Μελέτες & Φιλοσοφία

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) is one of the most famous and important philosophers of the twentieth century. In this account of his life and work A.C. Grayling introduces both his technical contributions to logic and philosophy, and his wide-ranging views on education, politics, war, and sexual morality. Russell is credited with being one of the prime movers of Analytic Philosophy, and with having played a part in the revolution in social attitudes witnessedthroughout the twentieth-century world. This introduction gives a clear survey of Russell's achievements across their whole range. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Beauty today is a paradox. The cult of beauty is ubiquitous but it has lost its transcendence and become little more than an aspect of consumerism, the aesthetic dimension of capitalism. The sublime and unsettling aspects of beauty have given way to corporeal pleasures and 'likes', resulting in a kind of 'pornography' of beauty. In this book, cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han reinvigorates aesthetic theory for our digital age. He interrogates our preoccupation with all things slick and smooth, from Jeff Koon's sculptures and the iPhone to Brazilian waxing. Reaching far deeper than our superficial reactions to viral videos and memes, Han reclaims beauty, showing how it manifests itself as truth, temptation and even disaster. This wide-ranging and profound exploration of beauty, encompassing ethical and political considerations as well as aesthetic, will appeal to all those interested in cultural and aesthetic theory, philosophy and digital media.

Debates about science and religion are rarely out of the news. Whether it concerns what's being taught in schools, clashes between religious values and medical recommendations, or questions about how to address our changing global environment, emotions often run high and answers seem intractable. Yet there is much more to science and religion than the clash of extremes.

As Angus Calder states in his introduction to this edition, 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom is one of the major statements about the fighting experience of the First World War'. Lawrence's younger brothers, Frank and Will, had been killed on the Western Front in 1915. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, written between 1919 and 1926, tells of the vastly different campaign against the Turks in the Middle East - one which encompasses gross acts of cruelty and revenge and ends in a welter of stink and corpses in the disgusting 'hospital' in Damascus. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is no Boys Own Paper tale of Imperial triumph, but a complex work of high literary aspiration which stands in the tradition of Melville and Dostoevsky, and alongside the writings of Yeats, Eliot and Joyce.

Celebrating Fifty Years of Picador BooksJon Ronson's captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame. 'It's about the terror, isn't it?''The terror of what?' I said. 'The terror of being found out.'The rise of social media has seen a great renaissance in public shaming.

Justice has been democratized. The silent majority are getting a voice. But what are we doing with that voice? We are mercilessly finding people's faults, and defining the boundaries of normality by ruining the lives of those outside it.

We are using shame as a form of social control. Simultaneously powerful and hilarious in the way only Jon Ronson can be, So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a deeply honest book about modern life, full of eye-opening truths about the escalating war on human flaws - and the very scary part we all play in it. This edition features a new chapter and interview with perhaps the most famous public shaming victim of all - Monica Lewinsky.

'Freedom is dangerous, as hard to live as it is exalting...'

This definitive new collection of Albert Camus' public speeches and lectures gives a compelling insight into one of the twentieth century's most enduring writers. From a pre-war speech on the politics of the Mediterranean - delivered when he was just twenty-two - to his impassioned Nobel Prize acceptance lectures and several pieces appearing in English for the first time, Speaking Out shows Camus' clarity and subtlety of thought, his 'stubborn humanism' and his unerring commitment to freedom and justice.

Although successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding members continues in the 21st century to unsettle conventional wisdom about culture, society and politics. Exploring unexamined episodes in the School's history and reading its work in unexpected ways, these essays provide ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Loewenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. Without forcing a unified argument, they range over a wide variety of topics, from the uncertain founding of the School to its mixed reception of psychoanalysis, from Benjamin's ruminations on stamp collecting to the ironies in the reception of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, from Loewenthal's role in Weimar's Jewish Renaissance to Horkheimer's involvement in the writing of the first history of the Frankfurt School. Of special note are their responses to visual issues such as the emancipation of color in modern art, the Jewish prohibition on images, the relationship between cinema and the public sphere, and the implications of a celebrated Family of Man photographic exhibition. The collection ends with two essays tracing the still metastasizing demonization of the Frankfurt School by the so-called Alt Right as the source of "cultural Marxism" and "political correctness," which has gained alarming international resonance and led to violence by radical right-wing fanatics.

Profound and witty, these essays by the noted philosopher analyze elements of literature and the literary scene. Schopenhauer's observations on style, criticism, reputation, and genius constitute a handbook on writing of enduring value.

Since it was first published " The Art of Loving" has become a classic, inspiring thousands of people with its clarity and power. Erich Fromm, the renowned psychoanalyst, sees love as the ultimate need and desire of all human beings. In this book, he discusses every aspect of the subject: romantic love, the love of parents for children, brotherly love, erotic love, self-love and the love of God or the divine. He looks at the theory of love as it appears throughout the cultures of the world and at the practice, how we show or fail to show love to one another. Love is an art, which we need to develop and practice in order to find true commitment. We need to find it, individually and as a society as a whole. Erich Fromm is one of the major figures in the field of psychoanalysis. He devoted himself to consultant psychology and theoretical investigation for many years. He was the author of numerous books, including " Fear of Freedom" and "Psychoanalysis and Zen", before his death in 1980.