Drawing inspiration from six of the finest minds in history - Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche - he addresses lack of money, the pain of love, inadequacy, anxiety and conformity. De Botton's book led one critic to call philosophy 'the new rock and roll'.

    The book offers an original interpretation of the Spaniards’ conquest, colonization, and destruction of pre-Columbian cultures in Mexico and the Caribbean. Using sixteenth-century sources, the distinguished French writer and critic Tzvetan Todorov examines the beliefs and behavior of the Spanish conquistadors and of the Aztecs, adversaries in a clash of cultures that resulted in the near extermination of Mesoamerica’s Indian population.

    What is the value of history? What is the use of history? How do scholars attempt to unpack it and make connections in a responsible manner? While the topics of historiography and historical methodology have become increasingly popular, Bloch remains an authority. He argues that history is a whole; no period and no topic can be understood except in relation to other periods and topics. And what is unique about Bloch is that he puts his theories into practice; for example, calling upon both his experience serving in WWI as well as his many years spent in peaceful study and reflection. He also argues that written records are not enough; a historian must draw upon maps, place-names, ancient tools, aerial surveys, folklore, and everything that is available. This is a work that argues constantly for a wider, more human history. For a history that describes how and why people live and work together. There is a living, breathing connection between the past and the present and it is the historian’s responsibility to do it justice.

    Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of Kabyle society provides instruments to help us understand the most concealed aspects of the relations between the sexes in our own societies, and to break the bonds of deceptive familiarity that tie us to our own tradition.Bourdieu analyzes masculine domination as a prime example of symbolic violence—the kind of gentle, invisible, pervasive violence exercised through the everyday practices of social life. To understand this form of domination we must also analyze the social mechanisms and institutions—family, school, church, and state—that transform history into nature and eternalize the arbitrary. Only in this way can we open up the possibilities for a kind of political action that can put history in motion again by neutralizing the mechanisms that have naturalized and dehistoricized the relations between the sexes.This new book by Pierre Bourdieu—which has been a bestseller in France—will be essential reading for anyone concerned with questions of gender and sexuality and with the structures that shape our social, political, and personal lives.

    This book by Jamie Smith is a small field guide to Taylor's genealogy of the secular, making it accessible to a wide array of readers. Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is also, however, a philosophical guidebook for practitioners a kind of how-to manual that ultimately offers guidance on how to live in a secular age. It's an adventure in self-understanding and a way to get our bearings in postmodernity. Whether one is proclaiming faith to the secularized or is puzzled that there continue to be people of faith in this day and age, this is a philosophical story meant to help us locate where we are and what's at stake.

