Examining the best-known quotes of the world's most highly regarded philosophers, Alain Stephen explains the theories behind the words in concise and accessible essays. Beginning with Bentham on happiness ('The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation') the book is in sections on religion and faith, reason and experience, life and death, and people and society; and discusses quotations from 39 philosophers, ancient and modern, and from East and West.

Margaret Gullan-Whur shows how Spinoza's philosophical beliefs developed within the context of his life and focuses on his attempt to act solely through reason in the face of personal and national crises.

Off-mint.

In short selections this book introduces the central theme of Locke's political writing - that government rests on the consent of the governed - and the theory of knowledge that complements his political philosophy.

Are we composed of body and non-material mind or soul, or purely physical beings? Murphy argues for a physicalist account, but one that does not diminish traditional views of rational, moral and spiritual humans. No jacket.

Approaching the meaning of disgust by surveying the class of disgusting things, McGinn argues that we are consciously divided beings, repressing the disgust we feel at our biological reality, yet also deeming ourselves god-like.

Responding to the modern age in which many find that religion does not speak to them, AC Grayling has compiled this secular equivalent to the Judeo-Christian and Islamic holy books, using the same techniques of selection, editing and adaptation which created them. These 'distillations of the wisdom and experience of humankind', divided into books, chapters and verses, derive from hundreds of texts, by authors such as Herodotus, Confucius and Montaigne, which offer advice on how to live a good life.

What is humanism, and what insights can be gleaned from the different contemporary varieties of this philosophy? Mark Vernon - philosopher, agnostic and former Anglican priest - introduces the history of humanistic thought, from its origins in ancient Greek philosophy, through its emergence as a movement during the Renaissance, to ten 'pressing issues', such as climate change, blasphemy and identity politics, which humanists must face in our own time.

Based on new transcriptions and close readings of his published and unpublished works, this study offers fresh, detailed accounts of the spiritual and intellectual life of the British moral philosopher Joseph Butler (1692-1752).

The nine books of Francis Bacon's famous review of the state of knowledge begin by extolling the dignity of learning and go on to cover topics from natural philosophy to theology.

This book is from the Archival Facsimile series of reprints of first or important editions in the British Library - in this case, the facsimile is of the copy owned by Charles I. Although published in 1987, this is a new book. No jacket.

Wrestling with the moral dilemmas entailed by commitment to the Catholic Church, Letter to a Priest is a meditation on the perennial battle between faith and doubt and resonates today as much as it did when it was first written in 1942. This edition also includes the essay 'Human Personality' (1943), in which Weil offers a brilliant and unorthodox account of the preciousness of human beings. Foreword by Raimond Gaita. From the Routledge Great Minds series.

Richard Norman's powerfully argued philosophical defence of humanism is also an impassioned plea that we turn to ourselves, not religion, to answer the question: what is the best kind of life to lead?

Martin Cohen's 101 problems include logical loops, tricky ethical dilemmas, pesky numbers problems and 'twelve traditional philosophy problems no one really cares about anyway'. He uses these puzzles, conundrums and paradoxes to introduce philosophy and its concerns in a very skilful and entertaining way, banishing technical jargon and unreadable sentences. Now in its fourth edition, the book has been extensively revised and updated with new material and a new glossary.

Comprising chapters devoted to individual thinkers from Pythagoras to Pseudo-Dionysius, this volume covers ancient and early Christian thought on God, the gods, religious belief and practice. Vol 1 of The History of Western Philosophy of Religion.

Ugo Zilioli presents a detailed examination of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, which was founded by Aristippus of Cyrene in North Africa, flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE and represented an alternative to the kind of realism endorsed by Plato and Aristotle.

The first part of the vast Logica Magna by Paul of Venice (1369/72-1429), this volume contains 'On knowing and being uncertain'. Edited, with an English translation (en face) and notes by Patricia Clarke. No jacket.

Robert Grosseteste's influential Hexaemeron is a study of the creation story found in the opening chapters of Genesis, which he interpreted not only through the contemporary scientific ideas of the 1230s but also in the light of ancient philosophical thought which was being re-introduced into western Europe. This critical edition presents the full Latin text, based on all the available manuscripts, one of which contains Grosseteste's own annotations and corrections.

This volume's first three polemical texts are Ockham's Compendium errorum, attacking John XXII, Breviloquium on the extent of papal power and De imperatorum et pontificum potestate, against Avignon's injustices and heresies. Two further treatises, attributed to Ockham, attack Charles IV's claim to kingship in Germany and the papal proceedings against Lewis the Bavarian. Offler provides new editions of the Latin text, with critical apparatus and short introductions discussing each work's content, manuscript tradition and authorship.No jacket.

In this full-length study of Burke's rhetoric, Bullard argues that Burke's ideas about civil society and, particularly, the process of political deliberation, were shaped by the expressiveness of his language.Slightly off-mint.