Stephen R. L. Clark
Autore di The Political Animal: Biology, Ethics and Politics
Sull'Autore
Stephen R. L. Clark is professor emeritus at the University of Liverpool and has also taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Glasgow. He is the author of many books, most recently Understanding Faith, Philosophical Futures, and Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy.
Opere di Stephen R. L. Clark
Opere correlate
The person and the human mind : issues in ancient and modern philosophy (1990) — Collaboratore — 6 copie
Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the III Symposium Platonicum (International Plato studies) (1995) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1945-10-30
- Sesso
- male
Utenti
Recensioni
Understanding faith : religious belief and its… di Stephen R. L. Clark
I was very hopeful of liking this book through the first few chapters, but the further I read, the less I could agree with Clark's arguments. He doesn't just argue against the 'militant atheists', he has to show that anything they say is wrong.
A hidden gem
Amazon's sales figures indicate that practically no one is buying this book, and the social cataloging website I belong to indicates that I'm the only one of its 700,000 members who owns a copy. In my opinion, people are missing out: This is the richest, most satisfying response to the New Atheists that I've read so far.
The author, Stephen R. L. Clark, is a prolific philosopher who has published on a wide variety of topics, and he draws upon this broad knowledge in _Understanding Faith_. Thankfully, he doesn't write in a pedantic, overly-philosophical way in this volume, which I found to be very accessible. Clark says that he began this book as an attempt to write his way out of post-operative depression. What a great way to turn lemons into lemonade!
In a review of another book responding to the New Atheists, I said that C. S. Lewis presciently provided about all the response they really needed. Well, Clark makes heavy use of the writings of G. K. Chesterton (one of Lewis's "mentors") as well as the ancient Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. To be honest, I'd never heard of Plotinus before reading Clark, and my experience with Chesterton had been a mixed-bag, but Clark makes me want to give the latter a closer look. In the passages quoted by Clark, Chesterton comes across as remarkably lucid!
My image of God seems to be more personal (and many would say more primitive) than the author's, but Clark's approach in _Understanding Faith_ is broad enough that I felt that my faith was included among those being defended by him. I thank him for writing this book.… (altro)
Amazon's sales figures indicate that practically no one is buying this book, and the social cataloging website I belong to indicates that I'm the only one of its 700,000 members who owns a copy. In my opinion, people are missing out: This is the richest, most satisfying response to the New Atheists that I've read so far.
The author, Stephen R. L. Clark, is a prolific philosopher who has published on a wide variety of topics, and he draws upon this broad knowledge in _Understanding Faith_. Thankfully, he doesn't write in a pedantic, overly-philosophical way in this volume, which I found to be very accessible. Clark says that he began this book as an attempt to write his way out of post-operative depression. What a great way to turn lemons into lemonade!
In a review of another book responding to the New Atheists, I said that C. S. Lewis presciently provided about all the response they really needed. Well, Clark makes heavy use of the writings of G. K. Chesterton (one of Lewis's "mentors") as well as the ancient Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. To be honest, I'd never heard of Plotinus before reading Clark, and my experience with Chesterton had been a mixed-bag, but Clark makes me want to give the latter a closer look. In the passages quoted by Clark, Chesterton comes across as remarkably lucid!
My image of God seems to be more personal (and many would say more primitive) than the author's, but Clark's approach in _Understanding Faith_ is broad enough that I felt that my faith was included among those being defended by him. I thank him for writing this book.… (altro)
Dr. Clark concludes with how he thinks the Christian faith tradition fails to look at the moral status of animals, but how it opens the moral and ethical space for reflecting as generously as possible on our relationships and duties towards nonhuman persons.
For a professional philosopher, Clark is quite a humane being, and any works by him are worth pondering (his guys at Liverpool have a neat philosophy forum on the web).
This little study doesn't get to grips with GKC - I don't know any book that does - but at least it avoids a lot of the (nauseating) hagiography that most fans succumb to. Only C.S.Lewis, probably, suffers so much from his 'friends' but he has umpteen enemies to put the record straight, or crooked, or 're-adjust' it somehow. [Everybody, alas, seems to have a good word to say about Chesterton].
Small, neat, rather dapper in appearance, Clark is not the obvious guide to someone who was notoriously large, clumsy, absent-minded, and careless or cavalier with scholarship. He shares Chesterton's passion for "faith in search of understanding" but not his sheer weight or size or bulk (whatever you want to call it).
The book lacks 'eccentricity', and reminds me most of DZPhillips(another clever-clogs) and his book on R.S.Thomas. (Why do creditable academics moonlight like this?)… (altro)
This little study doesn't get to grips with GKC - I don't know any book that does - but at least it avoids a lot of the (nauseating) hagiography that most fans succumb to. Only C.S.Lewis, probably, suffers so much from his 'friends' but he has umpteen enemies to put the record straight, or crooked, or 're-adjust' it somehow. [Everybody, alas, seems to have a good word to say about Chesterton].
Small, neat, rather dapper in appearance, Clark is not the obvious guide to someone who was notoriously large, clumsy, absent-minded, and careless or cavalier with scholarship. He shares Chesterton's passion for "faith in search of understanding" but not his sheer weight or size or bulk (whatever you want to call it).
The book lacks 'eccentricity', and reminds me most of DZPhillips(another clever-clogs) and his book on R.S.Thomas. (Why do creditable academics moonlight like this?)… (altro)
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Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 26
- Opere correlate
- 10
- Utenti
- 308
- Popolarità
- #76,456
- Voto
- 3.8
- Recensioni
- 4
- ISBN
- 67