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› Find signed collectible books: 'After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory'
Morality, according to Alasdair MacIntyre, is not what it used to be. In the Aristotelian tradition of ancient Greece and medieval Europe, morality enabled the transformation from untutored human nature as it happened to be to human nature as it could be if it realized its telos (fundamental goal). Eventually, belief in Aristotelian teleology waned, leaving the idea of imperfect human nature in conflict with the perfectionist aims of morality. The conflict dooms to failure any attempt to justify the claims of morality, whether based on emotion, such as Hume's was, or on reason, as in the case of Kant. The result is that moral discourse and practice in the contemporary world is hollow: although the language and appearance of morality remains, the substance is no longer there. Disagreements on moral matters appeal to incommensurable values and so are interminable; the only use of moral language is manipulative.
The claims presented in After Virtue are certainly audacious, but the historical erudition and philosophical acuity behind MacIntyre's powerful critique of modern moral philosophy cannot be disregarded. Moreover, independently of its principal claims, the book, first published in 1981, helped to stimulate philosophical work on the virtues, to reinvigorate traditionalist and communitarian thought, and to provoke valuable discussion in the history of moral philosophy. It was so widely discussed that MacIntyre added another chapter to the second edition in order to reply to his critics. After Virtue continues to deserve attention from philosophers, historians, and anyone interested in moral philosophy and its history. --Glenn Branch [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alberuni's India'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Analects'
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Confucius is one of the most humane, rational, and lucid of moral teachers, concerned not with arcane metaphysics but with practical issues of life and conduct. What is virtue? What sort of life is most conducive to happiness? How should the state be ruled? What is the proper relationship between human beings and their environment?
In this classic translation of The Analects by Arthur Waley, the questions Confucius addressed two and a half millennia ago remain as relevant as ever. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Analects of Confucius'
"This is the Confucius translation for our time."-Jonathan Mirsky, The Times [London] In this terse, brilliant translation, Simon Leys restores the human dimension to Confucius. He emerges a full-blooded character with a passion for politics and a devotion to the ideals of a civilization he saw in decline. Leys's notes draw Confucius into conversation with the great thinkers of the Western tradition. In all, this volume provides new readers the perfect introduction to a classic work. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation'
There are more translations of Confucius' Analects than you can shake a stick at, but until now none have plumbed the depths of Confucius' thinking with such a keen sensitivity to philosophical and linguistic underpinnings. Following up on his groundbreaking work with David Hall in Thinking Through Confucius, Roger Ames has teamed up with Henry Rosemont to put theory into practice, portraying Confucius in light of his communitarian leanings. In a translation that comes off as surprisingly relaxed and colloquial, gone are the adherence to strict rules of propriety and righteous moralizing. Confucius has long been the victim of a certain unwitting Christianization, having been interpreted through the lens of Western philosophical assumptions. Ames and Rosemont scale away these assumptions, revealing a flexible and subtle thinker whose ideas of how to live well in a harmonious community have much to offer a fragmented society tied to reductive atomism and the exclusive exaltation of the individual. --Brian Bruya [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Analects of Confucius : A Philosophical Translation'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Archaeology of Knowledge'
In France, a country that awards its intellectuals the status other countries give their rock stars, Michel Foucault was part of a glittering generation of thinkers, one which also included Sartre, de Beauvoir and Deleuze. One of the great intellectual heroes of the twentieth century, Foucault was a man whose passion and reason were at the service of nearly every progressive cause of his time. From law and order, to mental health, to power and knowledge, he spearheaded public awareness of the dynamics that hold us all in thrall to a few powerful ideologies and interests. Arguably his finest work, Archaeology of Knowledge is a challenging but fantastically rewarding introduction to his ideas. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Aristotle's Poetics'
Here is a new translation, remarkable for its accuracy and refreshing clarity of exposition, of the first major work of literary criticism.
Aristotle's doctrines are basic to every critical discussion of Greek tragedy and of other literary forms. Although the Poetics has often been denounced or rejected, such rejection is usually the result of a misunderstanding of what Aristotle says. And that is where Hutton's work is uniquely important.
