Philosophy Books

This is a good and comprehensive book if you are taking any 17th and 18th century philosophy courses. There are helpful intorductions beore each philosopher which give a bit of background on them as well as briefly summarize their main theories.

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The fourth edition claims to have these advantages: it includes (1) a selection from Rousseau (2) additional material from Locke's Essay and (3) a new translation of the Meditations.

(2) consists of a short chapter on faith and reason. In exchange, we've lost II.11, on abstraction. Since there's little material from Book III, and nothing from III.vi, it's very hard for the reader to make sense of Berkeley's extended attack on abstract ideas in the introduction to the Principles.

Re. (3): Inexplicably, the editor has decided to replace John Cottingham's standard 1986 translation of the Meditations with a `new' translation by Laurence Lafleur, first published in 1951. Perhaps the editor had no choice, but it seems disingenuous to present this as an improvement.

Moreover, the third edition included a crucial selection from Kant's first Critique (the transcendental deduction); this has been deleted.

This is a big step down from the third edition.

I don't usually like anthologies and rarely teach from them -- I tend to prefer a primary text approach, partly because it allows students to see the development of ideas in their full context and because I expect philosophy students to be interested in developing their personal library of philosophy. This volume, however, is an exception and I've been using this volume for several years (and three separate editions) to teach my "History of Philosophy: 17th and 18th Century." Since I try to cover quite a bit in the course (empiricism, rationalism, social contract theory, transcendental philosophy -- in the works of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Pascal, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant), but don't have the time to read everything by every thinker, this volume is almost perfect. It has almost everything I cover and includes both good brief introductions and fairly broad excerpts from each thinker. There is enough, at least, to illustrate the general approach and broad themes and key issues from most every thinker it includes. I've looked at a few other anthologies of Modern philosophy and they are usually either too specific (e.g. focused on 17th but not 18th century philosophy) or too broad and narrow in their coverage. This one is just right, and would be an excellent volume to get for an orientation to the basic problems of modern philosophy that sets the stage for both 19th Century continental thinkers like Hegel and Schopenhauer and Marx and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, as well as for 20th century developments in both analytic (that picks up from Hume and to a lesser degree Kant and largely bypasses the German Idealist movement) as well as continental philosophy (in Heidegger, Sartre, etc.).

One quibble: I do wish there was more from Rousseau -- the latest volume has excerpts from the Social Contract and while that may be his most historically important work it doesn't show as clearly as some of his other works his distinctive approach to thinking -- that does not fall clearly under a rationalist or empiricist label. To give a better flavor of Rousseau I supplement this volume with Hackett's translation of the Second Discourse (On the Origins of Inequality).

What a great book to bring someone into exelstentialism. While Barrett has a slight bias towards Kierkegard and Nietzsche he makes great connections between romanticism and the precursors to modernity. Great quick read that has some great insights.

Nothing is more exhausting than the search for meaning. Every question has a thousand answers, each claiming to be correct. And each can be challenged by a thousand objections. Evermore we come out the same door as in we went, and return to -- ourselves. We alone are unavoidably the final arbiters of our personal beliefs and values. Occasionally we have the good fortune to find a guide through the jungle of perplexing philosophical questions who can explain issues clearly, distinctly, and quietly, without forcing his personal conclusions on us. But how do we know the guide is reliable? Before we have heard what he has to say, we don't. And if we chose to believe that he is reliable, that is our choice.

I agree with the many readers of _Irrational Man_ that Barrett is a remarkably persuasive guide. Not that I agree with him completely -- nobody's beliefs can totally correspond with those of another. No matter. Barrett has his feet on the ground, and one gets the feeling when reading him that however convoluted the explanation -- and some (but not all) explanations are necessarily convoluted -- Barrett is not playing with smoke and mirrors. My recommendation is to read a few pages of what he has to say as critically as you please, and then decide for yourself.

William Barrett (1913-1992) grew up in the generation just before and after WWII. His memoir _The Truants: Adventures among the Intellectuals_ (1982), recounts his early days at _Partisan Review_ and his associations with such figures as Delmore Schwartz, Mary McCarthy, Edmund Wilson, and Philip Rahv. Very interesting as biography; no philosophy. The book is out of print but can be found for a ridiculously low price. [This author's middle name was Christopher, I think, although he uses neither the name nor initial to identify his writings. He is not to be confused with William E. (Edmund) Barrett (1900-1986), the novelist, and at least one other William Barrett, who appears to be a psychoanalyst.]

_Irrational Man: A study in Existential Philosophy_ (1958) is credited with being largely responsible for introducing existentialism to America. Two years earlier Barrett edited and published a work that might be described as the first attempt to provide a serious philosophical rationale for the post-war "Zen Boom": _Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki_(Doubleday Anchor, 1956). Both books are still selling well, a half century later. But Barrett, like many others, was put off by the pretentious antics of the Beat Generation:

`Twenty years ago, . . . I played a small part in introducing Zen to this country, and I have not always been happy with the results. American youth acquired another vocabulary to throw around. The "mindlessness" that Zen recommended was pursued by the young in the haze of marijuana and drugs. They forgot, if they had ever learned, the prosaic and magnificent saying of the sage Hui-Neng: "The Tao [the truth] is your ordinary mind." In recent years I have let myself forget all about Zen, and probably have been nearer to its spirit. Stick to your ordinary mind, reader, and forget the tabs. Find your own rocks and trees.' (_The Illusion of Technique: A Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization_ , 1978, , p. 371)

Judging from Amazon's book listings, Barrett's later works do not sell as well as his early ones -- which is not to say that they are not worth our attention. Philosophical popularity is rarely a measure of worth. The rather substantial (392 pp.) _Illusion of Technique_ was followed by _Death of the Soul: From Descartes to the Computer_ (1986), a rather slight volume summing up his conclusions.

Barrett taught philosophy at New York University, 1950-1979, but was no "ivory tower" intellectual. He was well aware of what may be called the gap between phenomenalism and scientific materialism. He lucidly explores the issues, but offers no easy answers. If you are interested in ideas, see what an involved thinker has to say.

Readers may be interested to know that in 1962, four years after _Irrational Man_, Barrett teamed up with Henry D. Aiken to produce a 4-volume set called _Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: An Anthology_. (Random House) -- an anthology of extracts with extensive introductions. Vol. Three, Part Four (Phenomenology and Existentialism), pp. 123-450 !!, returns to the topic, this time with the inclusion of Camus and Bergson. As of this writing, Amazon lists the set under two numbers, but ASIN: B000AQLUMQ (which can be typed in as a title) has an extensive list of dealers with sets and individual copies at good prices. I highly recommend checking them out.

A great introduction to existentialism. Easy to read. I read and re-read various sections for pleasure.

"Irrational Man" is a classic work that is as important now as it was 40 years ago. I first read this in high school in the 60s and found it captivating. The experience must have fermented because about ten years later I went back to school to study philosophy through grad school. A second reading was even better than the first. Barrett does an outstanding job of putting the whole project of Western philosophy in perspective. This book is entirely accessible to someone without formal training in philosophy, and the experience of reading it will be richly rewarded.

A wonderful introduction to the major tenets and founders of existentialism. Concise, easy to read, easy to understand. Barrett's book allows the reader to build a formidable groundwork of existential understanding -- an understanding just as necessary to humanity today as it was 40+ years ago when Barrett wrote it.

Mortimer Adler is one of my favorite philosophers because; he can take complex philosophical ideas and make them understandable for the non-philosopher. This is a great skill that few philosophers posses and one of the reasons why ordinary people do not read philosophy. In this book, Adler distills Aristotle's thoughts on metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy. My major interest is in political philosophy, how do humans create a better society to live in? Aristotle builds a case for the need all of us to strive to live the "good life." A few of Aristotle's quotes are in order to delineate his thinking. "That which is really `good' for us is something we always ought to desire because we need it." "A good life is one that has been lived by making morally virtuous choices or decisions." Aristotle was the first philosopher to label man as "a social animal." "Human beings can not live well or achieve the best lives for themselves, by living well or achieve the best lives for themselves, by living together in families and tribes." To achieve this "good life" we must live in states. So, what is the best state? The best state provides a guarantee of freedoms, less economic regulation, provide a safety net for people with bad luck, provide a good education so that we can be trained to make us morally virtuous citizens.

