Hardcover. NY, Pantheon, 6th pr., 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 338 pages. Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth-that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn't exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm's absurdity when he had his own epiphany-that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant pushed the assumptions of human reason to their mind-bending conclusions, but emerged with an idea that crowned a towering philosophical system-that the human mind has fundamental limits, and those limits undergird both our greatest achievements as well as our missteps. Through fiction, science, and philosophy, the work of these three thinkers coalesced around the powerful, haunting fact that there is an irreconcilable difference between reality "out there" and reality as we experience it. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 2nd pr., 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 261 pages, previous owner's signature on front fly leaf. "Evil is the most serious of our moral problems. All over the world cruelty, greed, prejudice, and fanaticism ruin the lives of countless victims. Outrage provokes outrage. Millions nurture seething hatred of real or imagined enemies, revealing savage and destructive tendencies in human nature. Understanding this challenges our optimistic illusions about the effectiveness of reason and morality in bettering human lives. But abandoning these illusions is vitally important because they are obstacles to countering the threat of evil. The aim of this book is to explain why people act in these ways and what can be done about it." The first part of this book is a detailed discussion of six horrible cases of evil: the Albigensian Crusade of about 1210; Robespierre's Terror of 1793?94; Franz Stangl, who commanded a Nazi death camp in 1943?44; the 1969 murders committed by Charles Manson and his "family"; the "dirty war" conducted by the Argentinean military dictatorship of the late 1970s; and the activities of a psychopath named John Allen, who recorded reminiscences in 1975. John Kekes includes these examples not out of sensationalism, but rather to underline the need to hold vividly in our minds just what evil is. The second part shows why, in Kekes's view, explanations of evil inspired by Christianity and the Enlightenment fail to account for these cases and then provides an original explanation of evil in general and of these instances of it in particular.
Hardcover. Lanham MD, Lexington Books, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 143 pages. American nature writing characteristically embodies an appreciative, lyrical evocation of the natural world. But often, too, green-disposed authors have been moved to dramatize diverse, anthropogenic perils to environmental health. John Gatta freshly reveals how this dark yet graced and hopeful strain of environmental literature enlarges upon a jeremiad tradition of prophecy inherited from Puritan New England. Across successive historical periods, such expression has assumed a rich variety of American form--as creative nonfiction, poetry, fiction, or film documentary. In the spirit of ancient Hebrew prophecy, jeremiads--unlike diatribes--reach beyond effusions of doom and gloom toward the prospect of change through a conversion of heart. Accordingly, the new climate fiction and much other writing steeped in what Gatta terms this "Green Jeremiad" tradition not only warn of material threats to life's flourishing, but may also look to stir spiritual understanding and renewal. Clean copy.
Softcover. Padova Italy, Editrice Antenore, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, cream color wrappers with black and blue type, 141 pages with index. Foreword by author. English text. Name on front fly leaf, light pencil marking to 10 pages.
