A colorful history of utilitarianism told through the lives and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and its other foundersIn The Happiness Philosophers, Bart Schultz tells the colorful story of the lives and legacies of the founders of utilitarianism-one of the most influential yet misunderstood and maligned philosophies of the past two centuries.
Divination and Human Nature casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination-the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams.
A compelling look at the problem of evil in modern thought, from the Inquisition to global terrorismEvil threatens human reason, for it challenges our hope that the world makes sense.
The second and final volume of the most authoritative English-language edition of Spinoza's writingsThe Collected Works of Spinoza provides, for the first time in English, a truly satisfactory edition of all of Spinoza's writings, with accurate and readable translations, based on the best critical editions of the original-language texts, done by a scholar who has published extensively on the philosopher's work.
The essential guide to the life, thought, and legacy of Adam SmithAdam Smith (1723-90) is perhaps best known as one of the first champions of the free market and is widely regarded as the founding father of capitalism.
A survey of ancient Egyptian mathematics across three thousand yearsMathematics in Ancient Egypt traces the development of Egyptian mathematics, from the end of the fourth millennium BC-and the earliest hints of writing and number notation-to the end of the pharaonic period in Greco-Roman times.
There is a growing recognition that philosophy isn't unique to the West, that it didn't begin only with the classical Greeks, and that Greek philosophy was influenced by Near Eastern traditions.
The first comprehensive account of Nietzsche's views of Jews and JudaismFor more than a century, Nietzsche's views about Jews and Judaism have been subject to countless polemics.
How ancient thinkers grappled with competing conceptions of divine lawIn the thousand years before the rise of Islam, two radically diverse conceptions of what it means to say that a law is divine confronted one another with a force that reverberates to the present.
How a Greek philosopher's encounters with Buddhism in Central Asia influenced Western philosophyPyrrho of Elis went with Alexander the Great to Central Asia and India during the Greek invasion and conquest of the Persian Empire in 334-324 BC.
People have always been xenophobic, but an explicit philosophical and scientific view of human racial difference only began to emerge during the modern period.
A compelling reevaluation of the Enlightenment from one of its leading historiansIn this concise and powerful book, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment provides a bracing and clarifying new interpretation of this watershed period.
A galaxy of legendary figures from the annals of Western historyIn this enlightening and entertaining work, Paul Johnson, the bestselling author of Intellectuals and Creators, approaches the subject of heroism with stirring examples of men and women from every age, walk of life, and corner of the planet who have inspired and transformed not only their own cultures but the entire world as well.
According to Xenophon, Socrates tried to persuade his associate Aristippus to moderate his excessive indulgence in wine, women, and food, arguing that only hard work can bring happiness.
A lively and accessible introduction to the Greek and Roman origins of our political ideasIn The Birth of Politics, Melissa Lane introduces the reader to the foundations of Western political thought, from the Greeks, who invented democracy, to the Romans, who created a republic and then transformed it into an empire.
A major new history of classical Greece-how it rose, how it fell, and what we can learn from itLord Byron described Greece as great, fallen, and immortal, a characterization more apt than he knew.
In this collection of recent and unpublished essays, leading analytic philosopher Scott Soames traces milestones in his field from its beginnings in Britain and Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, through its subsequent growth in the United States, up to its present as the world's most vigorous philosophical tradition.
This is the first of five volumes of a definitive history of analytic philosophy from the invention of modern logic in 1879 to the end of the twentieth century.
Timeless political wisdom from ancient history's greatest statesmanMarcus Cicero, Rome's greatest statesman and orator, was elected to the Roman Republic's highest office at a time when his beloved country was threatened by power-hungry politicians, dire economic troubles, foreign turmoil, and political parties that refused to work together.
The definitive account of Aristotle's life and schoolThis definitive biography shows that Aristotle's philosophy is best understood on the basis of a firm knowledge of his life and of the school he founded.
A small, insignificant-looking intellectual with absurdly long legs, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a veritable Hans Christian Andersen caricature of a man.
Isaiah Berlin was deeply admired during his life, but his full contribution was perhaps underestimated because of his preference for the long essay form.
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "e;horrible heresies"e; and "e;monstrous deeds.
In the 40s BCE, during his forced retirement from politics under Caesar's dictatorship, Cicero turned to philosophy, producing a massive and important body of work.
In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn't play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation.
The tradition descending from Frege and Russell has typically treated theories of meaning either as theories of meanings (propositions expressed), or as theories of truth conditions.
Between Two Worlds is an authoritative commentary on--and powerful reinterpretation of--the founding work of modern philosophy, Descartes's Meditations.
Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation.
By "e;literary criticism"e; we usually mean a self-conscious act involving the technical and aesthetic appraisal, by individuals, of autonomous works of art.
