Arguing that the best way to learn about philosophy is to think about itsquestions directly, Thomas Nagel considers possible solutions to nine problems--knowledge of the world beyond our minds, knowledge of other minds, the mind-body problem, free will, the basis of morality, right and wrong, the nature of death, the meaning of life, and the meaning of words. Althoughhe states his own opinions clearly, Nagel leaves these fundamental questions open, allowing students to entertain other solutions and encouraging them to think for themselves.

    Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways to organise their lives. They have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don't add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like 'career' and 'progress' could meaningfully be applied. Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable - to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty. Zygmunt Bauman's brilliant writings on liquid modernity have altered the way we think about the contemporary world. In this short book he explores the sources of the endemic uncertainty which shapes our lives today and, in so doing, he provides the reader with a brief and accessible introduction to his highly original account, developed at greater length in his previous books, of life in our liquid modern times.

    The work also constitutes an enduring critique of liberalism and socialism from the perspective of an extreme eccentric individualism. Stirner has latterly been portrayed variously as a precursor of Nietzsche, a forerunner of existentialism, an individualist anarchist, and as manifestly insane. This edition includes an Introduction placing Stirner in his historical context.

    Moving away from the Marxist/Freudian approaches that had concerned him earlier, Baudrillard developed in this book a theory of contemporary culture that relies on displacing economic notions of cultural production with notions of cultural expenditure.Baudrillard uses the concepts of the simulacra—the copy without an original—and simulation. These terms are crucial to an understanding of the postmodern, to the extent that they address the concept of mass reproduction and reproduceability that characterizes our electronic media culture.Baudrillard's book represents a unique and original effort to rethink cultural theory from the perspective of a new concept of cultural materialism, one that radically redefines postmodern formulations of the body.Sheila Glaser is an editor at Artforum magazine.

    In understanding the true nature of what it means to be fully human, he contends that we come face to face with the essence of Xian theology: human beings investing ordinary concepts with divine meaning & significance. The true danger to humanity occurs when theology is given the force of dogma & doctrine. Losing sight of its anthropological underpinnings & dependence upon or emergence from human nature, it then acquires an existence separate from that of humankind. He leaves nothing untouched: miracles, the Trinity, Creation, prayer, resurrection, immortality, faith & much more.The essential nature of manThe essence of religion considered generallyGod as a being of the understanding God as a moral being or law The mystery of the incarnation; or, God as love, as a being of the heartThe mystery of the suffering GodThe mystery of the Trinity & the mother of GodThe mystery of the Logos & divine imageThe mystery of the cosmogonical principle in God The mystery of mysticism, or of nature in God The mystery of providence & creation out of nothingThe significance of the creation in Judaism The omnipotence of feeling, or the mystery of prayer The mystery of faith, the mystery of miracle The mystery of the resurrection and of the miraculous conceptionThe mystery of the Christian Christ, or the personal GodThe distinction between Christianity & heathenismThe significance of voluntary celibacy & monachismThe Christian heaven, or personal immortality The essential standpoint of religion The contradiction in the existence of GodThe contradiction in the revelation of GodThe contradiction in the nature of God in generalThe contradiction in the speculative doctrine of GodThe contradiction in the Trinity The contradiction in the sacramentsThe contradiction of faith & loveConcluding application

    William T.Cavanaugh challenges this conventional wisdom by examining how the twin categories of religion and the secular are constructed. A growing body of scholarly work explores how the category 'religion' has been constructed in the modern West and in colonial contexts according to specific configurationsof political power. Cavanaugh draws on this scholarship to examine how timeless and transcultural categories of 'religion and 'the secular' are used in arguments that religion causes violence. He argues three points: 1) There is no transhistorical and transcultural essence of religion. What countsas religious or secular in any given context is a function of political configurations of power; 2) Such a transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion as non-rational and prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of Western society; 3) This myth can be and is used tolegitimate neo-colonial violence against non-Western others, particularly the Muslim world.

