 | The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
Buy new: $9.23 / Used from: $4.50 You think you know what a paradigm shift means -- but you don't. At least not until you read Kuhn and you get that they are "intellectually violent." A radical new way of understanding science.
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 | The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. by Jane Bennett
Buy new: $27.95 / Used from: $14.50 Modernity did not kill life's enchantments! The world is still enchanted -- by us! This is a beautiful book by the new chair of the political sci department at Johns Hopkins. They are lucky to get her
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 | Nietzsche: The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) by Friedrich Nietzsche
Buy new: $13.25 / Used from: $6.12 The Gay Science is an inspiration to living a joyful life by Nietzsche. This is Nietzsche's second greatest work after Zarathustra, in our opinion.
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 | The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $1.87 Louis Menand won the Pulitzer for this lovely history of pragmatist philosophy in the United States.
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 | Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals by John Gray
Buy used from: $6.98 Straw Dogs is infuriating and misanthropic -- but brilliant nonetheless. Plus, if you read this you don't have to read Schoepenhauer.
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 | Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty
Buy new: $20.45 / Used from: $9.60 Rorty is America's greatest living pragmatist. We think this is his best book.
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 | Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rudiger Safranski
Buy new: $22.45 / Used from: $7.58 This is an astounding -- intimidating -- biography. A breathtaking read.
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 | Happiness: A History by Darrin M. McMahon
Buy used from: $2.13 A gorgeous book. Darrin McMahon's intellect -- and research abilities -- intimidate. A lovely overview of happiness, from the Greeks to today's positive psych.
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 | The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $7.55 Pollan's greatest work. This shows how nonhuman natures (read: plants and flowers) manipulate human behavior. Plants rule the world! They are in charge!
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 | Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (Dover Thrift Editions) by Henry David Thoreau
Buy new: $3.50 / Used from: $0.01 Thoreau's brilliant attack on the outmoded philosophy of his elders -- not to be read as proto-environmentalism!
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 | Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy by Bruno Latour
Buy new: $25.21 / Used from: $19.98 Latour's attack on scientistic and theological "Science" -- and his defense of "the sciences." I first encountered the concept of "pluriverse" here. Menand shows it was coined by William James!
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 | The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
Buy used from: $0.01 If you take politics and philosophy seriously, you have to read this book. Fukuyama's reading of Nietzsche is wrong -- annoyingly so -- but vital if you want to understand the neocon mind.
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 | Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) by Friedrich Nietzsche
Buy new: $15.59 / Used from: $9.90 Nietzsche's misunderstood masterpiece: a book on self-overcoming.
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