Philosophy

ISBN: 9781405293785
Title: TAO OF POOH
Author: HOFF BENJAMIN
Format: PAPER COVER
Publishing status: TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

The Tao of Pooh. The how of Pooh? The Tao of who? The Tao of Pooh!

Winnie-the-Pooh has a certain Way about him, a way of doing things which has made him the world's most beloved bear, and Pooh's Way, as Benjamin Hoff brilliantly demonstrates, seems strangely close to the ancient Chinese principles of Taoism.

While Eeyore frets... and Piglet hesitates... and Owl pontificates... Pooh just is.

The Tao of Pooh is a philosophical study of Winnie-the-Pooh that demonstrates that the ancient wisdom of the Tao courses its way through this delightful book in a most mysterious way.

Imprint: Egmont Books
RRP: $22.99

ISBN: 9781405293778
Title: TAO OF POOH AND THE TE OF PIGLET
Author: HOFF BENJAMIN
Format: PAPER COVER
Publishing status: TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

"It's hard to be brave,' said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal."

Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: "It is because you are a very small animal that you will be useful in the adventure before us."

Winnie-the-Pooh has a certain way about him, a way of doing things that has made him the world's most beloved bear, and Pooh's Way, as Benjamin Hoff brilliantly demonstrates, seems strangely close to the ancient Chinese principles of Taoism. And as for Piglet, he embodies the very important principle of Te, meaning Virtue of the Small. Benjamin Hoff's explanations of Taoism and Te through Pooh and Piglet show that this is not an ancient and remote philosophy but something that you can use, here and now.

An utterly unique book which makes complex concepts accessible with a little help from Pooh and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood. Pooh may be a Bear of Very Little Brain but there are lessons to be learned from his approach to life. Beautifully illustrated by E H Shepard.

Imprint: Egmont Books
RRP: $29.99

ISBN: 9780141986166
Title: THANK YOU FOR ARGUING : What Cicero Shakespeare and the Simpsons Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion
Author: HEINRICHS JAY
Format: PAPER COVER
Publishing status: TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

This is your master class in the art of persuasion, drawing on everything from classical oratory to contemporary politics and pop-culture to show you how to win more than your fair share of arguments, as well as-

* How to get noticed in meetings at work, avoid speeding tickets, even outwit argumentative family members

* Defuse an angry accuser and turn a verbal slip-up into a victory

* The secrets of Cicero's strategy for moving an audience, and how politicians rally their followers

Written by one of today's most popular language experts, this is the essential guide for anyone who really, really wants to get their own way.

Imprint: PENGUIN BOOKS
RRP: $24.99

ISBN: 9780691218885
Title: THINK LEAST OF DEATH : Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die
Author: NADLER STEVEN
Format: TRADE PAPER COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

From Pulitzer Prize-finalist Steven Nadler, an engaging guide to what Spinoza can teach us about life's big questions.

In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam's Portuguese-Jewish community for 'abominable heresies' and 'monstrous deeds,' the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family's import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza's views has long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to answer one of humanity's most urgent questions: How can we lead a good life and enjoy happiness in a world without a providential God? In Think Least of Death, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Steven Nadler connects Spinoza's ideas with his life and times to offer a compelling account of how the philosopher can provide a guide to living one's best life.

In the Ethics, Spinoza presents his vision of the ideal human being, the 'free person' who, motivated by reason, lives a life of joy devoted to what is most important-improving oneself and others. Untroubled by passions such as hate, greed, and envy, free people treat others with benevolence, justice, and charity. Focusing on the rewards of goodness, they enjoy the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. 'The free person thinks least of all of death,' Spinoza writes, 'and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.'

Imprint: Princeton University Press
RRP: $29.99

ISBN: 9781107698505
Title: THINKING THROUGH THE BODY : ESSAYS IN SOMAESTHETICS
Author: SHUSTERMAN RICHARD
Format: TRADE PAPER COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

This book provides a richly rewarding vision of the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of somaesthetics. Composed of fourteen wide-ranging but finely integrated essays by Richard Shusterman, the originator of the field, Thinking through the Body explains the philosophical foundations of somaesthetics and applies its insights to central issues in ethics, education, cultural politics, consciousness studies, sexuality and the arts. Integrating Western philosophy, cognitive science and somatic methodologies with classical Asian theories of body, mind and action, these essays probe the nature of somatic existence and the role of body consciousness in knowledge, memory and behavior. Deploying somaesthetic perspectives to analyze key aesthetic concepts (such as style and the sublime), he offers detailed studies of embodiment in drama, dance, architecture and photography. The volume also includes somaesthetic exercises for the classroom and explores the ars erotica as an art of living.

Imprint: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY
RRP: $54.99

ISBN: 9781788163019
Title: THIS LIFE
Author: HAGGLUND MARTIN
Format: PAPER COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

If this life is all there is, what should we do with it? Join Swedish philosopher Martin Hagglund on an original inquiry into the deepest questions of existence, beginning with a radical declaration: 'What I do and what I love can matter to me only because I understand myself as mortal.'

