Daniel_Cheung
10-09-2008, 08:32 AM
有空我也想讀一讀這本充滿「見證」的書。
Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=14367
Louise M. Antony (ed.), Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, Oxford University Press, 2007, 315pp., $28.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780195173079.
Reviewed by George I. Mavrodes, University of Michigan
This book is a collection of twenty independent, freestanding essays, apparently all written especially for this volume. The twenty authors, all evidently professing atheists, are professional academic philosophers. Two of them work at British universities, and the rest are associated with American institutions. David Lewis, of Princeton University, died in 2001 (before finishing the paper included here). So far as I know, all of the other authors are still living.
This collection strikes me as an excellent example of how comprehensible philosophical writing can be at its best. By and large, the essays are written in a clear and direct style, free of philosophical jargon. Most of them can readily be understood, it seems to me, without requiring anything near a professional level of knowledge of the history of philosophy, or of technical logic, or anything of the sort. And many of the essays display a level of passion that is not common in academic writing. These authors, by and large, are writing about something that concerns them deeply. And I think that many who read it will find themselves also engaged at a level that is not merely academic.
Many Christians who read these essays (and I hope that many of them will read them) may find themselves recognizing a genre with which they are already familiar in Christian literature. A lot of these essays are, at least in part, personal narratives. They are "testimonials" -- how I became an atheist, what atheism means to me, what it's like being an atheist, how I get along without God, how atheism has improved my life, etc...
Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=14367
Louise M. Antony (ed.), Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, Oxford University Press, 2007, 315pp., $28.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780195173079.
Reviewed by George I. Mavrodes, University of Michigan
This book is a collection of twenty independent, freestanding essays, apparently all written especially for this volume. The twenty authors, all evidently professing atheists, are professional academic philosophers. Two of them work at British universities, and the rest are associated with American institutions. David Lewis, of Princeton University, died in 2001 (before finishing the paper included here). So far as I know, all of the other authors are still living.
This collection strikes me as an excellent example of how comprehensible philosophical writing can be at its best. By and large, the essays are written in a clear and direct style, free of philosophical jargon. Most of them can readily be understood, it seems to me, without requiring anything near a professional level of knowledge of the history of philosophy, or of technical logic, or anything of the sort. And many of the essays display a level of passion that is not common in academic writing. These authors, by and large, are writing about something that concerns them deeply. And I think that many who read it will find themselves also engaged at a level that is not merely academic.
Many Christians who read these essays (and I hope that many of them will read them) may find themselves recognizing a genre with which they are already familiar in Christian literature. A lot of these essays are, at least in part, personal narratives. They are "testimonials" -- how I became an atheist, what atheism means to me, what it's like being an atheist, how I get along without God, how atheism has improved my life, etc...