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The Great Philosophers: Hume (The\great Philosophers Ser. #10)
by Anthony QuintonA short book combining extracts from the work of one of the world's greatest thinkers with commentary by on of Britain's most distinguished writers on philosophy.
The Great Philosophers: Popper (Great Philosophers Ser. #17)
by Frederic RaphaelKarl Popper 1902-1994 The political history of the twentieth century has been full of savage `certainties?. A similar idea of history warranted the callous savageries of both Marxism and Fascism. They shared a faith in what Karl Popper called `Historicism?: the belief that the future could be predicted and that man had to align himself with its bloody progress. Totalitarianism, Popper maintained, was based on ideas implicit in Western philosophy, from Plato to Hegel and Marx. It was his unique achievement to challenge the fundamental arguments in which Left and Right cloaked their authority. At a time when Communism and Fascism were devastatingly alluring to many intellectuals, Popper attacked their philosophical roots with passionate reasonableness and unflinching scepticism. As Frederic Raphael suggests in this elegant and intriguing introduction to his philosophy of science and history, Popper?s epic modesty may have made him the most radical thinker of our times.
The Great Philosophers: Heidegger
by Johnathan ReeHeidegger 1889-1976 `We ourselves the entities to be analysed.? With those words, Martin Heidegger launched his assault on the `sham clarity? of traditional Western thought. We are neither immortal souls nor disembodied intellects, he argues, but finite historical existences. And we are bound to the world by threads of interpretation and misinterpretation more strange and tangled than we can ever hope to comprehend. In his masterpiece Being and Time (1927) Heidegger used his technique of `existential analysis? to undercut traditional dilemmas of objectivity and subjectivity, rationality and irrationality, absolutism and relativism. Truth itself, he argues, is essentially historical. The greatest adventures of twentieth-century thought can be seen as footnotes to Being and Time, and in this brilliantly lucid exposition Jonathan Rée spells out all its main arguments without blunting any of its disturbing paradoxes.
The Great Philosophers: Parliament Under Pressure (Great Philosophers Ser. #4)
by Aaron RidleyR. G. Collingwood 1889-1943 Many philosophers have been interested in aesthetics, but Collingwood was passionate about art. His theories were never merely theoretical: aesthetics for him was a vivid, vibrant thing, to be experienced immediately in worked paint and in sculpted stone, in poetry and music. Art and life were no dichotomy for Collingwood ? for how could you have one without the other? Works of art were created in and for the real world, to be enjoyed by real people, to enchant and enhance. Aaron Ridley?s fascinating introduction opens up the work of this most rewarding of aesthetic thinkers, tracing his thought from its philosophic origins through to its practical consequence and ethical implications. The man who saw art as `the community?s medicine for the worst disease of mind? had a sense of its urgent importance which we ignore at our peril today.
The Great Philosophers: Parliament Under Pressure (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Aaron RidleyR. G. Collingwood 1889-1943Many philosophers have been interested in aesthetics, but Collingwood was passionate about art. His theories were never merely theoretical: aesthetics for him was a vivid, vibrant thing, to be experienced immediately in worked paint and in sculpted stone, in poetry and music.Art and life were no dichotomy for Collingwood - for how could you have one without the other? Works of art were created in and for the real world, to be enjoyed by real people, to enchant and enhance.Aaron Ridley's fascinating introduction opens up the work of this most rewarding of aesthetic thinkers, tracing his thought from its philosophic origins through to its practical consequence and ethical implications. The man who saw art as 'the community's medicine for the worst disease of mind' had a sense of its urgent importance which we ignore at our peril today.
The Great Philosophers: Pascal (Great Philosophers Ser. #15)
by Ben RogersPascal 1623-1662 The moralist who advocated dressing up, the ascetic who liked a flutter, the devout Christian who lauded vanity, Pascal is a funnier, more ironic philosopher than his reputation as an anguished existentialist would suggest. Yet however irreverent the terms of his ironic project, its underlying impetus is both serious and profound. In this superb new introduction to the thinker and his thought, Ben Rogers demonstrates the deep wisdom of Pascal?s defence of popular folly ? a defence which he used to highlight the higher delusions of the learned. Setting the Pensées in the context of Pascal?s life and philosophical career, Rogers reveals how their apparent frivolity underpins a fascinating, far-reaching and still challenging body of moral and political thought. His remarkable guide offers an eye-opening account of the work of a marvellous and much neglected thinker.
