Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Leaving Plato's Cave-Out only Hope 1
Part 1 Shadows on the Cave Wall; The Many Faces of Objectification
1. Preliminaries 9
2. Objectification: "A Slippery, Multiple Concept" 14
3. Objectification Revisited: A Spectrum of Misapprehension 21
Part 2 The Human Situation: Limitations and Possibilities
4. Three Observations from Antiquity: Philosophia Perennis 47
5. Unity Consciousness: Reality at the Deepest Level 53
Part 3 What we are: Dispositional Factors Contributing to Objectification
6. The Paradoxical Nature of Language and Other Boundaries 61
7. Boundaries of Self 78
8. Narcissism 93
9. The Ego (Part One): Its Nature and Manifestations 101
10. The Ego (Part Two): Having versus Being 120
11. Problems Stemming from Death Denial 137
Part 4 Who we are: Situational Factors Contributing to Objectification
12. Rising Awareness of Situational Power 153
13. Situationally Induced Objectification: Three Relevant Classic Examples 161
14. Situationally Induced Heroism: Momentary Transcendence of Objectification 180
Part 5 Pathways toward Transformation: Trails Leading out of Plato's Cave
15. The Problem of Englightenment 189
16. Theistic and Nontheistic Approaches to Transcending Objectification 195
17. Objectification's Antidote: The Enlightenment Spectrum 225
Appendix 245
Reference 249
Index 267