Ilumina Public Library: El Paso County's All-Digital Library

First published posthumously in 1779, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" is Scottish philosopher David Hume's classic work of religious philosophy. This detailed and exhaustive examination of the nature and existence of God was begun by Hume in 1750, but not completed until shortly before his death in 1776. Hume was an important and influential English Empiricist, along with other English philosophers such as Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Thomas...

First published in 1751, "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" by David Hume, the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, was the enquiry subsequent to his 1748 work "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" and is often referred to as "the second Enquiry". In Hume's own opinion it was the very best of all his writings. In "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals", Hume expands upon his ideas of morality first discussed in his earlier...

Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it-or at least similar thoughts. -So it is not a textbook. -Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it. The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is mis-understood. The whole sense...

This early work by Henry James was originally published in 1879 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. Henry James was born in New York City in 1843. One of thirteen children, James had an unorthodox early education, switching between schools, private tutors and private reading.. James published his first story, 'A Tragedy of Error', in the Continental Monthly in 1864, when he was twenty years old. In 1876, he emigrated...

The second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, "Critique of Practical Reason", published in 1788, is considered by many to be one of the most important works on the subject of moral philosophy ever written. Written several years after his first critique, "Critique of Pure Reason", this work addresses Kant's views on moral philosophy and what it means to be good and ethical. In this work, Kant explores his philosophy of the categorical imperative,...

Persuasive and humane, this classic of philosophy represents one of the nineteenth century's most significant treatises on ethics. The Basis of Morality offers Schopenhauer's fullest examination of traditional ethical themes, and it articulates a descriptive form of ethics that contradicts the rationally based prescriptive theories. Starting with his polemic against Kant's ethics of duty, Schopenhauer anticipates the latter-day critics of moral philosophy....

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. When Principia Ethica appeared, in 1903, it became something of a sacred text for the Cambridge-educated elite who formed the core of the Bloomsbury Group. In a letter of October 11, 1903, Strachey confesses to Moore that he is "carried away" by Principia, which inaugurates, for him, "the beginning of the Age of Reason." Moore's critique of convention, his caustic...

After kicking open the doors to twentieth-century philosophy in Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche refined his ideal of the superman with the 1886 publication of Beyond Good and Evil. Conventional morality is a sign of slavery, Nietzsche maintains, and the superman goes beyond good and evil in action, thought, and creation. Nietzsche especially targets what he calls a "slave morality" that fosters herd like quiescence and stigmatizes the...

The philosophy of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius can be found in a collection of personal writings known as the Meditations. These reflect the influence of Stoicism and, in particular, the philosophy of Epictetus, the Stoic. The Meditations may be read as a series of practical philosophical exercises, following Epictetus' three topics of study, designed to digest and put into practice philosophical theory. Central to these exercises is a concern...

German philosopher and influential 18th century late Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant wrote "Critique of Judgment" in 1790 to solidify his ideas on aesthetics. Often referred to as the "third critique", it follows Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," published in 1781, and "Critique of Practical Reason", published in 1788 and completes his "Critical" project. Divided into two sections, one on aesthetic judgment and the other on teleological judgment,...