Showing results by publisher "Tantor Audio" in Philosophy

Comedian-philosophers from Socrates to Sartre have always prodded and provoked us, critiquing our most sacred institutions and urging us to examine ourselves in the process. In Saturday Night Live and Philosophy, a star-studded cast of philosophers takes a close look at the "deep thoughts" beneath the surface of NBC's award-winning late-night variety show and its hosts' zany antics.

Is there such a thing as a timeless classic? More than a decade ago, Rochelle Gurstein set out to explore and establish a solid foundation for the classic in the history of taste. To her surprise, that history instead revealed repeated episodes of soaring and falling reputations, rediscoveries of long-forgotten artists, and radical shifts in the canon, all of which went so completely against common knowledge that it was hard to believe it was true.

In this culmination of his highly acclaimed Cultural Liturgies project, James K. A. Smith examines politics through the lens of liturgy. What if, he asks, citizens are not only thinkers or believers but also lovers? Smith explores how our analysis of political institutions would look different if we viewed them as incubators of love-shaping practices—not merely governing us but forming what we love.

Elisabeth R. Anker reckons with the complex legacy of freedom offered by liberal American democracy, outlining how the emphasis of individual liberty has always been entangled with white supremacy, settler colonialism, climate destruction, economic exploitation, and patriarchy. These "ugly freedoms" legitimate the right to exploit and subjugate others. At the same time, Anker locates an unexpected second type of ugly freedom in practices and situations, often dismissed as demeaning, offensive, gross, and ineffectual, but that provide sources of emancipatory potential.

Against majority opinion within his profession, Donald Bloxham argues that it is legitimate, often unavoidable, and frequently important for historians to make value judgments about the past. History and Morality draws on a wide range of historical examples, and its author's insights as a practicing historian.

The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature is a philosophical investigation of the moral potentialities and sensibilities of human beings, of the meaning of human life, and of the place of death in life. It is an essay in philosophical anthropology: the study of the conceptual framework in terms of which we think about, speak about, and investigate homo sapiens as a social and cultural animal. This volume examines the diversity of values in human life and the place of moral value within the varieties of values.

Suffering, in one form or another, is present in all of our lives. But why do we suffer? On one reading, this is a question about the causes of physical and emotional suffering. On another, it is a question about whether suffering has a point or purpose or value. In this groundbreaking book, Michael Brady argues that suffering is vital for the development of virtue, and hence for us to live happy or flourishing lives.

In this deeply researched book, Patrick Olivelle draws on Ashoka's inscriptions and on the art and architecture he pioneered to craft a detailed picture of Ashoka as a ruler, a Buddhist, a moral philosopher, and an ecumenist who governed a vast multiethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious empire.

Moral Articulation outlines an ethical framework that allows us to embrace a version of the latter, transformative view without sacrificing notions of moral truth, objectivity, and knowledge. The book presents a view of moral meaningfulness as extending beyond what we can presently put into words, urging that expansions in our moral vocabularies often begin in dissonant experiences of conceptual and linguistic limits.

Once upon a time, philosophy was a dangerous business-and for no one more so than for Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher vilified by theologians and political authorities everywhere as "the atheist Jew." As his inflammatory manuscripts circulated underground, Spinoza lived a humble existence in The Hague, grinding optical lenses to make ends meet. Meanwhile, in the glittering salons of Paris, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was climbing the ladder of courtly success.

We've pinpointed the destination, refined the technology, designed the habitat. Are we forgetting something? A timely reminder that it's not just rocket science, this book explores the all-too-human issues raised by the prospect of settling in outer space. Accordingly, her work highlights the complex ethical challenges that accompany any other-worldly venture—questions about the environment, labor rights, and medical ethics, among others.

The Erich Fromm Reader exhibits the true genius of an original thinker in seeing the connections between overlapping knowledge from many different fields. Here, interdisciplinarity is not only a lip service but the impact of Erich Fromm's unique social psychological notion.

Humans are born to create theories about the world - unfortunately, they're usually wrong, and keep us from understanding the world as it really is. Why do we catch colds? What causes seasons to change? And if you fire a bullet from a gun and drop one from your hand, which bullet hits the ground first? In a pinch, we almost always get these questions wrong. Worse, we regularly misconstrue fundamental qualities of the world around us.

Building on feminist standpoint theory, and in conversation with the works of Sojourner Truth, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and others, Ribeiro invites all of us to recognize where we stand, to imagine geographies different from those we've inherited, and to speak a more humane world into being.

Misinformation is one of the twenty-first century's greatest challenges, a peril to democracy, peace, science, and public health. Yet we lack a clear understanding of what makes misinformation so potent and why it can spread so rapidly. In Falsehoods Fly, a leading cognitive scientist and philosopher offers a new framework for recognizing and countering misleading claims by exploring the ways that information works-and breaks down.

Vegetarians have argued at great length that meat-eating is wrong. Even so, the vast majority of people continue to eat meat, and even most vegetarians eventually give up on their diets. Does this prove these people must be morally corrupt? Dan C. Shahar argues the answer is no: It's entirely possible to be an ethical person while continuing to eat meat - and not just the "fancy" offerings from the farmers' market, but also the regular meat we find at most supermarkets and restaurants.

Pause...breathe...smile. Three small words, yet each contains a universe of wisdom. Let the title be your guide in this inspiring book on awakening to the full depths of mindful living. The Pause is about setting our intention before we think, speak, or act - the ethical dimension of mindfulness. When we Breathe, we unite mind, body, and spirit, making every moment an opportunity for meditation. With a Smile, we open to a wisdom beyond words. This simple trio will water your innate seeds of awakening to help you pave your own path to fulfillment and peace.

Without consciousness there is nothing. Have you ever wondered why and how the world around you came to exist, and whether there might be an afterlife experience awaiting you after our physical bodies die? Might there actually be a God and a heaven of some sort? The hypothesis presented in this book is that our seemingly physical universe of matter and energy is a virtual simulation which is thought into existence by a universal consciousness which we call God.

In Trust in a Polarized Age, political philosopher Kevin Vallier offers a powerful counter-narrative to the prevailing sense of hopelessness that dogs the American political landscape. In an unapologetic defense of liberalism that synthesizes political philosophy and empirical trust research, Vallier restores faith in our power to reduce polarization and rebuild social and political trust.

Western philosophers have long claimed that God, if such a being exists, is a personal force capable of reason, and that the path to a good human life is also the path to a happy one. But what if these claims prove false, or at least deeply misleading? The Aztecs of central Mexico had a rich philosophical tradition, recorded in Latin script by Spanish clergymen and passed down for centuries in the native Nahuatl language—one of the earliest transcripts being the Huehuetlatolli, or Discourses of the Elders, compiled by Friar Andres de Olmos circa 1535.