Books by Robert J. O'Connell

"An exciting book...places the central sections of the Confessions in fresh perspectives."-Theological Studies

When this book was originally published in 1969, it added fuel to a controversy (sparked by the author in a previous work) that continues unabated to the present day.Now, available for the first time in a paperback edition, it offers a new generation of readers a detailed exposition of the Confessions, showing how the Plotinian view of man as a fallen soul is present in this work and, furthermore, that it is the key to its interpretation.

The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, has been characterized as metaphysics, poetry, and mysticism-virtually everything except what its author claimed it was: a "purely scientific mémoir." Professor O''Connell here follows up on a nest of clues, uncovered first in an early unpublished essay, then in the series of essays contained principally in The Vision of the Past. Those clues all point to Teilhard''s intimate familiarity with the philosophy of science propounded by the celebrated Pierre Duhem. It was Duhem''s central claim that science, to remain true to itself, must aim at establishing a genuine "natural classification" phenomenal reality. That insight, Professor O''Connell argues, guided Teilhard''s lifelong effort to describe the "imposed reality-factors" which science in its variety of forms suggests as ingredients and operative at every phase in the evolutionary development of planet Earth. Limiting his focus to the way Teilhard unfolded his vision of the past, Professor O''Connell concludes that those who deprecate Teilhard as unscientific betray little awareness of how sophisticated his understanding of science truly was.

"An introduction to philosophy for undergraduates through Socratic/Platonic eyes... one of the best short introductions to Plato available."-First Things

William James' celebrated lecture on "The Will to Believe" has kindled spirited controversy since the day it was delivered. In this title, the author contributes some fresh contentions: that James' argument should be viewed against his indebtedness to Pascal and Renouvier; that it works primarily to validate our over-beliefs.

As a young student in Paris, Robert O'Connell was first enamoured of the artistic imagery of Augustine's works. Now, after years of research and study, he offers a treatment of Augustine's "image clusters" which should be of interest to readers of philosophy, theology or language.