Life is work, Life is leisure — Evangelical Outpost. Art & Literature, Book Reviews, Culture, Other, Philosophy, Religion, Worldviews — By Julia Kiewit on November 29, 2010 at 7:14 am When I first started working, I promised myself that I’d never be “that person”—you know, the one who lived for the weekends. As time went by, however, I found myself increasingly looking forward Friday rituals—“TGIF!” Emails, the Starbucks run to celebrate the end of the week, weekend to-do lists. It did not take long for me to get from my Friday fixation to asking myself about the purpose of life. In Leisure, Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper, a twentieth century German Catholic philosopher, talks about a connection between leisure and the world of work (i.e., world of utilitarian measures). For Pieper, leisure and the world of work are two fundamentally different ways of approaching reality, and our understanding of human existence is derived from one or the other.
He contrasts leisure with the world of work, which looks at life though utilitarian glasses. Max Weber. Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber (German: [ˈmaks ˈveːbɐ]; 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist whose ideas influenced social theory, social research, and the entire discipline of sociology.[3] Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founding creators of sociology.[4][5][6] Weber also made a variety of other contributions in economic history, as well as economic theory and methodology. Weber's analysis of modernity and rationalisation significantly influenced the critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School. After the First World War, Max Weber was among the founders of the liberal German Democratic Party.
He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament and served as advisor to the committee that drafted the ill-fated democratic Weimar Constitution of 1919. Biography[edit] Early life and family background[edit] Max Weber and his brothers, Alfred and Karl, in 1879 Education[edit] Christian Concepts of Leisure.
By David Purcell, The New Times October 10, 1958. You will look in vain in a dictionary for a definition of Leisure. A dictionary will express its meaning vaguely as being "free time," which conveys a completely inadequate impression of what leisure really is. Now it is hardly surprising that a dictionary cannot help us. Leisure is a spiritual and mental attitude-an Idea-and we cannot encompass in a single term or sentence the definition of an Idea.
An examination of some aspects of this Idea, however, will help us to understand the nature of leisure. The first thing to note is that leisure has a positive value of its own. Leisure is an attitude of contemplation, of an inward calm, of surrendering to Reality. It has been held by many philosophers that what is hard work is good. But we will more clearly understand the nature of leisure by examining the idea of leisure in Christian thought and teaching. St. This is one of the many paradoxes of Christianity. I mention St. Calvinism. Saint Thomas Aquinas. First published Mon Jul 12, 1999; substantive revision Wed Sep 30, 2009 Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) lived at a critical juncture of western culture when the arrival of the Aristotelian corpus in Latin translation reopened the question of the relation between faith and reason, calling into question the modus vivendi that had obtained for centuries. This crisis flared up just as universities were being founded.
Thomas, after early studies at Montecassino, moved on to the University of Naples, where he met members of the new Dominican Order. It was at Naples too that Thomas had his first extended contact with the new learning. When he joined the Dominican Order he went north to study with Albertus Magnus, author of a paraphrase of the Aristotelian corpus. Thomas completed his studies at the University of Paris, which had been formed out of the monastic schools on the Left Bank and the cathedral school at Notre Dame. 1. 1.1 Vita Brevis 1.2 Education 1.3 Writings 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. What Work Is Really For. The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. Is work good or bad? A fatuous question, it may seem, with unemployment such a pressing national concern. (Apart from the names of the two candidates, “jobs” was the politically relevant word most used by speakers at the Republican and Democratic conventions.)
Even apart from current worries, the goodness of work is deep in our culture. We applaud people for their work ethic, judge our economy by its productivity and even honor work with a national holiday. But there’s an underlying ambivalence: we celebrate Labor Day by not working, the Book of Genesis says work is punishment for Adam’s sin, and many of us count the days to the next vacation and see a contented retirement as the only reason for working. We’re ambivalent about work because in our capitalist system it means work-for-pay (wage-labor), not for its own sake. Everything depends on how we understand leisure. Leif Parsons.