The Great Philosophers: Spinoza (Great Philosophers Ser. #21)
by Roger ScrutonBorn to be misunderstood, Spinoza was a man whose theology was banned for Godlessness. The very virtuosity of his reasoning left logicians unsettled, while even to professional thinkers in our own time, Spinoza has seemed too clever by half. And yet, as Roger Scruton shows in this strikingly readable introduction to the man and his though, Spinoza's concerns were both simple and sublime. Few philosophers, indeed, have shown such a straightforward, sustained and honest interest in uncovering the most fundamental aspects of existence. Too important to be dismissed as a mere genius, Spinoza is rediscovered here in all his quiet and consoling simplicity.
The Great Philosophers: Schopenhauer (Great Philosophers Ser. #19)
by Michael TannerSchopenhauer 1788 ? 1860 Western philosophy?s most profound and unrelenting pessimist, Schopenhauer hymned the miseries of human existence with a joylessness that was little short of lyrical. Yet he thrilled to the beauties of music and art. How did such deep bleakness and such sublime enthusiasm come to coincide in one man, one mind? Only by squaring these two sides of Schopenhauer can we truly hope to understand this most paradoxical ? even perverse of thinkers. Only through his thoughts on Beauty can we apprehend his attitude towards Truth. The failure of later philosophers down the generations to resolve these apparent contradictions has seen Schopenhauer?s thought unjustly marginalized and philosophy itself much poorer. Michael Tanner?s enthralling introduction teases out the difficulties and unpicks the paradoxes to reveal the exhilarating coherence beneath. It amounts to nothing less than a rediscovery of one of Western tradition?s greatest philosophers.
The Great Philosophers: Kant (Great Philosophers Ser.)
by Ralph WalkerImmanuel Kant 1724-1804 `Dry, obscure? prolix.? That was Kant?s own critique of his first Critique ? and exasperated students since have extended it to the rest of his work. Yet despite its sprawling form and forbidding content, Kant?s moral philosophy has continued to compel the attention of every serious thinker in the field. Today, indeed, it seems more important than ever. Never has the need for moral absolutes been more pressing than in this age of genocide and oppression, and yet as old certainties dissipate themselves in doubt and disillusion, not only religious faith but humanist confidence have found themselves supplanted by cynicism. If the appeal to a judging deity appears an evasion, even to believers, utilitarian head-counting seems no more than an exercise in ethical accountancy. This is where Kant comes in. Clear, concise ? and overwhelmingly convincing ? Ralph Walker?s lucid guide spells out the power and renewed relevance of his thinking: a genuinely objective, absolute basis for a modern moral law.
The Great Philosophers: Plato (Great Philosophers Ser.)
by Bernard WilliamsPlato c428 ? c348BC Without the work of Plato, western thought is, quite literally, unthinkable. No single influence has been greater, in every age and in every philosophic field. Even those thinkers who have rejected Plato?s views have found themselves working to an agenda he set. Yet between the neo-platonist interpretations and the anti-platonist reactions, the stuff of `Platonism? proper has often been obscured. The philosopher himself has not necessarily helped in the matter: at times disconcertingly difficult, at other disarmingly simple, Plato can be an elusive thinker, his meanings hard to pin down. His dialogues complex and often ironically constructed and do not simply expand his views, which in any case changed and developed over a long life. In this lucid and exciting new introductory guide, Bernard Williams takes his reader back to first principles, re-reading the key texts to reveal what the philosopher actually said. The result is a rediscovered Plato: often unexpected, always fascinating and rewarding.
The Great Philosophers:Aristotle (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Kenneth McleishAristotle c. 384- c.322 BCThe ideas Aristotle outlined in his Poetics have formed the foundation for the whole history of western critical theory. No work has had more influence upon the literature of centuries - neither has any been so profoundly, so perversely misunderstood.Mystification, moralization, recruitment into the cause of this or that literary culture... with all the interpretations, Aristotle has too seldom been permitted to speak for himself. If the prescriptive rigidities of the Renaissance went entirely against the grain of his open, accepting empiricism, the psychologising mania of the moderns has been no truer a reflection of his thought.Kenneth McLeish's introduction cuts through centuries of accreted obscurity to reveal the forthright, astonishingly original book which Aristotle actually wrote. The philosopher who emerges proves more 'modern' than any of his interpreters.
