In this cornerstone of modern liberal social theory, Peter Kropotkin states that the most effective human and animal communities are essentially cooperative, rather than competitive. Kropotkin based this classic on his observations of natural phenomena and history, forming a work of stunning and well-reasoned scholarship. Essential to the understanding of human evolution as well as social organization, it offers a powerful counterpoint to the te ...
This is an enlarged, revised edition of the Paul Carus lecturers which John Dewey delivered in 1925. It covers Dewey's basic formulation of the problem of knowledge, with both a full discussion of theories and resolutions propounded by other systems, and a detailing of Dewey's own concepts upon the relationship of the external world, the minds, and knowledge.Starting with a thorough examination of philosophical method, Dewey examines t ...
"A most brilliant essay in psychology."—New Statesman"A delightful experience."—Joseph ConradPhilosopher, mathematician and social critic, Bertrand Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. In The Analysis of Mind, one of his most influential and exciting books, Russell presents an intriguing reconciliation of the materialism of psychology with the antimaterialism of physics.This book established a new ...
Credited with influencing the philosophies of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand and the development of libertarianism and existentialism, this prophetic 1844 work challenges the very notion of a common good as the driving force of civilization. Stirner chronicles the battle of the individual against the collective to show how the latter invariably leads to oppression. ...
Central to the study of Chinese civilization at its widest extension is the thought of the great sage K'ung, usually known in the West by the Latinized form of his name, Confucius. His works form the core of more than two thousand years of Oriental civilization, and even today, when he has been officially discarded, his thought remains important for understanding the present as well as the past. Yet Confucius is the property of not only the ...
One of yoga's most important and influential works, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali forms a keystone of Indian philosophical and religious thought. Written by a sage in the second century B.C., the sutras have been translated many times. This interpretation by Professor James Haughton Woods, originally published under the aegis of the highly esteemed Harvard Oriental Series, ranks among the most acclaimed translations.Patañja ...
Mandalas are complex arrangements of patterns or pictures used in Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism to represent the cosmos (or «wholeness») and to give expression to the infinite possibilities of the human subconscious. Though mandala means «circle» in Sanskrit, mandalas are more often squares or rectangles, filled with images and geometric figures that symbolize forces of the individual and collective psyche and the flow of energy to and from a cent ...
A leading German metaphysician of the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) exerted an influence far beyond the hermetic world of philosophy, with adherents ranging from Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche to Leo Tolstoy and Thomas Mann. Among Schopenhauer's chief contributions to the field of philosophy are his rejection of the idealism of his contemporaries and his embrace of a practical variety of materialism. He jet ...
One of the most important texts in the literature of Buddhism, the Jātaka contains stories that celebrate the previous lives of the Buddha. The future Buddha may appear in these «jātakas» as a king, an outcast, a god, an elephant — but in whatever form he takes, he exhibits some virtue which the tale then proceeds to inculcate in the reader.This superb selection of 47 stories of the Buddha — among them «The ...
