The Horizon: A History of Our Infinite LongingWhat is a horizon? A line where land meets sky? The end of the world or the beginning of perception? In this brilliant, engaging, and stimulating history, Didier Maleuvre journeys to the outer reaches of human experience and explores philosophy, religion, and art to understand our struggle and fascination with limits—of life, knowledge, existence, and death. Maleuvre sweeps us through a vast cultural landscape, enabling us to experience each stopping place as the cusp of a limitless journey, whether he is discussing the works of Picasso, Gothic architecture, Beethoven, or General Relativity. If, as Aristotle said, philosophy begins in wonder, then this remarkable book shows us how wonder—the urge to know beyond the conceivable—is itself the engine of culture. |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
THE ARCHAIC AGE | 9 |
THE PHILOSOPHICAL AGE | 63 |
THE THEOLOGICAL AGE | 93 |
THE SCIENTIFIC AGE | 167 |
THE SUBJECTIVE AGE | 211 |
THE MATHEMATICAL AGE | 265 |
Afterword | 325 |
Notes | 329 |
| 345 | |
| 357 | |
Common terms and phrases
Adam and Eve aesthetic Akhenaten Anaximander ancient Aristotle Art Resource artist Aten Augustine Baroque believe century chapter Christ Christian cosmic cosmos creature Cubist culture Cusanus dead death Descartes desert distance divine earth Egyptian Elohim emptiness Enkidu essence Estragon eternal everything existence existential experience face fact faith finite finitude gaze Gilgamesh God’s gods Gothic Grail Greek heaven Heracleitus hero Hölderlin horizon Hudson River school human Ibid idea imagination immanent immortality infinite infinity intellectual Jesus journey knowledge land landscape Leonardo limit live look Maimonides means medieval mind monotheism Montaigne mortal Moses mystery narrative nature never nonbeing nothingness object Odysseus one’s painter painting Parmenides perceive perception perspective philosopher Plato reality religion religious Renaissance Romantic seems sense shape soul space spirit story sublime theology things thought tion transcendence universe vision void waiting for Godot Werther word Yahweh
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Horizon: A History of Our Infinite Longing |
| Author | Didier Maleuvre |
| Publisher | University of California Press, 2011 |
| ISBN | 0520947118, 9780520947115 |
| Length | 392 pages |
| Subjects | › History / World |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |