Just published—The Laws of Life: An Exploration of Fundamental Problems in Ethics

Nov. 11, 2015 - PRLog -- Fictive Press is pleased to announce the publication of a second book by the late 20^th-century Danish thinker Andreas Simonsen, translated by Per K. Brask.

In The Laws of Life: An Exploration of Fundamental Problems in Ethics, Simonsen explores what he considers the three most fundamental problems in ethics: free will versus determinism, happiness versus duty, and humanism versus humility. He attempts to untangle the inevitable contradictions “attached to everything human and conditioned by a basic paradoxical duality in our essence and existence. … Humans are spirit and nature, creating and created, cause and effect. This paradoxical condition must be reflected in our view of life.”

Brask, born in Denmark, was surprised to discover that none of Simonsen’s works had ever been translated into English. “I thought his works deserved a larger readership,” explains Brask. “Given my commitment to Judaism and Judaic studies, I began by translating Simonsen’s Foundational Thoughts in Judaism [published by Fictive Press in 2014], a book that presents the ethics of Judaism in a manner I can embrace wholeheartedly. In The Laws of Life, Simonsen interrogates some perennial problems in ethics and does so by invoking Niels Bohr's concept of complementarity in his analysis. The next book I intend to translate, The Foundation of Ethics [Etikkens grundlag], is written as a series of fictional dialogues in which a character standing in for Simonsen discusses ethical issues with a skeptical relativist, a rationalist and an existentialist. For me, these three books form a series in which Simonsen lays out and tests his ethical insights “

Andreas Simonsen (1923-1991) published over a dozen books in his lifetime, primarily on ethics, humanism and religious thought – all of them in Danish, until these English translations by Per K. Brask.

Per Brask, a professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at The University of Winnipeg, is also an accomplished dramaturge and author who has published poetry, plays, short stories, essays and literary translations. A more detailed biography of Brask is at http://fictivepress.com/per-brask.htm

Fictive Press is a digital publisher, launched in 2011 as a division of BizNet Communications, a corporate and marketing communications firm operating from Gabriola Island, British Columbia.

The Laws of Life is Fictive Press’s 11^th title. Readers can order it online in trade paperback (print on demand: $19.99 CDN), ePub and Kindle formats ($8.99 US) at http://fictivepress.com/non-fiction.htm#Laws .

To request a review copy of The Laws of Life, or to interview Per K. Brask, contact: