Three decades after his death, Michel Foucault remains one of the towering intellectual figures of the last half-century. His works on sexuality, madness, the prison, and medicine are enduring classics. From 1971 until his death in 1984, Foucault gave public lectures at the famous College de France.

These seminal events, attended by thousands, created the benchmarks for contemporary social enquiry. The lectures comprising Abnormal begin by examining the role of psychiatry in modern criminal j...

The Social Contract, originally published as On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Rights by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is a 1762 book in which Rousseau theorized about the best way to establish a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society, which he had already identified in his Discourse on Inequality (1754). The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract argued against the idea tha...

The Symposium is a philosophical text by Plato dated c. 385–370 BC. It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable men attending a banquet. The men include the philosopher Socrates, the general and political figure Alcibiades, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. The speeches are to be given in praise of Eros, who is the god of love and desire, and the son of Aphrodite.

Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be tr...

What is Love?

How do we experience it?

And how do we deal with the beauty, the difficulties and the impossibilities of Life?

In her bundle "The Light at the end of the tunnel" Elena Mara reflects on different, recognisable situations in Love and Life and discovers that in many cases there are still more questions than answers..

"One would think solitude was seldom demanded, yet it became our primary endeavour."

This story is about Yama, a monk who lives in a temple settled high in the mountains. He, together with several other monks, inhabit this remote monastery, yet where the others live according to the way of the monk, Yama doesn't. He thinks where others don't, he doubts where others are certain.

Yama carries a burden, a burden that makes him want to doubt everything, thus he wants to obtain that which he will...

“The Descartes Lectures” is a biennial event at Tilburg University that invites a distinguished philosopher to deliver a series of three lectures, each followed by commentaries from other experts in the field. In 2022, Tilburg University had the honor of hosting Cheshire Calhoun for a series of talks on the important philosophical question of what it means to be a responsible person. The commentators for the lectures were Gunnar Björnsson, Jules Holroyd, and Heidi Maibom. This book is a ...

States that throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. This book presents works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

These lectures were given in 1921, the same year Einstein received the Nobel Prize for Physics. They remain key texts for anyone wishing to discover the workings of one of the most ispiring minds of the twentieth century.

Foucault's classic study of the history of medicine.

Exploring the nature and scope of scientific knowledge, the increased power of nature that science affords and the changes in the lives of human beings that result from new forms of science, this is an insightful and accessible work that sees Russell at his very best.