Philosophy Books

The book cover is in worse condition than I expected, but the contents are all there, and it came within a week of ordering.

This was a great book. It covered the important material and left out all of the extra garbage that most books carry on for pages about. The presentation was done using clear mathematics and modern, easily followed notation. The book is short making it practical to actually read the entire book if you are extremely busy. We used the book in conjunction with Hill. I don't recommend Hill because it is hard to follow.

After learning almost nothing in my graduate course on stat mech taught by a famous physicist, I decided I would have to teach myself Stat Mech over the summer. When I found this book, I really started to make progress. Right away I got the big picture on what statistical mechanics is all about, and that made all the difference. I was able to work my way quickly through the book, doing the problems as they came along in text and understand almost everything.

I wasn't able to make it through the denser chapters at the end on nonequilibrium stat mech on my own, but the book was well worth the price and is one of my favorites. The explanations are pure gold.

A few tips for the reader:
1. Do the problems as your read. The best place for the problems in a textbook is in the text itself, not at the end of the chapter.

2. Get the solutions manual
I purchased the solutions manual so that I could check my solutions. It had about half the solutions and only half of them worked out in detail, but it was still very useful for getting started on some of the problems I wasn't sure how to approach.

3. Make a notation conversion chart
Some of the greek letters are different than the usual notation for physics courses, so I had to make a notation conversion chart on the front inside cover and that was very helpful.

4. If you find the book too hard, use Schroeder's book as an introduction.

5. Be prepared to see a missing spot on your shelf.
I'm constantly loaning this book out to people in my research group and other students.

A clear, concise explanation of statistical mechanics. Some people may complain about the "concise" part--in many cases, mathematical exercises are left as exercises to the student. However, this practice allows the reader to really understand the material by doing, not just reading. I learned stat mech for the first time from this book, and only examined other texts (mcquarrie or hill) afterwards.

I used this book while taking the course for which this book was designed, Prof. Chandler's stat mech course for first year graduate students.

I agree with the reviewer who wrote that this book avoids a lot of filler that can distort the main thrust of the material at hand.

I disagree with the reviewer who wrote that this is not the book for a beginner. I used this book having studied undergrad p-chem but essentially no stat mech. Being a concise text, one must read carefully to extract the point of each paragraph. I sometimes found myself re-reading certain sections a few times in order to understand them. The abundant prose should be evidence that the author is trying to provide a physical picture to improve the scientific intuition of the reader.

This doesn't mean the book isn't for a beginner. It just means what you should already know: you will not learn stat mech by skimming any text just once with a pint of beer in your hand.

I constantly return to this book for review of thermo and stat mech concepts. For my grad qualifying exams I mostly used McQuarrie for general p-chem overview, but switched right back to IMSM for thermo and stat mech review.

If you're looking for a reference book with every possible stat mech problem worked out to help with your problem sets, this is not it. If you want to understand stat mech this book is the first step.

I bought this book with a couple of others for a presentation I was preparing at church. I read three or four chapters before putting it down. It didn't really address what I was interested in for the presentation, and otherwise wasn't providing me with any knowledge or insights that I felt was useful. Oh well.

Pointless book, simply the history of and mundane observations on masculinity. It's not very readable, I decided to put it down after skimming through and reading the first few pages.

Don't let the clever title get you to waste money on this one.

According to a previous reviewer, the first 1/3 of the book was insightful, and I agree. However, after that, the author's Left-Liberal-Environmentalist biases seem to take over. I don't mind that he has these leanings, but I do mind that they seem to be his only "solutions" to the problem of integrating manhood into life.

I have been in a journey to explore and discover what is both right and wrong with my masculinity - to see the strengths and weaknesses I have, as well as where I have failed to take responsibility for how I have used, misused or neglected them. After reading "Iron John", "Self-Made Man", "What Could He be Thinking" and others, I lost interest in this book about 1/2 way through.

