Pinner Philosophy Group

Library Catalogue

List in alphabetical order of philosophical topic, philosopher and/or author

THIS PAGE NEEDS EXTENSIVE REFORMMATING

ALTHUSSER

For Marx

Louis Althusser

This is the work in which Louis Althusser formulated some of his most influential ideas. For Marx, first published in France in 1968, has come to be regarded as the founding text of the school of

‘structuralist Marxism’, which was presided over by the fascinating and enigmatic figure of Louis Althusser. Structuralism constituted an intellectual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s and radically transformed the way philosophy, political and social theory, history, science and aesthetics were discussed and thought about. For Marx was a key contribution to that process and it fundamentally recast the way in which many people understood Marx and Marxism.

ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA

 

The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Choephoroi and The Eumenides Aeschylus

The Oresteia trilogy of tragedies shows how the Greek gods interact with the characters in the dramas and influence their decisions. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice and the transition from personal vendetta to organised litigation. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theatre trilogy, the Oresteia won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BCE.

 

 

The Bacchae is based on the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave and their punishment by the god Dionysus. The play is distinctive in that the chorus is integrated into the plot and the god is not a distant presence but a character in the play, indeed the protagonist. The Bacchae is considered to be not only one of Euripides’ greatest tragedies but also one of the greatest tragedies ever written, modern or ancient.

Ion follows the orphan Ion, a young and willing servant in Apollo’s temple, as he inadvertently discovers his biological origins. The play is also the story of his mother, Creusa, as she strives to guide her own life after experiencing terrible abuse at the hands of a god who is beyond her power. Euripides’ retelling of this myth is a radical step forward among the Greek tragedies: while in other plays of classical Athens individuals often rail against the disasters that the Fates or the gods have caused to befall them, in this play both Creusa and Ion actually challenge whether the gods have any right to govern the destinies of human beings. In the end, however, Euripides takes a step back from this precipitous development in human thought.

The Trojan Women follows the fates of the women of Troy after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed and their remaining families taken away as slaves.

In Helen, Euripides portrays a living and breathing Helen filled with compassion and wit.

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

 

Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

Julia Annas

 

Instead of presenting ancient Greco-Roman philosophy as a succession of Great Thinkers, Julia Annas gives readers a sense of its freshness and liveliness and focuses on its wide variety of themes and styles.

 

Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations

Jules Evans

Imagining a dream school that includes 12 of the greatest and most colourful thinkers the world has ever known, Jules Evans explains how ancient philosophy saved his life and how we can all use it to become happier, wiser and more resilient. Each of these ancient philosophers teaches a technique we can use to transform ourselves and live better lives. These practical techniques are illustrated by the extraordinary stories of real people who are using them today – from marines to magicians, from astronauts to anarchists and from CBT psychologists to soldiers. Evans also explores how ancient philosophy is inspiring modern communities – Socratic cafés, Stoic armies, Platonic sects, Sceptic summer camps – and even whole nations in their quest for the good life.

ANSCOMBE, FOOT, MIDGELY AND MURDOCH

The Moral Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe

Luke Gormally, David Albert Jones, et al.

Elizabeth Anscombe’s 1958 essay ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ contributed to the transformation of the subject from the late 1960s. It reversied the trend whereby it was assumed that there was no intrinsic connection between facts, values and reasons for action and directed attention towards the category of virtues. Her later ethical writings were focused on particular ideas and issues such as those of conscience, double-effect, murder, and sexual ethics. In this collection of essays derived from a conference held in Oxford, these and other aspects of her moral philosophy are examined.

 

Natural Goodness

Philippa Foot

Long dissatisfied with both Kantian and utilitarian ethics and with the moral theories of her contemporaries, Philippa Foot evolved a theory of her own that was radically opposed to emotivism, prescriptivism and the whole subjectivist, anti-naturalist movement derived from David Hume. Full of life and feeling, her vivid discussions covered topics such as practical rationality and the relation between virtue and happiness.

Metaphysical Animals

Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman

Metaphysical Animals is a vivid portrait of the endeavours and achievements of four remarkable women: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch. As undergraduates at Oxford during the Second World War, they shared ideas (as well as shoes, sofas and lovers). From the disorder and despair of war, they went on to breathe new life into philosophy, creating a radically fresh way of thinking about freedom, reality and human goodness.

The Women Are Up To Something

Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb

The story of four remarkable women who shaped the intellectual history of the 20th century: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. On the cusp of the Second World War, four women went to Oxford to begin their studies: a fiercely brilliant Catholic convert; a daughter of privilege longing to escape her stifling upbringing; an ardent Communist and aspiring novelist with a list of would-be lovers as long as her arm; and a quiet, messy lover of newts and mice who would become a great public intellectual of our time. They became lifelong friends. At the time, only a handful of women had ever made lives in philosophy. But when Oxford’s men were drafted in the war, everything changed. As Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch laboured to make a place for themselves in a male-dominated world, as they made friendships and families and as they drifted toward and away from each other, they never stopped insisting that some lives are better than others, arguing that courage, discernment, justice and love are at the heart of a good life. Drawing on a cluster of recently opened archives and extensive correspondence and interviews with those who knew them best, Benjamin Lipscomb traces the lives and ideas of four friends who gave us a better way to think about ethics, and ourselves.

 

The Essential Mary Midgley

edited by David Midgley

Mary Midgley has challenged many of the scientific and moral orthodoxies of the twentieth century and discussed major topics such as the roots of human nature, reason and imagination, the myths of science and the importance of holism in thinking about science and the environment. The Essential Mary Midgley presents the best of her work, described by the Financial Times as ‘common sense philosophy of the highest order’ and includes excerpts from Wickedness, Beast and Man, Science and Poetry and The Myths We Live By.

ANTHOLOGY

Porcupines: a Philosophical Anthology Graham Higgin

Taken from two and a half millennia of philosophical thinking, from Thales to Derrida, the sentences in this anthology have been selected and arranged to spark the reader’s imagination and to inspire creative enquiry.

ARENDT

The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt’s first major work is structured as three essays, ‘Antisemitism’, ‘Imperialism’ and

‘Totalitarianism’. It evokes the fragility of freedom and analyses the conditions that led to the Nazi and Soviet regimes, describing the ways in which propaganda, scapegoating, terror and political isolation all aided the slide towards total domination. Arendt argues that totalitarianism was a new form of government that differed from other forms of political oppression in that it applied terror to subjugate mass populations rather than just political adversaries. She also argues that totalitarianism discovered a means of dominating and terrorising human beings from within.

Politics, Philosophy, Terror: Essays on the Thought of Hannah Arendt Dana R. Villa

Hannah Arendt’s rich and varied political thought is more influential today than ever before, due in part to the collapse of communism and the need for ideas that move beyond the old ideologies of the Cold War. Villa explains clearly, carefully and forcefully Arendt’s major contributions to our understanding of politics, modernity and the nature of political evil in our century, showing how her ideas illuminate contemporary debates about the nature of modernity and democracy and how they deepen our understanding of philosophers ranging from Socrates and Plato to Habermas and Leo Strauss. Direct, lucid and powerfully argued, this is a much-needed analysis of the central ideas of one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.

ARISTOTLE

Aristotle’s Way: Ten Ways Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life

Edith Hall

Aristotle was an extraordinary thinker yet he was preoccupied by an ordinary question: how to be happy. In this handbook to his  teachings, Professor Edith Hall shows how ancient thinking is precisely what we need today.

 

 

 

ART

Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates Alex Neill and Aaron Ridley

This anthology covers 11 topics and debates on the philosophy of art. Each chapter contains two or more articles on a subject, preceded by a short introduction and followed by a select bibliography. A wide range of art forms is covered, as is the topic of appreciating nature.

The Art Question Nigel Warburton

If an artist sends a live peacock to an exhibition, is it art? ‘What is art?’ is the question that Nigel Warburton demystifies in this book. With the help of illustrations and photographs by, among others, Cézanne, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst, Nigel Warburton brings a philosopher’s eye to art and explains the art theories of thinkers such as Clive Bell, R. G. Collingwood and Wittgenstein. He illuminates perplexing problems in art, such as the artist’s intention, representation and emotion. Warburton shows that, if we are ever to answer the art question, we must consider each work of art on its own terms.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (A.I.)

Klara and the Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel is set in a dystopian future in which some children are genetically engineered for enhanced academic ability. As schooling is provided entirely at home by on-screen tutors, opportunities for socialisation are limited, and parents who can afford it often buy their children androids as companions. The book is narrated by one such Artificial Friend (AF) called Klara, chosen by Josie, a sickly child, to be her companion. Although Klara is exceptionally intelligent and observant, her knowledge of the world is limited. From the window of the store in which she is for sale, Klara learns about the world outside and watches the Sun, by which she is powered and which she always refers to as “he” and treats as a living entity.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Meditations Marcus Aurelius

Meditations is a series of personal reflections by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, written over a number of years in far-flung places as he led the Romans in military campaigns, quashed revolts and dealt with the other tribulations of governing the Empire. It is best described as a spiritual journal, containing a record of the emperor’s philosophical exercises. Wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance are the qualities that Aurelius, stoic and practical moralist, identifies as essential for co-existence, and his writings represent an early and influential form of humanism.

