Professor Lou Marinoff's first book drew on the wisdom of the great philosophers to solve our everyday problems, launching a movement that restored philosophy to what it once was: useful in all walks of life. Now, in The Big Questions, he takes the concept to the next level, applying centuries of philosophy and great literature to answer central questions of modern existence. Urging us not to accept victimhood as the by-product of modern life, Professor Marinoff uses specific case studies from his counseling practice to show how wisdom from the great thinkers can help us define our own philosophy, and thereby reclaim our sense of well-being. He asks and answers questions that go to the heart of the human condition: How do we know what is right? How can we cope with change? Why can't we all get along? And, most centrally, how can we use the centuries of wisdom that have come before us to help us answer these questions and feel at ease in the world? Accessible, entertaining, and profoundly useful, The Big Questions mixes wisdom from the great thinkers with specific case studies to illuminate how a shift in perspective can truly be life changing. Lou Marinoff is the author of the international hit Plato, Not Prozac!, which has been published in twenty languages. A professor of philosophy at the City College of New York, Marinoff is also the founding president of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. Praise for Plato, Not Prozac: 'What exactly is philosophical practice? Marinoff calls it 'therapy for the sane.' In a nutshell, it's using the 2,500-year-old tradition of philosophy to solve everyday problems, like work, relationship and family issues. It's a return to what philosophy was meant to be - a guideline for a way of life.'-Salon.Com 'Plato, Not Prozac! looks to become the bible of the "philosophical counseling" movement.' -Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine 'The ancient think
The philosopher who helped restore his discipline to practical applications shows readers how the search for the "big questions" can alter a person's life forever and illuminate the mysteries of the human condition. Originally published as The Big Questions. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
This book provides a look at philosophical practice from the viewpoint of the practitioner or prospective practitioner. It answers the questions: What is philosophical practice? What are its aims and methods? How does philosophical counseling differ from psychological counseling and other forms of psychotherapy. How are philosophical practitioners educated and trained? How do philosophical practitioners relate to other professions? What are the politics of philosophical practice? How does one become a practitioner? What is APPA Certification? What are the prospects for philosophical practice in the USA and elsewhere? Handbook of Philosophical Practice provides an account of philosophy's current renaissance as a discipline of applied practice while critiquing the historical, social, and cultural forces which have contributed to its earlier descent into obscurity.
If you're facing a dilemma -- whether it's handling a relationship, living ethically, dealing with a career change, or finding meaning in life -- the world's most important thinkers from centuries past will help guide you toward a solution compatible with your individual beliefs. From Kirkegaard's thoughts on coping with death to the I Ching's guidelines on adapting to change, Plato, Not Prozac! makes philosophy accessible and shows you how to use it to solve your everyday problems. Gone is the need for expensive therapists, medication, and lengthy analysis. Clearly organized by common problems to help you tailor Dr. Lou Marinoff's advice to your own needs, this is an intelligent, effective, and persuasive prescription for self-healing therapy that is giving psychotherapy a run for its money.
On Human Conflict excavates the philosophical foundations of war and peace in order to determine whether wars can ever be ended. It ranges over relevant mathematical models, Hobbes’s natural philosophy, theories of causality, biological and cultural evolution, general systems theory, Buddhism, globalization, and futurology.
