Reflections by the creator of the essay form, display the humane, skeptical, humorous, and honest views of Montaigne, revealing his thoughts on sexuality, religion, cannibals, intellectuals, and other unexpected themes. Included are s...

Postmodernism has become the buzzword of contemporary society over the last decade. But how can it be defined? In this highly readable introduction the mysteries of this most elusive of concepts are unraveled, casting a critical light...

"One of the most delicate minds of real power writing today."—Susan SontagIn this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birt...

Deconstruction is so labyrinthine that it has become the monster that murdered philosophy. When Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, uses buzzwords such as “phallogocentrism” and “transcendental signified,” humanitie...

We spend most of our waking lives at work–in occupations often chosen by our unthinking younger selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what our occupations mean to us. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is an exp...

On October 25, 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, England, the great twentieth-century philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting -- which lasted ten minutes -- did n...

"A volume of Adorno is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature." --Susan Sontag A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophi...

Collected here are Althusser's most significant philosophical writings from 1965 to 1978.Intended to contribute, in his own words, to a "left-wing critique of Stalinism that would help put some substance back into the revolutionary pr...

Louis Althusser is remembered today as the scourge of humanist Marxism, but that was his later incarnation, an identity formed by years grappling with the intellectual inheritance of Hegel and Catholicism. The Spectre of Hegel collect...

Includes essays and excerpts from the works of prominent modern thinkers such as Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, and Isaiah Berlin among others.

Hannah Arendt began her scholarly career with an exploration of Saint Augustine's concept of caritas, or neighborly love, written under the direction of Karl Jaspers and the influence of Martin Heidegger. After her German academic lif...

The author’s final work, presented in a one-volume edition, is a rich, challenging analysis of man’s mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging. Edited by Mary McCarthy; Indices.

Classic introduction to objectives and methods of schools of empiricism and linguistic analysis, especially of the logical positivism derived from the Vienna Circle. Topics: elimination of metaphysics, function of philosophy, nature o...

Taboo and sacrifice, transgression and language, death and sensuality—Georges Bataille pursues these themes with an original, often startling perspective. He challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ra...

The first full-length translation in English of an essential work of postmodernist thought

Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

In The Roots of Romanticism, one of the twentieth century's most influential philosophers dissects and assesses a movement that changed the course of history. Brilliant, fresh, immediate, and eloquent, these celebrated Mellon Lectures...

This volume records a remarkable encounter in critical and philosophical thinking: a meeting of two of the great pioneers in contemporary thought, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida, who are also bound together by friendship and a c...

By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the 'essential dimensions' of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Pro...

This beautifully illustrated guide to Walter Benjamin—the genius behind the famous essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction—traces his influence on modern aesthetics and cultural history as well as his particula...

Two of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers debate a perennial question.In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War and at a time of great political and social instability, two of the world's leading intellectuals, Noam Ch...

Jacques Derrida is the most famous philosopher of the late twentieth century. His philosophy is an array of rigorous tactics for destabilizing texts, meanings, and identities. Introducing Derrida introduces and explores his life and w...

Comedian, writer, director, actor, musician, and deep thinker, Woody Allen is clearly trying to say something, but what? And why should anyone care? Fifteen philosophers representing different schools of thought answer these questions...

In Read My Desire, Joan Copjec stages a confrontation between the theories of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault, protagonists of two powerful modern discourses – psychoanalysis and historicism. Ordinarily, these discourses only cro...

In this enlightening new Very Short Introduction, Simon Critchley shows us that Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by ...

Here is a brilliant new translation of Descartes's Meditations, one of the most influential books in the history of Western philosophy, including the full texts of the Third and Fourth Objections and Replies, and a selection from the ...

'Those most capable of being moved by passion are those capable of tasting the most sweetness in this life.'Descartes is most often thought of as introducing a total separation of mind and body. But he also acknowledged the intimate u...

Intent on letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading classic authors, the How to Read series will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon.An idiosyncratic and highly...

The twentieth century has witnessed the blossoming of Western culture: new technology; communications and transportation systems; social, political, educational, agricultural, and medical advances. But with these changes have come the...

Praised as a "revelatory" book by The Wall Street Journal, this is the last and most personal work of Pulitzer Prize–winning author and historian Will Durant, discovered thirty-two years after his death.The culmination of ...