Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature by Leon R., M.D. Kass ISBN: 0029170737 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75
Rating: 4
Summary: A different kind of recipe book.
Comment: This book makes a strong defense of the classical principles of truth, beauty and goodness, jumping from a provoking and very unique starting point: eating. Kass is able to bring the perennial philosophy into the 20th Century, and to create a dialogue between it and modern science, as well as provide a persuasive understanding and defense of traditional ethics, etiquette, and beauty. Kass's analysis of "Babette's Feast" and his speculations on religous ritual are very thought provoking.
One must admire Kass's attempt to pull together so much of traditional philosophy (especially Aristotle) and literature, and still bring this into dialogue with contemporary science (there's reductionism there if anywhere) and culture. His scope is broad, and this book demands a lot of the reader! The argument is purposive, and analysis is difficult--there is so much there, and just about every move is key. (I found summarizing for students very difficult.) Yet Kass's arguments are very much worth considering, and bear more than one reading. To those who are patient, a vision of a very different way of looking at our whole human experience will emerge, one that I believe makes better sense of ourselves than most others offered today.
Rating: 5
Summary: A very important book
Comment: One of the reviewers seems to be very upset by Kass's omission of Freud and Levi-Strauss. There is a distinct difference between an academic study and a work of philosophy. The Hungry Soul is not an academic study and should not be expected to quote any specific opinion or previous work. This book represents Kass's own views on the subject and in my opnion they are thoughtful, deep and of a very high ethical character. This book is inspirational and thought provoking.
Rating: 1
Summary: edifying but inedible
Comment: One reviewer described this book as "reductionary humanism." I think that is a fitting description. The problem is that Kass ignores Freud and Levi-Strauss, for instance, despite the fact that both, it could be argued, thought about nothing but eating. "Identification" and the "death drive" are, after all, the psychological analogs of swallowing and defecating. Levi-Strauss devoted thousands of pages to the table manners and the rest, but Kass doesn't bother to cite him once. And if he really wanted to treat the hunger in the soul, what about the eating disorder's, bulimia and anorexia and the rest. Kass takes a little too seriously Leo Strauss's injunction that is better to understand the low in terms of the high--he also liked to quote Hegel to the effect that philosophy should not be edifying.
 |
Title: Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics by Leon R., M.D. Kass ISBN: 1893554554 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
 |
Title: The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis by Leon Kass ISBN: 0743242998 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
 |
Title: TOWARD A MORE NATURAL SCIENCE by Leon Kass ISBN: 0029170710 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 1988 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying (The Ethics of Everyday Life) by Amy A. Kass, Leon R. Kass ISBN: 0268019606 Publisher: Univ of Notre Dame Pr Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: Human Cloning and Human Dignity: The Report of the President's Council on Bioethics by Leon R. Kass ISBN: 1586481762 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 22 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
