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Love and the Abyss
An
Essay on Finitude and Value
Ralph D.
Ellis
How can we best come to terms with
our finitude—the stark reality that we are vulnerable and fallible,
that our lives will soon come to an end, and that the world itself
is an ephemeral episode in the evolution of the cosmos? This
universal quandary of human existence is especially troubling in a
narcissistic culture such as our own.
Traditionally, religion has helped humans ease the pain of finitude
by offering love objects such as saints and deities in whom to
invest admiration intensified by compassion. An increasingly
conspicuous alternative is the attempt to find the value of being in
the experience of erotic and spiritual love for another individual.
Although this trend has often been derogated as inadequate and an
aberration, Ralph Ellis sees it as a phenomenon to be understood on
an equal footing with traditional religious approaches. He explores
and defends the role of romantic love in creating positive value
experience and looks at some of the pitfalls we may encounter.
“Ellis
takes on the big questions in this book. And he offers big,
elegant answers. Love and the Abyss
possesses and promotes two of the traits it says much about: courage
and compassion in the face of the finite predicament. Read
this book and awaken; read it and be changed for the better.”
—Charles
W. Harley
Author of Husserl’s Phenomenology and the
Foundations of Natural Science
“It is rare to
say something meaningful and informative about relationships to an
audience trained to think deeply. Ralph Ellis succeeds
marvelously. It is a pleasure to read one of our keenest minds
writing about what happens in the best kinds of human
relationships.”
—Peter
Zachar
Author of Psychological Concepts and Biological Psychiatry
“Love
and the Abyss encourages us to take a step
forward into difficult and dangerous territory. The association of
eros, religious feeling, and existential finitude has long vexed
philosophers and anyone else who has ever experienced intense love
for another person. Ralph Ellis has succeeded in saying something
practical, profound, and substantially new.
—Randall
E. Auxier
Editor, The Library of Living Philosophers
Ralph D. Ellis is
professor of philosophy at Clark Atlanta University and editor of
the interdisciplinary journal Consciousness and Emotion.
His books include Eros in a Narcissistic Culture (1996),
Just Results (1998), Questioning Consciousness (1995),
Theories of Criminal Justice (1989), and An Ontology of
Consciousness (1986).
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