Softcover. UK, Clarendon Press, reprint, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 291 pages. It is widely supposed that Hume (1711-1776) invented and espoused the `regularity' theory of causation, holding that causal relations are nothing but a matter of one type of thing being regularly followed by another. It is also widely supposed that he was quite right about this, and that it was one of his greatest contributions to philosophy. Galen Strawson argues in this book that the regularity theory of causation is indefensible, and that Hume never adopted it in any case. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 375 pages. In probing chapters on C. G. Jung, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot, Wolin discovers an unsettling commonality: during the 1930s, these thinkers leaned to the right and were tainted by a proverbial "fascination with fascism." Frustrated by democracy's shortcomings, they were seduced by fascism's grandiose promises of political regeneration. The dictatorships in Italy and Germany promised redemption from the uncertainties of political liberalism. But, from the beginning, there could be no doubting their brutal methods of racism, violence, and imperial conquest. Postmodernism's origins among the profascist literati of the 1930s reveal a dark political patrimony. The unspoken affinities between Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism constitute the guiding thread of Wolin's suggestive narrative. In their mutual hostility toward reason and democracy, postmodernists and the advocates of Counter-Enlightenment betray a telltale strategic alliance--they cohabit the fraught terrain where far left and far right intersect. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth with silver stamping, 241 pages, b&w illustrations. Limited to 1500 copies. John Marin was one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, known for his luminous watercolors and bold, expressive style. In this beautifully curated collection, Dorothy Norman presents a selection of Marin's most important writings, offering insights into his creative process and philosophy. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Lake Oswego OR, Metamorphous Press, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, b&w illustrations, 104 pages. A veteran piano tuner presents a non-technical, literary view of the quixotic tuning system used on keyboard instruments for hundreds of years. Focuses on the "comma", which is the pitch difference by which (9/8)^12 > (2/1), discusses its history, its importance in piano tuning, and philosophically what it all means. Winner of the Western States Book Award for creative nonfiction in 1986.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 406 pages. A bold and beautifully written exploration of the "afterlife" of God, showing how apparently secular habits of mind in fact retain the structure of religious thought. Once in the West, our lives were bounded by religion. Then we were guided out of the darkness of faith, we are often told, by the cold light of science and reason. To be modern was to reject the religious for the secular and rational. In a bold retelling of philosophical history, Michael Rosen explains the limits of this story, showing that many modern and apparently secular ways of seeing the world were in fact profoundly shaped by religion. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with gilt lettering, 269 pages. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise a clean copy.
Hardcover. Syracuse NY, Syracuse University Press, 1st, 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 220 pages. Bookplate on inside front cover. Otherwise clean.
Hardcover. London, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 344 pages. Edited by Raymond Klibansky and Elizabeth Anscombe.
Hardcover. Chicago, University Of Chicago Press, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 334 pages. The Spirit of Modern Republicanism sets forth a radical reinterpretation of the foundations on which the American regime was constructed. Thomas L. Pangle argues that the Founders had a dramatically new vision of civic virtue, religious faith, and intellectual life, rooted in an unprecedented commitment to private and economic liberties. It is in the thought of John Locke that Pangle finds the fullest elaboration of the principles supporting the Founders' moral vision. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 2nd Ed., 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket. 664 pages with index. Volume 2 ONLY. Masaryk was the president of Czechoslovakia after World War I. Long a student of Russia this book was first published in 1913. Clean copy.
Softcover. Madras, Government Press, 1st, 1931, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Heavy gray paper wraps, 158 pages. 12 plates of b/w photographs. A complete survey of the origin and development of the Brahmanas as well as an authoritative exposition of their liturgical codes and an accurate account of their cultural life. This work also deals with Vaishnavism of south India. Azhvars, Acharyas, Ramanuja, Visistadvaita philosophy, cardinal principles of Sri Vaishnavism. Some interesting illustrations enhance the beauty of this volume. Light wear to wrappers, clean copy.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 294 pages. An examination of the powerful social and psychological factors that hold the belief in moral responsibility firmly in place. The philosophical commitment to moral responsibility seems unshakable. But, argues Bruce Waller, the philosophical belief in moral responsibility is much stronger than the philosophical arguments in favor of it. Philosophers have tried to make sense of moral responsibility for centuries, with mixed results. Most contemporary philosophers insist that even conclusive proof of determinism would not and should not result in doubts about moral responsibility. Many embrace compatibilist views, and propose an amazing variety of competing compatibilist arguments for saving moral responsibility. In this provocative book, Waller examines the stubborn philosophical belief in moral responsibility, surveying the philosophical arguments for it but focusing on the system that supports these arguments: powerful social and psychological factors that hold the belief in moral responsibility firmly in place. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 227 pages. Emily Brady takes a fresh look at the sublime and shows why it endures as a meaningful concept in contemporary philosophy. In a reassessment of historical approaches, the first part of the book identifies the scope and value of the sublime in eighteenth-century philosophy (with a focus on Kant), nineteenth-century philosophy and Romanticism, and early wilderness aesthetics. The second part examines the sublime's contemporary significance through its relationship to the arts; its position with respect to other aesthetic categories involving mixed or negative emotions, such as tragedy; and its place in environmental aesthetics and ethics. Far from being an outmoded concept, Brady argues that the sublime is a distinctive aesthetic category which reveals an important, if sometimes challenging, aesthetic-moral relationship with the natural world. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 113 pages, b&w illustrations. When architects create a landscape or building, when artists depict a landscape, and when poets write of nature, they recreate certain aesthetic elements observed in nature. Jay Appleton asserts in an insightful analysis that these aesthetic values in landscape are not found in an elevated philosophy of aesthetics or in a culturally bound artistic symbolism but in the biological and behavioral needs that we share with other animals. Thus, the aesthetics of landscape may be approached through other areas of human experience and science, especially the natural and behavioral sciences. They are expressed in symbolism drawn from a primal habitat in which all animals seek survival. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Free Press, 5th pr., 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 432 pages. INSCRIBED BY BORK on the title page, wishing someone success in his law career. A nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Bork writes about his social and legal philosophy in what is described on the front flap as "the definitive formulation of the wisdom and necessity of interpreting the Constitution according to the "original understanding" of the framers and the people for whom it was written." A brilliant argument for the wisdom and necessity of interpreting the Constitution according to the "original Understanding" of the Framers and the people for whom it was written. Illuminates the history of the Supreme Court and the underlying meaning of constitutional controversy. Relational between values and the law, concludes with a personal account of Judge Bork's chillingly emblematic experiences during the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on his Supreme Court nomination. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, M.I.T. Press, 1st thus, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 160 pages. In an essay of prophetic vision, Lukacs defines a critical realism: 'anyone who wants to become more intimately acquainted with the prehistory of the important ideologies of the [nineteen-] twenties and thirties will be helped by a critical reading of this book.'
Hardcover. Bristol UK, Thoemmes Press, reprint, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Three hardcover volumes, uniform blue cloth covers with gilt lettering on spines. 638, 662 and 700 pages. Cudworth's magisterial work is a sweeping philosophical and religious treatise, tackling some of the biggest questions in the history of thought. He examines the nature of the universe, the concept of God, and the foundations of morality, weaving together insights from ancient philosophy, Christian theology, and contemporary science. This work is a monument to the intellectual ambition and erudition of one of Britain's greatest philosophers. A reprint of the 1845 edition published in London. Pencil marking to about 50 pages combined in volumes 1 and 3, name on front fly leaf of Volume 3. DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.
Hardcover. London, Stuart & Watkins, 2nd pr., 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with tape repairs to rear panel, black cloth stamped with gilt. 221 pages. Originally published in 1896, this printing was limited to 500 copies. Clean. Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 - 19 May 1942), commonly known as A. E. Waite, was an American-born British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.
Hardcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 180 pages. Using his intimate knowledge of John Locke's writings, John W. Yolton shows that Locke comprehends "human understanding" as a subset of a larger understanding of other intelligent Beings-angels, spirits, and an omniscient God. Locke's books on Christianity (The Reasonableness of Christianity and Paraphrases of St. Paul's Epistles) have received extensive analysis and commentary, but little attention has been given to the place of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding in his religious and theological beliefs. Yolton shows that Locke's account of what it is to be human in that work is profoundly religious. Yolton's book opens with an attempt to sort out several important terms basic to Locke's account of identity: man, self, person, and soul. A number of rarely examined components of Locke's thought emerge: the nature of man, the nature of a human being, and the place of man in the universe among the other creatures. Some will be surprised to learn that the domain of God, angels, and spirits is a part of Locke's universe, where it is considered the hoped-for destination of the just. Name, date on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
 "The Skeptical Realism of David Humeby: Wright, John P.")
 "The Sophist and the Statesmanby: Plato (A.E. Taylor/ transl.)")
 "The True Intellectual System Of The Universe: Wherein All The Reason And Philosophy Of Atheism Is Confuted, And Its Impossibility Demonstrated: With A Treatise Concerning Eternal And Immutable Morality - Three Volumes")
