Best Humanist Philosophy Books
Here you will get Best Humanist Philosophy Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. Inward
Author: by Yung Pueblo
Published at: Andrews McMeel Publishing; Revised, Expanded edition (September 25, 2018)
ISBN: 978-1449495756
I closed my eyes to look inward and found a universe waiting to be exploredFrom poet, meditator, and speaker Yung Pueblo, comes a collection of poetry and prose that explores the movement from self-love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves.
It serves as a reminder to the reader that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.
2. Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender
Author: by David R. Hawkins M.D. Ph.D
Published at: Hay House Inc.; 2nd ed. edition (January 15, 2014)
ISBN: 978-1401945015
Letting Go describes a simple and effective means by which to let go of the obstacles to Enlightenment and become free of negativity. During the many decades of the author’s clinical psychiatric practice, the primary aim was to seek the most effective ways to relieve human suffering in all of its many forms.
The inner mechanism of surrender was found to be of great practical benefit and is described in this book. Dr Hawkins’s previous books focused on advanced states of awareness and Enlightenment. Over the years, thousands of students had asked for a practical technique by which to remove the inner blocks to happiness, love, joy, success, health and, ultimately, Enlightenment.
This book provides a mechanism for letting go of those blocks. The mechanism of surrender that Dr Hawkins describes can be done in the midst of everyday life. The book is equally useful for all dimensions of human life: physical health, creativity, financial success, emotional healing, vocational fulfillment, relationships, sexuality and spiritual growth.
3. Stillness Is the Key
Author: by Ryan Holiday
Published at: Portfolio (October 1, 2019)
ISBN: 978-0525538585
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller & Wall Street Journal BestsellerIn The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, bestselling author Ryan Holiday made ancient wisdom wildly popular with a new generation of leaders in sports, politics, and technology. In his new book, Stillness Is the Key, Holiday draws on timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy to show why slowing down is the secret weapon for those charging ahead.
All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness-to be steady while the world spins around you.
In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living. Drawing on a wide range of history’s greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius to Thich Nhat Hanh, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche, he argues that stillness is not mere inactivity, but the doorway to self-mastery, discipline, and focus.
4. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Author: by Alan Watts
Published at: Vintage Books; Reissue edition (August 28, 1989)
ISBN: 978-0679723004
A revelatory primer on what it means to be human, from “the perfect guide for a course correction in life” (Deepak Chopra)and a mind-opening manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence. At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are.
The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the outside world with hostility, and has fueled our misuse of technology and our violent and hostile subjugation of the natural world.
To help us understand that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe, Watts has crafted a revelatory primer on what it means to be humanand a mind-opening manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence.
In The Book, Alan Watts provides us with a much-needed answer to the problem of personal identity, distilling and adapting the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta.
5. Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom
Author: by Ariel Burger
Published at: Mariner Books; Illustrated edition (October 22, 2019)
ISBN: 978-0358108528
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDBIOGRAPHYIn the vein of Tuesdays with Morrie, a devoted protg and friend of one of the world’s great thinkers takes us into the sacred space of the classroom, showing Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel not only as an extraordinary human being, but as a master teacher.
Witness is beautiful, and important … A superb piece of writing. Parker Palmer, best-selling author of The Courage to Teach The world remembers Elie WieselNobel laureate, activist, and author of more than forty books, including Oprah’s Book Club selection Nightas a great humanist.
He passed away in July 2016. Ariel Burger first met Elie Wiesel at age fifteen. They studied together and taught together. Witness chronicles the intimate conversations between these two men over decades, as Burger sought counsel on matters of intellect, spirituality, and faith, while navigating his own personal journey from boyhood to manhood, from student and assistant to rabbi and, in time, teacher.
6. Existentialism Is a Humanism
Author: by Jean-Paul Sartre
Published at: Yale University Press; Annotated edition (July 24, 2007)
ISBN: 978-0300115468
A fresh translation of two seminal works of existentialism”To understand Jean-Paul Sartre is to understand something important about the present time.”Iris Murdoch “Sartre matters because so many fundamental points of his analysis of the human reality are right and true, and because their accuracy and veracity entail real consequences for our lives as individuals and in social groups.”Benedict O’Donohoe, Philosophy Now It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre, the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades, accepted an invitation to speak on October 29, 1945, at the Club Maintenant in Paris.
