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50 Philosophy Classics: Thinking, Being, Acting Seeing - Profound Insights and Powerful Thinking from Fifty Key Books
For over 2000 years, philosophy has been our best guide to the experience of being human, and the true nature of reality.
From Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Confucius, Cicero and Heraclitus in ancient times to 17th century rationalists Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, from 20th-century greats Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Baudrillard and Simone de Beauvoir to contemporary thinkers Michael Sandel, Peter Singer and Slavoj Zizek, 50 Philosophy Classics explores key writings that have shaped the discipline and had an impact on the real world.
This is the thinking person's guide to a uniquely powerful tool for opening our minds and helping us view the world. It synthesises the 50 greatest books ever written, distilling hundreds of ideas from across the centuries with insightful commentary, key quotes and biographical information on the authors.
The revised edition
· include 7 new contemporary or timely classics such as Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit, Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox and Mary Midgely's Myths We Live By.
· include a reader code to access a free pack of downloadable bonus material
· have a revised introduction to reflect on the current relevance of philosophy today with topical themes to have emerged in the 9 years since the last edition was written.
· have some of the less relevant titles removed
"50 Philosophy Classics is an impressively wide-ranging compendium of nutshell clarity. It strikes just the right balance between contextual analysis, and breezy illustrative anecdote."
Dr Phil Oliver, Department of Philosophy, Middle Tennessee State University, USA
From Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Confucius, Cicero and Heraclitus in ancient times to 17th century rationalists Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, from 20th-century greats Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Baudrillard and Simone de Beauvoir to contemporary thinkers Michael Sandel, Peter Singer and Slavoj Zizek, 50 Philosophy Classics explores key writings that have shaped the discipline and had an impact on the real world.
This is the thinking person's guide to a uniquely powerful tool for opening our minds and helping us view the world. It synthesises the 50 greatest books ever written, distilling hundreds of ideas from across the centuries with insightful commentary, key quotes and biographical information on the authors.
The revised edition
· include 7 new contemporary or timely classics such as Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit, Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox and Mary Midgely's Myths We Live By.
· include a reader code to access a free pack of downloadable bonus material
· have a revised introduction to reflect on the current relevance of philosophy today with topical themes to have emerged in the 9 years since the last edition was written.
· have some of the less relevant titles removed
"50 Philosophy Classics is an impressively wide-ranging compendium of nutshell clarity. It strikes just the right balance between contextual analysis, and breezy illustrative anecdote."
Dr Phil Oliver, Department of Philosophy, Middle Tennessee State University, USA
- GenresNonfictionPhilosophy
544 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 14, 2022
29 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 14, 2023
He's done a neat stunt, distilled 400 books
into eight booklets
So you can figure out how to some something beyond the Great Books Program of just reading
Greek Classics and most of the major novels around, and a few other things.
Success
Spirituality
Psychology
Prosperity
Philosophy
Politics
Economics
Business
Where you can throw Marshal MacLuhan, Samuel P. Huntington, John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Samuelson, and Warren Buffet in there!
I just hope he doesn't weed out older authors for newer ones, in later editions, but goes on to write books where they can be part II and tackle books 51-100 on the same subject.
I might not agree with 15% of the books, but i think he's done a fine job of the culturally important books, yet still catering to the mainstream.
-----
oh yeah, one thing on his website, and perhaps hidden somewhere in his mysterious books, is that he creates one sentence to brilliantly summarize the books importance.
Some of the books i really really dislike are within these chosen classics
but i really got a kick out of a decent summary of
WHY
some of the books i don't like, are meaningful for expressing an interesting view.
like Marx, Foucault, von Mieses, von Hayek, Steven Pinker etc...
oh and all the Ayn Rand books, well okay two of them
but the one sentence summaries are great!
-----
Quote
I feel my job is to mine the often transformative information in books and bring it to a bigger audience. Most people only have the time to read a few books a year, but just a single important insight could put them on the path to something great.
What drives me is the idea that at some point in the future, the average person will possess much more knowledge than what is acceptable now.
The possession of knowledge on its own doesn’t automatically translate into success, but what it does do is provide more references against which to check new information.
For instance, it is easy to get swayed by some new idea or movement on social media or television, but if you have some grounding in history or economics, you will be able to say,
“This idea has come around before, and it didn’t work”.
"What has been shown to work is x, y or z."
into eight booklets
So you can figure out how to some something beyond the Great Books Program of just reading
Greek Classics and most of the major novels around, and a few other things.
Success
Spirituality
Psychology
Prosperity
Philosophy
Politics
Economics
Business
Where you can throw Marshal MacLuhan, Samuel P. Huntington, John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Samuelson, and Warren Buffet in there!
I just hope he doesn't weed out older authors for newer ones, in later editions, but goes on to write books where they can be part II and tackle books 51-100 on the same subject.
I might not agree with 15% of the books, but i think he's done a fine job of the culturally important books, yet still catering to the mainstream.
-----
oh yeah, one thing on his website, and perhaps hidden somewhere in his mysterious books, is that he creates one sentence to brilliantly summarize the books importance.
Some of the books i really really dislike are within these chosen classics
but i really got a kick out of a decent summary of
WHY
some of the books i don't like, are meaningful for expressing an interesting view.
like Marx, Foucault, von Mieses, von Hayek, Steven Pinker etc...
oh and all the Ayn Rand books, well okay two of them
but the one sentence summaries are great!
-----
Quote
I feel my job is to mine the often transformative information in books and bring it to a bigger audience. Most people only have the time to read a few books a year, but just a single important insight could put them on the path to something great.
What drives me is the idea that at some point in the future, the average person will possess much more knowledge than what is acceptable now.
The possession of knowledge on its own doesn’t automatically translate into success, but what it does do is provide more references against which to check new information.
For instance, it is easy to get swayed by some new idea or movement on social media or television, but if you have some grounding in history or economics, you will be able to say,
“This idea has come around before, and it didn’t work”.
"What has been shown to work is x, y or z."
Displaying 1 of 1 review