    The culmination of a lifetime's thought, it espouses a commitment to Jesus's message of turning the other cheek. In a bold and original manner, Tolstoy shows his readers clearly why they must reject violence of any sort—even that sanctioned by the state or the church—and urges them to look within themselves to find the answers to questions of morality.In 1894, one of the first English translations of this book found its way into the hands of a young Gandhi. Inspired by its message of nonresistance to evil, the Mahatma declared it a source of "independent thinking, profound morality, and truthfulness." Much of this work's emotional and moral appeal lies in its emphasis on fair treatment of the poor and working class. Its view of Christianity, not as a mystic religion but as a workable philosophy originating from the words of a remarkable teacher, extends its appeal to secular and religious readers alike.

    He brings to his treatment of these questions the same courage, scrupulous logic, and lofty wisdom for which his other work as philosopher, writer, and teacher has been famous. These qualities make the essays included in this book perhaps the most graceful and moving presentation of the freethinker's position since the days of Hume and Voltaire. "I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue," Russell declares in his Preface, and his reasoned opposition to any system or dogma which he feels may shackle man's mind runs through all the essays in this book, whether they were written as early as 1899 or as late as 1954. The book has been edited, with Lord Russell's full approval and cooperation, by Professor Paul Edwards of the Philosophy Department of New York University. In an Appendix, Professor Edwards contributes a full account of the highly controversial "Bertrand Russell Case" of 1940, in which Russell was judicially declared "unfit" to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York. Whether the reader shares or rejects Bertrand Russell's views, he will find this book an invigorating challenge to set notions, a masterly statement of a philosophical position, and a pure joy to read.Why I am not a Christian --Has religion made useful contributions to civilization? --What I believe --Do we survive death? --Seems, madam? Nay, it is --Free man's worship --On Catholic and Protestant skeptics --Life in the Middle Ages --Fate of Thomas Paine --Nice people --New generation --Our sexual ethics --Freedom and the colleges --Can religion cure our troubles? --Religion and morals --Appendix: How Bertrand Russell was prevented from teaching at the College of the City of New York

    Religion for Atheists suggests that rather than mocking religions, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from them – because they're packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies. Blending deep respect with total impiety, Alain (a non-believer himself) proposes that we should look to religions for insights into, among other concerns, how to:- build a sense of community- make our relationships last- overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy- escape the twenty-four hour media- go travelling- get more out of art, architecture and music- and create new businesses designed to address our emotional needs.For too long non-believers have faced a stark choice between either swallowing lots of peculiar doctrines or doing away with a range of consoling and beautiful rituals and ideas. At last, in Religion for Atheists, Alain has fashioned a far more interesting and truly helpful alternative.

    And since medieval Europe was the cradle of modern Western society, this work is vital for understanding our world and how it came into being.

    "God did not make us," he says. "We made God." He explains the ways in which religion is immoral: We damage our children by indoctrinating them. It is a cause of sexual repression, violence, and ignorance. It is a distortion of our origins and the cosmos. In the place of religion, Hitchens offers the promise of a new enlightenment through science and reason, a realm in which hope and wonder can be found through a strand of DNA or a gaze through the Hubble Telescope. As Hitchens sees it, you needn't get the blues once you discover the heavens are empty.

    This classic work of the sixteenth century political philosopher, in reply to Machiavelli's The Prince, seeks to answer the question of why people submit to the tyranny of government, and as such, has exerted an important influence on the traditions of dissidence from Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to Tolstoy, to Gandhi.

    Now the Augmented Third Edition adds to the established reputation of this premier academic resource. A wealth of new maps, charts, and diagrams further clarify information found in the scripture pages. In addition, section introductions have been expanded and the book introductions have been made more uniform in order to enhance their utility. Of course, the Augmented Third Edition retains the features prized by students, including single column annotations at the foot of the pages, in-text background essays, charts, and maps, a page number-keyed index of all the study materials in the volume, and Oxford's renowned Bible maps. This timely edition maintains and extends the excellence the Annotated's users have come to expect, bringing still more insights, information, and approaches to bear upon the understanding of the biblical text.

    From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism and everyday life in the late twentieth century. Now finally available in a superb English translation approved by the author, Debord's text remains as crucial as ever for understanding the contemporary effects of power, which are increasingly inseparable from the new virtual worlds of our rapidly changing image/information culture.

    The Penseés is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace.