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The first and last chapters feel like Newsweek articles but the chapter on Moby Dick is pretty nifty
 
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audient_void | 25 reseñas más. | Jan 6, 2024 |
Große Literatur ist über reine Unterhaltung hinaus, wenn sie richtig gut ist, vor allem ein Beitrag dafür, den Sinn des Lebens zu erklären. Über die Einsamkeit, die Langeweile hinauszukommen, dazu gibt es heute eine Vielzahl von Ablenkungsmöglichkeiten, sie aber produktiv zu nutzen für die Beantwortung letzter Fragen und das Glück, dafür war und ist Literatur das beste Tor, um dorthin tief zu fallen, wo keine Ausreden mehr bleiben, wo es radikal darum geht, das Atmen und Denken, die Ruhe und das NIchtdenken, das Gefühl zu erklären.

Warum reagieren Menschen in Zeiten der Gefahr so unterschiedlich? Ist Nichtdenken dabei einer der wesentlichen Antriebe? Zu Beginn des Buches wird der Fall eines Mannes geschildert und hinterfragt, der in der U-Bahn jemand rettet, der auf die Gleise fällt. Er wirft sich auf ihn und lässt die U-Bahn über sich und den Geretteten fahren, rettet ein Leben am Rande des Nichts. Prof. Charles Goodstein erklärte dazu: "Personen, die vom Militär oder unter anderen Umständen zu Helden erklärt wurden, haben anschließend meist betont, dass sie reagiert hätten, ohne darüber nachzudenken." Wenn das eigene Leben zum Notfall wird, sollte man weniger darüber nachdenken als vielmehr mit NIchtnachdenken reagieren. Oder Mitgefühl. Oder der Sensation des einfach Da-Seins.

Interessanterweise erschließt sich eine Welt der Erklärungen, wenn man sich aus der Notwendigkeit der Eindeutigkeiten entfernt, wenn man Dinge und Menschen sein lässt. Alles und die Wahrheiten zu wissen, ein Macher zu sein oder eine Macherin, lässt immer wieder die Gegenteile aufkreuzen, wie Mauern, die Grenzen aufzeigen und zurückweisen in ein Inneres, das nur eine Wahrheit kennt: die Frage nach dem Leben, nach der Weise, wie man es zu verbringen hätte.

Mit David Foster Wallace Nihilismus zu Beginn wird erklärt, wie er um sein Da-Sein rang, besonders an dem Buch Das hier ist Wasser / This is Water: Anstiftung zum Denken Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Engl. / Dt.) Die Konkurrenzwirtschaft, in die wir uns alle begeben müssen, schafft Gewalt und Langeweile, immer höhere Anstöße wollend. Wallace hat wie kein anderer diese Langeweile reflektiert. Wallace sieht im endlosen Schreiben, in der Arbeit, die Lösung, er verherrlicht die Spielweise eines Roger Federer z.B., in dem er eine ideale Balance zwischen Körper und Geist sieht, jenes Vergessen der Welt, in dem man für Momente aufblühen kann, ohne zu denken.
 
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Clu98 | 25 reseñas más. | Mar 9, 2023 |
I very much enjoyed this book even though I disagreed with most of it! I really liked the writing. I constantly found things I wanted to argue about, and it made me think a lot about why I disputed many of their points.
 
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steve02476 | 25 reseñas más. | Jan 3, 2023 |
Excellent walk through Western philosophy from Homer to Kant to Melville. My only knock on the book was the very end. The conclusion fell a little short of the build up. That said, the build up was more than worth the price of admission.
 
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ReaderWriterRunner | 25 reseñas más. | Jul 27, 2021 |
Every now and then I read a book which makes me wish I were a lot smarter and well-read than I really am. Now, as a librarian, you would probably expect me to have read quite a bit, and I have, but books like this one make me realize how much more there is (even though I already have forty-nine books checked out of my current library). In this work, two philosophers come together to examine what they deem “western classics” and examine their connection with the way our world is today. For those who lean towards the melancholic, “who wants to lure back the shining things, to uncover the wonder we were once capable of experiencing and to reveal a world that sometimes calls forth such a mood; anyone who is done with indecision and waiting, with expressionlessness and lostness and sadness and angst, and who is ready for whatever it is that comes next; anyone with hope instead of despair, or anyone with despair that they would like to leave behind, can find something worthwhile in the pages ahead” (xi). And although this is a bold and ambitious claim, I would argue that they succeed.

