The Philosopher's Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas

Product Description

This dynamic volume is designed to teach readers to become critical thinkers as they explore the influential thinkers and central themes of Philosophy from ancient times to the present. In addition to the conceptual and language subject matter, this presentation ignites readers' sense of wonder through an innovative design, substantive readings, innovative writing assignments and thinking activities that provide readers with the opportunity to learn and practice the conceptual abilities needed to think philosophically. The volume examines thinking philosophically about life, consciousness, identity and the soul, freedom and determinism, developing enlightened values, exploring ways of being religious, constructing knowledge and discovering truth, developing an integrated view of reality, understanding creative expression and political forms, as well as social justice, and concepts of utopia. For individuals interested in learning to think philosophically.

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A graphic introduction
Clear and Distinct Ideas !!!!
Clear and simple
How'd They Do It?
Outstanding introduction to great thinkers

Young Person's Guide to Philosophy
Jeremy Weate
Manufacturer: DK CHILDREN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Philosophy for Kids : 40 Fun Questions That Help You Wonder ... About Everything!
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ASIN: 0789430746

Customer Reviews:

A graphic introduction.......2007-02-25

The book is a good introduction for kids. Though not particularly very much inclusive when it comes to the choice of philosophers, it does give a fairly good introductory idea to totally new students to the study of philosophy of the ones chosen. The drawings by Lawman are beautiful. I liked very much the inclusion of Hypatia, which, to my mind, is something absolutely new to any history of philosophy. With the exception of Beauvoir, it is a pity that no other women had been chosen. On the whole, the book is wonderfully produced (a truism when it comes to DK publications), and well writen.

Clear and Distinct Ideas !!!!.......2003-09-05

Decartes would approve! This book is a wonderful introduction to philosophy for kids and young adults alike. I don't think that it is too much for kids 5-8; our 7 year old reads it and comes to us with new knowlege and questions to accompany. I would recommend it to anyone intersted in inspiring their kids to think about the world around them in new ways and to further their understanding of some of the greatest figures in history.

Clear and simple.......2002-04-03

I think this might be a little difficult for four-to-eight-year olds, but it does give a clear and simple overview of the ideas of the great philosophers. There were a few typos, and the various type sizes were distracting. Each section begins with a full-page drawing of a particular philosopher and his milieu with callouts. The callouts are the part that might appeal to the four-to-eight-year olds. Many of them are quite silly.

How'd They Do It?.......2001-07-04

I just wonder what the publisher thought when the idea of an overview of philosophy for young people was first proposed. Luckily, they must not have been paying much attention because this extraordinary book is in print. It's really amazing that they could pull this book off. How do you explain what the great thinkers throughout history have thought to teenagers and younger? Somehow, Jeremy Weate was able to break down philosophies to their most basic forms. Weate was also aided by his sense of humor and by the pictures of Peter Layman which can help keep interest from swaying. This really is a very valuable resource. This book is supposed to be directed toward readers of the ages 4-8, but I think it is better for a little older audience. I was able use it very effectively in some college English courses I took in high school. A Young Person's Guide to Philosophy is really excellent. It is really an interesting read and can be very useful.

Outstanding introduction to great thinkers.......2000-10-15

This book provides excellent, brief, and simply worded accounts summarizing key arguments of the great philosphers (and some also-rans). Strength: clear but not condescending sketches of some very difficult ideas. Drawback: Personality eccentricities are overemphasized. The recommended age range is misleadingly low: my nine-year-olds who are advanced readers found it challenging but within their grasp; an advanced 8-year-old friend gave it up as too hard; and a 10-year old friend who is a very good reader found it profitable and informative. I'd recommend 9-12 as the age range.

Plato: The Father of Logic (The Library of Greek Philosophers)

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Plato: The Father of Logic (The Library of Greek Philosophers)
Alex Sniderman
Manufacturer: Rosen Central
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 1404204989

Albucasis Aka Al-zahrawi: Renowned Surgeon of the Arab World (Great Muslim Philosophers and Scientists of the Middle Ages)

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Albucasis Aka Al-zahrawi: Renowned Surgeon of the Arab World (Great Muslim Philosophers and Scientists of the Middle Ages)
Fred Ramen
Manufacturer: Rosen Central
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Binding: Library Binding

