Philosophy Books

Assuming copyright law hasn't gone totally haywire since I last checked, Amazon is asking money for something in the public domain. This book is almost 500 years old. It belongs to the culture at large. So what does this $2.39 cover? Packaging and distribution? Can't be. This is a digital copy so there are no associated costs.

For the end consumer, you are better off going to Project gutenberg (google it) then running the free version through the Mobipocket creator or using Amazon's DRM email serivice.

Sorry, one last admonishment... Almost done... Shame on you amazon for charging money for part of our cultural commons.

After waiting so long for this series to be reprinted in better editions than those published recently by Mysterius press, I am sorely disappointed to see this series of reprints come along with another set of completely boring covers.
Donald Westlake had been in talks with Hardcase Crime to bring this series back, sadly that didn't happen, since it would have meant a very irregular reprint schedule, and instead we end up with another series of very conservatively designed books.
Although I find the subjct matter of HCC's covers distracting (ussually scantily clad females in some noirish pose), the painted style is very reminicent of the era in which the Parker novels originally appeared.
This will not distract most readers from a thouroughly enjoyable read, though, but this edition again hides the explosive nature of Parker's first appearance and subsequent misadventures.

One of the best which deserves a lot better.
The novel: 5 stars, the Edition: 0 stars!

The Hunter (also known by it's movie names of Point Blank or Payback) is the beginning of the "Parker" series written by Donald E. Westlake under the penname of Richard Stark. These were paperback originals in a noir crime vein with Parker as the master thief and organizer of major robberies. Written from the early 60's through the mid-70's, the first 12 or so novels became cult classics especially popular with prisoners! DEW resumed the series due to popular demand in the 90's and has completed about 4 more with 1 more just being released. The writing style is stripped-down for fast action and none of the characters seems to have any conscience, least of all Parker. About half of the jobs Parker is involved in go bad due to unforseen problems like greed and betrayal, so murder (but only out of necessity) and revenge are common themes. This series has been reprinted over and over as new readers discover Parker and his single-minded focus on robbery to maintain his quietly luxurious but anonymous lifestyle. Serious literature? NO! Great fun for the crime novel fan? YES!

If you really don't have anything else to read, read this one, nothing of what is written here can be true. The plot is the following (I will write it because this is the first review and is nothing written about this book).

Parker who is a bank robber went to jail when he was betrayed by some friends. When he goes out he found those friends (of the mafia) and try to kill them. Super Parker goes for the mob himself because they owe him part of his last robbery.

If you have one day at the beach without children, you can finish this book in one day.

The Hunter

This is the book where Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark introduces us to Parker in 1962. After re-reading the book after thitysomething years I realize that Lee Marvin was probably cast as a truer version of Parker. Danny DeVito would have been a good messenger and James Gandolfini would have made a better Mal Resnick. The ending was changed for the movie, but what the hey, that's Hollywood. I think I'll reread them all as my next project. They're that good.

I think Sam Elliott would make a great Parker. He could make a whole career out of this series.

As far as I can tell the other Parker books are:

1) The Hunter (1962; AKA Point Blank, Payback; Parker, by Richard Stark).
2) The Man With the Getaway Face (1963; AKA The Steel Hit; Parker,
3) The Outfit (1963; Parker, by Richard Stark)
4) The Mourner (1963; Parker, by Richard Stark)
5) The Score (1964; AKA Killtown; Parker, by Richard Stark)
6) The Jugger (1965; Parker, by Richard Stark)
7) The Seventh (1966; AKA The Split; Parker, by Richard Stark)
8) The Handle (1966; AKA Run Lethal; Parker, by Richard Stark)
9) The Rare Coin Score (1967; Parker, by Richard Stark)
10) The Green Eagle Score (1967; Parker, by Richard Stark)
11) The Black Ice Score (1968; Parker, by Richard Stark)
12) The Sour Lemon Score (1969; Parker, by Richard Stark)
13) Slayground (1971; Parker, by Richard Stark)
14) Deadly Edge (1971; Parker, by Richard Stark)
15) Plunder Squad (1972; Parker, by Richard Stark)
16) Butcher's Moon (1974; Parker, by Richard Stark)
17) Comeback (1997;
18) Backflash (1998; Parker)..
19) Flashfire (2000; Parker, by Richard Stark)..
20) Firebreak (2001; Parker, by Richard Stark) ..
21) Nobody Runs Forever (2004) Parker, by Richard Stark

Highly recommended for Parker fans and fans of action adventure stories.


