British and American common law traditionally prohibited abortion only after quickening (when the mother feels fetal movements). But after the U.S. Civil War, states began absolutely prohibiting ab...
Aristotle, known as "the Philosopher" by later thinkers, created a huge body of work that was virtually synonymous with philosophy for over 2000 years. His most well-known doctrines include the not...
Aristotle wrote on everything from the shape of seashells to sterility, from speculations on the nature of the soul to meteorology, poetry, art, and even the interpretation of dreams. Apart from ma...
Schopenhauer emphasized the dark aspects of existence. Evil, pain and suffering are not aberration: they express the inner nature of the world. He is pessimistic about the true nature of existence;...
This is an ideal introduction to the ideas of Eric Voegelin, a man whom many regard as the greatest thinker of our time. Here we encounter the stages in the development of his unique philosophy of ...
Islam is a monotheistic religion that affirms the existence of One absolute and perfect God. As it spread by conquest in the 7th century, Islam encountered many new and foreign traditions, includin...
A Portuguese Jew living in Holland, Spinoza sought a life of "supreme and unending happiness". Unable to find deep satisfaction in the usual pleasures of social life, politics or business (or in ri...
The 20th century English philosophers Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead will be forever linked by their collaboration of Principia Mathematica, a three volume technical work that used pur...
Fed up of not living life to the full? Not getting the most out of your day? Teri Hatcher, star of the hit TV series Desperate Housewives shows you how to maximise happiness...
In Confucius in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Confucius's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
The golden age of Chinese philosophy dates from the birth of Confucius (551 BC) until China was unified (and learning suppressed) in 221 BC. China's great Confucian philosophers were Confucius, Men...
Alain de Botton draws on the work of six of the world's most brilliant thinkers to offer this panoply of accessible, entertaining wisdom to guide us through our most common problems. From the frust...
David Hume sought to create a comprehensive "science of man" in order to understand human nature and human actions. He saw a constant social and political tension between liberty and authority, and...
René Descartes spent most of his childhood in solitude, a situation that also came to characterize his adult life. Fortunately, these countless lonely hours helped Descartes produce the declaration...
Rene' Descartes (1596-1650), the father of modern rationalism, abandoned traditional paths to knowledge and developed a new method of seeking truth. Descartes doubted everything to eliminate precon...
"Drugs," a broad and vague term, usually refers to mind-altering chemicals that people ingest. But this covers a wide range, including medical prescriptions, legal stimulants (e.g. caffeine and tob...
The Roman Empire became Christian in 323 AD; about two centuries later, the rest of Europe began converting to Christianity. Medieval culture blurred the line between the sacred and the secular, an...
How do you form a long-term supportive system for success? Can family, friends, and colleagues actually help to reduce stress? This program gives us the answers needed to find the support for success.
Nietzsche condemned nearly all of the religious and philosophical thought of his day to blunt terms (e.g., God is dead). He says the only reality is this world of life and death, conflict and chang...
Hegel created a vast speculative and idealistic philosophy, where truth is found not in the part but in the whole. Nature is an organic whole shot through with rationality akin to the reason in our...
In Hegel in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Hegel's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
In Heidegger in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Heidegger's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
Individual rights morally protect a person against oppression by the powerful (such as the democratic majority, the government, or other holders of power). Civil rights are group-oriented; they are...
In Hume in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Hume's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
Before Kant, philosophers had debated for centuries whether knowledge is derived from experience or reason. Kant says that both views are partly right and partly wrong, that they share the same err...
Sartre's existentialism faces the evil in human existence and sees that humans are responsible for it. He doubts man can make moral progress, yet he embraces the possibilities for human life. Manki...
John Dewey wants philosophy to rise above old tired disputes to address new, more vital questions and problems. His views are known as "pragmatism," which emphasizes action and results. Here philos...
Anthony Stevens argues that Jung's visionary powers and profound spirituality have helped many to find an alternative set of values to the arid materialism prevailing Western society. This...
Immanuel Kant taught and wrote prolifically about physical geography yet never traveled further than forty miles from his home in Königsberg. How appropriate it is then that in his philosophy he sh...
