Government Philosophy

This exhilarating collection of essays, interviews, and correspondence—spanning the years 1988 through 2018, and reaching back a decade more—is about the simple concept that ideas matter. They mutate, inform, create fuel for thought, and inspire actions. As Kelman says, the State relies on our suffocation, that we cannot hope to learn the truth. But whether we can or not is beside the point. We must grasp the nettle, we assume control and go forward.

Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.

In American Awakening, Joshua Mitchell compares today’s secular politics of identity - skin tone, gender, and sexuality - to the religious awakenings of America’s past. The book asks where the clerisy of identity politics came from, how identity politics claimed a death grip on liberalism, and how can it be defeated.

To the modern mind, the idea of honor is outdated, sexist, and barbaric. It evokes Hamilton and Burr and pistols at dawn, not visions of a well-organized society. But for philosopher Tamler Sommers, a sense of honor is essential to living moral lives. In Why Honor Matters, Sommers argues that our collective rejection of honor has come at great cost. Reliant only on Enlightenment liberalism, the United States has become the home of the cowardly, the shameless, the selfish, and the alienated. Properly channeled, honor encourages virtues like courage, integrity, and solidarity.

John Locke (1632 - 1704), the English philosopher and physician, is widely regarded as one of the Enlightenment's most influential thinkers. "A Letter Concerning Toleration" (1689) addresses the problem of religion and government by proposing religious toleration as the answer. In the "Second Treatise", Locke claims that civil society was created for the protection of life, liberty, and estate.

Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Mountain Boys, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Party. These radicals who founded America set their sights on a revolution of the mind. Derided as "infidels" and "atheists" in their own time, they wanted to liberate us not just from one king but from the tyranny of supernatural religion.

En 1776, les 13 colonies anglaises qui deviendront les 13 premiers États des États-Unis d'Amérique déclaraient leur indépendance, mais l'Angleterre, pour des raisons politiques et économiques, ne leur a octroyé cette indépendance qu'en 1783 après une guerre qui aura duré sept ans.

Every liberal democracy has laws or codes against hate speech - except the United States. For constitutionalists, regulation of hate speech violates the First Amendment and damages a free society. Against this absolutist view, Jeremy Waldron argues powerfully that hate speech should be regulated as part of our commitment to human dignity and to inclusion and respect for members of vulnerable minorities.

Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates, who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful, but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he means, Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition.

In this brilliant book, Francis Wheen, the author of the most successful biography of Karl Marx, tells the story of Das Kapital and Marx's 20-year struggle to complete his unfinished masterpiece. Born in a two-room flat in London's Soho amid political squabbles and personal tragedy, the first volume of Das Kapital was published in 1867 to muted praise. But after Marx's death, the book went on to influence thinkers, writers, and revolutionaries.

This book examines and compares the concept of justice from the French philosopher Albert Camus and the American philosopher John Rawls.

"El príncipe" habla de las monarquías hereditarias y especialmentede las monarquías formadas a partir de "principados nuevos". Paraello describe como a través del contexto histórico ciertos hombresy principados han logrado mantener el poder y hacerse con nuevosterritorios y dominios políticos. Entre los hombres que toma como modelos de príncipes están "Cesar Borgia" y "Francesco Sforza", elprimero gracias a la gran fortuna de su padre y el segundo por méritopropio.

America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America and rise to this moment.

The timeless original text; required listening for any business-person or athlete interested in strategy. This is a work of subtlety and paradox that shows the way to a clean and aesthetic triumph. Sun Tzu insisted that a skilled warrior observes, calculates, outwits, and outmaneuvers an adversary, and in doing so averts the destruction of battle. Includes a soundtrack entitled "The Mysterious Sound of Wind in the Bamboo", a 43-minute 14-track collection of Zen-inspired Japanese music by the Matsu Take Ensemble.

Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 - May 14, 1887) was an American political philosopher, essayist, pamphlet writer, Unitarian, abolitionist, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the 19th century. He was a strong advocate of the labor movement and severely anti-authoritarian and individualist in political views. Spooner was born on a farm in Athol, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1808, and died on May 14, 1887, in Boston.

This is an ideal introduction to the ideas of a man whom many regard as the greatest thinker of our time. Here we encounter the stages in the development of his unique philosophy of consciousness, his key intellectual breakthroughs, his theory of history, and his diagnosis of the political ills of the modern age. The book provides a veritable catalog of the thinkers who created the intellectual foundation of the twentieth century.

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned, “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” Forty years later, are things better or worse? This book shares forty examples of how poorly today’s government schools are doing to show that the “rising tide of mediocrity” has created a tsunami of low expectations and poor performance, suggesting the need for alternative solutions.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky burst onto the world stage in November 1917 as coleader of a Marxist Revolution seizing power in Russia. It made him one of the most recognized personalities of the 20th century, a global icon of radical change. Yet just months earlier, this same Lev Trotsky was a nobody, a refugee expelled from Europe, writing obscure pamphlets and speeches, barely noticed outside a small circle of fellow travelers. Where had he come from to topple Russia and change the world? Where else? New York.

The 2015 winner of the Brown Democracy Medal, Joan C. Tronto, argues in Who Cares? that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our own fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. Asserting that Americans are facing a "caring deficit" - that there are simply too many demands on our time to care adequately for children, elderly people, and ourselves - she asks us to reconsider how we allocate care responsibilities.

While politicians, entrepreneurs, and even school children could tell you that sustainability is an important and nearly universal value, many of them, and many of us, may struggle to define the term, let alone trace its history. What is sustainability? Is it always about the environment? What science do we need to fully grasp what it requires? What does sustainability mean for business? How can governments plan for a sustainable future?