Philosophy as it is frequently taught in classrooms bears little relation to the impassioned and immensely practical search for self-knowledge conducted by not only its ancient avatars but also by men and woman who seek after truth today. In The Heart of the Philosophy, Jacob Needleman provides a "user's guide" for those who would take philosophy seriously enough to understand its life-transforming qualities.

The question of the influence of commercialism in medicine is often put in terms of how the money factor influences the actions and the judgments of the individual physician—just as in the culture at large there is and has always been the question of sacrificing personal moral values for financial gain. But it is necessary now, perhaps especially for physicians and others who are presumably operating in the “market-free zone,” to put the question in an even more intimate way. The (...) question becomes to what extent does the pressure of financial gain influence perception itself in the clinical setting. To what extent do the pressures of commercialism block or interfere with perceptions of fact and truth in establishing diagnosis, in projecting methods and strategies of treatment, and in assessing the medical, psychological, and moral needs of the individual patient? To this extent, it is not so much a question of physicians making intentional, self-serving decisions. It is a question of physicians unconsciously making such decisions based on perceptions and processes of judgment subconsciously or semiconsciously governed by the monetary considerations that have permeated nearly every corner and pocket of the contemporary culture. (shrink)

This classic work on the Christian message speaks directly to all who seek genuine religious experience.

In order to reach beyond the epistemological barrier so solidly put in place by Kant, to reach more deeply into the world of experience, we now need to develop what I call an "inner empiricism"--the empiricism of looking inward and experiencing the inner world. This is the world within the psyche, within the mind and the heart; it is the world of feelings, of direct sensations. And this is the world that yields metaphysical truths. This is the world that Kant (...) overlooked. Prior to Kant, there were philosophers who recognized the importance of this other "instrument". Great metaphysicians, such as Plato or the ninth­century Christian philosopher Duns Scotus, or the great Islamic philosophers-almost all, I believe, based their metaphysical claims about reality on what they discovered from internal experience. (shrink)

What is the antidote to romantic love that all too often exhausts itself over night? This work suggests love can be a reflection of our spiritual being. It states that by the time we are living together something beyond passion is required something intentional and conscious is needed.

If we understood the true role of money in our lives, writes philosopher Jacob Needleman, we would not think simply in terms of spending it or saving it. Money exerts a deep emotional influence on who we are and what we tell ourselves we can never have. Our long unwillingness to understand the emotional and spiritual effects of money on us is at the heart of why we have come to know the price of everything, and the value of (...) nothing. Money has everything to do with the pursuit of an idealistic life, while at the same time, it is at the root of our daily frustrations. On a social level, money has a profound impact on the price of progress. Needleman shows how money slowly began to haunt us, from the invention of coins in Biblical times (when money was created to rescue the community good, not for self gain), through its hypnotic appeal in our money-obsessed era. This is a remarkable book that combines myth and psychology, the poetry of the Sufis and the wisdom of King Solomon, along with Jacob Needleman's searching of his own soul and his culture to explain how money can become a unique means of self-knowledge. As part of the Currency paperback line, it includes a "User's Guide" an introduction and discussion guide created for the paperback by the author -- to help readers make practical use of the book's ideas. (shrink)

Looking at the lives of America's founders-including Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin-scholar and bestselling author Jacob Needleman explores their core of inner beliefs; their religious and spiritual sensibilities; and their individual conception of the purpose of life. The founders, Needleman argues, conceived of an "inner democracy": a continual pursuit of wisdom and self-improvement that would undergird the outer democracy in which we live today. Any understanding of America as a nation of spiritual values will in the years ahead require (...) Needleman's work as a point of reference. (shrink)

In this series of brilliant essays, Jacob Needleman uncovers the heart of religion, psychiatry, philosophy, culture, science, and medicine in the forgotten life of the soul. He sees these contemporary disciplines without deep roots in the contemplative life and calls his readers to re-establish these roots. 'Much in our world, much in our modern way of living, is at the end of its tether.' says Needleman. 'Not only philosophy, but medicine, religion, and technology have reached a profound impasse, (...) where motion accelerates but without direction. Almost every human endeavor, every pattern and form of life, seems to have broken from its moorings. And every one of us is riding in one of these rapidly accelerating vessels looking for a way, a direction, and a means of guiding it and ourselves.' Dealing with such themes as Eastern and Western spirituality, existentialism, spiritual traditions in our contemporary materialistic culture, disease and meaning, the loss of wholeness, being as a mystery, Needleman encourages every human being to begin 'the long and difficult work of awakening to himself.'. (shrink)

Seeking to reconcile the split between our inner child and our adult self, eminent philosopher and religious scholar Jacob Needleman evokes the ancient spiritual tradition of a deep dialogue between a guiding wisdom figure and a seeker. The elder offers an initiation to a younger self, an initiation the author feels is missing from our culture. Rendered as a stage play, the conversation between the 80-year-old author and his younger selves unfolds, and an ambiguity emerges as to whether this (...) is strictly the author’s internal dialogue or whether the younger self may be nurturing a rebirth of the author. (shrink)

