Showing titles in Consciousness & Thought

Carl Jung was one of the 20th century’s most significant psychological theorists. He developed concepts we use every day - introverts and extroverts chief among them. Mark Vernon’s eight-part book explores some of Jung’s key ideas and also looks at his relationship with the other giant of the mind - Sigmund Freud.

Silence is habitually overlooked—after all, throughout our lives, it has to compete with the cacophony of the outside world and our near-constant interior dialogue that judges, analyzes, compares, and questions. But, if we can get past this barrage, there lies a quiet place that’s well worth discovering.

In this book, Aaron Simmons takes us on a trip to the mountains to reflect on the meaning of life. In a world too often defined by a quest for “success” that leaves us empty, alone, and anxious, Simmons seeks “faithfulness“ outdoors with thinkers and artists from Aristotle to Kierkegaard, Sartre to Anne Lamott, and Kendrick Lamar to Donovan Woods. Simmons invites us to rethink what it means to make choices, take risks, be alone and silent while cultivating friendships, and to find our calling by facing our vulnerability.

Tackling a key theme each month, from Happiness and Health to Money and Politics, Everyday Stoicism guides you through the calendar year to build a toolkit of simple exercises and practical ideas for how to live these values every day. So, harness the collective wisdom of the ancient Stoic philosophers today and discover the joy of everyday stoicism.

Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time

In Simplicity Through Simulation: The Algorithm of Humanity, Dondaneau explores Simulation Theory, transforming it into a narrative deeply resonant with our age. He challenges the notion of reality as an external force, revealing it as a tapestry woven from mathematical and symbolic patterns within the cosmos and the human mind.

The Lucifer Priciple is a revolutionary work that explores the intricate relationships among genetics, human behavior, and culture to put forth the thesis that "evil" is a by-product of nature's strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric. Though this argument is not a new one - it has been brought forth by such great historical figures as St. Paul, Thomas Hobbes, and Raymond Dart - Howard Bloom here takes fresh data from a variety of sources and shapes it into a lens through which listeners can reinterpret the human experience.

Philosophy of Mind is the third and final part of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, the collection in which Hegel (1730-1831) offered an overview of his life’s work. Though originally written in 1817, he revised it in 1830, thus providing a finished form the year before his death. Hegel used the three parts of the Encyclopaedia - Science of Logic, Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Mind - as a basis for lectures at the Universities of Heidelberg which he joined in 1816, and in Berlin in 1820.

How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? This speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.

Although Montaigne’s writing resists easy analysis, Montaigne includes seven essays before he even explicitly states the purpose of the Essays. Manent finds in it a subtle unity, and demonstrates both the philosophical depth of Montaigne’s reflections and the distinctive and even radical character of his central ideas.

Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger. She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.

One of the classic works of J. Krishnamurti, What Are You Doing with Your Life delves into the foundational pillars of human existence. This Hindi translation by Achalesh Chandra Sharma presents the premise of Krishnamurti’s teachings and writings. Some of the deepest questions about identity, existence, needs, desires, freedom, respect, knowledge, work, money, success and relationships are explored in a lucid and logical manner.

Occultism is not magic. It is comparatively easy to learn the trick of spells and the methods of using the subtler, but still material, forces of physical nature; the powers of the animal soul in man are soon awakened; the forces that his love, his hate, his passion, can call into operation are readily developed. But this is Black Magic–Sorcery. For it is the motive, and the motive alone, that makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic.

After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons - essentially mini-brains - Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity's deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves.

During the 2010 Olympic speed skating final, Mark Tuitert wasn't thinking about winning, but about Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus and Zeno - philosophers belonging to an ancient school of thought that emerged from their experiences of personal hardship. The Stoics developed a philosophy grounded in striving toward unbiased thinking, self-betterment through virtues, and a focus on only that which lies in our power to control. Now, after two decades of applying this philosophy, he has distilled Stoicism and his personal experience into ten powerful lessons.

One of Ernest Holmes’s cornerstone works, This Thing Called You is an intimate guide through which listeners learn the important lesson of how they are an immutable part of the flow of life, and how they may fulfill the longing, within all of us, to live more fully. The book details methods of meditation used for healing, improving mind and body, and reaching one’s divine self.

Principia Ethica, written in 1903, was a groundbreaking work of moral philosophy. Its author, G.E. Moore, questioned a fundamental pillar of ethics—specifically, what the definition of "good" is. As influential now as it was in its own time-period, Principia Ethica represented an advance in human thinking and is a worthy work for current and future generations to study to gain a better understanding of values and ethics.

Being in flow is when you are “in the zone,” “on your game,” or even “on fire.” It is both a mental state and a physical one. You have a feeling of complete focus, full involvement, and deep enjoyment in whatever you are doing. You feel the activity takes no energy from you—indeed you feel that it is giving you energy. You barely notice the passage of time. You feel calm but almost ecstatic. Most of us have glimpsed being in this state. But what if you could be in your zone not just for a moment of flow, nor merely for a day, but always and forever? This book shows you how.

"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.

This audiobook makes a foray into cognitive behavioral therapy and enlightens us on how CBT is helping alleviate various mental health conditions.