There was a time when philosophy meant something to ordinary people and philosophers' ideas were put to good use. Socrates spent his days debating vital issues in the marketplace, and Lao Tzu applied his own advice on following the subtle path to personal happiness and social harmony. Now, as a new millennium dawns, a unique movement called Philosophical Counseling has emerged to return philosophy to its classical roots by combining wisdom and practice to help people solve their most common everyday problems. Call it therapy for the sane. As the leading proponent of this field, philosopher Lou Marinoff, Ph.D., shows us that the road to a successful, fulfilling life begins with a simple choice: Plato, Not Procac! When people come to see Dr. Marinoff they do not get endless discussions about their childhoods, quick prescriptions for antidepressants, or tedious analyses of their behavior patterns. Instead they learn how the ideas of the world's greatest thinkers can shed light on the way they live, from Kierkegaard's thoughts on coping with death and Kant's theory of obligation to the I Ching's guidelines on adapting to change and Aristotle's advice to pursue reason and moderation. Dr. Marinoff brings philosophy out of the ivory tower and directly into our lives and the dilemmas we all face. including handling love relationships. living ethically, dealing with career changes, being a good parent, coping with loss, and finding meaning and purpose. Plato, Not Prozac! explains how insights from diverse wisdom traditions can be used to help you help yourself to a better life. The issue is not just how you live, but how well you live. With the right philosophy at the right time, you can enhance or regain that wellness. The book is filled with case studies drawn from the experiences of leading philosophical counselors that demonstrate the effectiveness of philosophy in helping people feel better, think better, and live better. Dr. Marinoffs signature five-step PEACE process shows you how to: identify your problem (P), express your emotions constructively (H). analyze your options (A), contemplate a philosophy that helps you choose and live with your best option (C), and renew your personal equilibrium (E). A wonderful resource tool, Plato, Not Prozac! also offers an extensive list of philosophical practitioners and organizations as well as a detailed hit parade featuring sixty of the more important and influential philosophers. Dr. Marinoff also gives you a glimpse of the rapid growth of this movement in describing philosophers' cafés. the coporate philosopher, and other ways in which philosophy--the world's second-oldest profession--is making a global comeback and influencing people everywhere. Intelligent, accessible, and utterly persuasive, Plato, Not Prozac! is a groundbreaking alternative to traditional therapies and an indispensable guide to living a healthy, rewarding life. It's available over the counter; no prescription necessary. "Everyone has a philosophy of life, but few of us have the privilege or leisure to sit around and puzzle out the fine points. We tend to make it up as we go along. Experience is a great teacher, but we also need to reason about our experiences. We need to think critically, looking for patterns and putting everything together into the big picture to make our way through life. Understanding our own philosophy can help prevent, resolve, or manage many problems. Our philosophies can also underlie the problems we experience, so we must evaluate the ideas we hold to craft an outlook that works for us, not against us. You can change what you believe in order to work out a problem, and this book will show you how." -- from Plato, Not Prozac!
This collection provides a panoramic view of practical philosophical insight, ranging across a spectrum of humanistic themes. These essays cast light on our perennially imperfect human condition. They are written from the complementary standpoints of a classical liberal scholar with one foot planted in the academy, and of a peripatetic pioneer whom The New York Times called the world's most successful marketer of philosophical counseling. These writings therefore span a space in which theory and praxis are mutually informative and seamlessly collaborative. The collection ranges over Alfred Korzybski's general semantics; Thomas Mann's prognosis for Western civilization; Hume's moral skepticism applied to globalization; Jungian synchronicity and encounters with Irvin Yalom; convergence of Nietzsche, neuroscience and Buddhism; Ayn Rand's prophetic apocalypse; philosophical practice as Dadaist activism; humanities-based therapies as remedies for culturally induced illnesses; dangers and detriments of overdigitalized and hyper-virtualized lifestyles and learning methods; forces that both favor and impede the re-emergence of philosophy from inactive academic entombment to pro-active modes of personal guidance, social influence, consumer advocacy, and political engagement. A unifying claim of this anthology is the cautionary tale that humanity's recurrent and conflict-ridden predicaments are only exacerbated by myopic analyses, toxic ideologies, and expedient prescriptions. While philosophy is scarcely a panacea for human afflictions, its proper exercise illuminates our understanding of them, thereby suggesting better as opposed to worse ways forward. Overall, the thrust of this collection can be viewed as a realization of John Dewey's forthright vision, expressed in 1917: Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men. Indeed, these essays deal with problems of humanity writ large. They also constitute a compelling response to Mortimer Adler's clarion call in 1965, that philosophy must cease to be an activity conducted by moles, each burrowing in its own hole, and become a public and co-operative enterprise. As these essays reveal, Marinoff has accomplished Adler's mission, transforming and returning philosophy to the agora, which in contemporary parlance amounts to the global village. That his popular books on philosophy for everyday life have sold millions of copies in dozens of languages has distracted some--perhaps too many--philosophers from exploring what he has written for a philosophical audience itself. This book helps remedy that distraction.
The human world is wobbly wildly off balance. Everywhere you look -- from the halls of Congress to the deserts of the Middle East -- institutions and societies are riven by discord. To his crisis-laden situation -- one that globalization cannot correct by economic means alone -- philosopher Lou Marinoff brings a much-needed antidote to extremism, offfering hope and guidance to everyone who feels powerless, frustrated, or frightened in a world that flirts daily with disaster. Drawing inspiration from three of humankind's greatest philosophers -- Aristotle, Buddha, and Confucius -- Marinoff maps a route from chaos to order, a path whose signposts can be read in the perennial wisdom of these "ABCs." Marinoff offers us a way to travel into a less violent, more cooperative, and most fulfilling future: "The Middle Way". -- From publisher's description.