If I had to describe Sam Keen in one word, it would be "authentic." I would describe myself as an androgenous woman. (A more precise word would be "tomboy," I suppose.) A male friend dragged me to see Sam Keen speak some years ago. ("But, dearest, if he's going to speak to men, why must I come along? Can't you simply go have a listen, then call me later and tell me all about it?") Once Keen began speaking, I was riveted. He was not loud, nor charismatic (in the dynamic, hands flailing image). He was simply honest, sincere and insightful. He sat on a stool, relaxed, and spoke from his heart about what he's learned as a man. We are blessed in that Keen is also a good, solid writer. I have purchased this book again and again over the years for male friends, and will continue to do so, as each one of them has told me later how meaningful the book was to him.

Now the truth is that I am no newcomer to philosophy, not am I a newcomer to the idea that man must learn to create himself in order to come to terms with his own concept of manhood. This is an essential vision from a very wise writer. A man owes it to himself to make this exploration if you do not want to end up an unhappy life-trudger. I came originally into this exploration from zen, from Nietzsche and from the seduction community. This is for a man willing to explore the truth... to explore his own truths and is willing to embrace his own fears to get to something new. Just read it.

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.

This is a masterful work of philosophy that explores a too often neglected force in our lives. So much has been written about the mechanics and the physiology of pain, but so little -- at least in terms of accessible literature -- has been written about its psychological ramifications. With unbelievable dedication and insight, Scarry looks at the role pain plays in culture and identity, spending half of the book on its destructive dynamic in war and torture and half of it on the constructive dynamics in just about every other situation. My only complaint about the book is the disconnect between the two halves and the intriguing but too specific focus on the Bible for the second half. Scarry makes some excellent points here, but ultimately it would have been more educational to hear what she has to say about constructive aspects of pain in non-literary contexts. She talks a lot about the body and creation without relying on her analysis of pain in the Bible, but then it ends up not being enough about pain.

Regardless, an astounding work of philosophy that feels like a critical stepping stone in understanding the ways our imagination, culture, and pain interrelate.

The Body in Pain includes many interesting ideas and theories that could be made into engrossing analyses, yet Elaine Scarry manages to even make torture boring. Her frankly very intelligent observations would be much better suited to a 20 page scholarly essay than a 300 plus page repetitive rant that seems to care more about displaying her verbal acuity than proving a point, let alone attracting readers. I have counted the number of times she uses the word "sentient" and "sentience": some pages include these terms more than 8 times. One would think that an author so obviously bent on proving her intelligence would deign to consult a thesaurus. Perhaps "feeling" is too plebeian a term for her....

I have worked with several individuals who suffered extreme physical torture sometime during their lives. Scarry's work helped me to understand the internal world of the sufferer in ways I would never have even begun to approach. Each one of these individuals lacked the language to discuss their experiences. What they were left with was inarticulatable images, physical sensations, emotions, profound helplessness and alienation. Scarry's book helped me find language to give to my patients -- language that helped to normalize their reaction to, and experience of inexplicable events. Her exploration of the abyss of human destruction is accomplished such original, humane, and thoughtful detail. Her book is an ingenius work of art.

What an odd and wonderful book! It attempts to address three topics -- pain/torture, warfare, and creativity. On the subject of pain/torture it is remarkably acute. The description of what pain is and what it does to consciousness and life's enjoyment is terrific and, in my experience, unprecedented. Similarly, its description of torture and what torture means is stunning in its immediacy. However, when it goes from torture to warfare, the book goes off the rails. It is clear that Ms Scarry has a limited knowledge of warfare and a very limited understanding of what it means and how it is carried out. Warfare is usually a last resort and often involves activity by those who are free against those who are trying to create and perpetuate some form of slavery. (see the work of Victor Davis Hanson, e.g., The Soul of Battle.) This applies whether the war is conventional or nuclear. Her idea that taking the process of war to the civilian population is somehow a function of nuclear war is simply wrong. This approach to war is thousands of years old and, as Hanson points out, important and -- in some contexts -- virtuous. War is a horror, but it is better than slavery, torture, or conquest plus annihilation. Scarry doesn't address this. This book makes the experience of pain clear, but offers a wooly and uncertain explanation of war. Its Marxist approach to creativity is shallow and forgettable.