Written in the mid second century Meditations presents a noble approach to life. Marcus Aurelius reflects the mature harvest of the Stoic school of philosophy, and his awareness of mortality motivates a good, noble and upright life. Since we all die, the best thing is to live nobly and honestly. This is not only the way to live well, but also the way to avoid suffering. Meditations iscomposed of aphorisms and insights from Marcus Aurelius that allow his philosophy to be lived out.

AUSTIN

Sense and Sensibilia

1. L. Austin
2. L. Austin occupies a place in the philosophy of language alongside Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle in staunchly advocating that the meaning of words be elucidated through examination of the way in which they are ordinarily used. Reconstructed from Austin’s manuscript notes by fellow Oxford philosopher Geoffrey Warnock and published posthumously, Sense and Sensibilia is
3. L. Austin’s landmark work of ordinary-language philosophy, in which he attacks sense-data theories of perception, specifically those of A. J. Ayer.

BAGGINI

How to Think Like a Philosopher

Julian Baggini

 

As politics slides toward impulsivity, and outrage bests rationality, how can philosophy help us critically engage with the world? How to Think Like A Philosopher is an exploration of the methods, tenets and attitudes of thought that guide philosophy and of how they can be applied to our own lives. Drawing on decades of enquiry and a wide range of interviews, Julian Baggini identifies twelve key principles that promote incisive thinking that can be applied to everything from understanding the impact of climate change to correctly appraising our own temperaments. These principles include ‘pay attention’, ‘question everything’ and ‘seek clarity, not certainty’.As both a fresh introduction to philosophy covering canonical and contemporary philosophers, and an essential, practical guide to good thinking, How to Think Like a Philosopher shows us the way to a more humane, balanced and rational approach to thinking, to politics and to life.

BAGGINI and FOSL

The Philosopher’s Toolkit

Julian Baggini and Peter S. Fosl

 

Whether used as a guide to basic principles or a resource for key concepts and methods, The Philosopher’s Toolkit equips readers with all the intellectual ‘tools’ necessary for engaging closely with philosophical argument and developing fluency in the methods and language of philosophical inquiry. Featuring accessible explanations, practical examples, and expert guidance, this text empowers readers to understand traditional philosophical thinking and to engage with new ideas. The book focuses on the practical methods and concepts necessary for philosophical inquiry; presents a versatile resource for both novice and advanced students in areas of philosophy, critical theory and rhetoric; provides extensive cross-referenced entries, recommended readings, and updated online resources; and covers an array of topics, from basic tools of argumentation to sophisticated philosophical principles.

BENJAMIN

The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin

Conceived in Paris in 1927 and still in progress when Benjamin fled the Occupation in 1940, The Arcades Project is a monumental ruin, meticulously constructed over the course of thirteen years – “the theatre,” as Benjamin called it, “of all my struggles and all my ideas.” Focusing on the arcades of nineteenth-century Paris, with their glass-roofed rows of shops, which were early centres of consumerism, Benjamin presents a montage of quotations from, and reflections on, hundreds of published sources, arranging them in 36 categories with descriptive rubrics such as ‘Fashion’,

‘Boredom’, ‘Dream City’, ‘Photography’, ‘Catacombs’, ‘Advertising’, ‘Prostitution’, ‘Baudelaire’ and ‘Theory of Progress’. His central preoccupation is what he calls the commodification of things, a process in which he locates the decisive shift to the modern age. The Arcades Project is Benjamin’s effort to represent and to critique the bourgeois experience of nineteenth-century history and, in so doing, to liberate the suppressed ‘true history’ that underlay the ideological mask. In the bustling and cluttered arcades, street and interior merge and historical time is broken up into kaleidoscopic distractions and displays of ephemera. Here, at a distance from what is normally

meant by ‘progress’, Benjamin finds the lost time(s) embedded in the spaces of things.

BERLIN, ISAIAH

The Hedgehog and the Fox Isaiah Berlin

An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History

For Isaiah Berlin, there is a fundamental distinction in mankind: those who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things – foxes – and those who relate everything to a central all-embracing system

– hedgehogs. It can be applied to the greatest creative minds: Dante, Ibsen and Proust are hedgehogs, while Shakespeare, Aristotle and Joyce are foxes. Yet when Berlin reaches the case of

Tolstoy, he finds a fox by nature, but a hedgehog by conviction – a duality that holds the key to understanding Tolstoy’s work, illuminating a paradox of his philosophy of history and showing why he was frequently misunderstood by his contemporaries and critics.

CLASSICAL CIVILISATION

Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization Martin Bernal

Classical civilisation, Martin Bernal argues, has deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures. But these Afro- Asiatic influences have been systematically ignored, denied or suppressed since the 18th century, chiefly for racist reasons. The popular view is that Greek civilisation was the result of the conquest of a sophisticated but weak native population by vigorous Indo-European speakers – or Aryans –

from the North. But the Classical Greeks, Bernal argues, knew nothing of this ‘Aryan model’. They did not see their political institutions, science, philosophy or religion as original, but rather as derived from the East in general, and Egypt in particular. Bernal makes meaningful links between a wide range of areas and disciplines: drama, poetry, myth, theological controversy, esoteric religion, philosophy, biography, language, historical narrative and the emergence of ‘modern scholarship’.

 

 

 

COLOUR and the OBJECTIVITY or SUBJECTIVITY thereof

Color for Philosophers

1. L. Hardin

 

Colour vision became an important part of contemporary analytic philosophy due to the claim by scientists like Leo Hurvich that the physical and neurological aspects of colour vision had become completely understood by empirical psychologists in the 1980s. C. L. Hardin’s Color for Philosophers explains empirical findings by empirical psychologists to the effect that colours cannot possibly be part of the physical world but are instead purely mental features.

CONFUCIUS

The Essential Cofucius

Paul Strathern

 

This book is an introduction to Confucius, who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the cultural sphere influenced by Chinese civilization originates in the philosophy and teachings of Confucius His philosophical teachings emphasized personal and governmental morality, harmonious social relationships, righteousness, kindness, sincerity and a ruler’s responsibilities to lead by virtue.

COSMOLOGY

Stardust: the cosmic recycling of stars, planets and people John Gribbin

The author describes how stars are made and how they die and how we came into being from the material scattered from dying stars.

CULTURAL HISTORY

The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin

Conceived in Paris in 1927 and still in progress when Benjamin fled the Occupation in 1940, The Arcades Project focuses on the arcades of nineteenth-century Paris: glass-roofed rows of shops that

were early centres of consumerism. Benjamin presents a montage of quotations from, and reflections on, hundreds of published sources, arranging them in thirty-six categories with descriptive rubrics such as “Fashion,” “Boredom,” “Dream City,” “Photography,” “Catacombs,” “Advertising,” “Prostitution,” “Baudelaire,” and “Theory of Progress.” His central preoccupation is what he calls the commodification of things, a process in which he locates the decisive shift to the modern age. The Arcades Project is Benjamin’s effort to represent and to critique the bourgeois experience of nineteenth-century history and, in so doing, to liberate the suppressed ‘true history’ that underlay the ideological mask.

DE BEAUVOIR

Ethics of Ambiguity Simone De Beauvoir

De Beauvoir, feminist and existentialist, provides a concise yet thorough examination of what it means to be human. In Ethics of Ambiguity De Beauvoir asks what ethics looks like from the perspective of the existentialist philosophy that she developed in conjunction with Jean-Paul Sartre. Whereas most ethical systems try to determine what people ought to do based on abstract principles of morality, existentialists believe it makes no sense to talk about such absolute ethical principles because morality is something that people develop throughout their lives. Instead of starting with principles of good, just or right, De Beauvoir starts with the basic fact of human freedom, which she argues must be the foundation of all morality because it is the fact in the light of which people can make moral decisions at all. De Beauvoir divides her book into three parts covering, respectively, the philosophical argument behind her ethics of ambiguity, the different kinds of ethical attitudes people can have dependent on how they relate to their freedom, and what existentialism has to say about how people should relate to other human beings.

DE SADE

Marquis de Sade for Beginners Stuart Hood and Graham Crowley

The authors acknowledge de Sade as a philosopher of the Enlightenment who took libertarian atheism to its limit.

DESCARTES

Discourse on Method and the Meditations René Descartes

 

For the Meditations, see following entry.

Descartes, who was a central figure in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, wished to give philosophy the certainty of mathematics and to establish a firm rational foundation for

knowledge. In his Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences – a philosophical and autobiographical treatise best known as the source of the quotation ‘Je pense, donc je suis’ – he outlined the contrast between mathematics and experimental sciences, and the extent to which each one can achieve certainty. Drawing on his own work in geometry, optics, astronomy and physiology, he developed the hypothetical method that characterises modern science, and this soon came to replace the traditional techniques derived from Aristotle. Radical ideas of his, such as that of the disparity between our perceptions and the realities that cause them, have been highly influential in the development of modern philosophy, and important to the development of the natural sciences. Together with Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy and Rules for the Direction of the Mind, it forms the basis of the epistemology known as Cartesianism.

Meditations René Descartes

One of the most influential philosophical texts ever written, the book presents Descartes’ metaphysical system at its most detailed level. In the quest for new certainties, Descartes rejects all his former beliefs. Discovering his own existence as a thinking entity in the very exercise of doubt, he goes on to prove the existence of God, who guarantees his clear and distinct ideas as a means of access to the truth, and subsequently develops new conceptions of body and mind, capable of serving as foundations for the new science of nature. The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain and then tries to establish what can be known for sure. The first two meditations, which concluded that only the ego and its thoughts are indubitable, have had a huge impact on the history of philosophy. They are often considered as epoch-making for modernity, and an unavoidable first step for any modern philosophical thinking. Subsequent philosophy has grappled with Descartes’s legacy, questioning many of his conclusions and even his basic approach, but his arguments did set the agenda for many of the greatest philosophical thinkers, and their fascination endures.

DICTIONARY

Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy Simon Blackburn

With more than 3,300 alphabetical entries, including entries on the philosophy of economics, social theory, neuroscience and philosophy of mind, the book covers not only Western philosophical traditions but also themes from Chinese, Indian, Islamic and Jewish philosophy. Entries include over 400 biographies of famous and influential philosophers, in-depth analyses of philosophical terms and concepts (including terms from the related fields of religion, science and logic) and a chronology of philosophical events stretching from 10,000 BCE to the present day. The book is an ideal introduction for anyone with an interest in philosophy.

DIDEROT

 

Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot Jean le Rond d’Alembert

Translated and introduced by Professor Richard Schwab

Written by Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, a French mathematician and philosopher, the Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot is a critical introduction to the Encyclopedia – a major work of the Enlightenment period that aimed to collect and disseminate knowledge in all areas of human endeavour. In this book, d’Alembert discusses the history of knowledge and the role of the Encyclopedia in advancing human understanding. He argues that the accumulation of knowledge is a gradual process that requires the collaboration of many people from different fields of study. He also emphasizes the importance of reason and critical thinking in the pursuit of knowledge. The book is considered a seminal work in the history of ideas and a key text in the Enlightenment. It provides insight into the intellectual and cultural context of the time and sheds light on the development of modern science, philosophy, and politics.

 

 

(PHILOSOPHY OF) EDUCATION

Education: A Very Short Introduction Gary Thomas

From the early Egyptians onwards, human beings have formalised the business of learning and set up designated environments to pass on knowledge and learning to groups of students. Gary Thomas explores how and why education has evolved as it has and examines the ways in which it has responded over the centuries to influences in politics, philosophy and the social sciences. Focusing on education today, he considers especially the controversies over progressive versus formal teaching and also examines education worldwide, assessing the accelerating trend on both sides of the Atlantic towards ‘charter’, ‘academy’ and ‘free’ schools. With the COVID-19 pandemic having dramatically accelerated moves to online learning in schools and universities, Thomas looks at curriculums and what shape they should take in a rapidly changing world. He asks why action on race, gender and social inequality has borne so little fruit so far,  questions the often made claim that education is a force for social mobility and offers an analysis of how education may develop over the coming century.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY

Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Edited by Edward Craig

More than 2000 alphabetically organised entries range from Abstract Objects to Wisdom, Socrates to Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ancient Egyptian Philosophy to Yoruba Epistemology.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell Jane O’Grady

Ranging across Enlightenment thinking from Berkeley to Rousseau, Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell explains important ideas such as Locke’s ideas of primary and secondary qualities, Kant’s moral rationalism and Hume’s inductive reasoning.

The Portable Enlightenment Reader Isaac Kramnick

 

This book brings together classic writing from the 18^th century Age of Enlightenment by Kant, Voltaire, Newton, Rousseau and others. It demonstrates the pervasive impact of enlightenment views on philosophy, as well as on political, social and economic institutions.

 

Spotlight on the Age of Enlightenment Alan Blackwood

 

 

Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century Edited by Kim Sloan

The Enlightenment was a period of intense activity devoted to discovery and learning about the natural world, the past and other civilizations. Classification, collecting and deciphering were all important stages on the way to understanding the world. The King’s Library was built to house the books donated from the royal libraries of King George II and King George III, epitomising the interest in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in scholarship and study. Aimed at the general reader and relevant to many academic disciplines, this book explores the ways in which people acquired new information, organized their ideas and reached their conclusions.

EPISTEMOLOGY

Epistemology: The Theory of Knowledge

1. Cardinal, J. Hayward and G. Jones

Part of the Philosophy in Focus series, this book gives an overview of epistemology and suggests activities to get readers thinking about the topic.

EXISTENTIALISM

 

Existentialism (Beginner’s Guide) Thomas E. Wartenberg

Using classic films, novels and plays, Thomas E. Wartenberg explores the central ideas of existentialism including freedom, authenticity, anxiety and the absurd. As well as discussing the ideas of thinkers such as Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre, Wartenberg shows how Simone de Beauvoir and Franz Fanon use the theories of existentialism to address gender and colonial oppression. This introduction reveals a vibrant mode of philosophical inquiry that pervades modern culture and addresses concerns at the heart of every human being.

FEMINISM

Feminism: A Very Short Introduction Margaret Walters

Margaret Walters provides an historical account of feminism, exploring its earliest roots as well as key issues including voting rights, the liberation of the sixties and female emancipation in different cultural and economic environments, for example the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and Africa. She touches on the difficulties and inequities that women still face more than 40 years after

the ‘new wave’ of 1960s feminism, such as the degree to which women are successful at combining domesticity, motherhood and work outside the house. She brings the subject completely up to date by providing an analysis of the current situation of women across the globe, from Europe and the United States to Third World countries.

 

FOUCAULT

The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault describes the development of the teaching hospital as a medical institution and, among other things, presents the concept of the medical gaze – the doctor’s practice of objectifying the body of the patient, as separate and apart from their personal identity. The intellectual and material structures of the teaching hospital made it possible to inspect, examine and analyse the human body, yet the clinic was part of the socio-economic interests of power. Therefore, when the patient’s body entered the field of medicine, it also entered the field of power, where the patient could be manipulated by the professional authority of the medical gaze. A meta-narrative of scientific discourse had been inaugurated that presented medical doctors as sages who would abolish sickness and resolve the problems of humanity. The medical gaze was the doctor’s near- mystical ability to discover hidden truth.

The Cambridge Companion to Foucault

Edited by Gary Gutting

For Michel Foucault, philosophy was a way of questioning the allegedly necessary truths that underpin the practices and institutions of modern society. He did his own questioning in a series of deeply original and strikingly controversial studies on the origins of modern medical and social- scientific disciplines. These studies have raised fundamental questions about the nature of human knowledge and its relation to power structures and have become major topics of discussion throughout the humanities and social sciences. The essays in this volume provide a comprehensive overview of Foucault’s major themes and texts, including his early work on madness and his history of sexuality. Special attention is also paid to thinkers such as Kant and movements such as current

feminist theory that are particularly important for understanding Foucault’s work and its impact.

Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison Michel Foucault

Based on historical French documents, the book analyses the social and theoretical mechanisms behind the changes that occurred in Western penal systems during the modern age. Foucault argues that prison did not become the principal form of punishment just because of the humanitarian concerns of reformists. True, the grisly spectacle of public executions and torture of centuries ago has been replaced by the penal system in western society, but has anything really changed? In his revolutionary work on control and power relations in our public institutions, Michel Foucault argues that the development of prisons, police organisations and legal hierarchies has merely changed the

focus of domination from our bodies to our souls. Even schools, factories, barracks and hospitals, in which an individual’s time is controlled hour by hour, are part of a disciplinary society.

Madness and Civilization Michel Foucault

Foucault here traces the evolution of the concept of madness in the cultures, laws, politics, philosophy and medicine of Europe from the Middle Ages until the end of the 18^th century.

The Order of Things Michel Foucault

Dipping into literature, art, economics and even biology, Foucault weaves an intensely complex history of thought. Although eclipsed by his later work on power and discourse, it was The Order of Things that established Foucault’s reputation as an intellectual giant. In describing the limitations of our usual taxonomies, he opens the door onto a whole new system of thought.

Mental Illness and Psychology Michel Foucault

This seminal early work of Foucault’s is indispensable to understanding his development as a thinker. Written in 1954 and revised in 1962, Mental Illness and Psychology delineates the shift that occurred in Foucault’s thought during this period. The first iteration reflects the philosopher’s early interest in and respect for Freud and the psychoanalytic tradition. The second part, rewritten in 1962, marks a dramatic change in Foucault’s thinking. Examining the history of madness as a social and cultural construct, he moves outside of the psychoanalytic tradition into the radical critique of Freud that was to dominate his later work. “Mental Illness and Psychology” is an important document tracing the intellectual evolution of this influential thinker.

MICHAEL FRAYN

The Human Touch Michael Frayn

What would that universe be like if human beings were not here to observe it? Would there be still be numbers or scientific laws? Would the universe even be vast, without our tininess to give it scale? Michael Frayn confronts, with wit and lucidity, what he calls ‘the world’s oldest mystery’.

FREE WILL

The Free Will Delusion James B. Miles

 

Author James B. Miles, who in this book argues that it is the conceit of free will that today ensures that so many at the bottom of the heap are denied any chance of social and economic advancement, is also a Santander risk manager. Reviewer Jonathan Guthrie suggests that Mr Miles could be tricky to work with, insisting as he does that, for example, colleagues deserve no credit for achievements properly attributable to their genes, conditioning and environment. The nub of the matter, writes Jonathan Guthrie, is contained in the old limerick, as follows:

There was a young man who said: “Damn! I perceive with regret that I am

But a creature that moves In predestinate grooves

I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram”.

 

 

Free Will: A Very Short Introduction Thomas Pink

Every day we seem to make and act upon all kinds of free choices – some of them trivial, and some so consequential that they may change the course of our life, or even the course of history. But are these choices really free? Or are we compelled to act the way we do by factors beyond our control? Is the feeling that we could have made different decisions just an illusion? And if our choices are not free, why should we be held morally responsible for our actions? This book looks at a range of issues surrounding this fundamental philosophical question.

GAARDER

Sophie’s World Jostein Gaarder

Sophie’s World sets out to draw teenagers into the world of Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel and other great philosophers. A blend of mystery, philosophy and fantasy, it raises profound questions about the meaning of life and the origin of the universe.

HEGEL

The Essential Hegel Paul Strathern

Ambitious, demanding and frequently abstruse, Hegel’s philosophy has nonetheless exerted a powerful and far-reaching influence, for example on Marxism and Existentialism. The last of the German idealists and one of the greatest systematic thinkers in Western philosophy, Hegel boldly maintained that his own system of philosophy was the historical culmination of all previous philosophical thought.

Hegel for Beginners

Lloyd Spencer and Andrzej Krauze

 

Georg Hegel, whose theories echo through the writings of Marx, Lacan, Sartre and Adorno, changed the way in which history was understood philosophically. His influential writings on politics, history, art and philosophy are part of a larger systematic whole, and their effect on the ideas and political events of the 20th century has been profound.

Hegel: Phenomenology and System H S Harris

 

Interesting and provocative, this book gives an accessible account of Hegel’s philosophical ideas.

Harris provides a clear introduction to Hegel’s thought and explains the concept of phenomenology, as well as the structure of Hegel’s system and the place of phenomenology within it.

The Most Sublime Hysteric: Hegel with Lacan Slavoj Zižek

Zižek brings together Hegel and Lacan, building the components of his own unique and powerful philosophical system. Hegel has been made into the theorist of abstraction and reaction, but by reading Hegel with Lacan, Zižek unveils a Hegel of the concrete and of revolution – his own and the one to come.

HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

A Little History of Philosophy Nigel Warburton

 

This book surveys the entire history of Western Philosophy, taking readers on a whistlestop tour of thinkers who shaped philosophy from Ancient Greece to Germany in the 20th century. The book makes philosophy’s age-old questions as relevant today as when Socrates first posed them.

Warburton exposes us to the content of philosophy rather than its critical tools of reason and analysis, popularising the subject with contemporary ideas of wisdom. Just as Plato sought to rescue us from the Cave, the author lures us from the blinkered path we tread through life, reminding us there are issues out there worth explaining; even if, like Socrates, we only discover how little we know.

HOBBES

 

Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction

Richard Tuck

 

Thomas Hobbes, the first great English political philosopher, has long had the reputation of being a pessimistic atheist who saw human nature as inevitably evil and proposed a totalitarian state to subdue human failings. In this illuminating study, Richard Tuck re-evaluates Hobbes’s philosophy and dispels these myths, revealing him to have been passionately concerned with the refutation of scepticism and to have developed a theory of knowledge that rivalled that of Descartes in its importance.

 

 

HUMANISM

Humanism Peter Cave

Peter Cave shows how humanism tackles ethical and metaphysical issues by appealing to rationality, tolerance and shared human values.

A New Humanism

Daisaku Ikeda

‘The natural sympathy and understanding of people everywhere must be the soil in which the new humanism can thrive.’ For Daisaku Ikeda, whose words these are, education has long been one of the fundamental priorities of his work and teaching. And his emphasis on the intellectual legacy bequeathed to humanity by the great teachers of civilisation is in this volume encapsulated by the notion of a ‘new humanism’: a significant residue of wisdom that in the right circumstances may be passed on to future generations, expanding horizons, making connnctions between different cultures and encouraging fresh insights and new discoveries across the globe. This stimulating collection of speeches and lectures ranges widely across topics as diverse as art, religion, culture and time, and draws creatively on the sages of ancient India, China and Japan as well as on visionary thinkers from every nation, including Tolstoy, Victor Hugo and Gandhi.

HUMANKIND

 

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Havari

 

Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us. In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we’re going.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Yuval Noah Havari

 

Yuval Noah Harari envisions a near future in which we face a new set of challenges. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century and beyond, from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive power? And what does our future hold?

 

HUME

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion David Hume

First published in 1779, this is one of the most influential works in the philosophy of religion and the most artful instance of philosophical dialogue since the dialogues of Plato. It presents a fictional conversation between a sceptic, an orthodox Christian and a Newtonian theist concerning evidence for the existence of an intelligent cause of nature based on observable features of the world.

HUMOUR

Lessons in Humour

Sayed Athar Husain Naqvi

The author has written books for children, and others of a socio-political nature.

 

INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is

Presented by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 

Bhagavad-Gita is the essence of India’s Vedic wisdom and one of the great spiritual and philosophical classics of the world. Spoken by Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, to His intimate disciple Arjuna, the Gita’s seven hundred verses provide a guide to self-realisation and the nature of consciousness, the self and the universe.

Eastern Religions and Western Thought

1. Radhakrishnan

The book describes the leading ideas of Indian philosophy and religion and traces their influence upon Western thought from classical times, through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, to the present day.

 

 

JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

The Guide for the Perplexed Moses Maimonides

An intellectual labyrinth full of contradictions, this work by the pre-eminent medieval Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides influenced subsequent Jewish philosophy and also proved highly influential in Christian and Islamic thought. Written for scholars who were bewildered by the conflict between religion and the scientific and philosophic thought of the day, it was the primary conduit through which the rationalism of Aristotle’s philosophy was transmitted from medieval Arabic high culture to Christian theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. In this way Aristotle was reintroduced into the Western culture to which he had been lost for almost a millennium, and it was through the rediscovery of Aristotle that the first seeds of Renaissance humanism and early modern scientific optimism were sown.

 

 

JUNG

Jung (Fontana Modern Masters)

Anthony Storr

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) left behind him a vast collection of valuable and original contributions to psychology; but because at first sight some of his ideas appear obscure, Jung has never been widely appreciated. His emphasis upon the spiritual aspects of human nature provides an important contrast with Freud’s insistence upon the physical. This very clear exposition of Jung’s ‘analytical psychology’, which includes examples, models and case histories, will convince a wide audience that Jung’s ideas are not only comprehensible but also have an especial relevance to the times we live in.

Jung: An introduction of examples and models of case histories. Anthony Storr

 

 

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy: The Basics Nigel Warburton

Philosophy: The Basics, which encourages the reader to think philosophically, takes a topic-based approach, each chapter considering an area of philosophy and outlining a number of key philosophical issues associated with that area. The chapters end with suggestions for further reading. The book introduces important philosophical questions and the various responses that have been made to them. Though major philosophical figures are mentioned, the emphasis throughout is on the arguments for and against every idea discussed.

 

 

KANT

Critique of Practical Reason Immanuel Kant

The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Kant’s three Critiques, one of his three major treatises on moral theory and a seminal text in the history of moral philosophy. Originally published three years after his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique provides further elaboration of the basic themes of Kant’s moral theory, gives the most complete statement of his

highly original theory of freedom of the will, and develops his practical metaphysics. While the Critique of Pure Reason offers the foundation for his theories of knowledge and reality and the manner in which we come to possess ideas about the world, Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason shows how these mental processes are linked, that is to say how the mind moves from a formal understanding of reasoning in general to moral reasoning in particular.

The Essential Kant Paul Strathern

Kant was the first and the finest philosopher in the great German metaphysical tradition. A somewhat eccentric figure, he never left his native town of Königsberg on the Baltic coast; yet the influence of his all-embracing philosophical system spread throughout the world. He famously declared, “from the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight can ever be made”.

Kant: A Very Short Introduction
Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton explores the background to Kant’s work and shows, in particular, why the Critique of Pure Reason has proved to be so enduring.

KIERKEGAARD

Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs

Søren Kierkegaard

In the course of Repetition, Kierkegaard wittily and playfully explores the nature of love and happiness, the passing of time and the importance of moving forward (and backward). Philosophical Crumbs pursues the investigation of faith and love and their tense relationship with reason. Written only a year apart, these two short works investigate notions of love and time, selfhood and Christianity, and pave the way for his later major works.  Edward F. Mooney’s Introduction deftly guides the reader through Kierkegaard’s key arguments and concepts, while helpful notes identify references and allusions and clarify difficulties in the texts.

LOCKE

Locke: A Very Short Introduction

John Dunn

John Locke (1632-1704), one of the greatest English philosophers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, argued in his masterpiece, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, that our knowledge is founded in experience and reaches us principally through our senses; but its message has been curiously misunderstood. In this book John Dunn shows how Locke arrived at his theory of knowledge and how his exposition of the liberal values of toleration and responsible government formed the backbone of enlightened European thought of the eighteenth century.

LOCKE

Two Treatises on Government John Locke

Published anonymously in 1689, the book is a key foundational text in the theory of liberalism. The First Treatise refutes the view that civil society is founded on a divinely sanctioned patriarchalism and concludes that no government can be justified by an appeal to the divine right of kings. The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society. Locke argues that all individuals are created equal in the state of nature by God. From this, he goes on to explain how property and civilisation emerged, in the process explaining that the only legitimate governments are those that have the consent of the people. The Second Treatise also covers conquest, slavery, property, representative government and the right, in theory, to overthrow any government that rules without the consent of the people.

