Martyn Swain has narrated 14 audiobooks on Listento.it by 13 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.9★ across 16 ratings. The most-rated is Psychological Types.
Psychological Types
Summary
In the 21st century, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) remains one of the key figures in the field of analytical psychology - and Psychological Types, or The Psychology of Individuation, published in 1921, is one of his most influential works. It was written during the decade after the publication of Psychology of the Unconscious (1912), which effectively ended his friendship and collaboration with Sigmund Freud. Whereas the earlier work had clearly marked Jung’s psychoanalytical divergence from Freud it is the Psychology of Types that fully clarifies and presents the nature, quality and characteristics of his analytical psychology. The work, which was in part a consequence of his need to reconcile the competing theories of Freud, whom he regarded as extraverted, and Alfred Adler, whom he saw as introverted, develops his concept of descriptive categories for understanding the human mind in terms of the two essential attitude types: introversion and extraversion. These basic attitudes operate in tandem with four principal interacting functions of consciousness which Jung identifies as sensation and intuition, which are functions of perception, and thinking and feeling, which are functions of judgment. The eight resulting psychological types are then explored, described, identified, characterised and explained in considerable detail, with a soaring range of examples drawn from the whole of human history, culture and experience. In his efforts to explore and illuminate the nature of the unconscious mind and indeed the collective unconscious, he investigates the problems posed by the differing psychological types and how these have manifested from classical and medieval times to the 20th century. His observations range from Aristotle, Socrates and Plato to Tertullian and Origen, and from Abélard and Master Eckhart to Martin Luther and the problem of transubstantiation. Jung takes the listener on an odyssey of human thinking. He considers the problem of types in the works of Schiller and Goethe, and Spitteler and his treatment of the Prometheus myth. He contrasts idealism and realism, the Apollonian and the Dionysian in Nietzsche, and explores a host of philosophical and religious sources from the Bible to Taoism to Brahminism. He considers the nature of the reconciling symbol in Spitteler before analysing the nature of types in modern philosophy, aesthetics and biography, giving detailed consideration to William James’ characteristic pairs of opposites and Furneaux Jordan’s ‘character sketch of the emotional types’. Jung goes on to fully identify and describe the characteristic differences between the extraverted and introverted types and provides an extensive chapter on definitions to fully clarify the meaning of the language he employs and make his meaning more accessible. Authoritatively read by Martyn Swain for Ukemi Audiobooks, Psychological Types is an inexhaustible treasure chest of ideas and creative inspiration worth listening to time and time again.
©2019 C. G. Jung (P)2019 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
Summary
This collection of 11 wide-ranging lectures which appeared originally in 1933 was based on lectures previously given when Jung was in the process of absorbing a considerable period of study of Eastern religions, Gnosticism and other religious sources. It was a time, according to the translator Cary F. Baynes, ‘when the Western world stands on the verge of a spiritual rebirth...after a long period of outward expansion, we are beginning to look inside ourselves once more.’ Before the decade was out, this optimistic viewpoint was to be shattered by war. But the insights in this book remain undiminished in the 21st century. There are 10 lectures: 'Dream Analysis in its Practical Application'; 'Problems of Modern Psychotherapy'; 'Aims of Psychotherapy', 'A Psychological Theory of Types'; 'The Stages of Life'; 'Freud and Jung – Contrasts; Archaic Man'; 'Psychology and Literature'; 'The Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology'; 'The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man'; and finally 'Psychotherapists or Clergy'. Modern Man in Search of a Soul appeared shortly after Freud’s ‘Civilization and its Discontents’ and ‘The Future of an Illusion’ which took a very different, even dismissive, view of religion – and Jung looks openly at their differing positions, offering a more inclusive, overarching view of man’s spiritual search, one capable of acknowledging and learning from the attitudes and belief systems of ‘primitive man’ at one with his environment. In the same way he acknowledges the ‘complicated psychic activities’ involved in literature, drawing on writers as varied as Goethe, Melville and Conan Doyle in his reflections. In The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man, Jung, fresh from his studies in Kundalini yoga and other Eastern traditions, is hopeful about the new attempts to bring together Western and Eastern thought leading to a more substantial ‘psychic reality.’ So many of his declarations in this Collection have proved to be stepping stones to where we are now, and he concludes boldly with his final essay where he considers the roles of the psychotherapist and the priest when faced with ‘spiritual suffering.’ Nearly a century since its appearance, Modern Man in Search of a Soul continues to be one of Jung’s most approachable and popular books.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Civilization and Its Discontents, Totem and Taboo
