Non-Fiction

As politics slides toward impulsivity, and outrage bests rationality, how can philosophy help us critically engage with the world?How to Think Like A Philosopher is a revelatory exploration of the...

Scientist, mathematician, traveller, soldier -- and spy -- Rene Descartes has been called the 'father of modern philosophy'. Born in 1596 into an era still dominated by the medieval mindset,...

Even after twenty-three centuries Plato's work remains the starting-point for the study of logic, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy. But though his dialogues retain their freshness and immediacy, they...

No nineteenth-century American writer can claim to be as modern as Henry David Thoreau. His central preoccupations - the illusory nature of much of what we call 'progress', the proper...

This lively and accessible introduction to Plato focuses on the philosophy and argument of his writings, drawing the reader into Plato's way of doing philosophy, and the general themes of...

Philosophy for Everyone begins by explaining what philosophy is before exploring the questions and issues at the foundation of this important subject.Key topics in this new edition and their areas...

How do we know what we "know"? How did we -as individuals and as a society - come to accept certain knowledge as fact? In Human Knowledge, Bertrand Russell questions...

This volume presents the original English edition of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, one of the most influential philosophical works of the 20th century. The last product of intensive work by Wittgenstein...

It's time to rethink our attitudes to work.For too long we have convinced ourselves that the only jobs worth doing involve sitting at a desk. Generations of school-leavers head for...

A riveting, original book about the creation of the modern American mind. The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas....

Republic is the central work of the Western world's most famous philosopher. Essentially an inquiry into morality, Republic also contains crucial arguments and insights into many other areas of philosophy....

Large inequalities of income in a society have often been regarded as divisive and corrosive, and it is common knowledge that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and...

'A wonderful book. If you come across it, you must read it.' - John CleeseWhat does it mean for someone to be an a**hole? The answer is not obvious, despite...

Sun Tzu was one of the greatest army generals who ever lived. He wrote The Art of War in the fifth century BC and yet his words are still resoundingly...

A NEW YORKER AND THE ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF 2022"Life Is Hard is a humane consolation for challenging times. Reading it is like speaking with a thoughtful friend who never...

In a secular society, does Christmas mean anything anymore? As we stuff ourselves with plumped-up turkeys, unwrap the latest useless gadget, and gather round the family tree, what real relevance...

In 1980 Alvin Gouldner identified two traditions of Marxist thought-Marxism as science and Marxism as critique. This book is concerned with the first and by far the most politically influential...

'The Precipice is a powerful book . . . Ord's love for humanity and hope for its future is infectious' Spectator'Ord's analysis of the science is exemplary . . ....

Society has a deep fear of ageing. Old age is increasingly viewed as a biomedical problem, something to be avoided at all costs and then vanished away by medicine. Anne...

Few figures in intellectual history have proved as notorious and ambiguous as Niccolo Machiavelli. But while his treatise The Prince made his name synonymous with autocratic ruthlessness and cynical manipulation,...

This book draws connections between Paulo Freire and some of the most influential critical scholars of the 20th century. Each chapter pairs Freire with one of eleven critical scholars, giving...

In Aristotle's teleological view of the world, natural things come to be and are present for the sake of some function or end (for example, wings are present in birds...

Foucault's writings on power and control in social institutions have made him one of the modern era's most influential thinkers. Here he argues that punishment has gone from being mere...

How to reclaim wonder in our lives and achieve the good life. All of us experience a sense of wonder at some point in our lives. Perhaps you felt it...

Otters are some of the most delightful animals on the planet. These long, lean, furry creatures embody pure joy in so many ways - they live for napping, playing, making...

Key Philosophers in Conversation is a fascinating collection of interviews presenting the ideas of some of the worlds leading contemporary philosophers. Each interview features a discussion with a key philosopher...

Have you ever lain awake at night fretting over how we can be sure of the reality of the external world? Perhaps we are in fact disembodied brains, floating in...

The new bestseller from one of Britain's most pre-eminent philosophers and arguably the best known, A.C. GraylingEveryone wishes to live a life that is satisfying and fulfilling, in which there...

Martin Heidegger's enthusiastic advocacy of Nazism has left discordant traces in the political culture of postmodernity. As a philosopher, he proposed an extraordinary thinking calculated to "overcome" Western philosophy. A...

Widely acclaimed as the most authoritative and accessible one-volume dictionary available in English (and now with translations into Chinese, Korean, Russian, Italian, and Spanish underway) this second edition offers an...

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are treasured today-as they have been over the centuries-as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. And as one of the three most important expressions of Stoicism,...

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) was one of America's foremost twentieth-century religious thinkers and social critics. As pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, he became deeply interested in social problems. He...

'Have little thought of self and as few desires as possible'Whether or not Lao Tzu was a historical figure is uncertain, but the wisdom gathered under his name in the...

'A serious - and seriously readable - book about the deep issues that our shallow age has foolishly tried to dodge' - Douglas Murray 'A crystal-clear analysis of the multiple...

What Socrates's greatest failure says about a 2,000 year old question: is it possible to teach ourselves and others to become better people? Can we make ourselves into better human...

Intolerance and bigotry lie at the heart of all human suffering. So claims Bertrand Russell at the outset of In Praise of Idleness, a collection of essays in which he...

Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the unique ability among animals to imitate and so copy from one another ideas, habits, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes,...

Hilary Putnam deals in this book with some of the most fundamental persistent problems in philosophy: the nature of truth, knowledge and rationality. His aim is to break down the...