A Nobel Prize-winning author delivers one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, showing a way out of despair and reaffirming the value of existence.

Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide--the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly presents a crucial exposition of existentialist thought.

Not quite non-fiction, not quite self-help. It's a work of art about conflicting philosophies.

Many books believe they know how you should live. But each book disagrees with the next. In How to Live, each chapter believes it knows how you should live. And each chapter disagrees with the next.

One chapter makes a compelling argument for why you should be completely independent, keeping all options open. The next chapter argues why you should commit to one career, one place, and one person.

One chapter persuades you to be fully present, and experience each moment. The next, to delay gratification and invest for the future.

Which one is right? Which does the author believe? All of them. It's a philosophy of conflicting philosophies.

A very unique and thought-provoking book. Meant for reflection as much as instruction.

113 incredibly succinct pages of profound insights. No philosophers are quoted. No -isms are named. Only actionable directives. The end result feels more like poetry than prose.

A probing, inspiring exploration of mysticism not as religious practice but as a mode of experience and way of life by one of the most provocative philosophical thinkers of our time.

Why mysticism? It has been called experience in its most intense form, and in his new book the philosopher Simon Critchley poses a simple question to the reader: Wouldn't you like to taste this intensity? Wouldn't you like to be lifted up and out of yourself into a sheer feeling of aliveness, both your life and those of the creatures that surround you? If so, it might be well worthwhile trying to learn what is meant by mysticism and how it can shift, elevate, and deepen the sense of our lives.

Mysticism is not primarily a theoretical issue. It's not a question of religious belief but of felt experience and daily practice. A rough and ready definition of mysticism is that it is a way of systematically freeing yourself of your standard habits, your usual fancies and imaginings so as to see what is there and stand with what is there ecstatically. Mysticism is the practical possibility of the achievement of a fluid openness between thought and existence.

This is a book about trying to get outside oneself, to lose oneself, while knowing that the self is not something that can ever be fully lost. It is also a book about Julian of Norwich, Anne Carson, Annie Dillard, T.S. Eliot, and Nick Cave. It shows how listening to music can be secular worship. It is a book full of learning, puzzlement, pleasure, and wonder. It opens the door to mysticism not as something unworldly and unimaginable, but as a way of life.

Why is it so hard to live well amidst the chaos and noise? While you might think this is a problem of the modern world, it's a timeless issue.

2000 years ago, the ancient Stoics talked about the exact same challenges we're facing today, like:

• How can we find inner peace?
• What does it take to be happy?
• Can we become more resilient?

The answers can be found in the philosophy of Stoicism. I've used the philosophy since 2014 to change my life and career.

Focus on What Matters is a collection of 70 letters/essays I wrote about different aspects of life, from happiness, wealth, health to relationships and much more.

These letters, inspired by the original works of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, serve as reminders to focus on the right things in our chaotic lives.

The goal of the original Letters From A Stoic by Seneca was to share Stoic ideas with his friend, Lucilius, who had hedonistic tendencies and lived a busy life.

Focus on What Matters is inspired by those letters. It will show you..

• Simple thought exercises to become resilient and focused
• How to live in the present moment every day
• Authentic Stoic values for a life of happiness
• A way to build more discipline

In short, this book helps you to live well despite the challenges of daily life.

Weaving in fifty years of experience with Israel, Bernard-Henri Lévy analyzes global responses to October 7, the new virulent waves of the oldest hatred in the world: anti-Semitism, why Israel is waging this existential war against barbarism alone, and what's at stake for Israel and the world.

Bernard-Henri Lévy's Israel Alone is a passionate and outraged cri-de-coeur, about the loneliness of Israel and the tragedy of October 7, starting with Lévy's eyewitness account the day after the pogroms.

On October 8, 2023, Bernard-Henri Lévy flew to Israel to bear witness to the unprecedented invasion and massacre committed by Hamas. Israel Alone begins here and weaves in Lévy's fifty years on the ground in Israel, from his first trip in 1967, his experiences writing on all the conflicts since, and his participation in various peace plans and contacts with all the Israeli leaders from Menachem Begin to Shimon Peres and from Ariel Sharon to Yitzak Shamir and Yitzak Rabin.