The Great Philosophers: Ayer (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Oswald HanflingPart of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series.A.J. Ayer 1910-1989Ayer is best remembered for Language, Truth and Logic (1936), which introduced British and American readers to the logical positivism of the Vienna circle. Hanfling shows in this introduction to Ayer's work how he turned this philosophy into a form of British empiricism in the tradition of Hume.According to Ayer, philosophy is an activity of analysts. Metaphysical truths can be neither established nor refuted by philosophical enquiry: they are meaningless. In support of this claim, he deployed his 'principle of verifiability'. But he found it difficult to refine the principle 'in such a way as to find a middle ground between [an] over-strict requirement' which would disqualify perfectly ordinary statements as meaningless, and 'the over-indulgent licensing of gibberish' - including that of metaphysics.
The Great Philosophers:Berkeley (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by David BermanPart of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series.George Berkeley 1685-1753A scientist, theologian and writer on medicine and economics, George Berkeley was in his way a most improbable philosopher. A master of English prose, he was suspicious of language; scornful of abstractions, he looked instead to immediate experience for the basis of his thought.David Berman's readable guide traces Berkeley's experimentalism - for experiments with sight and touch to near-death experience - finding in his writings an intriguing marriage of philosophy and psychology.
The Great Philosophers:Democritus (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Paul CartledgePart of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series.Democritus c. 460-c. 370BCThe Renaissance's 'Laughing Philosopher'; our own age's 'Prophet of Quark': throughout the modern philosophical tradition, Democritus has been a man little known beyond his labels.Yet if the image of the cheerful ironist understates his true seriousness, that of father of modern nuclear physics - though by no means entirely unfounded - loses sign of the man in the hyperbole. Flattering as it is, it fails to do justice either to the full range of Democritus' interests or to the astonishing originality of his ideas.For Democritus' remarkable investigations took him far beyond the realms of physics and chemistry to explore the science of existence as a whole. Perception, selfhood and society; ethic, politics and the law: as Paul Cartledge's enthralling introduction makes clear, Democritus has much to teach us, in all these fields and more.
The Great Philosophers:Derrida (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Christopher JohnsonPart of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series.Jacques Derrida 1930-2004As critics investigate the 'death of the author', they find Derrida's prints all over the murder weapon. No other recent philosopher has aroused so much suspicion - or been so badly misrepresented.His every idea a tug at the rug beneath us, questioning our sense of ourselves, our world and the language by which both are articulated, Derrida would make uncomfortable reading under any circumstances. Add to this an at time vertiginous abstruseness and a following whose 'deconstructive' readings appear to be doing away with writing as we know it, and the hostility is understandable.Yet as Christopher Johnson shows in this eloquent, exhilarating guide, 'deconstruction' doesn't mean 'destruction' - nor does it involve any 'con'. In what may seem mere convoluted cleverness, momentous consistencies can be found; in Derrida's apparently rarefied rhetoric can be read the most radical, relevant commentary we have on the world we inhabit today.
The Great Philosophers: Descartes
by John CottinghamRené Descartes 1596-1650The 'father of modern philosophy', René Descartes has been accorded all the admiration a father customarily receives - and all the resentment.That mind-body duality by which he so deftly made sense of us now seems less paradigm than prison. And yet, to unthink it appears impossible. For better of worse, Descartes must remain our starting-point in the attempt to understand ourselves and our relation to our world.Yet if the problems begin with Descartes, so too may some of the solutions. John Cottingham's fascinating guide finds in the French philosopher's own neglected later work some intriguing hints as to how the stumbling-blocks might be surmounted. The father of modern philosophy, it seems, might yet be his child's deliverer.
The Great Philosophers, First Edition
by Radoslav A. TsanoffThe Great Philosophers, First Edition contains four parts: Part 1. The Philosophers of Classical Antiquity; Part 2. The Doctors and Saints of Medieval Christian; Philosophy; Part 3. The Earlier Modern Philosophers; Part 4. The Philosophers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
The Great Philosophers: Hegel (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Raymond PlantPart of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series.G.W.F. Hegel 1770-1831Without Hegel, modern thought is unthinkable. From Marx to Merleau-Pontyh, from Kierkegaard to Nietzsche, those whose ideas have made the modern age have all worked in his shadow.For Hegel's preoccupations have turned out to be our own. The isolation of the individual adrift in society, the yearning of the divided self for an integrated wholeness: these are anxieties his successors have shared. The rival claims of the personal and the public, the immediate instant and the wider historic narrative: these have remained pressing problems through two hundred years of change.Yet if his 'philosophy' seems as contemporary as ever, Hegel's 'religious' views have been dismissed as irrelevant anachronism. The distinction is false, however. In his theological explorations, suggests Raymond Plant in this illuminating new guide, Hegel tackled the issues of interest to us all.