Summary
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is remembered as the father of psychoanalysis. Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) is one of his key works. In it he considers the conflict between the needs of the individual acting both egotistically and altruistically in the pursuit of happiness and the myriad demands of civilised society and the ensuing tensions this clash of needs and demands generates. Consequently it remains a key text for anyone wishing to understand the breadth and depth of Freud’s thinking on the human condition. His analysis of the modern human’s situation, forced to repress and sublimate innate natural, sexual drives in order to satisfy society’s seemingly endless requirements, and the conflicts and consequences for mental health inherent in this, make it as relevant today as when it was written. In Totem and Taboo (1913) Freud made what he called a first attempt at explaining problems of racial psychology and addressing neurotic symptoms as mental and emotional maladjustments to experience and environment. He hoped thereby to deepen the understanding of the mind by investigating its manifestations in primitive, noncivilised humans as documented by a range of writers and investigators in the scientific disciplines of sociology, anthropology and psychology. The work consists of four essays. This essential text is an ambitious undertaking because in it Freud seeks to unravel the mysteries of myth and religion by investigating the nature and qualities of sacrifice and the sacred, the primal myth and the parts these play in the generation of prohibitions, transgressions, guilt experience and expiation, as states and processes. Freud delves into the work of the great minds of his day, engaging with J. G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Totemism and Exogamy, Reinach’s Code du Totemisme, W. Wundt’s Elements of the Psychology of Race and a host of others. He considers the nominalistic, sociological and psychological theories they postulated. This was the investigation that led him to conclude that 'the beginnings of religion, ethics, society and art meet in the Oedipus complex’. This work would accelerate the split with his longtime colleague C. J. Jung, partly as result of the states and processes he identifies in primitive religions, belief systems and thought processes which he traces from the earliest times through Greek tragedy and medieval Passion plays up to the 20th century. This led him to articulate the importance of the interplay of the individual psyche with the psyche of the mass, as well as to develop the notion of intergenerational psychic continuity and the linked processes of thinking, doing and inhibition. This would later be refined in Civilization and Its Discontents. Civilization and Its Discontents is translated by Joan Riviere. Totem and Taboo is translated by A. A. Brill.
Public Domain (P)2019 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Being and Time
Summary
In his lucid introduction to this recording, Professor Taylor Carman declares unequivocally that Being and Time by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is ‘one of the great masterpieces of 20th century philosophy.’ And that is despite the fact that it is unquestionably a challenging listen. But by placing it in its historical context - the key work on existentialism between Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) - it becomes much easier to approach. As Professor Carman explains, ‘Being and Time addresses a seemingly simple question: What does it mean to be?’ As far as we know, human beings are the only existing things ‘with an understanding of what it is for something to exist’ and, furthermore, are aware of their own existence. Heidegger chose the German word Dasein - existence: literally ‘being there’ - instead of more common expressions such as man, human being, soul, consciousness, etc. And he embarks upon his investigation, considering ‘being there in-the-world, in time (past, present, future); discussing ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ living and dying; and the acceptance of impermanence. ‘Dasein’s existence is pervaded by a primordial kind of anxiety (Angst)’, Carman remarks, but points out that the concept of care is central to Heidegger’s view: ‘to be a human being is to care about something’. Being and Time was published in 1927 during the Weimar period in Germany, a time of political, social and economic turmoil. Heidegger himself did not escape the pressures, and his nationalism and undeniable anti-Semitism in the following decades cast a shadow over the man, but not the work. Being and Time is not coloured by expressions of his later views (unlike other writings) and remains an outstanding document. This recording opens with Professor Carman reading his introduction. Being and Time is read by Martyn Swain. Translation: John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. The contents - showing the plan of the work - and the full text of the introduction are available on a PDF for download with this recording. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.
©1967 Wiley Blackwell (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Psychology of the Unconscious
Summary
Published first in 1912, Psychology of the Unconscious was one of the most important stepping stones in the development of Jung’s thought and practice. It has a long subtitle: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought. This expressed the underlying impetus - a break from the view of the libido and its functions as taught by Sigmund Freud, which Jung had earlier adopted. It was from this point that the two approaches, which came to be known as the Swiss and Viennese schools, emerged. As Jung’s translator, Beatrice M Hinkle, writes in her preface: ‘In this work Jung has plunged boldly into the treacherous sea of mythology and folklore, the productions of the ancient mind and that of the common people, and turned upon this vast material the same scientific and painstaking method of psychologic analysis that is applied to the modern mind, in order to reveal the common bond of desire and longing which unites all humanity, and thus bridge the gaps presumed to exist between ancient and widely separated peoples and those of our modern time.’ Jung bases the work on the Miller Fantasies, a collection of writings and poems written by an American woman, Frank Miller, published by another Swiss psychologist. Jung looked at these fantasies, tracing their mythological and cultural influences and inferences, religious, sexual, literary and emotional. The range is enormously wide as he refers to different world traditions including Christian, Mithraic, Judaic and Greek religious traditions; he quotes poetry ranging from Goethe and Hölderlin to Longfellow and even Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac makes an appearance. Epics abound, from Gilgamesh to the Ramayana, the Rig Veda and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Sexual attitudes and practices are discussed in terms of the Miller fantasies as well, covering the mores of different societies, including incest, violence and sexual assault. It is a rich and challenging text in which analyses of magic and myth abound. Divided into two parts, it discusses diverse topics in 'Concerning the Two Kinds of Thinking' and 'The Hymn of Creation in Part I'. And in Part II, it goes on to explore 'Aspects of the Libido', 'The Transformation of the Libido', the 'Unconscious Origin of the Hero', 'The Symbolism of the Mother and of Rebirth' and 'The Sacrifice'. It opens with an introduction in which Jung, referring to Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, discusses the relation of the incest fantasy to the Oedipus legend - and argues that it is necessary to delve further into historical material to understand individual analysis more fully. So, right from the start, Carl Gustav Jung goes down the path that was to make his investigation into the mind and its processes so distinct. This rich and broadly encompassing text is skilfully presented by Martyn Swain. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha
Summary
This volume offers a complete translation of the Sam?yutta Nika¯ya, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, the third of the four great collections in the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon. The Sam?yutta Nika¯ya consists of 56 chapters, each governed by a unifying theme that binds together the Buddha's suttas or discourses. The chapters are organised into five major parts. The first, 'The Book with Verses', is a compilation of suttas composed largely in verse. This book ranks as one of the most inspiring compilations in the Buddhist canon, showing the Buddha in his full grandeur as the peerless 'teacher of gods and humans'. The other four books deal in depth with the philosophical principles and meditative structures of early Buddhism. They combine into orderly chapters all the important short discourses of the Buddha on such major topics as dependent origination, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of enlightenment, the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths. Among the four large Nikayas belonging to the Pali Canon, the Sam?yutta Nika¯ya serves as the repository for the many shorter suttas of the Buddha where he discloses his radical insights into the nature of reality and his unique path to spiritual emancipation. This collection, it seems, was directed mainly at those disciples who were capable of grasping the deepest dimensions of wisdom and of clarifying them for others, and also provided guidance to meditators intent on consummating their efforts with the direct realisation of the ultimate truth. The present work begins with an insightful general introduction to the Sam?yutta Nika¯ya as a whole. Each of the five parts is also provided with its own introduction, intended to guide the listener through this vast, ocean-like collection of suttas. Distinguished by its lucidity and technical precision, this new translation makes this ancient collection of the Buddha’s discourses accessible and comprehensible to the thoughtful listener of today. Like its two predecessors in this series, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha is sure to merit a place of honour in the library of every serious student of Buddhism. Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk originally from New York City. Ordained in Sri Lanka in 1972, he has been for many years the president and editor of the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy. His previous publications include several other important translations from the Pali Canon, including a revised and annotated version of Bhikkhu Ñanamoli’s translation of the Majjhima Nikaya, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2000 Bhikkhu Bodhi (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology
Summary
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology comprises a selection of key writings and lectures by Carl Gustav Jung produced between 1902 and 1916, which are presented in chronological order. As such they provide a fascinating exposition of the nature and essence of the psychological content of psychoses and neuroses, as explored and discovered by Dr Jung in the early years of his long and distinguished career.
The collection opens with ‘On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena' (1902) - a particular interest of the time; it continues with 'The Association Method' (1909), 'The Significance of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual' (1909), 'A Contribution to the Psychology of Rumour' (1911) and 'On the Significance of Number-Dreams' (1911). Psychoanalysis is specifically dealt with in three chapters, an essay, a lecture and a correspondence all dating from 1913. Other subjects are covered, including dreams and psychoses, and there is an extended essay on 'The Psychology on the Unconscious Processes', (1916, revised in 1917). The collection concludes with 'The Conception of the Unconscious', the lecture given in 1916 to the Zurich School for Psychology, with which Jung had become increasingly identified.
In a sense these early works could be considered a road map of Jung’s thinking on analytical psychology. In these later chapters (14 and 15) which contain many of Jung’s conclusions, we are given a fascinating description of a journey of investigation and discovery into the workings of the human mind and we can understand how Dr Jung developed his thinking pertaining to the ideas of introversion and extroversion, which have proved to be so essential and influential in the discipline of psychology.
Jung also explains how, despite their well-documented differences of interpretation and their public falling out, he agrees with Freud that neurosis stems from repression, but he differs with the founder of the Vienna school regarding the origin of repression. Where Freud focused wholly on sexuality, Jung explains repression as resulting from a tendency towards a one-sided adaptation to the demands of life, determined by the extent of any given individual’s degree of introversion or extroversion. He contrasts the approaches of Freud and Adler, characterising them as focusing on infantile hedonism and power-seeking respectively. While accepting that these analyses may well be accurate very often, he ultimately considers them to be too reductive. Interestingly, he by no means rejects the importance of the role of sexuality in these processes, but rather repositions it. He does not accept its exclusivity and focuses on the importance of symbolism in mental life.
He regards causality as a point of view and the causal explanation of daily life is considered to be essentially mechanistic, contrasting it with the ‘final’ viewpoint. He dismisses the Freudian emphasis on the overriding role of sexuality and points out the functional importance of the symbol in the life of the mind and its importance to the further development of humankind. A PDF for download accompanies this recording. It provides detailed diagrams and tables used by Dr Jung as explanatory and supporting evidence for Chapter II, 'The Association Method'.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Hacking the Bomb
Summary
Are nuclear arsenals safe from cyberattack? Could terrorists launch a nuclear weapon through hacking? Are we standing at the edge of a major technological challenge to global nuclear order? These are among the many pressing security questions addressed in Andrew Futter's groundbreaking study of the cyber threat to nuclear weapons. Hacking the Bomb provides the first ever comprehensive assessment of this worrying and little-understood strategic development, and it explains how myriad new cyber challenges will impact the way that the world thinks about and manages the ultimate weapon. The book cuts through the hype surrounding the cyber phenomenon and provides a framework through which to understand and proactively address the implications of the emerging cyber-nuclear nexus. It does this by tracing the cyber challenge right across the nuclear weapons enterprise, explains the important differences between types of cyber threats, and unpacks how cyber capabilities will impact strategic thinking, nuclear balances, deterrence thinking, and crisis management. The book makes the case for restraint in the cyber realm when it comes to nuclear weapons given the considerable risks of commingling weapons of mass disruption with weapons of mass destruction, and argues against establishing a dangerous norm of "hacking the bomb". The book is published by Georgetown University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks. "Skillfully weaves the many threads binding cyberspace and the nuclear establishment.... Strategists of all flavors, take note." (Martin Libicki, author of Cyberspace in Peace and War) "A must-read volume for anyone who cares about this perilous new threat to mankind." (Bruce G. Blair, Princeton University)
©2018 Georgetown University Press (P)2021 Redwood Audiobooks
The Spirit of the Laws
Summary
