Philosophers

An odyssey into life’s challenging questions during an unforgettable summer motorcycle trip Acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters, Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance became an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1974...

In 1957, four years before his death, Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychologist, began writing his life story. But what started as an exercise in autobiography soon morphed into an altogether more profound undertaking.

Discover the timeless works of Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers, whose insights continue to shape modern thought. The Complete Aristotle Collection is your gateway to the teachings that have endured for over two millennia.

Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse - Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron....

A rigorously researched biography of the founder of modern magick, as well as a study of the occult, sexuality, Eastern religion, and more The name “Aleister Crowley” instantly conjures visions of diabolic ceremonies and orgiastic indulgences—and while the sardonic Crowley would perhaps be...

St Thomas Aquinas established the foundations for much of modern philosophy of religion, and is famous for his arguments for the existence of God....

NEW YORK TIMES Editors’ Choice THE TIMES BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE HAWTHORNDEN PRIZE A groundbreaking new biography of philosophy’s greatest iconoclast Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most enigmatic figures in philosophy, and his concepts—the Übermensch, the will to...

Macmillan Audio presents In My Own Way, Alan Watts's acclaimed autobiography, published for the first time in audio. In this audiobook, Alan Watts tracks his spiritual and philosophical evolution from a child of religious conservatives in rural England to a freewheeling spiritual teacher who...

Why does race seem to color almost every feature of our moral and political universe? Why does a perpetual cycle of slavery continue to define the Black experience? These are just some of the compelling questions that animate Afropessimism....

A NEW YORK TIMES AND NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A poet, a physicist, and a philosopher explored the greatest enigmas in the universe—the nature of free will, the strange fabric of the cosmos, the true limits of the mind—and each in their own way uncovered a revelatory truth about...

The Greek word sumposion means a drinking party, and the party described in Plato's Symposium is one supposedly given in the year 416 BC by the playwright Agathon....

Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time

This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual....

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An “outstanding new intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes [that moves] swiftly along currents of lucidity and wit” (The New York Times), illuminating the world of the influential economist and his transformative ideas “A timely, lucid and compelling...

In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world.

From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee and Comenius, from George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopaedic interests....

The life and thought of Diogenes the Cynic, an iconoclastic philosopher who pioneered a brash and free-thinking vision of life that inspired the philosophy of Stoicism—“a rich, engaging portrait of intellectual fearlessness” (Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cleopatra) In...

The definitive biography of the man who dominated political and intellectual circles in England during the sixteenth century: Thomas More.

With his well known idiosyncrasies and aphoristic style, Friedrich Nietzsche is always bracing and provocative, and temptingly easy to dip into. Michael Tanner's introduction to the philosopher's life and work examines the numerous ambiguities inherent in his writings and explodes many of the...

“[Don Lattin] has created a stimulating and thoroughly engrossing read.” —Dennis McNally, author of A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead, and Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America It is impossible to overstate the cultural significance of...

This Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical ideas and political theories belonging to one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century....

Dallas Willard was a personal mentor and inspiration to hundreds of pastors, philosophers, and average churchgoers. His presence and ideas rippled through the lives of many prominent leaders and authors....

Plato of Athens is the perfect introduction to the man and his work....

Roubineau sifts through the many legends and apocryphal stories that surround the life of Diogenes. Roubineau retraces the known facts of Diogenes' existence....

In How to Think Like a Woman, Penaluna blends memoir, biography, and criticism to tell the stories of four women, weaving throughout an alternative history of philosophy. This is a moving meditation on what philosophy could look like if women were treated equally....