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Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Muslim Physician And Philosopher of the Eleventh Century (Great Muslim Philosophers and Scientists of the Middle Ages)
Al Kindi: Father of Arab Philosophy And Ninth-century Scientist, Calligrapher, And Musician (Great Muslim Philosophers and Scientists of the Middle Ages)
Al-biruni: Master Astronomer And Influential Muslim Scholar of Eleventh-century Persia (Great Muslim Philosophers and Scientists of the Middle Ages)
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Al-Khwarizmi: The Inventor Of Algebra (Great Muslim Philosophers and Scientists of the Middle Ages)

ASIN: 1404205101

Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, Second Edition

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Greatness of mind
a fascinating ,well written and judicious biography

Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, Second Edition
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

This highly acclaimed, prize-winning biography of one of the foremost political philosophers of the twentieth century is here reissued in a trade paperback edition for a new generation of readers. In a new preface the author offers an account of writings by and about Arendt that have appeared since the book’s 1982 publication, providing a reassessment of her subject’s life and achievement.
Praise for the earlier edition:
“Both a personal and an intellectual biography . . . It represents biography at its best.”—Peter Berger, front page, The New York Times Book Review
“A story of surprising drama . . . . At last, we can see Arendt whole.”—Jim Miller, Newsweek
“Indispensable to anyone interested in the life, the thought, or . . . the example of Hannah Arendt.”—Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
“An adventure story that moves from pre-Nazi Germany to fame in the United States, and . . . a study of the influences that shaped a sharp political awareness.”—Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch

Customer Reviews:

Greatness of mind .......2005-11-20

FOR LOVE OF THE WORLD

This work is an outstanding intellectual biography, detailed consideration of both the life and work of one of the twentieth- century's great political figures. I learned much from it, and it was a great pleasure to read it.
Among the revelations of the work to me was the depth of Arendt's involvement in Jewish communal work during her six years in Paris in the late thirties, and during her first years in America. The knowledge of her dedication and courage in this work makes even more painful one of the central episodes of this work and her life, the controversy that her `Eichmann in Jerusalem' book created. Here despite Young- Bruehl's careful defense of Arendt it seems to me that she committed a major error. This does not in my opinion relate so much to her much misinterpreted concept of the ` banality of evil' but rather through her tone and manner of writing about the victims. Arendt whose central value in life was friendship and loyalty to those friends without intention `betrayed' according to their feeling the `victims' and again without intending to seemed to implicate in the evil that they suffered.
This chapter of her life came after she had already published her monumental work ,"The Origins of Totalitarianism'. In this biography we learn how Arendt prepared for this work, for understanding the connection between the totalitarian terror of the Nazis and that of the Soviets. Here a central part was played by her second husband Heinrich Blucher her instructor in radical revolutionary thought. We learn how this work grew out of her classical philosophical training and her constant concern with the meaning of political action.
In fact I found the first half of this biography which tells us about her life and work leading up to the `Origins of Totalitarianism' to be more engaging than the second half. In the first half we learn more about her personal story, of the central role her mother widowed when Hannah was seven played in her life. We see the development of her strong , independent personality. We follow her in the world of studies with Heidegger, and Jaspers and in the story of her romantic liasons ( including the one with Heidegger) and two marriages. We are made to understand too the general climate of the time of Germany in the twenties and early thirties.
Again one of Arendt's greatest gifts was for friendship. And her life is filled with encounters with and friendships with remarkable people, a number of whose stories are told in one of her best books, " Men in Dark Times".
If I were to find fault with this biography which contains so much more than I have indicated in this brief review is that it does not it seems to me analyze critically the basic relationships of Arendt's life. For there are problematic sides morally to the friendship with Heidegger, who had a Nazi period- questionable areas in her relation to her second husband, however intellectually strong their connection was. I too think that for one who so valued the faculty of Judgment, Arendt's numerous political errors in judgment should have been considered here. As one who came from the world of catastrophe she was too ready to see America on the verge of , or going into catastrophe. And to my mind her late books `On Violence' and ` On Revolution' are the weakest of her offerings.
However it is necessary to stress that this biography really brings Arendt, and her inner life to life. It does this especially by bringing examples of her poetry, the record of her inward life. As I understand it this poetry has not appeared in a volume of its own and it seems to me that a dual German- English language edition of her complete poems , annotated properly would be a great contribution to our understanding of her and her work.
There are many `moving and great moments in this work and in Arendt's life. Among those moments are the description of her participating in a seder at the house of Louis Finklestein in the last year of her life. Here, she who had become a bit of a pariah in the Jewish world was as it were welcomed back home, and she joined in the singing of the traditional Passover songs. Another such great moment was her meeting with Blucher after her period in an interment camp at Gurs, when he too was a fugitive. This reunion set them on their way to America.
This book does a very good job of analyzing Arendt's standing as a scholar , her evaluation in the eyes of her colleagues, the great appreciation had for her by many at the highest level of human thought.
I think that if there was a chapter on her in `Men in Dark Times' it should certainly have the word ` Greatness' in it.
This book is a gift to all those who love the life of the mind. I cannot recommend it more highly.

