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Title: The Science Delusion

Subtitle: Asking the Big Questions in a Culture of Easy Answers

Author: Curtis White

Narrator: Jonathan Hogan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-21-14

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

One of our most brilliant social critics - author of the best-selling The Middle Mind - presents a scathing critique of the "delusions" of science alongside a rousing defense of the tradition of Romanticism and the "big" questions. With the rise of religion critics such as Richard Dawkins, and of pseudo-science advocates such as Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer, you' re likely to become a subject of ridicule if you wonder "Why is there something instead of nothing?" or "What is our purpose on Earth?" Instead, at universities around the world, and in the general cultural milieu, we' re all being taught that science can resolve all questions without the help of philosophy, politics, or the humanities. In short, the rich philosophical debates of the 19th century have been nearly totally abandoned, argues critic Curtis White. An atheist himself, White nonetheless calls this new turn "scientism" - and fears what it will do to our culture if allowed to flourish without challenge. In fact, in "scientism" White sees a new religion with many unexamined assumptions. In this brilliant multi-part critique, he aims at a TED talk by a distinguished neuroscientist in which we are told that human thought is merely the product of our "connectome," a map of neural connections in the brain that is yet to be fully understood.... He whips a widely respected physicist who argues that our new understanding of the origins of the universe obviates any philosophical inquiry...and ends with a learned defense of the tradition of Romanticism, which White believes our technology and science-obsessed world desperately needs to rediscover. It' s the only way, he argues, that we can see our world clearly...and change it.

Members Reviews:

Rambling non sequiturs

If you like rambling non sequiturs, weaved together by lengthy quotations from obscure references about what other people have said about disparate topics, in a feeble attempt to further a vague thesis, a thesis which purports to be about science but, but is actually more about romanticism, and which does so with poor scientific rigor, this is the book for you. If you are looking for a reasoned inquiry into science's faults, you won't find it here. Narrator was good though.

Intellectually lazy

White has done his research. That is what makes his blatant straw-men arguments so unforgivable.

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Title: The Ajax Dilemma

Subtitle: Justice, Fairness, and Rewards

Author: Paul Woodruff

Narrator: Kaleo Griffith

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-23-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

We live in a world where CEOs give themselves million dollar bonuses even as their companies go bankrupt and ordinary workers are laid off; where athletes make millions while teachers struggle to survive; a world, in short, where rewards are often unfairly meted out.

In The Ajax Dilemma, Paul Woodruff examines one of today's most pressing moral issues: how to distribute rewards and public recognition without damaging the social fabric. How should we honor those whose behavior and achievement is essential to our overall success? Is it fair or right to lavish rewards on the superstar at the expense of the hardworking rank-and-file? How do we distinguish an impartial fairness from what is truly just?

Woodruff builds his answer to these questions around the ancient conflict between Ajax and Odysseus over the armor of the slain warrior Achilles. King Agamemnon arranges a speech contest to decide the issue. Ajax, the loyal workhorse, loses the contest, and the priceless armor, to Odysseus, the brilliantly deceptive strategist who will lead the Greeks to victory. Deeply insulted, Ajax goes on a rampage and commits suicide, and in his rage we see the resentment of every loyal worker who has been passed over in favor of those who are more gifted, or whose skills are more highly valued.

How should we deal with the "Ajax dilemma"? Woodruff argues that while we can never create a perfect system for distributing just rewards, we can recognize the essential role that wisdom, compassion, moderation, and respect must play if we are to restore the basic sense of justice on which all communities depend.

This short, thoughtful book, written with Woodruff's characteristic elegance, investigates some of the most bitterly divisive issues in American today.

Members Reviews:

Outstanding

Such a compelling view of the story of Ajax and beyond. The characters are all familiar, but we connect with them so well through the way Paul humanizes their stories.

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Title: Why Read Thoreau's 'Walden'?

Author: Daniel G. Payne

Narrator: JB Thomas

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-22-14

Publisher: New Street Communications, LLC

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

What makes Henry David Thoreau's Walden one of the fundamental benchmarks in the canon of American literature and philosophy? What role has the book played in the development of modern thought, and what relevance does it have for today's reader? Noted scholar Daniel G. Payne (SUNY, Oneonta) ponders these and other questions, and in the course of his meditation considers Henry Thoreau's influences and inspirations along with his biases and priorities - revealing a complex man intent on living a life not only provocatively unique but also carefully examined.

