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This volume is truly and doubly a “Treasury.” With its easy to read structure of brief entries in alphabetic order, it is a treasure house of observations on life and death, civilization and savagery, the universe and beyond—the Great Topics which have challenged man’s thought, whether in passionate public debate or in the lonely stillness of his nights, ever since he first raised his eyes to the stars. At the same time, this is a “personal treasury” of the intimate thoughts of an outstanding modern philosopher on these Great Topics.
This dictionary, from the pen of the well-known philosopher Dagobert D. Runes, is offered as an attempt to define the borderlines of human thinking and human morality. In 152 pages organized alphabetically, Dr. Runes has created a dictionary of his own philosophical musings indexed by evocative words. Each word is followed by up to several single sentence aphorisms and occasionally a short essay. As a collection, they cover an extremely broad range of topics. In his search for real verities and true humanity, he takes the reader on an arduous thought-provoking voyage through the depths of the mind. This type of soul-searching philosophy, unburdened by traditional manner and terminology, is sometimes baffling, frequently of melancholy character, but almost always fascinating and inspiring.
An analytical examination of the role emotional elements play in the formulation of logical propositions. The widely known philosopher traces underlying motivations in precepts, concepts and attitudes of modern man. Motivated thinking infiltrates, often dominates, prevailing patterns of thought in social, religious, cultural and even scientific organizations.
In his most recent philosophical work, one of the modern world’s pre-eminent thinkers offers a summation of his views on a wide range of topics of first and last importance, beginning with abstract art and ending with Zionism. Culled from years of patient research and fruitful introspection, his observations are bound to stimulate, challenge, and at times force upon the reader a shock of recognition grounded on timeless but at times obscured universal truths. Dr. Runes’ word magic, now aphoristic, now cadenced and metaphorical, creates countless gems of wisdom, frequently poetic, often irresistibly quotable, always profoundly moving. A humanitarian theme evolved partly from personal tragedies permeates his lifelong search for “a life of God the Spirit and the Giver/(Of) God unbound and unencumbered/By hate or prejudice/A god to love by Deeds/Not hollow hymns and vows.”
A scholar embarks on a journey into the philosophical issues that concern him most in this profound and deeply personal essay collection. It is late in the evening and a philosopher wants to get words on paper. No grand project or treatise, just an attempt to get some things off his chest. Certain phrases become touchstones for his thoughts: the nature of man, the art of living, God and religion, Jews and anti-Semitism, crime and punishment, arts and science, language and literature, history and the state, education, and thinking itself. Believing that hesitancy in judgment is the true mark of the thinker, Dagobert D. Runes interrogates each of these themes as he wrestles with the question: If you hesitate in your judgments, how can you arrive at certainty? The result is a touching document of a philosopher who investigates many areas of man’s endeavors, and who seeks to characterize what he judges to be the pure, true nature of these realms.
This insightful work, from the pen of the well-known philosopher, is offered as an attempt to define the borderlines of human thinking and human morality. Dr. Runes, in his search for verities and true humanity, takes the reader on an arduous voyage through the depths of the mind. This type of soul-searching philosophy, unburdened by traditional manner and terminology, is sometimes baffling, frequently of melancholy character, but almost always fascinating and inspiring.
The ethical teachings of Judaism and Christianity are presented in distilled form in this concise volume of Biblical writings. A Bible for the Liberal is not a new book. It is, rather, a selection of the principles of ethics, taken from all biblical literature, including the Hebrew Books of Wisdom and The Apocrypha, without the usual mythological and ritualistic framework. In these selections, philosopher Dagobert D. Runes presents what he calls “the essence of true Judaism and Christianity.” The believer, as well as the non-believer, will be able to find in this book the essential ethics of the great law-givers and prophets of biblical times.
In The War Against the Jew by Dagobert D. Runes, an introduction passionately written with a cause and purpose describes the War on the Jews, the history of Jewish hatred and prejudice. After that he gives a glossary of names, places, beings, writings, and words that describe this hatred. Dagobert David Runes (January 6, 1902 - September 24, 1982) was a philosopher and author. He is associated with The Philosophical Library, a spiritual organization and publisher. Runes was a colleague and friend of Albert Einstein. Runes is responsible for publishing an English translation of Marx's On the Jewish Question, which he published under the title A World without Jews, and editing The Dictionary of Philosophy, published in 1942.
The editor tries to bring together under one cover thinkers and thoughts of such divergent principles, attitudes, and temper.
In this work, Baruch Spinoza, one of the cardinal thinkers of all times, answers the eternal questions of man and his passions, and God and nature. In the deepest sense, this dictionary of Spinoza’s philosophy is a veritable treasury of sublime wisdom. In his introduction, Dagobert D. Runes, a life-long student of the philosopher, sheds new light on Spinoza’s private, political and religious life, and exposes and explains the dramatic story of his apostasy. If the reader despairs of the business of finding his way through Spinoza’s works, here he will find a reliable guide speaking in Spinoza’s own words. “The grand ideas of Spinoza’s Ethics are brought out clearly in this book: not less than the heroic illusions of this great and passionate man.” —Albert Einstein