a fascinating ,well written and judicious biography.......1999-05-26

This book has become something of a classic. It unearths a mass of detail about Arendt's life - the pages on her upbringing and experiences before her flight from Europe are particularly memorable. However, the main focus is kept firmly on the way Arendt's thought developed during her life. The author [who knew Arendt in her later years] is well versed in philosophy and political thought and so her account becomes a useful companion to studies of Arendt's many contributions to modern thought: 'totalitarianism', 'the banality of evil', the loss of public space in the contemporary west and much more. This book is not the kind of simple minded attempt to reduce thought to biography that we see all too often. While it is no hagiography [Arendt comes in for some serious criticism on occasion], it ends with a sense of celebration for a life well lived, one of passionate thinking motivated by 'love of the world'

Schopenhauer (The Routledge Philosophers)

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Schopenhauer (The Routledge Philosophers)
Julian Young
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hegel (The Routledge Philosophers)
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ASIN: 0415333474

Book Description

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the greatest writers and German philosophers of the Nineteenth century. His work influenced figures as diverse as Wagner, Freud and Nietzsche.

In this comprehensive introduction, Julian Young covers all the main aspects of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Beginning with an overview of Schopenhauer's life and work, he introduces the central aspects of his metaphysics fundamental to understanding his work as a whole: his philosophical idealism and debt to the philosophy of Kant; his attempt to answer the question of what the world is; his account of science; and in particular his idea that 'will' is the essence of all things.

Julian Young then introduces and assesses Schopenhauer's aesthetics, which occupies a central place in his philosophy. He carefully examines Schopenhauer's theories of the sublime, artistic genius and music, before assessing his ethics of compassion, his arguments for pessimism and his account of 'salvation'. In the final chapter, he considers Schopenhauer's legacy and his influence on the thought of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, making this an ideal starting point for those coming to Schopenhauer for the first time.

Young Ludwig: Wittgenstein's Life, 1889-1921

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New Edition of Prize-winning Biography
Glad to see this classic reissued

Young Ludwig: Wittgenstein's Life, 1889-1921
Brian McGuinness
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius
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ASIN: 0199279942

Book Description

Ludwig Wittgenstein is universally recognized as one of the most original and influential philosophers of his age and as a personality of great magnetism and power. Not all who recognize his importance admire him or approve of it; his life and work are both surrounded by controversy. In this welcome reissue of his classic biographical study, complete with a brand-new Preface, Brian McGuinness traces the early years of this fascinating figure and examines the formative influences which shaped his extraordinary life.

Customer Reviews:

New Edition of Prize-winning Biography.......2005-10-16

Professor McGuinness' Young Ludwig (1988) was the first thoroughly researched and in-depth life history of the philosopher. Over fifteen years passed and the text eventually went out of print. Oxford decided to launch a second edition, with a new preface by McGuinness, enabling the work to be read by a new generation of readers interested in the rich culture and family that contributed to Wittgenstein's thought and the creation of the Tractatus. In fact, the last chapter of the book is devoted entirely to the Tractatus, which to a large extent sheds new light on this often-misunderstood philosophical text.

McGuinness spent many years researching and composing this biography. He travelled throughout Europe, Israel and America, studying countless manuscripts and correspondence, interviewing family and individuals that knew the philosopher, many of whom, unfortunately, have passed on.

This is a detailed analysis of Wittgenstein, painting a rich cultural picture of pre-WW1 Vienna. Wittgenstein's father, Karl, was an extraordinary man in his own right, a capitalist of ingenious talent, creating an empire of extreme wealth and prestige. A creative and forceful personality, similar to his youngest son, along with his wife, was at the centre of the thriving music and art scene in Vienna, where Brahms, Mahler, and Klimt were frequent guests at the house for musical evenings and group discussions on literature, culture and politics. Karl Wittgenstein wrote many economic articles for major publications in Vienna and Germany that continue to be read by historians today.

