I have spent my career writing and teaching philosophy, working on early-modern philosophers, especially that most controversial and enigmatic figure, René Descartes. In recent years my main interest has been in the philosophy of religion, focusing on grand traditional questions about the meaning of life, and on the spiritual dimension of religious thought and practice. I have argued for a ‘humane’ turn in philosophy, meaning that philosophical inquiry should not confine itself to abstract intellectual argument alone, but should draw on a full range of resources, including literary, poetic, imaginative, and emotional modes of awareness, as we struggle to come to terms with the mystery of human existence.
By John Cottingham
What is the soul? Does the concept still have a place in our modern scientifically oriented world? I argue that the concept of the soul is one that has a claim to be central to our thinking about what it is to be human. We are all engaged in the task of trying to understand the experiencing subject, the core self that makes us what we are. In searching for the soul, we aim to realize our true selves and find meaning in our lives. Exploring the soul in its many dimensions, historical, moral, psychological, and spiritual, In Search of the Soul aims to show how strongly the concept of soul still resonates today when human beings speak about what matters most deeply to them.
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By Fiona Ellis
Many people think that modern science shows the cosmos to be an impersonal process, devoid of meaning and value. In this intricate and ground-breaking study, Fiona Ellis puts forward an ‘expansive naturalism’ that challenges contemporary atheist orthodoxy, and it led me to rethink the supposed opposition between the ‘natural’ and the divine.
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By Mark Wynn
Perceiving some fact about the world seems at first to be quite distinct from the way we feel about it, but Mark Wynn’s careful arguments show how, in our grasp of reality, emotion and perception are intimately intertwined. I found his conclusions shed a vivid light on the complex nature of religious belief and religious experience.
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By Iain McGilchrist
Combining detailed scientific expertise with dazzling literary erudition, Iain McGilchrist offers a fascinating account of the dangers of abstract, analytic, ‘left-brain’ thinking when it is detached from the intuitive, imaginative, and holistic modes of awareness that make us truly human. I found his arguments deeply relevant to how we should think about religious ways of approaching the world.
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By Clare Carlisle
Next to Descartes, Spinoza is perhaps the greatest philosopher of the early modern period. He is often regarded as a precursor of today’s secularist outlook, while others see him as a kind of pantheist. In this fluent and original new study, Clare Carlisle brought home to me the religious dimension in Spinoza’s thought, and she offers a brilliant account of why he is still relevant today, when religious ways of thinking are increasingly under attack.
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By Simon May
This astonishingly rich and beautifully written survey shows how deeply love is involved in what has always been one of my main philosophical preoccupations – the human search for meaning. Simon May reveals love as the ‘harbinger of the sacred,’ while at the same time warning of how often it bears the burden of unrealistic and misconceived expectations.
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