Philosophy

This unconventional book sets out Freke’s new philosophy, ‘emergent spirituality’, which brings together evolutionary science and a fresh understanding of the meaning of life encompassing ideas about time, soul, volition, death and magic.

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.

Originating in a conference held in 2003 to commemorate the centenary of Frank Ramsey’s birth, and with an introduction by Professor Lillehammer, this volume of 10 essays discusses Ramsey’s philosophical work in relation to topics including universals; Wittgenstein’s theory of judgement; subjective decision theory; and success semantics.

This ‘illustrious collection of irreverent thoughts’ is arranged in Books, from Genesis (‘Perhaps our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to create Him’, Arthur C Clarke) to Apocalyptus, with quotations from famous atheists including Mark Twain, Voltaire and Friedrich Nietzsche.

‘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’ novel The Outsider is set.

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.

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.

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.

Slightly off-mint.

Slightly off-mint.

Slightly off-mint.

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.