Gunner December, 2007

This book is a real eye-opener, and delves into practical matters regarding how to "reason." It leaves out, technicalities and reduces the ideas to the level an everyday person can comprehend.
(Nwankama Nwankama, Intelligence Analyst)

Giving this book one star is, I admit, a little unfair since I have not read it, but one thing must be kept in mind. What does one base one's critical thinking upon? One must have an anchor or base in order to think critically. Part, no I will say much, of what is wrong with our society today is the fact that no one seems to accept that there is absolute truth. This is what we should strive for when we think, when we discuss, when we argue and we do any activity that involves thinking. One doesn't simply think critically. I do not know if the author mentions this or not, so you can read me the riot act if he does, for I am admittedly ignorant. What I am saying, though, is that we must approach any activity with an eye to finding the truth. Without it, we are lost.

Raise your intelligence with this book; the first few chapters will enable the reader to approach information absorbtion likely in a way they perhaps never considered. For others it will confirm their approach to open and thoughtful listening, and go forward with the assurance that they were doing things right. The book is an easy and engaging read, and, my hunch is that it is a classic in this area.

To be more magnetic, engaging and introspective, requires an inquisitive mind. Alec Fisher's, Critical Thinking, teaches you how to think about thinking. It's not a passive exercise and neither is the read. Fisher actually takes you through exercises within the book to get you accustomed to thinking better. A must read for anyone interested in out-thinking competitors, fine tuning your thoughts or merely learning how to become more persuasive in your presentations.

Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute

The author takes the reader -- very methodically -- through all the problems and trip-ups of thinking which cause ordinarily smart people to come to pretty stupid conclusions. He also provides "Thinking Maps" so that, once aware of how we can go afoul, we can choose to think in a more disciplined and scientific way. For these reasons, every person, starting at an early age, should have this decidedly academic book as part of their curriculum. In that setting, the exercises to spot sloppy thinking and instead use critical thinking would be wonderful. As an adult, however, reading this book on a treadmill, all the exercises interwoven through the text, slowed me down. It is for this reason that I gave it 4 rather than 5 stars.

This was one of the first philosophy books I read and it turned out to be very helpful for my introductory philosophy classes.

This book doesn't cover all the famous philosophers in depth, but that is not a problem beacause the book follows a nice theme and is clearly written.

The themes that stick their head out are the status of concepts and how we know them. Concepts are given by different names, such as forms, but they are basically the same, depending on what you subscribe to. However, seeing them as concepts will make for easier reading.

Starting from Socrates and Plato we get the idea that concepts have their existence in some other world, neither in our mind nor the spatialtemporal reality. We come to know these concepts by reasoning using the socratic method.

Aristotle counters with the idea that concepts exist in the objects we observe and neither in our mind or some Platonic world.

Eventually we get to Kant who says that concepts are in our mind and existed there since we were born and are necessary for us to even experience reality itself.

Hegel takes the idea of concepts even further and uses them to explain just about everthing.

The idea of concepts eventually are no longer in the world or a Platonic world nor even permantely in our mind, but are nothing more than just concepts that are made up and constitute language.

We come to know these concepts by learning their meaning from the culture we are a part of.

I gave a very simple synopsis, but you will see these themes too and will make for better reading if you keep them in mind.

There are many other themes that are weaved throughout this book, but all these other themes are related to concepts. For example, ethics revolves around values and their justification, but when one examines ethical values we come back to an examination of concepts. This is also true with political and social themes that run through this book and philosophy. In politics there is an examination of values too, called liberty, justice, equality etc, which in the end are just concepts that are examined and eventually justified or so it seems.

Thelma Lavine's _From Socrates to Sartre_ provides a good introduction to the major western philosophers, and a truly outstanding summary of their ideas; however there were a number of thinkers I wish she had discussed in more detail.

Her survey begins with a brief discussion of the pre-Socratic thinkers and does a fantastic job of summarizing Socrates before giving a truly outstanding overview of Platonic and Aristotlean logic. This, (and her later overview of Existentialism) were real highlights of the book.

The contributions of St. Ausustine and Thomas Aquinas are touched upon, before providing a lengthy analysis of Descartes - it, too, is first rate, although I found myself wishing she had given more detail to Sir Francis Bacon's empricism. Lavine next turns her attention to the Enlightenment and Hume - the treatment of his ideas and general philosophy is good, although again, I wish greater attention was given Immanuel Kant.