From his unique philosophical and humanist perspective, Lévy analyzes the ultimate evil unleashed on Israel on October 7 and delves into how the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia, radical Islamist groups, Turkey, and China have played roles and profited from this tragedy.

The book addresses how October 7, though historic in scope, became, within weeks, a detail in the global consciousness amid a worldwide eruption of anti-Semitism, cloaked in anti-Zionism.

Lévy deconstructs the arguments of those calling for a cease-fire now without the release of all hostages and of those who demand that October 7 be seen within a greater context.

Lévy's meditation on the soul of Zionism and Israel shows why this war is existential, not only for Israel but for the global West.

And yet, despite the urgency and critical nature of this war, Israel takes it on alone.

Lévy analyzes, today, why this is so and why Israel's solitude is greater than ever.

A revolutionary book tracing the collapse of the paradigms that have organized the world for centuries

In Dysphoria Mundi, Paul B. Preciado, best known for his 2013 cult classic Testo Junkie, has written a mutant text assembled from essays, philosophy, poetry, and autofiction that captures a moment of profound change and possibility. Rooted in the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and taking account of the societal convulsions that have ensued, Preciado tries to make sense of our times from within the swirl of a revolutionary present moment.

The central thesis of this monumental work is that dysphoria, to be understood properly, should not be seen as a mental illness but rather as the condition that defines our times. Dysphoria is an abyss that separates a patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist order hurtling toward its end from a new way of being that, until now, has been seen as unproductive and abnormal but is in fact the way out of our current predicament.

With echoes of visionaries such as William S. Burroughs and Kathy Acker, Preciado's theoretical writing is propelled by lyric power while providing us with a critical toolbox full of new concepts that can guide our thinking and our actions: transition, cognitive emancipation, denormalization, disidentification, electronic heroin, digital coups, necro-kitsch. Dysphoria Mundi is Preciado's most accessible and significant work to date, in which he makes sense of a world in ruins around us and maps a joyous, radical way forward.

Through his writing and his own personal philosophy, the famed philosopher unburdened his young country of Europe's traditional sense of history and showed Americans how to be creators of their own circumstances. His mandate, which called for harmony with, rather than domestication of, nature, and for a reliance on individual integrity, rather than on materialistic institutions, is echoed in many of the great American philosophical and literary works of his time and ours, and has given an impetus to modern political and social activism.

Why is it so hard to live well amidst the chaos and noise? While you might think this is a problem of the modern world, it's a timeless issue.

2000 years ago, the ancient Stoics talked about the exact same challenges we're facing today, like:

• How can we find inner peace?
• What does it take to be happy?
• Can we become more resilient?

The answers can be found in the philosophy of Stoicism. I've used the philosophy since 2014 to change my life and career.

Focus on What Matters is a collection of 70 letters/essays I wrote about different aspects of life, from happiness, wealth, health to relationships and much more.

These letters, inspired by the original works of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, serve as reminders to focus on the right things in our chaotic lives.

The goal of the original Letters From A Stoic by Seneca was to share Stoic ideas with his friend, Lucilius, who had hedonistic tendencies and lived a busy life.

Focus on What Matters is inspired by those letters. It will show you..

• Simple thought exercises to become resilient and focused
• How to live in the present moment every day
• Authentic Stoic values for a life of happiness
• A way to build more discipline

In short, this book helps you to live well despite the challenges of daily life.

Featuring a remarkably clear writing style, Philosophy: Asking Questions, Seeking Answers is a brief and accessible guide designed for students with no prior knowledge of the subject. Written by renowned scholars Stephen Stich and Tom Donaldson, it focuses on the key issues in Western philosophy, presenting balanced coverage of each issue and challenging students to make up their own minds. Each chapter incorporates discussion questions, key terms, a glossary, and suggestions for further readings to help make the material more understandable to novices. While comprehensive enough to be used on its own, Philosophy can also be used as a supplement to any introductory anthology.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

No man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-AD 65) is one of the most famous Roman philosophers. Instrumental in guiding the Roman Empire under emperor Nero, Seneca influenced him from a young age with his Stoic principles. Later in life, he wrote Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, or Letters from a Stoic, detailing these principles in full.