I cannot sing Adler's praises enough; he does a great job of simplifying Aristotle's concepts. A great beginning book on philosophy, which delves into the teachings of the most brilliant person in history.

As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found this to be a great book to continue one's journey into political philosophy.

Adler, who taught at the University of Chicago and was associated with the "Great Books" movement, finds fault with Aristotle's views on the inferiority of women and the naturalness of slavery. Otherwise, he finds Aristotle's views as a philosopher unparalleled, with Aristotle remaining the philosopher of common sense.

For Adler, philosophy has to do with elaborating and reflecting on common sense based on the everyday experiences that all humans have, as opposed to the specialized experiences of scientists. That scientists' `specialized' experiences may challenge some of the assumptions of common sense is not considered by him.

Aristotle, unlike Parminedes, accepted that things change. Unlike Plato, he viewed this change as `real' not illusory. But like them he accepted that the things that change retain something permanent and unchanging called by him "substance." This leads to the law of identity, "A is A," not formally stated by Aristotle or Adler but implicit in their work. Knowledge for Aristotle consisted of the search for this `substance,' for the unchanging `essence' or `form' of things. For the non-aristotelian such "common sense" involves an uncritical objectification of subject-predicate grammar and will not do for a modern, process view. Nonetheless it still has a powerful pull.

Philosophy is everybody's business according to Mortimer Adler and to him Aristotle is our best teacher. His views are timeless because he drew them from the common experience of all men from all time. He was the master of uncommon common sense.

Aristotle says reason is what is common to all mankind. The ability to ask questions about the world, to categorize and to play philosophical games. Man utilizes reason in three directions: producing, practicing and knowing. Alder follows this scheme to explain Aristotle's synoptic view of the world.

As a producer man transforms nature into art. The possibility of art or culture made by human purpose is predicated on the change that happens all the time in the world. Changes are categorized by type (location, quantity, quality, coming to be and passing away) and causes (material, efficient, formal, final). All things in the world are composed of form and matter. The form is what gives things their universality, their what-ness. Matter is what gives things their particularity, their this-ness. Form is a thing's function. Matter, its potentiallity to adopt function. So when someone produces a new thing he trans-forms an old thing. He first has the idea in his mind of the form of what he wishes to make, then with the right know-how, he imposes it upon the materials.

As a practicer or a doer man is concerned with ends and means. What he wants to do and what he needs to do first in order to achieve it. Aristotle contends that all men need a master plan that directs all action to a single goal. From the axiom that what is really good is desirable he concludes that the ultimate end of all men is the good life, or Happiness. Unfortunately, man has acquired desires that are not good for him and for too much of things that are only good in limited proportions. For this reason Aristotle makes virtue, or the habit of choosing the real goods that will bring happiness, the chief good. But even the virtuous man can be impeded in his pursuit of happiness by bad fortune. For this reason individuals associate together first in families. Here they help each other find the bodily goods necessary to live and the social goods necessary to live well. To further meet their social need men gather in states. Those that love each other go to lengths to see that they get the goods that they need, while all men owe justice to one another, that is, that they do nothing to interfere with them obtaining the goods necessary for happiness. Because not all men love one another and not all men are just governments are necessary.

In the part on man as a knower, Adler deals with the process of thinking itself. Aristotle's theory of knowledge begins with the senses. Information about the bodies in the external world is brought into the mind through our sense organs. The mind pieces together our sensations, relates them, works them through the imagination and memory and then makes ideas. Ideas are the forms of the things we sense extracted from the matter and put into our minds. When the mind begins relating ideas and making assertion then it has progressed to the realm of reasoning and inference. According to Aristotle there are rules that govern the validity and truth of reasoning and inference, such as the law of non-contradiction. What is cannot be what is not and what is not cannot be what is. Adler then explains the difference between contradictories, contraries and subcontraries. Next, the rules for syllogisms or mediate arguments. Finally, he gets to explaining the levels of knowing we can have. To Aristotle, self evident truths, axioms, and conclusions from them are the only things that are knowledge, everything else is varying degrees of opinion. There is mere personal taste. Then there are opinions held on the authority of others and not reason, whether true/false, axiomatic/non-axiomatic. Last, there are the scientific, historical, and philosophical conclusions based off the preponderance of the evidence.

The last four chapters of the book are what Adler calls "difficult questions." The first is on the concept of infinity. Adler gives Aristotle's refutation of Democritus' infinite, indivisible atom theory and discusses the reason that potential infinity is a possibility but an actual infinity in existence is not. In the next chapter (Eternity) Adler says that time (the dimension of change) is infinite in both directions, ie, the world has no beginning and no end, because all change must have a cause. In "The Immateriality of Mind", Adler further elaborates on matter and form, explaining how the forms are the immaterial aspect of the material world and that the mind is thus necessarily immaterial in order to collect the forms as ideas. In his chapter on "God" he discusses how Aristotle's prime mover is a purely actual, perfect, immaterial being that causes all change without himself being caused through being an attractive force or a final cause to the heavenlies.

Mortimer Adler's style is clear and concise. He writes at a popular level without technical philosophical jargon or uncommon philosophical concepts. He uses many helpful and humorous illustrations.

As far as Adler's fidelity to Aristotle is concerned, I am not qualified to comment except to state where he openly declares his dissent from the Philosopher. The first thing I remember is that Adler takes exception to Aristotle's view that slaves and women are not entitled to the same rights as free men. I suppose this might make much of Adler's view on justice and government suspect. Another instance is in his chapter on God Adler postulates the prime mover as a Creator in the sense that he is necessary to sustain the world's existence.

There isn't very much I can add to what has already been said by other reviewers. This is an absolutely excellent and accessible introduction to Aristotle and his thinking. As one reviewer says, the chapters are very logical and straightforward, each building up on previous chapters. Upon reading this brief book, the reader will have a much better understanding of Aristotle's thought, as well as an expanded perspective on God, our existence, family, work, and contemplation. While the subject matter is profound, Adler is far from erudite, and this book (as with many of his others that I have read) should prove to be accessible by junior high school students, high school students, college students, and so on. A definite "must read" for everybody.

Aristotle for Everybody is a brief introduction to Aristotle aimed at the young reader. Its target audience is probably the inquisitive student in the 12-14 range who is seeking an overview of Aristotelian thought.

I accidentally picked up this book after glancing at a couple of the reviews on this site. I was about to re-read some Aristotle and was seeking to re-acquaint myself with his particular style and language. This is definitely not the book for this purpose.

Adler's text is clearly geared to the young reader who has not been introduced to philosophy. I do not mean this to be disrespectful but to help oher readers avoid my mistake. Adler, himself notes in the introduction that his initial thought was to title the work Aristotle for Children. Indeed for the young reader this may not be an inappropriate mechanism for introducing Aristotle.

"So philosophy, as it expires in the arms of truly historical thinking, can no longer glorify its world without denying it, for even in order to express itself it must assume that the total history in which it has vested everything has come to an end, and that the only court capable of ruling on truth or falsehood has been adjourned."

- Guy Debourd "The Society of the Spectacle" (1967)