Her sections on Hegel and Marx were solid - I particularly enjoyed her biography of Marx, but again, more information on Feurbach and his influence on Marx would have been helpful.

In discussing the predecessors to Existentialism, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are discussed, but I had hoped for a deeper explaination of their ideas about the human condition. I was disappointed that Heidigger was scarcely mentioned at all.

The last 100 pages detail Existentialism in general and Sartre in particular, which is the strongest part of the book. The ideas behind Existentialism and its influences are very well explained, and were very insightful.

For a book on philosophy, its accessable for the layperson (such as myself) and provided a good overview of a few of the major western thinkers. Her lists of recommended readings are also helpful - but I kept finding myself wanting to know more. This, of course is the measure of a good survery, as it serves to whet the readers appetite for deeper material.

I gave the book a 3 in the thought that there are better philosophy overview books than this one here, otherwise, I would give the book a 4. The book isn't necessarily a great start for anyone looking to get a good overview of most Western philosophy. Although, if one were looking to get a more indepth look at the six philosophers of Plato, Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Marx, and Sartre, then, yes, the book is certainly not bad. The book brushes briefly on the philosophers that pertain, at least marginally in some fashion, to the other philosophers mentioned (i.e. Aristotle to Plato, Locke to Hume, Nietzsche to Sartre).

On a side note, from what I've heard the hardcover version of this book, wrriten by a different author, is far better, and as for a good overall introductory philosophy book I recommend Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder instead.

Thought Provoking, Quick Reference...

From Socrates to Sartre: the Philosophic Quest, by T.Z. Lavine.

This was my introduction compilation to all things philosophical -- and that foggy world of philosophy. Tattered and yellowed from years of reference, I concure with Professor of Philosophy Peter Diamandopoulos, "...it is an elegantly written, lucid and informative work."

The Preface states "Try to imagine a world without philosophy. In From Socrates to Sartre, the works of six philosophers and their views of man, God, nature, truth, ethics, and politics will be explored." Granted, six philosophers does not seem like very many, but have you ever tried to read all the works by just one philosopher and thoroughly understand what you have read? "...and the philosophic viewpoints dominating the contemporary sense in philosophy are examined." What a plus, one gets it all right here!

This book is very easy to understand and absorb. One gets a peek at Plato with Virtue is Knowledge, Shadow and Substance, The Divided Line, The Tripartite Soul, The Ideal State. Delve into Descartes with Historical Transition to the Modern World, his ever popular Doubting to Believe, God Exists, The Clockwork Universe, and Body and Soul. Next, the philosophical quest takes you into the world of Hume with How do you Know? (a favorite of mine), A Well-Meanin' Critter, Will the Sun Rise Tomorrow?, and Reason: Slave of the Passions.

Part Four deals with Hegel. You will learn about his Revolution in Thought, The Real is the Rational, Master and Slave, The Cunning of Reason, and The Owl of Minerva -- Hegel's ethics and political philosophy. On to Marx with The Young Hegelian, Alienated Man, The Conflict of Two Classes, and The World to Come.

Sartre is the last of the six philosophers that Lavin explores -- this is my favorite: My Existence is Absurd (The Fundamental Existentialist premise: Existence precedes essence, a major theme of Existentialism), Nausea, Condemned to be Free, and No Exit. A good section for all studying, or even curious about Existentialism.

The last Chapter deals with Contemporary Science in Philosophy. --Katharena Eiermann, 2005, the Realm of Existentialism -- Presidential Hopeful

A nice summary of the study of philosophy from the time of Socrates (before Christ) to Sartre (20th century). It is written in clear, simple language, explaining philosophical concepts at a high level overview. I used this book to understand the history and context of Husserl's philosophy for a graduate paper. It is a handy reference for a philosophy course.

I've read this book a couple of times....the first time I had no idea what Roshi was talking about, but somehow I did. The second time around I had six months of Zen practice and the book took on a totally new meaning...although I still didn't quite get everything at great depth. I feel that each read will only deepen my understanding and lessen my ignorance. Great book.

This book is a great into to Zen. It describes how to meditate Zen style in great detail and clearly. The ideas are though provoking and different. It's a great book for those who have read a lot of self help and are looking for something 'deeper' and more challenging. Something to flex your mind muscles! The language is clear and the book is not as esoteric as other Zen writings. The ideas are sometimes complex and therefore difficult to absorb, but this is why you want to read it, because once you get it, the wisdom is priceless. It definitely is a good, serious read on the subject of Zen.