The family, however, experienced tragedy, with three of Karl's oldest sons committing suicide. Ludwig often considered ending his own life, but experienced a spiritual transformation after WW1, (As many young men who survived experienced after the war) was awarded medals for bravery and ended up a prisoner of war in an Italian camp. It is in this camp that Wittgenstein wrote the finishing touches, from the copious notebooks written during the war, of his only published philosophical treatise, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The biography describes the philosopher's war experiences, his time as a prisoner of war and his eventual return to Vienna, where he gave away his massive inheritance, attempted to publish his book, attended teachers college to instruct elementary school and became a gardener for a Catholic monastery.

Unfortunately, the biography ends in 1921, a year before the first publication of the English translation of the Tractutas. I believe in the "philosophical biography" as it can present the family and cultural influences on the philosopher, revealing better insight into the particular ideas and thought processes of that philosopher.

This is a prize winning biography giving the reader greater insight into a unique and extraordinary human being.

Glad to see this classic reissued.......2005-06-25

It's good to see Brian McGuinness's biography of the first half of Ludwig Wittgenstein's life back in print. There are other worthwhile books on Wittgenstein's life and thought, but none is a substitute for this book.

"Young Ludwig" is the result of years of McGuinness' own research. It draws on his personal discussions and correspondence with members of Wittgenstein's family and friends during which, he tells us in a new preface, he was "reconstructing Wittgenstein's life along with them." This biography shows that he also meticulously tracked down a wide variety of acquaintances and people who had crossed paths with Wittgenstein and Russell. He seems to have ferretted out an amazing variety of documents and other scattered scraps of evidence from unusual places as well as from the usual kinds of sources. The book is densely detailed; even people who know a lot about Wittgenstein from other sources will learn new things about him and his times from this book. (I know this because of the "Really -- I didn't know that!" reactions I often get when mentioning things I've learned from this book to fellow philosophers.)

The book also benefits from McGuinness' role as a philosopher. He has authored many papers on Wittgenstein's philosophy (some recently collected in Approaches to Wittgenstein (Routledge 2002)) and edited anthologies related to it. Young Ludwig exhibits McGuinness' intimate acquaintance with Wittgenstein's intellectual interests and philosophical endeavors during his early years. Along with another Oxford philosopher (David Pears), McGuinness produced a new translation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In that related project, his philosophical work was accompanied by substantial historical research: he located, scrutinized, and tried to date and order such manuscripts as could be discovered of Wittgenstein's previous attempts at the work. He dug up and edited and/or translated many works related to Wittgenstein's life and work previously unavailable in English: essays on political economy by Karl Wittgenstein (Ludwig's father), popular scientific essays by Ludwig Boltzmann (whom Ludwig admired and wanted to study physics with), and many, many others. Thus, his work on Wittgenstein scholarship is monumental: writing about Wittgenstein involved establishing a whole collection of sources related to his life and work.

I also happen to like this book a lot. I personally prefer the kind of biography McGuinness has written. You read it slowly, lingering over the groupings of artifacts and remembrances he has brought together and leads you through as a patient guide. You begin to realize how vast the collection is, how much there is to be put together. He does not tell you what to make of everything --- although (as he put it in the preface to the first edition) he does attempt to present Wittgenstein's life "as something capable of being seen as a unity". He pauses at times to address the reader on the significance of a certain detail, on the ambiguities involved in the craft of biography and on more general conundrums involved in making sense of another human being. He tells us not only about his subject, but how he came to know his subject, generously sharing his finds with the reader. It is somehow extremely scholarly and humbly personal at the same time. I like his style because it allows the reader some mental freedom to develop his or her own picture of things from what is known. McGuinness tells us in the new preface that his interest "is not in causes but in effects, in seeing how Wittgenstein (the young Wittgenstein, in this volume) lived out the situation he was in." You will want to have this book for the sheer amount of information it contains (it has an index, too), regardless of your taste in biographical style.

When this book was out of print, I snapped up used copies to loan to students and colleagues. (I would not part with my own.) Now I can tell them what I would tell anyone interested in Wittgenstein's life or early analytic philosophy: we are very fortunate to have this labor of love available to us, and in an affordable edition, too --- how great that now anyone can go get a copy!

Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

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Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)
Hélène Cixous
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Veils (Cultural Memory in the Present)
H. C. for Life, That Is to Say... (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)
Stigmata: Escaping Texts
The Work of Mourning
Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English

ASIN: 0231128258

Book Description

Who can say "I am Jewish?" What does "Jew" mean? What especially does it mean for Jacques Derrida, founder of deconstruction, scoffer at boundaries and fixed identities, explorer of the indeterminate and undecidable? In Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint, French feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous follows the intertwined threads of Jewishness and non-Jewishness that play through the life and works of one of the greatest living philosophers.

