Philosophical traditions and schools of thought Books

What are the secrets to a contented life? One of Rome's greatest and most influential poets, Horace (65-8 BCE) has been cherished by readers for more than two thousand years not only for his wit, style, and reflections on Roman society, but also...

How a new model of democracy that opens up power to ordinary citizens could strengthen inclusiveness, responsiveness, and accountability in modern societies To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly...

The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance. In this classic work, Martha Nussbaum maintains that these...

From bestselling cartoonist C. C. Tsai, a delightfully illustrated version of the classic work of Daoist philosophyC. C. Tsai is one of Asia's most popular cartoonists, and his editions of the Chinese classics have sold more than 40 million copies in...

The Greco-Roman mathematician Claudius Ptolemy is one of the most significant figures in the history of science. He is remembered today for his astronomy, but his philosophy is almost entirely lost to history. This groundbreaking book is the first to...

A superb new edition of Epictetus's famed handbook on Stoicism - translated by one of the world's leading authorities on Stoic philosophy Born a slave, the Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD) taught that mental freedom is supreme,...

A splendid new translation of one of the greatest books on friendship ever written.In a world where social media, online relationships, and relentless self-absorption threaten the very idea of deep and lasting friendships, the search for true friends is...

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships--and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for...

How philosophy transformed human knowledge and the world we live in Philosophical investigation is the root of all human knowledge. Developing new concepts, reinterpreting old truths, and reconceptualising fundamental questions, philosophy has progressed...

Timeless wisdom on death and dying from the celebrated Stoic philosopher Seneca. 'It takes an entire lifetime to learn how to die,' wrote the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD). He counselled readers to 'study death always,' and took...

Lord Byron described Greece as great, fallen, and immortal, a characterization more apt than he knew. Through most of its long history, Greece was poor. But in the classical era, Greece was densely populated and highly urbanized. Many surprisingly...

The first book to explore the role of images in philosophical thought and teaching in the early modern period Delving into the intersections between artistic images and philosophical knowledge in Europe from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth...

This is a penetrating reinterpretation and defense of Hegel's social theory as an alternative to reigning liberal notions of social justice. The eminent German philosopher Axel Honneth rereads Hegel's Philosophy of Right to show how it diagnoses the...

An entertaining, enlightening, and humorous graphic narrative of the dangerous thinkers who laid the foundation of modern thought This entertaining and enlightening graphic narrative tells the exciting story of the seventeenth-century thinkers who...

Worried that old age will inevitably mean losing your libido, your health, and possibly your marbles too? Well, Cicero has some good news for you. In How to Grow Old, the great Roman orator and statesman eloquently describes how you can make the...

The 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...

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable...

Timeless techniques of effective public speaking from ancient Rome's greatest oratorAll of us are faced countless times with the challenge of persuading others, whether we're trying to win a trivial argument with a friend or convince our coworkers about...

A major new history of how the Enlightenment transformed people's everyday livesThe Secular Enlightenment is a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this...

When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published - "godless," "full of abominations," "a book forged in hell ...by the devil himself." Religious and secular authorities saw...

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. Scott Soames, a leading philosopher of language and historian of analytic philosophy,...

A thoroughly updated and substantially expanded edition of an acclaimed anthology This is a thoroughly updated and substantially expanded new edition of one of the most popular, wide-ranging, and engaging anthologies of Western political thinking, one...

The second volume in a landmark commentary on an important and influential work of ancient philosophyThis is the second volume of a groundbreaking commentary on one of the most important works of ancient philosophy, the Enneads of Plotinus-a text that...

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...

The aim of this book is to ask through a study of one of his most complicated treatises on explanation, how far, and in what sense, the demands of the 'scientific person' are Aristotle's.

Volume two of the acclaimed Oxford translation of Aristotle's works-now fully revised and expandedOriginally published in twelve volumes between 1912 and 1954, the Oxford translation of Aristotle is universally recognized as the standard English version...