LOVELOCK

The Revenge of Gaia James Lovelock

For thousands of years, humans have exploited the planet without counting the cost. Now Gaia, the living Earth, is fighting back. As the polar icecaps shrink and the global temperature rises, we

approach the point of no return. Sustainable development, Lovelock argues, is no longer possible, and the only option open to us may be a ‘sustainable retreat’.

 

MACHIAVELLI

The Essential Machiavelli

Paul Strathern

This book serves as an introduction to Machiavelli: a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince and has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science. While less well known than The Prince, his Discourses on Livy has been said to have paved the way for modern republicanism. What’s more, his works were a major influence on Enlightenment authors, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and James Harrington, who revived interest in classical republicanism. Machiavelli’s political realism has continued to influence generations of academics and politicians.

 

MAGEE

The Story of Philosophy Bryan Magee

Bryan Magee illuminates the major philosophical issues, focuses on the important questions and analyses the key works of the great philosophers.

Wagner and Philosophy Bryan Magee

Wagner was one of the few major composers to have studied philosophy seriously. Bryan Magee places the composer’s artistic development in the context of the philosophy of his age and gives us a detailed and comprehensive study of the close links between Wagner and philosophers ranging from the pre-Marxist socialists to Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. Magee explores the relationship between words and music, between the conscious and the unconscious mind and between art and philosophy. He also tackles soberly and judiciously the Wagner whose paranoia, egocentricity and anti-semitism are repugnant, as well as the Wagner of artistic genius. The book illuminates Wagner and his music- dramas in altogether new ways.

 

MARSH

The Liberal Delusion John Marsh

Is western civilisation based on a mistaken understanding of humanity? For millennia, western societies were based on the idea that human nature is flawed. This was turned upside down 300 years ago during the Enlightenment by writers such as Rousseau, who argued that we are born good and later warped by parents and society: a liberal view of human nature that is now being challenged by scientific discoveries in the fields of the mind, the brain, genetics, evolutionary psychology and anthropology. The Liberal Delusion considers the profound effects of this fundamental change on our view of human nature.

 

MARX

Karl Marx: an economic history David McLellan

 

 

The Essential Marx Paul Strathern

“Philosophers have previously tried to explain the world, our task is to change it”.

Early Writings Karl Marx

Translated by T. B. Bottomore

 

 

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Suburban Shaman: Tales from Medicine’s Frontline Cecil Helman

 

‘To be a good doctor you have to be a compassionate chameleon, a shape shifter – a shaman. Even if your adaptation to your patients’ world happens at an unconscious level you should always work within their system of ideas, never against it…’ So writes Cecil Helman after 27 years as a family practitioner in the suburbs of North London interlaced with training and research as a medical anthropologist, comparing a wide variety of health systems. This unique combination of frontline health worker and detached academic informs the many stories that make up this fascinating book. It also informs the author’s shared insights into what these stories can teach us about ourselves and our own attitudes to health and illness, whether we are deliverers or recipients of health care. With humour and gentle humaneness, Helman’s colourful stories take the reader on a journey from apartheid South Africa, where he did his initial training, to the London of the early 1970s, where for a short time he foreswore medicine to become an anthropologist and poet; from ship’s doctor on a Mediterranean cruise to family practitioner in London; from observer of curative trance dances in the favelas of Brazil to consulting with sangomas in South Africa. While trained in the Western tradition and with many years of practice in that system, Helman’s anthropological insight leads him to view illness in a wider personal, social and cosmic context, considering elements beyond the purely physical, as do shamans and other traditional doctors. In pleading for this age-old holistic

approach, he celebrates family medicine which ‘in its quiet and unassuming way, and every day of the week, is still at the very frontline of human suffering’.

 

 

METAPHYSICS

Peter Van Inwagen

 

This book is an introduction to metaphysics. It presupposes no previous acquaintance with philosophy, and addresses the following questions: What is metaphysics? Is there a plurality of things, or is there only one thing? Is there an external world, a world of things that exist independently of human thought and sensation? What is time? Is there such a thing as objective truth? Why is there something rather than nothing? Does our existence have a meaning? Are we physical or non-physical beings? Do we have free will? Are there things that do not exist? Do universals exist? The book includes a general bibiography and, at the end of each chapter, notes and suggestions for further reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MONTAIGNE

 

The Essays: a Selection (Penguin)

Michel de Montaigne

 

A survey of one of the giants of Renaissance thought, The Essays: A Selection (published by Penguin Classics) collects some of Michel de Montaigne’s most startling and original works. To overcome a crisis of melancholy after the death of his father, Montaigne withdrew to his country estates and began to write, and in the highly original essays that resulted he discussed themes such as fathers and children, conscience and cowardice, coaches and cannibals, and, above all, himself. On Some Lines of Virgil opens out into a frank discussion of sexuality and makes a revolutionary case for the equality of the sexes. In On Experience he propounds his thoughts on the right way to live, while other essays touch on issues of an age struggling with religious and intellectual strife and with a France torn apart by civil war. These diverse subjects are united by Montaigne’s distinctive voice – that of a tolerant man, sceptical, humane, often humorous and utterly honest in his pursuit of the truth. M.A. Screech’s translation retains the light-hearted and inquiring nature of the essays. In his introduction, he examines Montaigne’s life and times and the remarkable self-portrait that emerges from his works.

Montaigne Peter Burke

Montaigne’s essays, which put forward unconventional views on a wide variety of subjects, had a widespread influence on thought and literature in the Renaissance and beyond and have appealed to a wide variety of writers and thinkers, from Bacon to Montesquieu and from Nietzsche to Lévi- Strauss. A serene, ironic observer of the human comedy, Montaigne was remarkably free from ethnocentrism and, at the same time, acutely aware of the ethnocentrism of other people. Montaigne has too often been treated as a ‘modern’ born out of his time. Peter Burke places him in his cultural context and shows what Montaigne had in common with his contemporaries, as well as how he differed from them.

 

MORAL PHILOSOPHY

After Virtue Alasdair Macintyre

 

Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of ‘virtue’ to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Reasons and Persons Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit challenges some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality and personal identity.

MORTALITY

Life After Death: the Book of Answers Deepak Chopra

 

Drawing upon ancient Vedic philosophy, Deepak Chopra explores the theory that death is an illusion of the senses and that the soul survives in an ongoing spiral of refinement that ends in enlightenment.

 

 

 

 

OKIN

Justice, Gender, and the Family Susan Moller Okin

In her feminist critique of modern political theory, Okin shows how the failure to apply theories of justice to the family not only undermines our most cherished democratic values but has led to a major crisis over gender-related issues. Her radical thesis in Justice, Gender, and the Family is that the ideal of the gender-structured family is a source of persistent gender inequality in politics, the workplace and actual families. She demonstrates how poorly political philosophers, both past and present, have treated women in their theories and illuminates which theoretical tools are not gender- biased and, therefore, ones that feminist scholars can safely use.

 

 

ONTOLOGY

 

Truth: A History and a Guide of the Perplexed

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The author proposes a way of understanding and identifying truth that can survive in the post- modern era and examines how, throughout history, people have tried to distinguish truth from falsehood.

 

 

 

 

PHENOMENOLOGY

The Phenomenology of Everyday Life

Howard R. Pollio, Tracy Henley and Craig B. Thompson

 

With its rigorous approach to the psychological study of everyday human activities and experiences, this book provides a perspective on significant human questions that is grounded in the philosophical traditions of existentialism and phenomenology and that derives insights from literature and the humanities, as well as from experimental psychology, biology and medicine.

Phenomenology: An Introduction Michael Lewis and Tanja Staehler

 

This book provides a concise and comprehensive introduction to the concept of phenomenology. It explains the development of the phenomenological method in the works of four thinkers: Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It also addresses the criticisms directed at phenomenology by Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida and the ways in which phenomenology has continued to flourish, in spite of such critique, in the work of Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Marion. The text includes key definitions, an extensive bibliography and suggested reading for each topic covered. The book presupposes no prior knowledge on the part of the reader, making it suitable for those encountering phenomenology for the first time, but it also provides an original interpretation of this branch of philosophy.

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

Modelling Mind Stephen Male

Do you want to understand what you are? Modelling Mind, by our own Steve Male, offers a new approach to philosophy of mind.

Philosophy of Mind: an introduction George Graham

 

An interesting, lively and engaging introduction to philosophy, the book is aimed at readers with little or no background in philosophy and covers a broad range of issues including the standard topics of mind, body, personal identity, consciousness, intentionality and freedom, as well as subjects rarely included in introductions to philosophy: after death experiences, minds of animals, God, folk psychology, mental illness, altruism, weakness of will, and happiness. The book is divided into nine chapters, which can be read either independently or in sequence. It begins with a discussion of the philosophy of mind and ends with a provocative application of the concept of consciousness to the moral debate concerning animal liberation. The book also considers classical and contemporary figures from Thomas Aquinas, Descartes and Hume to Daniel Dennett, Donald Davidson and John Searl.

