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Today, we are caught in a shame spiral—a vortex of mutual shaming that pervades everything from politics to social media. We are shamed for our looks, our culture, our ethnicity, our sexuality, our poverty, our wrongdoings, our politics. But what is the point of all this shaming and countershaming? Does it work? And if so, for whom? In Shame, David Keen explores the function of modern shaming, paying particular attention to how shame is instrumentalized and weaponized.

In this companion volume to The Discoverers, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin brings to life more than three thousand years of human artistic achievement, examining painting, sculpture, architecture, theology, philosophy, history, poetry, drama, literature, dance, music, and film.

In this short accessible book, leading democratic theorist Jason Brennan guides listeners through the evolution of the concept of democracy and actual democratic practice over time to help them understand the foundations of this longstanding and yet newly fragile political system. In his wide-ranging tour of the concept, Brennan will examine what democracy meant to the Greeks who first developed the concept before examining how it changed throughout European and later Western history.

Critical theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose—and, if at all possible, cure—the ills of society, particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book, Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of leading representatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukács and Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas) as well as many of its seminal texts and empirical investigations.

"It takes an entire lifetime to learn how to die", wrote the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD). He counseled readers to "study death always", and took his own advice, returning to the subject again and again in all his writings, yet he never treated it in a complete work. How to Die gathers in one volume, for the first time, Seneca's remarkable meditations on death and dying. Edited and translated by James S. Romm, How to Die reveals a provocative thinker who speaks with a startling frankness about the need to accept death or even, under certain conditions, to seek it out.

Critique of Judgement was published in 1790 and is divided into two parts, the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement and the Critique of Teleological Judgement. Our ‘judgements of taste’, as Kant describes our aesthetic judgements, have both a personal and a universal function: personal, because we have a subjective aesthetic response to the ‘agreeable’, the ‘beautiful’, the ‘sublime’ and the ‘good’; but also there is a ‘universal’ aspect because our aesthetic response has a ’disinterested’ element. This brings under Kant’s spotlight, for example, the concept of beauty and the perception of beauty. 

“Lively. . . . Rousing. . . . Prophecy—roving, intelligent, irreducibly idiosyncratic—can expand our sense of possibility, starting now.” —The New York Times Book Review Tech empires are the prophets of the modern day, and like the ancient oracles and medieval astrologers that preceded...

Millions of people ask Google all sorts of questions, everything from the big to the small. Responding to the biggest existential questions asked online and using the wisdom of Plato, Kant, Kierkegaard and other philosophical greats philosopher, academic and all-round polymath Stephen Law undertakes the challenge and offers answers to our modern-day concerns. He tackles questions from 'am I a good person?' to 'Ii there a face in my toast?' with tongue-in-cheek sagacity. 

In a time of rising social isolation, ideological division, and technological upheaval, libraries stand at a crossroads. In Triptych: Death, AI, and Librarianship, acclaimed scholar R. David Lankes—joined by Jain Orr and Qianzi Cao—delivers a bold, urgent, and deeply human call to action for the library profession. Structured around three provocative lectures, this book challenges librarians to move beyond traditional service models and embrace their role as agents of social transformation.

Listening is a skill—even an art—and it’s essential to learning and to life. Indeed, as Plutarch writes in How to Listen, “listening well is the foundation for living well.” In this volume, Jeffrey Beneker presents a vivid and accessible new translation of Plutarch’s classic essay about how to become a skilled listener, complete with an inviting introduction.

In A Decent Life, May leads listeners through the traditional philosophical bases of a number of arguments about what ethics asks of us, then he develops a more reasonable and achievable way of thinking about them, one that shows us how we can use philosophical insights to participate in the complicated world around us. He explores how we should approach the many relationships in our lives - with friends, family, animals, people in need - through the use of a more forgiving, if no less fundamentally serious, moral compass.

È PROPRIO VERO CHE SE AMIAMO IL NOSTRO LAVORO NON LAVOREREMO MAI UN GIORNO NELLA NOSTRA VITA O SIAMO SOTTO L’EFFETTO DI UN INCANTESIMO? “Oggi sembra impossibile fare del lavoro – che è diventato una vera e propria tortura di massa – uno strumento di educazione al vivere comune. Eppure è una delle poche strade rimaste per non autodistruggerci in una manciata di anni. Ma per dare nuova dignità al lavoro, bisogna cominciare con il metterlo seriamente in discussione.” Efficienti, dinamici, creativi. Ma anche: sovraccarichi, avviliti, depressi.

What is work that’s worth doing in a life worth living? A revealing exploration of the questions we ask and the stories we tell about our work. According to recent studies, barely a third of American workers feel “engaged” at work, and for many people around the world, happiness is lowest...

The Science of Rights (originally in German: Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre) by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, was originally written in 1796 and later translated by Adolph Ernst Kroeger into English.

Desde mediados del siglo XX, la esperanza de vida ha aumentado en occidente de veinte a treinta años, lo que equivale a toda una existencia en el siglo XVII. Así pues, al llegar a los cincuenta años, experimentamos una suerte de suspensión entre la madurez y la vejez, un intervalo en el que la brevedad de la vida realmente comienza, mientras nos planteamos las grandes cuestiones de nuestra condición.

The book is one of the most influential ethical treatises of all time. Written in 350 BC, it identifies happiness as life's goal. How do we achieve this goal? Not through the satisfactions that come from pleasure, wealth, or fame. According to Aristotle, the true path to happiness lies in contemplation of philosophic truth. This is the only action through which humans can exercise their distinctively unique trait: the ability to reason.

Antropologo, etologo, filosofo naturale, Gregory Bateson è uno dei più importanti pensatori del '900...

Brought to you by Penguin. Show yourself who's in charge using the original art of persuasion, backed by contemporary pop culture examples that make transforming your habits and achieving goals easy, even fun—from the New York Times bestselling author of Thank You for Arguing Rhetoric once sat...

In this sweeping philosophical work, Amartya Sen proposes that the murderous violence that has riven our society is driven as much by confusion as by inescapable hatred. Challenging the reductionist division of people by race, religion, and class, Sen presents an inspiring vision of a world that can be made to move toward peace as firmly as it has spiraled in recent years toward brutality and war.

As we emerge (though perhaps only temporarily) from the pandemic, other crises move center stage: outrageous inequality, climate disaster, desperate refugees, mounting tensions of a new cold war. The abiding motif of our time is relentless chaos.