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Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in which she argued that women are not naturally inferior to men, but only appeared to be because they lacked education. She suggested that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagined a social order founded on reason. - Today, Wollstonecraft is considered a foundational thinker in feminist philosophy. Her early advocacy of women's equality and her attacks on conventional femininity and the degradation of women presaged the later emergence of the feminist political movement. Feminist scholars and activists have cited both her philosophical ideas and personal struggles as important influences in their work. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy

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Bakunin's most famous work, published in various lengths, this version is the most complete form of the work published hitherto. Originally titled Dieu et l'état, Bakunin intended it to be part of the second portion to a larger work named The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution (Knouto-Germanic Empire is in reference to a treaty betwixt Russia and Germany at the time), but the work was never completed. (from book introduction)...

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Philosophy, Religion

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Zanoni, a timeless Rosicrucian brother, cannot fall in love without losing his power of immortality; but he does fall in love with Viola Pisani, a promising young opera singer from Naples, the daughter of Pisani, a misunderstood Italian violinist. An English gentleman named Glyndon loves Viola as well, but is indecisive about proposing marriage, and then renounces his love in order to pursue occult study. The story develops in the days of the French Revolution in 1789. Zanoni has lived since the Chaldean civilization. His master Mejnor warns him against a love affair but Zanoni does not heed. He finally marries Viola and they have a child. As Zanoni experiences an increase in humanity, he begins to lose his gift of immortality.( Summary by Wikipedia )...

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Fiction, Philosophy

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Stress affects us all at some stage in our life. However stress is ultimately our own choice and is not an inevitable outcome to difficult experiences. Through well established meditation and mindfulness practices we can begin to change the habits that precipitate the stress response and change our habitual behaviour to become a more calm and happier person. This is a handbook that explains how stressful patterns of behaviour manifest and how we can develop new pathways that can result in an alternative approach to difficult situations including relationships, work, financial and health issues....

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We all have experienced some level of stress at some stage in our life. This could be mild frustration at not getting what we want, when we want it, such as standing in a long queue at the supermarket or experiencing a computer crash just as we have completed a long email. Stress can also manifest as anger and even rage. Some people manage to overcome these events and quickly return to a calmer state of mind. Others cannot seem to let go of the stress and always feel on edge, or annoyed most of the time. When we feel frustrated, annoyed or in a bad mood we can very quickly descend into anger and despondency. This is because we are already stressed and any adverse event will trigger an even more stressful state of mind. The definition of stress is a physical, mental, or emotional response to events that causes bodily or mental tension. Therefore, stress is a mentally originating phenomenon, which will also have an effect upon the physical body and can manifest in many forms such as: Tension, frustration, anger, weakened immunity, ill health, and poor concentration. Prolonged exposure to stress will inevitably have an advers...

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Stress is a choice

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Este livro é uma colectânea de artigos escritos por mim no jornal Terra Nova, desde 1991 até à presente data (2012). O propósito desta obra é, em primeiro lugar, fazer uma retrospecção do que tem acontecido desde a introdução do regime democrático em Cabo Verde, isto é, a partir de 13 de Janeiro de 1991, data em que, pela primeira vez, houve eleições livres nas nossas ilhas, das quais resultou o pluralismo partidário, base da nossa presente democracia....

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1. Que diferença existe entre um corvo e um ser humano? Antes de tentar responder à pergunta: que diferença existe entre um corvo e um ser humano, devo descrever um acontecimento que me inspirou a escrever este capítulo cujo título, à primeira vista, possa parecer provocativo ao leitor. Em Agosto de 2004 vi, na televisão Norueguesa, um corvo ferido, no topo de uma árvore, a ser salvo por bombeiros, usando helicópteros. Li também no jornal norueguês, diário de Stavanger (Stavanger Aftenbladet) que bombeiros, com helicópteros e outros meios de transportes, tentaram salvar a vida de um corvo ferido. Pensei logo num comentário que um aluno meu, de mestrado em teologia, vindo do Sul do Sudão, tinha feito 5 anos, antes deste acontecimento, ao ver na televisão Norueguesa uma cobra que veio à Noruega escondida em bananas importadas, o que chamou a atenção dos mass mídia. O comentário dele foi: “francamente esta gente não tem assunto importante com que preencher o noticiário. Tantas pessoas a morrer de fome, sede e doenças em África, sobretudo na minha terra, mas não ouço nenhuma palavra sobre o sofrimento delas e como aliviá-lo. Mas uma...

