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    All Things Shining: Reading the Western Canon to Find Meaning in a Secular World
    All Things Shining: Reading the Western Canon to Find Meaning in a Secular World
    All Things Shining: Reading the Western Canon to Find Meaning in a Secular World
    Audiobook8 hours

    All Things Shining: Reading the Western Canon to Find Meaning in a Secular World

    Written by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly

    Narrated by David Drummond

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The religious turn to their faith to find meaning. But what about the many people who lead secular lives and are also hungry for meaning? What guides, what approaches are available to them? Distinguished philosophers, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly explain that a secular life charged with meaning is indeed within reach. It is achieved by a passionate, skillful engagement with the people, events, and wonders present in the most ordinary days-an approach to meaning that modern Western culture seems to have abandoned. Dreyfus and Kelly use some of the greatest works of the Western Canon to trace the way we lost this passionate engagement to our surroundings and to show us how to get it back. Taking us on a journey from the wonder and openness of Homer's polytheistic world, to the monotheism of Dante, to the nihilism of Kant, to the pantheism of Melville, and finally to the spiritual difficulties of the world evoked by modern authors such as David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Gilbert, All Things Shining will change the way we understand our culture, our history, our sacred practices, and ourselves, and offer a new-and very old-way to celebrate a secular existence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateApr 12, 2011
    ISBN9781611744538
    All Things Shining: Reading the Western Canon to Find Meaning in a Secular World
    Author

    Hubert Dreyfus

    Hubert Dreyfus is a leading interpreter of existential philosophy.  He has taught at UC Berkeley for more than 40 years.

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    Reviews for All Things Shining

    3.5/5

    102 ratings19 reviews

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    • 5/5
      First, I would like to state that I am reviewing the AUDIO edition. The authors cite many classic works as well as modern ones. Their philosphical points and arguments seem well thought out, but as with much philosophy, one has to pick and choose bits and pieces of the presented information that has merit in their own lives. The writing style is quite articulate and easy to understand, and is intended for a general public audience. A background or firm footing in the realm of psychology is unnecessary in order to understand the information containted in this book. With regards to the narrator, I have to say it was a bit difficult to follow at time, because the narrator is overly theatrical and I tended to get caught up in the style rather than the message, at times. All in all, I consider this a good read and would recommend it to anyone interested in Western classics, theology, or philosophy.
    • 5/5
      Insightful and applicable to todays technological age. Mentioned frequently on the Tim Ferris show
    • 4/5
      It was a fun read, but I found it more and more limited in its perspectives as they rounded thing up towards the end. I find their understanding of nihilism skewed, therefore their responses to it lacking. I hate that they use gods as placeholder word for value distribution in 'modern' day and not prescribing values by which one can disern when to walk away (it seems simple: history has shown times and times again that you walk away from excluding speeches. If one can't see the difference between mlk's and hitler's speeches and why one is a force for positive change and the other is drek, I really don't want that person to search for his shining thing s in the world). Still, a fun read.
    • 4/5
      I think over the past couple years, without being aware directly of what I was doing, I was testing the author's hypothosis. I was looking for a way to innoculate myself against the gravity of a postmodern despair. I started to carve a life that included the classics. I started to look for a positive beauty within and near the Western Cannon. Anyway, this book was a nice framework to continue my 'experiment' with the classics.
    • 5/5
      I very much enjoyed this book even though I disagreed with most of it! I really liked the writing. I constantly found things I wanted to argue about, and it made me think a lot about why I disputed many of their points.
    • 1/5
      Very flawed book that runs out of steam at the half way point.
      They pose an interesting question, in a post-God world what
      really matters? They fail to answer the question.
    • 4/5
      This is a thought-provoking review of selected Western Classics. The authors have a single-minded point of view that loses its attractiveness with repetition. Nonetheless the overview is worthwhile and I would recommend it as good secondary literature.
    • 3/5
      I read this as part of myself Git Yerself Smart Again campaign (TM). From the perspective that it got me thinking about the intersections of literature, thought, and culture this was a win. But I would be hard-pressed to say it was enjoyable. Partly the problem is the academic tone--these guys take themselves very, very seriously--but I also felt that some of their fundamental assumptions weren't fully explored. The most glaring of these is that there are two options: a life with meaning that involves god(s) or a life without meaning that doesn't. From an atheistic perspective, such an assumption is just laughable. It makes sense to discuss the role that religion serves in defining a meaningful life, and if they'd framed their arguments that way there would be no problem. But they don't. That's a flaw.

      And as someone with more than a passing knowledge of depression, I also object to their premise that David Foster Wallace's nihilism led to his suicide, instead of, say, his mental illness.

