The Riddle of the Sphinx: Thoughts about the Human Enigma

By Jay G. Williams

Through a series of 144 short texts on twelve key subjects, this text introduces the reader to some of the central perplexities of human life. Along with those texts written by the author himself are selections from such sources as Genesis and Lao Tzu, Plato and the Upanishads, Hume and Wittgenstein, Augustine and Ecclesiastes, to name but a few. Topics range from the nature of language to pleasure and pain to life after death. Most of the classical questions of the philosophy of religion are introduced. Contents: The Sphinx; Words; Good and Evil; Time; The Self; Pleasure and Pain; That None Greater Than Which can be Conceived; Knowing and Not Knowing; Prescription; Transformation; The Good Life; and Life After Death.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081917887X
• ISBN13: 9780819178879
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: University Press of America
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

a book to make you think

Never giving answers, never really asking questions, Jay questions everything without questioning... by pulling quotes from all kinds of religious and non-religious texts, he swirls you through all kinds of "arguments". Not a book to make you believe, but a book to make you look again at the world around you. Without coming off as pure rhetoric or too "New Age", this book leaves you floating in space, not really sure which way is up. Also, don't try to read this book from cover to cover... but then again, who am I to tell you how to read it?