Eros and the Good: Wisdom According to Nature

Rating:
Summary: Eros and the Good. A very good book!
Review: Eros and the Good reclaims the traditional approach to philosophy. That is, the author presents a full-scale world view, where he situates the main activities and concerns of human life, including our values and ideals. This was the way of people like Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Hegel, Nietzsche, Dewey, or Sartre; but this way of philosophizing seems to have disappeared in recent times, and it has made the subject boring and usually pointless, as far as I am concerned. I want to know how our lives and values have meaning in the full nature of things, and I look for a philosopher who can take up the subject in that way.

Gouinlock, in Eros and the Good, fulfills this approach very successfully. He reviews many of the past attempts and shows where we can draw upon them to good effect and where they seem to be a dead end. Eros is the ancient Greek idea of love for the ideal possibilities of existence. Gouinlock has respect for religion and religious interests, but he is not a religious believer. It is refreshing to see how religious values (among others) can be modified and retained instead of being either swallowed whole or just dismissed. His last chapter, "Meanings," talks of piety, spirituality, and immortality while remaining naturalistic. The author has remarkable insights into the ways that human beings can remain fully realistic about their lives and still develop forms of ideal life in the context of the life of action.

The book is written with much appreciation for human limitations but also for our highest possibilities. I was most impressed by his discussion of moral virtue. He makes the most convincing case for it that I have ever seen, and that includes Plato. Gouinlock shows to my satisfaction that it is the most valuable possession an individual can have, and it is necessary for the well-being and preservation of any society. Along the way, he shows that moral relativism is indefensible, but that does not lead him into moral absolutism. This is an argument that anyone concerned about contemporary life can learn from. William Bennett is supposed to be the "virtue czar" of today, but there is plenty that he could learn from Eros and the Good.

This is a book that requires close attention, but Gouinlock is an excellent writer. He makes difficult ideas available to the serious reader, and he makes them lively. Highly recommended for those with high expectations for philosophy. Five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Review of Gouinlock's Eros and the Good
Review: One does not have to agree with Gouinlock to admire his critical approach to the moral life, but one cannot afford to ignore it either and yet hope to see fully the problems that continue to perplex contemporary ethical theories. He has given us a profound and penetrating understanding of human conduct in its widest moral texture. He emerges as a fair critic of the most fertile traditions of the past, from Aristotle and Nietzsche to many leading contemporary theorists of the moral life in our times. In fact, he has succeeded in naturalizing the moral life more reliably and coherently than the generation of Dewey, Santayana, and their heirs. Gouinlock has given to the Platonic conception of Eros its proper place in the pursuit of meanings, completions, values and moral ideals. In its own right, this book, written with elegance and graceful style, may well prove to be a landmark for the philosophical understanding of the moral conception of life in our times.
John P. Anton

Rating:
Summary: Valuable Reading
Review: Right from the opening sentance, you can tell that this is not the usual book in philosophy. Gouinlock is not out ot make himself popular with his academic colleagues or with the intellectuals to the day. He calls them as he sees them, and this is refreshing. His book restores your faith that philosophy can be humanly significant and exciting. Eros and the Good does not deal with fragmentary issues, but works at comprehensiveness and integration and asks the question of the possible meanings of existence. He makes his own case on every question, drawing upon his favorlite philosophers--mainly Plato, Aristotle, Nietzche, Dewey, and Santayana-- and attacking some sacred cows, such asKant, the utlitarians, and political correctness. Eros is the central theme: love of the noble and the beautiful is the essential source of all that is ideal