Commentators have long recognized the need to view the Poetics in the context of its creation and it re-emergence in the Renaissance. Few, if any, however, have had the necessary combination of talents that James Hutton possessed as an accomplished Hellenist with a particularly strong background in Greek philosophy, a graceful stylist in English, and a leading authority on the Renaissance humanists.
To supplement his translation, Hutton has provided full explanatory and glossarial notes. In his introduction he discusses the work in terms of Aristotelian thought and its Platonic roots, thereby correcting the dogmatism that often attends study of the Poetics. The introduction also fully outlines the work's historical influence.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of Travel'
Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so. In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton, author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, explores what the point of travel might be and modestly suggets how we can learn to be a little happier in our travels. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bhagavad Gita'
Prince Arjuna faced a dilemma that many face sooner or later--whether or not to take action that is necessary yet morally ambiguous. The difference is that Arjuna's action was to wage war against his own family. With the armies arrayed, Arjuna loses his nerve. Krishna, his charioteer and incarnation of divine consciousness, begins to teach him the nature of God and of himself, that Arjuna can attain liberation through union with God, and that there are several available paths. And so the most famous and revered of all Hindu scriptures goes on to teach the paths of knowledge, of devotion, of action, and of meditation, becoming the seed for all the Hindu systems of philosophy and religion that followed. For all of its profundity, Eknath Easwaran manages to translate the Gita in easy prose that neither panders nor obscures. Coupled with his thorough introduction, Easwaran's version comes off on all the levels it should: as a guide to action, as devotional scripture, as a philosophical text, and as inspirational reading. So what does Arjuna finally do? He follows his dharma, of course, as we all must. --Brian Bruya [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Care of the Self : The History of Sexuality'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Complete Works of Saint Thomas More'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Computational Brain'
How do groups of neurons interact to enable the organism to see, decide, and move appropriately? What are the principles whereby networks of neurons represent and compute? These are the central questions probed by The Computational Brain. Churchland and Sejnowski address the foundational ideas of the emerging field of computational neuroscience, examine a diverse range of neural network models, and consider future directions of the field. The Computational Brain is the first unified and broadly accessible book to bring together computational concepts and behavioral data within a neurobiological framework.Computer models constrained by neurobiological data can help reveal how -networks of neurons subserve perception and behavior - bow their physical interactions can yield global results in perception and behavior, and how their physical properties are used to code information and compute solutions. The Computational Brain focuses mainly on three domains: visual perception, learning and memory, and sensorimotor integration. Examples of recent computer models in these domains are discussed in detail, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, and extracting principles applicable to other domains. Churchland and Sejnowski show how both abstract models and neurobiologically realistic models can have useful roles in computational neuroscience, and they predict the coevolution of models and experiments at many levels of organization, from the neuron to the system.The Computational Brain addresses a broad audience: neuroscientists, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers. It is written for both the expert and novice. A basic overview of neuroscience and computational theory is provided, followed by a study of some of the most recent and sophisticated modeling work in the context of relevant neurobiological research. Technical terms are clearly explained in the text, and definitions are provided in an extensive glossary. The appendix contains a précis of neurobiological techniques.Patricia S. Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute, and a MacArthur Fellow. Terrence J. Sejnowski is Professor of Biology at the University of California, San Diego, Professor at the Salk Institute, where he is Director of the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Confessions'
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
Augustine's fourth-century spiritual autobiography not only is a major document in the history of Christianity, a classic of Roman Africa, and the unchallenged model through the ages for the autobiographical record of the journey to self-knowledge, it also marks a vital moment in the history of Western culture. As Augustine explains how, when, and why he became the man he is, he probes the great themes that others were to explore after himCfaith, time, truth, identity, and self-understanding--with a richness of detail unmatched in ancient literature. Dense with vivid portrayals of friends, family, colleagues, and enemies, The Confessions chronicles the passage from a life of sensuality and superstition to a genuine spiritual awakening--in a powerful narrative of one man's inner education that continues to shape the way we think and act today. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Confessions of Augustine in Modern English'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Confessions of Saint Augustine'
Augustine's Confessions is one of the most influential and most innovative works of Latin literature. Written in the author's early forties in the last years of the fourth century A.D. and during his first years as a bishop, they reflect on his life and on the activity of remembering and interpreting a life. Books I-IV are concerned with infancy and learning to talk, schooldays, sexual desire and adolescent rebellion, intense friendships and intellectual exploration. Augustine evolves and analyses his past with all the resources of the reading which shaped his mind: Virgil and Cicero, Neoplatonism and the Bible. This volume, which aims to be usable by students who are new to Augustine, alerts readers to the verbal echoes and allusions of Augustine's brilliant and varied Latin, and explains his theological and philosophical questioning of what God is and what it is to be human. The edition is intended for use by students and scholars of Latin literature, theology and Church history. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Confessions of St. Augustine: Modern English Version'
Heartfelt, incisive, and timeless, The Confessions of Saint Augustine has captivated readers for more than fifteen hundred years. Retelling the story of his long struggle with faith and ultimate conversion -- the first such spiritual memoir ever recorded -- Saint Augustine traces a story of sin, regret, and redemption that is both deeply personal and, at the same time, universal.
