Overview

At the Altar of Concepts starts with objects, their rise, a comparison with images, eventually arriving at the notion of concepts. Unlike images and many objects, concepts are this thing of greater permanence, people if they are aware of it or not, are deeply attached to them. Relationships, democracy, economic security are all concepts. People seek them out, they prize them, they think they understand them. Some people even worship them. To worship something here means that figuratively, people give themselves to some ritual or practice whereby some special recognition is accorded to something - a being or an object. Because of their devotion to significant themes i.e. concepts, some people need to go to the altar to obtain them. People worship science, they worship a beautiful woman, or they worship some object. But these are all special activities. This special activity is said to take place at an altar, where an exceptional aura exists, and the goddess of concepts presides. Hence the title of the book - At the Altar of Concepts.

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9781515007326

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Patrick J. O'Connell is an honors graduate of the University of Paris VII, where a program of of Social Dynamics dedicated to history was explored and carried out via a doctoral dissertation and oral exam both completed several years back. Though historian by profession the first book Objects: A study of the rise, production, contact, flow, building, ROs, ontology, gazes, LLCs, indicators, and situation of objects in the natural and social realms under Outskirts Press, has as principal theme that of philosophy dedicated to the formal study of objects as a category. The current volume continues in philosophy and objects, yet gets specific regarding these objects. That is concepts a kind of object is now this all-important term around which the book revolves. His second book At the Altar of Concepts starts with objects, their rise, a comparison with images, eventually arriving at the notion of concepts. People are said to be caught up in objects in everyday life. In this world, objects and images are things of lesser permanence. Concepts however - relationships, democracy, economic security, wealth, social attention and so on - are in fact entities of greater permanence found in the social realm. People do innumerable things with objects. They spend time with them, they contemplate them, they seek them out, they prize them, they think they understand them. Sometimes people even worship them. To worship something here means that figuratively, people give themselves to some ritual or practice whereby some special recognition is accorded to something - a being or an object. Because of their devotion to significant themes i.e. concepts, some people need to go to the altar to obtain them. This devotion and activities are said to take place at an altar, where an exceptional aura exists, and the goddess of concepts presides. Hence the title of the book - At the Altar of Concepts.

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