The Open Society And Its Enemies

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in 1945, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thought of great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity ofThe Open Society and Its Enemies, and for why it demands to be read both today and in years to come.
This is the first of two volumes of The Open Society and Its Enemies. 

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The Mind and Its World

Since Descartes, the mind has been thought to be ``in the Accessible analytical phil. Major topic in journals and monographs, this bk brings debates about the nature, and content, of the mind to the student. After Descartes drew radical distinction btwn mind and body, comes a minefield about the content of mind and mental representation. History of these ideas in user friendly format. Previously OUP author with good record of accessible interesting work 

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Darwin Meets Einstein: On the Meaning of Science

Why do humans engage in scientific research? For some, it’s simply a career. Others are drawn to science for its potential financial rewards. And still others do it out of competitiveness—to be the first in their field. But in Darwin Meets Einstein Frans W. Saris argues that in our postmodern times we have lost the meaning of science—that science is not about competition, nor about creating wealth, nor about the joy of discovery. Science is for survival—the survival of humans, the survival of life. In this accessible collection of essays and columns, Saris brings together in conversation a number of great minds—Charles Darwin, Baruch Spinoza, Niko Tinbergen, Francis Bacon, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Franz Kafka, and Albert Einstein—to answer the question: why science? With selections like “Diary of a Physicist,” “The Scientific Life,” “The Mother of All Knowledge,” and “Science Through the Looking Glass of Literature,” Darwin Meets Einstein will entertain its readers and ultimately encourage them to reconsider the meaning—and the purpose—of science.

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On Ayn Rand

This brief text assists students in understanding Ayn Rand's philosophy and thinking so that they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the "Wadsworth Philosophers Series," (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON AYN RAND is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher better enabling students to engage the reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper.

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The Ethics Of Ambiguity

By exploring the meaning of "existence before essence" and the fundamental reality of choice, Beauvoir presents the reader with a livable program for life in the modern and multiplicit world; namely existentialism. Ethics is both concise and poetic, maintaining a clarity that Being and Nothingness lacks. The Second Sex is essentially an entailment of the ideas explored in this book. Few other philosophers of the 20th century were able to combine practical philosophy and rigorous metaphysics with such eloquence. 

This review is from: The Ethics Of Ambiguity (Paperback)

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The Philosophy Of Simone De Beauvoir

Studies of Simone de Beauvoir have mostly concentrated on her literature, her life, and her famous 1949 work, The Second Sex, and the continued emphasis has been on Beauvoir's views on gender. The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir places her theory of women's "otherness" in the context of a number of contemporary theories on a similar subject. While gender takes its place among these, Professor Deutscher counterbalances its grip on our memory of Beauvoir's ideas by situating it in the context of our relationship to ageing, to generational difference, and to race and cultural difference. By differentiating the many aspects of "otherness," Beauvoir revisited some of the concepts of reciprocity, ambiguity, and ethics for which she is best remembered. 

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Paris, Capital of Modernity

Drawing on essays written over the last 30 years, Harvey brings one of the most fascinating and confounding periods of French-or for that matter, European-history into sharp relief. He asserts that two conceptions of modernity were nurtured in Paris in the years after the First Empire-one bourgeois, and the other founded on the idea of the "social republic" geared toward benefiting all classes of citizens. Harvey traces these conflicting movements over the decades leading up to the Revolution of 1848 and charts their reverberations through the final days of the Paris Commune. The book is richly illustrated with over a hundred period photographs and cartoons by Daumier and others, which serve to reinforce the notion of Paris as a city of contrasts in a period of profound change. And Harvey is as comfortable and adept at quoting pertinent passages from the romantic novelists as he is offering detailed economic analyses of real estate and labor market dynamics. By making use of primary sources from diverse disciplines, he offers a thorough examination of the period: he explores, for instance, the role of women and class strictures and the consequences of urban planning and public transportation. The worst that can be said of this exhaustive investigation into the complicated and turbulent era of the Second Empire is that Harvey presupposes an intermediate knowledge of many of the important actors and events. As he weaves the humanities, philosophy, economics and sociology into a detailed tapestry, the author leaves remedial explanations of Parisian and French social movements to the authors listed in a well-annotated bibliography. This is not a problem in and of itself, but readers expecting a breezy history of the "City of Lights" may find themselves overwhelmed by the complexity and depth of this book. 

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