‘It is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face’: this is how Camus, in his preface, describes the subject of this profound philosophical statement. The Myth is accompanied by five short essays, including ‘Summer in Algiers’, evoking the city in which Camus’ novels The Outsider and The Plague are set.

Why do we fall in love – and why do we break up? Written in the style of a novel, this genre-defying book charts the relationship of a man and a woman from the first kiss to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak, illuminating emotions we have all felt but perhaps never fully understood.

The Italian philologist Sebastiano Timpanaro (1923–2000) presents a sustained critique of Freudian psychoanalysis and the explanation of ‘slips’ and instances of forgetting that Freud gives in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

Marx and Engels' 'detailed theoretical and practical programme' for the Communist League, first published in German in 1872, has to be reckoned one of the most influential books in history. The original English translation by Samuel Moore (1888) is published here as part of The Skeptical Reader series, with an introduction by the famous historian of Soviet Russia, Robert Conquest.

One of the most profoundly influential works in the history of political theory, Rousseau's Social Contract (1762) advocated equality and popular sovereignity in which the 'general will' directs the energies of the state for the common good. It provided the great rallying cry of reform and revolution: 'Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains'. This edition presents the 1954 translation by Willmoore Kendall, with a new introduction by Roger Scruton.

Wearing his scholarship lightly and with great originality, critic and popular philosopher Alain de Botton approaches the task of reading Proust and profiting from the wisdom contained within his vast novel, In Search of Lost Time – ‘a practical, universally applicable story about how to stop wasting, and begin appreciating one’s life’.

Read by Nigel Carrington, this audiobook sets the life and teachings of Confucius in the context of the long history of China and examines the origins, meanings and influence of one of the world’s most enduring philosophical traditions. One CD; running time 78mins.

From the Buddha and Confucius to Wittgenstein, Quine, Strawson and Kripke in the 20th century, Stephen Law outlines the biographies of 50 of the world's most important philosophers and gives a concise account of their fundamental and most influential ideas.

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.

The scope of this compact and punchy history of the Western philosophical tradition includes the Ancient Greeks and their related schools, the Enlightenment, the political and moral philosophy of Rousseau and Locke, and existentialism and analytic philosophy.

The major work of Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) is the Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), a catalogue of ‘vulgar errors’ and their correction which, together with Urne-Buriall and The Garden of Cyrus, has charmed writers from Samuel Johnson to Jorge Luis Borges and Javier Marías. Here, another acolyte sets off in the footsteps of the erudite, witty and good-humoured Browne to rediscover his life and work through its diversity of themes, from medicine and human longevity to faith and melancholy. American-cut pages.

Starting with Socrates who, with his injunction to ‘know thyself’, has provided many thinkers with a model of the philosophical life, and ending with Nietzsche, James Miller provides brief biographies of twelve philosophers. The selection includes both canonical figures such as Augustine, Descartes and Kant, and less obvious thinkers including Diogenes, Montaigne and Emerson, but every one of them has ‘struggled to live his life according to a deliberately chosen set of precepts and beliefs’.

Founder of the Vienna Circle and logical positivism, Moritz Schlick’s aim in this lucid epistemological treatise was to apply ‘ultimate principles’ when solving problems in the theory of knowledge. Anticipating the ideas of Russell and Wittgenstein, Schlick’s masterwork also presents a solution to the problem of the relationship between mind and body, but is most notably remembered for picking apart the Kantian and neo-Kantian doctrine of the synthetic a priori.

Do we have free will? It is a question that has exercised philosophers and theologians for centuries and feeds into many contemporary political, social and personal concerns. In this cogently argued book, the popular philosopher Julian Baggini explores the concept of free will from every angle, drawing on neuroscience, cognitive science and sociology as well as philosophy, and using real-world examples to reveal the kind of free will that is worth striving for.

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.

This study argues that the work of French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) should ideally be read with reference to his contemporary Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003)

Translated and introduced by David Adams, this is the complete English edition of Pensées sur l’interprétation de la Nature (1754). It is accompanied by The Letter to the Blind (1749) and D’Alembert’s Dream (1769). 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.

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.

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.

Robert Grosseteste's influential Hexaëmeron 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.

In his practical guide to philosophizing, Gary Cox explains philosophical ideas – on metaphysics, epistemology, solipsism, transcendental idealism etc – with examples drawn from great works including Family Guy, Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Matrix. He also argues that learning to philosophize will help you think more clearly and honestly about your own life, and even offers advice on how to make a living from philosophy.

This volume introduces the sophists and their influence on the social and political structure of ancient Greece in chapters on individuals from Pythagoras to Isocrates and topics including natural theology and Plato's The Sophist.

Comprising a series of detailed essays, this work is a guide to the life, activities and thought of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), the great 15th-century German philosopher, theologian and author of mystical and ecclesiastical treatises.

This volume of ten essays outlines the ways in which a variety of disciplines have informed and shaped questions of race and ethnicity, setting broadly philosophical analyses within their social and historical context.

This second volume of the annual periodical devoted to original philosophical work on the foundation of ethics comprises 11 essays on topics including 'wrongness and reasons', moral obligation and value and autonomy in Kantian ethics.

Sajahan Miah re-examines and evaluates the development of Russell's concept of perception and the relation of perception to our knowledge of the external world. He focuses largely on the period 1909-19, when Russell attempted a reductionist analysis of empirical knowledge. No jacket.

This collection aims to reveal the late stage of the thought of Josiah Joyce, the American philosopher of community, from 1912 when he began to make creative use of the thought of the logician Charles Sanders Peirce, up to his death in 1916. No jackets.

In the Essay - actually 721 pages long - published in 1689, John Locke laid out the basic principles of the Empiricism that was to characterize British philosophy for centuries.

These ten volumes bring together the most important early discussions of Hume's work in five areas: moral, literary and political writings; metaphysical and epistemological writings; writings on religion; the History of England; and responses to his life and reputation. Fieser provides an introduction to each part and notes on each selection.