    Tho the names refer to it as a unity, each name is different & so, taken together, they differentiate it. The implicit distinction between the godhead's unity & the multiplicity of the names is reflected in the names' structures themselves. Each includes a Greek prefix: hyper-, which indicates the unity of the godhead to whom names are applied. But each name is different, indicating the self-multiplication of the godhead. The result is a set of names like “over-good,” “over-being” & “over-life.” Dionysius also makes use of a 2nd, equivalent prefix: pro-. God is “pre-good” & “pre-being,” meaning it has the attributes of creatures in a way that transcends both creature & attribute. The prefixes must be applied strictly to the names when they're used of God itself. On the other hand, when the names are used only of God as cause, the prefixes may be left off, since the causality of God is already a procession into the differentiation properly signified by each of the different names. The most proper object of the names is the highest creature. The exemplary instances of goodness, being & life are the highest of the angels or intelligible minds. For this reason, he frequently refers to this type as an “intelligible name.” He incorporates into the number of intelligible names the traditional Neoplatonic intelligible categories: being, identity, difference, rest & motion, as well as the being, life & intellect triad. The fact God transcends the proper meaning of these names doesn't mean it ought be called “non-being,” “non-life” or “non-intellect.” He prefers to say God is “over being,” “over life” & “over intellect.” Few can contemplate the intelligible names in their purity. We require the names to be incarnated in visible things. Unable to see being, life & wisdom in themselves, we need a visible being who is living & wise. Such a person can then become the means by which we contemplate the intelligible. The teacher Hierotheus is one such visible incarnation of the names. But Hierotheus may do more than incarnate the names. He can also unfold them in speech, taking the unitary name of “being” & describing it at length, as is done in chapter 5. As he describes it, the name unfolds itself into a form that is more multiple, because of the many words used in his description. It thus approaches the multiple character of the human way of knowing & becomes more easily understood. When Dionysius praises “dissimilar similarities” over seemingly more appropriate symbolic names for God, he explains that negations are true to God & such dissimilar names serve as such negations. The Mystical Theology has this last, most arcane form of theology as its subject. Negations are properly applied not only to the names of the symbolic theology. Any & all of the divine names must be negated, beginning with those of the symbolic theology, continuing with the intelligible names & concluding with the theological representations. The godhead is no more “spirit,” “sonship” & “fatherhood” than it's “intellect” or “asleep.” These negations must be distinguished from privations. A privation is simply the absence of a given predicate, which could just as easily be present. The absence of the predicate is opposed to its presence: “lifeless” is opposed to “living.” But when we say that the godhead isn't “living” we don't mean it's “lifeless.” The godhead is beyond lifeless as well as beyond living. For this reason, he says our affirmations of the godhead aren't opposed to our negations, but that both must be transcended: even the negations must be negated. The most arcane passages of Mystical Theology revolve around the mystical as taken in itself & not as the act of negating the other forms of theology. Dionysius says that after all speaking, reading & comprehending of the names ceases, there follows a divine silence, darkness & unknowing. All three of these characteristics seem privative, as tho they were simply being the absence of speech, sight & knowledge respectively. But Dionysius doesn't treat them as privative. Instead, he uses spatio-temporal language to mark off a special place & time for them. Using as example Moses' ascent up Mt Sinai, Dionysius says that after Moses ascends thru the sensible & intelligible contemplation of God, he then enters the darkness above the mountain's peak. The darkness is located above the mountain. Moses enters it after his contemplation of God in the various forms of theology. Dionysius leaves the relation between Moses & the darkness obscure. Some commentators reduce it to a form of knowing, albeit an extraordinary form of knowing. Others reduce it to a form of affective experience, in which Moses feels something he can never know or explain in words. Dionysius himself does not give decisive evidence in favor of either interpretation. He speaks only of Moses' “union” with the ineffable, invisible, unknowable godhead.--Stanford Encyclopedia (edited)

    The second volume treating Durkheim, Pareto, and Weber is scheduled to appear in spring 1998. More than a work of reconstruction, Aron's study is, at its deepest level, an engagement with the question of modernity: What constitutes the essence of the new modern order that, having emerged in the eighteenth century, still forms the categories of our experience, sweeping us along toward an unknown destination? With his usual scrupulous fairness, Aron looks to the major social thinkers to discern how they answered this pressing question.Volume 1 explores three traditions: the French liberal school of political sociology, represented by Montesquieu and Tocqueville; the Comtean tradition, anticipating Durkheim in its deemphasis of the political and its elevation of social unity and consensus; and the Marxists, who posited the struggle between classes and placed their faith in historical necessity. A foreword by the eminent French philosopher Pierre Manent highlights Main Currents as a unique contribution to political philosophy as well as the history of sociological thought, while Daniel J. Mahoney and Brian C. Anderson provide an introduction situating Main Currents within the corpus of Aron's work as a whole. This work is essential reading for philosophers, historians, sociologists, and political scientists.

