Showing titles in Consciousness & Thought

Imagination: A Very Short Introduction explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing, demonstrating how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways. Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives on imagination, the author shows how this facility, while potentially distorting, both frees us from immediate reality and enriches our sense of it, making possible our experience of a meaningful world.

Texte majeur de la philosophie politique, le "Discours de la servitude volontaire" a fait de La Boétie un des précurseurs de la désobéissance civile. Il pose la question de la légitimité de l'autorité sur une population, pour devenir un véritable mode d'emploi pour ne pas être dupe du pouvoir : ce n'est pas en luttant contre la tyrannie qu'on peut l'abattre, mais en comprenant ses mécanismes pour ne plus en être dupe.

What words come to mind when we think of God? Merciful? Just? Compassionate? In fact, the Bible lays out God’s primary qualities clearly: jealous, petty, unforgiving, bloodthirsty, vindictive—and worse! Originally conceived as a joint presentation between influential thinker and bestselling...

In Terrance McKenna's captivating lecture, listen as he delves into his theory of the universe as an engine geared towards generating and preserving novelty, with an escalation in novelty corresponding to an increase in complexity. Drawing from the Chinese divination text, the I-Ching, which he views as a tool rather than the focal point, McKenna elaborates on the concept of the time wave. Time, he proposes, manifests as a colossal wave, gathering density and intensity until its culmination, fueled by novelty in various forms such as information, incidents, and events.

Inspired by Sri Atmananda (Krishna Menon), the Direct Path is a "pathless path". It simply articulates the being of you and the world as loving, open, clear awareness. If this truth is realized as your experience, then nothing need be done. The path disappears, and life is lived in sweetness and celebration! But if there are still questions or doubts, the Direct Path contains unique and powerful resources that stabilize this truth as your everyday reality. 

Have you tried everything and can't lose weight? Find diet or exercise alone don't work? Hold a distorted body image? Tap into your inherent power to facilitate positive changes and alter the way you think, feel, and look! Use creative visualization to help you build your confidence and reshape your body. Body Transformation Inside-Out uses the correlation between mind, body, and emotions to promote health, vitality, and serenity.

Though we have plenty of energy, apparently we lack the drive, enthusiasm, vitality to bring about a change in ourselves. As long as there is fear, there must be violence, aggression, anger, hatred. Thought is the source of fear. Is it possible to live everyday life without thought interfering? Thought is always old. When you worship thought, you are worshipping some thing that is dead.

The theme of "initiation" appears in various relationships throughout this series of books. An initiation is an expansion of consciousness - a means of opening the mind and heart to a recognition of what already exists in reality. It is, therefore, a result of the ability to transcend those glamours and illusions which veil the truth and limit the consciousness. As a living process, initiation is experienced by all forms of life, large and small, from the universal to the particular.

While we tend to think of the great thinkers as hailing from Ancient Greece, the 20th century has had more than its fair share of sharp minds. "500 Quotations from the Great Philosophers of the 20th Century" is a collection of reflections, insights, and observations from some of the best brains of that era. A superb book for dipping in and out of, this makes a great gift for anyone with an interest in history or philosophy.

Brought to you by Penguin. We are creatures of habit, living most of our lives automatically, in small worlds of more or less comfortable routine. But sometimes outside forces compel us to adjust, and sometimes we must make changes ourselves. What happens when change disrupts our lives? This...

In The Thread of Theseus, a bold and thought-provoking exploration of consciousness, identity, and transformation, the classic philosophical puzzle of the Ship of Theseus becomes the entry point to a rich synthesis of modern science and ancient wisdom. Bridging physics, biology, and spirituality, this book offers a radical new hypothesis: that the self is not fixed or isolated, but a living, evolving pattern—an entangled self—woven through time, memory, and matter.

Does free will exist? The question has fueled heated debates spanning from philosophy to psychology and religion. The answer has major implications, and the stakes are high. To put it in the simple terms that have come to dominate these debates, if we are free to make our own decisions, we are accountable for what we do, and if we aren't free, we're off the hook.

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.

Qué pasaría si toda la historia de la filosofía occidental pudiera leerse como una conversación viva, en lugar de una colección de doctrinas aisladas? En SÓCRATES. PLATÓN. ARISTÓTELES, Isaac Volpe ofrece un recorrido audaz, lúcido y profundamente cautivador por la evolución intelectual que dio forma a los fundamentos del pensamiento occidental. Los conceptos complejos se vuelven accesibles sin caer en simplificaciones, lo que convierte este libro en una obra igualmente valiosa tanto para lectores que se acercan por primera vez a la filosofía como para estudiantes experimentados.

On Inhumanity is bracing and vital listen in a world lurching towards authoritarian political regimes, resurgent white nationalism, refugee crises that breed nativist hostility, and fast-spreading racist rhetoric. The book will open your eyes to the pervasive dangers of dehumanization and the prejudices that can too easily take root within us, and resist them before they spread into the wider world. 

Provides evidence that human consciousness can never be reproduced and exposes the perils of artificial intelligence Explains how consciousness transcends the brain and body through quantum theory and accounts of consciousness in the clinically dead Shares scientific evidence of how the...

I am bringing to my listeners knowledge that I have obtained by favor rather than by effort. It will not be found the less valuable on that account; I venture, on the contrary, to declare that it will be found of incalculably greater value, easily as I have obtained it, than any results in a similar direction that I could possibly have procured by ordinary methods of research, even had I possessed, in the highest degree, that which I make no claim to possess at all - oriental scholarship.

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.

Memory: A Very Short Introduction explores the fascinating intricacies of human memory. Is it one thing or many? How does memory change as we age? And what about so-called recovered memories - can they be relied upon as a record of what actually happened in our personal past? This book brings together our most recent knowledge to address (in a scientifically rigorous but highly accessible way) these and many other important questions about how memory works, and why we can't live without it. 

What remains of a human being when the oldest instinct—self-preservation—is silenced? In a world where survival has become both an obsession and a constraint, Stripped of Self-Preservation: Between Fear and Freedom asks what it means to live when the impulse to avoid harm dominates every gesture, every thought, every choice. This book unravels the instinct that once protected life, now turned into a force that limits it. Through the lens of philosophy, psychology, neurobiology, and cultural analysis, it explores how fear shapes not only bodies but entire civilizations.