This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.

Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals has become a prominent text of recent Western philosophy. An influence on psychoanalysis, antihistoricism, and poststructuralism and an abiding challenge to ethical theory, the philosopher's book addressed many of the major philosophical problems and possibilities of modernity. In this collection of essays focusing on Nietzsche's book, twenty-five philosophers offer discussions of the book's central themes and concepts. They explore such notions as ressentiment, asceticism, "slave" and "master" moralities, and what Nietzsche calls "genealogy" and its relation to other forms of inquiry in his work.

Suffering and politics in the thought of Luther, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Nietzsche.

Addresses the overall issue of meaning and meaningless from a mid-twentieth century perspective. Focuses on God as the "ground of being," Christology, and life in the spirit

Suffering may be universal, but it is not universally understood. In this collection, scholars from many nations and disciplines explore theoretical and practical approaches to understanding suffering as well as the ethics and effects of representing suffering in art and literature.

Dostoevsky's philosophy of life is unfolded in this searching analysis of his five greatest works: Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, and The Brothers Karamazov. Predrag Cicovacki deals with a fundamental issue in Dostoevsky's opus neglected by all of his commentators: How can we affirm life and preserve a healthy optimism in the face of an increasingly troublesome reality? This work displays the vital significance of Dostoevsky's philosophy for understanding the human condition in the twenty-first century. The main task of this insightful effort is to reconstruct and examine Dostoevsky's "aesthetically" motivated affirmation of life, based on cycles of transgression and restoration. If life has no meaning, as his central figures claim, it is absurd to affirm life and pointless to live. Since Dostoevsky's doubts concerning the meaning of life resonate so deeply in our own age of pessimism and relativism, the central question of this book, whether Dostoevsky can overcome the skepticism of his most brilliant creation, is innately relevant. This volume includes a thorough literary analysis of Dostoevsky's texts, yet even those who have not read all of these novels will find Cicovacki's analysis interesting and enthralling. The reader will easily extrapolate Cicovacki's own philosophical interpretation of Dostoevsky's literary heritage.

In this small, lucid gem of a book, the controversial Swiss theologian Hans Kung offers his thoughtful explanation of what the ancient profession of Christian faith can mean for us today. In doing so, Kung also flings a challenging response to the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, for 'Credo' is a fresh answer to the conservative stance of today's Vatican - a salvo that cannot be ignored. While controversy inevitably surrounds all of Kung's books, 'Credo' is his most accessible and straightforward work to date, written simply for all readers. It is the summation of a lifetime of theological thought by one of Christianity's most profound and original thinkers - a book that reaches out to non-Catholic Christians, as well as to Jews, Moslems, and those of the Eastern religions, and that gives everyone the dignity he or she deserves. Kung asks the big questions: Can we still believe in God? In the Virgin birth? In the divinity of Jesus? In his resurrection? In eternal life? And Kung also asks many unusual questions: Did Auschwitz disprove the existence in God? Is there any real difference between Jesus and the Buddha? Is resurrection from the dead un-Jewish? Must the Church be undemocratic?The answers he gives are, as always, profound and unexpected. This is not a book just for Catholics or even just for Christians, but a book for anyone with an interest in how religion can be integrated into contemporary life. Here is a great modern intellect - at his most reader friendly.

In the Jewish tradition, going back to Jacob, many fathers have written down whatever wisdom they might have attained in their lives in order to pass along that wisdom to their heirs. It is called an ethical will. Written as a testimony and a testament, in an epistolary format, this book is a compendium of the wisdom of a father, who has spent a lifetime studying the teachings of the Jewish tradition, as well as literary and philosophical traditions of the West. The insights taken from those traditions, which explore the life of the soul, are intended for anyone who has a soul. The book is organized around eighteen words that form the foundations of human life. The number eighteen is taken from the Hebrew word for "life," chai, which has a numerical value of eighteen. Among the words at the heart of these reflections are faith, goodness, responsibility, meaning, gratitude, prayer, love, and others.

Although considered as one of the 20th century most central ethical thinkers, Emmanuel Levinas claimed that his task was not to construct an ethics, but to seek the meaning of the ethical. In this study Stine Holte examines the problem of ethical meaning in Levinas' thinking and shows how the articulation of the ethical implies notions like trauma, melancholy, and shame, and hence a questioning of what we normally regard as meaningful.