The first chapters address “contemporary nihilism” in a very unique manner, comparing and contrasting David Foster Wallace and his work “Infinite Jest” with Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love.” The authors contend that both authors are addressing the “tension between commitment and choice” (27) and that “although each is motivated by a deep sense of confusion and lostness, a sense that the darkness of being adrift is a central feature of the age, nevertheless each feels strongly that the writer’s responsibility is to show the way forward, to offer a vision of the hopeful possibilities available in the modern world” (28). The following chapters jump backwards in history to Homer and other Greek literature, then to Augustine, Dante, Kant, and so on. In each chapter, the authors look at the society and culture which surrounds each writer or work, including the religious and philosophical assumptions that the general population lived with, and how that should affect the modern reading.

This is probably one of the better books I have read recently, even with a quick skimming through. Although the idea of using classic literature to explore philosophy has been done before, this one is particularly poignant as it considers the secular nature of our contemporary society, and makes readers consider what may be lost in a culture that is so disconnected from the sacred.
 
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resoundingjoy | 25 reseñas más. | Jan 1, 2021 |
Very flawed book that runs out of steam at the half way point.
They pose an interesting question, in a post-God world what
really matters? They fail to answer the question.
 
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Steve_Walker | 25 reseñas más. | Sep 13, 2020 |
Really good view of the kinds and patterns of thought as evidenced in literature throughout the western world. It’s motivating.

Which is ironic, because towards the end of the book the author starts to decry technology a little bit, but doesn’t realize that the book’s theses are themselves are technologies that work the same way as any physical one. So it lost me a little bit there, but I got what he was getting at: that sometimes the impersonality or rational view towards goal-oriented thinking and doing leaves out some of the most beautiful and meaningful parts of the journey, and it is precisely those bits of meaning that we need to cling to in order to live a fulfilling life. He could’ve used some better examples, though.
 
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jtth | 25 reseñas más. | May 4, 2020 |
This is a thought-provoking review of selected Western Classics. The authors have a single-minded point of view that loses its attractiveness with repetition. Nonetheless the overview is worthwhile and I would recommend it as good secondary literature.
 
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jwhenderson | 25 reseñas más. | Jun 14, 2019 |
How often do you read something completely new about Homer? This is it--an outstanding book that identifies the source of contemporary spiritual ennui and argues that we need to see the world as Homer's characters do in his epics. The authors' allusions are far-ranging, from Lou Gehrig to Pulp Fiction to Wesley Autrey, the man who, in 2007, leapt onto a subway track and used his body to shield a man who had fallen from an oncoming train. Readers steeped in the intricacies of Kant might balk at times; others might argue that the treatment of Aquinas is too narrow--don't listen to them. Dreyfus and Kelly have an original, striking thesis and they explore it with grace, conviction and good writing. The chapter on Moby-Dick doesn't say anything that an intelligent reader of that novel has missed, but it does cary the reader along with their enthusiasm for Melville's view of the world. (They also make you want to read Moby-Dick again, even if you've already done so many times.) The authors use the phrase "whooshing up" as a way to articulate "the most real things" that "well up and take us over, hold us for a while, and then, finally, let us go," like what Achilles experiences in battle, Nureyev finds on the stage, or Pele does scoring a goal. All Things Shining provoked a few whooshing ups in me as I read it. Highly recommended.
 
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Stubb | 25 reseñas más. | Aug 28, 2018 |
I read this as part of myself Git Yerself Smart Again campaign (TM). From the perspective that it got me thinking about the intersections of literature, thought, and culture this was a win. But I would be hard-pressed to say it was enjoyable. Partly the problem is the academic tone--these guys take themselves very, very seriously--but I also felt that some of their fundamental assumptions weren't fully explored. The most glaring of these is that there are two options: a life with meaning that involves god(s) or a life without meaning that doesn't. From an atheistic perspective, such an assumption is just laughable. It makes sense to discuss the role that religion serves in defining a meaningful life, and if they'd framed their arguments that way there would be no problem. But they don't. That's a flaw.

And as someone with more than a passing knowledge of depression, I also object to their premise that David Foster Wallace's nihilism led to his suicide, instead of, say, his mental illness.