Elaine Scarry's "The Body in Pain", an influential study on the relationship between pain, torture, warfare and creativity is a stunning achievement, from the standpoint of Marxism. I confess that I have not read the sections on the structure of warfare, but I was extremely impressed with the passages on torture. Scarry's central premise is that pain, a radically subjective, hence inexpressible and incommunicable experience, results, during the process of torture, in destroying, or deconstructing the victim's voice (his or her power of articulation) and by extension, the victim's world. It is the prisoner's pain, incommunicable because unsharable, which is denied by the torturer as pain but translated as the wholly illusory phenomenon of power, that of the torturer and the regime he represents. These parts of the book are expounded with considerable insight and sophistication, in dense and convoluted prose. The second part, dealing with how pain is converted to creativity, explains how the radical subjectivity and inexpressibility of the sufferer's pain is mitigated into the objective (hence sharable and communicable) activity of work, which is a self-imposed, milder and socially more profitable form of pain. This treatise is absolutely vital reading for any one who aspires to seriously dabble in literature, psychology or philosophy. A tour de force.

I love how you shipped my book out so quickly and the prices are affordable for single mom's who are on a tight budget! Thank for helping me get an education. The book arrived in better condition than what you had stated. I want to say, "THANK YOU for being HONEST. A very rare quality now days! Keep up the great work and the lower price textbooks for us single mom's. who gets no help from a dead beat dad!

I bought this book because it was required for my class. It is well written and actually interesting. It gives strategies to help the school, community and parents work together. I did not give it all five stars because I wish that it had given even more strategies for working together. The authors covered the three areas of the home, school and community efficiently and completely. It is the most unbiased text in this area of study that I have found. Even homeschooling was covered in an unbiased and positive manner, accurately listing the pros and cons of the practice. Overall I was surprised to find a text that was actually readable and informative. While I wouldn't sit down and read this for pleasure, if I had to read a school text, this would be one I would choose to read.

"The Prince" by Machiavelli is one of the greatest classics of political science. Unfortunately, Machiavelli has developed a reputation for encouraging leaders to stop at nothing in order to get power. While it is true that Machiavelli advocates that leaders must sometimes do wrong in order to maintain power, he doesn't advocate doing wrong only to hold power. In Machiavelli's world view, the stability of a leader's power is actually a greater good for a society. It must be remembered that the world in which Machiavelli was writing in was a war-torn 16th century Italy. In this world, leaders would often change and this would lead to economic instability and violence. A strong leader would reduce this instability and bring prosperity to the citizens of his country.

Another thing that might surprise readers is that Machiavelli is a believer in the power of the people. As a staunch republican, he believed that the strongest base of power for a leader is the people that he leads. As you read through this book, you'll notice an interesting split between Machiavelli's opinion of individuals and of the people. Machiavelli is very critical of individuals--setting them up as people who can't be trusted and which must be held at arms-length. However, when talking of the people, he claims that a ruler cannot rule for long without the support of the people. In fact, he goes so far as to say that the support of the people is stronger than any fortress. The citizens of a state are it's strongest fortress.

There are many intriguing ideas presented in "The Prince". No doubt you'll be able to find something that applies to your situation. I highly recommend this especially to anyone involved with people management whether in business or in school.

This book was written by the famous Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli in 1531. This book is a classic and I was pleasantly surprised that the content was not dated and the principles translate easily into the modern worlds of business and politics.
The author wrote this book as an instruction guide for governing princes in the 1500's when Italy was divided into city states and were being defeated by many foreign powers. I belive that the work is directed to Lorenzo de Medici by a letter included in the work and because at the end of the writing Machiavelli calls for a prince to unite and lead Italy against its oppressors.
The book is not unethical as I had imagined from my understanding of the ruthlessness of Machiavellian ethics. The author is only explaining tactics to use to maintain power in a kingdom or city state that are pragmatic for his time period.
Here are some examples from the book:
1. When conquering a territory keep the current laws and institutions in place, but eliminate all the family of the defeated prince.
2. When trouble is sensed ahead of time it can be easily remedied, if you wait for it to show itself, it is to late.
3. Whoever is responsible for another becoming powerful, ruins himself.
4. There is no surer way of keeping possesion than by devastation.
5. Men do you are harm either because they hate you or they fear you.
6. Violence must be inflicted once and for all, it must be over quickly.
7. Build your power through the people.
8. Power is maintained through religious institutions.
9. Neglect the art of war and you lose your state.
10. If you act virtuously, you will be undone by those who are not, make use of this or not according to need.
The above is just a small sampling of the lessons in this book. My review can not do this book justice, it is full of wisdom and life lessons. It is a guide book for business leaders and politicians. I strongly suggest adding this book to your home library and referring to it often.

I don't think this is a 'must read', but it was pretty entertaining if you're into philosophy, history or like to find out where words come from. You always hear people say, things like "his politics are machiavellian" and you know it means 'cut-throat', but you don't know why. Well reading this clears it up, although I didn't get the impression that he favored such tactics, it just happened that sometimes those tactics work for maintaining power and this is what this book is all about. Getting, keeping and expanding your power, specifically over principalities, but you can apply some things to business I'm sure.

It's an easy read (which surprised me) and not very lengthy, so don't be intimated by it if you're interested in reading it.

This book was written by the famous Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli in 1531. This book is a classic and I was pleasantly surprised that the content was not dated and the principles translate easily into the modern worlds of business and politics.
The author wrote this book as an instruction guide for governing princes in the 1500's when Italy was divided into city states and were being defeated by many foreign powers. I belive that the work is directed to Lorenzo de Medici by a letter included in the work and because at the end of the writing Machiavelli calls for a prince to unite and lead Italy against its oppressors.
The book is not unethical as I had imagined from my understanding of the ruthlessness of Machiavellian ethics. The author is only explaining tactics to use to maintain power in a kingdom or city state that are pragmatic for his time period.
Here are some examples from the book:
1. When conquering a territory keep the current laws and institutions in place, but eliminate all the family of the defeated prince.
2. When trouble is sensed ahead of time it can be easily remedied, if you wait for it to show itself, it is to late.
3. Whoever is responsible for another becoming powerful, ruins himself.
4. There is no surer way of keeping possesion than by devastation.
5. Men do you are harm either because they hate you or they fear you.
6. Violence must be inflicted once and for all, it must be over quickly.
7. Build your power through the people.
8. Power is maintained through religious institutions.
9. Neglect the art of war and you lose your state.
10. If you act virtuously, you will be undone by those who are not, make use of this or not according to need.
The above is just a small sampling of the lessons in this book. My review can not do this book justice, it is full of wisdom and life lessons. It is a guide book for business leaders and politicians. I strongly suggest adding this book to your home library and referring to it often.

Teresa Huneke

To Know As We Are Known
By
Parker Palmer


Parker believes there is a "spirituality of education". He believes all learning should not be to the determent of others. He believes that currently our educational system uplifts the thought that "knowledge is power". We use this power in ways that suit our own needs and don't look to the whole of our world. He believes that we have separated the visible world from the invisible world in our educational systems. One way Parker Palmer believes we can remedy this is to see the relatedness in everything. Some of the ways he forms this relatedness is to reduce the objectivity in teaching, create a safe learning environment, form relationships with his students, creates space with the use of silence to draw out learning.
Parker Palmer is very left wing on his view of our present education system. Parker's weakness is manifested in his broad generalizations about the present educational system. Broad generalizations are untruthful for a portion of the group. Whenever you only see the negative in a system you are not seeing what good lies within that system. Parker wants to form relatedness yet he couldn't relate to our present education model. I can see that Parker wanted to emphasize what was negative about our present educational system thus catalyzing change. In this model of education the teacher is seen as a mediator and the student is held more accountable for his own education, thus creating accountability to each other and the world. His view of education is almost a romantic view; it creates a oneness or love with ourselves our community, our world, and our God. This form of facilitating education is used successfully in lots of early childhood family education classes and would be useful in any ministerial training session. This style of facilitating educations makes everyone feel that they have valuable input to the education process. They learn from each other which validates who they are as a person.

This books is extremely inspiring. It has gotten me excited about community again, and in particular how it differentiates the various types of community. This had gotten me excited again about teaching, for it sets teaching into spiritual perspective.

