Argues that, in advanced industrial societies, pluralistic religions and social systems and structures and multi-dimensional selces must replace the unworkable, outmoded order of monotheism, the sovereign statesm and the unitary self.

Raymond Plant argues that Hegel’s philosophy "has as its centre and as its presupposition that profoundly moral humanistic concern for the fate of man, his religion and his society in the modern world which characterized his very earliest work." In order to add plausibility to the claim that Hegel’s philosophy is best understood as, "a response to certain problems in social and political experience," Plant devotes more than half of his book to a discussion of Hegel’s early writings where those (...) concerns most clearly dominate Hegel’s thought. Some of the early works surely become more intelligible when interpreted as efforts toward the overcoming of individual and social division. Plant makes good sense of Das Leben Jesu, a work that has otherwise been either curiously ignored as by Lukács and Knox, or rendered as a strange Kantianizing of Christ. Nor can one gainsay Plant’s contribution in uncovering the possible importance of Steuart’s An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy. Rosenkranz tells us that Hegel read Steuart’s work and took extensive notes, now lost. Plant reviews Steuart’s work and points out interesting if problematic anticipations of Hegel’s ideas on historical development. Yet with all this said in favor of Plant’s scholarship the question remains: do we gain a better understanding of Hegel’s mature system by beginning with Plant’s politically oriented premises? (shrink)

In what may be the most radical business book ever published, philosopher Jay Ogilvy shows that living without a goal is the only way to accomplish anything. In the 1980s we ran our lives with all the direction and confidence filofaxes and to-do lists could provide. Always knowing exactly where we were headed, we climbed toward the goals corporate America held out in front of us like so many carrots: higher salaries, better titles, more impressive offices. But after a decade (...) of climbing, the air is getting thin. We crave the chance to create, to express ourselves, and to make a difference, not just a living. It is time, says businessman/philosopher James Ogilvy, to tear up the to-do lists and grant ourselves the freedom to enjoy what E. M. Forster calls "the lights and shades that exist in the greyest conversation." Ogilvy shows that richness and color and flavor flood back into our lives once we set aside the goals that hold us captive. He explores how philosophers (from Plato to Nietzsche), lovers, ideologues, and executives have at one time or another lived without goals. What emerges from his argument is a new look at how to achieve personal creativity and freedom by fashioning one's day to-day life, not as a larger goal-producing machine, but as a personal work of art. (shrink)

Papers from a series of conferences organized by the Esalen Institute Program on Revisioning Philosophy (a few of the 18 essays have been previously published) reflect one common theme--the need to out the envelope of contemporary ...