This book is a must have for anyone looking to better understand the Zen philosophy or gain introspective on themselves. The title is a bit misleading as is explained within the preface. This is a book that would be well read with someone with no knowledge of Zen or expansive knowledge. It is a book that definitely can (and will be by me) read many times!!

The information on this CD is well organized and insightful. I was a little dissapointed in the audio not being of good quality. Sometimes, though, the meaning of the words are more important than how they are heard.

As a meditation teacher I found this text invaluable in understanding Zen Buddhism's meditation methods. It is important when teaching to have knowledge of different philosophies and teachings of meditation. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a foundation text for this understanding. I have already recommended it to others. A great buy and, I should add great service from Amazon for us antipodeans. Cheers from Australia. Ed.

Beautiful writing. Simply one of the best books by a living author that I've read. If you have interest in great writing, baseball, or Christianity, you'll enjoy the book. If you're a fan of all three, it'll be one of your favorites.

This book is the bomb-diggity! I'd gladly trade Dickens, Tolstoy, and maybe Milton for Duncan!

This is a rich, wonderful novel. Towards the end, I intended to read over lunch. One hour stretched to two, then even longer. I laughed out loud several times, and then cried. The waitress finally came over and asked, "Okay, what are you reading?! I've got to get a copy!" Everyone who loves great writing, wonderful characters and beautiful storytelling needs to get a copy. This kind of book doesn't come along every day - maybe not even every ten years. It's breathtaking.

I have purchased so many copies of this book to give to my friends and family! Some people are intimidated by its size; it is worth every page!
Baseball, family, humor, religion, 60's.....all combined with a skill that had me reading passages aloud. I gave my copy away....i will buy another.

The interplay between family members is often magical.

What originally attracted me to this novel was a former high school classmate of mine stating that it was one of his favorite books. Being the curious individual I was, I went on Amazon and read many of the 5 star review the books receives. I ordered a copy and began to peruse. Unfortunately, the book was not just below my expectations, but I wondered why so many people appreciated a novel that was filled with two dimensional characters and overflowing with cliches that are static in almost every piece of pop culture that is set in 60's-70's nostaglia (family is divided on present political issues, one son becomes a hippy, one becomes a soldier, etc.). Clearly David Duncan had a message, but it is one that has been heard repeatedly.

Foucault has been well served by this editor. Rabinow can't do anything about the author's dry, humorless prose style, but he has at least wittled it down into digestible chunks. Of course, Foucault's major thesis, that human liberation has made no progress in the last two centuries, is ludicrous. Foucault's continuing influence on American intellectual life is one of the enduring mysteries of our times.

Paul Rabinow does a spectacular job of compiling the "essential" Foucault. I needed to read "Madness and Civilization" as well as "I Pierre Riviere....." for a humanities course 2 years ago and this book was very helpful in placing Foucault in perspective. The Foucault Reader includes the controversial "What is an Author?", an article that outlines the complex mechanism of how a whole set of layers changes the way you, the reader, engage with the text. If Foucault and Roland Barthe were so busy analyzing the "Author Function", it makes one wonder: How much of their own "Author Function" where they aware of? By collaborating with Rabinow, Foucault is just as guilty of making his personality,notoriety and other works, work for or against each other. So much for the "Death of an Author". Notwithstanding all that I wrote above, I highly recommend this as a starting point, lest you get lost in Foucault's purposeful ambiguity.

