Contemporary Philosophy

When the Buddha set in motion the wheel of Dharma, he knew that the teaching he gave was inexhaustible - that every future generation would find its own skillful ways to convey it to the hearts and minds of those ready to hear. The Buddha Is Still Teaching is testimony to the fulfillment of that promise today. The selections it contains, from today's most highly regarded contemporary Buddhist teachers, bring the Dharma eloquently to life for us in our own time, place, and culture.

The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by 18th-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone. In McCloskey's view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism - and the fixation of the left on inequality is counterproductive.

Before it was a religion, a culture, or even a system of meditation, what was Buddhism? On Buddhism Without Beliefs, celebrated teacher, translator, and former Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor takes us back to the first years after the Buddha's awakening to reveal the root insights of Buddhism hidden beneath centuries of history and interpretation.

Whether you are new to Edgar Cayce or have studied the readings for years, this modern, comprehensive look at his material speaks to where humankind is today in a way that has never before been explored and without the sometimes difficult-to-understand language of the readings. The authors offer new insights and wisdom that is applicable to your life today.

Despite her world having been recently dismantled by a messy break-up, Alice would tell you that love is the most important – albeit ineffable – human experiences. But when she once again crosses paths with her old school nemesis, Luke, he challenges this. Luke is a scientist and he’s certain love can be measured and explained – just like everything else. So the two decide to make a bet: they’ll each venture back into dating and if one of them falls in love, Alice wins, if not, then Luke does.

One day, 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find two notes in her mailbox, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up?

Contemporary culture trivializes the "seven deadly sins," or vices, as if they have no serious moral or spiritual implications. Glittering Vices clears this misconception by exploring the traditional meanings of gluttony, sloth, lust, and others. It offers a brief history of how the vices were compiled and an eye-opening explication of how each sin manifests itself in various destructive behaviors. Listeners gain practical understanding of how the vices shape our culture today and how to correctly identify and eliminate the...patterns of sin in their own lives.

Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. These books have been carefully adapted into modern English form to allow for easy listening. Enjoy!

In The Substance of Consciousness, two distinguished philosophers deliver a unique and powerful defense of contemporary substance dualism, which makes the claim that the human person is an embodied fundamental, immaterial, and unifying substance. The authors present the most comprehensive, up-to-date work on substance dualism in the field, as well as a detailed history of how property and substance dualism have been presented and evaluated over the last 150 years.

Epistemic vices are character traits, attitudes, or thinking styles that prevent us from gaining, keeping, or sharing knowledge. In this book, Quassim Cassam gives an account of the nature and importance of these vices, which include closed-mindedness, intellectual arrogance, wishful thinking, and prejudice. In providing the first extensive coverage of vice epistemology, an exciting new area of philosophical research, Vices of the Mind uses real examples drawn primarily from the world of politics to develop a compelling theory of epistemic vice.

De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly.

Discover the secret to a meaningful and fulfilled life through the ancient wisdom of King Solomon.

The philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the absence of appealing models of maturity is not an accident: By describing life as a downhill process, we prepare young people to expect - and demand - very little from it. In Why Grow Up?, she challenges our culture of permanent adolescence, turning to thinkers including Kant, Rousseau, and Arendt to find a model of maturity that is not a matter of resignation. In growing up, we move from the boundless trust of childhood to the peculiar mixture of disappointment and exhilaration that comes with adolescence.

Letters from a Stoic is collection of 124 letters which were written by Seneca at the end of his life, during his retirement, and written after he had worked for the Emperor Nero for 15 years. They are addressed to Lucilius, the then procurator of Sicily. The letters highlight many moral and ethical ways to live, and address many of the issues known to man, about life and death. Each letter has been carefully adapted into modern English to allow for easy listening and understanding. This is the complete volume containing all 124 letters. Enjoy!

The Enchiridion or Manual of Epictetus (Enchiridion is Greek for "that which is held in the hand") is a short manual of Stoic ethical advice. This manual has been carefully adapted in to modern English to allow for easy listening. Enjoy.

Contemporary Theology: An Introduction by Kirk MacGregor introduces major thinkers and schools of thought from the beginning of the 19th century to the present, including non-Western voices, evangelical perspectives, and philosophical developments alongside the widely acknowledged main streams of modern theology.

God and the Self in Hegel proposes a reconstruction of Hegel’s conception of God and analyzes the significance of this reading for Hegel’s idealistic metaphysics. Paolo Diego Bubbio argues that in Hegel’s view, subjectivism—the tenet that there is no underlying “true” reality that exists independently of the activity of the cognitive agent—can be avoided, and content can be restored to religion, only to the extent that God is understood in God’s relation to human beings, and human beings are understood in their relation to God.

The Book of Five Rings (五輪書, Go Rin no Sho) is a text on kenjutsu (sword fighting), and combat in general, written by the Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi around 1645.

Civilization and Its Discontents is a book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It was written in 1929 and explores what Freud sees as the important clash between the desire for individuality and the expectations of society. The book is considered one of Freud's most important and widely read works, and one of the most influential and studied books in the field of modern psychology. This book has been carefully adapted in to modern English to allow for easy listening. Enjoy!

The Individualization of War examines the status of individuals in contemporary armed conflict in three main capacities: as subject to violence but deserving of protection; as liable to harm because of their responsibility for attacks on others; and as agents who can be held accountable for the perpetration of crimes.