styles of
psychological language: Jungian, Freudian, Adlerian,
and so on. In this case, the language goes back
to Plato and has been brought to the present
idiom through the work of Paul Diel, the late
Austrian psychologist.
Plato, the great voice of the journey of the
human soul, was the first Western writer to speak
of the idea of spiritual development, the idea
that a human being might lead his life in such a
way as to AWAKEN [my caps] within himself the
divine life. The possibility of such a discovery
makes Plato's works a psychology, or a study of
human behavior in the physical, intellectual,
and spiritual sense. Plato was indebted to the
voices of his own culture and his predecessors in
philosophy, both Eastern and Western [Orpheus;
Pythagoras]. These fragments from the past form
a living mythology which still has power to
transform lives. -- Richard G. Geldard.
*The Traveler's Key to Ancient Greece.* (1989).
* * * * * * * * *
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Harold Bloom repeatedly names Ralph Waldo Emerson as the great theological architect of the "American religion" in his book of that title. However controversial some of Bloom's other theses may be, there is much truth in his characterization of the Sage of Concord. Probably most of us have been influenced by Emerson, at least indirectly, in far more ways than we realize.
But reading Emerson directly is at once an enlightening and maddening experience: "enlightening" because Emerson was a philosopher in the best sense of the word -- a lover of wisdom -- and "maddening" because he was _not_ a philosopher in any _other_ sense of the word. He was stubbornly disinclined to argumentation or even systematic exposition; his essays read more like sermons than like philosophical arguments; he preferred to deliver himself of his oracular insights without, it seems, subjecting them either to the criticism of other minds or even to the rigors of critical self-reflection, on the view that Reason was an all but infallible source of insight into truth and its objects are known with the same immediacy with which we know that we are awake. (It is a curious view of reason which makes no allowances for improvement of one's understanding.)
As a result of this take-it-or-leave it approach, his writings are all too easy to misunderstand, and for this he must bear much of the blame. For example, his remarks on charity in "Self-reliance" have led some readers to suppose that he was opposed to charity altogether, whereas in truth he believed that we are each of us suited by talent and temperament to be "charitable" to a special class of persons for whom we are therefore _truly_ responsible. Then, too, his remark in the same essay on "a foolish consistency" has been infamously and endlessly misquoted -- but even in its proper context it invites misunderstanding by failing to pay sufficient attention to the non-foolish variety of consistency (which Emerson supposed would take care of itself more or less automatically). Here again, Emerson's account of Reason, in giving so much weight to intuition, leaves strangely little room for reflection.
But in my own opinion, at least, Emerson's insights are genuine, sometimes brilliant, and essentially right, and it would be a shame if the readers who needed him most were unable to profit from his writings merely because he had been needlessly obscure. It would be nice, then, to have from another writer the guidance that Emerson himself was unwilling or unable to provide.
As you've probably guessed by now, that's where Richard Geldard comes in.
In this volume (which is a revised edition of _The Esoteric Emerson_, so don't buy them both!) Geldard does a marvelous job of exposition. He knows his Emerson backwards and forwards, and he sets out the essential features of Emerson's thought in clear and orderly fashion, chapter by chapter.
His essential "take" on Emerson, as you can tell from his title, is that Emerson is best approached as a spiritual teacher. I think this is not only correct but even obviously so; yet it is surprising how few available critical studies of Emerson are actually written from this point of view. At any rate, Geldard's exposition will provide the reader of Emerson with a much-needed "map" of the territory traversed in his writings.
I suspect that Geldard's "map" will make Emerson available to many readers who might otherwise have found him unpalatable. Some readers may, for example, be put off by what seems to be Emerson's extraordinarily cavalier attitude toward tradition in favor of present experience.
But according to Geldard, Emerson's actual meaning was as follows: "We have to break, lovingly, the vessels of our tradition in order to become one with the source of that tradition" [p. 176]. Now, certainly there is a difference in emphasis here with the religious tradition in which Emerson was brought up. But surely this is not far from, say, the Christian doctrine that the scriptures are a closed book unless read "in the Spirit." (Granted, Emerson had much more in common with the Quakers than with the Calvinists in what he made of this point. Nevertheless it is not alien to even the most theologically conservative Christianity.)
Not being a Christian myself, though, I am interested not primarily in reconciling Emerson with Christian theology but in simple exposition of his teaching. And Geldard excels in this regard: in ten straightforward chapters he sets out the essentials of Emerson's teaching and places it into the context of his life. Not bad for 177 pages of text.
There are one or two points on which I wish Geldard had done a _little_ bit more explaining (for example, on the difference between the meanings of "idealism" in its philosophical and its popular senses), since he does not seem to be presuming any prior acquaintance with philosophy on the part of his readers. But this is just nitpicking on my part. (Hey, I have my own favorite hobby horses too.) This is a fine book and it will be of immense value to anyone who wants to understand what in the world Emerson was on about.
List price: $16.95 (that's 20% off!)
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Geldard has done a good job articulating and intelligently interpreting Heraclitus though, mildly clouded by his personal understanding and experiences.
In any case this is one of the best attempts to explain a very difficult and often confusing subject matter. The suggested readings at the back of the book were particularly helpful to me.