BUT...this did make me, for the first time in my life, actually want to read Moby Dick. So there's that.
 
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CherieDooryard | 25 reseñas más. | Jan 20, 2015 |
With a few initial few qualifications which I hope to delineate here, All Things Shining can and should be identified with popular philosophy, in the sense that it contains little thorough systematic argumentation along tradition continental or analytic frameworks, but rather generates its thesis and cultural critique by comparing and contrasting examples from widely read sources—mainly poets and novelists—in a wide western-tradition brushstrokes. Notably, the work begins and ends with a investigation of the work and suicide of the popular novelist David Foster Wallace, which, inevitably, is used as a kind of litmus test for the philosophical climate embodied by literature today in modern America, and elsewhere. When Dreyfus and Kelly do deploy philosophical argumentation, they do so in great abbreviation, and always in direct reference to those popularly cherished works of art.

One might argue that these works of art often articulate the very origin of philosophic discourse rather than follow after it—they first describe the phenomena and even establish the terminology of any particular philosopher. For example, Homer's multifaceted role in ancient Greek educational frameworks over many centuries certainly affected a variety of professional activities, including rhetoric and philosophy—however strongly Plato eventually argued for the exile of the poets. By sticking to the play between broad philosophical views and specific examples taken from literature, this work succeeds in systematically articulating its broadest popular claims rather than sustaining the internal rigor of any individual philosophical position articulated by it.

What's interesting: Dreyfus and Kelly dare defend a philosophical position with very strong selections from literature, however awkward their methodology appears to the sceptical postmodern theorist. They address the the leveling effects of most recent historical theory—which, as is commonly claimed, restricts the use of texts in the defense of any one particular philosophical narrative, given that text has not already been qualified as just as suitable in the defense of any other—by locating it within a certain kind of understanding of being in the present age. This adequately addresses a potential methodological problem area by claiming that it in itself is a cultural understanding of being that belongs to a tradition within the scope of elucidation by their work, and that it is a nihilistic one.

Here's why you should care: across the questionably tree-like (and therefore somewhat unified) western tradition, Dreyfus and Kelly dare to identify particular configurations of selfhood mapped across thousands of years. This would make a systematic historian or anthropologist shudder—but it makes a very enjoyable read.

I recommend it to those interested in the the polarities and dualities created by traditional continental idealism, its persistence, and its fallacies. Obviously, this is meant for those who haven't come across either The Critique of Pure Reason or The Phenomenology of Spirit in everyday life, nor have had the opportunity to read phenomenologists or existential philosophy at large as a continual response to their respective interpreters. These interpreters and even promoters of Kantian and Hegelian idealism continue to this day, whereas, aside from Kelley and Dreyfus, their existential opponents have almost entirely disappeared, aside from certain neurologists and developers of artificial intelligence.
 
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matthewmason | 25 reseñas más. | May 8, 2014 |
This is an interesting reading of selected Western works of literature and philosophy but the authors fail to persuade with their larger goal of offering a new basis for rescuing twenty-first century man from the nihilism expressed in Wallace's books and suicide. For starters, how many of us suffer from the kind of nihilism Wallace depicted in his writing? For closers, Matthew Crawford did a more believable analysis, in philosophic terms, of our current Western dilemma, and offered a much stronger and more appealing solution than Dreyfus and Kelly, as they offhandedly acknowledge in a footnote.
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nmele | 25 reseñas más. | Apr 6, 2013 |
ALL THINGS SHINING is an ambitious book, its aim is to help us find meaning in our lives by way of a philosophically informed reading of some of the great classics of the Western Canon. It seeks to address a popular audience rather than a professional one: it has its roots in Heideggerian philosophy but the style is not that of academic prose and it uses examples taken from news items, sport, and readily available literary classics such as THE ODYSSEY, THE DIVINE COMEDY, and MOBY DICK. It can be read without any major difficulty and with a great deal of pleasure, but it has the ambition of addressing the grand question of the search for meaning and for a life worth living in our contemporary world. This is a world that the authors, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly, describe as « postmodern », « technological », and « nihlist »: a world where the « shining things » have been lost, where we are subject to a crushing burden of choice without an unquestioned framework of meaning, such as served as a foundation for life and its meaning in previous epochs.