 

 

 

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

 

Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction

Samir Okasha

 

How much faith should we place in what scientists tell us? Is it possible for scientific knowledge to be fully ‘objective’? What, really, can be defined as science? Samir Okasha explores the main themes and theories of contemporary philosophy of science and investigates fascinating and challenging questions such as these. Starting with a concise overview of the history of science, he examines the nature of fundamental ideas such as reasoning, causation and explanation. Looking at scientific revolutions and the issue of scientific change, he asks whether there is a discernible pattern to the way scientific ideas change over time and discusses realist versus anti-realist approaches to science. He finishes by considering science today and the social, ethical and philosophical questions surrounding modern science.

PLATO

 

Meno Plato

One of the most enjoyable and accessible of all of Plato’s dialogues, the Meno sees an ever ironic Socrates humbling a proud young aristocrat as they search for a clear understanding of what it is to be a good man, and setting out the startling idea that all human learning may be the recovery of knowledge already possessed by our immortal souls. A seminal work of epistemology, the Meno

helps illustrate the birth of Platonic philosophy from Plato’s reflections on Socrates’ life and doctrines.

Phaedrus Plato

Plato’s Phaedrus is a dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates written by Plato around 370 BCE. Ostensibly a discussion about love, the debate in the Phaedrus also encompasses the art of rhetoric and how it should be practised. The Socrates who appears in the Phaedrus is a character invented by Plato for the purpose of presenting his own philosophy. The Phaedrus is closely connected with the Symposium, and these together contain the whole of Plato’s philosophy on the nature of love.

The Republic Plato

The Republic, apparently set at the time of the Peloponnesian War, is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 375 BCE and concerns justice, the just man and the order and character of the just

city-state. It is Plato’s best-known work and one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory. In the dialogue, Socrates engages with a variety of Athenians and non- Athenians in discussion of the meaning of justice and of whether the just individual is happier than the unjust person. He then considers the natures of existing regimes and proposes a series of hypothetical cities in comparison, notably Kallipolis, a utopian city-state ruled by a philosopher king. Also discussed are the subjects of ageing, love, the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.

 

Plato: A Very Short Introduction

Julia Annas

 

This introduction to Plato draws the reader into Plato’s way of doing philosophy and into he general themes of his thinking. It looks at Plato as a thinker grappling with philosophical problems in a variety of ways, rather than a philosopher with a fully worked-out system. It includes a brief account of Plato’s life and stresses the importance of his conception of philosophy as a subject and of the founding of the Academy. Julia Annas discusses Plato’s style of writing, his use of the dialogue form and his philosophical transformation of myths. She also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude to women and to homosexual love and his claim that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and touches on his arguments for the immortality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

 

Teach yourself Political Philosophy Mel Thompson

 

A guide to the principles upon which our legal and political systems are founded, the book explores the key political concepts that underpin our society (What exactly is freedom? What makes us think that democracy is the best form of government? Where is the balance between rights and responsibilities?) The book unravels fundamental political and economic theories such as capitalism, Marxism, conservatism and anarchism. Each of these concepts and theories is put into context by looking at key figures in political thought from Aristotle and Hobbes to Rawls and Wollstonecraft. Political philosophy need not be confined to the past or the realms of academia. This book brings the issues to life and discusses the questions raised by the politicians, critics, the media and environmentalists.

Teach Yourself: Understand Political Philosophy Mel Thompson

Understand Political Philosophy is a guide to the philosophers and political ideas that have shaped our society and tackles key thinkers from Aristotle to Wollstonecraft and key theories from capitalism to utilitarianism.

 

POSTMODERNISM (AND MODERNISM)

From Modernism to Postmodernism: an Anthology Lawrence Cahoone

The most authoritative and comprehensive collection of Classic and Contemporary readings on this subject.

Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction Christopher Butler

Christopher Butler challenges and explores the key ideas of postmodernists and their engagement with theory, literature, the visual arts, film, architecture and music. He treats artists, intellectuals, critics and social scientists ‘as if they were all members of a loosely constituted and quarrelsome political party’ – a party that includes such members as Cindy Sherman, Salman Rushdie, Jacques Derrida, Walter Abish and Richard Rorty – and creates an entertaining framework within which to

unravel the mysteries of the ‘postmodern condition’, from the politicizing of museum culture to the cult of the politically correct.

 

PUZZLES

Can a Robot Be Human? 33 perplexing philosophical puzzles Peter Cave

A book of puzzles and paradoxes, in which Peter Cave introduces some of life’s most important questions with tales and tall stories, reasons and arguments, common sense and bizarre conclusions.

Do Llamas Fall in Love? 33 perplexing philosophical puzzles Peter Cave

With the aid of tall stories, jokes, common sense and bizarre insights, Peter Cave tackles some of life’s most important questions and introduces puzzles to keep readers pondering through the night.

 

 

 

 

RAWLS

A Theory of Justice John Rawls

The principles of justice set out in this book are those that free and rational people would accept in an initial position of equality. Deliberating behind a veil of ignorance, people determine their rights and duties. Rawls first addresses objections to this approach and discusses alternative positions, especially utilitarianism. He then applies his theory to the philosophical basis of constitutional liberties, the problem of distributive justice, and the grounds and limits of political duty and obligation. Finally, he connects his theory of justice with a doctrine of the good and of moral development. Since it first appeared in 1971, A Theory of Justice has been continuously taught and discussed.

REALITY

Truth: a history and a guide for the perplexed Felipe Fernández-Armesto

 

The pursuit of truth, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto, is “the quest for language that can match reality”.

Reality: A Very Short Introduction Jan Westerhoff

‘What is real?’ has been one of the key questions of philosophy since its beginnings in antiquity. But it is not just a question philosophers ask. It is also asked by scientists when they investigate whether the fundamental constituents of matter are actually ‘out there’ or just a mere abstraction

from a successful theory. Cognitive scientists ask the question when trying to find out which set of the bewildering array of data processed by our brain could constitute the basis for such supposedly fundamental entities like the free agent or the self. This Very Short Introduction discusses what reality is by looking at a variety of arguments, theories and thought-experiments from philosophy, physics and cognitive science.

 

 

 

(PHILOSOPHY OF) RELIGION

 

Philosophy’s Own Religion

Don Cupitt

 

Radical philosopher of religion Don Cupitt sets out the form of non-realism by which he had arrived by the year 2000. As Nigel Leaves summarises this: * Religious meaning has become dispersed across culture in everyday language, and the religious/secular distinction has been erased. The whole of life is religious. * Life is outsideless and we should commit ourselves unreservedly to our own transient lives. * Salvation is found not by withdrawing from the world but in expressive, solar living. * Life and death are not polar opposites but are always mingled. Life involves the awareness of the closeness of death. * Humanism and humanitarian ethics are expressions of a new global religious way of life. * Ecclesiastical Christianity is to be replaced by informal religious associations which emphasise sharing one’s story and Kingdom values. * There is no absolute religious object, but there are valid religious attitudes towards Be-ing.

RELIGION

 

And Man Created God: Kings, Cults and Conquests at the Time of Jesus Selina O’Grady

 

And Man Created God takes the reader on a journey across the empires of the ancient world to reveal how emperors and kings manipulated religion to consolidate their power. In Rome, Augustus was deified by his brilliant spin doctors; in what is now Sudan, the warrior queen Amanirenas exploited her godlike status to inspire her armies to face, and defeat, Rome; while in China the usurper Wang Mang won and lost the throne over his obsession with Confucianism. In this account

of the interplay of faith and power, Selina O’Grady addresses the question of how the tiny Jesus cult triumphed over more popular religions to become the world’s dominant faith.

Tao Te Ching

Lao Tsu A new translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English

 

The Tao Te Ching – a classic Chinese text – is a foundational text of Taoism. It describes the Tao – unseen, but not transcendent, immensely powerful yet supremely humble – as the root of all things and the source and ideal of all existence. The Tao Te Ching is central to both philosophical and religious conceptions of Taoism and has had great influence beyond Taoism itself, not least on Chinese philosophy, including Confucianism. When it was originally introduced to China, Buddhism was interpreted largely through the use of Taoist words and concepts. Artists including painters, calligraphers and gardeners have found inspiration within the Tao Te Ching, which has also had extensive influence beyond East Asia.

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is

1. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad

 

The Bhagavad Gita is part of the Hindu epic the Mahabharata. The jewel of India’s spiritual wisdom and a guide to the science of self-realisation, it is spoken by Lord Krishna to His intimate disciple Arjuna. ‘One who takes shelter of the Supreme Lord has nothing to fear, even in the midst of the

greatest calamity.’

The Koran

Translation by S. V. Mir Ahmed Ali

 

 

Eastern Religions and Western Thought

1. Rahakkrishnan

 

Written by a noted philosopher and former president of India, this remarkable book describes the leading ideas of Indian philosophy and religion and traces their influence upon Western thought from classical times, through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, to the present day. The author also argues that Christianity, which arose out of an Eastern background but flourished in Graeco- Roman culture, will eventually find its re-birth in a renewed alliance with its Eastern origins.

The Brother of the Prophet Mohamad Mohamad Jawal Chirri

 

An account of Islamic history and an investigation of the Shiite Islamic school of thought.

