No matter how you view philosophy, regardless of what you think it is, this series from The Independent will give you a strong sense of the life and work of the very best thinkers in the philosophical neighbourhood, dealing carefully and rationally with the most human of questions, the hardest questions, the questions which matter most.William James, in his last great work Some Problems of Philosophy, wrote that philosophy 'sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange a...

Some of us found ourselves in rooms with sticky floors.Dollar drinks. Music loud enough to feel in your sternum. Strangers who became your people before you even knew their names. A world that existed before the apps, before the algorithms, before you had to optimize yourself for someone else's checklist.We are human first. Gay second. And this is a book about the human underneath.Boys Bars Becoming is a collection of essays about gay men of a certain age —...

Three essential philosophers on the nature of reality, the health of the human body, and the meaning of history.Science and Philosophy: An essential introduction to Alfred North Whitehead's life and philosophy. From personal reflections to his groundbreaking essay "Process and Reality" to an enlightening discussion of Einstein's theories, Science and Philosophy is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand one of the modern world's greatest think...

Bertrand Russell’s brilliant and accessible primer invites readers into the world of philosophical inquiry. With unmatched clarity, he explores fundamental questions: Is there certain knowledge? What is the relationship between mind and matter? Guiding us from everyday observations to the ideas of great thinkers, this enduring work makes the enduring value of philosophy compelling to every curious mind.

‘The Problems of Philosophy’ is a 1912 book by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, in which he attempts to create a brief and accessible guide to the problems of philosophy. It was Russel’s venture to succinctly summarize problems in the subject of philosophy that prompted discussion among philosophers. In addition to espousing his own philosophies, Russel uses this book to introduce the philosophical principles from other famous philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, John Locke, K...

Aloysius Bertrand’s Gaspard de la Nuit (1842) is a familiar title to music lovers, thanks to Ravel’s piano work of the same name, and to specialists of French literature, especially those interested in Baudelaire’s prose poetry. Yet until very recently the collection and its author have generally been viewed almost exclusively through the prism of their pioneering role in the development of the prose poem. By placing Bertrand back in his original context, adopting a comparative approach an...

Huck Finn is an orphaned drifter who loves freedom more than respectability. He isn’t above lying and stealing, but he faces a battle with his conscience when he meets up with a runaway slave named Jim, who provides him with his first experiences of love, acceptance, and a sense of responsibility.The title character of this famous novel tells his own story in a straightforward narrative laced with shrewd, sharp comments on human nature. The boy’s adventures along the Mississippi Ri...

Also published under the title of Principals of Social Reconstruction, and written in response to the devastation of World War I, Why Men Fight lays out Bertrand Russell's ideas on war, pacifism, reason, impulse, and personal liberty. He argues that the individualistic approach of traditional liberalism has reached its limits and that when individuals live passionately, they will have no desire for war or killing. Conversely, excessive restraint or reason causes us to liv...

Sigmund Freud evolved his theories throughout his lifetime. This entailed many revisions and changes which he himself never tried to standardise rigidly into a definitive conceptual system. The need for some sort of a reliable guide which would spell out both the pattern of the evolution of Freud’s thinking, as well as establish its inherent logic, was felt for a long time by both scholars and students of psychoanalysis. Drs Laplanche and Pontalis of the Association Psychanalytique de Fran...

60th Anniversary Edition. A strange sea monster suddenly appears on the lake… a fortune is unearthed from an old cannon…a valuable dinosaur egg is stolen. Who’s responsible?Those seven junior geniuses — and their wild ideas!"Every time you Mad Scientists get mixed up in something, it means trouble!"cries the mayor of Mammoth Falls.Watch out as the seven junior geniuses of the Mad Scientists’ Club turn the town upside down.

Just another quiet day in Mammoth Falls. Or is it? Have flying saucers really been sighted? How about those rumblings in the ground during the wee hours of the morning... and a midget submarine hidden in a secret cavern?With evidence like this, our seven young geniuses can't be far behind. And they're not! The town of Mammoth Falls will never be the same again, because here come the Mad Scientists with five more mad adventures!Stories in this volume: The Telltale Transmitte...

Remarkably relevant, beautifully written, and filled with wit and wisdom, these three essays by Bertrand Russell allow the listener to test the concepts of the good life, morality, the existence of God, Christianity, and human nature.“What I Believe” was used prominently in the 1940 New York court proceedings in which Russell was judicially declared unfit to teach philosophy at City College of New York.“Why I Am Not a Christian” concludes that churches throughout history ha...