Starting with his early life, education, and youthful indiscretions, and following his ascent to influence as a teacher of rhetoric in Hippo, Rome, and Milan, Augustine is brutally honest about his proud and amibitious youth. In time, his early loves grow cold and the luster of wordly success fades, leaving him filled with a sense of inner absence, until a movement toward Christian faith takes hold, eventually leading to conversion and the flourishing of a new life. Philosophically and theologically brilliant, sincere in its feeling, and both grounded in history and strikingly contemporary in its resonance, The Confessions of Saint Augustine is a timeless class that will persist as long as humanity continues to long for meaning in life and peace of soul.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Defeat of the Mind'
A passionate critique of Enlightenment--both in its contemporary invocation and its historical and cultural use--and a call to arms to rethink human equality and liberty without the sacrifice of individual rights and ethnicities.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dialogues II'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Difficulty of Being'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance'
This is the definitive study of the history and accomplishments of the Frankfurt School. It offers elegantly written portraits of the major figures in the school's history as well as overviews of the various positions and directions they developed from the founding years just after World War I until the death of Theodor Adorno in 1969.The book is based on documentary and biographical materials that have only recently become available. As the narrative follows the Institute for Social Research from Frankfurt am Main to Geneva, New York, and Los Angeles, and then back to Frankfurt, Wiggershaus continually ties the evolution of the school to the changing intellectual and political contexts in which it operated. He also interweaves these accounts with incisive summaries of substantive works by Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Fromm, Kirchheimer, Lowenthal, Marcuse, Neumann, Pollock, and Habermas.The book is self-contained and can serve as a general introduction to critical theory, but it also has a wealth of new material to offer those who are familiar with this tradition but would like to learn more about its history and context.Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grammars of Creation'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grammars of Creation: Originating in the Gifford Lectures of 1990'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'How Real Is Real?: Confusion, Disinformation, Communication'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Inquiry into the Good'
A translation of Nishida's earliest book which represented the foundation of his philosophy - reflecting both his study of Zen Buddhism and his thorough analysis of Western philosophy. The book provides an account of this 20th-century Japanese philosopher's ideas. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Integral Humanism; Temporal and Spiritual Problems of a New Christendom'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know?'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Limits of Interpretation'
In this new collection of essays, Eco focuses on what he calls the limits of interpretation, or, as he once noted in another context, "the cancer of uncontrolled interpretation". Readers of Eco's other work will find here all the ingredients with which they have become familiar--vast learning, an agile and exciting mind, good humor and a brilliance of insight. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book'
The late Walker Percy's mordant contribution to the self-help book craze of the 1980s deals with the heavy abstraction of the Western mind and speculates about why writers may be the most abstracted and least grounded of all. (Before taking up novel writing, Percy was a medical doctor who became a patient in the very institution where he had worked.) The book disappeared for a time. Now it's back in print. Take the quizzes in it, then take a walk--you need to be back in the world before you write another word. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Magic Mountain'
Though surrounded by the beauty of the Swiss Alps, Hans Castorp is an unwitting captive in a tuberculosis sanitarium, under sentence of impending death. Originally admitted for a three week respite, he is betrayed by an X-ray which finds a small, dark patch on his lung. Thus begins a seven-year recuperation. Struck by the many other patients who seem to have resigned themselves, Castorp begins to question his purpose. As he listens to the stories and advice of other inmates and considers his own course of evolution, he realizes that here, in the midst of the dying, he has found life. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Meaning of Star Trek'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Meaning of Star Trek: An Excursion into the Myth and Marvel of the Star Trek Universe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Meditationes De Prima Philosophia: Meditations on First Philosophy'