Miguel Llora

This volume includes some classic Foucault essays, like the segment from Birth of the Asylum in which Foucault explains how the asylum sets up controls by means of perpetual observation and perpetual judgement. By continually observing and judging people, the impetus for conformity is laid to rest, becomes less visible, less obvious and subsequently, according to Foucault, all the more powerful because of its restrained state. This is a similar theme in the segment Panopticism where Foucault shows a transition in prison systems from physical manipulation to implicit manipulation. This new form of control is implemented through a physical construction that creates the illusion of continual surveillance. This surveillance creates the impetus for self-control. It ties in rather tightly with earlier discussions by Elias and Bordeau on etiquette. Etiquette is enforced and reinforced by the social force of shame and embarrassment. People control themselves out of a desire not to be looked down upon - to control their own public reputations. Panopticism works in a similar way - by continual observation or the illusion of continual observation, people are expected to continually discipline themselves so as to avoid being disciplined by an external source.
This discussion of self-disciplining the self is an interesting paradigm to work with in the electronic media. TV personnel have certain self-imposed expectations - far beyond state censorship and far more powerful, the desire to be respected by one's peers and superiors, controls the content of the media. Similarly, chatters on the Net are divided on a range along this self-imposed discipline from those who deliberately say the most absurd things just because they are outside the Panopticon to those who continue to hold real whole expectations of themselves in the virtual world. Between these two is a whole range of behaviors from constructing wildly inaccurate selves for Net view to "white lies" about age, weight, hair color, etc. The Net is interesting precisely because it falls outside the daily life which is observed and surveyed, i.e. similar in structure to a social Panopticon and TV news is interesting because it is a much more highly judged arena to step into. Foucault's writing provides more points from which to view the same sociological problem, allowing a researcher to more ably unpack issues embedded in the study.

The Foucault Reader edited by Paul Rainbow is a selection of writings from, and interviews with, Michael Foucault.

Although I am far from a Foucault scholar the collection strikes me as a representative sample of his thought. The selections are primarily focused on the intersection of power and knowledge within modern European society. The introduction by Rainbow is well done and helpful in situating Foucault and the themes of his writing. Foucault is often intentionally vague and as a result can be difficult to decipher. That said, Rainbow's praise seems overstated. For instance, he make Foucault appear almost modest and unassuming - not my impression.

Foucault's writing is difficult to classify. It is not truly philosophy or history in any meaningful sense. Although he styles himself after Nietzsche, Foucault is only a philosopher in the broadest of continental senses. While on the latter point, though much of his work is written in a historical guise it is more properly a form of historic fiction - created to highlight certain of the author's notions.

To me the most interesting aspect of Foucault is the insight he provides into twentieth century French thought. During the first half of the past century France experienced significant decline and suffering. This period, not surprisingly, triggered a wide-range of nihilistic writing. For students of European social history Foucault is a window into this bleak period.

Though Foucault has his followers, from my perspective his work has little enduring value.

As Mr. Rabinow himself states, any selection of Foucault's wide range of works and écrits might seem random at best, pointless at worst. I believe, however, that this compilation includes some of Foucault's most important essays (particularly "What Is Enlightenment?" and "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History") and some VERY edited selections from his most famous oeuvres, especially "Discipline and Punish". If you want a very general overview of Foucault's theories, get this... some information contained here in priceless. If you are interested in reading his books... this certainly won't do. I think Mr Rabinow justly skips Foucault's initial "phase" (archeology) BUT unjustly overlooks most of Foucault's final phase (technologies & hermeneutics of the self). One of Foucault's most important essays is missing here, "The Subject & The Power", in which he pieces together his general reflexions on well, the subject and the power. I guess the reason for not including that article is because it is already featured as an extra "bonus" in Rabinow's own "Beyond Hermeneutics & Structuralism".
The introductory pages written by Paul Rabinow are ALSO excellent, by the way.
All in all, a good compilation, if only just a starting point.

This book is a beautiful bridge for those who still adhere to the cartesian gap theory. seating the phenomenal experience of man in and through 'body'...Merleau-Ponty opens the narrow lens of 'mental' perception to include 'the human'. An important work for our evolutionary reach forward.

Very prompt shipping and the book was in excellent condition when it arrived, in plenty of time for classes starting.

Merleau-Ponty's masterpiece is really an exquisite piece of writing. I know from an excellent source that there is a new translation coming soon. The French to English translation was done by a French professor, not a philosopher so some of M-P's subtle nuances are lost. Then again, so much is lost in translation anyway. Anyway you slice it, though, it is an excellent read and I recommend it full-heartedly.

"What is phenomenology? It may seem strange that this question has still to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl" So says Merleau-Ponty in the opening pages of `Phenomenology of Perception,' perhaps the major work of phenomenology after `Being and Time.' Merleau-Ponty sought, rather brilliantly, to redirect attention to the human body as the locus of our being-in-the-world for phenomenological inquiry. Unfortunately, I am convinced that Merleau-Ponty's efforts to turn the results of his phenomenology into an ethics and a politics are less impressive and important than Heidegger's breathtakingly brilliant attempt to use phenomenology as a means to fundamental ontology. Still, one has to admire Merleau-Ponty's command over biology and the natural sciences. His descriptions of visual illusions and phantom limbs are by now established classics of the field. However, many of his examples are needlessly extensive and dense. Less committed readers should turn to the final chapters of the book, where the majority of his philosophy can be found.

