New ideas that will challenge readers and expand their horizons.
Battler’s unified theory of everything, from the fundamental laws of physics to consciousness and free will.
Though Battler offers a wide view of universal structures—ranging from the development of organic life, the nature of forces, and the underlying nature of consciousness, thought and the mind—there’s a marked difference here from many similar books. Battler takes a more philosophical, phenomenological approach—a twist that adds some interesting ideas to the mix. However, this phenomenological aspect isn’t that of classic phenomenologists, such as Husserl, but of his predecessors, namely Schelling and Hegel, the latter playing a strong role in Battler’s sections on the mind. Central to Battler’s thesis is what he calls ontobia—“the property of being that reveals its existence through motion, space, and time.” His book starts with an overview of philosophers who dealt with natural science, including Aristotle, Leibniz, Newton and Kant, as well as Spinoza, Locke and Teilhard de Chardin—welcome additions to the usual list of philosophers. The book’s second part looks at the idea of force through scientific theories related to quantum physics, the Big Bang and then back again through the Big Crunch. In the third section, Battler then turns his attention toward the organic world, particularly the fields of chemistry and biology, with an emphasis on evolution. Finally, in the fourth section, man arrives as Battler considers the development of consciousness, with references to many well-known thinkers, including Penrose, Searle and Sheldrake, to name a few. For a book of moderate size, the thoroughness is impressive, and even when his ideas run against the grain, the well-argued philosophical combat will satisfy inquisitive readers.
New ideas that will challenge readers and expand their horizons.Pub Date: May 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484008850
Page Count: 322
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
