Books, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Criticism

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Robert Pogue Harrison
Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition
by University Of Chicago Press (Hardcover)

Humans have long turned to gardens—both real and imaginary—for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. Those gardens may be as far away from everyday reality as Gilgamesh’s garden of the gods or as near as our own backyard, but in their very conception and the marks they bear of human care and cultivation, gardens stand as restorative, nourishing, necessary havens.            With Gardens, Robert Pogue Harrison graces readers with a thoughtful, wide-ranging examination of the many ways gardens evoke the human condition. Moving from from the gardens of ancient philosophers to the gardens of homeless people in contemporary New York, he shows how, again and again, the garden has served as a check against the destruction and losses of history.  The ancients, explains Harrison, viewed gardens as both a model and a location for the laborious self-cultivation and self-improvement that are essential to serenity and enlightenment, an association that ...

Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)
by Cambridge University Press (Hardcover)

This is a major work by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings have been deeply influential on subsequent generations of philosophers. It is offered here in a new translation by Judith Norman, with an introduction by Rolf Peter Horstmann that places the work in its historical and philosophical context.

The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy)
by Open Court (Paperback)

With both young and adult gamers as loyal fans, The Legend of Zelda is one of the most beloved video game series ever created. The contributors to this volume consider the following questions and more: What is the nature of the gamer’s connection to Link? Does Link have a will, or do gamers project their wills onto him? How does the gamer experience the game? Do the rules of logic apply in the game world? How is space created and distributed in Hyrule (the fictional land in which the game takes place)? How does time function? Is Zelda art? Can Hyrule be seen as an ideal society? Can the game be enjoyable without winning? The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy not only appeals to Zelda fans and philosophers but also puts video games on the philosophical map as a serious area of study.

Brooke Noel Moore, Richard Parker
Critical Thinking
by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages (Paperback)

More than any other textbook, Moore and Parker's Critical Thinking has defined the structure and content of the critical thinking course at colleges and universities across the country--and has done so with a witty writing style that students enjoy. Current examples relevant to today's students bring the concepts of critical thinking to life in vivid detail. This ninth edition offers an abundance of new exercises and examples, as well as a renewed focus on the importance of developing critical thinking skills. .

Brooke Noel Moore, Richard Parker
Critical Thinking
by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages (Paperback)

More than any other textbook, Moore and Parker's Critical Thinking has defined the structure and content of the critical thinking course at colleges and universities across the country--and has done so with a witty writing style that students enjoy. Now in full-color, the eighth edition brings the concepts of critical thinking to life in vivid detail, with current examples relevant to today's students.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Colin Smith
Phenomenology of Perception: An Introduction
by Routledge (Paperback)

In this work Maurice Merleau-Ponty, described as the foremost academic French philosopher of the post-war period, writes on theories of perception.

Theodore Schick, Lewis Vaughn
How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age
by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages (Paperback)

This brief, inexpensive text helps students think critically, using examples from the weird claims and beliefs that abound in our culture to demonstrate the sound evaluation of any claim. The authors focus on types of logical arguments and proofs, making How to Think about Weird Things a versatile supplement for logic, critical thinking, philosophy of science, or any other science appreciation courses.

James Rachels
Problems from Philosophy
by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages (Paperback)

"This book is an introduction to some of the main problems of philosophy--God, mind, freedom, knowledge, and ethics. The chapters may be read independently of one another. But when read in order, they tell a more or less continuous story. We begin with some reflections about the legacy of Socrates and then go on to the existence of God, which is perhaps the most basic philosophical question of all because our answer to it influences how we will answer all the others. This leads naturally to a discussion of death and the soul, and then to more modern ideas about the nature of persons. The later chapters are about whether it is possible for us to have objective knowledge in either science or ethics." James Rachels, from the Preface . . Problems from Philosophy and The Truth About the World: Basic Readings in Philosophy are at once James Rachels' newest contributions to philosophy and his last. In these two books, Rachels found a culminating expression for his love of philosophy. .

Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno
Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by Stanford University Press (Paperback) (Release Date: 2002-03-28)

Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism."Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature ...

G. Lee Bowie, Meredith W. Michaels, Robert C. Solomon
Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy (with InfoTrac)
by Wadsworth Publishing (Paperback)

TWENTY QUESTIONS, one of the best selling introduction to philosophy anthologies available today, presents a proven, well-acclaimed forum for introducing students to the rich variety of philosophical reflection. Animated by some of philosophy’s more concrete questions--questions that students are likely to have pondered long before signing up for their first philosophy classes--TWENTY QUESTIONS fosters the creative exploration of many renowned classical and contemporary thinkers’ responses to the very same questions.

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