History & Surveys

A milestone in the study of value in human life and thought, written by one of the world’s preeminent living philosophers The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature is a philosophical investigation of the moral potentialities and sensibilities of human...

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) is one of the most famous and important philosophers of the twentieth century. In this account of his life and work A.C. Grayling introduces both his technical contributions to logic and philosophy, and his wide-ranging views...

Civil society is one of the most used - and abused - concepts in current political thinking. In this important collection of essays, the concept is subjected to rigorous analysis by an international team of contributors, all of whom seek to encourage the...

ON WAR is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832 it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of...

Paul Feyerabend is one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century and his book Against Method is an international bestseller. In this new book he masterfully weaves together the main elements of his mature philosophy into a gripping...

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus first appeared in 1921 and was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme compression and brilliance, it...

Werner Jaeger's highly-acclaimed work treats paideia, the shaping of Greek character, as the basis for study of Hellenism as a whole, to explain the interaction between the historical process by which Greek character was formed and the intellectual...

This anthology brings together a diversity of readings in the philosophy of language from the ancient Greeks to contemporary analytic, feminist, and multicultural perspectives. The emphasis is on issues that have a direct bearing on concerns about...

This book argues that Plato's Charmides presents a unitary but incomplete argument intended to lead its readers to substantive philosophical insights. Through careful, contextually sensitive analysis of Plato's arguments concerning the virtue of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780525566144Author Massimo PigliucciFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA Inc

Simone Weil (1909-1943) is one of the most brilliant and unorthodox religious and philosophical minds of the twentieth century. She was also a political activist, worked in the Renault car factory in France in the 1930s and fought briefly as an anarchist...

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships-and how it influenced modern thoughtDavid Hume is arguably the most important philosopher ever to have written in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his...

Philosophy in Practice is a completely new kind of introductory philosophy textbook, focusing on philosophy as an activity, rather than as a doctrine. Thoroughly revised edition of a popular introductory philosophy textbook. Contains new discussions of...

One of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that human action is determined not by reason but by 'will' - the blind and irrational desire for physical existence. This selection of his writings on...

What is the nature of the material world? And how are its fundamental constituents to be described? These questions are of central concern to contemporary philosophers, and in their attempt to answer them, they have begun reconsidering traditional views...

Susan Stryker is a foundational figure in trans studies. When Monsters Speak showcases the development of Stryker’s writing from the 1990s to the present. It combines canonical pieces, such as “My Words to Victor Frankenstein,” with her hard to find...

Naming and Necessity has had a great and increasing influence. It redirected philosophical attention to neglected questions of natural and metaphysical necessity and to the connections between these and theories of naming, and of identity. This seminal...

Our modern-day word for sympathy is derived from the classical Greek word for fellow-feeling. Both in the vernacular as well as in the various specialist literatures within philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, economics, and history,...

This book consists of Gregory Vlastos' studies on a variety of themes in Plato's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and social philosophy. Although many of the essays have appeared in various philosophical and classical journals or symposia, new in the...

The second edition of this Companion presents a philosophical perspective on an eighteenth-century phenomenon that has had a profound influence on Western culture. A distinguished team of contributors examines the writings of David Hume, Adam Smith,...

Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. He is a key figure in poststructuralism, and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. "Nietzsche and Philosophy" has long been recognised as...

This volume of newly commissioned essays marks a collaborative effort among scholars of ancient Greece and early China to investigate discourses of emotions in ancient philosophy, medicine, and literature from c. 5th century BCE-2nd century CE. The aim...

Xenophon's masterpiece, The Education of Cyrus, is a work that was admired by Machiavelli for its lessons on leadership. Also known as the Cyropaedia, this philosophical novel is loosely based on the accomplishments of Cyrus the Great, founder of the...

This is the first balanced introduction to Plato's work to bringing Plato himself alive, as well as discussing the importance of his works. In so doing, it allows a better understanding of who he was, what sort of world he inhabited, why his works were...

Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli's doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or...

Plotinus (204/5-270 CE) was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master's death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).Plotinus regarded...

Building on a hermeneutic tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misunderstood, or underdeveloped, this work initiates a new field of study and concern. Carnal Hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to the body as...

"Militant Modernism" argues for a Modernism of everyday life, immersed in questions of socialism, sexual politics and technology. It features new readings of some familiar names - Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, Vladimir Mayakovsky - and much more on the...

In this in-depth work, Richards defines rhetoric as the study of misunderstanding and its remedies. Focusing on how words work in discourse, he examines the interaction of words with each other and with their contexts, demonstrating how a continual...

From Plato to Postmodernism presents the cultural history of the West in one concise volume. Nearly four thousand years of Western history are woven together into an unfolding story in which we see how movements and individuals contributed to the...

Plato is a philosophical writer of unusual and ingenious versatility. His works engage in argument but are also full of allegory, imagery, myth, paradox and intertextuality. He astutely characterises the participants whom he portrays in conversation...

No other modern philosopher has proved as influential as Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and none is as poorly understood. In the first new biography in decades, Rudiger Safranski, one of the foremost living Nietzsche scholars, re-creates the anguished...

Against Those in the Disciplines (Pros Mathematikous, also known by the abbreviated title M 1-6) deals with six specialized fields of study: grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, and music. In sceptical fashion, it questions the credentials...

Generations of Christians, Janet Soskice demonstrates, once knew God and Christ by hundreds of remarkable names. These included the appellations 'Messiah', 'Emmanuel', 'Alpha', 'Omega', 'Eternal', 'All-Powerful', 'Lamb', 'Lion', 'Goat', 'One', 'Word',...

"SCM Brieflys" introduce texts commonly studied at A level and Level One undergraduate courses in Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies. A comprehensive introductory chapter sets the text and its author in their wider context. The texts are analyzed...

Written against the background of her controversial opposition to the University of Oxford's awarding of an honorary degree to Harry S. Truman, Elizabeth Anscombe's Intention laid the groundwork she thought necessary for a proper ethical evaluation of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780262535151Author Ingo FarinFormat PaperbackPage Count 376Imprint MIT PressPublisher MIT Press LtdDimensions(mm) 229mm * 178mm * 19mm

This is the first collection of essays ever published on Martin Amis, one of England's most controversial and critically acclaimed authors. It assembles the ideas of twelve scholars from different countries to clarify the major trends and transitions in...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780451531759Author AristotleFormat PaperbackPage Count 544Imprint SignetPublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 252gDimensions(mm) 171mm * 105mm * 21mm

One of the greatest British philosophers, Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753) was the founder of the influential doctrine of Immaterialism - the belief that there is no reality outside the mind, and that the existence of material objects depends upon their being...