From the moment of its publication in 1748, The Spirit of the Laws proved to be a controversial work provoking widespread interest. Within three years it had been translated into various European languages - and was swiftly added to the List of Prohibited Books by the Roman Catholic Church. It is a remarkable book, a potpourri of observations and comments ranging far and wide over the social activities of mankind, and it exerted a great influence on political leaders in the following decades. For over 20 years, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), a French landowner and polymath of the Age of Enlightenment, compiled his work, casting an interested and unfettered eye over classical Greece and Rome, over his own times, and over the historical bases of customs across the world, from Europe to the Middle East as far as China and the Far East. His purpose was to look at the governments of countries and to consider how and why they were governed, and the different results that ensued within different systems. He questioned how these democratic, despotic or monarchical structures and institutions affected the lives of the people, comparing the laws that protect and the laws that constrain. He evaluated the morals and traditions that prevailed and the individual freedoms that differing societies allowed while analysing how power in government was divided between the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. Having read widely and voraciously, he brought under his purview a mass of social, historical, theoretical and anthropological detail which, even today, is entertaining, fascinating and absorbing. He considered not just the way tradition, religion and laws fashioned society but even the effects of climate and geography. De Montesquieu's topics included Alexander the Great, the condition of women, corruption, slavery, civil law in France, English politics, Feudal laws among the Franks, taxes, the Lombards, the Huns, Charlemagne, Plutarch, despotic rule in Japan, marriage habits, attitudes to family and family law in different countries, with evidence ranging from Lacedaemonian magistrates to the West Indies. The Spirit of the Laws is a remarkably colourful document that shaped the views of many lawmakers in the following decades - among them the founding fathers of the United States - with its essentially liberal and humane outlook on life and mankind. Not so well known in the 21st century, it is a true gem awaiting rediscovery and is read with great clarity by Martyn Swain.
Public Domain (P)2019 Ukemi Productions Ltd
The Annals
Summary
The Annals, written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (56c-120 CE), is regarded as one of the great literary works of history in the Roman world. Tacitus is considered by many to be the greatest of Roman historians, and The Annals is his’ outstanding achievement. Originally comprising 18 volumes, books 7 to 10 and parts of books 5, 6, 11 and 16 have been lost, but those that remain, read here by Martyn Swain, tell the fascinating tale of the Julio Claudian emperors and their times. Writing many years after their deaths, in the reign of the emperor Trajan, but still within living memory of his subjects, Tacitus describes the corrupting nature of Roman society with an analytical eye and a critical mind, seeking to present an accurate and considered view of the key events and characters of the preceding century. Beyond the scope of any Hollywood epic, his canvas is vast, and he paints the picture of the incipient decline of Roman values and society following the death of the Divine Augustus. His descriptions of the lives and deaths of the Julio Claudian emperors (14-68 CE) paint portraits of some of the most monstrous and notorious individuals the world has ever seen: he describes the gradual moral decay and corruption of the hypocritical Tiberius; the weakness of the unfortunate Claudius and his infamous wives Messallina and Agrippina; and the unmitigated malignant evil of the despicable Nero. Tacitus, who was also known as Publius Cornelius Tacitus, chronicles the intrigues and excesses of the rulers of empire as well as their overpowering pride and vanity within the setting of fabulous wealth, absolute power and a range of pernicious wickedness of unparalleled variety. The Annals are remarkable as a work of literary accomplishment written by a master of rhetoric and have a poetic, tragic quality often focusing on the seemingly implacable nature of fate and the widespread bloodshed, disaster and doom so often unleashed by intransigent human greed and malevolence. John Jackson’s translation of The Annals chronicles a series of events filled with multiple examples of the limitless appetite for power, wealth and glory and the interplay between the rulers of the state, its populace, its institutions and its military. As well as detailing the conflicts, battles and conquests of the empire stretching from North Africa to Persia and from Palestine to Britain, Tacitus recounts fascinating details of insurrection, mutiny and rebellion in the armies of Rome; battles won and lost; storms at sea; shipwrecks; suicides; assassinations; torture; executions; murder by poison, rope and blade; incest and worse; and the commonplace of family members scheming, plotting, and killing each other to satisfy their lusts and achieve their ambitions.
