On Anger (Boston Review Forum 13)


Agnes Callard - 2020
    Should it?Reflecting on two millennia of debates about the value of anger, Agnes Callard contends that efforts to distinguish righteous forms of anger from unjust vengeance, or appropriate responses to wrongdoing from inappropriate ones, are misguided. What if, she asks, anger is not a bug of human life, but a feature—an emotion that, for all its troubling qualities, is an essential part of being a moral agent in an imperfect world? And if anger is both troubling and essential, what then do we do with the implications: that angry victims of injustice are themselves morally compromised, and that it might not be possible to respond rightly to being treated wrongly? As Callard concludes, “We can’t be good in a bad world.”The contributions that follow explore anger in its many forms—public and private, personal and political—raising an issue that we must grapple with: Does the vast well of public anger compromise us all?

The Top Insults: How to Win Any Argument...While Laughing!


Full Sea Books - 2013
     “You’re about as useful as a windshield wiper on a goat’s butt.” Keep this book handy, someday you’ll be glad you have it. “Let's play horse. I'll be the front end and you just be yourself.” Pick any of the many jaw-dropping insults then laugh at the look on your adversary’s face when you whip one out and use it on them. You’ll leave no doubt in their mind that you are a master of sarcastic insults! ADDED BONUS: In addition to the fresh and hilarious insults in this book, you’ll also find great sarcastic observations about life hidden inside this book’s pages, like… “I think the reason so many people have smart phones is because opposites attract!” You’re no idiot, so you need this book to start your new life as the master of sarcastic insults and put-downs! “Hey! Who left the Idiot Box open? Now they're everywhere!”

Five Thousand B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies


Raymond M. Smullyan - 1983
    ASIN: 0312295170

Love Thyself: The Message from Water III


Masaru Emoto - 1999
    Water speaks for what is in our mind. Water awakens the subconscious memory in each person. . . . I now know why water is indispensable to the phenomenon of life, and why alternative therapies exist and why they’re effective. Water helped me understand religion and prayer and gave me a clue to understanding the nature of energy. It helped me understand the relationship between humanity and the cosmos. It gave me a clue to help me understand what dimensionality is. I could come one step closer to understanding the eternal theme of humanity that asks where we come from, why we are here, and what happens when we die.         “Thus, for the release of this, the third volume in my series of The Message from Water, I decided to choose what the world most urgently needs at present as a theme. That is, of course, the need to eliminate war and terrorism throughout the world. The theme I have chosen is ‘prayer.’ When I thought about it more deeply, I realized that prayer is most effectively sent when each person in the world raises their energy of love by imagining a scene where the peoples of the world are living in peace. I’ve been taught this through the process of asking water many questions.         “For this reason, the title of this book is ‘Love Thyself.’ First you must shine with positive, high-spirited vibrations, and be full of love. In order to do that, I think it’s important to love, thank, and respect yourself. If that’s the case, then each of those vibrations will be sent out into the world and the cosmos, and the great symphony of that harmonic vibration will wrap our planet in waves of love that serve to cherish our Heaven-granted lives. This is the message from water.” — Masaru Emoto

The Prophet's Way: A Guide to Living in the Now


Thom Hartmann - 2001
    To truly flourish, the human spirit needs to be present in its surroundings and attuned to the Now. It needs to act on what it knows is possible and to experience how the smallest actions can have massive consequences. This is the reality of the Prophet’s Way, a path--both literal and figurative--that the author walked with his spiritual mentor Herr Müller that skirts the edge of the precipice, where one can experience a truly spontaneous life under seemingly overwhelming and impossible circumstances.In The Prophet’s Way, Thom Hartmann shares his intense spiritual journey, a story that melds recent discoveries in science with ancient truths. Through insightful and engaging vignettes Hartmann teaches that accepting the challenge to have faith means living on the edge--remaining in the moment--because it is here where the material and spiritual worlds meet. He offers readers a unique view into his experiences of expanded consciousness, providing a powerful example of how we can re-create our future by reconnecting to the sacred heartbeat of the world.

Introducing Time


Craig Callender - 1997
    Traces the history of time from Augustine's suggestion that there is no time, to the flowing time of Newton, the static time of Einstein, and then back, to the idea that there is no time in quantum gravity.

What's Eating the Universe?: And Other Cosmic Questions


Paul C.W. Davies - 2021
      In the constellation of Eridanus, there lurks a cosmic mystery: It’s as if something has taken a huge bite out of the universe. But what is the culprit? The hole in the universe is just one of many puzzles keeping cosmologists busy. Supermassive black holes, bubbles of nothingness gobbling up space, monster universes swallowing others—these and many other bizarre ideas are being pursued by scientists. Due to breathtaking progress in astronomy, the history of our universe is now better understood than the history of our own planet. But these advances have uncovered some startling riddles. In this electrifying new book, renowned cosmologist and author Paul Davies lucidly explains what we know about the cosmos and its enigmas, exploring the tantalizing—and sometimes terrifying—possibilities that lie before us. As Davies guides us through the audacious research offering mind-bending solutions to these and other mysteries, he leads us up to the greatest outstanding conundrum of all: Why does the universe even exist in the first place? And how did a system of mindless, purposeless particles manage to bring forth conscious, thinking beings? Filled with wit and wonder, What’s Eating the Universe? is a dazzling tour of cosmic questions, sure to entertain, enchant, and inspire us all.

