Empfehlungen basierend auf "Berkeley in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)"

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. Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.

Decision-Theoretic Foundations.- From Prior Information to Prior Distributions.- Bayesian Point Estimation.- Tests and Confidence Regions.- Bayesian Calculations.- Model Choice.- Admissibility and Complete Classes.- Invariance, Haar Measures, and Equivariant Estimators.- Hierarchical and Empirical Bayes Extensions.- A Defense of the Bayesian Choice.

Widely recognized as the finest definition of existentialist philosophy ever written, this book introduced existentialism to America in 1958. Barrett speaks eloquently and directly to concerns of the 1990s: a period when the irrational and the absurd are no better integrated than before and when humankind is in even greater danger of destroying its existence without ever understanding the meaning of its existence.Irrational Man begins by discussing the roots of existentialism in the art and thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoevski, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book explains the views of the foremost existentialists—Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. The result is a marvelously lucid definition of existentialism and a brilliant interpretation of its impact.

One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy.Whitehead’s master work in philsophy, Process and Reality propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality into a consistent relation to each other. It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant.The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds.

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.

The New York Times best-selling sequel to "Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!" One of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, Richard Feynman possessed an unquenchable thirst for adventure and an unparalleled ability to tell the stories of his life. "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" is Feynman’s last literary legacy, prepared with his friend and fellow drummer, Ralph Leighton. Among its many tales—some funny, others intensely moving—we meet Feynman’s first wife, Arlene, who taught him of love’s irreducible mystery as she lay dying in a hospital bed while he worked nearby on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. We are also given a fascinating narrative of the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger’s explosion in 1986, and we relive the moment when Feynman revealed the disaster’s cause by an elegant experiment: dropping a ring of rubber into a glass of cold water and pulling it out, misshapen. 

Classical Philosophy introduces students to several of the essential philosophical questions raised by the Greek and Roman philosophers of classical antiquity. Featuring a thematic--as opposed to chronological--structure, this Oxford Reader focuses on philosophical problems and ideas rather than on historical circumstances. Selections from the writings of ancient philosophers--some new translations--are interspersed with Terence Irwin's incisive commentary, and at times with contributions from modern philosophers. Topics covered include natural philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, the soul, free will, moral philosophy, political philosophy, and religious belief. A general introduction places philosophers and schools into historical context for students.

Are people ever rational? Consider this: You auction off a one-dollar bill to the highest bidder, but you set the rules so that the second highest bidder also has to pay the amount of his last bid, even though he gets nothing. Would people ever enter such an auction? Not only do they, but according to Martin Shubik, the game's inventor, the average winning bid (for a dollar, remember) is $3.40. Many winners report that they bid so high only because their opponent "went completely crazy." This game lies at the intersection of three subjects of eternal fascination: human psychology, morality, and John von Neumann's game theory. Hungarian game-theorist Laszlo Mero introduces us to the basics of game theory, including such concepts as zero-sum games, Prisoner's Dilemma and the origins of altruism; shows how game theory is applicable to fields ranging from physics to politics; and explores the role of rational thinking in the context of many different kinds of thinking. This fascinating, urbane book will interest everyone who wonders what mathematics can tell us about the human condition.

Approaching the writing of major intellectuals, artists, and philosophers need no longer be daunting. How to Read is a new sort of introduction--a personal master class in reading--that brings you face to face with the work of some of the most influential and challenging writers in history. In lucid, accessible language, these books explain essential topics such as Wittgenstein's determination to insist on the integrity and the autonomy of nonscientific forms of understanding. Though Wittgenstein wrote on the same subjects that dominate the work of other analytic philosophers -- the nature of logic, the limits of language, the analysis of meaning -- he did so in a peculiarly poetic style that separates his work sharply from that of his peers and makes the question of how to read him particularly pertinent.At the root of Wittgenstein's thought, Monk argues, is a determination to resist the scientism characteristic of our age, a determination to insist on the integrity and the autonomy of non-scientific forms of understanding. The kind of understanding we seek in philosophy, Wittgenstein tried to make clear, is similar to the kind we might seek of a person, a piece of music, or, indeed, of a poem.

Ever since Newton created dynamics, there has been controversy about its foundations. Are space and time absolute? Do they form a rigid but invisible framework and container of the universe? Or are space, time, and motion relative? If so, does Newton's 'framework' arise through the influence of the universe at large, as Ernst Mach suggested? Einstein's aim when creating his general theory of relativity was to demonstrate this and thereby implement 'Mach's Principle'. However, it is widely believed that he achieved only partial success. This question of whether motion is absolute or relative has been a central issues in philosophy; the nature of time has perennial interest. Current attempts to create a quantum description of the whole universe keep these issues at the cutting edge of modern research. Written by the world's leading expert on Mach's Principle, The Discovery of Dynamics is a highly original account of the development of notions about space, time, and motion. Widely praised in its hardback version, it is one of the fullest and most readable accounts of the astronomical studies that culminated in Kepler's laws of planetary motion and of the creation of dynamics by Galileo, Descartes, Huygens, and Newton. Originally published as Absolute or Relative Motion?, Vol. 1: The Discovery of Dynamics (Cambridge), The Discovery of Dynamics provides the technical background to Barbour's recently published The End of Time, in which he argues that time disappears from the description of the quantum universe.