Meditations on First Philosophy written by legendary philosopher Rene Descartes is widely considered to be one of the top philosophical books of all time. This great classic will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, Meditations on First Philosophy is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic philosophical literature, this gem by Rene Descartes is highly recommended. Published by Classic Books America and beautifully produced, Meditations on First Philosophy would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone's personal library. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Meditations'
One measure, perhaps, of a book's worth, is its intergenerational pliancy: do new readers acquire it and interpret it afresh down through the ages? The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated and introduced by Gregory Hays, by that standard, is very worthwhile, indeed. Hays suggests that its most recent incarnation--as a self-help book--is not only valid, but may be close to the author's intent. The book, which Hays calls, fondly, a "haphazard set of notes," is indicative of the role of philosophy among the ancients in that it is "expected to provide a 'design for living.'" And it does, both aphoristically ("Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly.") and rhetorically ("What is it in ourselves that we should prize?"). Whether these, and other entries ("Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life.") sound life-changing or like entries in a teenager's diary is up to the individual reader, as it should be. Hays's introduction, which sketches the life of Marcus Aurelius (emperor of Rome A.D. 161-180) as well as the basic tenets of stoicism, is accessible and jaunty. --H. O'Billovich [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius'
The insights and knowledge of this famed philosopher and Emperor are just as applicable to situations in today's world as they were in ancient Rome. When The Wall Street Journal asked Bill Clinton to name one book, other than the Bible, that's important to him, Clinton chose Aurelius' Meditations, which he rereads every couple of years. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Meditations on First Philosophy/Meditations De Prima Philosophia'
Meditations on First Philosophy written by legendary philosopher Rene Descartes is widely considered to be one of the top philosophical books of all time. This great classic will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, Meditations on First Philosophy is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic philosophical literature, this gem by Rene Descartes is highly recommended. Published by Classic Books America and beautifully produced, Meditations on First Philosophy would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone's personal library. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Meditations on First Philosophy: In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Human Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mythologies'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Old Regime and the French Revolution'
The most important contribution to our understanding of the French Revolution was written almost one hundred years ago by Alexis de Tocqueville. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Liberty'
First published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is an exhaustive exploration of social and civic liberty, its limits, and its consequences. Mill's work is a classic of political liberalism that contains a rational justification of the freedom of the individual in opposition to the claims of the state. Drawing upon the empiricism of John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume and the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, On Liberty defends the representative democracy as the culmination of society's progression from lower to higher stages, even as it recognizes one of the unique dangers of this type of government-namely, the "tyranny of the majority."Central to Mill's ideology is the harm principle-the idea that individual liberties should only be curtailed when they harm or interfere with the ability of others to exercise their own liberties. Unlike other liberal theorists, Mill did not rely upon theories of abstract rights to support his ideology, but rather grounded his philosophy in ideas of utility. As relevant to modern audiences as it was to Mill's Victorian readership, On Liberty is an enduring classic of political thought. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Social Contract With Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Other Heading: Reflections on Today's Europe'
Prompted by the unification of Europe in 1992 and by recent events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Jacques Derrida begins this compelling essay on contemporary world politics with the issue of European identity. What, he asks, is Europe? How has Europe traditionally been defined and how is the current world situation changing that definition? Might the prospects of a New Europe demand not only a new definition of European identity but also a new way of thinking identity itself?