A mythic history book that has fed reams upon reams of debate, but seventeen years later it sure has aged. First let's be clear. It is not a philosophy book since it essentially repeats and confronts what others have written and it stops with Kojeve who is at least kind of old. Not one of the post modern philosophers or historians are quoted or alluded to. This leads me to my second remark. How can we dare discuss modern history and ignore the post modern school which is, true, essentially European, what's more French? Of course, the disadvantage with these historians is that most of them are still alive and kicking and they do not like people making them say things what they do not think. In other words they can rebut. Which means the book is not a history book in any way entering the scientific and academic debates of the last fifty years. Then, this being said, we can examine the content of the book. The main idea is that history is following some trajectory that leads it to some kind of a destination, understood as an end, a final point. History contains a pattern and it is not pure whimsical caprice. Right. Easy to see. Now to believe democracy is spreading in the world. We can even agree with that. But it is not democracy that is the pattern or the trajectory. It is the march of humanity towards full freedom. It had to free itself from purely animal life and nature that made the human species quite fragile and weak at first. It had to develop its surviving strategies by using what biology had given to it: a brain, the possibility to speak vowels and consonants and articulate them, the possibility to stand up, the possibility to grasp objects in a more effective way due to its thumb opposed to the fingers, etc. And the first task was to take care of their young who were premature and had to be looked after for several years before they could be really autonomous, and yet too small to live autonomously for several more years (sexually autonomous at the age of eleven of twelve, maybe earlier in those distant millennia). This determined the first division of labor, those who could look after the young, and particularly feed them, and the others. And language was invented and along with it the power to conceptualize, etc. And that's exactly what Kant forgot, what Marx neglected, what Kojeve ignored and what Fukuyama overlooks. Then he lives on a mythic first man that never existed, he thinks along the line of the primeval battle without any specification: in what state was humanity before the battle? If this battle established the masters and the slaves, they must have been free before. And they would have accepted to be enslaved all over the world? Of course not. Slavery was marginal and even inexistent in many civilizations, or it had very elaborate justifications like the caste system in the Hinduistic tradition, and that is not primeval. It is not because slavery was the norm in ancient Egypt, in Persia, in Israel (except for Jews or Israelis), in Greece and in Rome that it was true all over the world. It was marginal in the Celtic and Germanic tribes. Then this myth of the first man borrowed from Hegel is redoubled with the other myth of the last man borrowed from Nietzsche. And there Fukuyama derails. The future of the liberal democratic world is peaceful, without any classes, without any conflicts, without any struggle, with full satisfaction of human needs, etc. In other words a life without work, without ambition, without any effort to do better today than yesterday. Just sit back and enjoy. In other words the Elois of H.G. Wells but without the Morlocks. In other words a liberal world that he constantly identifies to capitalism but with no competition any more. He just forgets that competition is the basic principle of the market economy. In other words he is irrelevant due to this contradiction. But there is still worse. He speaks a lot of the inequality of human beings, but in vague terms. Human equality is only "born - and not created - equal in rights", but that is the French Revolution, but he seems to believe it is the same thing as the Declaration of Independence that says "created equal", period. Then when he speaks of the liberal revolution that the spirit of 1776 represents for him, he seems to forget that this Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the states statutes refused these rights to women, men under a certain age which was very advanced at the time, to Indians who do not pay taxes, to Blacks and other slaves who are not free, and to all the whites who do not earn property and/or do not pay taxes. And each extension of the beneficiaries of the Bill of Rights will be a battle, even a bloody battle at times, like the Civil Ward and its 600,000 casualties, and the Indian wars that will not lead to any extension. By neglecting all that he does not see that the motor of history, as he says, is the contradictions in our various human societies and that a contradiction is always solved to be replaced by another and contradictions will be eternal. And Fukuyama does not see the world is changing so fast that we cannot say what it will be in fifty years, and he ignores the fact that we are not in the post-industrial economy anymore but we have entered the knowledge economy phase: what are the contradictions of this world, the competitions of this economy? Fukuyama repeats Kojeve and Hegel and Nietzsche but does not answer these questions.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

Many things have been said about this book - adding one more review would be useless. I'd like to point out, though, two things that have not been discussed so far.

Firstly, what made really hard for me to read this book was the fact that Fukuyama seems to have studied Western Philosophy on a "Philosophy for Dummies" guide. I found particularly painful to read him discuss Hegel and Nietzsche with little to no cognition of the depth of the thoughts of these authors and remaining attached to a ridicolously superficial view of their ideas. This thing alone should put Fukuyama back on a school desk for life and not in an office room with the tag "professor" on the door.

Secondly, this book - for how incredibly shallow and misinformed - has one incredible quality. I've always thought that stupid people should be listened to with the most attention because they involuntarily spell out in words their entire thought process, revealing in this way assumptions and conjectures that more intelligent people with similar ideas would never dare admitting explicitely - even to themselves.
Fukuyama in writing "The End of History" has accomplished a great deed in involuntarily gifting humanity of the most detailed and well explained text ever written about the stupidity of historical eschatology.

