Best Modern Renaissance Philosophy Books
Here you will get Best Modern Renaissance Philosophy Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. As a man Thinketh: The Original 1902 Edition (The Wisdom Of James Allen)
Author: by James Allen
B08W7DWHSS
English
90 pages
All that we achieve and all that we fail to achieve is the direct result of our own thoughts. Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery.Calmness is power. James Allen, As a Man Thinketh”As a Man Thinketh” is a literary essay by James Allen, first published in 1902.
In more than a century it has become an inspirational classic, selling millions of copies worldwide and bringing faith, inspiration, and self healing to all who have encountered it. The title comes from the Bible: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” – Proverbs, chapter 23, verse 7.
As himself Allen describes, It shows how, in his own thought-world, each man holds the key to every condition, good or bad, that enters into his life, and that, by working patiently and intelligently upon his thoughts, he may remake his life, and transform his circumstances.
And it can be carried in the pocket. Too many mortals strive to improve only their wordly position-and too few seek spiritual betterment. Such is the problem James Allen faced in his own time. The ideas he found in his inner-most heart after great searching guided him as they will guide you.
2. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader (Harris Classics)
Author: by Marcus Aurelius
English
211 pages
1539952290
Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement.
These books have been carefully adapted into Modern English to allow for easy reading.ENJOY
3. Meditations
Author: by Marcus Aurelius
English
144 pages
1774261952
Marcus Aurelius was born into an aristocratic Roman family during the height of the Roman Empire. He was adopted as a son by Emperor Antoninus, and reigned as Emperor from 161-180 AD. His reign was marked by numerous military conflicts on the German frontier and the Eastern border with the Parthian Empire.
Despite these conflicts the Empire flourished in relative peace and prosperity under Marcus’ rule. The end of his reign is often consider the end of the golden era of the Roman Empire, in many ways he was the last great Emperor of Rome.
Marcus ruled as a philosopher king, he practiced Stoicism and wrote about his own Stoic practice in his journals. Meditations is an excellent source for understanding ancient stoic philosophy, and is often praised along other ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Seneca, and Epictetus.
Meditations is considered one of the pillars of western philosophy and literature. It is also a rare primary source into the mind of a man who ruled over one of the greatest empires built by man.
4. Michel de Montaigne – The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics)
Author: by Michel de Montaigne
0140446044
Penguin Classics
English
Michel de Montaigne was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance, singlehandedly responsible for popularising the essay as a literary form. This Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Essays is translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A.Screech.
In 1572 Montaigne retired to his estates in order to devote himself to leisure, reading and reflection. There he wrote his constantly expanding ‘assays’, inspired by the ideas he found in books contained in his library and from his own experience.
He discusses subjects as diverse as war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, love and friendship, ecstasy and experience. But, above all, Montaigne studied himself as a way of drawing out his own inner nature and that of men and women in general.
The Essays are among the most idiosyncratic and personal works in all literature and provide an engaging insight into a wise Renaissance mind, continuing to give pleasure and enlightenment to modern readers. With its extensive introduction and notes, M.A.
5. Pensées (Penguin Classics)
Author: by Blaise Pascal
Penguin Classics
English
368 pages
Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. The Penses is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and – above all – theological terms.
Mankind emerges from Pascal’s analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God’s grace. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world.
With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
6. Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide)
Author: by Edward Feser
Oneworld Publications
English
224 pages
Charting the life and thought of this hugely influential medieval thinker. One of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the history of Western thought, St Thomas Aquinas established the foundations for much of modern philosophy of religion, and is infamous for his arguments for the existence of God.
In this cogent and multifaceted introduction to the great Saint’s work, Edward Feser argues that you cannot fully understand Aquinas’ philosophy without his theology and vice-versa. Covering his thoughts on the soul, natural law, metaphysics, and the interaction of faith and reason, this will prove a indispensable resource for students, experts or the general reader.
7. The Essays: A Selection (Penguin Classics)
Author: by Michel de Montaigne
Penguin Classics
English
480 pages
A survey of one of the giants of Renaissance thought, The Essays: A Selection collects some of Michel de Montaigne’s most startling and original works, translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech in Penguin Classics.
To overcome a crisis of melancholy after the death of his father, Montaigne withdrew to his country estates and began to write, and in the highly original essays that resulted he discussed themes such as fathers and children, conscience and cowardice, coaches and cannibals, and, above all, himself.
On Some Lines of Virgil opens out into a frank discussion of sexuality and makes a revolutionary case for the equality of the sexes. In On Experience he superbly propounds his thoughts on the right way to live, while other essays touch on issues of an age struggling with religious and intellectual strife, with France torn apart by civil war.
These diverse subjects are united by Montaigne’s distinctive voice – that of a tolerant man, sceptical, humane, often humorous and utterly honest in his pursuit of the truth.M.A. Screech’s distinguished translation fully retains the light-hearted and inquiring nature of the essays.
