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John Locke and his works - particularly An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - are regularly and rightly presented as foundations for the Age of Enlightenment. His primary epistemological message - that the mind at birth is a blank sheet waiting to be filled by the experiences of the senses - complemented his primary political message: that human beings are free and equal and have the right to envision, create and direct the governments that rule them and the societies within which they live.

Violence and the Sacred is Rene Girard's landmark study of human evil. Here Girard explores violence as it is represented and occurs throughout history, literature, and myth. Girard's forceful and thought-provoking analyses of Biblical narrative, Greek tragedy, and the lynchings and pogroms propagated by contemporary states illustrate his central argument that violence belongs to everyone and is at the heart of the sacred.

OVER TEN MILLION COPIES SOLD #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER What are the most valuable things that everyone should know? Acclaimed clinical psychologist Jordan B Peterson has influenced the modern understanding of personality, and now he has become one of the world's most popular public thinkers...

An introduction to the idea of a "Natural Order" society that would enjoy undreamt peace and prosperity.

Freedom Without Blood is a rigorous and compassionate examination of one of the most uncomfortable contradictions in modern law: the protection of religious freedom when it collides with physical harm. Drawing on U.S. constitutional principles, Supreme Court cases, and international legal standards, Ivan Valle explores a simple but urgent question: Can any belief justify the creation of a victim? This book does not attack faith. It defends a boundary.

An ethereal meditation on longing, loss, and time, sweeping from the highways of Texas to the canals of Mars—by the acclaimed essayist and author of Shame and Wonder David Searcy’s writing is enchanting and peculiar, obsessed with plumbing the mysteries and wonders of our everyday world...

Maintenance is what keeps everything going. It’s what keeps life going. Yet it’s also easy to shirk or defer—until the thing breaks, the system falters, and everything stops. The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. The first in a multi-volume work, Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One offers a comprehensive overview of the civilizational importance of maintenance. The book begins with a dramatic contest of maintenance styles under life-critical conditions:

Imagine this: You're walking past a shallow pond and spot a toddler thrashing around in the water, in obvious danger of drowning. You look around for her parents, but nobody is there. You're the only person who can save her and you must act immediately. But as you approach the pond you remember that you're wearing your most expensive shoes. Wading into the water will ruin them—and might make you late for a meeting. Should you let the child drown?

All of us are faced countless times with the challenge of persuading others, whether we're trying to win a trivial argument with a friend or convince our coworkers about an important decision. Instead of relying on untrained instinct - and often failing as a result - we'd win more arguments if we learned the timeless art of verbal persuasion, or rhetoric.

Brought to you by Penguin. The celebrated scientist and author of Why Information Grows reveals how knowledge moves, drives progress and shapes the world We all understand that knowledge shapes the fate of business and the growth of nations, but few of us are aware of the principles that govern...

In thirteen iconoclastic essays, Slavoj Žižek disrupts the death-grip that neoliberalists, Trumpian populists, toxic self-improvement industries and accelerationists alike have established on the idea of progress. Anatomizing what is lost when opponents of the future are allowed to define it, Žižek ruthlessly exposes what different visions of progress exclude or sacrifice and the dynamics of desire, denial and disavowal at work in Hollywood blockbusters, Buddhist economics, decolonization movements and other engines of vision.

As head of TED for the past 20 years, Chris Anderson has had a ringside view of the world's most significant thinkers sharing their boldest ideas across every imaginable discipline. Yet there's a single theme that stands out in his mind as the essential connecting thread: generosity. It may seem simple, but generosity has played a key role in building the tools, knowledge, and institutions that have allowed civilisation to flourish. Now, in our unsettled modern world, beset by disruption and division, Anderson believes our collective future depends on reconnecting to this vital human trait.

Except most of the ideas that form Western Civilisation are just that—ideas. Taking cues from Greek philosophy and honed in the Enlightenment, certain notions about humanity and human society grew into the tenets we live by, and we haven't questioned them a great deal since. But isn't it time we asked who really benefits from the values at the core of our society? How much truth lies in a science that conjured up 'race'? Who do laws and nations really protect? Why does it feel like time is money? What even is 'art'?

Our universities are broken. Established as sanctuaries of truth and higher learning, they are now decaying institutions that are failing a generation of young people. Consumed by funding and admissions crises, dominated by dogma and governed by self-interest, their founding principles have been corrupted. This explosive book shows us why, and what we must do to fix them.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Secnd Mountain, written by David Brooks, read by Arthur Morey. Are you on your first or second mountain? Is life about you - or others? About success - or something deeper? The world tells us that we should pursue our self-interest: career wins, high...

Drawing on decades of work in philosophy including a huge range of interviews with contemporary philosophers, Julian Baggini sets out how philosophical thought can promote incisive thinking. Introducing everyday examples and contemporary political concerns—from climate change to implicit bias—How to Think Like a Philosopher is a revelatory exploration of the techniques, methods and principles that guide philosophy, and how they can be applied to our own lives.

Global networks have formed "anti-gender ideology movements" dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilization -- and even "man" himself. But what, exactly, is so scary about gender? In this vital, courageous book, Judith Butler, the ground-breaking philosopher whose influential work has redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, carefully examines how "gender" has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists.

Roger Scruton’s How to be a Conservative presents the case for modern conservatism not in the terms of an elegy but rather as a practical example of how to live as a conservative despite the pressures to live otherwise. As he writes, the book ‘is not about what we have lost, but about what we have retained, and how to hold on to it’. In this witty and frank account, Scruton draws on his years of experience as a counter-cultural presence in public life.

This brilliantly conceived book is based on a lecture course given by Dr. Leonard Peikoff in 1976 entitled, "The Philosophy of Objectivism". The lectures were attended by Ayn Rand, who helped prepare them and who also joined Peikoff in answering questions.

Hailed upon publication as a cogent and hard-hitting critique, The Sociological Imagination took issue with the ascendant schools of sociology in the United States, calling for a humanist sociology connecting the social, personal, and historical dimensions of our lives. The sociological imagination Mills calls for is a sociological vision, a way of looking at the world that can see links between the apparently private problems of the individual and important social issues.