Philosophy

The goddess Folly gives a speech, praising herself and explaining how much humanity benefits from her services, from politicians to philosophers, aristocrats, schoolteachers, poets, lawyers, theologians, monarchs and the clergy....

Born in poverty in India, Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) became a leading spiritual and philosophical thinker whose ideas continue to influence us today. George Bernard Shaw declared that he was the...

'An astonishing masterpiece ... a political classic ... has an almost biblical force' Eric HobsbawmThe Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels' revolutionary 1848 summons to the working classes, is one of...

Why has there been such an explosion of discussion about sex in the west since the 17th century? Here, one of France's greatest intellectuals explores the evolving social, economic and...

Nietzsche is one of the most influential philosophers of the modern age.

"What's this you're writing?... asked Pooh, climbing onto the writing table."The Tao of Pooh,... I replied."The how of Pooh?... asked Pooh, smudging one of the words I had just written."The...

In Utopia, Thomas More gives us a traveller's account of a newly discovered island where the inhabitants enjoy a social order based on natural reason and justice, and human fulfilment...

Written by one of the foremost Italian philosophers of the 20th century, Emanuele Severino's Law and Chance (Legge e Caso) explores how the concept of laws and legality push against...

Robert Bly writes that it is clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by popular culture are worn out, that a man can no longer depend on...

Translated by Yuan Shibing and J.J.L.Duyvendak. With introductions by Robert Wilkinson.The two political classics in this book are the product of a time of intense turmoil in Chinese history. Dating...

Translated by Thomas Common. With an Introduction by Nicholas Davey.This astonishing series of aphorisms, put into the mouth of the Persian sage Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, contains the kernel of Nietzsche's...

Translated by C.E.Detmold. With an Introduction by Lucille Margaret Kekewich.Written in 1513 for the Medici, following their return to power in Florence, The Prince is a handbook on ruling and...

With an Introduction by Dr Richard Serjeantson, Trinity College, CambridgeSince its first publication in 1651, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan has been recognised as one of the most compelling, and most controversial,...

Translated by Antony M. Ludovici. With an Introduction by Ray Furness.The three works in this collection, all dating from Nietzsche's last lucid months, show him at his most stimulating and...

Just and Unjust Wars forever changed the way we think about the ethics of conflict. First published in 1977 and now brought up to the present with a new preface...

In this unique and important book, one of the world's great spiritual leaders offers his practical wisdom and advice on how we can overcome everyday human problems and achieve lasting...

'Don't hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen'How can we cope when life's events seem beyond our control? These words...

'A brilliant display of fireworks, attacking the widespread and banal notion that "in the beginning" sexual activity was guilt-free and delicious, being repressed and blighted only by the gloom of...

'Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live ... while you have life in you, while you still can, make yourself good.'The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius...

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have...

A few weeks before he died, Hunter S. Thompson left an answerphone message for Jackass' Johnny Knoxville: "I might be coming to Baton Rouge... and if I do I will...

There is a radical agency in John Moriarty's work that we as readers don't always spot. As our heads spin with mythological cross-referencing, poetical leaps and the philosophical bent, it...

'In this thought-provoking book, Massimo Pigliucci shares his journey of discovering the power of Stoic practices in a philosophical dialogue with one of Stoicism's greatest teachers.' RYAN HOLIDAY, BESTSELLING AUTHOR...

Over the past sixty years the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre have probably been more influential in the West than those of any other philosopher and literary figure. In his theoretical...

From the bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold book that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibilityWhy should...

Jean-Paul Sartre's first published novel, Nausea is both an extended essay on existentialist ideals, and a profound fictional exploration of a man struggling to restore a sense of meaning to...

'A landmark contribution to humanity's understanding of itself' The New York TimesWhy can it sometimes feel as though half the population is living in a different moral universe? Why do...

Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary thinkers in Western philosophy. Here he sets out his subversive views in a series of aphorisms on subjects ranging from art to...

'Really made me think about how I think' - Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit WestTough times don't last. Tough people do. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly...

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have...

'One of the greatest books of a very great thinker' Michael TannerBeyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically rejects...

For readers of E. H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World, an equally irresistible volume that brings history's greatest philosophers to life"A primer in human existence: philosophy has rarely...

'He who thinks freely for himself, honours all freedom on earth.'Stefan Zweig was already an emigre-driven from a Europe torn apart by brutality and totalitarianism-when he found, in a damp...

A radical work of philosophy, which sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche...

** As heard on Book of the Week, Radio 4 **'This book is about change.'We are all storytellers - we make stories to make sense of our lives. But it...

'Who since Weber, or perhaps even Hobbes, has done as much to show why power is such a profound, elusive and treacherous presence throughout our experience?' The Times Higher EducationThe...

Plato, Allan Bloom wrote, is "the most erotic of philosophers," and his Symposium is one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. This new edition brings...

*New York Times bestseller*How a force that's hard to name, but which we all feel, is reshaping what it means to be humanIn Against the Machine, "furiously gifted" (The Washington...

THE MULTI-MILLION COPY SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERAn updated and expanded edition of the book that launched a global phenomenon: daily doses of practical, uplifting philosophy complete with bonus material from the...

Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan is arguably the greatest piece of political philosophy written in the English language. Written in a time of great political turmoil (Hobbes' life spanned the reign of...

The life and work of Sigmund Freud continue to fascinate general and professional readers alike. Joel Whitebook here presents the first major biography of Freud since the last century, taking...