The unstated objective of his lecture (Existentialism Is a Humanism) was to expound his philosophy as a form of existentialism, a term much bandied about at the time. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers, though, ironically, he was about to make it accessible to a general audience.
7. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness: The Stairway to Enlightenment
Author: by David R. Hawkins M.D. Ph.D
Published at: Hay House Inc.; Reprint edition (March 17, 2015)
ISBN: 978-1401945053
The now widely known Map of calibrated levels of Consciousness was presented in Power vs. Force in 1995 and has been translated into all the world’s major languages. This was followed by The Eye of the I (2001), I: Reality and Subjectivity (2003), and Truth vs.
Falsehood (2005), which explored the levels of Truth reflected throughout society. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness returns to the exploration of the ego’s expressions and inherent limitations and gives detailed explanations and instructions on how to transcend them. As with the reading of Dr. Hawkins’ previous books, the reader’s level of consciousness is advanced as a consequence of exposure to the information itself.
This opens up avenues to the relief of suffering for oneself and others, which fulfills the purpose of the work and the intention to facilitate the reader’s own Enlightenment.
8. The Beginner's Guide to Stoicism: Tools for Emotional Resilience and Positivity
Author: by Matthew Van Natta
Published at: Althea Press (October 8, 2019)
ISBN: 978-1641527217
Optimize joy, overcome obstaclesdiscover the calm of stoicismBeing a stoic means embracing positivity and self-control through the ability to accept the uncertainty of outcomes. With this stoicism guide, the beginner stoic will learn how to take charge of their emotions on the path to sustained happiness and satisfaction.
This easy-to-navigate stoicism guide gives you the emotional tools needed to let go of the things you can’t control and find joy in what you have. Through thought-provoking strategies and exercises, this book helps you find contentment so you can build closer relationships and become an active member of society.
The Beginner’s Guide to Stoicism includes:Evolution of stoicismDiscover the history of stoicism and how its principles can help you find peace. Complete the mindsetFind acceptance using an essential emotional toolkit based on the disciplines of Desire, Action, and Assent.
Time to reflectApply what you’ve learned to your own life with ethical questions, quotes, and exercises. Change your perception, focus on positivitybecome the best version of yourself with The Beginner’s Guide to Stoicism.
9. The Devil's Notebook
Author: by Anton Szandor LaVey
Published at: Feral House; Illustrated edition (April 1, 2000)
ISBN: 978-0922915118
Wisdom, humor, and dark observations by the founder of the Church of Satan. LaVey ponders such topics as nonconformity, occult faddism, erotic politics, the “Goodguy badge,” demoralization and the construction of artificial human companions.
10. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
Author: by David Abram
Published at: Vintage; Worn Condition edition (February 25, 1997)
ISBN: 978-0679776390
Winner of the International Lannan Literary Award for NonfictionAnimal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this intellectual tour de force that returns us to our senses and to the sensuous terrain that sustains us.
This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception. For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patters) that we have only lately come to think of as “inanimate.” How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world?
What will it take for us to recover a sustaining relation with the breathing earth? In The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as an accomplished sleight-of-hand of magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment.
11. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Author: by Julian Jaynes
Published at:
Mariner Books; 31578th edition (August 15, 2000)
ISBN: 978-0618057078
At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes’s still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing.
The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion – and indeed our future.
12. Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind
Author: by Annaka Harris
Published at: Harper; 1st edition (June 4, 2019)
ISBN: 978-0062906717
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER”If you’ve ever wondered how you have the capacity to wonder, some fascinating insights await you in these pages. Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of OriginalsAs concise and enlightening as Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, this mind-expanding dive into the mystery of consciousness is an illuminating meditation on the self, free will, and felt experience.
What is consciousness?How does it arise? And why does it exist? We take our experience of being in the world for granted. But the very existence of consciousness raises profound questions: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious?