Navigating in and through texts of Marx, Husserl, and especially Valéry, Derrida seeks a redefinition of European identity that includes respect both for difference and for universal values. The Other Heading appeals eloquently for a sustained effort at thinking through the complexity and the multiple dangers and opportunities of the contemporary world situation without resorting to easy or hasty solutions.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche's Notebooks of the Early 1870s'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Plague'
The Nobel prize-winning Albert Camus, who died in 1960, could not have known how grimly current his existentialist novel of epidemic and death would remain. Set in Algeria, in northern Africa, The Plague is a powerful study of human life and its meaning in the face of a deadly virus that sweeps dispassionately through the city, taking a vast percentage of the population with it. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Political Liberalism'
This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in A Theory of Justice but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines -- religious, philosophical, and moral -- coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines?
This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls' plans to revise Political Liberalism, which were cut short by his death.
"An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on A Theory of Justice...a decisive turn towards political philosophy."
-- Times Literary Supplement
[via]› Find signed collectible books: 'Praise of Folly'
First published in Paris in 1511, "The Praise of Folly" has enjoyed enormous and highly controversial success from the author's lifetime down to our own day. "The Folly" has no rival, except perhaps Thomas More's "Utopia", as the most intense and lively presentation of the literary, social and theological aims and methods of Northern Humanism. Clarence H. Miller's translation of "The Praise of Folly", based on the definitive Latin text, seeks to echo Erasmus' own lively style while retaining the nuances of the original text. In his introduction, Miller places the work in the context of Erasmus as humanist and theologian. In the afterword, William H. Gass playfully considers the meaning, or meanings, of folly and offers fresh insights into one of the great books of Western literature. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Praise of Folly and Other Writings: A New Translation With Critical Commentary'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince'
Robert M. Adamss superb translation of Machiavellis best-known work is again the basis for this Norton Critical Edition.
Accurate, highly readable, and thoroughly revised for the Second Edition, this translation renders Machiavellis 1513 political tract into clear and concise English.› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince'
A classic of the western tradition, Machiavelli's "The Prince" has influenced political and philosophical thought since its publication four centuries ago. Political power, Machiavelli taught, has no limits. It leaves no room for the sacred, and it subordinates right and wrong to success. In this new edition of Machiavelli's book, Angelo Codevilla provides a translation faithful to the original and sensitive to the author's use of verbal imprecision, including puns, double meanings, and the subjunctive mood. The volume includes an introduction by Codevilla that places Machiavelli in the context of his own times, demonstrates his relevance to the history of political thought, and inquiries into the place of Machiavelli's ideas in modern debates. This edition also contains three essays that explore some of the most important ways "The Prince" clashes with the other main branch of western civilization - the Socratic and Judeo-Christian traditions: "Machiavelli's realism" by Carnes Lord, "Machiavelli and modernity" by W.B. Allen, and "Machiavelli and America" by Hadley Arkes. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince: With Related Documents'
Widely read for its insights into history and politics, The Prince is one of the most provocative works of the Italian Renaissance. Based on Niccolò Machiavelli's observations of the effectiveness of both ancient and contemporary statesmen, the rules for governing set forth in his manual were considered radical and harsh by his contemporaries and shocking to many since then. This major new edition combines an accurate and accessible new translation with important related documents, many of which appear here in English for the first time. In his lucid introductory essay, William J. Connell offers fresh insights into Machiavelli's life, the meaning of his work, the context in which it was written, and its influence over time. Document headnotes, maps, a chronology of Machiavelli's life, questions for consideration, a selected bibliography, and index provide further pedagogical support. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rhetoric'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'S/Z'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Solitaire Mystery'
Jostein Gaarder had an unlikely international success with Sophie's World, a novelized exploration of western philosophy through the eyes of a young girl. This is an earlier work, translated from the Norwegian by Sarah Jane Hails. This fable-like story dabbles in philosophy too, though more lightly. It tells of a Norwegian boy traveling across Europe with his calm and reflective father in search of his long lost mother. The boy finds a tiny manuscript that reveals the secret of a magic deck of cards that can tell the future. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal'
Pascal was a scientist and man of the world who came to be a passionately devout Christian. The fragments of his great defense of Christianity, left unfinished at his death in 1662, survive in the form of the Pensees. This series of brief, dramatic notes on his religious convictions are here translated into English. These thoughts expose Pascal's vision of the world and display powerful reasoning and a profound faith.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed'
The pursuit of truth, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto, is "the quest for language that can match reality." He believes that the nature of that quest has never quite been fully understood; Truth aims to fill the void. He identifies four key methods of determining the truth--what we feel, what we are told, what we figure out, and what we observe--which are given poetic names such as "the hairy ball--teeth optional" and "the cage of wild birds." These four methods always exist together in every culture, although each one may be differently valued in different places at different times.
