Beauty
A Very Short Introduction
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Narrated by:
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Chris MacDonnell
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By:
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Roger Scruton
About this listen
Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference.
In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object - either in art, in nature, or the human form - beautiful and examining how we can compare differing judgments of beauty when it is evident all around us that our tastes vary so widely.
Is there a right judgment to be made about beauty? Is it right to say there is more beauty in a classical temple than a concrete office block, more in a Rembrandt than in an Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup Cans?
Forthright and thought-provoking and as accessible as it is intellectually rigorous, this introduction to the philosophy of beauty draws conclusions that some may find controversial but, as Scruton shows, help us to find greater sense of meaning in the beautiful objects that fill our lives.
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Already a classic, this landmark study of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. Author Anthony Gottlieb looks afresh at the writings of the great thinkers, questions much of conventional wisdom, and explains his findings with unbridled brilliance and clarity. From the pre-Socratic philosophers through the celebrated days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, up to Renaissance visionaries like Erasmus and Bacon, philosophy emerges here as a phenomenon unconfined by any one discipline.
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Bias spoils the work.
- By MC on 08-21-20
By: Anthony Gottlieb
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The Master and His Emissary
- The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain - the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the "rational" side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master.
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The Master and His Emissary
- By Michael on 11-07-20
By: Iain McGilchrist
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A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
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What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
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Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
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Martin Heidegger
- By: George Steiner
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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With characteristic lucidity and style, Steiner makes Heidegger's immensely difficult body of work accessible to the general reader. In a new introduction, Steiner addresses language and philosophy and the rise of Nazism. "It would be hard to imagine a better introduction to the work of philosopher Martin Heidegger." (George Kateb, The New Republic)
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Where is Heidegger on audible?!
- By Abdullah Taha on 10-14-19
By: George Steiner
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The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
- How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind
- By: Jason M Baxter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
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C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?
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Excellent
- By andrew wilson smith on 03-08-22
By: Jason M Baxter
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Care of the Soul, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Ed
- A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life
- By: Thomas Moore
- Narrated by: Charles Bice
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In this special 25th anniversary edition of Thomas Moore's best-selling book, Care of the Soul, listeners are presented with a revolutionary approach to thinking about daily life - everyday activities, events, problems, and creative opportunities - and a therapeutic lifestyle is proposed that focuses on looking more deeply into emotional problems and learning how to sense sacredness in even ordinary things.
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Love Thomas Moore's Care of The Soul
- By Dorothy Cetta on 09-14-18
By: Thomas Moore
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What Are We Doing Here?
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
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Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.
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Unpersuasive and a bit repetitive
- By Adam Shields on 03-07-18
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Misleading Title
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Precient opinions which used to be controversialist hot-takes and have aged poignantly over the decades
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VSI # 122
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Excellent clarity, perfect level of technical
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Martin Heidegger, considered by some to be the greatest charlatan ever to claim the title of "philosopher", by some as an apologist for Nazism, and by others as an acknowledged leader in continental philosophy, is probably the most divisive thinker of the 20th century. In the second edition of this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Michael Inwood focuses on Heidegger's most important work, Being and Time, to explore its major themes of existence in the world, inauthenticity, guilt, destiny, truth, and the nature of time.
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Very Limited and One-sided View
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What listeners say about Beauty
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Christopher K.
- 02-13-20
Brilliant
Roger Scruton outlines the desecration of our most important societal constructions. It awoke an anger in me for the disgusting moronics of “modernism”. I think it would be better termed “anti reality soft feelyism”. Freaking morons!
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3 people found this helpful
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- S. Walker
- 04-20-20
Edifying and thoughtfull
Scruton is many respects a Kantian. His meditation on beauty is a call to rational humanity and our shared universal experience of good and evil.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-10-19
A Must-Read
For the artist concerned with the observation of the beautiful, and creation in its service; or for the considered and thoughtful citizen of the world, Scruton’s work on beauty is required reading. This is no trite pop-culture puff piece, however. This is a deep dive into the underpinnings of thought and behavior, sacredness, and perception. This work will require reflection, and maybe multiple reads. In the end, however, if beauty is of concern to the reader, this work will serve as a guidebook to deeper understanding.
Chris MacDonnell’s narration is spot-on and perfect for this work.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Samuel F Tomaino
- 12-20-23
Contemplation of Beauty
This took me on a journey, an art gallery of the mind to consider the meaning and the priceless value of beauty in the world. May my eye be sharper to behold it and my feet swifter to find it.
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- Robert P
- 05-28-22
Beauty is more than the eye of the beholder
It is a well written and well thought out work. I think I will need to listen a couple times to get the full meaning of what he has to offer. To some degree beauty is still subjective but it is something that we should give respect to and even some element of reverence to. I really enjoyed the discussion of the body as an incarnation that we don’t necessarily own. Therefore, we need to give it the proper respect and honor. In many ways beauty is to be respected, worked hard for, maintained, and sacrificed for. It may not be as high in importance as truth and justice. However, we need to continue integrate the concept of beauty to our outlook and philosophy.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Zachary
- 07-12-22
I'm a better person
I see what's worth valuing much more clearly now. I have a sense for the kinds of things that eclipse my soul, and those that enrich it.
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- Adam Shields
- 05-03-19
Introduction to Beauty
I listened to this on audiobook, which was fine, but may not have been the best choice. While this is part of the Very Short Introduction series, it is still a book that is ultimately philosophy. About 2/3 of the way through I picked up the kindle edition, both because I know I need to re-read the book, but also because Scruton was referencing a number of paintings and many of those are in the Kindle edition.
The pictures are black and white even in the kindle version, so the reader cannot really get a full sense of what is being shown, which does matter for a discussion of the artistry and beauty of the paintings, but it at least is a reference.
I have been wanting to read more about beauty for a while and consistently when I look around, Scruton’s book Beauty is recommended as one of the best introductions. The Very Short Introduction series is very uneven, but Beauty is an example of what all of the books should be like. He is not avoiding discussion of the academics, but the point of the book is to talk about the actual subject. A number of the other Very Short Introduction books I have read have been about the academic study of the subject, not the actual subject. I do not really want to read about what academics have argued about over African History, I actually wanted to understand something about African History.
Beauty is a philosophical account of beauty written for the layperson. It is still philosophy and I need to reread it. I have been introduced to a number of the ideas previously in the work of Makoto Fujimura, Brian Zahnd, NT Wright and others. But much of my reading has only briefly touched on the role of beauty, and mostly thought about it from a theological perspective. Scruton talks a surprising amount about the Christian conception of beauty historically and how that developed in the Western world, but he is not writing about theology.
This is still a mostly aesthetic conception, thinking about how we perceive beauty, how we think about beauty with regard to the human form, how erotic beauty is different from pornography, how beauty exists in form and nature, etc. I want to know that, but I also want to understand how beauty works in ideas, and functions, and community. But I do think that Scruton is right that we think of beauty first as visual pleasure and then we expand that idea to other subjects. Understanding how aesthetic beauty works allows us to understand how an idea might be beautiful.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-18-20
Excellent!
Very good book! This book shows the importance of the beauty and how is is been lost in the modern futile world...
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- Douglas Osborne
- 01-16-24
A Perfect Introduction
The best introductions constitute a set of adequacy constraints for a complete theory. Scruton's introduction to beauty does that, and in so doing shows why beauty demands our attention and deserves a central place in any conception of live well lived.
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