According to these authors the world was formerly a world full of intensity and meaning, « a world of sacred, shining things » (cf the preamble ), which elicited moods of wonder and reverence and gratitude and openness. However the shining things are now far, and life has become permeated with moods of sadness and lostness, a purely personal affair to be managed by the plans and choices of the closed-off « autonomous » ego. This is the explanation of the book's title. The solution proposed is a reappropriation of Homer's polytheism, now understood to be a polytheism of moods, such as we can see the outlines of in MOBY DICK. An important part of this response is the necessity to cultivate a specific skill that can help us discern when we can or should let ourself be taken up in the moods we encounter and when we should resist and walk away: this skill they call « meta-poiesis ».

There is something very attractive about the ideas in this book: the pluralism of moods (« polytheism »), meta-poiesis, a subjectivity of openness to the world and wonder at its shining things. But there are ambiguities that make one wonder (in the other sense of wonder) whether the book avoids the trap of romantic nostalgia. Its vocabulary is often nostalgic: « lure back » the gods, « uncover » the wonder, « reveal » the world. Also there is the danger of proposing merely a postmodern theology, however philosophically distilled and sublimated. Here we can cite the suggestive slippage from « the shining things », index of a world charged with intensity and meaning, to the « sacred things », as if that were the same thing. But surely a life based on intensities, on moods and on meaning without any reference to the sacred is worth living.
On my blog AGENT SWARM http://terenceblake.wordpress.com/
I have been commenting on the book ALL THINGS SHINING by Dreyfus and Kelly and their related lectures for over a year now. As I said, I like the pluralism of ATS and its analysis of incommensurabilities and its polytheism of moods, but I think it has a one-sided view of intensities or what they call « shining », that excludes both the ordinary and the « dark » intensities. All this talk of « shining » (really as pluralists they should say « shinings ») is somehow limited to best case scenarios, when shining is not, or should not be, a normative notion. One could compare this with Deleuze and Guattari's cry in ANTI-OEDIPUS:

« Everything must be interpreted in intensity » (p173)

For Deleuze and Guattari this is already what Nietzsche and Artaud were doing. So I was glad to come across the blog http://schizosophy.wordpress.com/
which uses Artaud to illustrate shining, and Nietzsche to illustrate post-nihilist affirmation.
As to Nietzsche I think that the fellow-pluralist William Connolly said it all in an article on Nietzsche (« Nietzsche, Democracy, and Time »). Connolly associates Nietzsche with an ethic of cultivation (meta-poiesis!), non-theistic gratitude, multidimensional pluralism, « nobility as multiple nobilities » (and not the Nazi deformation of Nietzsche's thought as promoting a warrior ethic), and even attributes to Nietzsche, rightly so in my opinion, the advocacy of « modesty as strength ».
Finally, for a book whose message is pluralist its bibliography is surprisingly monist. There is no mention of such pluralist philosophers as Paul Feyerabend, Michel Serres, Gilles Deleuze, William Connolly, or Alain Badiou. As the example of William Connolly shows, one can only regret that the authors do not engage the writings of other pluralist thinkers. Pluralism is not just about multiplicity but also involves dialogue with other points of view that can complement and sometimes correct our inevitable onesidedness. For exampleWilliam Connolly, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard give far more detailed and useful accounts of Nietzsche than the few scattered remarks that we find in ALL THINGS SHINING. Paul Feyerabend has very interesting ideas on the differences between between the homeric cosmology and our own, and also on the possible retrieval of a homeric type of cosmology for today. Deleuze and Guattari called MOBY-DICK the "grand book of becoming" and considered it an important exemplar of the type of pluralist thought that they develop. James Hillman in his works calls for a contemporary revival of polytheism conceived as a more adequate account of the multiplicity of worlds and moods that we live in and by. Michel Serres calls to overcome the gap between the two cultures with a pluralism that extends to all fields, and not just to the humanities. Alain Badiou in his LOGICS OF WORLDS considers that we humans belong to a multiplicity of worlds and are constantly shifting from one world to another, with no need to appeal to the categories of miracle or grace. Dreyfus and Kelly are not alone, there are many shinings.
In conclusion, I think the book is essential reading and I hope the discussion can deepen, intensify, and extend the dialogue that it contributes to.
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TBlake | 25 reseñas más. | Oct 23, 2011 |
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It is extremely difficult to feel very confident in giving a quantitative review (in stars) to this book. I debated both very low and very high ratings. On the one hand, the book provided me with spells of provocative insight and understanding (both in agreement and in contrast with the authors's opinions, but on the otherhand there seemed moments where the authors simply ignored more obvious points or explanations, or simply didn't deliver on their promises. Let's begin with the bad. Their criticisms of Wallace are unfair, both in characterizing the author and his life and task and in undermining that exaggerated caricature once created (they ignore, in my view, some facets of the described perspective which illuminate the fact that willing one's psychological state is at times situationally advantageous or necessary and by no means modem or postmodern historically). They also unfairly presume the death of religion at a time when it seems clearly to be--if not resurging at least holding fast. A number of the examples and choices for subject matter also seem very disjointed. Finally,the I have a hard time imagining that the book's. Ideal audience is sizeable, and in many cases I feel many of those who could benefit the most from the the work's insight will be turned off by it's odd metaphors of polytheism, grand-slams,and spermacetti.
At its best, however, the authors do a good job of analyzing what counts as meaning and distilling how culture,conflict,and responsibility make many seemingly sensible paradigms for meaning appear lucidly cumbersome or contradictory. They help make sense of some real-life goals,experiences,and human problems in a way I find refreshing, if not widely targeted. They also give an interesting reading of Moby Dick and Homer. And, while in the end, they do not tidy everything up neatly, or give much in the way of answers on how to find great personal meaning, in the end I think this actually speaks to the reality of their theory of meaning...namely that is not a neatly-thematizable system at the individual level. I would like to see the theory fleshed out with more examples from literature and mythology or religious texts-- or perhaps a good, thoroughly technical discussion if the authors would put aside their seemingly anti-intellectual (perhaps ant-pedantry, given how immersed they are in academia) position on asking *why* when it comes to questions of meaning. I would recommend to potential readers to give the work a good shot. You can ignored the weird metaphors or talk of God's death if those bother you. Don't expect either a guidebook on meaning nor on literature, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the level of pause and insight it pro idea in examining your own implicit theories of meaningful existence.
 