Fukuyama's style in discussing the history of man is captured by the following paragraph extracted from his book:

"An American politician could harbor ambitions to be a Caesar or a Napoleon, but the system would allow him or her to be no more than a Jimmy Carter or a Ronald Reagan - hemmed in by powerful institutional constraints and political forces on all sides, and forced to realize their ambitions by being the people's "servant" rather than their master."

He describes his concept of the "last man" with this paragraph:

"Nietzsche's last man was, in essence, the victorious slave. He agreed fully with Hegel that Christianity was a slave ideology, and that democracy represented a secular form of Christianity.

In the ultimate society, he uses the analogy of a dog to describe his last man's outlook,

"A dog is content to sleep in the sun all day provided he is fed, because he is not dissatisfied by what he is. He does not worry that other dogs are doing better than him, or that his career as a dog has stagnated, or that dogs are being oppressed in distant parts of the world. If man reaches a society in which he has succeeded in abolishing injustice, his life will come to resemble that of the dog."

As is clear from the above, the book is well written and full of thoughtful insights.

In this fascinating and highly thought-provoking book, American philosopher Francis Fukuyama argues that the war at the beginning of human history was a battle for prestige or recognition. And, history has unfolded as a search to find a balance between the drives for victory of one over another to gain that recognition. In the eighteenth century, history effectively began to end as people embraced the liberal democratic/capitalist system that granted mutual recognition.

Now, history is not over for those outside this system, and nations can return to history if they move away from the liberal democratic/capitalist system. Along the way, the author unfolds his argument for the drive for recognition as the engine of human history, explains how we got to where we are, and what the future may eventually bring for the human race. The author makes his argument in a clear, compelling manner that puts great force behind his argument.

I do, though, have several complains against this book. First of all, I have the 1992 edition, and some of what I have to say may not apply to later editions. But, as the West now stands in a crisis situation in world history, it is easy to see that some of what has happened in the last 15 years was not anticipated by Mr. Fukuyama.

Chapter 7 of this book is entitled, No Barbarians At The Gates. Well, in point of fact, the West faces two sets of Barbarians at the gates. The first set of barbarians are in fact within the gates, and is the newly militant Liberalism with its drive to extinguish freedom (think of Dr. Heidi Cullen's desire to remove American Meteorological Society accreditation to any meteorologist who expresses skepticism towards man-made global warming) in its drive for radical equality. This is in fact the "excess of isothymia" that the author mentioned was possible in chapter 29, but he did not expect it to be coupled with an external threat.

Second of all, on page 45, Dr. Fukuyama states that Islam poses "a grave threat to liberal practices," but then immediately moves away from the threat of Islam, as if wishing it out of existence. In point of fact, with the West's inability and even downright refusal to maintain its borders, the "post-historic" world has been invaded by people from the "historic" world, and militant Islam is now working with some success to undermine the liberal democratic system from within the very heart of the "post-historic" world.

Therefore, while I do think that this book is quite correct in its view of the drive for recognition and the victory of the liberal democratic/capitalistic system, I do think that it does not do a good job of anticipating what would (and did!) come next. The "post-historic" world has proved itself unable (at least so far) to protect itself against the "historic" world, and it is uncertain that it will be philosophically able to protect itself without a turn to towards the "megalothymia" that the good doctor so fears.

So, overall, I would highly recommend this book as a fascinating philosophical look at the modern world, but I would not say that it goes so far as to explain where we are now and where we are truly heading. I give this book a somewhat guarded recommendation.

This books is excellent for a read-aloud to your children about ages 7 or 8 to 12. (10 and up or so could read on their own.) I read a chapter aloud each week to my children, and when I felt they'd understand a mathematical principle, I would try to explain that to them as well. No, it's not going to teach them a ton of math, but it does build excitement and interest for math and it makes math seem more personable. And I really like it that they include famous women mathematicians.