Time is the greatest modern scarcity. What used to be considered signs of success--being busy, having many responsibilities, being involved in many projects or activities--are today being felt as afflictions. The bestselling author of Money and the Meaning of Life, philosopher Jacob Needleman, shows how to take a bold and unconventional approach to time. The aim: to get more out of it by breaking free of our illusions about it. Needleman dispenses with tricks and techniques that only serve (...) to make our obsessiveness more "efficient." Instead he shows how we can understand what our days are for. It's this understanding that allows time to finally begin to "breathe" in our lives. People can learn to experience time more purposefully and meaningfully. We need not be at time's mercy. Needleman rejects time-management techniques in order to reveal ancient and little-known modern practices for exploring one's internal clock. He reveals how time is experienced by the soul. Drawing on the wisdom literature that chronicles the ways of Buddhists, poets, and philosophers, one learns: What it could mean to chart one's real past, unclouded by emotions How memory can lie to us Why we need not be obsessed with the future How to experience time so that it is not an enemy robbing us of the joy of life How to have more "nonpsychological time," or "time of the heart [that] does not move," such as moments of ecstasy or joy in which time is cut off from the physical world How to experience the gifts of time. (shrink)

Perhaps "perspective" is a better work than "thesis." For, as Smith unfolds it, this becomes such a large idea that it tends to generate, rather than require, lines of argument. The book as a whole is thus a speculative work in the best, and altogether too rare, sense of the word. In order to assess it, the reader cannot simply "go to his experience." He must also stand before his own ideas about experience. And if he does this in the (...) spirit of impartiality, he may directly observe the sense of Smith's perspective: that we do not understand the basis and meaning of that chain of experience which constitutes our life. Such a realization will surely involve the feelings as well as thought. To the degree it involves both, it may be a moment of that sort of doubt which prefigures what Smith terms "the religious dimension" of life. (shrink)

Explores humanity's role on the planet to reveal how the care of a world is vital to an authentic human existence, drawing on personal experiences to explore the author's own growth as a scientist, philosopher, and religious scholar.

The professor of philosophy author of Money and the Meaning of Life draws on his own experiences as a philosophy student to outline an alternative approach to the question of the existence of a higher power, sharing his observations about the pervasiveness of intolerance and the universal experience of an inner life.

This naturally calls to mind Plato's plan of education in which the highest pursuit, philosophy, is also to be the last in line. With Plato, as with Maimonides, we read that the direct search for wisdom is to be preceded by a certain training of all the natural faculties of man: the body, the emotions, and the intellect.

The position of the spindle determines the position of the cleavage plane, and is thus crucial for cell division. Although spindle positioning has been extensively studied, the underlying forces ultimately responsible for moving the spindle remain poorly understood. A recent pioneering study by Garzon‐Coral et al. uses magnetic tweezers to perform the first direct measurements of the forces involved in positioning the mitotic spindle. Combining this with molecular perturbations and geometrical effects, they use their data to argue that the forces (...) that keep the spindle in its proper position for cell division arise from astral microtubules growing and pushing against the cell's cortex. Here, we review these ground‐breaking experiments, the various biomechanical models for spindle positioning that they seek to differentiate, and discuss new questions raised by these measurements. (shrink)

We believe that members of the scientific community have a primary obligation to promote integrity in research and that this obligation includes a duty to report observations that suggest misconduct to agencies that are empowered to examine and evaluate such evidence. Consonant with this responsibility, we became whistleblowers in the case of Herbert Needleman. His 1979 study (Needleman et al., 1979), on the effects of low-level lead exposure on children, is widely cited and highly influential in the formulation (...) of public policy on lead. The opportunity we had to examine subject selection and data analyses from this study was prematurely halted by efforts to prevent disclosure of our observations. Nevertheless, what we saw left us with serious concerns. We hope that the events here summarized will contribute to revisions of process by which allegations of scientific misconduct are handled and that such revisions will result in less damage to scientists who speak out. (shrink)

The Review was founded in 1961 to bring an existential and phenomenological approach to the understanding of human experience. With a primary focus on the psychotherapeutic endeavor, the Review publishes original essays and first translations from the fields of literature and philosophy, as well as from psychology and psychiatry proper. The Review has published essays by nearly every major figure in the world, including Viktor Frankl, Eugene Gendlin, Jacques Lacan, R.D. Laing, RolloMay, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacob Needleman, Carl Rogers, and (...) Jean-Paul Sartre. In addition to continuing to publish original essays on a wide variety of general topics, in recent years the Review has published a series of special issues devoted to major figures in the field of existential psychology. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In a recent forum article, Dan Needleman and Jan Brugues argue that, despite the astonishing advances in cell biology, a fundamental understanding of even the most well-studied subcellular biological processes is lacking. This lack of understanding is evidenced by our inability to make precise predictions of subcellular and cellular behaviors. They suggest that to achieve such an under- standing, we need to apply a combination of quantitative experiments with new theoretical concepts and determine the physical principles of subcellular biological (...) organization. We discuss these issues and suggest that, besides biophysics, we need strong theoretical inputs from biocommunication theory in order to understand all the core agents of the cellular life and subcellular organization. (shrink)