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jxn | 25 reseñas más. | Sep 7, 2011 |
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Since I have no intention of reading any of David Foster Wallace’s 2 and ½ novels, I suppose I can count it a plus to have heard so much about them and their deep truths about existence. The authors here seem a bit stuck on just a few key (to them) pieces of fiction.
Since they are proposing a return to “the sacred and meaningful” while denying anything exists beyond human understanding, it is like watching a dog trying to catch its tail.
Entertaining, but ultimately unsatisfying for the dog.
 
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2wonderY | 25 reseñas más. | Jul 27, 2011 |
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You could fill a book with what Dreyfus and Kelly don’t know about religion, and especially, Christian theology. And that’s exactly what All Things Shining is.

To begin with, it must be made clear that this book seeks to speak to an oddly narrow audience. It is clearly written for non-philosophers and doesn’t even require a great deal of familiarity with western literature either. However, in order to sympathize with the necessity of (re)finding meaning in a “secular age” one must, in fact, live in (or be otherwise aware of) a “secular age.” That is, the reader (or listener) need not know the literature on modern nihilism but one would be well served to already agree with it. Surely, a very narrow (even superficial) audience is intended here.

More to my point, the authors continuously display a shocking ignorance of the religious and theological aspects of the western tradition they critique. Some examples:

In chapter 1, the authors wrongly assume that there were no existential questions in the middle ages. If that were true, there wouldn’t have been theologians trying to make sense of the religiously given. If there wasn’t a desire to examine and search for meaning in life there would have been only deacons, priests, bishops and ritual and not also the explicit attempt to come to self-understanding of the faith at the heart of the Church.

Much is made later on of Wallace’s practice of using extensive endnotes and providing no clear resolution to elements in his writing. Far from being a new “postmodern” development this style very nicely recapitulates the practices of Jewish commentary and Christian scholastic theology.

The authors uncritically assume that being modern (i.e., contemporary) necessitates living in a nihilistic world characterized, by repetition more than argument, as a “secular age” following Charles Taylor. In so doing, they miss the fact that the vast majority of people, especially in the United States, remain fully religious (and not merely “spiritual”). A mere glance politics today demonstrates that we do not, in fact, live in a “secular age” at all.