Members Reviews:

A nudge if / where needed

No doubt about it: Henry David Thoreau's most famous book can be a tough nut to crack. How can contemporary readers understand its lengthy passages? And why should anyone page through the ruminations of a guy who lived next to a pond for two years, back in the 1840s? What could his words possibly mean for us today?

These are the topics that Dr. Payne has generally taken on here. Whew! At only 89 pages of text, this slim book serves as a teaser, a prod, or a nudge to the potential WALDEN reader. First of all, Payne provides biography and context. He drops Thoreau and the book in the Concord of the mid-19th century and describes the times, the people, and the surroundings. Then he aligns some of his chapters here with selected ones from WALDEN, covering a few of its main themes. He includes some small b&w illustrations, which are usually present-day photographs taken around Concord and Walden Pond. These images may mean more to people if/when they've seen the sites in person. Or they could assure long-distance readers that these places do still exist, even if they don't quite mirror the landscape that Thoreau saw and wrote about, himself.

I'm not sure Payne definitively answers the Why. His approach instead is to rustle up the evidence and to let the audience members themselves realize how much Thoreau's thoughts, words, and actions are still relevant to our own lives.

To be fair: I met Dr. Payne at the conference that he hosts, the John Burroughs Nature Writing Conference & Seminar series at SUNY Oneonta, in 2012. I consider us to be professional acquaintances. He did not ask me to read and review his book.

Readers should note that early editions of this print-on-demand book contained a number of typographical errors. I have been assured by the publisher that these have been corrected. This book could now act as a prompt or a supplemental study guide for those opening WALDEN for the first time. It's not as detailed as the analysis you can find in Leslie Perrin Wilson'sCliffsNotes Thoreau, Emerson, and Transcendentalism, but Dr. Payne's book is certainly a resource that a frantic undergraduate under studying deadline could be grateful for.

By Corinne H. Smith, author ofWestward I Go Free: Tracing Thoreau's Last Journey

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Title: Religion in Public: Locke's Political Theology

Subtitle: Cultural Memory in the Present

Author: Elizabeth Pritchard

Narrator: Tim Lundeen

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-17-14

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

John Locke's theory of toleration is generally seen as advocating the privatization of religion. This interpretation has become conventional wisdom: secularization is widely understood as entailing the privatization of religion, and the separation of religion from power. This audiobook turns that conventional wisdom on its head and argues that Locke secularizes religion, that is, makes it worldly, public, and political. In the name of diverse citizenship, Locke reconstructs religion as persuasion, speech, and fashion. He insists on a consensus that human rights are sacred insofar as humans are the creatures, and thus, the property of God. Drawing on a range of sources beyond Locke's own writings, Pritchard portrays the secular not as religion's separation from power, but rather as its affiliation with subtler, and sometimes insidious, forms of power. As a result, she captures the range of anxieties and conflicts attending religion's secularization: denunciations of promiscuous bodies freed from patriarchal religious and political formations, correlations between secular religion and colonialist education and conversion efforts, and more recently, condemnations of the coercive and injurious force of unrestricted religious speech.

Critic Reviews:

"Political theorists, historians, and scholars of religion and culture should all find their views of Locke challenged and enriched in Pritchard's multifaceted reconsideration of this key figure and his legacy." (Andrew R. Murphy, Rutgers University)

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Title: A Sense of the Enemy

Subtitle: The High Stakes History of Reading Your Rival's Mind

Author: Zachary Shore

Narrator: Shanet Clark

Format: Unabridged

Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-14-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

More than 2,000 years ago the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu advised us to know our enemies. The question has always been how. In A Sense of the Enemy, the historian Zachary Shore demonstrates that leaders can best understand an opponent not simply from his pattern of past behavior, but from his behavior at pattern breaks. Meaningful pattern breaks occur during dramatic deviations from the routine, when the enemy imposes costs upon himself. It's at these unexpected moments, Shore explains, that successful leaders can learn what makes their rivals truly tick. Shore presents a uniquely revealing history of 20th-century conflict. With vivid, suspenseful prose, he takes us into the minds of statesmen, to see how they in turn tried to enter the minds of others. In the process, he shows how this type of mind-reading, which he calls "strategic empathy," shaped matters of war and peace. Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, was an excellent strategic empath. In the wake of a British massacre of unarmed Indian civilians, how did Gandhi know that nonviolence could ever be effective? And what of Gustav Stresemann, the 21-year-old Wunderkind Ph.D., who rose from lobbyist for chocolate makers to Chancellor of Germany. How did he manage to resurrect his nation to great power status after its humiliating loss in World War One? One key to all these leaders' triumphs came from the enemy's behavior at pattern breaks. Drawing on research from the cognitive sciences, and tapping multilingual, multinational sources, Shore has crafted an innovative history of the last century's most pivotal moments, when lives and nations were on the line. Through this curious study of strategic empathy, we gain surprising insights into how great leaders think.