Seneca's letters read like a diary, or a handbook of philosophical meditations. Often beginning with observations on daily life, the letters focus on many traditional themes of Stoic philosophy, such as the contempt of death, the value of friendship and virtue as the supreme good.

Using Gummere's translation from the early twentieth century, this selection of Seneca's letters shows his belief in the austere, ethical ideals of Stoicism - teachings we can still learn from today.

One of the most important writers of the past hundred years. -- The Times (London)

In this perceptive collection of essays, Doris Lessing addresses directly the prime questions before us all: how to think for ourselves, how to understand what we know, how to pick a path in a world deluged with opinions and information, and how to look at our society and ourselves with fresh eyes.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss embarks on a rollicking intellectual journey, following in the footsteps of history's greatest thinkers and showing us how each--from Epicurus to Gandhi, Thoreau to Beauvoir--offers practical and spiritual lessons for today's unsettled times.We turn to philosophy for the same reasons we travel: to see the world from a dif-ferent perspective, to unearth hidden beauty, and to find new ways of being. We want to learn how to embrace wonder. Face regrets. Sustain hope. Eric Weiner combines his twin passions for philosophy and travel in a globe-trotting pil-grimage that uncovers surprising life lessons from great thinkers around the world, from Rousseau to Nietzsche, Confucius to Simone Weil. Traveling by train (the most thoughtful mode of transport), he journeys thousands of miles, making stops in Athens, Delhi, Wyoming, Coney Island, Frankfurt, and points in between to recon-nect with philosophy's original purpose: teaching us how to lead wiser, more meaningful lives. From Socrates and ancient Athens to Beauvoir and 20th-century Paris, Weiner's chosen philosophers and places provide important practical and spiritual lessons as we navigate today's chaotic times. In a delightful odyssey that will take you places intellectually and humorously (San Francisco Book Review), Weiner invites us to voyage alongside him on his life-changing pursuit of wisdom and discovery as he attempts to find answers to our most vital questions. The Socrates Express is full of valuable lessons...a fun, sharp book that draws readers in with its apparent simplicity and bubble-gum philosophy approach and gradually pulls them in deeper and deeper (NPR).

Intolerance and bigotry lie at the heart of all human suffering. So claims Bertrand Russell at the outset of In Praise of Idleness, a collection of essays in which he espouses the virtues of cool reflection and free enquiry; a voice of calm in a world of maddening unreason. From a devastating critique of the ancestry of fascism to a vehement defence of 'useless' knowledge, with consideration given to everything from insect pests to the human soul, this is a tour de force that only Bertrand Russell could perform.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

The discourses of the great Stoic philosopher Epictetus are regarded as some of the most influential teachings of the ancient world. Born into slavery and sent into exile before setting up a school of philosophy, Epictetus delivered a series of lectures where he argued that true happiness comes only when we learn to distinguish what is within our power and what is beyond our personal control.

Using George Long's 1890 translation, this edition includes a selection of Epictetus' key principles, as well as a manual of his core philosophy, the Encheiridion. With clarity, conviction and timeless wisdom that is as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago, these teachings navigate the complexities of the human condition and offer rational guidance for the turmoil of modern life.

Suicide is everywhere. It haunts history and current events. It haunts our own networks of friends and family. The spectre of suicide looms large, but the topic is taboo because any meaningful discussion must at the very least consider that the answer to the question - 'is life worth living?' - might not be an emphatic yes; it might even be a stern no. Through a sweeping historical overview of suicide, a moving literary survey of famous suicide notes, and a psychological analysis of himself, Simon Critchley offers us an insight into what it means to possess the all too human gift and curse of being of being able to choose life or death.
Five years after its initial publication, this revised edition of Notes on Suicide includes a new preface by the author adressing shifts in the discourse surrounding suicide, particularly in relation to social media.

