Books with category Intellectual Exploration
Displaying 9 books

Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

2020

by Plato

Five Dialogues contains the distinguished translations of G. M. A. Grube, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works (Hacket, 1997). This edition includes a number of new or expanded footnotes and updated Suggestions for Further Reading.

Dive into the world of ancient Greek philosophy with Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo. These dialogues explore profound questions of ethics, justice, virtue, and the immortality of the soul.

A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

2010

by Roland Barthes

A Lover's Discourse: Fragments was revolutionary upon its 1978 publication. Roland Barthes made unprecedented use of the tools of structuralism to explore the whimsical phenomenon of love. This work is rich with references ranging from Goethe's Werther to Winnicott, from Plato to Proust, from Baudelaire to Schubert.

A Lover's Discourse artfully draws a portrait in which every reader will find echoes of themselves. It is a language of solitude, of mythology, and what Barthes calls an image repertoire. This book revives the notion of the amorous subject and is meant to be enjoyed by those who have been in love, or think they have, and those who have never been in love, or think they have not.

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace

2010

by David Lipsky

In David Lipsky’s view, David Foster Wallace was the best young writer in America. Wallace’s pieces for Harper’s magazine in the ’90s were, according to Lipsky, "like hearing for the first time the brain voice of everybody I knew: Here was how we all talked, experienced, thought. It was like smelling the damp in the air, seeing the first flash from a storm a mile away." You knew something gigantic was coming.

Rolling Stone sent Lipsky to join Wallace on the last leg of his book tour for Infinite Jest, the novel that made him internationally famous. They lose to each other at chess. They get iced-in at an airport. They dash to Chicago to catch a make-up flight. They endure a terrible reader’s escort in Minneapolis. Wallace does a reading, a signing, an NPR appearance. Wallace gives in and imbibes titanic amounts of hotel television (what he calls an “orgy of spectation”). They fly back to Illinois, drive home, walk Wallace’s dogs.

Amid these everyday events, Wallace tells Lipsky remarkable things—everything he can about his life, how he feels, what he thinks, what terrifies and fascinates and confounds him—in the writing voice Lipsky had come to love. Lipsky took notes, stopped envying him, and came to feel about him—that grateful, awake feeling—the same way he felt about Infinite Jest. Then Lipsky heads to the airport, and Wallace goes to a dance at a Baptist church.

A biography in five days, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is David Foster Wallace as few experienced this great American writer. Told in his own words, here is Wallace’s own story, and his astonishing, humane, alert way of looking at the world; here are stories of being a young writer—of being young generally—trying to knit together your ideas of who you should be and who other people expect you to be, and of being young in March of 1996. And of what it was like to be with and—as he tells it—what it was like to become David Foster Wallace.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism addresses the frequent doubts that skeptics, and even ardent believers, have about religion. Written by Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, this book provides a thoughtful exploration of faith in a Christian God.

Why is there suffering in the world? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Why isn’t Christianity more inclusive? Shouldn’t the Christian God be a god of love? How can one religion be “right” and the rest “wrong”? Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God? These are just a few of the questions even believers wrestle with today.

In this book, Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and reasoning to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth.

To true believers, he offers a solid platform on which to stand their ground against the backlash to religion created by the Age of Skepticism. And to skeptics, atheists, and agnostics, he provides a challenging argument for pursuing the reason for God.

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

2004

by Karen Armstrong

Over 700,000 copies of the original hardcover and paperback editions of this stunningly popular book have been sold. Karen Armstrong's superbly readable exploration of how the three dominant monotheistic religions of the world - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - have shaped and altered the conception of God is a tour de force.

One of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, Armstrong traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one compelling volume.

The Interpretation of Dreams

1999

by Sigmund Freud

The Interpretation of Dreams is one of the most revolutionary works in the history of psychology, penned by the esteemed psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. This groundbreaking book unveils the concept that dreams are a window into our unconscious mind, offering insights into our hidden desires and wishes.

Freud introduces his theory with profound depth and clarity, emphasizing that dreams represent the hidden fulfillment of our unconscious wishes. This work serves as a pivotal foundation for understanding the psychoanalytic theory and has significantly contributed to the field of dream analysis.

Through this book, Freud invites readers to explore the complex layers of the unconscious mind, encouraging a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration. The insights gained from this work continue to influence the realms of psychology and beyond.

Humboldt's Gift

1996

by Saul Bellow

Humboldt's Gift is a self-described "comic book about death", whose title character is modeled on the self-destructive lyric poet Delmore Schwartz. Charlie Citrine, an intellectual, middle-aged author of award-winning biographies and plays, contemplates two significant figures and philosophies in his life:

Von Humboldt Fleisher, a dead poet who had been his mentor, and Rinaldo Cantabile, a very-much-alive minor mafioso who has been the bane of Humboldt's existence. Humboldt had taught Charlie that art is powerful and that one should be true to one's own creative spirit. Rinaldo, Charlie's self-appointed financial adviser, has always urged Charlie to use his art to turn a profit.

At the novel's end, Charlie has managed to set his own course.

Philosophical Investigations

Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein presents a deep dive into the philosophies of mind, language, and meaning. This work is a distillation of two decades of intensive philosophical exploration.

Wittgenstein's approach in this book challenges traditional views and provides a new perspective on how we understand and interact with the world through language. His unique insights make this book a cornerstone in the field of philosophy.

Explore the intricacies of language and its role in shaping our thoughts and perceptions. Philosophical Investigations invites you to question and ponder the very nature of understanding and communication.

The Rebel

1969

by Albert Camus

By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the essential dimensions of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history.

And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he shows how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny. As old regimes throughout the world collapse, The Rebel resonates as an ardent, eloquent, and supremely rational voice of conscience for our tumultuous times.

Translated from the French by Anthony Bower.

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