Dreyfus and Kelly would also have us believe that the philosophical disposition toward “unity” lead to or even is monotheism. This would, of course, have come as something of a surprise to the late antique neoplatonic pagans who were obsessed with the One and remained dedicated to the many gods of the Mediterranean pantheon. They also fail to notice that the dominant monotheism of the West is an odd sort of monotheism. Christian trinitarianism (not to mention the completely ignored matter of the cult of saints, but far more important at the level of personal piety than the doctrine of the Trinity) resists an absolute unity by its very nature.

I could go on, but for little reason. While Dreyfus and Kelly do raise important questions (especially when contextualized within a common literacy) they have provided here a thoroughly skippable glance at themes and texts that deserve far better.

The audio quality is good and the narration well preformed but for an annoying trouble pronouncing the word agape (“Christian love” or “charity”). Someone really should have explained that it’s pronounced like the answer to a question at a Canadian shopping mall; “a Gap, eh?”
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dmichaud | 25 reseñas más. | Jun 25, 2011 |
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I had read a review of this book in the Wall Street Journal which was not altogether positive and said the book missed its mark. And while I initially disregarded it, I have to admit they were right as after "reading" it (I have the book on CD so more properly I listened to it) I believe it lacks, more than anything else, a defined purpose and that its authors are very confused people. If, however, its purpose is to "rediscover spiritual meaning," then it is even worse as it comes nowhere near satisfying it.
 
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jrgoetziii | 25 reseñas más. | Jun 17, 2011 |
I really wanted to like this book. And I liked it more at the end than I did in the middle, but all told it was disappointing and frustrating. It is a parade of anecdotes from the Western canon, each used to illustrate how we have descended from the heights of human flourishing in Homer's Greece to the depths of dull, flat nihilism in this modern age. On the whole I found it patronizing and superficial. It is written in a first-person plural that goes back and forth between a "we" representing the two co-authors and a "we" that (though it is never stated) seems to refer to college-educated white people living in North America. I dislike this book in the first place because I reject its central premise: that "we" are living empty, unprecedentedly meaningless lives. I dislike it in the second place because it has a self-satisfied tone: it seems to say "All of Western art has failed you (except Moby-Dick), aren't you glad we came along to set you straight?" The unstated premise of the book, that personal philosophies are able to be willfully adopted, and that they can be valued without regard to their internal logic or relationship to experienced reality, also rubs me wrong. The stickiest parts of this book's arguments are the parts the authors flit over the most delicately. I think of philosophy as being about tackling hard questions, but this book leans more towards easy answers.The book begins and ends with a discussion of David Foster Wallace as a representative of the destructive nihilism of our age. The authors suggest, preposterously, that Wallace's suicide was a result of the failure of his personal philosophy. Such a perspective on the nature of mental illness is offensive and irresponsible. By the end I began to get the sense that, after all, the authors and I agreed on the ways people can and should find meaning in their lives. And it was that glimmer, that sense of failed promise, that sealed my dislike of the book.
 
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jmccamant | 25 reseñas más. | Jun 15, 2011 |
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I listened to the audio book version of All Things Shining, having been lucky enough to win a copy here on Library Thing.
I applaud the authors' goal of making classic Western literature and philosophy relevant to the needs of today's citizens, and I enjoyed revisiting so many works in light of the authors' desire to make them both accessible and inspiring for us all.
The performer on this audio book (Drummond) offered a light tone that may will likely engage an audience who might otherwise be daunted by a lengthy investigation of 'the classics' too. So, if you're sampling some of this canon for the first time or refreshing your memory from many years back, this might be a welcome "tour" for you.
For me, as a quick review it worked just fine, but I felt that the text version would have been a more useful format because "rereading" and "flipping the pages" to examine a complex case with numerous supporting examples can be so cumbersome in the more linear audio form.
All in all, listening to this audio book made me want to go out and get the text version, which I will do right away.
 
