This Element explains Kant's distinction between rational sympathy and natural sympathy. Rational sympathy is regulated by practical reason and is necessary for adopting as our own those ends of others which are contingent from the perspective of practical rationality. Natural sympathy is passive and can prompt affect and dispose us to act wrongly. Sympathy is a function of a posteriori productive imagination. In rational sympathy, we freely use the imagination to step into others' first-p...

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility investigates the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications. Skepticism about free will and moral responsibility has been on the rise in recent years. In fact, a significant number of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists now either doubt or outright deny the existence of free will and/or moral responsibility—and the list of prominent skeptics appears to grow by the day. Give...

With an introduction by Charlotte R. Brown and William Edward Morris.David Hume (1711–1776) was the most important philosopher ever to write in English, as well as a master stylist. This volume contains his major philosophical works. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), published while Hume was still in his twenties, consists of three books on the understanding, the passions, and morals. It applies the experimental method of reasoning to human nature in...

Collected here in one volume are three of Søren Kierkegaard's most important works: Fear and Trembling, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, and Sickness Unto Death. Fear and Trembling: In our time nobody is content to stop with faith but wants to go further. It would perhaps be rash to ask where these people are going, but it is surely a sign of breeding and culture for me to assume that everybody has faith, for otherwise it would be queer for them to be . . . going further. In those old...

Collected here in this 5-in-1 omnibus edition are five of Rudolf Steiner's most important works including Theosophy, an Introduction, An Esoteric Cosmology, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, An Introduction to Waldorf Education and Other Essays, and how to Know Higher Worlds. Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and esotericist.

HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDSA Modern Path Of InitiationByRudolf SteinerSynopsisThis is the classic account of the modern Western esoteric path of initiation made public by Steiner in 1904. He begins with the premise that “the capacities by which we can gain insights into the higher worlds lie dormant within each one of us.” Steiner carefully and precisely leads the reader from the cultivation of the fundamental soul attitudes of reverence and inner tranquil...

Jiddu Krishnamurti (12 May 1895 17 February 1986) was a writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual issues including psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive social change. Krishnamurti lived next to the Theosophical Society headquarters at Adyar in Madras in his early adolescence. At Adyar, he encountered prominent occultist and Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater. He was subsequently raised under the tutelage ...

“…true strength comes not from following the crowd, but from cultivating an unwavering belief in one's own ideas and instincts.”In his classic book, Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson presents a timeless exploration of the power of the individual. In an era where conformity and societal expectations often dictate one's path, Emerson challenges readers to break free from these external pressures and embrace the unique wisdom within themselves....

There are few more important philosophers at work today than John Searle, a creative and contentious thinker who has shaped the way we think about mind and language. Now he offers a profound understanding of how we create a social reality--a reality of money, property, governments, marriages, stock markets and cocktail parties. The paradox he addresses in Making the Social World is that these facts only exist because we think they exist and yet they have an objective existence. Co...

This book is a good starting point among the hundreds of books written by Rudolf Steiner. He sees a tripartate model of the individual here: body, soul and spirit, cautioning us that these are only approximate terms. This book will give a description of some of the regions of the supersensible world. The reader who is willing to admit the existence of the sensible world only will regard this delineation as a mere unreal production of the imagination. He, however, who looks for paths that l...