Philosophers

In 1957, four years before his death, Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychologist, began writing his life story. But what started as an exercise in autobiography soon morphed into an altogether more profound undertaking.

Experience the world of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the tremendous challenges he faced and overcame with the help of Stoic philosophy.

Plato is one of history's most influential thinkers, yet the image we have of him—an ethereal figure far removed from society and politics, who conjured abstract ideas in peaceful groves—is a fiction, created by Plato's admirers and built up over centuries.

Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse - Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron....

At the dawn of World War I, a young academic named John Maynard Keynes hastily folded his long legs into the sidecar of his brother-in-law’s motorcycle for an odd, frantic journey that would change the course of history....

Macmillan Audio presents In My Own Way, Alan Watts' acclaimed autobiography, published for the first time in audio....

With his well known idiosyncrasies and aphoristic style, Friedrich Nietzsche is always bracing and provocative, and temptingly easy to dip into. Michael Tanner's introduction to the philosopher's life and work examines the numerous ambiguities inherent in his writings....

A rigorously researched biography, Perdurabo paints a memorable portrait of the founder of modern magick, as well as a study of the occult, sexuality, Eastern religion, and more.

The Greek word sumposion means a drinking party, and the party described in Plato's Symposium is one supposedly given in the year 416 BC by the playwright Agathon....

Discover the timeless works of Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers, whose insights continue to shape modern thought. The Complete Aristotle Collection is your gateway to the teachings that have endured for over two millennia.

Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work....

The author Sri "M" is an extraordinary individual. At the young age of 19 and a half, he travelled to snow-clad Himalayas from Kerala, and there he met and lived for several years with a "real-time" yogi, Babaji....

Superbly narrated by Mike Fraser, F. J. Sheed’s remarkable translation of this classic spiritual autobiography is finally in audio format, with an introduction by noted historian of late antiquity Peter Brown.

In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world.

This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual....

This Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical ideas and political theories belonging to one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century....

Daniel C. Dennett—preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist—has spent his career creating the basis for a naturalistic account of consciousness with acumen and elegance. I’ve Been Thinking traces the development of Dennett’s own intellect and instructs us how we too can become good thinkers....

A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the 20th century....

St Thomas Aquinas established the foundations for much of modern philosophy of religion, and is famous for his arguments for the existence of God....

Plato of Athens is the perfect introduction to the man and his work....

Once we were drivers, the open road alive with autonomy, adventure, danger, trust, and speed. Today we are as likely to be in the back seat of an Uber as behind the wheel ourselves. Tech giants are hurling us toward a shiny, happy "self-driving" future....

Thomas Paine was one of the greatest political propagandists in history....

How to think clearly, act purposefully, overcome any obstacle, and find peace and happiness along the way....

Is good character something that can be taught? In 430 BCE, Socrates set out to teach the vain, power-seeking Athenian statesman Alcibiades how to be a good person—and failed spectacularly. Massimo Pigliucci tells this famous story and asks what we can learn from it....

This book provides an introduction to the most important philosopher of the Islamic world, Ibn Sina, often known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna....

What if your life could bloom again, from the ruins of heartbreak and failure? What if you have the power within you to rewrite your entire life? In this stunning true story of breakdown and breakthrough, Freddie Zeringue shares a year that changed everything. On the verge of divorce and financial collapse, he found himself stripped of answers—but not of choice. What followed was a series of uncanny events, soul-wrenching reckonings, and one impossible miracle: a rose. More than a memoir, The Year of the Rose is a guidepost for anyone standing at the edge of despair and futility. With ...

He was born in a lightning storm. He died alone in a New York hotel. In between, he changed the world. The Phantom Frequency: A Life of Lightning, Genius, and the Unseen Forces of Nikola Tesla is a spellbinding biography that explores the extraordinary mind and turbulent life of one of history’s most enigmatic inventors. More than just the story of a man—it is the story of the future he foresaw, and the ghosts that followed him through it. From the thunder-split skies over a Serbian village to the roaring streets of Gilded Age Manhattan, Nikola Tesla’s life was a series of revelations...

"Es geht zu Ende mit der alten Wahrheit." Die alte Wahrheit, das sind laut Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) die Götzen ihrer Zeit, die es quasi mit dem Hammer zu zerschlagen gilt. Im letzten Jahr seines Schaffens (1888) beschritt Nietzsche damit den Weg der "Umwertung aller Werte" weiter - bevor ihn die Geisteskrankheit ereilte. Sein ungeduldiger Tonfall lässt vermuten, dass Nietzsche ahnte, was ihm bevorstand...

Im Jahre 1915 begegnete der nach spiritueller Vertiefung strebende Peter Ouspensky in Moskau dem aus Armenien stammenden spirituellen Lehrmeister Georges Gurdjieff. Diese erste Begegnung markierte den Beginn einer mehrjährigen intensiven Zusammenarbeit, während derer Ouspensky Gurdjieffs System des vierten Wegs so sehr durchdrang und verinnerlichte, dass er auch nach dem Bruch mit seinem Meister es selbst weiter über viele Jahre hinweg bis kurz vor seinem Tod lehrte und in mehreren Büchern festhielt.

Am 28. Januar 1919, mitten in der politischen Umbruchszeit zwischen dem Zusammenbruch des deutschen Kaiserreichs und der Gründung der Weimarer Republik hielt Max Weber in München vor Mitgliedern des Freistudentischen Bunds seinen Vortrag "Politik als Beruf". Nachträglich überarbeitet und stark erweitert, erschien der Vortrag wenige Monate später als einzelne Schrift und etablierte sich in den folgenden Jahrzehnten zu einem viel und kritisch diskutierten Klassiker der Soziologie und der Politikwissenschaft.