This favorite of Percy fans continues to charm and beguile readers of all tastes and backgrounds. Lost in the Cosmos invites us to think about how we communicate with our world.

    Judge Bork shares a personal account of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on his nomination as well as his view on politics versus the law.

    A representative of the Fa-chia, or Legalist, school of philosophy, he produced the final and most readable exposition of its theories. Ironically, Han Fei Tzu's advice was heeded not by the king of Han but by the king of Ch'in, who, soon after ascending the throne in 246 B.C., conquered all of China and, as First Emperor of the Ch'in, established the Ch'in dynasty. Han Fei Tzu, sent as an envoy to Ch'in in 234 B.C., was at first welcomed by the king but later, on a royal minister's urging, was cast into prison, where he committed suicide. Han Fei Tzu's handbook for the ruler, which includes a few chapters for the guidance of his ministers, deals with the problem of preserving and strengthening the state. There are sections on the way of the ruler, on standards, on the use of power and of punishment and favor. Dangers to be avoided by the ruler are specified, as are precautions to be taken. Witty, trenchant, sophisticated, and cynical, the Han Fei Tzu has been read in every age. It retains its interest today when, perhaps more than ever before, men are concerned with the nature and use of power.

    The sixth edition, now co-authored by Amy Sloan, updates this classic text, including new chapter exercises.Available here:boomreads.com/download?i=153100699XPlain English for Lawyers PDF by Richard C. Wydick

    According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a judge like this can maneuver through earlier cases to achieve the desired aim--distinguishing one prior case on his left, straight-arming another one on his right, high-stepping away from another precedent about to tackle him from the rear, until (bravo!) he reaches the goal--good law. But is this common-law mindset, which is appropriate in its place, suitable also in statutory and constitutional interpretation? In a witty and trenchant essay, Justice Scalia answers this question with a resounding negative.In exploring the neglected art of statutory interpretation, Scalia urges that judges resist the temptation to use legislative intention and legislative history. In his view, it is incompatible with democratic government to allow the meaning of a statute to be determined by what the judges think the lawgivers meant rather than by what the legislature actually promulgated. Eschewing the judicial lawmaking that is the essence of common law, judges should interpret statutes and regulations by focusing on the text itself. Scalia then extends this principle to constitutional law. He proposes that we abandon the notion of an everchanging Constitution and pay attention to the Constitution's original meaning. Although not subscribing to the strict constructionism that would prevent applying the Constitution to modern circumstances, Scalia emphatically rejects the idea that judges can properly smuggle in new rights or deny old rights by using the Due Process Clause, for instance. In fact, such judicial discretion might lead to the destruction of the Bill of Rights if a majority of the judges ever wished to reach that most undesirable of goals.This essay is followed by four commentaries by Professors Gordon Wood, Laurence Tribe, Mary Ann Glendon, and Ronald Dworkin, who engage Justice Scalia's ideas about judicial interpretation from varying standpoints. In the spirit of debate, Justice Scalia responds to these critics.

    But not anymore.

    Rothbard begins with a quick overview of its historical roots, and then goes on to define libertarianism as resting "upon one single axiom: that no man or group of men shall aggress upon the person or property of anyone else." He writes a withering critique of the chief violator of liberty: the State. Rothbard then provides penetrating libertarian solutions for many of today's most pressing problems, including poverty, war, threats to civil liberties, the education crisis, and more.

    He draws on history and philosophy as well as the essays and novels of Thomas Mann and Albert Camus to explain the global resurgence of fascism, often disguised by its false promises of ushering in freedom and greatness.Riemen’s own response to what he sees as the spiritual crisis of our age is articulated in “The Return of Europa,” a moving story about the meaning of European humanism with its universal values of truth, beauty, justice, and love for life—values that are the origin and basis of a democratic civilization.To Fight Against This Age is as timely as it is timeless, to be read by those who want to understand and change the world in which they live.

    But in END THE FED, Ron Paul draws on American history, economics, and fascinating stories from his own long political life to argue that the Fed is both corrupt and unconstitutional. It is inflating currency today at nearly a Weimar or Zimbabwe level, a practice that threatens to put us into an inflationary depression where $100 bills are worthless. What most people don't realize is that the Fed -- created by the Morgans and Rockefellers at a private club off the coast of Georgia -- is actually working against their own personal interests. Congressman Paul's urgent appeal to all citizens and officials tells us where we went wrong and what we need to do fix America's economic policy for future generations.

    Set in the United States, it pictures a society in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of human conduct.

    Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education (Dewey's most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received.Analyzing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeper and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive "ism" about education, even such an "ism" as "progressivism." His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, one that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.

    In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms.Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a surfeit of aliveness. In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness.Scarry, author of the landmark The Body in Pain and one of our bravest and most creative thinkers, offers us here philosophical critique written with clarity and conviction as well as a passionate plea that we change the way we think about beauty.

    For the Amendment gives to the Federal Government first claim upon the earnings of the individual, and so infringes his natural right to own what he produces.With its graduated-tax provision, the Income Tax Amendment is a replica of that clause in the Communist Manifesto which provides for the confiscation of all property through the use of just such a tax.Not only is the individual citizen's liberty partitioned by the Amendment, but the several states are deprived of their Constitutional sovereignty, and the central Federal Government is overstrengthened at their expense. This growth of centralized power is a development which generations of Americans fought stubbornly to prevent.And the Federal Government, by the very nature of government itself, increases its "needs" in accordance with its means of revenue. Reduce Federal income, argues Frank Chodorov, and Federal "needs" will automatically be reduced.The author takes a forthright stand as he defines the immoral nature of income taxation and the fallacy of using to "level off" society. And finally he outlines what can be done to repeal the Income Tax Amendment, bearing in mind the Federal Government's legitimate need for revenue.

    He argues that these modes of thinking obstruct us from understanding Islam, distorting it, diminishing it, and rendering it incoherent.What Is Islam? formulates a new conceptual language for analyzing Islam. It presents a new paradigm of how Muslims have historically understood divine revelation—one that enables us to understand how and why Muslims through history have embraced values such as exploration, ambiguity, aestheticization, polyvalence, and relativism, as well as practices such as figural art, music, and even wine drinking as Islamic. It also puts forward a new understanding of the historical constitution of Islamic law and its relationship to philosophical ethics and political theory.A book that is certain to provoke debate and significantly alter our understanding of Islam, What Is Islam? reveals how Muslims have historically conceived of and lived with Islam as norms and truths that are at once contradictory yet coherent.

    Ideal for introductory philosophy courses, the third edition of this classic text now includes a general introduction and features eighteen selections new to this volume and an expanded glossary of philosophical terms. A serious and challenging work, it includes sections on the meaning of life, God and evil, epistemology, philosophy of science, the mind/body problem, freedom of will, consciousness, ethics, and philosophical puzzles. This exceptionally successful anthology presents a large number of substantial--and in some cases complete--selections from major works, offering a unique balance between classical and contemporary readings. This third edition adds selections by Plato, Nelson Pike, J.L. Mackie, Elizabeth Anderson, David Lewis, Hilary Putnam, Frank Jackson, John Perry, Peter Strawson, Rosalind Hursthouse, G.A. Cohen, Samuel Scheffler, Debra Satz, and Kwame Anthony Appiah as well as Kavka's Toxin Puzzle and Quinn's Puzzle of the Self-Torturer.