Berthoud Community Library District

First published in 1689, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" is British philosopher John Locke's important and influential exposition on the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. Arranged into four books, the first book begins by rejecting the notion of innate ideas proposed by Descartes and proposes instead that humans are born as blank slates. Book two argues that all knowledge is derived from experience and reflection. Locke also...

Here's a lively, not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical traditions, schools, concepts, and thinkers. It's Philosophy 101 for everyone who knows not to take all this heavy stuff too seriously. Some of the Big Ideas are existentialism (what do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?), philosophy of language (how to express what it's like being stranded on a desert island with Halle Berry), feminist philosophy (why, in the end, a...

Marxism is a term that many people freely use, but few seem to grasp its implications. Sowell's book is the antidote to this problem. He writes in a fluid and easy-to-follow manner, leading the listener through the Marxian scheme of ideas. Along the way, he shatters some existing interpretations of Marx-interpretations that have developed through repetition rather than through scholarship.

To the mentality that assumes, more or less consciously, that we must of necessity find a solution to every problem, belongs the argument based on the disastrous consequences of a thing. Take any book of apologetics-that is to say, of theological advocacy-and you will see how many times you will meet with this phrase-"the disastrous consequences of this doctrine." Now the disastrous consequences of a doctrine prove at most that the doctrine is disastrous,...

Written in the 12th century in Arabic by a faithful Jewish man, "The Guide for the Perplexed" is a work that explores the contradiction a very intelligent mind clearly saw between the tradition in which he was raised to believe and the growing philosophy of Arabian and Western culture. In Maimonides' time, there was an emerging disparity between the Law and a new level of philosophical sophistication, which he attempts to bridge in this work, primarily...

To the complete novice, learning about philosophy can be a cause for dread. The Philosophy Book uses innovative graphics and creative typography to help demystify hard-to-grasp concepts for those new to philosophy, cutting through the haze of misunderstanding, untangling knotty theories, and shedding light on abstract concepts. Aimed at anyone with a general interest in how our social, political, and ethical ideas are formed, as well as students of...

The renowned philosopher and political theorist presents a summation of his influential work in this series of Columbia University lectures. A pioneer in the fields of modern linguistics and cognitive science, Noam Chomsky is also one of the most avidly read political theorist of our time. In this series of lectures, Chomsky presents more than half a century of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas. In precise yet accessible language,...