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What is Philosophy? Is it the exclusive domain of those who dream in abstract? Or is it the manifestation of the struggle of those who practice in material? Does it originate in the minds of professors like a Ganges flowing out from the hair-locks of "Lord" Shiva? Or is it rustic and puerile, evolving into maturity through the experiences of common men. I started writing philosophy without actually knowing that I was writing one. To start with, it was an outlet to project my frustration in the form of writings. Pretty often, it carried abuses hurled at none in particular, but at the system through its agents. But I don’t know when those ramblings started getting matured into Philosophy and all puerility and abuses purified themselves on the way – a Ganges doesn’t become pure by its origin but by the treatment people give to it on its way. In my book “Writings @ Ankur Mutreja”, I included a section on my personal philosophy and thought nobody would be interested in reading it. But, fortunately, I have found some kind-hearted people, who have given me their valuable feedback. I am reproducing my philosophy below by selecting those top...

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An introduction to moral, political and economic philosophy. Twelve philosophers in each category are featured, their basic theories are examined and provide the basis for discussion....

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PARTI An Introduction to Clearer Thinking Chapter 1 Attitudes: How They Affect Our Thinking 3 Chapter 2 Classifying Viewpoints: Conservative and Liberal 12 Chapter 3 Epistemology and Logic 20 Chapter 4 Fallacies: Errors o f L anguage and Logic 32 PART 2 Moral Philosophy: Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong Chapter 5 Moral Philosophy: A Brief Introduction 47 Chapter 6 Plato and Aristotle: Idealism and Realism 55 Chapter 7 Epicurus and Epictetus: Pleasure and Apathy 65 Chapter 8 Aquinas and Descartes: Faith and Reason 72 Chapter 9 Hume, Bentham and Mill: Subjectivism and Utilitarianism 82 Chapter 10 Kant and Schopenhauer: Idealism and Pessimism 90 Chapter 11 Nietzsche and Sartre: Naturalism and Existentialism 99 PART 3 Political Theory: The Relationship of Man and the State Chapter 12 Introduction to Political Theory 111 Chapter 13 Law: Understanding the Rule o f Reason 119 Chapter 14 Problems o f Government: Five Great Issues 127 Chapter 15 Plato and Aristotle: Utopia and Polity 138 Chapter 16 Augustine and Aquinas: Platonist and Aristotelian 146 Chapter 17 Machiavelli and Hobbes: The Prince ...

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Our music, our culture, our science, and our economic welfare all depend on a delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain. In The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press) James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is legally unavailable to us, and why today's policies would probably have smothered the World Wide Web at its inception. Appropriately given its theme, the book will be sold commercially but also made available online for free under a Creative Commons license.(1.6MB PDF File) ...

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This book is all about the fictional country called Utopia. It is a country with an ‘ideal’ form of communism, in which everything really does belong to everybody, everyone does the work they want to, and everyone is alright with that. This country uses gold for chamber pots and prison chains, pearls and diamonds for children’s playthings, and requires that a man and a woman see each other exactly as they are, naked, before getting married. This book gave the word 'utopia' the meaning of a perfect society, while the Greek word actually means ‘no place’. Enjoy listening to this story about a country that really is too good to be true. (Summary by Jenilee.)...

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Philosophy, Politics

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In the early 1900's Dr. Maria Montessori began to reform educational methods with her work the 'Case dei Bambini' in Rome, Italy. Montessori began her work by developing methods to educate mentally retarded children, the method she developed was used with several children who at age eight took the state examinations in reading and writing, the children passed with above average scores. Because of this success (which is known as the 'first Montessori Miracle') Dr. Montessori was asked to open a school for children in Rome which she did. It was called the Case dei Bambini or “Children's House”. Now 101 years after the opening of the first Children's House we have recorded the first English translation of The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori. This book explains the Montessori Method of Education which supports “spontaneous self-development” of children and is used in the Case dei Bambini as well as many many Montessori Schools through out the world. (Written by Shurtagal and Wikipedia)...

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Instruction, Philosophy, Psychology

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The work was composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period of radical foment and political conflict immediately after the French Revolution. The title is an ironic reference to Emanuel Swedenborg's theological work Heaven and Hell published in Latin 33 years earlier. Swedenborg is directly cited and criticized by Blake several places in the Marriage. Though Blake was influenced by his grand and mystical cosmic conception, Swedenborg's conventional moral structures and his Manichean view of good and evil led Blake to express a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are equally part of the divine order, hence, a marriage of heaven and hell. The book is written in prose, except for the opening Argument and the Song of Liberty. The book describes the poet's visit to Hell, a device adopted by Blake from Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost....

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Literature, Philosophy, Satire, Poetry

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Excerpt: The Famous Philosopher. Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on Physiognomy...

