Aesthetics

An updated version of the seminal 1994 classic volume on the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Nearly every book with "wabi" or "wabi sabi" in the title is based on the concepts first elucidated in this book....

In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics....

On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Crawford presents an articulated call for self-reliance....

A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book is fuelled by his enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, for the...

Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue invites us to remember and to awaken the Beautiful....

One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration....

Ecce Homo, subtitled How One Becomes What One Is, is the final original book written by Friedrich Nietzsche before he succumbed to the insanity which lasted until his death in 1900.... 

Philosopher Alva Noë explores the inseparability of life, art, and philosophy, arguing that we have greatly underestimated what this entangled reality means for understanding human nature....

There is a cause, or a reason, behind everything that happens. This is the fundamental view behind the classical proposition the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which, in 1813, Schopenhauer chose as his subject for further examination in his doctoral dissertation....

In A Philosophical Enquiry, Edmund Burke sets out to define the nature of beauty and sublimity, and establish an objective criterion for discussing aesthetics....

Everyone deplores narcissism, especially in others. The vain are by turns annoying or absurd, offending us whether they are blissfully oblivious or proudly aware of their behavior....

An exploration of cuteness and its immense hold on us, from emojis and fluffy puppies to its more uncanny, subversive expressions....

Imagination: A Very Short Introduction explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing, demonstrating how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways....

 The Art of Rhetoric, a guide on the principles behind oratorical skill, is a core text on the art of persuasion. Aristotle contends that rhetoric is one of the key elements of philosophy – along with logic and dialectic....  

Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, "The Philosophy of Composition", sets forth a theory on good writing. It first appeared in the April 1846 issue of Graham's Magazine, and Poe illustrates his theory on the composition of his poem, "The Raven"....