As a side note, Routledge has produced an edition here that is positively replete with typos. Surprising for such a reputable publisher. Most readers will find the carelessness on their behalf extremely irritating.

Merleau-Ponty's work is nothing less than a classic, one of the great works of philosophy in the 20th century. It should go without saying, then, that this work should be made available in an up-to-date and scholarly translation.
Unfortunately, this is what Routledge has refused to do. Not only does this "new" edition maintain all of the known mistakes and inconsistencies of the original translation (most of which were not corrected when the translation was revised twenty years ago), but it also introduces literally dozens of type-setting errors. In addition to all of the obvious mistakes in punctuation and spelling (e.g., "intelfection" on p. xx; "in a world" instead of "in a word" on p. 129; "deralizes" for "derealizes" on p. 140; "writes" for "writers," p. 163; "Rinswanger" for "Binswanger," note 6, p. 185, and the list goes on and on), you will also encounter such lovely gems as "Bergson's inferiority" (instead of "interiority", p. 67) and "adduction" transformed into "abduction" -- when distinguishing between the two is precisely the point of Merleau-Ponty's discussion (p. 243). In short, an already flawed translation has now been bungled into a bloody mess. If you are reading this book for the first time, you would be well-advised to check the used bookstores for a copy of the earlier edition. If you are trying to use this text with students, lots of luck to you!
It is also worth mentioning that Routledge has again failed to include a translation of Merleau-Ponty's original table of contents in this edition, so that many English readers are still unaware that he provided a detailed outline of the entire text to guide the reader. A translation by Daniel Guerriere is available in the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 10, no. 1 (1979) - although, of course, the page numbers no longer correspond to this "new" edition.

I picked up a copy of this book in a shop in Hong Kong with high expectations. I had heard of it but had not yet read it and was rather shocked to find an english language copy in a place like Hong Kong. It is very persuasive in some of it's arguments but is essentially little more than a book advocating totalitarian government systems and as I read it I couldn't help but wonder if the former Texas governer had a member of his staff read it to him sometime during his recent administration.
Aside from a few clever quotations and a few speechlike chapters this book is little more than a more elegant political pundit book. It proves little more than one Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh would reason if they had a stronger command of the English language. One difference would be that Rousseau believed, at least in some parts of the book, that religion weakened government.

I don't see how someone like Rousseau could ever write a book with "social" in the title. The woman lived alone on the island for over 16 years. She is clearly disturbed.

Immanuel Kant had one portrait hanging in his house in Konigsberg. The portrait was of Rousseau. What an honor, to be memorialized while alive by THE leading figure of the enlightenment!

Rousseau never coined the term 'noble savage'. This is a popular misunderstanding and outright lie. He was himself though, a seeming savage. He carried on love affairs, abandonded children, spoke of heresy, and so on.

But on to 'The Social Contract'. It is the houses, no matter how prettily and well built they be, that make up the town, but it is the citizen, gloriously free citizen who makes up the city.

So Rousseau to me ironically leaves the countryside behind and sets himself up in the city.

Here, man, at least enlightened man, democratically chooses his leaders and magistrates and allows them to rule by choice. This enlightened man is subject to the law and not to the magistrate, and Liberty, Sweet Liberty, is the penultimate Virtue of the now ennobled citizen.

Death is to be preferred to loss of it.

It can be won.

It cannot be won again.

Once you lose it, it's gone forever, this Liberty.

Timely indeed.

From page 186:
"It is impossible to live in peace with people one believes to be damned"

From page 187:
"But anyone who dares to say `outside the church there is no salvation should be expelled from the state unless the state is the church and the Prince the Pontiff"

The Social Contract was written in 1762. It is my understanding many of the Founding Fathers of the United States had read the book and this work certainly had a major influence on French thought, therefore on the French Revolution. French society suffered many wrongs because of religious intolerance and it had a major effect on the author's thoughts. In my Faith, in my thoughts those who do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior are damned to Hell. I believe there is one true Universal church. A church not made bricks and mortar, but of souls. While this definition of church does include a denomination, the theology is in disagreement with what Rousseau believed to be of a benefit to social cohesiveness. He be believed people should only have positive dogmas which did include earthly punishment for sin, that people should seek to do God's will; God has a watchful eye over people and government. The author certainly had a problem with one believing that God damns those of other Christian constructs. He wanted to outlaw or redefine the Catholic Faith and Protestantism to fit into his idea of social cohesiveness. His idea of religious tolerance gets a more sympathetic ear today then when written.

