Showing results for "On Philosophy" in Literature & Fiction

The final and most personal work from Pulitzer Prize - winning author and historian Will Durant - discovered 32 years after his death - is a message of insight for everyone who has sought meaning in life or the council of a wise friend in navigating life's journey. From 1968 to 1978, Will Durant made four public allusions to the existence of Fallen Leaves. One, in 1975, hinted at its contents: "a not very serious book that answers the questions of what I think about government, life, death, and God."

Baron Friedrich von Hugel was a lay Catholic theologian whose work was influential during the rise of modernist thought. His Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion became a favorite work of later Christian writers C.S. Lewis and Flannery O'Connor. The book compiled previously written material into a single collection, divided into three parts: the first, on religion and theism in general; the second, on Christ's teachings and Christianity in general; the third, on the Catholic Church. - Summary by Dylan P. Straub

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and a life-long committed Darwinist, abridges and reads this special audio version of Charles Darwin's famous book. A literally world-changing book, Darwin put forward the anti-religious and scientific idea that humans in fact evolved over millions of generations from animals, starting with fish, all the way up through the ranks to apes, then to our current form.

Perfect for any listener who is searching for a deceptively simple yet powerful approach to life, this book offers you a source of inner strength and guidance, allowing you to enrich your life and face your challenges with a renewed level of insight.

Rene Descartes, mathematician, scientist, and first "modern philosopher", wrote Meditations on First Philosophy, a six-part treatise first published in Latin in 1641, to deconstruct "belief" and, using reason and science, discuss the only things we can truly know for sure. Each of the six parts of this book represents six of Descartes’ meditations that occurred on six subsequent days, making it also, in no small part, an autobiographical piece of work.

In On the Genealogy of Morals, subtitled "A Polemic", Nietzsche furthers his pursuit of a clarity that is less tainted by imposed prejudices. He looks at the way attitudes towards 'morality' evolved and the way congenital ideas of morality were heavily colored by the Judaic and Christian traditions.

Have you ever wondered…whether God exists? whether life has meaning? Whether pain and suffering have a purpose? This audiobook is my invitation to sit down with C. S. Lewis and me to think about some of the persistent questions and dilemmas every person faces in life. We’ll explore Lewis’s thoughts on everything from friendships to heaven, from the reasons for faith to the power of stories.

The Letters of Euler to a German Princess have acquired over all Europe a celebrity to which the reputation of the Author, the choice and importance of the several subjects, and the clearness of elucidation justly entitle them. They have deservedly been considered as a treasury of science, adapted to the purposes of every common seminary of learning. They may be studied to advantage without much previous elementary knowledge; they convey accurate ideas respecting a variety of objects, highly interesting in themselves, or calculated to excite a laudable curiosity; they inspire a proper taste ...

David Hume, a luminary of 18th-century Scottish intellectual circles, left an indelible imprint on philosophy and theology. His profound speculations arguably held the most significant influence of his era, rivalled only by Adam Smith in a certain sphere. Humes impact was not immediately recognized, with time needed to dispel misconceptions and reveal his true intellectual stature. Now, over a century later, we can appreciate his work and its repercussions more objectively. Hume is undeniably a grand and autonomous thinker, and this text examines his philosophical approach as an attempt to ...

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written. The poem was produced in the middle of first century B.C., a period that was to witness a flowering of Latin literature unequaled for beauty and intellectual power in subsequent ages. The Latin title, De Rerum Natura, translates literally to On the Nature of Things and is meant to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of Epicurean philosophy.

Through the simple act of writing we begin a process with prehistoric origins—one that sets us apart from every other living creature. Thomas Moore on Writing is an elegant reflection on the sacredness of words and their creation. Moore teaches that each word we write—whether it is part of a...

Archibald Abercrombie is a meticulous dentist whose orderly life is briefly upended after a chance meeting with the exuberant writer G. K. Chesterton. While initially intoxicated by Chesterton’s brilliant paradoxes and disregard for convention, Abercrombie gradually notices the physical decay and practical neglect hidden beneath the author’s verbal abundance. He eventually realizes that while intellectual spectacle can inspire, it often evades the necessary responsibility of repair and care.

In his dialogues, the Stoic philosopher Seneca outlines his thoughts on how to live in a troubled world. Tutor to the young emperor Nero, Seneca wrote practical philosophical exercises that draw upon contemporary Roman life and illuminate the intellectual concerns of the day. The dialogues also have much to say to the modern listener, as they range widely across subjects such as the shortness of life, tranquility of mind, anger, mercy, happiness, and grief at the loss of a loved one.

This scientific writing, which was considered to be the groundwork of evolutionary biology, presented the theory that species developed over a line of originations through a method of natural selection. It imparted evidence that the variety of life resulted from a common descent via a branching model of evolution.

On the Social Contract's appeal and influence has been wide-ranging and continuous. It has been called an encomium to democracy and, at the same time, a blueprint for totalitarianism. Individualists, collectivists, anarchists, and socialists have all taken courage from Rousseau's controversial masterpiece.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics and government.

In this daring and insightful work, Nietzsche lays bare the hypocrisies at the foundations of our ideas of morality. Considering ideas of good and evil, guilt and conscience, and law and violence along the way, On the Genealogy of Morals takes the listener on a journey through the history of value systems in three masterful essays.

The Nature of Things was written in the 1st century BC by Roman polymath Lucretius. It is written as a didactic poem, and explains Epicurean physics.

Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is mortal, and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature and not by gods; and that by believing this men can live in peace of mind and happiness. He bases this on the atomic theory expounded by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, and continues with an examination of sensation, sex, cosmology, meteorology, and geology.

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was first published in 1849. The book is an account of the Thoreau brothers' river journey on the Concord River from Concord to Lowell, Massachusetts, where it connects with the Merrimack River. Arranged in seven chapters, one for each day of the boat trip, the book describes the rivers, islets and inlets, the woods, the plants, animals, and the people that they encountered on the journey.