The name Erasmus of Rotterdam conjures up a golden age of scholarly integrity and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, when learning could command public admiration without the need for authorial self-promotion.
Originally published in 1959, The Faith of a Heretic is the most personal statement of the beliefs of Nietzsche biographer and translator Walter Kaufmann.
The explosive debate that transformed our views about time and scientific truthOn April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time.
This new edition features the previously unpublished delivery text of Berlin's inaugural lecture as a professor at Oxford, which derives from this volume and stands as the briefest and most pithy version of his famous essay "e;Two Concepts of Liberty.
The first volume in a landmark commentary on an important and influential work of ancient philosophyThis is the first volume of a groundbreaking commentary on one of the most important works of ancient philosophy, the Enneads of Plotinus-a text that formed the basis of Neoplatonism and had a deep influence on early Christian thought and medieval and Renaissance philosophy.
In Frontier Fictions, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet looks at the efforts of Iranians to defend, if not expand, their borders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and explores how their conceptions of national geography influenced cultural and political change.
A prehistory of today's humanities, from ancient Greece to the early twentieth centuryMany today do not recognize the word, but "e;philology"e; was for centuries nearly synonymous with humanistic intellectual life, encompassing not only the study of Greek and Roman literature and the Bible but also all other studies of language and literature, as well as history, culture, art, and more.
A comprehensive look at the intellectual and cultural innovations of the Weimar periodDuring its short lifespan, the Weimar Republic (1918-33) witnessed an unprecedented flowering of achievements in many areas, including psychology, political theory, physics, philosophy, literary and cultural criticism, and the arts.
A brilliant brief account of romanticism and its influence from one of the most important philosophers and intellectual historians of the twentieth centuryIn The Roots of Romanticism, one of the twentieth century's most influential philosophers dissects and assesses a movement that changed the course of history.
The Devil's Tabernacle is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought.
Walter Lowrie's classic, bestselling translation of Soren Kierkegaard's most important and popular books remains unmatched for its readability and literary quality.
The most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Kierkegaard quotations ever publishedWhy I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heavenin the spring at the earth.
A comprehensive and accessible account of the life and thought of Judaism's most celebrated philosopherMaimonides was the greatest Jewish philosopher and legal scholar of the medieval period, a towering figure who has had a profound and lasting influence on Jewish law, philosophy, and religious consciousness.
Isaiah Berlin's intellectual biography of Karl Marx has long been recognized as one of the best concise accounts of the life and thought of the man who had, in Berlin's words, a more "e;direct, deliberate, and powerful"e; influence on mankind than any other nineteenth-century thinker.
How a famous painting opens a window into the life, times, and philosophy of Rene DescartesIn the Louvre museum hangs a portrait that is considered the iconic image of Rene Descartes, the great seventeenth-century French philosopher.
"e;In the vast literature of love, The Seducer's Diary is an intricate curiosity--a feverishly intellectual attempt to reconstruct an erotic failure as a pedagogic success, a wound masked as a boast,"e; observes John Updike in his foreword to Soren Kierkegaard's narrative.
Soren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher rediscovered in the twentieth century, is a major influence in contemporary philosophy, religion, and literature.
Soren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher rediscovered in the twentieth century, is a major influence in contemporary philosophy, religion, and literature.
This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline.
A primer on campaigning in ancient Rome that reads like a strategy memo from a modern political consultantHow to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines.
How the I Ching became one of the most widely read and influential books in the worldThe I Ching originated in China as a divination manual more than three thousand years ago.
Between 1945 and 1953, while the Soviet Union confronted postwar reconstruction and Cold War crises, its unchallenged leader Joseph Stalin carved out time to study scientific disputes and dictate academic solutions.
In this outstanding collection of essays, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, discusses the importance of dissenters in the history of ideas--among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen, and Sorel.
Why democracy is the best way of deciding how decisions should be madePragmatism and its consequences are central issues in American politics today, yet scholars rarely examine in detail the relationship between pragmatism and politics.
The Flame of Eternity provides a reexamination and new interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy and the central role that the concepts of eternity and time, as he understood them, played in it.
The story of one of the most important-and incendiary-books in Western historyWhen it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published-"e;godless,"e; "e;full of abominations,"e; "e;a book forged in hell .
Though it did not yet exist as a discrete field of scientific inquiry, biology was at the heart of many of the most important debates in seventeenth-century philosophy.
We think of the Enlightenment as an era dominated by ideas of progress, production, and industry--not an era that favored the lax and indolent individual.
Ancient lessons for sustainable citizenshipAn ecologically sustainable society cannot be achieved without citizens who possess the virtues and values that will foster it, and who believe that individual actions can indeed make a difference.
In the most influential chapter of his most important philosophical work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel makes the central and disarming assertions that "e;self-consciousness is desire itself"e; and that it attains its "e;satisfaction"e; only in another self-consciousness.
This book gathers wide-ranging essays on the Italian Renaissance philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno by one of the world's leading authorities on his work and life.
The English philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) is known as a conservative who rejected philosophically ambitious rationalism and the grand political ideologies of the twentieth century on the grounds that no human ideas have ultimately reliable foundations.
Examining the social and political upheavals that characterized the collapse of public judgment in early modern Europe, Liberating Judgment offers a unique account of the achievement of liberal democracy and self-government.
A masterful overview of the philosophy of language from one of its most important thinkersIn this book one of the world's foremost philosophers of language presents his unifying vision of the field-its principal achievements, its most pressing current questions, and its most promising future directions.
A brief account of philosophical logic from one of the world's leading authoritiesPhilosophical Logic is a clear and concise critical survey of nonclassical logics of philosophical interest written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject.