A letter written by Simone Weil to a French priest in New York, in which she raises fundamental and highly controversial concerns on matters of Catholic faith, dogma and institutions.

This formidable work - also published under the title of Principals of Social Reconstruction - discusses war, pacifism, reason, impulse and personal liberty, and greatly contributed to Russell’s fame as a formidable social critic and anti-war activist.

Is it wrong for a man to buy sex from a woman? In this book, Lawford-Smith argues that commercial sex is quintessentially hierarchical sex, and it is wrong both to have and to perpetuate a market in hierarchical sex. Pepper argues that men are permitted to buy sex from those women who freely choose to sell it.

This Element offers a brief overview of Buddhist thought and modern scholarly approaches to its diverse forms of moral reflection. It then explores two of the most prominent philosophers from the main strands of the Indian Buddhist tradition - Buddhaghosa and Santideva - in a comparative fashion.

"Originally published in 1874 by Dunker & Humbolt, Leipzig, as Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte."

This edition contains Donald Cress's completely revised translation of the Meditations (from the corrected Latin edition) and recent corrections to Discourse on Method , bringing this version even closer to Descartes's original, while maintaining the clear and accessible style of a classic teaching edition.

Bertrand Russell's study of the philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz is one of Russell's earliest books and gives us a fascinating glimpse of his philosophical brilliance. This Routledge Classics Edition has a new Foreword by Richard T. W. Arthur.

Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader, and has nevertheless had the greatest influence over the ancient and mediaeval world. The obscurity arises in the infancy of physical science, out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and physiological notions, out of the desire to conceive the whole of nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts, and from a greater perception of similarities which lie on the surface than of diffe...

In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments – originating social contract theory. Leviathan was written during the English Civil War; much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and the passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the st...

At the time when Calderon began to compose for the stage, the Spanish drama was at its height. Lope de Vega, the most prolific and, with Calderon, the greatest, of Spanish dramatists, was still alive; and by his applause gave encouragement to the beginner whose fame was to rival his own. The national type of drama which Lope had established was maintained in its essential characteristics by Calderon, and he produced abundant specimens of all its varieties. Of regular plays he has left a hundr...