 

 

Making the Connection

1. John

 

1. John argues that God reveals himself and wants us to connect and interact with him.

 

Transcendence Prayer of People of Faith David Faivre

 

A selection of prayers and sacred texts from a wide range of religions and cultural traditions

The God Delusion Richard Dawkins

 

Richard Dawkins argues that, while Europe is becoming increasingly secularised, the rise of religious fundamentalism is dramatically and dangerously dividing opinion around the world. In America and elsewhere, the conflict between ‘intelligent design’ and Darwinism is seriously undermining and restricting the teaching of science. In many countries, religious dogma still serves to undermine basic human rights. And all as a result of belief in a God for whose existence there is no evidence of any kind.

 

ROUSSEAU

 

The Social Contract and Discourses Jean-Jacques Rousseau

 

In The Social Contract, Rousseau theorises about how to establish legitimate authority in a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society. The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms and revolutions in Europe. It argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the general will of the people forms the basis of the right to legislate, for only under the general will can the people be said to obey only themselves and hence be free. Although Rousseau’s notion of the general will is subject to much interpretative controversy, it seems to involve a legislature consisting of all adult members of the political

community who are restricted to devising general laws for the common good. Rousseau’s The Social Contract and his Discourse on Inequality, which argues that private property is the source of inequality, are cornerstones of modern political and social thought.

RUSSELL

The Conquest of Happiness Bertrand Russell

The Conquest of Happiness is Bertrand Russell’s recipe for good living. First published in 1930, it pre-dates the current obsession with self-help by decades. Leading the reader step by step through the causes of unhappiness and the personal choices, compromises and sacrifices that (may) lead to happiness, Russell eschews guilt-based morality and lays out a rationalist prescription for living a happy life, highlighting among other things the dangers of passive pleasure and the importance of cultivating interests outside oneself.

History of Western Philosophy Bertrand Russell

Written during the Second World War, Russell’s book is a survey of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the early 20^th century. Each major division of the book is prefaced by an account of the historical background necessary for understanding the currents of thought it describes. The book has always received mixed reviews. In his A Short History of Modern Philosophy (2001), Roger Scruton described it as elegantly written and witty, but criticised it for Russell’s concentration on pre-Cartesian philosophy, his lack of understanding of Immanuel Kant and his omissions and over-generalisations. In 2002, A. C. Grayling wrote: ‘Parts of this famous book are sketchy … [I]n other respects it is a marvellously readable, magnificently sweeping survey of Western thought, distinctive for placing it informatively into its historical context. Russell enjoyed writing it, and the enjoyment shows; his later remarks about it equally show that he was

conscious of its shortcomings’.

My Philosophical Development Bertrand Russell

Russell summarises his philosophical beliefs and explains how they changed during his life. Among other things, he describes his Hegelian period and how he abandoned idealism and adopted a mathematical logic founded on that of Giuseppe Peano. He goes on to elaborate on his Principia Mathematica, written in conjunction with Alfred North Whitehead, discusses the problems of perception, as dealt with in his Our Knowledge of the External World, and examines what he now

thinks must be accepted in Wittgenstein’s work, and what rejected.

Power

Bertrand Russell

 

The key to human nature that Marx found in wealth and Freud in sex, Bertrand Russell finds in power. Power, he argues, is man’s ultimate goal, and is, in its many guises, the single most important element in the development of any society. Writing in the late 1930s when Europe was being torn apart by extremist ideologies and the world was on the brink of war, Russell set out to found a ‘new science’ to make sense of the traumatic events of the day and explain those that would follow. The result was Power, a remarkable book that Russell regarded as one of the most important of his long career. Countering the totalitarian desire to dominate, Russell shows how political enlightenment and human understanding can lead to peace. His book is a passionate call for independence of mind and a celebration of the instinctive joy of human life.

 

Best Quotes Bertrand Russell

Pithy comments on sex, marriage, politics and religion.

 

 

 

RUSSELL AND AYER

Bertrand Russell

1. J. Ayer (Edited by Frank Kermode)

 

Ayer considered Russell to be one of the most influential philosophers of our time and gives a fine account of Russell’s philosophical achievements. The first few chapters are on Russell’s work on logic and the foundation of mathematics and are followed by chapters on his views of epistemology and metaphysics. The combination of Ayer and Russell is a notable event and has produced a remarkable book – brilliantly argued and written.

 

 

SACKS

 

The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning

Jonathan Sacks

 

Ranging around the world to draw comparisons from different cultures and delving deep into the history of language and of western civilisation, Jonathan Sacks shows how the predominance of science-oriented thinking is embedded deeply even in our religious understanding. He explores how religion has always played a valuable part in human culture and, instead of being dismissed as redundant, must be allowed to temper and develop scientific understanding in order for us to be fully human.

SARTRE

The Essential Sartre Paul Strathern

Paul Strathern shows how Sartre, the archetypal French intellectual, put existentialism on the map of contemporary thought and how his political ideas influenced a generation of young revolutionaries.

 

 

 

SCHOPENHAUER

The World As Will And Idea Arthur Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Idea (more often translated into English as The World as Will and Representation) marked the pinnacle of Schopenhauer’s philosophical thought; he spent the rest of his life refining, clarifying and deepening the ideas presented in this work, without making any fundamental changes. Taking the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant as his starting point, Schopenhauer argues that the world that humans experience around them — the world of objects in space and time, related in causal ways — exists solely as ‘representation’ (Vorstellung) dependent on a cognizing subject, not as a world that can be considered to exist in itself (i.e. independently of how it appears to the subject’s mind). One’s knowledge of objects is thus knowledge of mere phenomena rather than of things-in-themselves. Schopenhauer identifies the thing-in-itself — the inner essence of everything — as will: a blind, unconscious, aimless striving devoid of knowledge, outside of space and time, and free of all multiplicity. The world as representation is, therefore, the ‘objectification’ of the will. Aesthetic experiences release a person briefly from his endless servitude to the will, which is the root of suffering. True redemption from life, Schopenhauer asserts, can only result from the total ascetic negation of the ‘will to life’.

SCIENCE

The Invention of Science: A new history of the scientific revolution David Wootton

David Wootton believes modernity began with the scientific revolution in Europe. The first crucial discovery (in 1572) was Tycho Brahe’s Nova or New Star proof that there could be change in the heavens. By 1610 the invention of the telescope had rendered astrology obsolete, and by 1750 Isaac Newton was celebrated throughout Europe for his discoveries and inventions. The new science did not consist simply of new discoveries or new methods. It relied on new understanding of what knowledge might be, and the new language was of discovery, progress, facts, experiments, hypotheses, theories and laws of nature. Although all these terms existed before 1492 (the year in which America was discovered), their meanings were radically transformed so that they became tools with which to think scientifically. Today we all speak the language of science, which was invented during the scientific revolution. This landmark book changes our understanding of how the great transformation came about and of what science is.

Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us About Human Nature Kenan Malik

Kenan Malik’s book is both a history of the attempts to provide a scientific account of human nature and a critical appraisal of contemporary sciences of human nature, in particular evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. Kenan Malik explains the histories of these disciplines and the philosophies that underpin them and analyses the complex relationship between human beings, animals and machines to explore what really makes us human. The book asks ‘What is it to be

human?’ and sets out to explore the limits and contradictions of the scientific understanding of the human condition.

Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction Samir Okasha

How much faith should we place in what scientists tell us and is it possible for scientific knowledge to be fully ‘objective’? Samir Okasha explores these and the other main themes of the contemporary philosophy of science. Beginning with a concise overview of the history of science, he examines the nature of reasoning, causation and explanation. Looking at scientific revolutions and the issue of scientific change, he goes on to ask whether there is a pattern to the way scientific ideas change over time and discusses realist versus anti-realist attitudes towards science. He finishes by considering science today and the social and ethical philosophical questions surrounding modern science.

The Quest for Immortality

1. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes

For readers interested in ageing and longevity, The Quest for Immortality explains the real science of ageing and shows which treatments offered by today’s multi-billion-dollar anti-ageing industries offer real hope, and which are a waste of money and time.

SCIENCE FICTION

 

Flatlands: A Romance of Many Dimensions Edwin A. Abbott

 

First published in 1884 when only a few mathematicians had the courage to challenge Euclid and imagine curved space geometries with infinite dimensions, this book is a brilliant work of speculative mathematics couched in the form of a strangely amusing social satire. Written under the pseudonym of A. Square, the book uses the two-dimensional world of Flatlands to comment on the male class-based hierarchy of Victorian culture. However, the more enduring interest of the book lies in its examination of dimensions. The story describes a two-dimensional world inhabited by geometric figures. Women are line segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. Flatlands describes a society rigidly divided into classes. Social ascent is the main aspiration of its people, something that is apparently granted to everyone but strictly controlled from the top. The narrator is a square, a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two dimensions.

SPINOZA

Ethics Spinoza

A humble lens-grinder, Spinoza was expelled from the Jewish community in Amsterdam as a heretic. After his death his works were first banned by the Christian authorities as atheistic, then hailed by humanists as the gospel of Pantheism. The Ethics presents a complete metaphysical, epistemological and ethical world-view. It uses the methods of Euclid to describe a single entity, properly called both ‘God’ and ‘Nature’, of which mind and matter are two manifestations. From this follow, in ways that are strikingly modern, the identity of mind and body, the necessary causation of events and actions, and the illusory nature of free will.