But Western philosophy after Descartes, in Fernández-Armesto's assessment, has been largely hostile to these ways of knowledge, and has steadily come to question the very existence of truth. His summation of post-Cartesian philosophy is a largely negative one, which veers dangerously close to ad hominem assaults. Nietzsche, for example, who "was praised too much in his youth for his superior powers of mind and never achieved prowess or position to match," is dismissed as "a sexually inexperienced invalid" whose philosophy was "warped and mangled out of his own lonely, sickly self-hatred." Pragmatism and existentialism, two of the 20th century's most important philosophical movements, are found inadequate; the former is "the philosophy of lovers of technology," while the latter "represents the retreat of Luddites and pessimists into the security of self-contemplation." But even though "philosophical subjectivisms, scientific uncertainties, and dumbing, numbing linguistics" have served to undermine the notion of truth, Fernández-Armesto believes, they cannot destroy it thoroughly. It seems that even in the face of relativism, truth will win out. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Lifes Greatest Lesson'
No one but Mitch Albom could have read Tuesdays with Morrie so effectively. As the author of this inspirational true story, Albom uses verbal inflection in exactly the right places to evoke humor, empathy, and emotion. It's an honest reading, and the underlying timbre of private memory pushes it past mere recitation to pure storytelling.
The titular Morrie was Morrie Schwartz, Albom's university professor 20 years before the events being narrated. An accidental viewing of an interview with Morrie on Nightline led Albom to become reunited with his old teacher, friend, and "coach" at a time when Albom, a successful sportswriter, was struggling to define dissatisfactions with his own life and career. Morrie, on the other hand, after a rich life filled with friends, family, teaching, and music, was dying from Lou Gehrig's disease, a crippling illness that diminished his activities daily. Albom was one of hundreds of former students and acquaintances who traveled great distances to visit Morrie in the final months of his life.
The 14 Tuesday visits that followed their reunion took Albom--and will take listeners with him--on a journey of reawakening to life's best rewards. The story is told in a journalistic style that never crosses into pathos. That a professional writer can write well is not surprising, but Albom also reads well, with clear enunciation and a talent for mimicry. Another reader might have interpreted the professor's aphorisms as droll humor or wrung a wrong note at an inappropriate moment, making the story a maudlin tearjerker; instead it is read for what it is, a tribute to a remarkable teacher. (Running time: four hours, three cassettes) --Brenda Pittsley [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Unmodern Observations'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Utopia'
First published in 1516, Saint Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveller Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly five centuries after it was written, and it remains a foundational text in philosophy and political theory. Precminent More scholar Clarence H. Miller does justice to the full range of More's rhetoric in this new translation. Professor Miller includes a helpful introduction that outlines some of the important problems and issues that Utopia raises, and also provides informative commentary to assist the reader throughout this challenging and rewarding exploration of the meaning of political community. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Varieties of Religious Experience'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The War Diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre : November, 1939 - March, 1940'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Way of Zen'
After D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts stands as the godfather of Zen in America. Often taken to task for inspiring the flimsy spontaneity of Beat Zen, Watts had an undeniably keen understanding of his subject. Nowhere is this more evident than in his 1957 classic The Way of Zen, which has been reissued. Watts takes the reader back to the philosophical foundations of Zen in the conceptual world of Hinduism, follows Buddhism's course through the development of the early Mahayana school, the birth of Zen from Buddhism's marriage with Chinese Taoism, and on to Zen's unique expression in Japanese art and life. As a Westerner, Watts anticipates the stumbling blocks encountered with such concepts as emptiness and no-mind, then illustrates with flawlessly apt examples. Many popular books have been written on Zen since Watts' time, but few have been able to muster the rare combination of erudition and clarity that have kept The Way of Zen in readers' hands decade after decade. --Brian Bruya [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values'
In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.
Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.
In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. --Brian Bruya [via]
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