Philosophy

Michel Foucault was one of the most influential thinkers in the contemporary world, someone whose work has affected the teaching of half a dozen disciplines ranging from literary criticism to the history of criminology. But of his many books, not one offers a satisfactory introduction to the entire complex body of his work. The Foucault Reader was commissioned precisely to serve that purpose. The Reader contains selections from each area of Foucault's work as well as a wealth of previously unpublished writings, including important material written especially for this volume, the preface to the long-awaited second volume of The History of Sexuality, and interviews with Foucault himself, in the course of which he discussed his philosophy at first hand and with unprecedented candor. This philosophy comprises an astonishing intellectual enterprise: a minute and ongoing investigation of the nature of power in society. Foucault's analyses of this power as it manifests itself in society, schools, hospitals, factories, homes, families, and other forms of organized society are brought together in The Foucault Reader to create an overview of this theme and of the broad social and political vision that underlies it.

Analyzes the expression and repression of desire in Western culture and tells how to avoid fascism in one's life

George Perec produced some of the most entertaining and spirited essays of his age, and Species of Spaces and Other Pieces is edited and translated from the French with an introduction by John Sturrock in Penguin Classics. Georges Perec, author of Life: A User's Manual, was one of the most surprising and enjoyable of all modern French writers. The pieces in this volume show him to be at times playful, more serious at other, but writing always with the lightest of touches. He had the keenest of eyes for the 'infra-ordinary', the things we do every day - eating, sleeping, working - and the places we do them in without giving them a moment's thought. But behind the lightness and humour, there is also the sadness of a French Jewish boy who lost his parents in the Second World War and found comfort in the material world around him, and above all in writing. This volume contains a selection of Georges Perec's non-fiction works, along with a charming short story, 'The Winter Journey'. It also includes notes and an introduction describing Perec's life and career.

Richard von Mises released this book "Kleines Lehrbuch des Positivismus" in 1939. The translated and revised English edition was released in 1956 as "Positivism: A Study in Human Understanding" and carried the following subtitle, “How the aims and attitudes of science apply to all the intellectual endeavors of mankind – whether in science, the arts, or ethics.” The book has strong empiricist leanings, which found expression in the author's frequency interpretation of probability and his qualified endorsement of logical positivism (or logical empiricism). It is fair to say that this book cannot compare with the rigorous writings of scholars like Rudolf Carnap or Hans Reichenbach, but it is doubtful that he aimed at such a work. His book is basically a plea for the scientific view of the world and how this approach applies to various topics. As such, his basic outlook on knowledge deserves study and recognition.

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) was a seminal figure in contemporary French philosophy. Together with Michel Foucault, Georges Canguilhem and Jean Cavaillès, he shaped the ‘French epistemological’ school of philosophy of science. In France, Bachelard is a towering presence; in the English-speaking world, he is little known. Now, Zbigniew Kotowicz gives us the first English language, in-depth presentation of the entire spectrum of Bachelard’s work: epistemology, poetic imagination and temporality. And he explores an old philosophical tradition that Bachelard’s thought opens up – atomism – a doctrine that has been almost forgotten and is much misunderstood.