Kierkegaard wasn't really a philosopher in the academic sense. Yet he produced what many people expect of philosophy. He didn't write about the world, he wrote about life, about how we live and how...
The moral command not to lie is among the simplest of all moral imperatives. Yet its counterpart, to tell the truth, is a subtle and complicated philosophical topic. Truth-telling is usually viewed...
The first significant Jewish philosopher is recognized as Philo (ca 13 BC - 45/50 AD), who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. His biblical commentaries (written in Greek) powerfully influenced Christian p...
In Marx in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Marx's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
Wilson admits in the preface of his book that "virtue has acquired a bad name." However, people make some kind of reference to morality whenever they discuss whether or not someone is nice, dependa...
In the Nichomachean Ethics— so called after their first editor, Aristotle's son Nicomachus—Aristotle sets out to discover the good life for man, the life of happiness. He discourses on happiness, i...
With Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophy was dangerous not only for philosophers but for everyone. Nietzsche ended up going mad, but his ideas presaged a collective madness that had horrific consequenc...
India has perhaps the oldest living philosophical tradition in the world. Its philosophies share five general characteristics: (1) an affirmation that there's an ultimate reality (such as Brahman o...
Plato was the first person to organize and record the issues and questions that define philosophy. As Socrates' student, Plato preserved the teachings of his great mentor in many famous "dialogues"...
In an age when philosophers had scarcely glimpsed the horizons of the mind, a boy named Aristocles decided to forgo his ambitions as a wrestler. Adopting the nickname Plato, he embarked instead on...
In Rousseau in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Rousseau's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
In Sartre in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Sartre's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
In Schopenhauer in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Schopenhauer's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
Simone de Beauvoir is best known for her association with the French Existentialist movement of the 1940s (a close relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre), and for the book that many claim gave birth t...
Though Socrates left no written works, there were many ancient accounts of his life and his philosophy. The most important of the surviving accounts are from three contemporaries (the comic poet Ar...
In Socrates in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Socrates's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
For Kierkegaard, truth is a subjective reality which we must live, not simply something to consider and discuss. His self-consciousness and self-examination highlight the practical demands of exist...
In Spinoza in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Spinoza's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.
Aurelius Augustinus was a key figure in the transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. He lived at a time when no distinction was made between philosophy and theology, and the purpose ...
In the late 13th century, this quiet reflective Dominican scholar concentrated his work on philosophical concerns that today would be considered to be partly theological. He combined the work of Ar...
In St. Augustine in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of St. Augustine's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the w...
This is a book about an almost universal anxiety that rarely gets mentioned directly: an anxiety about what others think of us, about whether we're judged a success or a failure. With the help of p...
The Stoics and Epicureans date from the Hellenistic period (ca. 323 BC - 31 BC), and both schools were heavily influenced by the philosophy of Socrates. The Epicurean mission was to live virtuously...
Also sprach Zarathustra was conceived and written by Friedrich Nietzsche during the years 1881 -1885; the first three Parts were published in 1883 and 1884. The book formed part of his 'campaign...
The trial and death of Socrates remains a powerful document not least because it gives a first-hand account of the end of one of the greatest figures in history. In Apology Socrates defends himself...
In this inspiring audio, bestselling author Wayne W. Dyer poses the question, "What our ancestral scholars, whom we consider the wisest and most spiritually a advanced, have to say to us today?"...
George Roche's A World without Heroes harshly rebukes secular humanism as the most dehumanizing force in our modern age. This ringing defense of Christianity, humorous, insightful and uncompromisin...
Have you always loved reading but sometimes find it hard to find the time? Theres nothing quite like curling up with a good book but many of us cannot do that as much as we would llike. We sacrifice this special time because we have so many other things to do each day. It is a common problem and it is the reason why people on average are not reading as much as they once did.
Audio books bring the story to life just as the storytellers of the past did. They allow you to experience the book in a whole new way; in the way the writer felt and heard it in their head. You can feel the emotion when you allow audio books to let the story come to life.