      BUT...this did make me, for the first time in my life, actually want to read Moby Dick. So there's that.
    • 3/5
      This is an interesting reading of selected Western works of literature and philosophy but the authors fail to persuade with their larger goal of offering a new basis for rescuing twenty-first century man from the nihilism expressed in Wallace's books and suicide. For starters, how many of us suffer from the kind of nihilism Wallace depicted in his writing? For closers, Matthew Crawford did a more believable analysis, in philosophic terms, of our current Western dilemma, and offered a much stronger and more appealing solution than Dreyfus and Kelly, as they offhandedly acknowledge in a footnote.
    • 4/5
      It is extremely difficult to feel very confident in giving a quantitative review (in stars) to this book. I debated both very low and very high ratings. On the one hand, the book provided me with spells of provocative insight and understanding (both in agreement and in contrast with the authors's opinions, but on the otherhand there seemed moments where the authors simply ignored more obvious points or explanations, or simply didn't deliver on their promises. Let's begin with the bad. Their criticisms of Wallace are unfair, both in characterizing the author and his life and task and in undermining that exaggerated caricature once created (they ignore, in my view, some facets of the described perspective which illuminate the fact that willing one's psychological state is at times situationally advantageous or necessary and by no means modem or postmodern historically). They also unfairly presume the death of religion at a time when it seems clearly to be--if not resurging at least holding fast. A number of the examples and choices for subject matter also seem very disjointed. Finally,the I have a hard time imagining that the book's. Ideal audience is sizeable, and in many cases I feel many of those who could benefit the most from the the work's insight will be turned off by it's odd metaphors of polytheism, grand-slams,and spermacetti.At its best, however, the authors do a good job of analyzing what counts as meaning and distilling how culture,conflict,and responsibility make many seemingly sensible paradigms for meaning appear lucidly cumbersome or contradictory. They help make sense of some real-life goals,experiences,and human problems in a way I find refreshing, if not widely targeted. They also give an interesting reading of Moby Dick and Homer. And, while in the end, they do not tidy everything up neatly, or give much in the way of answers on how to find great personal meaning, in the end I think this actually speaks to the reality of their theory of meaning...namely that is not a neatly-thematizable system at the individual level. I would like to see the theory fleshed out with more examples from literature and mythology or religious texts-- or perhaps a good, thoroughly technical discussion if the authors would put aside their seemingly anti-intellectual (perhaps ant-pedantry, given how immersed they are in academia) position on asking *why* when it comes to questions of meaning. I would recommend to potential readers to give the work a good shot. You can ignored the weird metaphors or talk of God's death if those bother you. Don't expect either a guidebook on meaning nor on literature, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the level of pause and insight it pro idea in examining your own implicit theories of meaningful existence.
    • 2/5
      You could fill a book with what Dreyfus and Kelly don’t know about religion, and especially, Christian theology. And that’s exactly what All Things Shining is. To begin with, it must be made clear that this book seeks to speak to an oddly narrow audience. It is clearly written for non-philosophers and doesn’t even require a great deal of familiarity with western literature either. However, in order to sympathize with the necessity of (re)finding meaning in a “secular age” one must, in fact, live in (or be otherwise aware of) a “secular age.” That is, the reader (or listener) need not know the literature on modern nihilism but one would be well served to already agree with it. Surely, a very narrow (even superficial) audience is intended here. More to my point, the authors continuously display a shocking ignorance of the religious and theological aspects of the western tradition they critique. Some examples:In chapter 1, the authors wrongly assume that there were no existential questions in the middle ages. If that were true, there wouldn’t have been theologians trying to make sense of the religiously given. If there wasn’t a desire to examine and search for meaning in life there would have been only deacons, priests, bishops and ritual and not also the explicit attempt to come to self-understanding of the faith at the heart of the Church. Much is made later on of Wallace’s practice of using extensive endnotes and providing no clear resolution to elements in his writing. Far from being a new “postmodern” development this style very nicely recapitulates the practices of Jewish commentary and Christian scholastic theology. The authors uncritically assume that being modern (i.e., contemporary) necessitates living in a nihilistic world characterized, by repetition more than argument, as a “secular age” following Charles Taylor. In so doing, they miss the fact that the vast majority of people, especially in the United States, remain fully religious (and not merely “spiritual”). A mere glance politics today demonstrates that we do not, in fact, live in a “secular age” at all. Dreyfus and Kelly would also have us believe that the philosophical disposition toward “unity” lead to or even is monotheism. This would, of course, have come as something of a surprise to the late antique neoplatonic pagans who were obsessed with the One and remained dedicated to the many gods of the Mediterranean pantheon. They also fail to notice that the dominant monotheism of the West is an odd sort of monotheism. Christian trinitarianism (not to mention the completely ignored matter of the cult of saints, but far more important at the level of personal piety than the doctrine of the Trinity) resists an absolute unity by its very nature. I could go on, but for little reason. While Dreyfus and Kelly do raise important questions (especially when contextualized within a common literacy) they have provided here a thoroughly skippable glance at themes and texts that deserve far better. The audio quality is good and the narration well preformed but for an annoying trouble pronouncing the word agape (“Christian love” or “charity”). Someone really should have explained that it’s pronounced like the answer to a question at a Canadian shopping mall; “a gap, eh?”
    • 2/5