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WhatSheRead | 25 reseñas más. | Jun 8, 2011 |
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though at times the arguments were beyond me. The analysis of contemporary nihilism is spot-on in my opinion; individuals acting autonomously, free to choose any life they desire, yet paralysed by choice, choices made often reducing life to triviality. The authors recognize an other in day-to-day reality and identify it as the sacred in our world, not in a monotheistic sense, but through a polytheism that allows for the perception of, and the experience of, the sacred as expressed through excellence. The argument is complex, but not terribly technical, and I recommend the book without reservation.
The critiques of David Foster Wallace and Herman Melville are well worth reading even on their own.
I am grateful that this book ended up in my hands...½
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TomMcGreevy | 25 reseñas más. | Jun 5, 2011 |
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First, I would like to state that I am reviewing the AUDIO edition.

The authors cite many classic works as well as modern ones. Their philosphical points and arguments seem well thought out, but as with much philosophy, one has to pick and choose bits and pieces of the presented information that has merit in their own lives.

The writing style is quite articulate and easy to understand, and is intended for a general public audience. A background or firm footing in the realm of psychology is unnecessary in order to understand the information containted in this book.

With regards to the narrator, I have to say it was a bit difficult to follow at time, because the narrator is overly theatrical and I tended to get caught up in the style rather than the message, at times.

All in all, I consider this a good read and would recommend it to anyone interested in Western classics, theology, or philosophy.½
 
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Kattatonia | 25 reseñas más. | Jun 1, 2011 |
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Co-author’s Dreyfus and Kelly turn to literary classics like Melville’s Moby Dick, Homer’s Odyssey, and Dante’s Divine Comedy to give guidance about the search for life’s meaning. All Things Shining is both a crash course in the history of Western philosophy as well as a self-help book about leading a meaningful life. Although I am not overly educated in philosophy, I found All Things Shining to be accessible, entertaining, and thought-provoking. I appreciated the authors’ emphasis on the importance of having an open mind and considering a variety of sacred and spiritual traditions without focusing on any one belief or religion.
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checkadawson | 25 reseñas más. | May 26, 2011 |
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I think over the past couple years, without being aware directly of what I was doing, I was testing the authors' hypothosis. I was looking for a way to innoculate myself against the gravity of a postmodern despair. I started to carve a life that included the classics. I started to look for a positive beauty within and near the Western Cannon. Anyway, this book was a nice framework to continue my 'experiment' with the classics.

Favorite part of this book was the chapter on Melville. I think this book really shines in the descriptive, but falls short on the proscriptive. But, then again, most everything and everyperson on the planet has fallen short in the proscriptive attempt to find the shinning.
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darwin.8u | 25 reseñas más. | May 18, 2011 |
Esta reseña ha sido escrita por los Primeros Reseñadores de LibraryThing.
Is the west drowning in a sea of nihilism? Have we lost the ability or even desire to transcend the mundane and seek the sacred? This seems to be the central focus of this series of essays ranging from early Greek thought through the Enlightenment and down to the present age. These authors are certainly not the first to suggest that our secular culture has banished the mystical aspect of life from our daily endeavors. They do however present a lively and entertaining history of the movement form the polytheism of ancient Greece to the individualism of the teachings of Jesus through to Descartes and modern life. All this reflection on such diverse topics of David Foster Wallace, Moby Dick and Kant leads the reader to the book's concluding chapter, "Lives Worth Living in a Secular Age". This is where there is some disappointment in the writers' choices. First they state that the group experience at sporting events is where we Americans find our "sacred community". It this is, indeed the case, it is a rather sad truth as sports tends to be every bit as corrupt and greedy as the rest of society and culture. However, just when you are arguing the point in your head, the authors seem to retreat and acknowledge that group dynamics are often used for oppressive ends. They, instead, settle on skill and craft. I agree that this is a more trustworthy route to revering the transcendent in life but after so much pontificating it seems a little less than substantial.½
 
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Wisconco | 25 reseñas más. | Mar 7, 2011 |
I read this after seeing the author interviewed on The Colbert Report. I like that the book elevates the positions of Melville and David Foster Wallace in the Western canon, but the attempt to link these authors to the works of antiquity sometimes feels like desperate overreaching. The book quotes extensively and certainly makes me want to go back and reread the source texts. The final chapter is a particularly good synthesis. The author restates in various ways that a new kind of polytheism and social experience may be a path toward (or back to) meaning in the modern world. This view is well defended but seems too narrow to be the only option.½
 
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albertgoldfain | 25 reseñas más. | Feb 26, 2011 |