Philosophy
A collection of answers to the philosophical questions on people's minds--from the big to the personal to the ones you didn't know you needed answered.
Based on real-life questions from his Ask a Philosopher series, Ian Olasov offers his answers to questions such as:
- Is it okay to have a pet fish?
- Is it okay to have kids?
- Is color subjective?
- If humans colonize Mars, who will own the land?
- Is ketchup a smoothie?
- Is there life after death?
- Should I give money to homeless people? Ask a Philosopher shows that there's a way of making philosophy work for each of us, and that philosophy can be both perfectly continuous with everyday life, and also utterly transporting. From questions that we all wrestle with in private to questions that you never thought to ask, Ask a Philosopher will get you thinking.
Preorder a SIGNED COPY! (available at the Windsong concert at the Maltz Center on 4/27/24), or for pickup at Loganberry or mailing after 4/29/24. Please specify yout preference in the comments box at checkout!
From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between Conflict and Abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning. Rooting the problem of escalation in negative group relationships, Schulman illuminates the ways cliques, communities, families, and religious, racial, and national groups bond through the refusal to change their self-concept. She illustrates how Supremacy behavior and Traumatized behavior resemble each other, through a shared inability to tolerate difference.
This important and sure to be controversial book illuminates such contemporary and historical issues of personal, racial, and geo-political difference as tools of escalation towards injustice, exclusion, and punishment, whether the objects of dehumanization are other individuals in our families or communities, people with HIV, African Americans, or Palestinians. Conflict Is Not Abuse is a searing rejection of the cultural phenomenon of blame, cruelty, and scapegoating, and how those in positions of power exacerbate and manipulate fear of the "other" to achieve their goals.
Sarah Schulman is a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and AIDS historian, and the author of eighteen books. A Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow, Sarah is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island. Her novels published by Arsenal include Rat Bohemia, Empathy, After Delores, and The Mere Future. She lives in New York.
"The most exciting intellectual adventure I've been on since reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
Gary Zukav's timeless, humorous, New York Times bestselling masterpiece, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, is arguably the most widely acclaimed introduction to quantum physics ever written. Scientific American raves: "Zukav is such a skilled expositor, with such an amiable style, that it is hard to imagine a layman who would not find his book enjoyable and informative." Accessible, edifying, and endlessly entertaining, The Dancing Wu Li Masters is back in a beautiful new edition--and the doors to the fascinating, dazzling, remarkable world of quantum physics are opened to all once again, no previous mathematical or technical expertise required.
Berkeley: Peter Koch, Printer, 1994. Designed and printed letterpress from photo-polymer plates by Peter Koch, with the assistance of Richard Seibert, in an edition of 500 copies. The typefaces are Adobe Caslon, designed by Carol Twombly for the text with Monotype Gill Sans, designed by Eric Gill, and Deberny & Peignot Bifur, designed by A.M. Cassandre for display. Photograph of the box and plates by Richard Blair. Color lithography courtesy of George Lithograph. Binding by Arnold Martinez. Printed paper boards with inset cloth spine; no dust jacket; top spine-edge corner bumped; text clean. G+
Named one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time by the Modern Library
Anne Carson's remarkable first book about the paradoxical nature of romantic love Since it was first published, Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson's lyrical meditation on love in ancient Greek literature and philosophy, has established itself as a favorite among an unusually broad audience, including classicists, essayists, poets, and general readers. Beginning with the poet Sappho's invention of the word "bittersweet" to describe Eros, Carson's original and beautifully written book is a wide-ranging reflection on the conflicted nature of romantic love, which is both "miserable" and "one of the greatest pleasures we have."From the author of An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language, here's the antidote to fuzzy thinking, with furry animals!
Have you read (or stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle).
Here are cogent explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument, the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that actually fall short--plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise (the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn't believe that gas emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn't like the result (the argument from consequences).
Once you learn to recognize these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere from congressional debate to YouTube comments--which makes this geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions.
The curious reader's companion to sex.
'Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas.' Samuel Johnson
Why is screwing so funny?
How should we think about our most shocking fantasies?
What is so captivating about nudity?
Inspired by philosophy, literature, and private life, Damon Young explores the paradoxes of the bedroom. On Getting Off will f**k with your mind.