The Essential Spinoza Paul Strathern

Born into a Jewish émigré family in Amsterdam and considered by many to be one of the great Rationalist thinkers of the 17th century, Spinoza called for freedom of scientific and philosophical speculation in the face of religious and political interference. His work was at first condemned for its atheist and subversive nature, and his reputation only restored later by critics such as Goethe and Coleridge.

 

SPIRITUALITY

Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction Philip Sheldrake

The growing interest in spirituality and the use of the word in a variety of contexts is a striking aspect of contemporary western cultures. The notion of spirituality expresses the fact that many people are driven by goals that concern more than material satisfaction. Broadly, it refers to the deepest values and sense of meaning by which people seek to live. Sometimes these values are

associated with what is understood as ‘the sacred’ – that which is of ultimate rather than merely instrumental importance. This book explores the historical foundations of spirituality and considers how it came to have the significance it is developing today.

 

STOICISM

A New Stoicism

Lawrence C. Becker

What would stoic ethics be like today if stoicism had survived as a systematic approach to ethical theory and if it had coped successfully with the challenges of modern philosophy and experimental science? A New Stoicism proposes an answer to that question, offered from within the stoic tradition but without the metaphysical and psychological assumptions that modern philosophy and science have abandoned. Lawrence Becker argues that a secular version of the stoic ethical project provides the basis for a sophisticated form of ethical naturalism, in which virtually all the hard doctrines of the ancient Stoics can be clearly restated and defended. Becker argues, in keeping with the ancients, that virtue is one thing, not many; that it, and not happiness, is the proper end of all activity; that it alone is good, all other things being merely rank-ordered relative to each other for the sake of the good; and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Moreover, he rejects the popular caricature of the stoic as a grave figure, emotionally detached and capable mainly of endurance, resignation, and coping with pain. To the contrary, he holds that while stoic sages are able to endure the extremes of human suffering, they do not have to sacrifice joy to have that ability, and he seeks to turn our attention from the familiar, therapeutic part of stoic moral training to a reconsideration of its theoretical foundations.

 

 

SYMBOL

Philosophy in a New Key

A study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art Susanne K Langer

 

The topics dealt with in this book are many and include language, sacrament, myth, music, abstraction, fact and knowledge. Through them all, however, runs the principal theme: symbolic transformation as the essential activity of human minds. This central idea, emphasising as it does the notion of symbolism, brings Susanne K. Langer’s book into line with the prevailing interest in semantics. All the profound issues of our age seem to centre around the basic concepts of symbolism and meaning. The formative, creative, articulating power of symbols is the tonic chord that thinkers of all schools and many diverse fields are unmistakably striking. The surprising and far-reaching implications of this new fundamental conception constitute what the author has called ‘philosophy in a new key’.

 

 

TERRORISM

Terrorism: The Basics

James Lutz and Brenda Lutz

In this introduction to the subject of terrorism, the authors tackle the big questions with reference to contemporary terrorist groups and political situations: What does terrorism involve? Who can be classified as a terrorist? What are terrorists trying to achieve? Who are the supporters of terrorism? Can there ever be an end to terrorist activity?

 

 

VICO

The New Science of Giambattista Vico Giambattista Vico:

Translated by Thomas Bergin and Max Fisch

The New Science is the major work of Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) and a perceptive and ambitious attempt to decipher the history, mythology and laws of the ancient world. Discarding the Renaissance notion of the classical as an idealised model for the modern, it argues that the key to true understanding of the past lies in accepting that the customs and emotional lives of ancient Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, Jews and Babylonians were radically different from our own. A pioneering treatise that aroused great controversy when it was first published in 1725, The New Science marks a crucial turning-point in humanist thinking. Attempting a systematic organisation of the humanities as a single science recording and explaining the historical cycles by which societies rise and fall, it represents the most ambitious attempt before Comte at a comprehensive science of human society and the most profound analysis of the class struggle prior to Marx.

VIRTUE ETHICS

On Virtue Ethics

Rosalind Hursthouse

Virtue ethics is perhaps the most important development within late twentieth-century moral philosophy. Rosalind Hursthouse, who has made notable contributions to this development, here presents a full exposition and defence of her neo-Aristotelian version of virtue ethics. She shows how virtue ethics can provide guidance for action, illuminate moral dilemmas and bring out the moral significance of the emotions. 

 

Virtue Ethics

Roger Crisp and Michael A. Slote

This book brings together much of the most influential work undertaken in the field of virtue ethics over the last four decades. The ethics of virtue predominated in the ancient world, and recent moral philosophy has seen a revival of interest in virtue ethics as a rival to Kantian and utilitarian approaches to morality. Divided into four sections, the collection includes articles critical of other traditions; early attempts to offer a positive vision of virtue ethics; some later criticisms of the revival of virtue ethics; and, finally, some recent, more theoretically ambitious essays in virtue ethics.

From Morality to Virtue

Michael Slote

Michael Slote argues that ‘virtue ethics’ should be seen as a foundational theory that accounts more accurately for a range of ideas about value, choice, obligation and rational action than Kantian ethics, common-sense ethics or utilitarianism. He believes that while utilitarianism can provide one way of resolving certain difficulties, it is not without its own serious problems. Virtue ethics, on the other hand, provide a more cogent account of the original difficulties, avoid the problems to which utilitarianism gives rise, and dispel the incoherencies of Kantian and common-sense ethics.

VOLTAIRE

Candide Voltaire

Witty and insightful, Candide (subtitled Optimism) is a picaresque novel with a fantastical and fast- moving plot. A young man, Candide, who has lived a sheltered life under the tutelage of his mentor, Professor Pangloss – an adherent of Leibnizian optimism, which holds that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds – is progressively disillusioned as he witnesses and experiences some of the great hardships of the world. In this novel, arguably his masterpiece, Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies and philosophers.

 

WAR

World War in Cartoons

M Bryant

The old adage that a picture paints a thousand words has never been more true than when applied to the cartoon. Acting as a form of pictorial shorthand, a few strokes of the pen have managed to encapsulate the great dramas of the war in a way impossible in prose. Whether producing strips, social comment in magazines like Punch or Lilliput, savage caricature of allies and enemies, or a daily chronicle of events at home or abroad, little has escaped the cartoonist’s pen. The cartoon has a special place in the history of World War II. During the London Blitz the British upper lip was kept resolutely stiff by the antics of Strube’s little man growing marrows and the redfaced indignity of Low’s Colonel Blimp. Fougasse’s Underground posters, Lancaster’s pocket cartoons, Pont’s unique drawings and the work of Vicky have an immediacy that has been unaffected by the passage of time. Giles, Searle, Illingworth, Zec and many more portrayed the grim realities and humorous asides of the conflict for British Empire readers while across the Atlantic a discerning public alternately praised and attacked the artists of the New Yorker and the big regional dailies, from Peter Arno to Arthur Szyk and from Saul Steinberg to Daniel Fitzpatrick. Krokodil meanwhile produced its own brand of Soviet humour and satire, and cartoons were an important part of the Resistance movements in all occupied countries. The Axis powers’ view of the war has often been glossed over in pictorial histories, but considerable talent existed in Germany, Italy, Japan, and elsewhere between 1939 and 1945, drawing on the genius of such superb prewar publications as Simplicissimus. Also included is the work of cartoonists in Vichy France and other collaborationist regimes. World War II in Cartoons is divided into chapters covering the war year-by-year, each chapter prefaced with a concise introduction that provides a historical framework for the cartoons of that year. Altogether some 300 cartoons, in colour and black and white, have been skilfully blended by cartoon historian Dr Mark Bryant to produce a unique record of World War II, one which will appeal to a very wide audience.

 

 

WITTGENSTEIN

Wittgenstein David Pears

The work of Ludwig Wittgenstein is a strange product of hard reasoning and brilliant imagination, immediately captivating but often difficult to fathom. Wittgenstein produced not one but two highly original philosophies at different times in his life. Both must be understood and reconciled; and it is a reconciliation as well as an exposition that David Pears offers in this book. He analyses Wittgensteins’s two major works – the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations – emphasises their limitations as well as their merits and sets out his conclusion that, taken together, the two books amount to an achievement of philosophical genius which, in spite of its frequent difficulty, never loses contact with the thoughts and images of those who have not read any academic philosophy.

The Essential Wittgenstein Paul Strathern

Ludwig Wittgenstein lived a life of tortured genius – spending periods in extreme isolation in a hut in Norway and a cottage on the Atlantic coast of Ireland – but he claimed to have ‘solved’ the problem of philosophy once and for all. Surprisingly, he then went on to create a second philosophy.

ZOLA

The Disappearance of Emile Zola

Michael Rosa

Pronounced guilty of libel and sentenced to a year in prison, novelist Émile Zola went on the run.
Zola’s crime had been to defend a wrongly convicted man, in what became known as the Dreyfus Affair. Fleeing the French state with just hours to spare, he ended up living in the suburbs of south London unable to speak a word of English. Michael Rosen brings to life the sleepy world of late Victorian suburbia, Zola’s turbulent politics and his tangled private life. Desperate to write a novel, he was also trying to balance the extremely delicate matter of the two women in his life – one the mother of his children, the other his wife. The Disappearance of Émile Zola is the extraordinary story of a writer’s personal bravery in the face of the greatest political scandal of the age.