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THE CLASSIC NOVEL OF ONE MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING HAS DELIGHTED, INSPIRED, AND INFLUENCED GENERATIONS This classic allegorical novel of self-discovery by Hermann Hesse has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922, after Hesse had spent time in India. Integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy, this simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, provides the...

A short guide to living well by understanding better what you really value--and what to do when your goals conflict. What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money--or work for justice? To run marathons--or sing in a choir? To have children--or travel the world? The things we care about in life--family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals--often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don't...

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. One of the most interesting features of A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is the symbiosis between a radical empiricism and a bold and uncompromising idealism. An artful combination of analytical rigor and unfettered speculation, of crystal-like precision of language and winged metaphors or sparkling images, George Berkeley's work is essentially...

Examines how the educations of America's first four presidents, and in particular their scholarly devotion to ancient Greek and Roman classics, informed the beliefs and ideals that shaped the nation's constitution and government.

"Do all questions have answers? How much can we know about the world? Is there such a thing as an ultimate truth? To be human is to want to know, to understand our origins and the meaning of our lives. In The Island of Knowledge, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a provocative...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Barack Obama’s lucid vision of America’s place in the world and call for a new kind of politics that builds upon our shared understandings as Americans, based on his years in the Senate
 
“In our lowdown, dispiriting era, Obama’s talent for proposing humane, sensible solutions with uplifting, elegant prose does fill one with hope.”—Michael...

"We are, all of us, everywhere, always, enmeshed in a web of rules and constraints. Rules fix the beginning and end of the working day and the school year, direct the ebb and flow of traffic on the roads, dictate who can be married to whom and how, place the fork to the right or the left of the plate, lay down the meter and rhyme scheme of a Petrarchan sonnet, and order the rites of birth and death. Cultures notoriously differ as to the content of...

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills three thousand years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws. It outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers. Some laws teach the need for prudence, the virtue of stealth, and many demand the total absence of mercy, but like it or not, all have applications...

"This book shares what a diverse array of Jewish thinkers have said about the interrelated questions of God, the Book, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel. Accessible chapters present fascinating insights from ancient times to today, from Philo to Judith Plaskow. An intriguing and provocative book for readers wrestling with big questions"--

[This book] puts forth the question of the extent to which philosophers must go to school with the poets. It begins with a new interpretation of the famous Platonic quarrel with the poetic wisdom of Homer. It brings this question forward through the humanism of thinkers of the Italian Renaissance and the German Idealism of Hegel. It then treats the relation of philosophy and literature in four ways by considering philosophy as literature, philosophy...