Recommendations based on "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance [50th Anniversary Edition] An Inquiry Into Values"

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. The Father of Existentialism, Kierkegaard transformed philosophy with his conviction that we must all create our own nature; in this great work of religious anxiety, he argues that a true understanding of God can only be attained by making a personal 'leap of faith'.

This handsome new edition of Stanley Cavell's landmark text, first published 20 years ago, provides a new preface that discusses the reception and influence of his work, which occupies a unique niche between philosophy and literary studies.

‘you Can Only Find Out The Rights And Wrongs By Reasoning – Never By Being Rude About Your Opponent’s Psychology.’ For C. S. Lewis, Reason And Logic Are The Sensible Way To Approach Faith And Ethics. Much Of The 20th Century’s Ills Are Caused By Ill-founded Beliefs And Opinions.

Friedrich Nietzsche's most accessible and influential philosophical work, misquoted, misrepresented, brilliantly original and enormously influentialNietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. Nietzsche's utterance 'God is dead', his insistence that the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms, and his doctrine of the Superman and the will to power were all later seized upon and unrecognisably twisted by, among others, Nazi intellectuals. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission to authority, but in an all-powerful life force: passionate, chaotic and free.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Richard Feynman – Nobel Laureate, Teacher, Icon And Genius – Possessed An Unquenchable Thirst For Adventure And An Unparalleled Gift For Telling The Extraordinary Stories Of His Life. In This Collection Of Short Pieces And Reminiscences He Describes Everything From His Love Of Beauty To College Pranks To How His Father Taught Him To Think. He Takes Us Behind The Scenes Of The Space Shuttle Challenger Investigation, Where He Dramatically Revealed The Cause Of The Disaster With A Simple Experiment. And He Tells Us Of How He Met His Beloved First Wife Arlene, And Their Brief Time Together Before Her Death. Sometimes Intensely Moving, Sometimes Funny, These Writings Are Infused With Feynman’s Curiosity And Passion For Life.

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) was the most outstanding logician of the twentieth century, famous for his hallmark works on the completeness of logic, the incompleteness of number theory and stronger systems, and the consistency of the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis. He is also noted for his work on constructivity, the decision problem, the foundations of computation theory, unusual cosmological models, and for the strong individuality of his writings on the philosophy of mathematics. The Collected Works is a landmark resource that draws together a lifetime of creative accomplishment. The first two volumes were devoted to Gödel's publications in full (both in the original and translation). This third volume features a wide selection of unpublished articles and lecture texts found in Gödel's Nachlass, documents that enlarge considerably our appreciation of his scientific and philosophical thought and add a great deal to our understanding of his motivations. Continuing the format of the earlier volumes, the present volume includes introductory notes that provide extensive explanatory and historical commentary on each of the papers, English translations of material originally written in German (some transcribed from Gabelsberger shorthand), and a complete bibliography. A succeeding volume is to contain a comprehensive selection of Gödel's scientific correspondence and a complete inventory of his Nachlass. The books are designed to be accessible and useful to as wide an audience as possible without sacrificing scientific or historical accuracy. The only complete edition available in English, it will be an essential part of the working library of professionals and students in logic, mathematics, philosophy, history of science, and computer science.

An extraordinary and challenging synthesis of ideas uniting Quantum Theory, and the theories of Computation, Knowledge and Evolution, Deutsch's extraordinary book explores the deep connections between these strands which reveal the fabric of realityin which human actions and ideas play essential roles.

Dr. Laing's first purpose is to make madness and the process of going mad comprehensible. In this, with case studies of schizophrenic patients, he succeeds brilliantly, but he does more: through a vision of sanity and madness as 'degrees of conjunction and disjunction between two persons where the one is sane by common consent' he offers a rich existential analysis of personal alienation.The outsider, estranged from himself and society, cannot experience either himself or others as 'real'. He invents a false self and with it he confronts both the outside world and his own despair. The disintegration of his real self keeps pace with the growing unreality of his false self until, in the extremes of schizophrenic breakdown, the whole personality disintegrates.

A profoundly beautiful and uniquely insightful description of the universe, Benedict de Spinoza's Ethics is one of the masterpieces of Enlightenment-era philosophy.Published shortly after his death, the Ethics is undoubtedly Spinoza's greatest work - an elegant, fully cohesive cosmology derived from first principles, providing a coherent picture of reality, and a guide to the meaning of an ethical life. Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, the emotions, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding - moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity, the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection. The Ethics is presented in the standard translation of the work by Edwin Curley. This edition also includes an introduction by Stuart Hampshire, outlining Spinoza's philosophy and placing it in context.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, first published in 1764, is a series of short, radical essays - alphabetically arranged - that form a brilliant and bitter analysis of the social and religious conventions that then dominated eighteenth-century French thought. One of the masterpieces of the Enlightenment, this enormously influential work of sardonic wit - more a collection of essays arranged alphabetically, than a conventional dictionary - considers such diverse subjects as Abraham and Atheism, Faith and Freedom of Thought, Miracles and Moses. Repeatedly condemned by civil and religious authorities, Voltaire's work argues passionately for the cause of reason and justice, and criticizes Christian theology and contemporary attitudes towards war and society - and claims, as he regards the world around him: 'common sense is not so common'.