Rousseau's last great work, Reveries of the Solitary Walker is part reminiscence, part meditation, as the philosopher tries to come to terms with his isolation and to find happiness in solitude and nature. The Reveries are an important complement to Rousseau's other philosophical and autobiographical works and address many of the same issues, making it a useful introduction for anyone interested in reading Rousseau for the first time. Russell Goulbourne offers a fresh new translation that marries accuracy with readability. In addition, his Introduction discusses the nature of the work and places it in its historical, literary, and intellectual contexts. It considers the Reveries alongside Rousseau's other autobiographical work, notably the Confessions, and the form and style of the text in the context of the history of lyrical prose narratives, the rise of Romanticism, and works about walking. Finally, the book features detailed explanatory notes that enable readers to appreciate to the full Rousseau's ideas, ranging from biographical details to literary allusions, philosophical contexts, and the routes around Paris where Rousseau walked.

To Turn the Soul collects fourteen essays (three by Eva Brann) inspired by the life and thought of philosopher Jacob Klein. The contributors have been animated by Klein's legacy--whether because they knew him, studied at St. John's College, the institution he shaped, or found his writings a rich stimulus for thought and exploration. While the majority of the essays are based primarily on the study of Klein's writings, they all take up an inquiry inspired by an encounter with his work. Their goal is to deepen or expand Klein's thought by exploring its consequences, or traveling down avenues of investigation that Klein himself pursued and in some cases even initiated. The essays are offered in the hope that they inspire others to read Klein's writings and think for themselves about the matters he takes up in them.

A posthumous collection of essays by internationally renowned essayist, literary critic, philosopher, and author of The Name of the Rose--one of the most influential thinkers of our time (Los Angeles Times)

In his final collection of works, celebrated essayist and novelist Umberto Eco observes the changing world around him with irrepressible curiosity and profound wisdom. He sees with fresh eyes the upheaval in ideological values, the crises in politics, and the unbridled individualism that have become the backdrop of our lives--a liquid society in which it's not easy to find a polestar, though stars and starlets abound. In these pieces, written for his regular column in L'Espresso magazine, Eco brings his dazzling erudition and keen sense of the everyday to bear on topics such as popular culture and politics, being seen, conspiracies, the old and the young, new technologies, mass media, racism, and good manners. It is a final gift to his readers--astute, witty, and illuminating.

This volume will convince readers that the swift ascent of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons to worldwide popularity in the 1970s and 1980s is the most exciting event in popular culture since the invention of the motion picture.
Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy presents twenty-one chapters by different writers, all D&D aficionados but with starkly different insights and points of view. It will be appreciated by thoughtful fans of the game, including both those in their thirties, forties, and fifties who have rediscovered the pastime they loved as teenagers and the new teenage and college-student D&D players who have grown up with gaming via computer and console games and are now turning to D&D as a richer, fuller gaming experience.
The book is divided into three parts. The first, Heroic Tier: The Ethical Dungeon-Crawler, explores what D&D has to teach us about ethics and about how results from the philosophical study of morality can enrich and transform the game itself. Authors argue that it's okay to play evil characters, criticize the traditional and new systems of moral alignment, and (from the perspective of those who love the game) tackle head-on the recurring worries about whether the game has problems with gender and racial stereotypes. Readers of Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy will become better players, better thinkers, better dungeon-masters, and better people.
Part II, Paragon Tier: Planes of Existence, arouses a new sense of wonder about both the real world and the collaborative world game players create. Authors look at such metaphysical questions as what separates magic from science, how we express the inexpressible through collaborative storytelling, and what the objects that populate Dungeons and Dragons worlds can teach us about the equally fantastic objects that surround us in the real world.
The third part, Epic Tier: Leveling Up, is at the crossroads of philosophy and the exciting new field of Game Studies. The writers investigate what makes a game a game, whether D&D players are artists producing works of art, whether D&D (as one of its inventors claimed) could operate entirely without rules, how we can overcome the philosophical divide between game and story, and what types of minds take part in D&D.