The Great Philosophers:Heidegger
by Jonathan ReeHeidegger 1889-1976'We ourselves the entities to be analysed.' With those words, Martin Heidegger launched his assault on the 'sham clarity' of traditional Western thought. We are neither immortal souls nor disembodied intellects, he argues, but finite historical existences. And we are bound to the world by threads of interpretation and misinterpretation more strange and tangled than we can ever hope to comprehend.In his masterpiece Being and Time (1927) Heidegger used his technique of 'existential analysis' to undercut traditional dilemmas of objectivity and subjectivity, rationality and irrationality, absolutism and relativism. Truth itself, he argues, is essentially historical.The greatest adventures of twentieth-century thought can be seen as footnotes to Being and Time, and in this brilliantly lucid exposition Jonathan Rée spells out all its main arguments without blunting any of its disturbing paradoxes.
The Great Philosophers: Hume
by Anthony QuintonA short book combining extracts from the work of one of the world's greatest thinkers with commentary by one of Britain's most distinguished writers on philosophy.
The Great Philosophers:Kant (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Ralph Walker'Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.' KantIn today's increasingly fractured world of oppression and uncertainty, Kant's moral philosophy is more important than ever before. And never has the need for moral absolutes been more pressing than in this age of doubt, disillusion and cynicism. This is where Kant comes in, as his moral philosophy continues to compel the attention of every serious thinker in the field. Clear, concise - and overwhelmingly convincing - Ralph Walker's stimulating, highly accessible guide spells out the power and renewed relevance of his thinking: a genuinely objective, absolute basis for a modern moral law.
The Great Philosophers: Locke (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Michael AyresPart of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series.John Locke 1632-1704What Newton did for physics in the seventeenth century, Locke did for philosophy. The revolution wrought by these two giants established the intellectual underpinnings of the modern world.Yet out own age has called their contributions into question. While Newton's universe has come to seem unduly mechanistic, Locke has been out of favour for his wordy rhetoric, the apparent imprecision of his thought and the perceived irrelevance of his once-radical empiricism.This fascinating guide restores an underrated thinker to his rightful place at the very centre of modern philosophical enquiry. Basing his exposition upon a resourceful re-reading of An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Michael Ayers explains the historical significance of Locke's philosophical project, and its continuing capacity to challenge and compel.
The Great Philosophers:Marx
by Terry Eagleton'We are free when, like artists, we produce without the goad of physical necessity' Karl MarxFor Marx, freedom entailed release from commercial labour. In this highly engaging account, Eagleton outlines the relationship between production, labour and ownership which lie at the core of Marx's thinking. Marx's utopia was a place in which labour is increasingly automated, emancipating the wealth of sensuous individual development so that 'savouring a peach [is an aspect] of our self-actualisation as much as building dams or churning out coat-hangers'. Combining extracts from Marx's revolutionary philosophy, along with insightful analysis, this is the perfect guide to one of the world's greatest thinkers.
The Great Philosophers: Nietzsche
by Ronald Hayman'God is dead', announced Nietzsche - before going on to abolish himself.Envious contemporaries of Nietzsche ridiculed him as a mad man - and yet they came closer than they knew in characterising a philosopher in whose thought ambivalence approximated to disintegration of the self. While the nineteenth century's coherent, consistent systems of certainty came crashing down ingloriously at the very first touch of the twentieth, Nietzsche's discourses survived. He was more modern, it seemed, than the moderns. In this stimulating and provocative guide, Hayman reveals how Nietzsche's work is more contemporary and relevant than ever in a new postmodern age.
The Great Philosophers:Pascal (GREAT PHILOSOPHERS)
by Ben RogersPascal 1623-1662The moralist who advocated dressing up, the ascetic who liked a flutter, the devout Christian who lauded vanity, Pascal is a funnier, more ironic philosopher than his reputation as an anguished existentialist would suggest.Yet however irreverent the terms of his ironic project, its underlying impetus is both serious and profound. In this superb new introduction to the thinker and his thought, Ben Rogers demonstrates the deep wisdom of Pascal's defence of popular folly - a defence which he used to highlight the higher delusions of the learned.Setting the Pensées in the context of Pascal's life and philosophical career, Rogers reveals how their apparent frivolity underpins a fascinating, far-reaching and still challenging body of moral and political thought. His remarkable guide offers an eye-opening account of the work of a marvellous and much neglected thinker.