Public Domain (P)2019 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Summa Theologica, Volume 2
Summary
Summa Theologica consists of three main parts. The second part is divided in two, and this recording presents Prima Secundae - Part I of Part II. Taken in its entirety, Summa Theologica forms an essential contribution to the canon of Catholic doctrine and was written in the last decade of his life by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian-born Dominican friar. Although he died before completing it, the body of thought it contains is a continuing influence to the education and guidance of students of theology in the main Christian traditions. Prima Secundae comprises seven essential treatises on the subjects of: The last end Human acts Passions Habits Vice and sin Law Grace Within these treatises the writer considers a vast range of topics. In the Treatise on the Last End he explores and illuminates the Catholic understanding of human actions and related questions on reason and appetite design and causality. In the Treatise on Human Acts his subject is the will and the nature of good and evil. In the Treatise on the Passions he undertakes a detailed consideration of the nature and importance of the major feelings and emotions: love and hatred, concupiscence and delight, pain and sorrow, fear and daring, and anger. In the Treatise on Habits he examines the relationships existing between habits and their causes and effects as well as the nature and essence of the intellectual, moral, cardinal, and theological virtues. The treatise ends with a consideration of the beatitudes and blessings of the Holy Ghost. The Treatise on Vice and Sin deals with understanding the essential nature of vice and sin, the internal and external causes of sin, the role of human free will, the role of the devil, the corruption of nature, and the differences between venial and mortal sins and their corresponding punishments. The Treatise on Law compares and contrasts the various types of law: eternal, natural, human, and law as revealed in the Old and New Testaments with detailed consideration of ceremonial and judicial precepts. The Treatise on Grace considers its necessity essence cause and effects. As in the rest of Summa Theologica, the Prima Secundae is logically structured. Each main heading or question is subdivided into points of inquiry or numbered articles. Each article is then formulated as a series of numbered objections to the idea to be postulated, followed by their counter statements. Aquinas’ summation is preceded by the phrase ‘I answer that...’ which then clarifies the issue under discussion. There are also individual replies for further clarification where necessary. Long considered a classic text in philosophy and theology, Summa Theologica now offers the listener detailed expositions and considerations of the thinking of figures such as St. Paul (referred to as the Apostle) as well as non-Christian figures such as Aristotle (referred to as the Philosopher), Boethius, Muslim writers including Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (referred to as the Commentator) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and the Sephardic Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides (referred to as Rabbi Moses), among others. The translation used has been formally attributed to Fathers of the English Dominican Province, though it is generally accepted it was the work of one man: Father Laurence Shapcote. It is read with clarity and fluency by Martyn Swain. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Summa Theologica Part I (Prima Pars)
Summary
The Summa Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas, is a fundamental text in Catholic doctrine, a compendium of theology that has been studied and debated since its first publication in the 13th century. Furthermore, it has been widely regarded as one of the classics of Western philosophy, not least because, perhaps for the first time in such a systematic manner, it set out to consider the views of non-Christian figures such as Aristotle, Boethius, Muslim writers including Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and the Sephardic Jewish scholar Maimonides. The work proved a major influence on Dante when he came to write the Divine Comedy and continues to be studied in most of the major Christian traditions. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian-born Dominican Friar, wrote the Summa Theologica between 1265 and 1274 - it was unfinished at his death. He set out to provide a basic introduction to students, but the scope and detail goes far further than that. It is a huge work, approaching two million words in total. It is divided formally into three parts, though the third was completed after his death by incorporating earlier writings. The three main sections are generally further subdivided, and this is reflected in the Ukemi recording. This opening recording contains the First Part (Prima Pars). It will be followed by Second Part (Prima Secundae - the first part of Part II); then Second Part (Secundae Secundae - the second part of Part II); and finally Part III. Aquinas ordered his work in a clear and regular pattern. He starts with a Question, divides the Question into a number of ‘Articles’, and within each Article he enters into a debate, offering Objections and Replies to the Objections. Part I (Prima Pars) has 119 Questions and 584 Articles and is essentially devoted to God’s existence and nature. The first Question is ‘The Nature and Extent of Sacred Doctrine’. The second Question (widely read and discussed) is ‘The Existence of God’, which includes his proposal of ‘the five ways’ proving the existence of God. First Part is further divided into sections: Treatise on the Creation, Treatise on the Angels, Treatise on the Work of the Six Days, Treatise on Man, Treatise on the Divine Government. The final Question in the First Part is ‘Of the Propagation of Man as to the Body’. The translation used has been formally attributed to Fathers of the English Dominican Province, though it is generally accepted it was the work of one man, Father Laurence Shapcote. It is read with clarity and fluency by Martyn Swain. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics
Summary
In 1929, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) published his remarkable book Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. The Kantbuch, as Heidegger often called it, is regarded by many as a vital supplement to the unfinished second part of Heidegger’s most influential work, Being and Time, which was published two years earlier in 1927. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics is seen both as a landmark in the evolution of Heidegger’s own thinking and as a notable contribution to Kantian scholarship, even though Heidegger would later modify his position considerably on some of the questions raised. Its genesis is attributed to an encounter between Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer, the German philosopher trained in the Neo-Kantian Marburg school, a meeting which took place at the second Davos Hochschulkurs, or philosophy conference in Switzerland. The two men discussed and debated Kant’s work in depth and the encounter led to Heidegger adapting his interpretation of Kant’s ideas, focusing principally on the schematism of the categories. While his phenomenological interpretation of the ideas expressed in the Critique of Pure Reason is at times tendentious and controversial, and did not convince Cassirer, the dialectical interplay the that can be gleaned between these three great minds is fascinating. From his phenomenological existential standpoint Heidegger analyses Kant’s thinking and organises his work into four sections, subdivided into 45 subsections. The first two sections consider the laying of the foundations of metaphysics and how this intellectual undertaking was carried out. The topics under consideration are mind-bendingly varied, and some are notoriously challenging and difficult to grasp. They range from: the foundations of ontology to the elucidation of space and time as pure intuitions; ontological synthesis; the problems of categories and the role of transcendental logic; the transcendence of finite reasoning as the basic purpose of the transcendental deduction; and the importance of image, schema and schema-image, schematism and subsumption. Section three focuses on the transcendental imagination as the formative centre of ontological knowledge and its relation to intuition and reason. It also considers the inherently temporal character of the transcendental imagination and the temporal character of the self. Section four goes on to explore the foundations of metaphysics in philosophical anthropology, the problem of finitude in man and the metaphysics of Dasein as fundamental ontology, its goals and how the idea of fundamental ontology relates to the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics is read with clarity and precision by Martyn Swain for Ukemi Audiobooks. Translation by James S. Churchill.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Summa Theologica, Volume 3
Summary
Secunda Secundae is the longest part in this immense undertaking by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). His purpose was nothing less than to survey the theological teachings of the Catholic Church, while absorbing, controversially for his time, many other strands of learning and philosophy, varying from ancient Greek (particularly Aristotle) to Muslim writers (Averroes and Avicenna) and the Sephardic Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides. Secunda Secundae follows the established pattern of presenting topics in terms of Questions divided into Articles which are further divided into clearly considered lines of debate. There are 189 Questions which are grouped into four ‘Treatises’ - focussed areas for discussion: Treatise on the Theological Virtues (Questions 1-46), Treatise on the Cardinal Virtues (Questions 47-70), Treatise on Fortitude and Temperance, (Questions 123-170), Treatise on Gratuitous Graces (Questions 171-182), and the final short section, Treatise on the States of Life (Questions 183-189). Part II of the Summa Theologica is broadly concerned with ethics, and in this Part II of Part II, Aquinas turns his enquiry towards virtues. It opens with the enquiry into faith, considering the acts of faith, the cause, the effects, hope and their contraries: heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, despair and more. The four cardinal virtues are then examined, prudence and justice being followed by fortitude and temperance, often with the positive and negative states being juxtaposed: humility and pride; sobriety and drunkenness; fasting and gluttony. Prophecy, rapture, and ‘The Division of Life into the Active and the Contemplative’, are among the topics in Gratuitous Graces, ending with the consideration of man’s various duties and states in general and the state of perfection in general. As always, Aquinas supports his argument with a wealth of references - notably from St Augustine, of course, but also from a rich and varied list of sources. Throughout this long but sustained work, Aquinas demands continuous attention through his clarity of intellect and expression. A continuing tribute must be made to Father Laurence Shapcote of the Dominican Order who, while based in South Africa in the first half of the 20th century, made this translation from Latin his life’s work. Martyn Swain continues his impressive reading of this major Western medieval classic of theology and philosophy. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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