Free Will


Gary Watson - 1982
    This volume brings together some of the most influential contributions to the topic of free will during the past 50 years, as well as some notable recent work.

Summa Theologica


Thomas Aquinas
    St. Thomas Aquinas has much to teach us--most especially how to confront the classic questions that are still with us after centuries of thought.

The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty


Peter Singer - 2009
    The pandemic has had a devastating effect on global extreme poverty and harrowing scenes from around the world continue to leave us shocked. As the pandemic rages on, it’s natural to ask: how can I help? Peter Singer – often considered to be the world’s most influential living philosopher– answers this question in The 10th Anniversary Edition of his seminal book, The Life You Can Save. This book will inspire and empower readers to ACT NOW and SAVE LIVES. Moreover, the ebook and the audiobook (narrated by mission–aligned celebrities including Stephen Fry, Kristen Bell, Paul Simon and Michael Schur!) is available to all readers for FREE on The Life You Can Save website. In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer compellingly lays out the case for why and how we can take action to provide immense benefit to others, at minimal cost to ourselves. Using ethical arguments, illuminating examples, and case studies of charitable giving, he shows that our current response to world poverty is not only insufficient but morally indefensible. And he provides practical recommendations of charities proven to dramatically improve, and even save, the lives of children, women and men living in extreme poverty. The Life You Can Save teaches us to be a part of the solution, helping others as we help ourselves.

Populism: A Very Short Introduction


Cas Mudde - 2017
    However, like most political buzzwords, the term often floats from one meaning to another, and both social scientists and journalists use it to denote diverse phenomena. What is populism really? Who are the populist leaders? And what is the relationship between populism and democracy? This book answers these questions in a simple and persuasive way, offering a swift guide to populism in theory and practice. Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser present populism as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the "pure people" versus the "corrupt elite," and that privileges the general will of the people above all else. They illustrate the practical power of this ideology through a survey of representative populist movements of the modern era: European right-wing parties, left-wing presidents in Latin America, and the Tea Party movement in the United States. The authors delve into the ambivalent personalities of charismatic populist leaders such as Juan Domingo Peron, H. Ross Perot, Jean-Marie le Pen, Silvio Berlusconi, and Hugo Chavez. If the strong male leader embodies the mainstream form of populism, many resolute women, such as Eva Peron, Pauline Hanson, and Sarah Palin, have also succeeded in building a populist status, often by exploiting gendered notions of society. Although populism is ultimately part of democracy, populist movements constitute an increasing challenge to democratic politics. Comparing political trends across different countries, this compelling book debates what the long-term consequences of this challenge could be, as it turns the spotlight on the bewildering effect of populism on today's political and social life.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End


Atul Gawande - 2014
    But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

The Way of Zen


Alan W. Watts - 1957
    With a rare combination of freshness and lucidity, he delves into the origins and history of Zen to explain what it means for the world today with incredible clarity. Watts saw Zen as “one of the most precious gifts of Asia to the world,” and in The Way of Zen he gives this gift to readers everywhere.

Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction


Mark Siderits - 2007
    In this clear, concise account, Siderits makes the Buddhist tradition accessible to a Western audience, offering generous selections from the canonical Buddhist texts and providing an engaging, analytical introduction to the basic tenets of Buddhist thought.

Philosophical Hermeneutics


Hans-Georg Gadamer - 1976
    Gadamer applies hermeneutical analysis to Heidegger and Husserl's phenomenology, an approach that proves critical and instructive.

The Revolt of the Masses


José Ortega y Gasset - 1930
    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.

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World


Kevin Kelly - 1992
    Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

The Frege Reader


Gottlob Frege - 1997
    It is intended to provide the essential primary texts for students of logic, metaphysics and philosophy of language.It contains, in particular, Frege's four essays 'Function and Concept', 'On Sinn and Bedeutung', 'On Concept and Object' and 'Thought', and new translations of key parts of the Begriffschrift, Grundlagen and Grundgesetze. Additional selections have also been made from his Collected Papers, Posthumous Writings and Correspondence. The editor's introduction provides an overview of the development and significance of Frege's philosophy, highlighting some of the main issues of interpretation. Footnotes, appendices and other editorial material have been supplied to facilitate understanding of the works of one of the central figures in modern philosophy.

The Abolition of Man


C.S. Lewis - 1943
    Alternative cover for ISBN: 978-0060652944The Abolition of Man, Lewis uses his graceful prose, delightful humor, and keen understanding of the human mind to challenge our notions about how to best teach our children--and ourselves--not merely reading and writing, but also a sense of morality.

Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud


Herbert Marcuse - 1953
    In this classic work, Herbert Marcuse takes as his starting point Freud's statement that civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts, his reconstruction of the prehistory of mankind - to an interpretation of the basic trends of western civilization, stressing the philosophical and sociological implications.

Abortion: A Rational Look At An Emotional Issue


R.C. Sproul - 1990
    R.C. Sproul employs his unique perspective as a highly experienced pastor-theologian and a trained philosopher to provide well-considered and compassionate answers to the difficult questions that attend termination of pregnancy. Dr. Sproul strives for a factual, well-reasoned approach informed by careful biblical scholarship. He considers both sides of this issue in terms of biblical teaching, civil law, and natural law. This edition includes a new foreword by Dr. George Grant and has been updated to reflect developments in the issue of abortion. Appendixes provide further background on the issue of when life begins and list sources for pro-life resources.

Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away


Rebecca Goldstein - 2014
    But Plato’s role in shaping philosophy was pivotal. On her way to considering the place of philosophy in our ongoing intellectual life, Goldstein tells a new story of its origin, re-envisioning the extraordinary culture that produced the man who produced philosophy. But it is primarily the fate of philosophy that concerns her. Is the discipline no more than a way of biding our time until the scientists arrive on the scene? Have they already arrived? Does philosophy itself ever make progress? And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance? Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein’s startling investigation of these conundra. She interweaves her narrative with Plato’s own choice for bringing ideas to life—the dialogue. Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion?  How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child? How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato’s brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency? What would Plato make of Google, and of the idea that knowledge can be crowd-sourced rather than reasoned out by experts? With a philosopher’s depth and a novelist’s imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world.(With black-and-white photographs throughout.)