Profundity: A Universal Value by Jean Gabbert Harrell

ISBN: 9780271008493

Pennsylvania State University Press 16 October 1992

Hardcover | 208 pages

The crisis or “death” of philosophy currently identified both within and outside professional circles is commonly attributed to the failure to find universals in metaphysics, epistemology, and, most obviously, in valuational judgment. *Profundity* concentrates on an assumption uniformly upheld in the theory of value, that all human values are contextually dependent. Harrell contends, to the contrary, that there exists one major value that is universal to humans, regardless of context: profundity, or depth. Considering how “profundity” is used in language leads Harrell to identify two fundamental sensory patterns common to all human life at its origin — an auditory pattern experienced before birth and a visual one experienced immediately after birth. From analysis of these patterns as they recur in music and the visual arts, the book discusses related manifestations in religious doctrine, ceremony, and literary works, and provides a full‑scale treatment of profundity in the history of Western philosophy. ([abebooks.com](https://www.abebooks.com/9780271008493/Profundity-universal-value-Harrell-Jean-0271008490/plp?utm_source=chatgpt.com))