Rousseau contributed to the thoughts of man. That man gives up certain rights in a civil society. That only through government does anyone truly has his rights protected. That it is only through some sort of social agreement that ones civil rights and property rights are protected. My physical security is no longer just dependent on me. It is through the organization of men I can own, I can do without fear that another will deny simply because of my absence or more might.

Partiality and equality. Equality is not to have a right beyond that of another individual Partiality is to have more rights then another individual because who your Father is, wealth, friendship with the Prince, or any other reason. Rousseau did not dismiss partiality from society, but he did ask it only be set up through the general will of the people. He therefore argued that people should associate together for the purpose of forming a political argument. He wanted each person to come to conclusions based on the strength of argument. How debate could not be obtained without alliance and organization of debate is not dealt with. Freedom of association is not dealt with in the book.

The General Will is determined by the majority. Rousseau recognizes the particular will of the individual is often in disagreement with the general will. Compromise is needed and an individual is generally better off because of government action then if no action were taken. The author decries sectionalism ( beliefs or ideas that grow out of living in a different geographic area and beliefs coming forth from other associations). He does not have an idea how this can be eliminated.

The author speaks on many topics on the determination what is the best form of government. The author makes a distinction between the prince as the one who enforces the law and the lawmaker. Rousseau discusses how population, climate, geographic landscape, beliefs of the public and education effect the form of government and the ability to be governed. This book I believe made a major contribution on how we think about government and society.

The fallacy is in his assumption that individuals must forfeit all sovereignty to the state. The second specious argument is in the creation of a General Will. The third is that the general will will not do anything to harm any of the individuals within the collective.

The collectivist social contract was most assured well intentioned, but it's opposition to individualism has obviously anti-individualist consequences.

This is evident in his support of democratic censorship. If the general will is offended, then censorship is justified.

In his desire to create equality, he justifies both socialism and communism, and democracy in its purest form - majority rule.

This is a scholarly work with all the bases covered. What Western Philosophy is from Descartes to Kant to modern philosophy and how this changes things.


The linguistics and philosophy are both presented in very accessible language so that no background in either is a prerequisite. It is a very readable work for the non-scholar.


Good read.

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have now demonstrated in this book that philosophy is almost exclusively based in human experience and not in abstraction. Unfortunately, they had to bring their own extreme personal political and religious views into what was a good linguistic text. This book is like many others in that you must discern the good (i.e., the epistemology) and disregard the bad (i.e., their personal options of politics, religion, and morality).

It is not possible to deal properly with such a subject by using Kant, leaving out Nietzsche and the selfish gene of Dawkins. The general philosophers they use are in the shadow of a platonist metaphysic (the Socratic Judaeo-Christian metaphysic) which thus forces them to deal with pseudo-problems. Sorry to be so grumpy. It is easy to stand back and take pot-shots at another person's work.

I read the editors reviews above and the top customer reviews for this text. I don't feel I need to cover the same ground and I'm not going to. However, I have some personal thoughts that may be useful to add.

In my opinion, Philosophy in the Flesh is a monumental undertaking because it is an attempt to topple an existing paradigm marked by many unexamined assumptions about the nature of the mind, consciousness and the mind-body relationship. This is a very tall order and while the book has some shortcomings, it successfully makes a dent in this direction.

I agree with one reviewer's comments about not including and integrating work from researchers on the relationship between consciousness, the body and emotions such as Damasio. To get this background on your own, I would consider reading "The Feeling of What Happens" and other research in the field. I also agree with this same reviewer's comment about neglecting an evolutionary perspective and to get this I would start by reading David Buss. Understanding our cognitive biases is important and many of these do come from evolutionary psychology. For dramatic examples of these, you might try reading THE EVOLUTION OF DESIRE on sexual mating strategies or JEALOUSY by David Buss. There are also other many good books in this general genre and David Buss has written more than a few of them.

With respect to PHILOSOPHY IN THE FLESH itself, I found the first 136 pages most useful. This justifies the cost of the book because it lays out the author's basic theories, the disconnects between what we know about the mind and what is assumed to be true because of an enduring, but outdated concept of the mind-body relationship. In other words, the first 136 pages are like a nitty-gritty short book on the "must know" concepts.

