Handbook of Reason

By Dagobert D. Runes

In his most recent philosophical work, one of the modern world’s pre-eminent thinkers offers a summation of his views on a wide range of topics of first and last importance, beginning with abstract art and ending with Zionism.
 
Culled from years of patient research and fruitful introspection, his observations are bound to stimulate, challenge, and at times force upon the reader a shock of recognition grounded on timeless but at times obscured universal truths.
 
Dr. Runes’ word magic, now aphoristic, now cadenced and metaphorical, creates countless gems of wisdom, frequently poetic, often irresistibly quotable, always profoundly moving. A humanitarian theme evolved partly from personal tragedies permeates his lifelong search for “a life of God the Spirit and the Giver/(Of) God unbound and unencumbered/By hate or prejudice/A god to love by Deeds/Not hollow hymns and vows.” 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504012980

Dagobert D. Runes

Dagobert D. Runes was born in Zastavna, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (now in Ukraine), and received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1924. In 1926 he emigrated to the United States, where he became editor of the Modern Thinker and later Current Digest. From 1931 to 1934 he was director of the Institute for Advanced Education in New York City, and in 1941 he founded the Philosophical Library, a spiritual organization and publishing house. Runes published an English translation of Karl Marx’s On the Jewish Question under the title A World Without Jews, featuring an introduction that was clearly antagonistic to extreme Marxism and “its materialism,” yet he did not entirely negate Marxist theory. He also edited several works presenting the ideas and history of philosophy to a general audience, including his Dictionary of Philosophy.