      I had read a review of this book in the Wall Street Journal which was not altogether positive and said the book missed its mark. And while I initially disregarded it, I have to admit they were right as after "reading" it (I have the book on CD so more properly I listened to it) I believe it lacks, more than anything else, a defined purpose and that its authors are very confused people. If, however, its purpose is to "rediscover spiritual meaning," then it is even worse as it comes nowhere near satisfying it.
    • 1/5
      I really wanted to like this book. And I liked it more at the end than I did in the middle, but all told it was disappointing and frustrating. It is a parade of anecdotes from the Western canon, each used to illustrate how we have descended from the heights of human flourishing in Homer's Greece to the depths of dull, flat nihilism in this modern age. On the whole I found it patronizing and superficial. It is written in a first-person plural that goes back and forth between a "we" representing the two co-authors and a "we" that (though it is never stated) seems to refer to college-educated white people living in North America. I dislike this book in the first place because I reject its central premise: that "we" are living empty, unprecedentedly meaningless lives. I dislike it in the second place because it has a self-satisfied tone: it seems to say "All of Western art has failed you (except Moby-Dick), aren't you glad we came along to set you straight?" The unstated premise of the book, that personal philosophies are able to be willfully adopted, and that they can be valued without regard to their internal logic or relationship to experienced reality, also rubs me wrong. The stickiest parts of this book's arguments are the parts the authors flit over the most delicately. I think of philosophy as being about tackling hard questions, but this book leans more towards easy answers.The book begins and ends with a discussion of David Foster Wallace as a representative of the destructive nihilism of our age. The authors suggest, preposterously, that Wallace's suicide was a result of the failure of his personal philosophy. Such a perspective on the nature of mental illness is offensive and irresponsible. By the end I began to get the sense that, after all, the authors and I agreed on the ways people can and should find meaning in their lives. And it was that glimmer, that sense of failed promise, that sealed my dislike of the book.
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audio book version of All Things Shining, having been lucky enough to win a copy here on Library Thing.I applaud the authors' goal of making classic Western literature and philosophy relevant to the needs of today's citizens, and I enjoyed revisiting so many works in light of the authors' desire to make them both accessible and inspiring for us all.The performer on this audio book (Drummond) offered a light tone that may will likely engage an audience who might otherwise be daunted by a lengthy investigation of 'the classics' too. So, if you're sampling some of this canon for the first time or refreshing your memory from many years back, this might be a welcome "tour" for you. For me, as a quick review it worked just fine, but I felt that the text version would have been a more useful format because "rereading" and "flipping the pages" to examine a complex case with numerous supporting examples can be so cumbersome in the more linear audio form.All in all, listening to this audio book made me want to go out and get the text version, which I will do right away.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though at times the arguments were beyond me. The analysis of contemporary nihilism is spot-on in my opinion; individuals acting autonomously, free to choose any life they desire, yet paralysed by choice, choices made often reducing life to triviality. The authors recognize an other in day-to-day reality and identify it as the sacred in our world, not in a monotheistic sense, but through a polytheism that allows for the perception of, and the experience of, the sacred as expressed through excellence. The argument is complex, but not terribly technical, and I recommend the book without reservation. The critiques of David Foster Wallace and Herman Melville are well worth reading even on their own.I am grateful that this book ended up in my hands...
    • 5/5
      First, I would like to state that I am reviewing the AUDIO edition. The authors cite many classic works as well as modern ones. Their philosphical points and arguments seem well thought out, but as with much philosophy, one has to pick and choose bits and pieces of the presented information that has merit in their own lives. The writing style is quite articulate and easy to understand, and is intended for a general public audience. A background or firm footing in the realm of psychology is unnecessary in order to understand the information containted in this book. With regards to the narrator, I have to say it was a bit difficult to follow at time, because the narrator is overly theatrical and I tended to get caught up in the style rather than the message, at times. All in all, I consider this a good read and would recommend it to anyone interested in Western classics, theology, or philosophy.
    • 5/5
      Co-author’s Dreyfus and Kelly turn to literary classics like Melville’s Moby Dick, Homer’s Odyssey, and Dante’s Divine Comedy to give guidance about the search for life’s meaning. All Things Shining is both a crash course in the history of Western philosophy as well as a self-help book about leading a meaningful life. Although I am not overly educated in philosophy, I found All Things Shining to be accessible, entertaining, and thought-provoking. I appreciated the authors’ emphasis on the importance of having an open mind and considering a variety of sacred and spiritual traditions without focusing on any one belief or religion.
    • 4/5
      I think over the past couple years, without being aware directly of what I was doing, I was testing the author's hypothosis. I was looking for a way to innoculate myself against the gravity of a postmodern despair. I started to carve a life that included the classics. I started to look for a positive beauty within and near the Western Cannon. Anyway, this book was a nice framework to continue my 'experiment' with the classics.
    • 4/5
      I read this after seeing the author interviewed on The Colbert Report. I like that the book elevates the positions of Melville and David Foster Wallace in the Western canon, but the attempt to link these authors to the works of antiquity sometimes feels like desperate overreaching. The book quotes extensively and certainly makes me want to go back and reread the source texts. The final chapter is a particularly good synthesis. The author restates in various ways that a new kind of polytheism and social experience may be a path toward (or back to) meaning in the modern world. This view is well defended but seems too narrow to be the only option.