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Themes and Variations
Variations on a philosopher.
Art and religion.
Variations on a baroque tomb.
Variations on El Greco.
Variations on The prisons.
Variations on Goya.
The double crisis.
Art and religion.
Variations on a baroque tomb.
Variations on El Greco.
Variations on The prisons.
Variations on Goya.
The double crisis.
- GenresClassicsPhilosophy
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1950
2 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Aldous Huxley
782 books13.7k followersAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 4, 2009
It is amazing to be able to read Huxley's view of the personal stuggles of philosopher Maine de Biran through analyzation of his lifelong works and diares. I find comfort in knowing that great minds have contradictory viewpoints at different times throughout life. Variations on a Philosopher opened my mind to new ideas about ideas. I love it. Next up: Art and Religion.
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May 3, 2013On the "intrinsically evil and destructive nature of nationalism": Within five years of achieving its liberty every oppressed nationality takes to militarism, and within two or three generations, sometimes within a single generation, it becomes, if circumstances are propitious, an imperialist aggressor, eager to inflict upon its neighbours the oppression of which itself was so recently a victim.
On "militaristic and industrialised totalitarianism": Within this field, persons are treated as means to non-personal ends. Their right to a private existence, unconditioned by history and society, is denied on principle; and whereas the older tyrannies had found it hard to make this denial universally effective, their modern counterparts, thanks to applied science and the improved techniques of inquisition and coercion, are able to translate their principles into practice on a scale and with a discriminatory precision unknown in the past.
On direct knowledge or experience of God: To believe in a thing is radically different from knowing it. Moreover, a belief which is based upon authority, on somebody else's account of what may, or may not, have been a direct experience, is very often not an aid to redemptive knowledge, but actually an impediment.
On the supplement to "the Stoic doctrine of the sufficiency of will and reason": the Christian teaching that will must be supplemented by grace and reason by inspiration.
On the insufficiency of introspection and the necessity of a goal above oneself: Introspection for its own sake, introspection that fails to go beyond the 'I' and the organism, tends inevitably to transform the active conscience into a merely speculative conscience. The habitual introvert is liable to become primarily scientific when he ought to be primarily moral, to think only of facts in situations where he should be thinking of values.
On "militaristic and industrialised totalitarianism": Within this field, persons are treated as means to non-personal ends. Their right to a private existence, unconditioned by history and society, is denied on principle; and whereas the older tyrannies had found it hard to make this denial universally effective, their modern counterparts, thanks to applied science and the improved techniques of inquisition and coercion, are able to translate their principles into practice on a scale and with a discriminatory precision unknown in the past.
On direct knowledge or experience of God: To believe in a thing is radically different from knowing it. Moreover, a belief which is based upon authority, on somebody else's account of what may, or may not, have been a direct experience, is very often not an aid to redemptive knowledge, but actually an impediment.
On the supplement to "the Stoic doctrine of the sufficiency of will and reason": the Christian teaching that will must be supplemented by grace and reason by inspiration.
On the insufficiency of introspection and the necessity of a goal above oneself: Introspection for its own sake, introspection that fails to go beyond the 'I' and the organism, tends inevitably to transform the active conscience into a merely speculative conscience. The habitual introvert is liable to become primarily scientific when he ought to be primarily moral, to think only of facts in situations where he should be thinking of values.
July 12, 2012
El ensayo principal es una gran teoría filosófica a través de un personaje ficcionado, el resto de "variaciones" son interesantes pero han quedado anticuadas.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews