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A Great
General Introduction!
Philosophy:
An Introduction to the Art of Wondering,
by James L. Christian
This classic introductory text provides
a unique set of teaching tools for
instructors who prefer a synoptic
approach. The book is visually appealing
and reader friendly. Christian accents his
accessible writing with cartoons,
quotations, and related findings from the
social and physical sciences, reinforcing
his conception of philosophy as the
individual's attempt to unify disparate
world views. The style of writing makes
central philosophical concepts readily
engaging to students. Interspersed
biographies give the student a feeling for
the lives of the great thinkers who have
fashioned the Western philosophical
tradition and have determined largely how
we think today. Above all, this text
nurtures the analytical skills students
need to critically engage the "big
picture" of Western philosophy for
themselves.
"I used this textbook back in the 1970s
as a reference for an introductory
philosophy course I taught. It is a very
comprehensive introduction to philosophy
and I can recommend it especially to
adults who are interested in learning what
philosophy is all about." -- Dr. Jonathan
Dolhenty
Read
Dr. Dolhenty's Review of this Book
Order
at Amazon -- Order
at Powell's Books
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Highly
Recommended!
What's It All About? a Guide to
Life's Basic Questions and Answers, by
Richard de la Chaumière,
Ph.D.
There are certain basic questions which
thinking human beings have asked for
thousands of years. The questions remain
the same today as they were eons ago. On
the other hand, the answers to those
questions have varied with the ages and
the characters wrestling with them. It is
easy in today's world to ignore these
fundamental questions, surrounded as we
are with a pop-culture mentality and the
loud and distracting media which generally
offer little more than mindless
entertainment for the masses. It is also
easy in today's world, if one wants to
confront these basic questions either out
of desire or necessity, to find any number
of quick and instant solutions from
simplistic self-help manuals, to media
talking-heads offering up the latest fads
in philosophy and religion, to the
pseudo-intellectual gurus who will gladly
take your money in return for their latest
"fix" which promises you the "true" and
only true answer to those certain basic
questions. Well, I'll tell you right now
that this book by Dr. Richard de la
Chaumière doesn't fall into any of
the above categories.
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Read Dr. Dolhenty's review of this book
by clicking HERE.
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The One-Minute
Philosopher
Do you wonder whether you are being
frank or rude when dealing with others?
Are you pondering the differences between
chastity and prudery or fidelity and
idolatry? Confused about whether your
humility is really self-contempt? Unclear
if your new relationship is love or lust?
Philosopher Brown (of St. Anselm College)
offers an abecedary of short meditations
(from "Admiration" to "Wonder") that
provide the answers to these and other
questions.
Also from Dr. Montague
Brown...Half
Truths: What's Right and What's Wrong in
the Ideas You Live By
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"It is common," Alain de Botton writes
in The
Consolations of Philosophy,
"to assume that we are dealing with a
highly intelligent book when we cease to
understand it. Profound ideas cannot,
after all, be explained in the language of
children." While his easygoing exploration
of philosophers from Socrates to Nietzsche
isn't exactly written for the "Blue's
Clues" set, few readers will cease to
understand it. Furthermore, it's a joy to
read. De Botton's 1997 book How Proust
Can Change Your Life forged a new kind
of lit crit: an exploration of
Remembrance of Things Past,
delivered in the sweet-gummed envelope of
an advice book. He returns to the
self-help format here, this time
plundering the great thinkers to puzzle
out the way we ought to live. What was
stunning about the Proust book was de
Botton's brazen annexing of a hallowed
novelist to address lite emotional
problems.
That format is less arresting when
applied to the philosophers, since which
earnest philosophy major has not, from
time to time, tried to apply the alpine
heights of thought to his own humble
worries? Usually, sophomoric attempts to
turn to, say, Kant for advice on love tend
to be unmitigated disasters. In de
Botton's case, however, he is able to find
consolation for a broken heart in
Schopenhauer, consolation for inadequacy
in Montaigne. Epicurus, usually associated
with a love of luxury, is a solace for
those of us without much money--and de
Botton learns from him that "objects mimic
in a material dimension what we require in
a psychological one. We need to rearrange
our minds but are lured towards new
shelves. We buy a cashmere cardigan as a
substitute for the counsel of friends."
Before he became a medicine man for the
soul, de Botton was a first-rate novelist,
and it shows in his writing.
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Against the
Idols of the Age
Little known outside his native
Australia, David Stove was one of the most
illuminating and brilliant philosophical
essayists of the postwar era. A fearless
attacker of intellectual and cultural
orthodoxies, Stove left powerful critiques
of scientific irrationalism, Darwinian
theories of human behavior, and
philosophical idealism. He was also an
occasional essayist of considerable charm
and polemical snap. Stove's writing is
both rigorous and immensely readable.
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Philosophy for
Dummies
If you think philosophy is complicated
or boring, think again! In this
refreshingly different guide, author Tom
Morris not only explains philosophical
fundamentals, but shows you how philosophy
can help you find more meaning in life,
understand religious belief, and look at
the world in a whole new light. Discover
how to: Think about lifes ultimate
questions, apply the insights of great
philosophers, develop your own personal
philosophy, expand your mind. Tom Morris,
Ph.D., taught philosophy at Notre Dame
University for 15 years and currently
heads the Morris Institute for Human
Values.
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Fashionable
Nonsense
In 1996, an article entitled
"Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum
Gravity" was published in the cultural
studies journal Social Text. Packed
with recherché quotations from
"postmodern" literary theorists and
sociologists of science, and bristling
with imposing theorems of mathematical
physics, the article addressed the
cultural and political implications of the
theory of quantum gravity. Later, to the
embarrassment of the editors, the author
revealed that the essay was a hoax,
interweaving absurd pronouncements from
eminent intellectuals about mathematics
and physics with laudatory--but
fatuous--prose.
In "Fashionable Nonsense," Alan Sokal,
the author of the hoax, and Jean Bricmont
contend that abuse of science is rampant
in postmodernist circles, both in the form
of inaccurate and pretentious invocation
of scientific and mathematical terminology
and in the more insidious form of
epistemic relativism. Sokal and Bricmont
are to be commended for their spirited
resistance to postmodernity's failure to
appreciate science for what it is.
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