Volume one of the acclaimed Oxford translation of Aristotle's works-now fully revised and expandedOriginally published in twelve volumes between 1912 and 1954, the Oxford translation of Aristotle is universally recognized as the standard English version...

Wabi sabi, the quintessential Japanese design aesthetic, is quickly gaining popularity around the world. Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi...

One of the best known translators of the wisdom of Asia, Thomas Cleary now adds a new book to his samurai canon with Samurai Wisdom, new translations of five classic works on "bushido." His previous works, Code of the Samurai and  Soul of the...

Hume's brilliant and dispassionate essay Of Miracles has been added in this expanded edition of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, which also includes Of the Immortality of the Soul, Of Suicide, and Richard Popkin's illuminating Introduction.

Building on the virtues that made the First edition of A Presocratics Reader the most widely used sourcebook for study of the Presocratics and Sophists, the Second Edition offers even more value and a wider selection of fragments from these philosophical...

The Essential Mengzi offers a representative selection from Bryan Van Norden's acclaimed translation of the full work, including the most frequently studied passages and covering all of the work's major themes. An appendix of selections from the classic...

Entirely faithful to Boethius' Latin; Relihan's translation makes the philosophy of the Consolation intelligible to readers; it gives equal weight to the poetry--in fact, Relihan's metrical translation of Boethius' metro are themselves contributions of...

A literal translation, allowing the simplicity and vigor of the Greek diction to shine through.

Drawn from the translations and editorial aids of Irwin and Fine's Aristotle, Selections (Hackett Publishing Co., 1995), this anthology will be most useful to instructors who must try to do justice to Aristotle in a semester-long ancient-philosophy...

This anthology features unabridged translations of Diderot's best work as a literary artist, including those writings that embody his most original and influential ideas.

Martial arts and philosophy have always gone hand in hand, as well as fist in throat. Philosophical argument is closely paralleled with hand-to-hand combat. And all of today's Asian martial arts were developed to embody and apply philosophical ideas. In...

Since their publication in 1982, Samuel Shirley's translations of Spinoza's Ethics and Selected Letters have been commended for their accuracy and readability. Now with the addition of his new translation of Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect...

This follow-up to the hugely successful The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real explores the issues of fate, fortune, causation and determinism as presented in the Matrix trilogy. It asks the reader to consider notions of freedom and...

This thoughtful abridgment makes an ideal introduction to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Key selections include: the Preface in B, the Introduction, the Transcendental Aesthetic, the Second Analogy, the Refutation of Idealism, the first three...

This collection of more than two hundred of Nietzsche's letters offers a representative body of correspondence on subjects of main concern to him--philosophy, history, morals, music and literature. Also included are letters of biographical interest...

From the Introduction: "Stoic philosophy, of which Epictetus (c. a.d. 50130) is a representative, began as a recognizable movement around 300 b.c. Its founder was Zeno of Cytium (not to be confused with Zeno of Elea, who discovered the famous paradoxes)...

Drawn from James B. Atkinson and David Sices' Montaigne: Selected Essays, this annotated translation of tienne de La Botie's political masterpiece offers an ideal opportunity to become acquainted with the thought of a brilliant though short-lived...

Like Werner Pluhar's distinguished translation of Critique of Judgment (Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), this new rendering of Critique of Pure Reason reflects the elegant achievement of a master translator. This richly annotated volume offers translations...

Martin Ferguson Smith's work on Lucretius is both well known and highly regarded. However, his 1969 translation of De Rerum Natura--long out of print--is virtually unknown. Readers will share our excitement in the discovery of this accurate and fluent...

This Hackett edition, first published in 1981, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the seventh (1907) edition as published by Macmillan and Company, Limited.From the forward by John Rawls:In the utilitarian tradition Henry Sidgwick...

"The reissue of Guttmann's edition of Rabin's translation is a welcome event. There has long been a need for a readable, judicious edition, for classroom use, of this large and complex work." --Michael L. Morgan, Indiana University