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This book—a commentary on Ernst Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms—provides an introduction to the metaphysical views that underlie the philosopher's conceptions of symbolic form and human culture. It focuses on the meaning of Cassirer's claim that philosophy is not itself a symbolic form but the thought around which all aspects of human activity are seen as a whole. Underlying the symbolic forms are Cassirer's two metaphysical principles, spirit (Geist) and life, which interact to produce the reality of the human world. The book shows how these two principles of Cassirer's early philosophy are connected with the phenomenology of his later philosophy, which centers on his conception of “basis phenomena”—self, will, and work.

This book examines one of the great lacunae of contemporary philosophical discussion—idealism. Addressing the widespread confusion about the meaning and use of the term, the book surveys and classifies some of its major forms, giving particular attention to Kant. It argues that Kant provides the all-important link between three main types of idealism: those associated with Plato, the new way of ideas, and German idealism. The book also makes a case for the contemporary relevance of at least one strand in the tangled idealist web, a strand most clearly identified with Kant: constructivism. In terms of the philosophical tradition, constructivism, it offers an important approach to knowledge after the decline of metaphysical realism.

The first four works written by St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion to Christianity are dialogues that have influenced prominent thinkers from Boethius to Bernard Lonergan. Usually called the Cassiciacum dialogues, these four works are of a high literary and intellectual quality, combining Ciceronian and neo-Platonic philosophy, Roman comedy and Vergilian poetry, and early Christian theology. They are also, arguably, Augustine's most charming works, exhibiting his whimsical levity and ironic wryness. This book is the fourth work in this tetralogy. Augustine coined the term “soliloquy” to describe this new form of dialogue. The book, a conversation between Augustine and his reason, fuses the dialogue genre and Roman theater, opening with a search for intellectual and moral self-knowledge before converging on the nature of truth and the question of the soul's immortality. The volume also includes On the Immortality of the Soul, which consists of notes for the unfinished portion of the work.