I'm a former math major, and I loved these books! I used both volumes about six years ago, when I was homeschooling our youngest son. If I were teaching math in an elementary or middle school, I would try to incorporate these two volumes of biographies into the curriculum.

I especially liked that the Reimers included stories of women mathematicians. In my experience, far too many girls give up on math at an early age, and it's important for them to have role models. In fact, few kids of EITHER gender can picture themselves as mathematicians. Before the movie A Beautiful Mind, would an average child have been able to name even one famous mathematician?

The chapter titles are very catchy, which is important for children, especially since many of them approach the subject with a negative attitude.

Because of the confusion in the two titles, I am listing the publishing information for each volume, along with the table of contents. I wish the Reimers would do a third volume!

Mathematicians Are People, Too (Volume I)
By Luetta and Wilmer Reimer
1990 Dale Seymour Publications
ISBN 0-86651-509-7

Mathematicians Are People, Too (Volume II)
By Luetta and Wilmer Reimer
1995 Dale Seymour Publications
ISBN 0-86651-823-1

****** VOLUME I:******
Pyramids, Olives, and Donkeys. Thales
The Teacher Who Paid His Student. Pythagoras
The Man Who Concentrated Too Hard. Archimedes
A Woman of Courage. Hypatia
Magician or Mathematician? John Napier

Seeing Isn't Believing. Galileo Galilei
Count on Pascal. Blaise Pascal
The Short Giant. Isaac Newton
The Blind Man Who Could See. Leonhard Euler
The Professor Who Did Not Know. Joseph Louis Lagrange
Mathematics at Midnight. Sophie Germain
The Teacher Who Learned a Lesson. Carl Friedrich Gauss
"Don't Let My Life Be Wasted!" Evariste Galois
Life on an Obstacle Course. Emmy Noether
Numbers Were His Greatest Treasure. Srinivasa Ramanujan

******* VOLUME II:*******
There's Only One Road. Euclid
A Fortune Shared. Omar Khayyam
Lean on the Blockhead. Leonard of Pisa (Fibonacci)
The Conceited Hypochondriac. Girolamo Cardano
The Stay-in-Bed Scholar. Rene Descartes
An Amateur Becomes a Prince. Pierre de Fermat
The Gift of Sympathy. Maria Agnesi
The Shy Sky Watcher. Benjamin Banneker
The Computer's Grandfather. Charles Babbage
The Mystery of X and Y. Mary Somerville
The Overlooked Genius. Neils Abel
Conducting the Computer Symphony. Ada Lovelace

The Lessons on the Wall. Sonya Kovalevsky
The Compass Points the Way. Albert Einstein
The Master Problem Solver. George Polya

Marjorie Alley

We have had such a great time with this book. We have read it at night as a family then done some hands on experiments with the different storys theorys. We built our own pyramids from legos and measured them and their shadows to study about thales. We have done gravity with Galileo and Newton and learned about the stars with them as well.

Great book.

I bought this book for my godson in Georgia to help him get some perspective on the math that he's studying now. From what his father tells me this book is excellent. As a math major I of course already had heard of these anecdotes. My only question was whether they had been presented adequately for children.

Mathematicians are People, Too has been a wonderful tool in introducing and enriching so many topics. There is a lot of useful information in this book and I have used it for both science and math lessons from the Pythagorean Theorem to density to women in the sciences, just to name a few.
The stories about real mathematicians brings a personal side to math and science and the reading of the stories brings added interest and diversity to the lessons.

This text is essentially a concise summary of the work accomplished by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, in which the great thinker answers the following: 1)How is pure mathematics possible? 2) How is pure natural science possible? 3)How is metaphysics in general possible? 4) How is metaphysics as a science possible? These are of course the most crucial topics in all transcendental thought, and this volume is possibly the most successful microcosm of Kant's thought. However, for all real students of Kant, the Critique must be read in its entirety.

This book is a very good overview of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and a very good introduction to Kant's thought.

Simply put, modern philosophy begins with Kant. If anyone wishes to understand the development of philosophy after the 18th century, you must have some grounding in Kant. That said, his works are not easy to read, nor are they well-suited to leisurely reading. While most individuals try a stab at the Critique of Pure Reason, many seem to get lost in his argument.

For all you such individuals, the Prolegomena offers a handy guide to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This work is relatively short and far more accessible compared to the Critique. However, for a serious understanding of Kant, you must read this alongside the Critique of Pure Reason. Whereas the Prolegomena gives us a taste of the whole picture, the Critique provides us with all the details and nuances of his argument.

Lastly, the Hackett edition of this is quite nice in that it provides, at the end, a list of major words/phrases and the corresponding German.

People always think I'm making some sort of joke or being funny when I tell 'em they should read this here book if they're having trouble sleeping. I'm not. I tell them that the key to conking out while reading this book is to not merely skim along, reading it at a surface level, but to try to understand it. Put as much energy and effort into understanding it that you can. That will knock you out for a full night's sleep. Yup. If it doesn't put you to sleep, then you will have gained a critical understanding of one of the most influential works of modern philosophy...a field so dead that something written in 1772 is considered modern.

This is a great book and it changed my life by me and my boyfriend reading it. I recommend this book to everyone. It's truly eye opening.

my best friend recommended this book when i was still engaged, in my 20s. I am so glad I read it... my relationship with my boyfriend transformed so much! we both read it and started recommending it to all our friends, even parents and relatives. they all still thank us today!
I am not going to sum up its content, as you may already know about it, but I just want to express my deepest enthusiasm and thankfulness to the author of this book, who - perhaps without knowing it - has helped (+ still does) thousands of families.
It is a must, whether you are still single (you need to know more about love, to be prepared when it comes,right?) or just going out with him/her, or have been married for years. Believe me, I have read quite a few books on the subject and this is The BEST.
I had a chance to read it again last week, 10 years after the first time, and I am still dazzled how insightful it is, how many things I had already forgotten, and how it can still improve the quality of my (happy) marriage!
It is never too late, when your marriage is in deep trouble, give it a try, even if you think you are OK, give it to a friend as a present and you will be amazed how it can change your/their life. All you've got to do is open your heart and be willing to listen. All the rest (and sometimes it is a Miracle indeed) will come on its own.

was very pleased with the books condition and the sipping time. I thought i ordered the other book (not the mens edition) but it still works out. Thanks!

The book is a quick read. It is written in a straight forward kind of way and makes sense on an intellectual, as well as an emotional level.
I truly liked the fact that he is pointing out the differences between true love and being in love; and does so much better than any other book I have ever read on similar topics.
I found the assessment of the love types very accurate. It is, however, not that easy to follow this advice, as most people lack the honesty, maturity and will power to keep up the work.
I also found that the advice may be easier to follow if one is Christian and a church going person. For those who are not it is probably going to be harder to implement or even understand at times. Example: Consistently fill the "love tank" of a spouse who is cruel, cynical and mean, in hopes that this will permanently alter his behavior eventually.
I will have to say, as a Non-Christian, it is very difficult to apply the "keep-holding-the-other-cheek" philosophy.
Still, I loved the book and I am actually making the necessary changes suggested.

I simply love this book! This book will strengthen any relationship if you adopt its principles.

I had to have this for a class, so that automatically downgraded my enjoyment. It was not worth purchasing.

"Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking," 8th ed. is everything I have ever hoped for in a text on critical thinking. It is nearly jargon free. It focuses on how we--students and instructor alike--come to think the way we do, how to recognize critical thinking weaknesses in ourselves and others, and how to take this knowledge and apply it not only to coursework but also to our lives. Chapters are mercifully short, easily accessible, and filled with contemporary applications, which the students enjoy. As the students progress through the text, they find topics recycled. Each time the same topics reappear, the students are able to refine their critical thinking processes and points of view. Most importantly, however, my students tell me that "Beyond Thinking" is not only relevant and easily understandable, but also fun to read. What more can an instructor ask for in a text?

This is a great reference book! It came as advertised. I needed this book for a college course.

The product I received is in excellent shape. It looks like it has never been used. I am very satisfied.

This book is a clear and concise guide to Critical Thinking. It presents subject matter in an easy to read fashion in a book that is not overly long. It was a great addition to my College English class.