It's the most politically incorrect work of art I have ever seen. It's also hilariously funny and scathingly insightful." -- Karen Selick, Canadian Lawyer Magazine "Takes the reader over the edge of the politically unthinkable and unsayable. It may be a nightmare into which we plunge, but it is a poignantly contemporary nightmare. This book just may wake some people up--if anything can." --Kurt Preinsperg, Vancouver Community College "Fair New World is that rare thing: an entirely independent-minded book that is fearless in its satire of existing orthodoxies, no matter which direction they come from . . . It is also great fun to read, making us constantly stop and think as we trip over its hilarious extrapolations from the everyday craziness that surrounds us." --Daphne Patai, University of Massachusetts "Tafler brings into play an abundance of invention, verbal ebullience and wit. These, together with an eye for and relish in the absurd and ridiculous, serve his anger as he satirizes the excesses of feminism and political correctness of the contemporary scene." --Kaye Stockholder, The University of British Columbia "Swiftian in the savagery of its humor, which is directed at the very real and present dangers inherent in radical feminism and political correctness running amok." --Donald Todd, Simon Fraser University Book Description Lou Tafler's Fair New World offers a tonic for toxic political correctness. The novel portrays two dystopias--Feminania and Bruteland--and a utopia, Melior. Most of the action unfolds in Feminania, a polity governed by feminism-run-amok, steeped in denial of the social consequences of sex difference, and obsessed with changing human nature by inane legislation. Bruteland, a backlash state, is run by violent male chauvinists. Melior, Latin for "better," outlines Tafler's vision of political, social, and sexual sanity. As reviewer John Frary observed, Tafler set out to write satire, only to discover that he was writing prophecy. When Fair New World first appeared in 1994, the cancer of political correctness was still confined to academe. As Tafler warned, if left untreated political correctness would spread--as indeed it has--to governments, corporations, K-12 education, media, and society entire. His direst prophecies are highlighted in this edition's Introduction by professor Daphne Patai, who avers: "The world has not heeded Tafler's warnings, nor taken his wit to heart. Instead, readers of Fair New World on the 25th anniversary of its original publication need only look around to see how much the abandonment of wisdom, commonsense, and sanity has flourished in the intervening years." Readers who cherish our formerly unalienable rights and defend our hard-won freedoms will revel in Tafler's merciless mockery of the delusional radicalism and totalitarian ideology that has usurped them. Lou Tafler is the pen-name of philosopher Lou Marinoff, a stalwart defender of individual liberty, and a relentless opponent of identity politics.
The philosopher who helped restore his discipline to practical applications shows readers how the search for the "big questions" can alter a person's life forever and illuminate the mysteries of the human condition. Originally published as The Big Questions. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
Professor Lou Marinoff's first book drew on the wisdom of the great philosophers to solve our everyday problems, launching a movement that restored philosophy to what it once was: useful in all walks of life. Now, in The Big Questions, he takes the concept to the next level, applying centuries of philosophy and great literature to answer central questions of modern existence. Urging us not to accept victimhood as the by-product of modern life, Professor Marinoff uses specific case studies from his counseling practice to show how wisdom from the great thinkers can help us define our own philosophy, and thereby reclaim our sense of well-being. He asks and answers questions that go to the heart of the human condition: How do we know what is right? How can we cope with change? Why can't we all get along? And, most centrally, how can we use the centuries of wisdom that have come before us to help us answer these questions and feel at ease in the world? Accessible, entertaining, and profoundly useful, The Big Questions mixes wisdom from the great thinkers with specific case studies to illuminate how a shift in perspective can truly be life changing. Lou Marinoff is the author of the international hit Plato, Not Prozac!, which has been published in twenty languages. A professor of philosophy at the City College of New York, Marinoff is also the founding president of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. Praise for Plato, Not Prozac: 'What exactly is philosophical practice? Marinoff calls it 'therapy for the sane.' In a nutshell, it's using the 2,500-year-old tradition of philosophy to solve everyday problems, like work, relationship and family issues. It's a return to what philosophy was meant to be - a guideline for a way of life.'-Salon.Com 'Plato, Not Prozac! looks to become the bible of the "philosophical counseling" movement.' -Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine 'The ancient think
The human world is wobbly wildly off balance. Everywhere you look -- from the halls of Congress to the deserts of the Middle East -- institutions and societies are riven by discord. To his crisis-laden situation -- one that globalization cannot correct by economic means alone -- philosopher Lou Marinoff brings a much-needed antidote to extremism, offfering hope and guidance to everyone who feels powerless, frustrated, or frightened in a world that flirts daily with disaster. Drawing inspiration from three of humankind's greatest philosophers -- Aristotle, Buddha, and Confucius -- Marinoff maps a route from chaos to order, a path whose signposts can be read in the perennial wisdom of these "ABCs." Marinoff offers us a way to travel into a less violent, more cooperative, and most fulfilling future: "The Middle Way". -- From publisher's description.
