Philosophy

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most important philosophical and political thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings had a potency that was irresistible to the intellectual scene that swept post-war Europe, and have left a vital inheritance to contemporary thought. The central tenet of the Existentialist movement which he helped to found, whereby God is replaced by an ethical self, proved hugely attractive to a generation that had seen the horrors of Nazism, and provoked a revolution in post-war thought and literature. In What is Literature? Sartre the novelist and Sartre the philosopher combine to address the phenomenon of literature, exploring why we read, and why we write.

Imprint: Routledge
RRP: $24.99

The last major book from one of Britain's most respected and popular female philosophers, Mary Midgley. What Is Philosophy for? asks the big questions at the heart of philosophy and doesn't shy away from coming up with some unsettling answers

Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy' Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy' Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion- a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives'

Mary Midgley addresses these provocative questions in her most up-to-date statement on the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and the life of the mind.
This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value.

Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing
RRP: $34.99

This work examines what it means to be a philosopher and attacks the sterility of modern philosophy. Part One explores the nature and scope of philosophy and its relation to social and economic development. Part Two considers other forms of thought: science, art, literature and music.

Imprint: VERSO
RRP: $32.99

How can Kant comfort you when you get dumped via text message? How can Aristotle cure your hangover? How can Heidegger make you feel better when your dog dies?


When You Kant Figure It Out, Ask a Philosopher explains how pearls of wisdom from the greatest Western philosophers can help us face and make light of some of the daily challenges of modern life. In twelve clever, accessible chapters, you'll get advice from Epicurus about how to disconnect from constant news alerts and social media updates, Nietzsche's take on getting in shape, John Stuart Mill's tips for handling bad birthday presents, and many other ancient pearls of wisdom to help you navigate life today.

Hilarious, practical, and edifying, When You Kant Figure It Out, Ask a Philosopher brings the best thinkers of the past into the 21st Century to help us all make sense of a chaotic new world.

Imprint: Viking Books
RRP: $26.99

From one of America’s greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.

Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution shaped the human brain. The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain.

But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out thousands of years ago what scientists are only discovering now. Buddhism holds that human suffering is a result of not seeing the world clearly—and proposes that seeing the world more clearly, through meditation, will make us better, happier people.

In Why Buddhism is True, Wright leads readers on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age. At once excitingly ambitious and wittily accessible, this is the first book to combine evolutionary psychology with cutting-edge neuroscience to defend the radical claims at the heart of Buddhist philosophy. With bracing honesty and fierce wisdom, it will persuade you not just that Buddhism is true—which is to say, a way out of our delusion—but that it can ultimately save us from ourselves, as individuals and as a species.

Imprint: Simon & Schuster
RRP: $24.99

Buddhism has become a uniquely favored religion in our modern age. A burgeoning number of books extol the scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness for everything ranging from business to romance. There are conferences, courses, and celebrities promoting the notion that Buddhism is spirituality for the rational; compatible with cutting-edge science; indeed, &;a science of the mind.&; In this provocative book, Evan Thompson argues that this representation of Buddhism is false.

In lucid and entertaining prose, Thompson dives deep into both Western and Buddhist philosophy to explain how the goals of science and religion are fundamentally different. Efforts to seek their unification are wrongheaded and promote mistaken ideas of both. He suggests cosmopolitanism instead, a worldview with deep roots in both Eastern and Western traditions. Smart, sympathetic, and intellectually ambitious, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in Buddhism&;s place in our world today.

Imprint: Yale University Press
RRP: $41.99

In this combative, controversial book, Terry Eagleton takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism - that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on - he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, Why Marx Was Right is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with Eagleton's familiar wit, humor, and clarity, it will attract an audience far beyond the confines of academia.

Imprint: Yale University Press
RRP: $27.99

Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when our own politicians don’t? In this landmark book, Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength—and the greatest reason we can trust it.

Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late nineteenth century to today, Oreskes explains that, contrary to popular belief, there is no single scientific method. Rather, the trustworthiness of scientific claims derives from the social process by which they are rigorously vetted. This process is not perfect—nothing ever is when humans are involved—but she draws vital lessons from cases where scientists got it wrong. Oreskes shows how consensus is a crucial indicator of when a scientific matter has been settled, and when the knowledge produced is likely to be trustworthy.

Based on the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Princeton University, this timely and provocative book features critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo.

Imprint: Princeton University Press
RRP: $49.99

The Will to Power contains some of Nietzsche's most fascinating and combative writings on nihilism, metaphysics and the future of Europe. Assembled by Nietzsche's sister after his death,
The Will to Power is a collection of the philosopher's reflections and theories taken from his unpublished notebooks. Covering topics such as nihilism, Christianity, morality and the famous 'will to power', the book was controversially presented as Nietzsche's all-but-completed magnum opus containing his philosophical system. Including some of his most interesting metaphysical and epistemological thoughts, as well as some of his most disturbing ethical and political comments, the book would prove to have a significant influence on Nietzsche's contentious reception in the twentieth century.

Imprint: Penguin Black Classic
RRP: $22.99

Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung is one of the most important philosophical works of the nineteenth century, the basic statement of one important stream of post-Kantian thought. It is without question Schopenhauer's greatest work. Conceived and published before the philosopher was 30 and expanded 25 years later, it is the summation of a lifetime of thought.

For 70 years, the only unabridged English translation of this work was the Haldane-Kemp collaboration. In 1958, a new translation by E. F. J. Payne appeared that decisively supplanted the older one. Payne's translation is superior because it corrects nearly 1,000 errors and omissions in the Haldane-Kemp translation, and it is based on the definitive 1937 German edition of Schopenhauer's work prepared by Dr. Arthur Hubscher. Payne's edition is the first to translate into English the text's many quotations in half a dozen languages. It is thus the most useful edition for the student or teacher.

Imprint: DOVER
RRP: $44.99

Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung is one of the most important philosophical works of the 19th century, the basic statement of one important stream of post-Kantian thought. It is without question Schopenhauer's greatest work, and, conceived and published before the philosopher was 30 and expanded 25 years later, it is the summation of a lifetime of thought.

For 70 years, the only unabridged English translation of this work was the Haldane-Kemp collaboration. In 1958, a new translation by E. F. J. Payne appeared which decisively supplanted the older one. Payne's translation is superior because it corrects nearly 1,000 errors and omissions in the Haldane-Kemp translation, and it is based on the definitive 1937 German edition of Schopenhauer's work prepared by Dr. Arthur Hubscher. Payne's edition is the first to translate into English the text's many quotatioins in half a dozen languages, and Mr. Payne has provided a comprehensive index of 2,500 items. It is thus the most useful edition for the student or teacher.

Imprint: DOVER
RRP: $32.99

'In simple prose Merleau-Ponty touches on his principle themes. He speaks about the body and the world, the coexistence of space and things, the unfortunate optimism of science - and also the insidious stickiness of honey, and the mystery of anger.' - James Elkins Maurice

Merleau-Ponty was one of the most important thinkers of the post-war era. Central to his thought was the idea that human understanding comes from our bodily experience of the world that we perceive: a deceptively simple argument, perhaps, but one that he felt had to be made in the wake of attacks from contemporary science and the philosophy of Descartes on the reliability of human perception.

From this starting point, Merleau-Ponty presented these seven lectures on The World of Perception to French radio listeners in 1948.

Available in a paperback English translation for the first time in the Routledge Classics series to mark the centenary of Merleau-Ponty's birth, this is a dazzling and accessible guide to a whole universe of experience, from the pursuit of scientific knowledge, through the psychic life of animals to the glories of the art of Paul Cezanne.

Imprint: Routledge
RRP: $29.99