It is still moving and suggestive to read | In some ways, I think Hocking's study ties in with the "possible worlds" arguments which receive attention in more contemporary, analytical metaphysics |
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It would be heavy going indeed for an undergraduate text and would require considerable time and guidance from the teacher to explore | Robin Friedman This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers |
The book is alternately obscure and difficult to follow in places and highly eloquent and thoughtful in other places.
26A friend and professor of philosophy asked whether the section of the book titled "Meanings of Life" would be suitable for undergraduate use to give an understanding of a pragmatic idealist approach to large philosophical questions | Popular understanding suggests that philosophers are concerned with "the meaning of life" but most, including idealistically and religiously inclined philosophers, know the perils of an approach to this question |
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My friend's question reminded me of Hocking and made me eager to revisit him in this book which was unfamiliar to me | The first part consists of an expansion of his Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality delivered at Harvard in 1936 on the subject "Meanings of Death" |
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It is still moving and suggestive to read | I had read Hocking's most famous book "The Meaning of God in Human Experience" 1912 whose title is echoed in this book |
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Under naturalism it would be difficult indeed to conceive of immortality | Hocking points out that immortality is difficult to address because framing and considering the question depends in large part on one's philosophical commitments on some dryer and more basic philosophical issues |
The book shows a suitable humility in dealing with the large question of its title.
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