Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Philosophy FEATURED IN THIS E-MAIL: * "Principia Ethica" by G.E. Moore * "I and Thou" by Martin Buber * "The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang * "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas S. Kuhn * "Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas R. Hofstadter This month's selections have been culled from Amazon.com's Best of the Century, a special feature listing our editors' choices for the 100 best fiction and nonfiction books of, you guessed it, the 20th century. See them all online: http://www.amazon.com/books-century "Principia Ethica" by G.E. Moore http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879754982/entertainmentsit It took us thousands of years of struggling with science and ethics before we thought to combine the two. While scientific ethics has advanced only gradually, the science of ethics burst into existence in 1903 with the publication of "Principia Ethica," which did for the study of morality what Whitehead and Russell's "Principia Mathematica" did for mathematics--clarify old confusions and define terms that are still with us today. Practically overnight, ethicists turned into meta-ethicists, studying their own terms to establish theoretical ground on which to stand before trying to build any prescriptive edifices. While "Principia Ethica" isn't the easiest book to read (a dictionary of philosophy comes in handy for most of us), it is well worth careful study by anyone interested in the difference between right and wrong. "I and Thou" by Martin Buber http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684717255/entertainmentsit "The close association of the relation to God with the relation to one's fellow-men ... is my most essential concern," Buber explains in the afterword to "I and Thou." But before discussing that relationship in the book's final chapter, Buber explains at length the range and ramifications of the ways people treat one another and the ways they bear themselves in the natural world. "One should beware altogether of understanding the conversation with God ... as something that occurs merely apart from or above the everyday," Buber explains. "God's address to man penetrates the events in all our lives and all the events in the world around us, everything biographical and everything historical, and turns it into instruction, into demands for you and me." Throughout "I and Thou," Buber argues for an ethic that does not use other people (or books, or trees, or God) and does not consider them objects of one's own personal experience. Instead, Buber writes, we must learn to consider everything around us as "you" speaking to "me" and requiring a response. Buber's dense arguments can be rough going at times, but Walter Kaufmann's definitive 1970 translation contains hundreds of helpful footnotes providing Buber's own explanations of the book's most difficult passages. "The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688163521/entertainmentsit Harvard scholar, Taoist, and modernist Lin Yutang wrote "The Importance of Living" to express his highly subjective, personal feelings after years of studying ancient Chinese texts, and he created a wonderfully slow-going yet radiantly clear guide to the simple life. Taking walks, drinking tea, and long talks with friends are all important to Lin, whose stories and retellings of Taoist classics meander away from his points, find new ones, and remind us to enjoy the life that's all around us without needless worry. Lin's prose is gentle, like the conversation of a favorite lazy uncle who is more at home sipping lemonade on the back porch than gulping lattes between meetings. His philosophy, more practical and enjoyable than the usual Western writings on the subject, reminds us all of the vital importance of simply living. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas S. Kuhn http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226458083/entertainmentsit "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is a paradigmatic work in the history of science. Kuhn's use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "normal science," his ideas of how scientists move from disdain through doubt to acceptance of a new theory, his stress on social and psychological factors in science--all have had profound effects on historians, scientists, philosophers, critics, writers, and business gurus. Some scientists are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts--or the way his work has been used to cast doubt--on the idea of scientific progress. Yet it has been said that the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1960s, for instance, was sped by geologists' reluctance to be on the downside of a paradigm shift. Even Steven Weinberg has said that Kuhn's tome "has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science." As one of Kuhn's obituaries noted, "we all live in a post-Kuhnian age." "Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas R. Hofstadter http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465026567/entertainmentsit Everything is a symbol, and symbols can combine to form patterns. Patterns are beautiful and revelatory of larger truths. These are the central ideas in the thinking of Kurt Goedel, M.C. Escher, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Douglas Hofstadter ties their work together in a Pulitzer Prize- winning treatise on genius that explores the workings of brilliant people's brains with the help of historical examples and brainteaser puzzles. Not for the dim or the lazy, this book shows more clearly than most any other what it means to see symbols and patterns where others see only the universe. Touching on math, computers, literature, music, and artificial intelligence, "Goedel, Escher, Bach" is a challenging and potentially life-changing piece of writing. ****** Give the Perfect Gift -- Get the Perfect Gift Does Aunt Ida send polka CDs when you'd prefer pop? Create an Amazon.com Wish List and save everyone the agony of the unwanted gift. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=entertainmentsit&path=subst/wishlist/wishlist-portal.html Clueless as to what to get your Kentucky cousin for Christmas? Send him an e-card and tell him to set up an Amazon.com Wish List so you can easily find and send him his heart's desire. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=entertainmentsit&path=tg/cards/browse-cards/-/228225/1 ****** You'll find more great books, articles, and interviews in Amazon.com's Philosophy section at Books
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