Parker Palmer has created a truly outstanding work with To Know as We Are Known. This work explores the nature of truth, and challenges readers to examine and transform the ways they teach and learn
Palmer's model centers on the premise that truth is neither objective (an object can be manipulated, abused, and co-opted for use to whatever ends we so desire, we do not bear the kind of love that requires responsibility toward objects) nor subjective (subjectivism is the decision to listen only to ourselves in the search for truth, it concedes diversity without calling into dialogue.) Truth is relational. Real truth can only be found in an open willingness to both search out and listen in respect (borne out of non-selfish love) to the subject being learned, the students being taught, and to the future we are creating together.
In order to illustrate the objectivist approach to knowledge, he uses the example of the atomic bomb. He quotes Robert Oppenheimer as saying "The physicists have known sin." The objective way treats knowledge as something self-contained, and takes no responsibility for the outcomes of research or development. He lets the fruits of this way, the example of Hiroshima, stand in stark contrast to a story about 4th century wandering mystics and hermits (the Desert Fathers and Mothers.)
The story is about Abba (Father) Felix, and a group of monks who sought him out for his wisdom. They begged him to give them a word of truth. He was silent for a long time, and then explained that God had withdrawn words of truth from old men, because those who seek them out had no intention of following the truth they received with their lives. The brothers then realized their own intentions and groaned "Pray for us Abba Felix!"
In this example, which becomes a central illustration throughout the book, Abba Felix is not treating truth (in this case religious truth) as an object which he possesses and can dispense to whomever he pleases. Instead, he initiates a relationship with the students, assessing their need- which is not platitudes or gems of wisdom, but a wake-up call- and gives them truth in love that transforms their minds instead of just adding to their store of objective knowledge bits. Palmer describes how this method is applicable not only to religious truth but to all subjects; from treating historical literary figures as friends whose voices need to be listened for in their work, to emphasizing the responsibility to community and future with which scientists need to go about their research.
The style of writing can be a bit complicated at first. This is hardly surprising, as Palmer tells us he has spent his early career writing for Academia. It is, however, well worth the minor effort needed to adjust to the style. Another weakness of this work is the practical application suggestions, Palmer spends only two chapters on them and at that point the book gets less engaging.
Overall, these problems are vastly overshaddowed by the worth of this book. It is transformational, and I wish everyone would read, understand, and be open to its message.

I felt this book was interesting but repetitive. Throughout the book Parker Palmer used the idea of truth as a means to develop a relationship and a healthy educational environment. I continually felt that I wanted new information.

He made some very good points regarding relationships; especially those involved in the educational process. Both teachers and students should act with humility, trust each other, work collaboratively, and transcend the traditional teacher-student relationship.

I appreciated the point made by Palmer, "So the classroom where truth is central will be a place where every stranger and every strange utterance is met with welcome" (74). We can use this as an opportunity to learn from each other. Palmer claims that, "The teacher who offers a single body of data and omits competing evidence closes the learning space" (77).

"To learn is to face transformation" (41). Both students and teachers should be open to learning from each other and preventing any prejudices from interfering with new knowledge gains and growth of oneself in the process.

This book is an excellent guide for the person interested in teaching AND learning. Though Palmer takes an unabashedly Christian viewpoint in developing his approach to pedagogy, the reader need not subscribe to that or any other inflationary metaphysical framework. His critique of "modern" education is consistent in many ways with that of postmodernism and other critical perspectives. Though the author speaks with a communitarian voice (which carries with it other assumptions about the organization of the life-world with which one may not agree), Palmer sketches a new (and needed) subjectivity for the teacher/learner. (The book makes an interesting addition to any reading regime concerned with social epistemology.)

This book is a good eye opener for anyone who has even a little opinion on moral issues such as abortion, the death penalty, the right to pornography, and euthanasia. The cool part of this book is that it presents a pro-side and a con-side to seventeen different issues. The way in which the arguments are presented are logical and follow a well thought out pattern of thought. In my reading of this book, I was amazed at some of the thoughts that were presented many of which I had never thought of or considered before. This book could serve as a textbook, or just a good resource book for debates. If you have even a slight opinion on a touchy issue, I would suggest reading this book for two reasons; first, it will give you more understanding and fire for your position, and second, you be able to understand where someone else is coming from.