He brings new perspectives to age-old conundrums while also tackling modern-day dilemmas -- some for the first time. Begin your warm up by contemplating whether a pickled sheep can truly be considered art, or dive right in and tackle the existence of God. In this radically new way of looking at philosophy, Stephen Law illustrates the problem with a story, then lets the argument battle it out in clear, easily digestible and intelligent prose. This perfect little mental health club is sure to give each reader's mind a great workout.

    In this elegant, inspiring book, he integrates essential Buddhist practices with a variety of other spiritual philosophies and wisdom traditions, to show you how to create a personalized spiritual practice based on your own individual beliefs, aspirations, and needs. Through reflections on his own life quest, thoughtful essays, and entertaining stories, Surya Das examines the common themes at the heart of any spiritual path, including faith, doubt, love, compassion, creativity, self-inquiry, and transformation. He then explores prayer, yoga, chanting, guided meditations, breathing exercises, and myriad other rituals, providing practical examples of each that we can use day-to-day to nurture our inner spirit.

    This collection illuminates Popper's process of working out key formulations in his theory of science, and indicates his view of the state of the world at the end of the Cold War and after the collapse of communism.

    Wayne W. Dyer has put together this little book in order to convey the fact that intention is a field of energy that flows invisibly beyond the reach of our normal, everyday habitual patterns. It’s a force that we all have within us, and we have the power to draw it into our lives by being the energy we want to attract.           Use the uplifting material within these pages to bring the power of intention into your life for many years to come, and experience the world in a new and exciting way!

    As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harper's, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in America's culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us--political, social, religious--Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because we're doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply aren't thinking.Most of us don't want to think, Jacobs writes. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that's a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias.In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking--forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, "alternative facts," and information overload--and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. (For example: It's impossible to "think for yourself.")Drawing on sources as far-flung as novelist Marilynne Robinson, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, Jacobs digs into the nuts and bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all. Because if we can learn to think together, maybe we can learn to live together, too.

    But Vidal was also a terrific conversationalist; indeed Dick Cavett once described him as “the best talker since Oscar Wilde.” Vidal was never more eloquent, or caustic, than when let loose on his favorite topic: the history and politics of the United States.This book is made up from four interviews conducted with his long-time interlocutor, the writer and radio host Jon Wiener, in which Vidal grapples with matters evidently close to his heart: the history of the American Empire, the rise of the National Security State, and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate.The interviews cover a twenty-year span, from 1988 to 2008, when Vidal was at the height of his powers. His extraordinary facility for developing an argument, tracing connections between past and present, and drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of America’s place in the world, are all on full display. And, of course, it being Gore Vidal, an ample sprinkling of gloriously acerbic one-liners is also provided.

    Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun.Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders" meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and free will. With patience and wit, Dennett deftly deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on these thorny issues while offering readers insight into how and why each tool was built.Alongside well-known favorites like Occam’s Razor and reductio ad absurdum lie thrilling descriptions of Dennett’s own creations: Trapped in the Robot Control Room, Beware of the Prime Mammal, and The Wandering Two-Bitser. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, computer science, and physics, Dennett’s tools embrace in equal measure light-heartedness and accessibility as they welcome uninitiated and seasoned readers alike. As always, his goal remains to teach you how to "think reliably and even gracefully about really hard questions."A sweeping work of intellectual seriousness that’s also studded with impish delights, Intuition Pumps offers intrepid thinkers—in all walks of life—delicious opportunities to explore their pet ideas with new powers.

    He goes beyond the theory that creative impulses originate in the right side of the brain and rational impulses originate in the left side to show how a synthesis of these two functions can bring about "a more complete science of human consciousness with an extended conception of our own capabilities."

    Republic is also featured in its entirety.

    Annas argues that exercising a virtue involves practical reasoning of a kind which can illuminatingly be compared to the kind of reasoning we find in someone exercising a practical skill. Rather than asking at the start how virtues relate to rules, principles, maximizing, or a final end, we should look at the way in which the acquisition and exercise of virtue can be seen to be in many ways like the acquisition and exercise of more mundane activities, such as farming, building or playing the piano. This helps us to see virtue as part of an agent's happiness or flourishing, and as constituting (wholly, or in part) that happiness. We are offered a better understanding of the relation between virtue as an ideal and virtue in everyday life, and the relation between being virtuous and doing the right thing.

    Jordan Peterson, by award-winning author Jim Proser.Who is psychologist, professor, bestselling author, and YouTube personality Dr. Peterson? What does he believe in? Who are his followers? And why is he so controversial? These are among the many questions raised in this compelling, exhaustively researched account of his life--from Peterson's early days as a religious-school student in small-town Canada to his tenure at Harvard to his headline-making persona of the present day.In Savage Messiah, we meet an adolescent Peterson who, scoffing at the "fairy tales" being taught in his confirmation class, asks his minister how it's possible to believe the Bible in light of modern scientific theory. Unsatisfied with the answer he's been given, Peterson goes on to challenge other authority figures who stood in his way as he dared to define the world in his own terms. This won Peterson many enemies and more admirers than he could have dreamed of, particularly during the digital era, when his nontraditional views could be widely shared and critically discussed. Still, a fall from grace was never far behind.Peterson had always preached the importance of free speech, which he believed was essential to finding life-saving personal meaning in our frequently nihilistic world. But when he dismissed Canadian parliament Bill C-16, one that compelled the use of newly-invented pronouns to address new gender identities, Peterson found himself facing a whole new world. Students targeted him as a gender bigot. Conservatives called him their hero. Soon Peterson was fixed firmly at the center of the culture wars--and there was no turning back.With exclusive interviews of Dr. Peterson, as well as conversations with his family, friends, and associates, this book reveals the heart and mind, teachings and practices, of one of the most provocative voices of our time.

    In Beast and Man Mary Midgley, one of our foremost intellectuals, stresses continuities. What makes people tick? Largely, she asserts, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously allowed ourselves to believe, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many animals. A veritable classic for our age, Beast and Man has helped change the way we think about ourselves and the world in which we live.

    The result is her best work to date, offering warm, wise, and helpful ways we can experience happiness even when the odds are against us.As Boorstein has discovered in more than three decades of practice as a professional psychotherapist, the secret to happiness lies in actively cultivating our capacity to connect with kindness: with ourselves; with friends, family, colleagues; with those we may not know well; and even with those we may not like. She draws from the heart of Buddhist teachings to show how Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness, and Wise Concentration can lead us away from anger, anxiety, and confusion, and into calmness, clarity, and the joy of living in the present. These qualities strengthen our ability to meet encounters of every kind with balance and intelligence, providing us with a grounded sense of true contentment.Happiness Is an Inside Job resonates with the knowledge of a psychotherapist, the compassion of a spiritual teacher, and the wisdom of a grandmother. Boorstein’s vivid stories capture our minds and our hearts, and the simple exercises she suggests can be done while you read.This beautiful book is comforting and reminds us that life is a shared journey, that our hearts truly do want to console and love our fellow sojourners, and that living happily is indeed the best way to live.

    with dustjacket, clean bright copy

    Without knowledge, scientific enquiry is meaningless and we can’t begin to analyse the world around us. What is knowledge? How do you know you are not dreaming? Should we trust our senses? Presuming no prior experience of philosophy, this book covers everything in the topic from scepticism and possible worlds to Kant’s transcendentalism. Clear and readable, Epistemology: A Beginner’s Guide is essential reading for students and aspiring thinkers.