Members Reviews:

Confused Judgments on History

Insofar as this book is interesting, it is despite itself. The good part of this book is that the prose is easy to read, the history is sometimes interesting, and there are plenty of solid first hand sources used. The bad part is that the overall theory about how "how to understand your enemy" is both repetitive but confused. The random discourses into philosophy are not insightful. The author's interpretation and judgments of history are quite poor. Here is an example:

Shore writes that Stalin couldn't understand Hitler because he was a "simulator" - which meant, he understood Hitler by simulating what Stalin himself would do in Hitler's position. But immediately after writing this, Shore details how Stalin took EXTENSIVE means to understand Hitler outside of this "simulator" model; in Shore's own words, all to understand Hitler, Stalin read Mein Kamph, talked about it with colleagues, read German history, read German military theory, and had envoys meet with Hitler. In other words, Shore misunderstands the history he himself presents, and forces the facts to fit the conclusion he wants. This is just one example of something he does throughout the book.

This book is closer to three stars than one. There are interesting points made as well as edifying history.

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Title: Brutal Wisdom

Subtitle: Comments on the 36 Strategies of Ancient Chinese Thought

Author: Master Dutch Hinkle

Narrator: Dave Wright

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 03-06-14

Publisher: Whispers Of Bushido, LLC

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

Banned secret strategies of the ancient Chinese.

Imagine:

Secret and Forbidden Knowledge

Learn about these ruthless strategies of ancient Chinese thought which is ranked by some with the wisdom of Sun Tzu and The Art of War.

Learn how these powerful strategies have been and continue to be applied this very day in business, warfare, negotiations, government, and world politics.

Arm yourself with this secret and forbidden knowledge that has given others a distinct, superior advantage.

Welcome to Brutal Wisdom

Members Reviews:

Brilliant

The thing I enjoyed most about this title was the raw, yet subtle, ambitions of past leaders and figures.

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Titre: Karl Marx

Auteur: Henri Pena-Ruiz

Narrateur: Henri Pena-Ruiz

Format: Original Recording

Durée: 4 hrs and 41 mins

Langue: Français

Date de publication: 02-06-14

Éditeur: Frémeaux & Associés

Evaluation: 5 sur 5 sur 1 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Résumé de l'éditeur:

Penseur brillant, Marx est aussi un homme d'action qui consacre sa vie à la lutte. Pour lui, le niveau de civilisation d'une société se mesure au sort qu'elle réserve aux plus démunis. D'où son engagement aux côtés du prolétariat, pour lequel il construit une théorie complète, dans le but de le rendre idéologiquement autonome. C'est en effet ainsi que peut se fonder efficacement son émancipation, qui par ailleurs délivre toute la société du règne de l'argent. Voilà ce quHenri Pena-Ruiz nous explique dans ce programme audio.

La pensée de Marx, d'une grande envergure, s'y révèle très actuelle à l'âge de la mondialisation capitaliste. Affranchie de sa caricature stalinienne, elle fournit des repères décisifs pour comprendre le monde et le transformer dans l'intérêt de toute l'humanité. Cette pensée est présentée avec dynamisme et pédagogie, en termes accessibles à tous.

Henri Pena-Ruiz aborde l'œuvre de Marx sous ses quatre dimensions essentielles : sa philosophie historique dont le matérialisme dialectique constitue l'outil, l'économie marxiste qui développe une analyse complète du capitalisme et met en évidence ses contradictions, l'engagement militant pour l'émancipation des exploités, et enfin la vive actualité de ses éclairages.