Through revelatory engagements with some of history's greatest philosophers, including Aristotle, St Augustine, Nietzsche, Hegel and Marx, Hagglund attacks our two great deceivers, religion and capitalism. Only by stripping away their subtle illusions can we discover the true value of our earthly freedom.

Existence is revealed as a collective project: everything is at stake in what we do together, and no victory can survive us. 'The light of bliss - even when it floods your life - is always attended by the shadow of loss.' By illuminating this truth, This Life forges an existential philosophy fit for a darkening century.

Imprint: Profile Books
RRP: $24.99

ISBN: 9780140441185
Title: THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
Author: NIETZSCHE FRIEDRICH
Format: PAPER COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religiouspieties or meek submission, but in an all-powerful life force: passionate, chaotic & free.

Imprint: Penguin Black Classic
RRP: $14.99

ISBN: 9781844673018
Title: TICKLISH SUBJECT
Author: ZIZEK SLAVOJ
Format: TRADE PAPER COVER
Publishing status: TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

Slavoj Zizek, the maverick philosopher, author of over 30 books, acclaimed as the "Elvis of cultural theory," and today's most controversial public intellectual. His work traverses the fields of philosophy, psychoanalysis, theology, history and political theory, taking in film, popular culture, literature and jokes--all to provide acute analyses of the complexities of contemporary ideology as well as a serious and sophisticated philosophy. His recent films "The Pervert's Guide to the Cinema" and "Zizek!" reveal a theorist at the peak of his powers and a skilled communicator. Now Verso is making his classic titles, each of which stand as a core of his ever-expanding life's work, available as new editions. Each is beautifully re-packaged, including new introductions from Zizek himself. Simply put, they are the essential texts for understanding Zizek's thought and thus cornerstones of contemporary philosophy. "The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology" A specter is haunting Western thought, the specter of the Cartesian subject. In this book Slavoj Zizek unearths a subversive core to this elusive specter, and finds within it the indispensable philosophical point of reference for any genuinely emancipatory project.

Imprint: VERSO
RRP: $35.00

ISBN: 9780241352168
Title: TIME OF THE MAGICIANS : The Invention of Modern Thought, 1919-1929
Author: EILENBERGER WOLFRAM
Format: HARD COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

The year is 1919. Walter Benjamin flees his overbearing father to scrape a living as a jobbing critic. Ludwig Wittgenstein signs away his inheritance to teach schoolchildren in a provincial Austrian village, seeking spiritual clarity. Martin Heidegger renounces his faith and align his fortunes with the phenomenological school of Edmund Husserl. Ernst Cassirer sketches a new schema of human culture at the back of a cramped Berlin tram. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which will unfold over the next decade. The lives and thought of this quartet will converge and intertwine as each gains world historical significance, between them remaking philosophy.

Time of the Magicians tells the story of this revolution in Western thought through the remarkable and turbulent lives of its four protagonists, showing philosophy not gifted from on high but worked out in the mess of everyday life, and illuminating with rare clarity their ideas.

Imprint: Allen Lane
RRP: $49.99

ISBN: 9780415254083
Title: TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS
Author: WITTGENSTEIN LUDWIG
Format: PAPER COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme brilliance, it captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. For Wittgenstein, logic was something we use to conquer a reality which is in itself both elusive and unobtainable. He famously summarized the book in the following words: 'What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.' David Pears and Brian McGuinness received the highest praise for their meticulous translation. The work is prefaced by Bertrand Russell's original introduction to the first English edition.

Imprint: Routledge
RRP: $29.99

ISBN: 9780300252217
Title: TRAGEDY
Author: EAGLETON TERRY
Format: HARD COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

A new account of tragedy and its fundamental position in Western culture

In this compelling account, eminent literary critic Terry Eagleton explores the nuances of tragedy in Western culture-from literature and politics to philosophy and theater.
Eagleton covers a vast array of thinkers and practitioners, including Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, and Slavoj Zizek, as well as key figures in theater, from Sophocles and Aeschylus to Shakespeare and Ibsen.

Eagleton examines the political nature of tragedy, looking closely at its connection with periods of historical transition. The dramatic form originated not as a meditation on the human condition, but at moments of political engagement, when civilizations struggled with the conflicts that beset them. Tragedy, Eagleton demonstrates, is fundamental to human experience and culture.

Imprint: Yale University Press
RRP: $41.95

ISBN: 9781788161480
Title: TRAGEDY THE GREEKS AND US
Author: CRITCHLEY SIMON
Format: PAPER COVER
Publishing status: ACTIVE TITLE

We might think we are through with the past, but the past isn't through with us. Tragedy permits us to come face to face with the things we don't want to know about ourselves, but which still make us who we are. It articulates the conflicts and contradictions that we need to address in order to better understand the world we live in.

A work honed from a decade's teaching at the New School, where 'Critchley on Tragedy' is one of the most popular courses, Tragedy, the Greeks and Us is a compelling examination of the history of tragedy. Simon Critchley demolishes our common misconceptions about the poets, dramatists and philosophers of Ancient Greece - then presents these writers to us in an unfamiliar and original light.

Imprint: Profile Books
RRP: $22.99