Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful than You Can Possibly Imagine
Popular Culture and Philosophy
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Narrated by:
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Joseph Bevilacqua
About this listen
The Star Wars films continue to revolutionize science fiction, creating new standards for cinematographic excellence and permeating popular culture around the world. The films feature many complex themes ranging from good versus evil and moral development and corruption to religious faith and pragmatism, forgiveness and redemption, and many others.
The essays in this volume tackle the philosophical questions from these blockbuster films including: Was Anakin predestined to fall to the Dark Side? Are the Jedi truly role models of moral virtue? Why would the citizens and protectors of a democratic republic allow it to descend into a tyrannical empire? Is Yoda a peaceful Zen master or a great warrior, or both? Why is there both a light and a dark side of the Force? Star Wars and Philosophy ponders the depths of these subjects and asks what it truly means to be mindful of the "living force".
"A real 'tour de Force'! ...a terrific read for any reflective person gripped by George Lucas's archetypal space saga." (Steven A. Galipeau, author of The Journey of Luke Skywalker)
"I have a good feeling about this book. You'll thoroughly enjoy it as you follow your path on the love of wisdom." (John M. Porter, author of The Tao of Star Wars)
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Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone. This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: a rational, conscious, and therefore practical one, or a contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal one.
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Deep and provocative
- By Sierra Bravo on 05-21-09
By: Ayn Rand
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The Soul of the World
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Soul of the World, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends the experience of the sacred against today’s fashionable forms of atheism. He argues that our personal relationships, moral intuitions, and aesthetic judgments hint at a transcendent dimension that cannot be understood through the lens of science alone. To be fully alive - and to understand what we are - is to acknowledge the reality of sacred things.
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"Against Reductionism"
- By Edmund Schilvold on 10-08-15
By: Roger Scruton
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The Meaning of Happiness
- The Quest for Freedom of the Spirit in Modern Psychology and the Wisdom of the East
- By: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Kern Schmidt
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Deep down, most people think that happiness comes from having or doing something. Here, in Alan Watts’s groundbreaking third book (originally published in 1940), he offers a more challenging thesis: authentic happiness comes from embracing life as a whole in all its contradictions and paradoxes, an attitude that Watts calls the “way of acceptance.” Drawing on Eastern philosophy, Western mysticism, and analytic psychology, Watts demonstrates that happiness comes from accepting both the outer world around us and the inner world inside us,
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Good Concepts Hard to Follow Along
- By Ryan on 04-13-20
By: Alan Watts
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The God Argument
- The Case Against Religion and for Humanism
- By: A. C. Grayling
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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What are the arguments for and against religion and religious belief - all of them - right across the range of reasons and motives that people have for being religious, and do they stand up to scrutiny? Can there be a clear, full statement of these arguments that once and for all will show what is at stake in this debate? Equally important: what is the alternative to religion as a view of the world and a foundation for morality?
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Fascinating Topic Made Mind Numbingly Dull
- By m.emery on 06-17-15
By: A. C. Grayling
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The Life of the Mind
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Considered by many to be Hannah Arendt's greatest work, published as she neared the end of her life, The Life of the Mind investigates thought itself, as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from her previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this work was planned as three volumes that would explore the activities of the mind considered by Arendt to be fundamental. What emerged is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.
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English only please
- By angela cozea on 11-20-19
By: Hannah Arendt
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The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
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Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
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Escape from Freedom
- By: Erich Fromm
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.
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Why is this not required reading in high school?
- By Xander on 09-07-16
By: Erich Fromm
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The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
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The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
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The Complete Conversations with God
- An Uncommon Dialogue: Books I, II & III
- By: Neale Donald Walsch
- Narrated by: Neale Donald Walsh, Edward Asner, Ellen Burstyn
- Length: 26 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The seminal trilogy of Neale Donald Walsch's ongoing dialogue with God are brought together here in one audio edition. Includes unabridged performances of Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue Book I, Book II and Book III, the best-selling of the author's works. Few modern writers have had more influence on popular thinking about God than Neale Donald Walsch. Neale Donald Walsch, together with award-winning actors Ed Asner and Ellen Burstyn, reveals a God who is loving, believable, understanding of our weaknesses, and, most important, easy to talk with.
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4th Time Reading this Series in 20 years
- By Pangaia on 05-23-19
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A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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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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The Enlightenment
- And Why It Still Matters
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world.
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A thorough political tract rather than history
- By Jacobus on 03-08-14
By: Anthony Pagden
What listeners say about Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful than You Can Possibly Imagine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Steven Whitmore
- 07-08-19
good overall but some characters were very lacking
Anakin sounded like a untrained dope n padme like a school girl who had to stay late
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- Kindle Customer
- 07-11-20
Good spirit, bad execution.
Overall, I found the lessons in the varying philosophies and “certain points of view” (excuse the joke) to be very insightful. However, the execution in their attempts to connect to the movies were limited and repetitive. The same quotes were used again and again to attempt and convey different ideas which made the messages confusing and easy to mistake for one another. Many of the movie details and situations were also misrepresented and misquoted which can very easily take you out of the moment. At the end of the day though, I find the lessons can be both helpful and insightful if not a bit shaky and confusing at times.
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- george a serrano
- 01-22-20
Interesting snd Thought Provoking
Fun listen and something that makes you have multiple perspectives on the not so black and white understanding of the world around us and the galaxy far, far away
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- GravyBaby
- 05-02-22
Great Book, Sub-Par Recording
I learned a lot about not only Star Wars philosophy, but philosophy in general.
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- C M A Bazzoli
- 08-17-19
Not as insightful as I hoped
I'm very interested in the wider interpretations of the mythology and philosophy of Star wars, but this collection couldn't keep my attention. Many connections are made to various thinkers and time periods so it lives up to its premise. however, there was so much movie quoting and, in my opinion, self-evident "analysis" that I lost interest. I've read quite a few books on SW over the years so this didn't provide anything new for me.
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2 people found this helpful
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- TSeanW
- 08-27-19
Good, but repetitive.
I thought this was a good book, however it was a bit repetitive. The combination of multiple authors led to repeating quotes over and over and similar analysis in some regards.
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