These two ambitious volumes from one of the world's most celebrated political philosophers present a new kind of political and legal theory that James Tully calls a public philosophy, and a complementary new way of thinking about active citizenship, called civic freedom. Professor Tully takes the reader step-by-step through the principal debates in political theory and the major types of political struggle today. These volumes represent a genuine landmark in political theory from the author of Strange Multiplicity, one of the most influential and distinctive commentaries on politics and the contemporary world published in recent years. This first volume of Public Philosophy in a New Key consists of a presentation and defence of a contextual approach to public philosophy and civic freedom, and then goes on to study specific struggles over recognition and distribution within states.

Thinking About Almost Everything brings together original thinking on a staggering range of topics across the sciences, arts and humanities, grouped into nine imaginative and sometimes startling thematic categories. Entries on terror, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and climate change are juxtaposed in the (Un)settlement section, while Presences brings together plant genetics, race, humans and animals, music theology, and the Willmore Conjecture. The short (often just one-page) essays are written in a lively and accessible style, and the book is illustrated with original and challenging images. Thinking About Almost Everything shows how even the most intricate and complex knowledge can enliven public curiosity and spark new thinking on issues either known or yet to be discovered.

In the current age of mass immigration, religious extremism and international terrorism issues of global morality are more pertinent than ever. But many people who are naturally-inclined to believe in universal human rights also have a fear of ethnocentric arrogance. This conflict is central to the highly-charged debate about moral relativism. One may be repulsed by female circumcision, but is such opposition merely a form of moral imperialism? In this book, Steven Lukes examines what people believe and why. Is there any common ground, or is it simply a matter of us and them ? For instance, do East Asian values inherently challenge those held in the West? Lukes incisive polemic cuts to the heart of the matter by focussing on the best arguments from both sides. He strips back conjecture to leave us with the key issues before laying bare the shocking requirements that moral relativism makes of its true advocates. This is philosophy at its exciting best and most relevant.

Watchmen is the most critically acclaimed graphic novel ever published, turning the world of comic superheroes on its head and raising a host of compelling philosophical issues. And whether you’re reading Watchmen for the first time of have been a fan for more than twenty years, this volume will help you read deeper into the philosophical questions & the revolutionary story that changed comic fiction forever. Among subjects covered are: morality in the face of absolute power; Kant & Rorschach; finding Nietzsche’s Übermensch; Dr. Manhattan & Henri Bergson on time; when telling the truth is wrong; Watchwomen; Hooded Justice & Captain Metropolis—the ambiguously gay duo; and Dr. Manhattan as a stoic sage.

Provocative, wide-ranging and full of wisdom, Between the Monster and the Saint is a brilliant book about our place in the world. Being human isn't easy. We might think that consciousness and free will give us control over our lives but our minds are dangerous and unpredictable places. We are susceptible to forces we don't understand. We are capable of inflicting immense cruelty on one another - violence, torture and rape - and yet we also have the capacity to be tender, to empathise, to feel. In his thought-provoking new book Richard Holloway holds a mirror up to the human condition.

This critical biography of the Romanian-born French philosopher E. M. Cioran focuses on his crucial formative years as a mystical revolutionary attracted to right-wing nationalist politics in interwar Romania & his writings of this period. In her quest to understand how Cioran could have been attracted to such passionate national revival movements, Zarifopol-Johnston, sought out Cioran in the early 1990s & retraced his steps from his childhood in Rasinari & Sibiu, through his student years in Bucharest and Berlin, to his early residence in France. Her portrait of Cioran is complemented by an engaging autobiographical account of her rediscovery of her own Romanian past.

Salafism, a Sunni school of thought, argues that Islam was complete and perfect during the days of Muhammad and his companions. Salafism focuses on the first three generations of Muslims for understanding contemporary Islam. Salafists seek to revive a practice of Islam that more closely resembles the beginnings of the religion, before undesirable innovations diluted its original core. There is a broad range of thought in the Salafist school internationall, which this book seeks to explore and explain.

These two ambitious volumes from one of the world's most celebrated political philosophers present a new kind of political and legal theory that James Tully calls a public philosophy, and a complementary new way of thinking about active citizenship, called civic freedom. Professor Tully takes the reader step-by-step through the principal debates in political theory and the major types of political struggle today. These volumes represent a genuine landmark in political theory. In this second volume, Professor Tully studies networks and civic struggles over global or imperial relations of inequality, dependency, exploitation and environmental degradation beyond the state. The final chapter brings all of the author's resonant themes together in a new way of thinking about global and local citizenship, and of political theory in relation to it. This forms a powerful conclusion to a major intervention from a vital and distinctive voice in contemporary thought.

Dennis Ford explores 8 approaches human beings have pursued over time to invest life with meaning & to infuse order into a seemingly chaotic universe. These include myth, philosophy, science, postmodernism, pragmatism, archetypal psychology, metaphysics & naturalism. In companionably boiling down these systems he proffers the refreshing idea that in today’s world, the answers provided by traditional religions to increasingly difficult questions have lost their currency for many and that the reductive or rationalist answers provided by science and postmodernism are themselves rife with unexamined assumptions.

Gary Hayden is a freelance writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has a B.Sc. in Physics and an M.A. in Philosophy, and specializes in making scientific and philosophical concepts accessible to the general reader. Gary's articles have appeared in dozens of newsstand magazines, including The Times Educational Supplement, Night Sky, Sky & Telescope, The Scotsman, and Maxim. He is a regular contributor to the UK's best-selling magazine, Take a Break, and to Scotland magazine. He also writes a fortnightly popular-philosophy column for Singapore's national newspaper, The Straits Times.