Modern Philosophy

In a world where social media, online relationships, and relentless self-absorption threaten the very idea of deep and lasting friendships, the search for true friends is more important than ever. In this short book, famous Roman politician and philosopher Cicero offers a compelling guide to finding, keeping, and appreciating friends. With wit and wisdom, Cicero teaches not only how to build friendships but also why they must be a key part of our lives. For, as Cicero says, life without friends is not worth living.

What skills do you need to succeed today? How can you make better choices? In today's fast world, it's important to have certain skills for success. With so much fake news and information everywhere, critical thinking and logic are crucial. These skills help us think well and make good decisions. They help us understand why things are how they are, figure out what influences them, and come up with ways to make things better. One of the reasons most of us fall short in thinking critically is that our educational system doesn't teach critical thinking.

For nearly 2,500 years, students, politicians, political thinkers, and military leaders have read the eloquent and shrewd speeches in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War for profound insights into military conflict, diplomacy, and the behavior of people and countries in times of crisis. How to Think about War presents the most influential and compelling of these speeches in an elegant new translation by classicist Johanna Hanink, accompanied by an enlightening introduction.

In The Dream of Enlightenment, Anthony Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period - from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution - Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy.

There is something so incredibly timeless about the teachings of the ancients that I find they continue to ring true in my fast-paced, modern world. The lessons of Stoic philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, Socrates’ focus on self-knowledge, and the harmonious teachings of Lao Tzu and Confucius all offer critical insights that help to lead us toward a life of purpose, balance, and integrity.

As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.

Evil threatens human reason, for it challenges our hope that the world makes sense. For 18th-century Europeans, the Lisbon earthquake was manifest evil. Today we view evil as a matter of human cruelty, and Auschwitz as its extreme incarnation. Examining our understanding of evil from the Inquisition to contemporary terrorism, Susan Neiman explores who we have become in the three centuries that separate us from the early Enlightenment. In the process, she rewrites the history of modern thought and points philosophy back to the questions that originally animated it.

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to act depending on what is within our control and separate things worth getting upset about from those that are not.

If recent history has taught us anything, it's that sometimes the best guide to leadership is the negative example. But that insight is hardly new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Suetonius wrote Lives of the Caesars, perhaps the greatest negative leadership book of all time. In How to Be a Bad Emperor, Josiah Osgood provides crisp new translations of Suetonius's briskly paced, darkly comic biographies of the Roman emperors Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Entertaining and shocking, these ancient anti-role models show how power inflames leaders' worst tendencies.

What would you pay to have a wife who doesn't argue or nag? What would you pay for a husband who's actually in shape? What would you pay to have a clean garage? And what would you pay to be able to get up every morning when you wanted to? The problem is you can't pay for these things as they cannot be bought in stores. But they are definitely attainable in life. The only question is whether you are going to give up your current pursuit of traditional economic standards of living to attain them instead.

Do you constantly feel sick and tired of being a puppet to your emotions? Often get envious of other people that live good happy lives? Or maybe you’re just looking for that new outlook on life, but just simply can’t find the answers anywhere? Stoic philosophy actually allows us to embrace our negative and detrimental emotions, and turn them into positive peaceful thoughts, thus giving us a whole new perspective on life.

When Yao Shen, Patriarch of the Heavenly Sky Sect, ascends and regains memories of his past life on Planet Earth, he realizes that he can no longer allow himself to accept the cruel and violent ways of Eliria, the realm of cultivation. So he decides to change it. It was time to found a new sect. One based on the values of honor and equality over senseless violence and discrimination. A sect where all, from the mortal farmer’s son to a sect elder's daughter, were held accountable to the same rules.

Everyone's a cynic, yet few will admit it. Today's cynics excuse themselves half-heartedly - "I hate to be a cynic, but...." - before making their pronouncements. Narrowly opportunistic, always on the take, contemporary cynicism has nothing positive to contribute. The Cynicism of the ancient Greeks, however, was very different. Bold and shameless, it was committed to transforming the values on which civilization depends.

Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends — yet no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of the self.

To give and receive well may be the most human thing you can do-but it is also the closest you can come to divinity. So argues the great Roman Stoic thinker Seneca in his longest and most searching moral treatise, "On Benefits" (De Beneficiis). James Romm's splendid new translation of essential selections from this work conveys the heart of Seneca's argument that generosity and gratitude are among the most important of all virtues.

Get ready to immerse yourself in the enduring power of Epictetus’ Stoic philosophy, brought to life by the strong, masculine voice of a rugged outdoors philosopher, also known as "the rucking philosopher." This audiobook isn’t just a recitation—it’s a bold journey into the timeless lessons of resilience, inner strength, and true freedom.

In this unabridged audiobook of Walking in Wonder, John O’Donohue’s friend and frequent collaborator John Quinn collects a series of talks and essays from the poet-philosopher on humanity’s relationship with the land, the ache of absence, our place in an often mysterious universe, and the great adventure of death itself.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) has influenced philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Oswald Spengler, George Grant, Emil Cioran, Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Jacques Derrida, Leo Strauss, Max Scheler, Michel Foucault and Bernard Williams. His writings on aesthetics, language, truth, morality, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, and the meaning of existence have exerted a vast influence on Western philosophy and intellectual history.

Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone. This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: a rational, conscious, and therefore practical one, or a contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal one.

Aubrey Clayton traces the history of how statistics went astray, beginning with the groundbreaking work of the 17th-century mathematician Jacob Bernoulli and winding through gambling, astronomy, and genetics. Clayton recounts the feuds among rival schools of statistics, exploring the surprisingly human problems that gave rise to the discipline and the all-too-human shortcomings that derailed it.