8
The Prince
Author: by Niccolo Machiavelli
English
88 pages
1548070688
The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, is a 16th-century political treatise. The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal.
It was also in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time concerning politics and ethics. The Prince has the general theme of accepting that the aims of princessuch as glory and survivalcan justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends.
Although it is relatively short, the treatise is the most remembered of Machiavelli’s works and the one most responsible for bringing the word “Machiavellian” into usage as a pejorative. It even contributed to the modern negative connotations of the words “politics” and “politician” in western countries.
In terms of subject matter it overlaps with the much longer Discourses on Livy, which was written a few years later. Machiavelli emphasized the need for realism, as opposed to idealism. Along with this, he stresses the difference between human-beings and animals since “there are two ways of contending, one in accordance with the laws, the other by force; the first of which is proper to men, the second to beast”. In The Prince he does not explain what he thinks the best ethical or political goals are, except the control of one’s own fortune, as opposed to waiting to see what chance brings.
9. Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy
Author: by James Hankins
English
768 pages
0674237552
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the YearA bold, revisionist account of the political thought of the Italian Renaissancefrom Petrarch to Machiavellithat reveals the all-important role of character in shaping society, both in citizens and in their leaders. Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society.
Everywhere they saw problems. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; military leaders waging endless wars. Their solution was at once simple and radical. Men, not walls, make a city, as Thucydides so memorably said.
They would rebuild their city, and their civilization, by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft. A dazzlingly ambitious reappraisal of Renaissance political thought by one of our generation’s foremost intellectual historians, Virtue Politics challenges the traditional narrative that looks to the Renaissance as the seedbed of modern republicanism and sees Machiavelli as its exemplary thinker.
10. The Essential Works of Thomas More
Author: by Thomas More
Yale University Press
English
1520 pages
312 pages
1495940608
Price:
$14
as of Jul 13, 2021
(10:32 pm)
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia libri III) was written in the 16th century by Henry Cornelius Agrippa. It involves the study of occult powers of ritual magic and its relationship with religion. This is a complete edition containing all three books combined.Book I.
Covers Natural Magic Book II. Covers Celestial Magic Book III. Covers Ceremonial Magic
12. The Prince
Author: by Niccolo Machiavelli
English
114 pages
1774261944
Written during the tumultuous Renaissance period, The Prince’ is Niccolo Machiavelli’s best known work on the problems of government. Considered one of the first modern works on statecraft, it is a foundational text for western civilization and had a profound impact on the development of nation states and political science.
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, during the Renaissance period. The Italian peninsula was rife with internal struggles, dynastic jockeying, foreign invasion, an aggressive papal state, scientific discovery and extreme wealth. He was contemporaries with Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the infamous Medici and Borgia families.
He served as a minister of state during the short lived Florentine Republic at the turn of the 16th century. The Prince’ was written as an attempt to get back into the good graces of the Medici family, who had retaken control of Florence.
13. A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age
Author: by Steven Nadler
Princeton University Press
English
304 pages
English
320 pages
Price:
$13.59
as of Jul 13, 2021
(10:32 pm)
One of Slate’s 10 Best Books of the YearAnthony Gottlieb’s landmark The Dream of Reason and its sequel challenge Bertrand Russell’s classic as the definitive history of Western philosophy. Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years.
In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason, Anthony Gottlieb documented the first burst, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now, in his sequel, The Dream of Enlightenment, Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science.
In a relatively short periodfrom the early 1640s to the eve of the French RevolutionDescartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy.
15. On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres (Great Minds)
Author: by Nicolaus Copernicus
English
352 pages
1573920355
The Ptolemaic system of the universe, with the earth at the center, had held sway since antiquity as authoritative in philosophy, science, and church teaching. Following his observations of the heavenly bodies, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) abandoned the geocentric system for a heliocentric model, with the sun at the center.
His remarkable work, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, stands as one of the greatest intellectual revolutions of all time, and profoundly influenced, among others, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.
16. The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance
Author: by Christopher S Celenza
English
456 pages
052117712X
In this book, Christopher Celenza provides an intellectual history of the Italian Renaissance during the long fifteenth century, from c.13501525. His book fills a bibliographic gap between Petrarch and Machiavelli and offers clear case studies of contemporary luminaries, including Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, and Pietro Bembo.
Integrating sources in Italian and Latin, Celenza focuses on the linked issues of language and philosophy. He also examines the conditions in which Renaissance intellectuals operated in an era before the invention of printing, analyzing reading strategies and showing how texts were consulted, and how new ideas were generated as a result of conversations, both oral and epistolary.
The result is a volume that offers a new view on both the history of philosophy and Italian Renaissance intellectual life. It will serve as a key resource for students and scholars of early modern Italian humanism and culture.