©2013 Frémeaux & Associés (P)2013 Frémeaux & Associés

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Title: Atheist Yoga

Author: Anton Drake

Narrator: Jack Chekijian

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-31-14

Publisher: Puragreen Productions LLC

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 11 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

Atheist Yoga makes the case for yoga's total compatibility with atheism, while simultaneously offering an in-depth explanation of advanced yoga techniques. It takes a close look at the full spectrum of yoga methodology and explains how to really advance your practice to higher levels of expertise, delving deeply into hatha yoga, pranayama, and meditation while thoroughly exploring esoteric subjects such as Kundalini, tantra, sexual yoga, kumbhaka, pratyahara, and yogic trance in sensible and easy to understand practical terms. From a starting point of realism and scientific materialism, it begins to decode and illuminate the ancient secrets of yoga in a way that listeners will find highly accessible and enjoyable on multiple levels, while delving into the deep unconscious symbolism of Kundalini and the chakras and describing many highly effective and little-known "left hand path" techniques of meditation, yogic trance, sensory withdrawal, concentration, and yogic sex. Through it all, Atheist Yoga makes the case that yoga and meditation are much easier and far more genuine when the fuzzy idea of a Supreme Being no longer separates the meditator from his or her own individual self.

Members Reviews:

Interesting

Would you listen to Atheist Yoga again? Why?

Yes, I feel that it's a valuable reference.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

He switches between his conversational voicing of the characters in the interactive parts of the story, to the lectural news-caster-y voice he uses for the factual parts, quite easily.

Which scene was your favorite?

The scene where the woman first shows up. It was almost funny, and definitely strange.

Whats the most interesting tidbit youve picked up from this book?

The Atheist non-theology, and Freudian quotes. Some interesting information supporting materialism.

Any additional comments?

This was an interesting philosophical work.

Interesting!

Would you listen to Atheist Yoga again? Why?

Maybe, i am not really an athiest or into yoga but it was very interesting!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Atheist Yoga?

when he explains athiest & yoga being campatible

What does Jack Chekijian bring to the story that you wouldnt experience if you just read the book?

A animated performance

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

it was a good performance

A fascinating and educational look into yoga...

I received this audio book as a gift in exchange for a honest and unbiased review. This

book is quite educational. I always thought yoga was a form of exercise. I is also about

religion, health, sex, and can replace medication. Yoga helps you sleep too. Along with

yoga is meditation. meditation relives stress and benefits us in so many ways. This book

explores the close compatibility between atheist and yoga. This book has opened my eyes

and taught me so much. I think I need to listen to it a few more times to absorb

everything it has to say. I found the parts about making orgasms better and longer most

fascinating too!

The author, Anton Drake did a great job on his research for this book.

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Titre: Épicure, les Stoïciens, Plotin (La pensée antique 2)

Auteur: Jean-François Mattéi

Narrateur: Jean-François Mattéi

Format: Original Recording

Durée: 3 hrs and 16 mins

Langue: Français

Date de publication: 11-07-13

Éditeur: Frémeaux & Associés

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Résumé de l'éditeur:

Quels sont les apports d'Épicure et de Plotin aux idées philosophiques ? Frémeaux & Associés et les Presses Universitaires de France s'associent pour proposer un cours particulier de Jean-François Mattéi qui explique pédagogiquement chacun des concepts de la pensée antique. Cet audio présente Épicure, les Stoïciens et Plotin. Il fait suite au premier, consacré aux Présocratiques, à Platon et à Aristote. Un accès attractif et simple au savoir universitaire.

©2013 Frémeaux & Associés / PUF (P)2013 Frémeaux & Associés

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Title: Philosophical Thoughts

Author: C. S. Lewis

Narrator: Ralph Cosham

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-26-13

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

Publisher's Summary:

This volume of short essays and other pieces by C. S. Lewis is part of a larger collection, C. S.Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces. In addition to his many books, letters, and poems, C. S. Lewis wrote a great number of essays and shorter pieces on various subjects. He wrote extensively on Christian theology and the defense of faith but also on ethical issues and the nature of literature and storytelling. This audiobook is a treasure trove of Lewis' reflections on diverse topics.

This volume includes:

1. First and Second Things

2. The Poison of Subjectivism

3. Equality

4. De Futilitate

5. A Dream

6. Hedonics

7. Talking about Bicycles

8. Vivisection

9. The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment

10. Behind the Scenes

Members Reviews:

Another good collection.

I have always enjoyed the "non-narnian" works of C.S Lewis. This one is a collection from other works I have yet to read. I enjoy listening to his writing while driving to and from work.