How to Be Holy: First Steps in Becoming a Saint


Peter Kreeft - 2016
    This question is central to all the great religions, Kreeft demonstrates, for striving toward holiness, moving toward perfect love, is the whole purpose of life.Kreeft admits that he is only a beginner on the climb to holiness, and it is to novices like him that he has written this engaging and encouraging book. Using the insights and experiences of saints and great spiritual writers throughout history, Kreeft shows what holiness is and how it can be achieved. He especially draws upon the spiritual classic Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. The core of Caussade's timeless gem is that God reveals himself to all of us through the daily events of our lives. The surest way toward spiritual growth, therefore, is by perceiving and accepting the merciful will of God in every situation.Kreeft stresses the simplicity of his approach to holiness, which focuses mainly on the virtue of love. Sanctity is love, he asserts, and only that can give us what we all long for—deep and lasting joy.

Action in Perception


Alva Noë - 2005
    It is something we do. In Action in Perception, Noë argues that perception and perceptual consciousness depend on capacities for action and thought--that perception is a kind of thoughtful activity. Touch, not vision, should be our model for perception. Perception is not a process in the brain, but a kind of skillful activity of the body as a whole. We enact our perceptual experience. To perceive, according to this enactive approach to perception, is not merely to have sensations; it is to have sensations that we understand. In Action in Perception, Noë investigates the forms this understanding can take. He begins by arguing, on both phenomenological and empirical grounds, that the content of perception is not like the content of a picture; the world is not given to consciousness all at once but is gained gradually by active inquiry and exploration. Noë then argues that perceptual experience acquires content thanks to our possession and exercise of practical bodily knowledge, and examines, among other topics, the problems posed by spatial content and the experience of color. He considers the perspectival aspect of the representational content of experience and assesses the place of thought and understanding in experience. Finally, he explores the implications of the enactive approach for our understanding of the neuroscience of perception.

First You Build a Cloud: And Other Reflections on Physics as a Way of Life


K.C. Cole - 1999
    In First You Build a Cloud, K. C. Cole provides cogent explanations through animated prose, metaphors, and anecdotes, allowing us to comprehend the nuances of physics-gravity and light, color and shape, quarks and quasars, particles and stars, force and strength. We also come to see how the physical world is so deeply intertwined with the ways in which we think about culture, poetry, and philosophy. Cole, one of our preeminent science writers, serves as a guide into the world of such legendary scientific minds as Richard Feynman, Victor Weisskopf, brothers Frank Oppenheimer and J. Robert Oppenheimer, Philip Morrison, Vera Kistiakowsky, and Stephen Jay Gould.

Multiplicity: The New Science of Personality, Identity, and the Self


Rita Carter - 2008
    Instead of seeing each person as a single personality, Carter argues that we all consist of multiple characters, each one with its own viewpoint, emotions and ambitions. The mother who feeds breakfast to her children, for example, has quite different concerns and opinions from the woman taking part in a boardroom discussion two hours later, and from the woman she will be with her husband that night. Yet all three may share the same body, and none is any more "authentic" than another. Personality changes in a person are conventionally frowned upon, but Carter shows that in today's world our ability to switch from one personality to another according to what is demanded of us is a huge strength, providing one's personalities work together as a team rather than against each other. In addition to its groundbreaking scientific thesis, Multiplicity contains extensive exercises designed to help readers achieve this harmony.

Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human


Paul Bloom - 2004
    They expect objects to obey principles of physics, and they're startled when things disappear or defy gravity. Yet they can also read emotions and respond with anger, sympathy, and joy. In Descartes' Baby, Bloom draws on a wealth of scientific discoveries to show how these two ways of knowing give rise to such uniquely human traits as humor, disgust, religion, art, and morality. How our dualist perspective, developed throughout our lives, profoundly influences our thoughts, feelings, and actions is the subject of this richly rewarding book.

No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality


Judith Rich Harris - 2006
    Why do people—even identical twins reared in the same home—differ so much in personality? Armed with an inquiring mind and insights from evolutionary psychology, Judith Rich Harris sets out to solve the mystery of human individuality.

Science, Faith and Society


Michael Polanyi - 1964
    On its appearance in 1946 the book quickly became the focus of controversy.Polanyi aims to show that science must be understood as a community of inquirers held together by a common faith; science, he argues, is not the use of "scientific method" but rather consists in a discipline imposed by scientists on themselves in the interests of discovering an objective, impersonal truth. That such truth exists and can be found is part of the scientists' faith. Polanyi maintains that both authoritarianism and scepticism, attacking this faith, are attacking science itself.

The Story Of Thought


Bryan Magee - 1998
    Magee does a great job of balancing the various aspects of the history of philosophy that may be of interest to different readers. Each philosopher is covered in a section of a few pages outlining the thinker's major ideas, but also containing sidebars with famous quotes, major works, related topics and historical notes. The book is organized chronologically and philosophers are grouped into intellectual movements, introduced and expanded by insets. This format allows the book to be used as a point reference on a single thinker or school of thought, but also reads well from cover to cover as the "story of thought". If you are looking for a good introduction to philosophy, it would be hard to find a more complete, accessible, and universally appealing resource.