The remainder of the book goes more deeply into specific examples of how the mind is embodied, the role of unconscious condition as the "hidden hand" that influences our actions, etc. It basically amounts to a defense of the first 136 pages, which in itself is convincing and compelling.

This book has implications for anyone who is interested in the mind-body relation and the body's role in cognition. Not everyone will want to read all of it, but I found that picking it up periodically and diving deeper into specific areas useful. It's not a bedtime story, so plowing through all 600 pages over a week or two might be a bit too much for someone who isn't a specialist in this area.

Lakoff has also written some interesting things on metaphor in dreams. If you have an interest in dreams, this book might be thought provoking and if so, you might also be interested in some of Lakoff's articles on interpreting dreams. If you want a nice introduction to dream interpretation that has a good article by Lakoff, consider DREAMS edited by Kelly Bulkeley. (Kelly also has a lot of other excellent books on dreaming and is quite a scholar in that area.)

I liked this book and I think it made a good dent in bringing down an outdated paradigm. I think anyone who is a cognitive therapist should read this and consider the implications. This would also be a good book for people who are more somatically-oriented therapists or who have a strong interest in mind-body medicine. I think Feldenkrais practioners and Rosen Bodyworks people would also benefit greatly from understanding this material.

Lastly, if you like this book, you might also like AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT (Feldenkrais), the EMBODIED MIND (Varela), THE ANATOMY OF CHANGE and The Body (Yuasa Yasuo). Some of these books are less mainstream than others, but they are ALL thought provoking in different ways.

This is a big, thick, and dull book. Much of what is in it seems trivial. And I feel that were the material in this book to be lost somehow, it could be re-invented so easily that one has to doubt its overall value.

The authors start by saying that abstract concepts are largely metaphorical. And that may well be true, but I feel the authors do not make much of a case for all this having much significance. There is also a discussion of how people categorize concepts; it's not particularly profound.

We see Lakoff and Johnson talk about scientific truth. But I'm not impressed. In fact, there are some mathematical "truths" whether we are aware of them or not. And there are some aspects of reality that we may or may not recognize. And that is about it. My guess is that most folks could, if they applied themselves, write a better essay on truth than the authors did.

There's a section on time. Saint Augustine and Zeno get mentioned here, even though I feel that they were hardly great thinkers. We do not even see Augustine's question about whether time is discrete or continuous (actually a very good question) let alone his idiotic answer to it. And the authors have plenty to say about events and causes, once again offering little of value.

Next we see a discussion of the mind. It is explained that we make analogies between unappetizing food and distasteful ideas, but even this is in fact garbled. In fact, we have a greater tendency to make analogies between unappetizing items and lies.

The authors talk about artificial intelligence and the Turing test. This section is not all that special, but I actually liked it, and I feel that it is worth reading.

There is plenty about the use of language. But most of it is not very illuminating. I could talk about language as well and, say, examine the difference between "getting ahead of oneself" and "being beside oneself." But I doubt there would be much value in that!

The authors talk about some famous philosophers of the past. In doing so they mention that it makes no sense to speak of a time before the Big Bang, since time did not exist then. But that's merely semantic, and it is (in my opinion) a particularly silly thing to say in a book on philosophy! By simply asking if it's a little provincial to say that Reality extends in time to only a few times the age of our planet, I've already said something sensible (and maybe even profound!) about Reality outside of the Big Bang.

Lakoff and Johnson include a weak chapter on morality. But to their credit, they do at least show some of the problems with various types of moral systems. Of course, we do not need the authors to tell us that. For example, we can all see that during World War Two, many Jewish officials (highly educated to be moral leaders) in communities that were being annihilated wound up with (quite deservedly) no moral authority whatsoever with those who remained in these communities.

We read about theories of "rational action." Once again, I found little of value here. I do think it makes sense for people to be responsible for their actions and to benefit from their accomplishments, but I can't see why it would be profound to say so.

At the end of the book, there is a mention of evolutionary theories. That could have led to an interesting discussion of what direction we're all headed in, what we ought to do to get there, how to avoid upcoming problems, and how to adapt to what could be Reality in the future. All this could have been discussed in more detail, but the authors did not do that.

There's some good material in the book, so I am awarding it three stars, but I feel it is barely worth reading.