    It begins with Julius Caesar's invasion in the first century BC and goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop government and convert the people to Christianity during these crucial formative years. Relating the deeds of great men and women but also describing landscape, customs and ordinary lives, this is a rich, vivid portrait of an emerging church and nation by the 'Father of English History'.Leo Sherley-Price's translation from the Latin brings us an accurate and readable version of Bede's History. This edition includes Bede's Letter to Egbert, denouncing false monasteries; and The Death of Bede, an admirable eye-witness account by Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, both translated by D. H. Farmer.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    Their number grows more rapidly than that of any other major faith. In The Triumph of Xianity, religious & social historian Stark explains how an obscure Jewish sect became the largest, most thriving religion in the world. In his The Rise of Xianity, he examined the early success of Xianity & how it conquered Rome. Now he tells a more extensive story, beginning with the religious & social situation prior to Jesus' birth & continuing to the present. As it moves thru six historical eras, The Triumph of Xianity gets right to Xianity's most pivotal & controversial moments—often turning them on their heads:-Xmas Eve surveys the religious situation within which Xianity began.-Xianizing the Empire looks at Jesus' life & the formative days of the movement he inspired, explaining why Xianity was a reprieve from the miseries of daily life for many.-Consolidating Xian Europe argues that Constantine's conversion did the church great harm, examines the gradual demise of paganism & clarifies the motives behind the Crusades.-Medieval Currents sheds light on the misleadingly named "Dark Ages" & the vital role faith played in the scientific revolution.-Xianity Divided examines two Roman Catholic "Churches"—a Church of Piety & a Church of Power—as they respond to heretical challenges, Luther's Reformation & the Spanish Inquisition.-New Worlds & Xian Growth considers the development of religious pluralism in the USA & the continuing vigor of Xianity worldwide, disproving the popular notion that religion must disappear to make room for modernity. With his knack for making bold, original scholarship accessible to all, Stark presents the story behind the tragedies & triumphs that have shaped the trajectory of the Xian faith & much of global history. For scholars & laity alike, this is a journey thru events we think we know & need to reconsider.IntroductionThe religious context Many JudaismsJesus & the Jesus movementMissionizing the Jews & the GentilesChristianity & privilegeMisery & mercyAppeals to womenPersecution & commitment Assessing Christian growth Constantine's very mixed blessings The demise of paganism Islam & the destruction of Eastern & North African ChristianityEurope responds: the case for the CrusadesThe "Dark Ages" & other mythical erasThe people's religionFaith & the scientific "Revolution"Two "churches" & the challenge of heresyLuther's reformationThe shocking truth about the Spanish InquisitionPluralism & American pietySecularization: facts & fantasiesGlobalizationConclusionBibliographyNotesIndex

    This concise guide is filled with illustrations, sidebars, and memorizable steps to help Christians stand their ground and defend their faith with reason and precision. In his engaging style, Dr. Craig offers four arguments for God’s existence, defends the historicity of Jesus’ personal claims and resurrection, addresses the problem of suffering, and shows why religious relativism doesn’t work. Along the way, he shares his story of following God’s call in his own life. This one-stop, how-to-defend-your-faith manual will equip Christians to advance faith conversations deliberately, applying straightforward, cool-headed arguments. They will discover not just what they believe, but why they believe—and how being on guard with the truth has the power to change lives forever.

    Originally published in 1970, the book was one of the first to focus on the processes and meaning of consumption in contemporary culture. At a time when others were fixated with the production process, Baudrillard could be found making the case that consumption is now the axis of culture. He demonstrates how consumption is related to the goal of economic growth and he maps out a social theory of consumption. Many of the themes that would later make Baudrillard famous are sketched out here for the first time. In particular, concepts of simulation and the simulacrum receive their earliest systematic treatment.Written at a time when Baudrillard was moving away from both Marxism and institutional sociology, the book is more systematic than his later works. He is still pursuing the task of locating consumption in culture and society. So the reader will find here his most organized discussion of mass media culture, the meaning of leisure and anomie in affluent society. There is also a fascinating chapter on the body which shows yet again Baudrillard's extraordinary prescience in flagging the importance of vital subjects in contemporary culture long before his colleagues.Baudrillard is widely acclaimed as a key thinker in sociology, communication and cultural studies. This book makes available to English-speaking readers one of his most important works. It will be devoured by the steadily expanding circle of Baudrillard scholars, and it will also be required reading for students of the sociology of culture, communication and cultural studies.This edition is published with a long, specially prepared introductory essay written by the noted cultural commentator and social theorist, George Ritzer, author of The McDonaldization of Society.

    Eros and Magic in the Renaissance challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today.Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent.In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing.Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.

    He also includes the first complete translation into English of the contexts in which the fragments have been transmitted to us, and of the ancient testimonia regarding Parmenides' life and thought. All of the fragments have been translated in full and are arranged in the order that has become canonical since the publication of the fifth edition of Diels-Rranz's Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Alternative renderings are provided for passages whose meaning is disputed or where major questions of interpretation hinge upon the text or translation adopted.In an extended introductory essay, Gallop offers guidance on the background of the poem, and a continuous exposition of it, together with a critical discussion of its basic argument. The volume also includes an extensive bibliography, a glossary of key terms in the poem, and a section on sources and authorities.

    Continuously in print since 1932, Ortega's vision of Western culture as sinking to its lowest common denominator and drifting toward chaos brought its author international fame and has remained one of the influential books of the 20th century.

    They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives—and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.