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The Social Contract outlines Rousseau's views on political justice, explaining how a just and legitimate state is to be founded, organized and administered. Rousseau sets forth, in his characteristically brazen and iconoclastic manner, the case for direct democracy, while simultaneously casting every other form of government as illegitimate and tantamount to slavery. Often hailed as a revolutionary document which sparked the French Revolution, The Social Contract serves both to inculcate dissatisfaction with actually-existing governments and to allow its readers to envision and desire a radically different form of political and social organization. (Summary by Eric Jonas)...

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Philosophy, Politics

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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was a political radical and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known as an early advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights who influenced the development of liberalism. The essay Offences Against One's Self (c. 1785), argued for the liberalisation of laws prohibiting homosexuality. The essay remained unpublished during Bentham's lifetime for fear of offending public morality. It was finally published for the first time in 1931. (Wikipedia) This recording was catalogued on 28th July 2007, the 40th anniversary of the coming into force in the UK of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which decriminalised male homosexuality for the first time (though with restrictions)....

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Philosophy, Politics

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This reading is in Hebrew. Der Judenstaat (German, The Jewish State) is a book written by Theodor Herzl and published in 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. It was originally called Address to the Rothschilds referring to the Rothschild family banking dynasty which was very influential in the realization of a Zionist state in Palestine. It is considered to be one of the most important texts of early Zionism. As expressed in this book, Herzl envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state during the twentieth century. He argued that the best way of avoiding anti-Semitism in Europe was to create this independent Jewish state. Herzl, who had lived as a secular, largely assimilated Jew, was fluent in neither Hebrew nor Yiddish. His lack of contact with Jewish culture and intellectual currents, and his limited contact with Jews less assimilated than he prior to hitting upon the idea of a Jewish return to Zion, led him to imagine that popular Jewish support for a Jewish State elsewhere than in Israel was conceivable. In Der Judenstaat, Herzl noted the possibility of a Jewish state in Argentin...

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Philosophy, Politics

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The Politics , by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, is one of the most influential texts in political philosophy. In it, Aristotle explores the role that the political community should play in developing the virtue of its citizens. One of his central ideas is that Man is a political animal, meaning that people can only become virtuous by active participation in the political community. Aristotle also criticizes his teacher Plato, classifies and evaluates six different types of constitutions and political institutions, and describes his vision of the ideal state. Aristotle's views on women and slavery are unenlightened by today's standards, but his work remains enduring and relevant to this day. (Summary by Leon Mire)...

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Philosophy, Politics

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The writings listed here represent books about Soren Kierkegaard. A fragment of his work, On the Dedication to That Single Individual, has made it to the public domain. Who was Soren Kierkegaard? He was a Danish philosopher and religious author; b. Copenhagen May 6, 1813; d. there Nov. 11, 1855. His father, Michael, a clothing merchant, once cursed God when he was young. This one incident caused him so much distress that it affected him with a deep melancholy, which he transferred to poor Soren. Michael was an evil man. He tricked Soren into thinking that the whole world existed in his own living room by taking him for imaginary walks about the neighborhood, or anywhere Soren wanted to go, as long as it existed in his imagination only. Later in life, when Soren was on his own, he rarely left Copenhagen, but he did walk about the streets and greet passersby, discussing events of the day. After 6 years of “splendid inactivity” he obtained his degree in Theology from the University of Copenhagen with the submission of his thesis paper in 1841, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. Just before graduation he fell ...

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Philosophy, Religion

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Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly called Leviathan, is a book written in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes. It is titled after the biblical Leviathan. The book concerns the structure of society (as represented figuratively by the frontispiece, showing the state giant made up of individuals), as is evidenced by the full title. In the book, Thomas Hobbes argues for a social contract and rule by a sovereign. Influenced by the English Civil War, Hobbes wrote that chaos or civil war - situations identified with a state of nature and the famous motto Bellum omnium contra omnes (the war of all against all) - could only be averted by strong central government. He thus denied any right of rebellion toward the social contract. However, Hobbes did discuss the possible dissolution of the State. Since the social contract was made to institute a state that would provide for the peace and defense of the people, the contract would become void as soon as the government no longer protected its citizens. By virtue of this fact, man would automatically return to the state of nature until a new contract...

