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Platon (427 v. Chr.–348 v. Chr.) läßt Sokrates sein Leben darstellen und beurteilen sowie seine Einstellung zum Tod. Übersetzung durch Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) von 1805. (Summary by redaer) This reading is in German....

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Philosophy

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Encheiridion, stoische Regeln für ein zufriedenes Leben. Knapp und ausgezeichnet. Geschrieben von Epiktet (ca. 50-138). Übersetzung durch Carl Conz von 1864. (Summary by redaer) This reading is in German....

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Philosophy

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Of The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo: “If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, The Twilight of the Idols means that the old truth is on its last legs.” Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche’s doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled “Of Old and New Tables” in Thus Spake Zarathustra, could be of more real value than The Twilight of the Idols. Here Nietzsche is quite at his best. He is ripe for the marvellous feat of the transvaluation of all values. Nowhere is his language – that marvellous weapon which in his hand became at once so supple and so murderous – more forcible and more condensed. Nowhere are his thoughts more profound. But all this does not by any means imply that this book is the easiest of Nietzsche’s works. On the contrary, I very much fear that unless the reader is well prepared, not only in Nietzscheism, but also in the habit of...

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Philosophy

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In Plato's ION, Socrates questions Ion, whether he should really claim laud and glory for his 'rhapsodic' recitals of Homer's poetry. —Description by Simon-Peter Zak...

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Philosophy

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“The Philosophy of Style,” explored a growing trend of formalist approaches to writing. Highly focused on the proper placement and ordering of the parts of an English sentence, [Spencer] created a guide for effective composition. Spencer’s aim was to free prose writing from as much friction and inertia as possible, so that the reader would not be slowed by strenuous deliberations concerning the proper context and meaning of a sentence. [Wikipedia]...

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Philosophy

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George Edward Moore, usually known as G. E. Moore, (1873 – 1958) was a distinguished and influential English philosopher. He was, with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and (before them) Gottlob Frege, one of the founders of the analytic tradition in philosophy....

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Philosophy

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 v. Chr.–65 n. Chr.) gibt stoische Grundsätze zum Tod und zur Trauer. Übersetzung durch Albert Forbiger (1798-1878) von 1867. (Zusammenfassung von redaer) This reading is in German....

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Philosophy

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Aristotle’s Poetics from the 4th century B.C. aims to give a short study of storytelling. It discusses things like unity of plot, reversal of situation, and character in the context of Greek tragedy, comedy and epic poetry. But it still applies today. It is especially popular with screenwriters as seen in many script gurus’ how-to books. (Summary by Robert Foster)...

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Philosophy

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Voltairine de Cleyre (November 17, 1866 - June 20, 1912) was an American anarchist. She was skilled in many subjects and wrote essays, poems, letters, sketches, stories and speeches. These are her selected letters, sketches and stories. (Summary by enko)...

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Short stories, Philosophy

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Life by Sir Walter Raleigh. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 25th, 2010.

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Philosophy, Poetry

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Michel Eyquem de Montaigne is one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as Attempts) contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. (Summary extracted from Wikipedia)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Philosophy

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Richard le Gallienne was an English poet and critic, who, although unfamiliar with the Persian language, had a profound interest in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. In 1897 he published a collection of 211 quatrains, which was based on earlier English translations, in particular the prose version by Justin Huntly McCarthy. A expanded edition, containing fifty additional quatrains was published in 1901, and this has been used for the present recording. (Summary by Algy Pug)...

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Poetry, Philosophy

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volunteers bring you 11 recordings of Old Ireland by Walt Whitman. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for August 1st, 2010.

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Philosophy, Poetry

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Bushido: The Soul of Japan written by Inazo Nitobe was one of the first books on samurai ethics that was originally written in English for a Western audience, and has been subsequently translated into many other languages (also Japanese). Nitobe found in Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, the sources of the virtues most admired by his people: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, loyalty and self-control, and he uses his deep knowledge of Western culture to draw comparisons with Medieval Chivalry, Philosophy, and Christianity. (Summary by Availle)...

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Philosophy

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Save for his raucous, rhapsodical autobiography, Ecce Homo , The Antichrist is the last thing that Nietzsche ever wrote, and so it may be accepted as a statement of some of his most salient ideas in their final form. Of all Nietzsche’s books, The Antichrist comes nearest to conventionality in form. It presents a connected argument with very few interludes, and has a beginning, a middle and an end. The reason to listen to this version is that H.L. Mencken, the famous journalist, turned Nietzsche's German into such direct, plain-spoken American English that it puts the haranguing philosopher right up in your face....

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Philosophy

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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein during his lifetime. He wrote it as a soldier and a prisoner of war during World War I. The slim volume (fewer than eighty pages) comprises a system of short statements, numbered 1, 1.1, 1.11, 1.12, etc., through to 7, intended to be such that 1.1 is a comment on or elaboration of 1, 1.11 and 1.12 comments on 1.1, and so forth. It is an ambitious project to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy

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In this book, his most famous, Max Stirner presents a philosophical case for a radical egoism that shuns the socially-oriented outlooks of both establishment ideologies and of revolutionaries in favor of an extreme individualism. The book is most widely talked about today only through the lens of other philosophers' thought: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels launched a famous assault on it in The German Ideology, and some draw a connection between Stirner's thoughts here and Nietzsche's egoism a generation later. But it is worth reading in its own right, as much for its lyricism as the challenge of its philosophical proposals. (Summary by Mat Messerschmidt)...

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Philosophy

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The Praise of Folly (Greek title: Morias Enkomion (Μωρίας Εγκώμιον), Latin: Stultitiae Laus, sometimes translated as In Praise of Folly, Dutch title: Lof der Zotheid) is a satirical essay written in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466/69-1536). It is considered one of the most influential works of literature in Western civilization and one of the catalysts of the Protestant Reformation. It starts off with a satirical learned encomium after the manner of the Greek satirist Lucian, a piece of virtuoso foolery; it then takes a darker tone in a series of orations, as Folly praises self-deception and madness and moves to a satirical examination of pious but superstitious abuses of Catholic doctrine and corrupt practices in parts of the Roman Catholic Church—to which Erasmus was ever faithful—and the folly of pedants (including Erasmus himself). Erasmus had recently returned, disappointed, from Rome, where he had turned down offers of advancement in the curia, and Folly increasingly takes on Erasmus' own chastising voice. The essay ends with a straightforward statement of Christian ideals. The essay was hugely popular, to Erasmu...

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Philosophy, Satire, Religion

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Our intention is, that Timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man... 'Timaeus' is usually regarded as one of Plato's later dialogues, and provides an account of the creation of the universe, with physical, metaphysical and ethical dimensions, which had great influence over philosophers for centuries following. It attributes the order and beauty of the universe to a benevolent demiurge - a 'craftsman' or god - fashioning the physical world after the pattern of an ideal, eternal one. The dramatic setting of the dialogue is the day after a discussion in which Socrates has described his ideal state - as in the 'Republic'. A conversation between Socrates, Critias, Hermocrates and Timaeus, including Critias' account of Solon's journey to Egypt (where he hears the story of Atlantis), soon gives way to the monologue by Timaeus that forms the bulk of the work. 'Timaeus' is translated by Benjamin Jowett and his comprehensive introduction to and analysis of the work precedes ...

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Philosophy, Classics (antiquity), Ancient Texts

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The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz was edited in 1616 in Strasbourg (annexed by France in 1681). It is the third of the original manifestos of the mysterious Fraternity of the Rose Cross (Rosicrucians).NOTE: It was translated into English for the first time in 1690 by E. Foxcroft. This translation became the source for many of the modern attempts to improve the original. The translation presented here is that of E. Foxcroft.Although the book first appeared in 1616, the story takes place over 150 years earlier. It is an allegoric romance (story) divided into Seven Days, or Seven Journeys, like Genesis, and tells us about the way Christian Rosenkreuz was invited to go to a wonderful castle full of miracles, in order to assist the Chymical Wedding of the king and the queen, that is, the husband and the bride. The story begins on an evening near Easter. In the final chapter—the seventh day—CRC is knighted; the year is 1459. It was on Easter-day 1459 that the Constitutions of the Freemasons of Strasburg was first signed in Regensburg, with a second signed shortly afterwards in Strasburg. The Gutenberg Bible be...

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Philosophy, Religion, Fiction