Simon Vance
We see our age as the greatest in human history, filled with seemingly unending originality. Yet such dynamism is not a necessary characteristic of great eras. Among the most long-lasting and stable civilizations was that of medieval Europe. There stasis was achieved, and with it a stability that permitted the development of structured thought and intellectual embellishment of unparalleled degree. Like the vast gothic cathedrals of western Europe,
...202) Hume in 90 Minutes
Hume reduced philosophy to ruins: he denied the existence of everything—except our actual perceptions themselves. I alone exist, he argued, and the world is nothing more than part of my consciousness. Yet we know that 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.
In Hume in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers
...If we accept Wittgenstein's word for it, he is the last philosopher. In his view, philosophy in the traditional sense was finished. Wittgenstein was a superb logician who distrusted language and sought to solve the problems of philosophy by reducing them to logic. All else—metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, finally even philosophy itself—was excluded. "What we cannot speak about," he declared, "we must pass over in silence."
In Wittgenstein
...Spinoza’s brilliant metaphysical system was derived neither from reality nor experience. Starting from basic assumptions, with a series of geometric proofs he built a universe which was also God—one and the same thing, the classic example of pantheism. Although his system seems an oddity today, Spinoza’s conclusions are deeply in accord with modern thought, from science (the holistic ethics of today’s ecologists) to politics (the idea that
...García Márquez stands on the shoulders of a great Latin American literary heritage. But he is also that modern rarity, a writer with aspirations to high art who also remains hugely popular. For those who fall under his spell, his novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, is one of the richest literary dreams ever written. Its "magical realism" has influenced writers the world over.
In García Márquez in 90 Minutes,
...206) Marx in 90 Minutes
Karl Marx's devastating critique of capitalism, and his proposal of communism as the answer to the failings of the capitalist system, bore their greatest fruits in the twentieth century with the formation of the communist state in the Soviet Union. This great venture has now all but completely failed. Yet the force of the communist belief offered the prospect of "justice on this earth" to countless numbers. And Marx's critique has influenced generations
...207) Hegel in 90 Minutes
Hegel's dialectical method produced the most grandiose metaphysical system known to man. Its most vital element was the dialectic of the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This sprung from Hegel's aim to overcome the deficiencies of logic and ascend toward Mind as the ultimate reality. His view of history as a process of humanity's self-realization inspired Marx to synthesize his philosophy of dialectical materialism.
In Hegel in 90
...208) Kant in 90 Minutes
Immanuel Kant taught and wrote prolifically about physical geography yet never traveled further than forty miles from his home in Königsberg. How appropriate it is then that in his philosophy he should deny that all knowledge was derived from experience. Kant's aim was to restore metaphysics. He insisted that all experience must conform to knowledge. According to Kant, space and time are subjective; along with various "categories," they help us
...Smart, darkly funny, and life-affirming, for fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Something to Live For is the bighearted debut novel we all need, a story about love, loneliness, and the importance of taking a chance when we feel we have the most to lose.
"Off-beat and winning...Gives resiliency and the triumph of the human spirit a good name."...
With Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophy was dangerous not only for philosophers but for everyone. Nietzsche ended up going mad, but his ideas presaged a collective madness that had horrific consequences in Europe in the early 1900s. Though his philosophy is more one of aphorisms and insights than a system, it is brilliant, persuasive, and incisive. His major concept is the will to power, which he saw as the basic impulse for all our acts. Christianity
...211) Kafka in 90 Minutes
A handsome recluse, plagued by indecision and hypochondria, Kafka nonetheless exhibited an extraordinary strength. He developed the uncanny ability to observe himself with cool objectivity, and he cultivated this ability in his writing, where it appeared in increasingly original metaphorical form. His works became among the greatest of the twentieth century, and his influence permeated far and wide, transcending literature. His descriptions of
...212) Mr. Toppit
"And out of the Darkwood Mr. Toppit comes, and he comes not for you, or for me, but for all of us."
When the Hayseed Chronicles, an obscure series of children's books, becomes world famous, millions of readers debate the significance of that enigmatic last line and of the shadowy figure, Mr. Toppit, who dominates the books. The author, Arthur Hayman, an unsuccessful screenwriter mown down by a concrete truck in Soho, never reaps the benefits
...Edgar Allan Poe is an American boy in England, a child standing on the edge of mysteries. In 1819, two Americans arrive in London. Soon afterward a bank collapses, a man is found horribly mutilated on a building site, another goes missing in the teeming stews of the city's notorious Seven Dials district, a deathbed vigil ends in theft, and an heiress flirts with her inferiors. All the while, Poe's young schoolmaster struggles to understand what
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René Descartes spent much of his life in solitude. Fortunately, these countless lonely hours helped Descartes produce the declaration that changed all philosophy: "I think, therefore I am." Convincing himself to doubt and disregard sensory knowledge, Descartes found he could prove his existence through his thoughts alone. This internal reality, he believed, was the true reality, while the external was hopelessly deceiving.
In
...In 1899, in the south Indian village of Chevathar, renowned for its groves of a rare variety of blue mango, Solomon Dorai is contemplating the imminent destruction of his world and everything he holds dear. As the thalaivar or headman of Chevathar, he seeks to preserve the village from both catastrophe and change, and the decisions he makes will mark his family for generations to come.
Richly emotional and abundant in historical detail, The House
...217) The Children's Homer
Padraic Colum's classic retelling combines the immortal stories from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into one glorious saga of heroism and magical adventure. Come voyage to ancient Greece with Achilles who, guided by the gods, seeks vengeance on the Trojans. And follow Odysseus on his perilous journey on the sea—through the land of the Cyclopes, past Circe the Enchantress, the terrible Charybdis, and the six-headed serpent Scylla.
Young readers
...Kierkegaard wasn't really a philosopher in the academic sense, yet he produced what many people expect of philosophy. He didn't write about the world, he wrote about life, about how we live, and how we choose to live. His subject was the individual and his or her existence, the "existing being." In Kierkegaard's view, this purely subjective entity lay beyond the reach of reason, logic, philosophical systems, theology, or even "the pretenses of
...Confucius taught a moral wisdom that would become a predominant social force in China from the second century BCE until the mid-twentieth century. It would appear that his aim was to turn his pupils into good government officials, but his quaint humanistic platitudes, maxims, and quasi-enigmatic anecdotes made spiritual fodder for the next two thousand years of the culture.
In Confucius in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert
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