EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

Socrates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/) himself did not write any philosophical texts. Our knowledge of the man and his philosophy is based on writings by his students and contemporaries, particularly Plato’s dialogues, but also the writings of Aristotle, Xenophon and Aristophanes. As these are either the partisan philosophical texts of his supporters, or works of dramatic […]

Janus: A Summing Up is a 1978 book by Arthur Koestler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler) that develops his philosophical idea of the holarchy, introduced in his 1967 book, The Ghost in the Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_in_the_Machine). The holarchy provides a coherent way of organizing knowledge and nature all together. The idea of the holarchy is that everything we can think of

It’s fair to say that Friedrich Nietzsche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/) probably divides opinion more than any other philosopher. A great many philosophers do not even think he counts as one of their number. Yet in a 2005 BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time‘ poll (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/greatest_philosopher_vote_result.shtml) to guage estimations of who was the greatest philosopher in history, Nietzsche came 4th

Aristotle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/) is widely regarded as the greatest of all philosophers; indeed, he is traditionally referred to simply as `the philosopher’. Today, after more than two millennia, his ideas continue to stimulate thinkers and provoke them to controversy. The secondary literature is vast. The task of embracing Aristotle is like an ant setting out on the

This book is a wonderful breath of fresh air and a book for non-philosophers as much as for philosophers. Mary Midgley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgely) explores the relation between men and other animals in an original but common sense way which has even more relevance to bioethical controversies today than it had in 1978 when it was published.

Sub-titled ‘An Essay on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason‘, this book is an illuminating analysis of Kant’s main line of thought in the Critique, and it goes beyond Kant in its marvellously perceptive discussion of the relation between language and the world as we perceive it. Kant was perhaps the first truly professional philosopher. He

What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits? And why has belief thrived since, shaping millennia of civilizations, thousands of generations of shamans, pharaohs, Aztec priests and Mayan rulers, Jews, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Scientologists? As our dreams and nightmares have changed over the