Search query: simon blackburn think

Product: The Big Questions: Philosophy
Description: The Big Questions series is designed to let renowned experts confront the 20 most fundamental and frequently asked questions of a major branch of science or philosophy. Each 3000-word essay simply and concisely examines a question that has eternally perplexed enquiring minds, and provides answers from history's great thinkers. This ambitious project is a unique distillation of humanity's best ideas.
In Big Questions: Philosophy, bestselling author Simon Blackburn addresses 20 essential questions.
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Product: Philosophy: Why It Matters
Description: We constantly disagree with each other on issues of fundamental importance. Does God exist? Should the latest scientific findings be trusted? Are there innate psychological differences between men and women?

In four lively chapters, Beebee and Rush explain philosophy’s role in addressing such questions. They consider what it means to be human, how we should engage in public debate, philosophy’s relationship with science and religion, and the nature of our moral choices. Far from being only an abstract endeavour, philosophy engages with issues on a practical level, and philosophers draw inspiration from real-life situations. At its core, philosophy is about how to live and how to make sense of the world we inhabit. It is a set of tools and techniques for clearly and systematically considering our arguments and uncovering our hidden assumptions, which helps us to make more informed choices about what to believe and how to act. Philosophy is everywhere, and open to everyone.
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Product: Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love
Description: Everyone deplores narcissism, especially in others. The vain are by turns annoying or absurd, offending us whether they are blissfully oblivious or proudly aware of their behavior. But are narcissism and vanity really as bad as they seem? Can we avoid them even if we try? In Mirror, Mirror, Simon Blackburn, the author of such best-selling philosophy books as Think, Being Good, and Lust, says that narcissism, vanity, pride, and self-esteem are more complex than they first appear and have innumerable good and bad forms. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, literature, history, and popular culture, Blackburn offers an enlightening and entertaining exploration of self-love, from the myth of Narcissus and the Christian story of the Fall to today’s self-esteem industry.

A sparkling mixture of learning, humor, and style, Mirror, Mirror examines what great thinkers have said about self-love—from Aristotle, Cicero, and Erasmus to Rousseau, Adam Smith, Kant, and Iris Murdoch. It considers today’s “me”-related obsessions, such as the “selfie,” plastic surgery, and cosmetic enhancements, and reflects on connected phenomena such as the fatal commodification of social life and the tragic overconfidence of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Ultimately, Mirror, Mirror shows why self-regard is a necessary and healthy part of life. But it also suggests that we have lost the ability to distinguish—let alone strike a balance—between good and bad forms of self-concern.
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Product: Plato's Republic: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)
Description: “A clear and accessible introduction to philosophy’s first superstar” by the author of On Truth and Think, one of our great contemporary philosophers (Kirkus Reviews).
Plato is perhaps the most significant philosopher who ever lived and The Republic, composed in Athens in about 375 BC, is widely regarded as his most famous dialogue. Its discussion of the perfect city—and the perfect mind—laid the foundations for Western culture and has been the cornerstone of Western philosophy. As the distinguished Cambridge professor Simon Blackburn points out, it has probably sustained more commentary, and been subject to more radical and impassioned disagreement, than almost any other text in the modern world.
“A provocative companion to an essential text” (Publishers Weekly), Plato’s Republic explores the judicial, moral, and political ideas in The Republic with dazzling insight. Blackburn also examines The Republic’s influence and staying power, and shows why, from St. Augustine to twentieth-century philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Western thought is still conditioned by this most important, and contemporary, of books.
“Plato’s Republic . . . which Blackburn rightly suggests is the first book to shake the world, is loaded with perennial questions that every generation must struggle with. How are we to live our lives? What is virtue and can it be taught? Are pleasure and good the same?”—The Independent
“Philosopher Simon Blackburn has written a new book about The Republic, gently reminding those of us who have forgotten it why it remains so important. The book unquestionably belongs on anybody’s list of Books That Changed the World.”—NPR
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Product: What Do We Really Know?: The Big Questions in Philosophy
Brand: Quercus Publishing
Quercus
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Product: On Being Me: A Personal Invitation to Philosophy
Brand: Princeton University Press
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Product: Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning
Brand: Clarendon Press
Color: Other
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Product: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn (1999-10-14)
Description: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn. Oxford UP,1999
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Product: Truth: A Guide
Brand: Oxford University Press, USA
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Product: Lust: The Seven Deadly Sins (New York Public Library Lectures in Humanities)
Brand: Oxford University Press
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Product: Essays in Quasi-Realism
Brand: Oxford University Press
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Product: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy
Brand: Oxford University Press, USA
Oxford University Press, USA
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Product: Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics
Brand: Oxford University Press, USA
Oxford University Press, USA
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Product: Ethics: A Very Short Introduction
Brand: Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
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Product: On Truth
Brand: Oxford University Press, USA
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Product: Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language
Brand: Oxford University Press
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