Needleman's (1993) reply to our article in this journal (Emhart, Scarr, & Geneson, 1993) is a good example of the tactics he uses to deflect attention from questions of his scientific misconduct. Rather than address the many doubts about his scientific conduct, he attempted to focus readers' attention on (a) the motives and character of colleagues who question his research, (b) legitimate debates in the research literature on low-level lead effects on children, and (c) testimonials by colleagues who cannot (...) know about misconduct in his research. He did not address our major thesis-that procedures by which investigations of scientific misconduct are carried out require revision. Our experiences as whistleblowers were used to illustrate the need for change. Needleman's reply illustrates how he has dealt with the series of investigations of his scientific misconduct-with sarcasm and innuendoes about the honesty and character of investigators, portrayed as conspirators with the lead industry (and newspaper columnists?) to bring him down. For more details of his obfuscation, see Scarr (1993), Emhart (1993), and Ernhart and Scarr (in press). (shrink)

LeShan L. and LeShan, E. Psychotherapy and the patient with a limited life span.--Kubler-Ross, E. On death and dying.--Kutscher, A. H. Anticipatory grief, death, and bereavement: a continuum.--Needleman, J. The moment of grief.--Lifton, R. J. On death and death symbolism: the Hiroshima disaster.--Nelson, B. The games of life and dances of death.--Sleeper, R. The resurrection of the body.--Friedman, M. Death and the dialogue with the absurd.--Wyschogrod, E. Sport, death, and the elemental.--Lamont, R. The double apprenticeship: life and the process (...) of dying--Selected bibliography (p. 225-235). (shrink)

These last words are titled “Conclusion,” but they should be “Inception.” Professor Jacob Needleman encourages a vigorous conversation about commercialism in medicine. An honest conversation, he maintains, will spur understanding, indignation, and reformation. We do sincerely hope that such a conversation begins and is carried on to meaningful change. However, as the essays in this collection show, that conversation must take place in many different places and about many different things. All of our authors acknowledge that the problem of (...) commercialism is extremely complex. It cannot be understood as a simple fact or a single feature of modern healthcare. Thus, the conversation that discusses it must be varied and diverse. (shrink)

A revision of George Kennedy's translation of, introdution to, and commentary on Aristotle's On Rhetoric. His translation is most accurate, his general introduction is the most thorough and insightful, and his brief introductions to sections of the work, along with his explanatory footnotes, are the most useful available.

This is much more than a translation of Binswanger's important papers. Needleman's stimulating introduction explicates the core of Binswanger's Daseinanalyse. Focusing his attention on what Needleman calls the "existential a priori," he attempts to show how Binswanger's thought is related to the tradition of Kant, Husserl and Heidegger. In a suggestive analysis of the nature of explanation, Needleman also argues that Binswanger's Daseinanalyse complements Freudian psychoanalysis. A well-designed study which serves as an excellent introduction to the thought (...) of Binswanger and the more general topic of existential psychoanalysis.—R. J. B. (shrink)

Throughout an illustrious career of teaching and writing that spans five decades, philosopher Needleman has always tackled the "big questions" of life. In this collection of six feature interviews that began in the 1980s, Miller and Needleman discuss "Making Sense of Mysticism, The Secrets of Time and Love, The Meanings of Money, Searching for the Soul of America, Meeting God without Religion, " and "The Need for Philosophy.".

Recent research on algebraic models of _quasi-Nelson logic_ has brought new attention to a number of classes of algebras which result from enriching (subreducts of) Heyting algebras with a special modal operator, known in the literature as a _nucleus_. Among these various algebraic structures, for which we employ the umbrella term _intuitionistic modal algebras_, some have been studied since at least the 1970s, usually within the framework of topology and sheaf theory. Others may seem more exotic, for their primitive operations (...) arise from algebraic terms of the intuitionistic modal language which have not been previously considered. We shall for instance investigate the variety of _weak implicative semilattices_, whose members are (non-necessarily distributive) meet semilattices endowed with a nucleus and an implication operation which is not a relative pseudo-complement but satisfies the postulates of Celani and Jansana’s strict implication. For each of these new classes of algebras we establish a representation and a topological duality which generalize the known ones for Heyting algebras enriched with a nucleus. (shrink)

Transcript of speeches by a Hindu philosopher, chiefly on Hindu philosophy and Hinduism.

Classical text on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy; with Āloka Sanskrit commentary.

Classical work on Vedanta; includes Bhāṣyaratnaprabhā of Govindānanda and Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣya of Śaṅkarācārya.

Classical work on Vedanta by Bādarāyaṇa; includes Śārīraka vijñānam bhāṣya of Śrī Madhusūdana Ojhā.