In On Seeing and Noticing, Alain de Botton takes everyday concerns such as expressing sadness or being romantic and dispenses advice and observations based on the works of some of history's greatest writers, artists and thinkers.

    This essential Unamuno reader begins with the full-length novel Abel Sanchez, a modern retelling of the story of Cain and Abel. Also included are two remarkable short stories, The Madness of Doctor Montarco and San Manuel Bueno, Martyr, featuring quixotic, philosophically existential characters confronted by the dull ache of modernity.Translated by Anthony Kerrigan and with an insightful introduction by Mario J. Valdes

    In this book, the American pragmatist Richard Rorty and the French analytic philosopher Pascal Engel present their radically different perspectives on truth and its correspondence to reality.Rorty doubts that the notion of truth can be of any practical use and points to the preconceptions that lie behind truth in both the intellectual and social spheres. Engel prefers a realist conception, defending the relevance and value of truth as a norm of belief and inquiry in both science and the public domain. Rorty finds more danger in using the notion of truth than in getting rid of it. Engel thinks it is important to hold on to the idea that truth is an accurate representation of reality.In Rorty's view, epistemology is an artificial construct meant to restore a function to philosophy usurped by the success of empirical science. Epistemology and ontology are false problems, and with their demise goes the Cartesian dualism of subject and object and the ancient problematic of appearance and reality. Conventional "philosophical problems," Rorty asserts, are just symptoms of the professionalism that has disfigured the discipline since the time of Kant. Engel, however, is by no means as complacent as Rorty in heralding the "end of truth," and he wages a fierce campaign against the "veriphobes" who deny its value.What's the Use of Truth? is a rare opportunity to experience each side of this impassioned debate clearly and concisely. It is a subject that has profound implications not only for philosophical inquiry but also for the future study of all aspects of our culture.

    It could not anticipate what was to come after, neither could it grasp what had happened in literary theory in the light of where it was to lead.

    At the time Jameson was actually writing the book, in the mid to late seventies, there was a major reaction against deconstruction and poststructuralism. As one of the most significant literary theorists, Jameson found himself in the unenviable position of wanting to defend his intellectual past yet keep an eye on the future. With this book he carried it off beautifully. A landmark publication, The Political Unconscious takes its place as one of the most meaningful works of the twentieth century.

    Has the 21st century resolved the question of postmodernism or are we more than ever ensnared in its perplexities? Postmodernism seemed to promise an end to the grim Cold War era of nuclear confrontation and oppressive ideologies. Fukuyama's notoriously proclaimed end of history, the triumph of liberal democracy over Communist tyranny, has proved an illusion. We awoke in the anxious grip of globalization, unpredictable terrorism and unforeseen war. Introducing Postmodernism traces the pedigrees of postmodernism in art, theory, science and history, providing an urgent guide to the present. Derrida, Baudrillard, Foucault and many other icons of postmodern complexity are brilliantly elucidated by Richard Appignanesi and enlivened by the Guardian's Biff cartoonist Chris Garratt.

    The contributors include A.J. Ayer, Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, and John Searle, so that the book is not only an introduction to the philosophers of the past, but gives an insight into the view and personalities of some of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century.

    Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that writing and creator are unrelated.

    Mark Wrathall unpacks Heidegger’s dense prose and guides the reader through Heidegger’s early concern with the nature of human existence, to his later preoccupation with the threat that technology poses to our ability to live worthwhile lives.Wrathall pays particular attention to Heidegger’s revolutionary analysis of human existence as inextricably shaped by a shared world. This leads to an exploration of Heidegger’s views on the banality of public life and the possibility of authentic anticipation of death as a response to that banality. Wrathall reviews Heidegger’s scandalous involvement with National Socialism, situating it in the context of Heidegger’s views about the movement of world history. He also explains Heidegger’s important accounts of truth, art, and language.Extracts are taken from Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time, as well as a variety of his best-known essays and lectures.

    Drilled by prompters who use terrifyingly funny logical and alogical language-sequences, Kaspar learns to speak "normally" and eventually becomes creative--"doing his own thing" with words; for this he is destroyed.In Offending the Audience and Self-Accusation, one-character "speak-ins," Handke further explores the relationship between public performance and personal identity, forcing us to reconsider our sense of who we are and what we know.

    The central work by one of the century's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of western philosophy. Its revolutionary approach challenged all previous assumptions about the individual's relationship with the world. Known as 'the Bible of existentialism', its impact on culture & literature was immediate & was felt worldwide, from the absurdist drama of Samuel Beckett to the soul-searching cries of the Beat poets.Being & Nothingness is one of those rare books whose influence has affected the mindset of subsequent generations. Seventy years after its 1st publication, its message remains as potent as ever--challenging readers to confront the fundamental dilemmas of human freedom, choice, responsibility & action.

    بهترین داستان‌های کوتاه آنتون پاولوويچ چخوف

    Caught between consumerism and casual sexual encounters devoid of passion, love today - without the key ingredient of chance - is in mortal danger. Alain Badiou proposes a vision of love as an adventure of the individual.Liberal and libertine reductions of love to instant pleasure and non-commitment bite the dust as Badiou invokes a supporting cast of thinkers from Plato to Lacan via Karl Marx to create a new narrative of romance, relationships and sex - one that does not fear love.

    From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish joke, Zizek’s acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion that make up human society.Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control.

    And yet it is complete in itself. For it is a work of art." —Walter Kaufmann in the IntroductionNietzsche called The Gay Science "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God—to which a large part of the book is devoted—and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence.Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic.Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published.Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche.