50 Philosophy Classics

Thinking, Being, Acting Seeing - Profound Insights and Powerful Thinking from Fifty Key Books

Tom Butler-Bowdon

• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781399800976
• eBook ISBN: 9781399804356
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Utilitarianism

For over 2000 years, philosophy has been our best guide to the experience of being human, and the true nature of reality. From Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Confucius, Cicero and Heraclitus in ancient times to 17th century rationalists Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, from 20th-century greats Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Baudrillard and Simone de Beauvoir to contemporary thinkers Michael Sandel, Peter Singer and Slavoj Zizek, 50 Philosophy Classics explores key writings that have shaped the discipline and had an impact on the real world. This is the thinking person's guide to a uniquely powerful tool for opening our minds and helping us view the world. It synthesises the 50 greatest books ever written, distilling hundreds of ideas from across the centuries with insightful commentary, key quotes and biographical information on the authors.The revised edition will:
· include 7 new contemporary or timely classics such as Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit, Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox and Mary Midgely's Myths We Live By.
· include a reader code to access a free pack of downloadable bonus material
· have a revised introduction to reflect on the current relevance of philosophy today with topical themes to have emerged in the 9 years since the last edition was written.
· have some of the less relevant titles removed "50 Philosophy Classics is an impressively wide-ranging compendium of nutshell clarity. It strikes just the right balance between contextual analysis, and breezy illustrative anecdote."
Dr Phil Oliver, Department of Philosophy, Middle Tennessee State University, USA

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica (1274)
• 2 Hannah Arendt The Human Condition (1958)
• 3 Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (4th century bc)
• 4 A.J. Ayer Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
• 5 Jean Baudrillard Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
• 6 Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex (1949)
• 7 Jeremy Bentham Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
• 8 Isaiah Berlin The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953)
• 9 David Bohm Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)
• 10 Judith Butler Gender Trouble (1990)
• 11 Noam Chomsky Understanding Power (2002)
• 12 Cicero On Duties (44 bc)
• 13 Confucius Analects (5th century bc)
• 14 René Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
• 15 Ralph Waldo Emerson Fate (1860)
• 16 Epicurus Letters (3rd century bc)
• 17 Michel Foucault The Order of Things (1966)
• 18 Harry Frankfurt On Bullshit (2005)
• 19 G.W.F. Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
• 20 Martin Heidegger Being and Time (1927)
• 21 David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
• 22 William James Pragmatism (1907)
• 23 Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
• 24 Søren Kierkegaard Fear and Trembling (1843)
• 25 Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (1972)
• 26 Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
• 27 Gottfried Leibniz Theodicy (1710)
• 28 John Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
• 29 Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince (1513)
• 30 Marshall McLuhan The Medium Is the Massage (1967)
• 31 Mary Midgley The Myths We Live By (2003)
• 32 John Stuart Mill On Liberty (1859)
• 33 Michel de Montaigne Essays (1580)
• 34 Iris Murdoch The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
• 35 Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
• 36 Blaise Pascal Pensées (1660)
• 37 Plato The Republic (4th century bc)
• 38 Plotinus The Enneads (3rd century)
• 39 Karl Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)
• 40 John Rawls A Theory of Justice (1971)
• 41 Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract (1762)
• 42 Bertrand Russell The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
• 43 Michael Sandel The Tyranny of Merit (2020)
• 44 Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness (1943)
• 45 Arthur Schopenhauer The World as Will and Representation (1818)
• 46 Peter Singer The Life You Can Save (2009)
• 47 Peter Sloterdijk You Must Change Your Life (2013)
• 48 Baruch Spinoza Ethics (1677)
• 49 Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Black Swan (2007)
• 50 Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations (1953)
• 50 More Philosophy Classics
• Glossary
• Credits
• Acknowledgments