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Philosophy, Politics

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The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favor of equality between the sexes. It offers both detailed argumentation and passionate eloquence in opposition to the social and legal inequalities commonly imposed upon women by a patriarchal culture. Just as in On Liberty, Mill defends the emancipation of women on utilitarian grounds, convinced that the moral and intellectual advancement of women would result in greater happiness for everybody. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy, Politics

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Our struggles in this society constrict the flow of our natural thoughts that have led us far away from our divine principles in life as human beings. Our struggles are from within ourselves and in our mind, taunted by social deviations that involve the rules of life in our society today. Facing these struggles are just part of our daily burden to find contentment and self worth in order to be happily accepted in the society that we live on. It is a battle against our mind from within our consciousness to find “contentment” rather that pursue the fabricated joys of social living. This e-book will guide you on how to achieve weight loss without using any kind of supplement whether that be natural or synthetic, but, it does recommend the use of natural organic health supplements to help you in dealing with psychological downsides or mood swings which frequently occur when undergoing a diet program. Remember dear readers, it is all in the mind on how we perceive our understanding of the concept of fulfillment, happiness and contentedness from a simple point of view....

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We always question life and it's purpose and despite of all that we think we have achieved to understand the meaning and purpose of it, we still find it rather hard to contemplate the dynamics and struggle to find a singularity as to how to be content with the never ending chaos that we created in pursuing acceptable answers in why life goes the way it does. Ever since we learned to think and started to question things that concern our existence, we have looked for answers around and within our minds in why we live life with such turmoil despite advancement in improving our selves as human beings. Most important of all, why we behave so irrational when it comes to understanding our fellow human beings. With the dawning of the Age of Reason, human society has been brutalized with war and conflict within the foundation of it's culture. It seems that human beings are easily intimidated by its own kind despite coming from one gene pool. No matter how hard we try to understand ourselves in this society we still lack rationality and may have overlooked the simple meaning of “peace” despite devising ways to fully utilize our mental facu...

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Chapter I Need or Want p4 Chapter II Natural Organic Health Supplements p6 Chapter III The Natural Way to Loose Fats p9 Chapter IV The G.M.O. (Genetically Modified Organisms) Syndrome p11 Chapter V Who We Really Are p13 Chapter VI The Zen of Life p15 Chapter VII Your Health is You're Only Wealth p17 Chapter VIII Things to Come p19 Chapter IX The Ugly Truth p22 Chapter X The Rise and Fall of Two Empires ...

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In this theoretically sophisticated monograph Dr. Alex Battler formulates a new ontological interpretation of the category of force: - a definition of force as an ontological category; - the manifestation of force in the inorganic world within the framework of the idea of the Big Bang; - a definition of force in the organic world to determine the boundary between life and nonlife; - a solution to the mind–body problem (i.e., what consciousness and thought are), which has led me to a new formulation of the concept of Progress. ...

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PREFACE......................................................................................................9 INTRODUCTION: LEXICON AND METHOD....................................17 CHAPTER I. THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF FORCE.........................31 1. Foreword.............................................................................................32 2 . Ancient Greek Philosophers On Force............................................35 3. The Philosophy of Force in the Works of European Philosophers of the 15th–19th Centuries.................................................................41 Nicholas of Cusa..........................................................................41 Leonardo da Vinci.......................................................................42 Bernardino Telesio and Francis Bacon.......................................44 René Descartes and Isaac Newton..............................................47 Benedict de Spinoza....................................................................50 John Locke...................................................................................51 ...

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Capital, Volume I is the first of three volumes in Karl Marx’s monumental work, Das Kapital, and the only volume to be published during his lifetime, in 1867. Marx’s aim in Capital, Volume I is to uncover and explain the laws specific to the capitalist mode of production and of the class struggles rooted in these capitalist social relations of production. Marx said himself that his aim was “to bring a science [i.e. political economy] by criticism to the point where it can be dialectically represented”, and in this way to “reveal the law of motion of modern society”. By showing how capitalist development was the precursor of a new, socialist mode of production, he aimed to provide a scientific foundation for the modern labour movement. In preparation for his book, he studied the economic literature available in his time for a period of twelve years, mainly in the British Museum in London.(Summary by Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy, Politics, Economics/Political Economy

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The introduction to Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of world history is often used to introduce students to Hegel's philosophy, in part because Hegel's sometimes difficult style is muted in the lectures, and he discourses on accessible themes such as world events in order to explain his philosophy. Much of the work is spent defining and characterizing Geist or spirit. Geist is similar to the culture of people, and is constantly reworking itself to keep up with the changes of society, while at the same time working to produce those changes through what Hegel called the cunning of reason. Another important theme of the text is the focus on world history, rather than regional or state history. The obscure writings of Jakob Böhme had a strong effect on Hegel. Böhme had written that the Fall of Man was a necessary stage in the evolution of the universe. This evolution was, itself, the result of God's desire for complete self-awareness. Hegel was fascinated by the works of Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, and Goethe, and by the French Revolution. Modern philosophy, culture, and society seemed to Hegel fraught with contradictions and tensions, ...

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Philosophy, History