Philosophy Academic

There are many ways of telling the story of a life and how we've got to where we are. The questions of why and how we think the way we do continues to preoccupy philosophers. In The Stuff of Life, Timothy Morton chooses the objects that have shaped and punctuated their life to tell the story of who they are and why they might think the way they do. From the looming expanse of Battersea Power Station to a packet of anti-depressants and a cowboy suit, Morton explores why 'stuff' matters and the life of these things have so powerfully impinged upon their own.

When the metronome was invented in 1815, it transformed the music world. Composers and musicians now had a tool that could help them maintain a precise and consistent tempo. The metronome evokes strong feelings because of its uncompromising power. For that reason, this object has appeared in unlikely settings as athletes, scientists, psychologists, authors, and other professionals have found uses for it beyond music.

John C. Kendrew (1917-1997) was a pioneer in structural biology and a catalyst for the emergence of molecular biology in the second half of the 20th century. He was the first person to determine the three-dimensional structure of a protein at atomic resolution and, for this, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1962. Kendrew ultimately became an international organizer, administrator, and advocate for science, and his expansive legacy lives on today.

In John Hunter’s classroom, students fearlessly tackle global problems and discover surprising solutions by playing his groundbreaking World Peace Game. These kids - from high school all the way down to fourth grade, in schools both well funded and underresourced - take on the roles of politicians, tribal leaders, diplomats, bankers, and military commanders. Through battles and negotiations, standoffs and summits, they strive to resolve dozens of complex, seemingly intractable real-world challenges.

Jonathan Starr is not your traditional do-gooder, and in 2009, when he decided to found Abaarso, a secondary school in Somaliland, the choice seemed crazy to even his closest friends. Why, they wondered, would he turn down a life of relative luxury to relocate to an armed compound in a breakaway region of the world's number one failed state? To achieve his mission, Starr would have to overcome profound cultural differences, broken promises, and threats to his safety and that of his staff.

Explore the roots of Western thought in this captivating audiobook on Ancient Greek Philosophy. Immerse yourself in an era when humanity’s greatest minds—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others—searched tirelessly for answers to profound questions about existence, nature, and human purpose. Your philosophical journey begins with the groundbreaking insights of Pre-Socratic thinkers like Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides before moving on to Socrates’ revolutionary dialogues.

Nikola Tesla, a Serbian immigrant, invented the radio, the induction motor, the neon lamp, and the remote control. Tesla's personal life was magnificently bizarre. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he was germophobic and never shook hands. He required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. In later years, he ate only white food and conversed with the pigeons in Bryant Park. This clear, authoritative, and highly enjoyable biography takes account of all phases of this remarkable life.

In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a prehuman skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution.

A 30-year veteran of higher-education, Professor Virgil Henry uses Dante’s Inferno as a guide to take listeners on an epic adventure through the hellscape of higher education in the United States. Follow Virgil and his band of like-minded adjuncts as they battle educational bureaucracy, low-pay, lack of health-care or job security, and social and professional indignities, all while showing up every day (and every night) for the students they care for and the job they love.

In this Very Short Introduction, John Heilbron draws on sources never before presented in English to cover the life and work of one of the most creative physicists of the 20th century. In addition to his role as a scientist, Heilbron considers Bohr as a statesman and Danish cultural icon, who built scientific institutions and pushed for the extension of international cooperation in science to all nation states. As a humanist he was concerned with the cultivation of all sides of the individual, and with the complementary contributions of all peoples to the sum of human culture.

Scientists often challenge conventional wisdom and spark debates that last for generations. But no scientist has fuelled more debate than Charles Darwin. To some he is the revolutionary 'father' of evolution. To others he is the perverse 'originator' of modern eugenics. In The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin, author Benjamin Wiker brings these conflicting identities to light.

The New York Times best seller Women in Science highlights the contributions of 50 notable women to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), from the ancient to the modern world, who have paved the way for the next generation of female engineers, biologists, mathematicians, doctors, astronauts, physicists, and more. This fascinating collection contains information about relevant topics, such as lab equipment and rates of women currently working in STEM fields.

To listen to The Sayings of Marcus is to walk beside an emperor who governed not through cruelty or conquest, but by reason, restraint, and virtue. This collection presents rare, firsthand glimpses of Marcus Aurelius not as a distant symbol of power, but as a human being navigating the immense burden of imperial responsibility with unwavering Stoic discipline. Here is Marcus confronting betrayal with mercy, rejecting revenge in the arena, and speaking candidly of philosophy, war, death, and duty. His words, at once spare and profound, offer a timeless testament to character under pressure.

In The Power of a Plant, globally acclaimed teacher and self-proclaimed CEO (Chief Eternal Optimist) Stephen Ritz shows you how, in one of the nation's poorest communities, his students thrive in school and in life by growing, cooking, eating, and sharing the bounty of their green classroom.

When acclaimed science writer Stefan Klein asks Nobel Prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann what sets scientists apart, Hoffmann says, "First and foremost, curiosity." In this collection of intimate conversations with 19 of the world's best-known scientists (including three Nobel Laureates), Klein lets us listen in as today's leading minds reveal what they still hope to discover - and how their paradigm-changing work entwines with their lives outside the lab.

Ecce Homo, subtitled How One Becomes What One Is, is the final original book written by Friedrich Nietzsche before he succumbed to the insanity which lasted until his death in 1900. In this extraordinary autobiography, Nietzsche chronicles his life and development as a philosopher, his tastes as an individual, and his vision for humanity.

During the breakdown of an unhappy marriage, writer Joanna Walsh got a job as a hotel reviewer, and began to gravitate towards places designed as alternatives to home. Luxury, sex, power, anonymity, privacy…hotels are where our desires go on holiday, but also places where our desires are shaped by the hard realities of the marketplace. Part memoir and part meditation, this book visits a series of rooms, suites, hallways, and lobbies—the spaces and things that make up these modern sites of gathering and alienation, hotels.

From the Introduction: "Every biography is a story of adventure. The energetic personalities of the world represent an adventure in living. The philosophical personalities, on the other hand, represent an adventure in thinking. And when we examine the lives of the philosophers we find that the procession of a man's thoughts can be as exciting a spectacle as the pageantry of a man's deeds."

Durch keinen anderen Denker lernt man so gut kennen, was auch die "Sattelzeit" genannt wurde: der Übergang des alten Europa in die moderne Gesellschaft. Ob Aufklärung, die Herrschaft Napoleons oder die Befreiungskriege, ob Industrialisierung, Vormärz oder die großen Entdeckungen - die Welt ändert sich während der Lebensjahrzehnte Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels von Grund auf. Und zwar durch Ideen, die zu Revolutionen führten: politische, industrielle, ästhetische und pädagogische.

When a waiting world learned on April 12, 1955, that Jonas Salk had successfully created a vaccine to prevent poliomyelitis, he became a hero overnight. Born in a New York tenement, humble in manner, Salk had all the makings of a 20th-century icon - a knight in a white coat. In the wake of his achievement, he received a staggering number of awards and honors; for years his name ranked with Gandhi and Churchill on lists of the most revered people.