How are we able to think about this?And why should we? In this wonderfully accessible book, Annaka Harris guides us through the evolving definitions, philosophies, and scientific findings that probe our limited understanding of consciousness. Where does it reside, and what gives rise to it?
Could it be an illusion, or a universal property of all matter? As we try to understand consciousness, we must grapple with how to define it and, in the age of artificial intelligence, who or what might possess it. Conscious offers lively and challenging arguments that alter our ideas about consciousnessallowing us to think freely about it for ourselves, if indeed we can.
13. The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter
Author: by Rupert Spira
Published at: Sahaja; 1st edition (June 1, 2017)
ISBN: 978-1684030002
I’ve gained deeper understanding listening to Rupert Spira than I have from any other exponent of modern spirituality. Reality is sending us a message we desperately need to hear, and at this moment no messenger surpasses Spira and the transformative words in his essays.
Deepak Chopra, author of You Are the Universe, Spiritual Solutions, and Super Brain Our world culture is founded on the assumption that the Big Bang gave rise to matter, which in time evolved into the world, into which the body was born, inside which a brain appeared, out of which consciousness at some late stage developed.
As a result of this matter model, most of us believe that consciousness is a property of the body. We feel that it is I, this body, that knows or is aware of the world. We believe and feel that the knowing with which we are aware of our experience is located in and shares the limits and destiny of the body.
This is the fundamental presumption of mind and matter that underpins almost all our thoughts and feelings and is expressed in our activities and relationships. The Nature of Consciousness suggests that the matter model has outlived its function and is now destroying the very values it once sought to promote.
14. The Complete Works (Everyman's Library)
Author: by Michel de Montaigne
Published at: Everyman's Library; 1st edition (April 29, 2003)
ISBN: 978-1400040216
Humanist, skeptic, acute observer of himself and others, Michel de Montaigne (153392) was the first to use the term essay to refer to the form he pioneered, and he has remained one of its most famous practitioners. He reflected on the great themes of existence in his wise and engaging writings, his subjects ranging from proper conversation and good reading, to the raising of children and the endurance of pain, from solitude, destiny, time, and custom, to truth, consciousness, and death.
Having stood the test of time, his essays continue to influence writers nearly five hundred years later. Also included in this complete edition of his works are Montaigne’s letters and his travel journal, fascinating records of the experiences and contemplations that would shape and infuse his essays.
Montaigne speaks to us always in a personal voice in which his virtues of tolerance, moderation, and understanding are dazzlingly manifest.Donald M. Frame’s masterful translation is widely acknowledged to be the classic English version.
15. You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, an d 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
Author: by David McRaney
Published at: Avery; Reprint edition (November 6, 2012)
ISBN: 978-1592407361
An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise, based on the popular blog of the same name. Whether you’re deciding which smartphone to purchase or which politician to believe, you think you are a rational being whose every decision is based on cool, detached logic.
But here’s the truth: You are not so smart. You’re just as deluded as the rest of usbut that’s okay, because being deluded is part of being human. Growing out of David McRaney’s popular blog, You Are Not So Smart reveals that every decision we make, every thought we contemplate, and every emotion we feel comes with a story we tell ourselves to explain them.
But often these stories aren’t true. Each short chaptercovering topics such as Learned Helplessness, Selling Out, and the Illusion of Transparencyis like a psychology course with all the boring parts taken out. Bringing together popular science and psychology with humor and wit, You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of our irrational, thoroughly human behavior.
16. Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
Author: by John Gray
Published at:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (October 16, 2007)
ISBN: 978-0374270933
The British bestseller Straw Dogs is an exciting, radical work of philosophy, which sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche and Marx, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world.
Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism think of humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. John Gray argues that this belief in human difference is a dangerous illusion and explores how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned.
The result is an exhilarating, sometimes disturbing book that leads the reader to question our deepest-held beliefs. Will Self, in the New Statesman, called Straw Dogs his book of the year: “I read it once, I read it twice and took notes …
I thought it that good.” “Nothing will get you thinking as much as this brilliant book” (Sunday Telegraph).