On Human Conflict excavates the philosophical foundations of war and peace in order to determine whether wars can ever be ended. It ranges over relevant mathematical models, Hobbes’s natural philosophy, theories of causality, biological and cultural evolution, general systems theory, Buddhism, globalization, and futurology.
Empathy is an essential component of the psychoanalyst’s ability to listen and treat their patients. It is key to the achievement of therapeutic understanding and change. A Rumor of Empathy explores the psychodynamic resistances to empathy, from the analyst themselves, the patient, from wider culture, and seeks to explore those factors which represent resistance to empathic engagement, and to show how these can be overcome in the psychoanalytic context. Lou Agosta shows that classic interventions can themselves represent resistances to empathy, such as the unexamined life; over-medication, and the application of devaluing diagnostic labels to expressions of suffering. Drawing on Freud, Kohut, Spence, and other major thinkers, Agosta explores how empathy is distinguished as a unified multidimensional clinical engagement, encompassing receptivity, understanding, interpretation and narrative. In this way, he sets out a new way of understanding and using empathy in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. When all the resistances have been engaged, defences analyzed, diagnostic categories applied, prescriptions written, and interpretive circles spun out, in empathy one is quite simply in the presence of another human being. Agosta depicts the unconscious forms of resistance and raises our understanding of the fears of merger that lead a therapist to take a step back from the experience of their patients, using ideas such as "alturistic surrender" and "compassion fatigue" which are highlighted in a number of clinical vignettes. Empathy itself is not self-contained. It is embedded in social and cultural values, and Agosta highlights the mental health culture and its expectations of professional organizations. This outstanding text will be relevant to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists who wish to make a contribution to reducing the suffering and emotional distress of their clients, and also to trainees who are more vulnerable to the professional demands on their capacity for empathic listening. Lou Agosta, Ph.D. teaches empathy in systems and the history of psychology at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University. He is the author of numerous articles on empathy in human relations, aesthetics, altruism, and film. He is a psychotherapist in private practice in Chicago, USA. See www.aRumorOfEmpathy.com
A map to the new frontier, and a rollicking ride across it Ethan Lou goes on an epic quest through the proverbial cryptocurrency Wild West, through riches, absurdity, wonder, and woe. From investing in Bitcoin in university to his time writing for Reuters, and then mining the digital asset ― Lou meets a co-founder of Ethereum and Gerald Cotten of QuadrigaCX (before he was reported dead), and hangs out in North Korea with Virgil Griffith, the man later arrested for allegedly teaching blockchain to the totalitarian state. Coming of age in the 2008 financial crisis, Lou’s generation has a natural affinity with this rebel internet money, this so-called millennial gold, created in the wake of that economic storm. At once an immersive narrative of adventure and fortune, Once a Bitcoin Miner is also a work of journalistic rigor. Lou examines this domain through the lens of the human condition, delving deep into the lives of the fast-talkers, the exiles, the ambitious, and the daring, forging their paths in a new world, harsh and unpredictable.
This book provides a look at philosophical practice from the viewpoint of the practitioner or prospective practitioner. It answers the questions: What is philosophical practice? What are its aims and methods? How does philosophical counseling differ from psychological counseling and other forms of psychotherapy. How are philosophical practitioners educated and trained? How do philosophical practitioners relate to other professions? What are the politics of philosophical practice? How does one become a practitioner? What is APPA Certification? What are the prospects for philosophical practice in the USA and elsewhere? Handbook of Philosophical Practice provides an account of philosophy's current renaissance as a discipline of applied practice while critiquing the historical, social, and cultural forces which have contributed to its earlier descent into obscurity.
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