Sartre: Philosophy in an Hour

Philosophy has always been dangerous for philosophers; Friedrich Nietzsche made it dangerous for everyone. His ideas presaged a collective madness which was to ravage Europe throughout the first half of the 20th century, drawing a chilling parallel with the insanity that gripped Nietzsche towards the end of his life. His philosophy is one of aphorisms and penetrating psychological insights, his major concept being the Will to Power - a notion that he saw as the basic impulse for all our acts. Viewing Christianity as a subtle perversion of this concept Nietzsche is famous for his pronouncement that ‘God is dead’.

One of the two major philosophical traditions of the 20th century was linguistic analysis, derived largely from Wittgenstein. The other, diametrically opposed, came from Heidegger, and its fundamental question was: ‘What is the meaning of existence?’ For Heidegger, this was not a query that could simply be ‘analysed away’ - it was beyond the reach of logic or reason. This was the primary ‘given’ of every individual life. To confront it, Heidegger needed to develop an entirely new form of philosophy. Here is a concise, expert account of Heidegger’s life and philosophical ideas that is entertainingly written and easy to understand.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Wittgenstein in just one hour. Ludwig Wittgenstein saw himself as ‘the last philosopher’. In his view, philosophy in the traditional sense was finished. A superb logician, Wittgenstein distrusted language and sought to solve the problems of philosophy by reducing them to the purest form of logic. Everything else - metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, finally even philosophy itself - was excluded.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Kierkegaard in just one hour.Although Kierkegaard was not a philosopher in the academic sense, he produced what many people expect of philosophy. He didn’t write about the world, he wrote about life – how we live and how we choose to live, particularly focussing on the individual and the notion of his (or her) existence.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Kant in just one hour. Immanuel Kant taught and wrote prolifically about physical geography yet never travelled farther than forty miles from his home in Königsberg. Appropriately, his philosophy strenuously denies that all knowledge is derived from experience, insisting instead that all experience must conform to knowledge. Kant’s aim was to restore metaphysics.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Foucault in just one hour. The French philosopher Michel Foucault set about his task rather like a historian. After painstaking research, he concluded that knowledge and power were intimately related throughout history.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Schopenhauer in just one hour.Arthur Schopenhauer, the ‘philosopher of pessimism,’ makes it clear that he regards the world and our life in it as a bad joke. However, if the world is indifferent to our fate it doesn’t thwart us deliberately – its façade is supported by what Schopenhauer calls the universal Will. He saw this as a force that is blind and without purpose, bringing on all our misery and suffering.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Russell in just one hour. Bertrand Russell claimed to be driven by three great passions that drove his personal as well as his intellectual life: a longing for love, a quest for knowledge and a heart-rending pity for human suffering. His philosophical outlook, which took deep account of the science of his time, was nonetheless rooted in logic and empiricism.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Hegel in just one hour. With Hegel philosophy became very difficult indeed – even the great man himself conceded that ‘only one man understands me, and even he does not.’ His dialectical method produced the most grandiose metaphysical system known to humanity, and included absolutely everything, its most vital element being the dialectic of the thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Hume in just one hour.Hume reduced philosophy to ruins, denying the existence of everything except our actual perceptions themselves. The world is nothing more than part of my consciousness. Yet we know the world remains, and we go on as before. What Hume expressed was the status of our knowledge about the world – a world in which neither religion nor science is certain.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Derrida in just one hour. Jacques Derrida’s ‘deconstructionism’ is nothing less than an effort to destroy all ‘writing’ by demonstrating its inevitable falsehood. The writer writes but does not know what he is writing. Derrida argues that all texts have their own hidden agenda and contain their own metaphysical assumptions – the writer’s very language inevitably distorts what he thinks and writes.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Locke in just one hour. Much of Locke’s thought we would now regard as common sense. One of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers; his philosophy was to lay the foundations of empiricism with its belief that our knowledge of the world is based on experience. Locke’s work introduced the idea of liberal democracy – a concept that has become the shibboleth of Western civilisation.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Confucius in just one hour.

This is the perfect audiobook for people who are on the go and don’t have time to read philosophy books but wish they knew more about certain people and how they influenced history. This is a concise, expert account of Confucious’ life and philosophical ideas - entertainingly written and most importantly easy listening. Also included are selections from Confucious’ work, suggested further reading, and chronologies that place Confucious in the context of the broader scheme of philosophy.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Aristotle in just one hour. The philosophy of Aristotle dominated Western thought for over a thousand years. He had a mind that mastered all disciplines from mathematics to politics and had a continuing impact on every sphere of knowledge he touched. Above all, Aristotle is credited with the founding of logic.

Karl Marx's philosophical critique of capitalism and his solution of communism directly led to the formation of the communist state in the Soviet Union. Whilst this great venture has now all but completely failed, Marx’s philosophy has proved to be arguably the most influential of the 20th century; the influence of Marxism can be seen in subjects as diverse as the infamous policies of Joseph Stalin to many of the progressive humanitarian reforms of the 20th century. The audiobook is an expert account of Marx’s life and philosophical ideas - entertainingly written and above all easy listening.