Cixous is a lifelong friend of Derrida. They both grew up as French Jews in Algeria and share a "belonging constituted of exclusion and nonbelonging" -- not Algerian, rejected by France, their Jewishness concealed or acculturated. In Derrida's family "one never said 'circumcision'but 'baptism,'not 'Bar Mitzvah'but 'communion.'" Judaism cloaked in Catholicism is one example of the undecidability of identity that influenced the thinker whom Cixous calls a "Jewish Saint."

An intellectual contemporary of Derrida, Cixous's ideas on writing have an affinity with his philosophy of deconstruction, which sought to overturn binary oppositions -- such as man/woman, or Jew/non-Jew -- and blur boundaries of exclusion inherent in Western thought. In portraying Derrida, Cixous uses metonymy, alliteration, rhyme, neologisms, and puns to keep the text in constant motion, freeing language from any rigidity of meaning. In this way she writes a portrait of "Derrida in flight," slipping from one appearance to the next, unable to be fixed in one spot, yet encompassing each point he passes. From the circumcision act to family relationships, through Derrida's works to those of Celan, Rousseau, and Beaumarchais, Cixous effortlessly merges biography and textual commentary in this playful portrait of the man, his works, and being (or not being) Jewish.

Thomas Hobbes: An English Philosopher in the Age of Reason (Philosophers of the Enlightenment)

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Thomas Hobbes: An English Philosopher in the Age of Reason (Philosophers of the Enlightenment)
Aaron Rosenberg
Manufacturer: Rosen Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 1404204199

Links in the Chain: Shapers of the Jewish Tradition (Oxford Profiles)

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Links in the Chain: Shapers of the Jewish Tradition (Oxford Profiles)
Naomi Pasachoff
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195099397

Book Description

"Judaism, or that which has united the successive generations of Jews into one people, is not only a religion; it is a dynamic religious civilization."--Mordecai Menachem Kaplan, from Questions Jews Ask (1956) In assessing what their Jewish identities mean to them, Jews today sometimes describe themselves as links in a chain of tradition that stretches back to biblical times. In this collection of biographies of Jewish thinkers from ancient times to the present, the links in that chain come to life through the dramatic stories of 41 shapers of Jewish tradition. From Hillel, whose teaching more than twenty centuries ago set Judaism on its post-biblical course, to Yitzhak Rabin, the Noble Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister of Israel who helped to broker a peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, these men and women all left an indelible mark on Jewish practice, scholarship, or nationalism. In individual biographical essays, Naomi Pasachoff explores the contributions of philosophers, poets, and philanthropists; of mystics, statesmen, and scholars; of religious organizers and Zionist leaders. In so doing she uncovers surprising facts about well-known figures. For example, Theodor Herzl is widely honored as the father of the modern state of Israel, but did you know that he once dreamed of leading all the Jews of Vienna to St. Stephan Cathedral to undergo mass baptism? Readers who recognize Rashi as the most famous of all biblical commentators may be startled to learn that his concise style was a function of his tight budget. The book includes suggestions for further reading, an appendix, a glossary, and an index. Illustrations and photographs accompany the text, and a biographical fact box for each profile provides for easy reference. All these features make Links in the Chain an ideal introduction to Jewish role models for younger readers and a vital reference for all interested in Jewish history. Moreover, the book is a reminder that Jewish tradition is still evolving and that each reader has the potential to contribute to it. 41 extended essays profile the lives and contributions of Jewish heroes, including: Johanan ben Zakkai, the spiritual and intellectual leader who reshaped Jewish life after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Dona Gracia Nasi, the outstanding 16th-century leader who led the equivalent of an underground railroad to lead fugitive Marranos to safety. Rebecca Gratz, said to have been the model for the character Rebecca in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, who spearheaded the development of Jewish Sunday schools in the United States. Leopold Zunz, whose transformation of Jewish scholarship in the 19th century ultimately led to the existence of Judaica departments and programs in major universities. Lily Montagu, whose unsatisfying Orthodox childhood as a child of privilege in Victorian England transformed her into a 20th-century leader of British and world liberal Judaism. Isaac Mayer Wise, the early leader of Reform Judaism in the United States, who conceived of and helped bring into existence many of the institutions of contemporary American Judaism. Eliezer Ben Yehudah, the father of modern Hebrew, who nearly singlehandedly transformed Hebrew from an ancient religious language into a spoken modern one.

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