Archives de catégorie : Philosophy

SHOULD WE GO EXTINCT? de Todd May

Easy to read in one sitting, this is a work of serious philosophy but written with sensitivity and wit, offering a framework for an approach to the future that will make the book’s title question feel less urgent—and more likely to elicit a humane response.

SHOULD WE GO EXTINCT?
A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times
by Todd May; foreword by Michael Schur
Crown, August 2024

Now, more than ever, many people wonder whether we should bring more human beings into the world when it seems increasingly clear that not only do we face bleak prospects as a species but also that we seem powerless to rein in the damage our existence causes the Earth and those we share it with. In SHOULD WE GO EXTINCT?, May reasons both for and against further procreation. He discusses the value that only humans can bring to the world and to one another as well as the goods, like art and music, that would be lost were we no longer to be here. On the other side of the ledger, he details the suffering we cause to nature and the non-human world. May considers the prospects and the complexities involved with such changes as an end to factory farming, curbing scientific testing of animals, reducing the human population, and seeking to develop empathy with our fellow creatures.

Todd May is the author of seventeen books of philosophy. He was one of the original philosophers asked to contribute to the New York Times philosophy blog The Stone. He was also one of the philosophical advisors to the hit NBC sitcom The Good Place and showrunner Michael Schur’s New York Times bestselling book How to Be Perfect. He teaches philosophy at Warren Wilson College.

THE OXHERD BOY de Regina Linke

“Are we on the right path?” asked the rabbit. The boy looked around. “Maybe there is no path. Maybe the path is made simply by walking.”

THE OXHERD BOY
Parables of Love, Compassion, and Community
by Regina Linke
Clarkson Potter, March 2024

Following in the footsteps, hooves and pawprints of the bestselling illustrated inspirational book The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse comes Regina Linke’s exquisite fable THE OXHERD BOY.

Largely based on the wisdom of classical Asian philosophy and religion, the story gently cultivates resilience, compassion and humility through the small adventures and conversations of these three friends. As the boy, the rabbit, and the ox (who represent the three core beliefs of classical Chinese thought) wander through the day, meeting villagers, forging rivers, tilling fields, and planting rice, they muse about ways to live mindfully in an often stormy world. Artist and writer Regina Linke’s magnificent paintings are executed in the ancient Chinese technique known as gongbi that uses highly detailed brushstrokes and careful layering of color over fine line drawings to create magical, immersive scenes and emotive, engaging characters.

Regina Linke is a Taiwanese American artist specializing in contemporary Chinese gongbi painting. She writes and illustrates stories that celebrate East Asian folklore and philosophy in an accessible and modern way. Her most notable creation is “The Oxherd Boy,” a single-panel, adult webcomic with a highly engaged audience whose characters volunteers from around the world have translated the comics into ten languages. Regina Linke lives in Taipei, Taiwan with her husband and young son, who inspires her every day as a real-life oxherd boy.

RADICAL CURIOSITY de Seth Goldenberg

A bold manifesto arguing that the most complex challenges we face today—as individuals, businesses, and a society—require us to ask deeper questions, not seek easier answers.

RADICAL CURIOSITY:
Questioning Commonly Held Beliefs to Imagine Flourishing Futures
by Seth Goldenberg
Crown, August 2022

In a world with an endless hunger for innovation, why is it so hard to create audacious change? According to thought leader Seth Goldenberg, the answer to this question stems from how we, as a society, view questions themselves.
In RADICAL CURIOSITY, Goldenberg argues that because we value knowing above learning and prioritize doing over thinking, curiosity has become an endangered species. Only by rediscovering the power of questions can we hope to rewrite the commonly held “legacy” narratives that no longer serve us and to remake our organizations, our politics, and our lives.
 With this empowering book, Goldenberg introduces the practice of Radical Curiosity through the lens of seven narratives that are going through significant transformation: Learning, Cohesion, Time, Youth, Aliveness, Nature, and Value. Along the way, he unpacks principles intended to spark our own questioning, including:

• Education is too big to fail, but maybe it should.
• Time travel isn’t reserved for DeLoreans.
• Let us now praise rural communities.
• Survival economics have made imagination a luxury good.

Blending philosophy, business strategy, cultural criticism, and fascinating case studies, RADICAL CURIOSITY is a new way of solving our most complex problems—one focused not on technology or science but on the power of human inquiry. By asking us to relearn how we learn, reengage in dialogue, revive our youthful sense of wonder, and rethink what we value, it reignites the curiosity needed to imagine and build a better world.

Seth Goldenberg is a designer, curator, and entrepreneur who harnesses the power of questioning to catalyze innovation and cultural change. He is the founder and CEO of Curiosity & Co., a one-of-a-kind bookstore, experience laboratory, and design-ventures studio, and the creator of the Ideas Salons, invitational thought-leader retreats that tackle the essential questions of our time. Goldenberg has led high-profile projects with clients such as Apple, American Express, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and the governor of Rhode Island. He also founded Dialog:City, the civic arts festival for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, and Fast Company. He lives on the island of Jamestown, Rhode Island.

GESPRÄCHE MIT EINEM BAUM de Matthias Strolz

On the trail of the secrets of life. An inspiring story that kindles inner peace, renewed hope, and refreshing joy of life in each of us.

GESPRÄCHE MIT EINEM BAUM
(Conversations with a Tree)
by Matthias Strolz
Kailash/PRH Verlagsgruppe, March 2022

When he realises he is able to converse with his favourite tree, Matthias Strolz sets out on a journey of discovery that takes him through the essential questions of life that affect us deeply and make us human, eventually leading him to his personal « inner place ». His intensive, entertaining, and profound conversations with the magical tree revolve around birth and death, time and space, God and religion, politics and the state, money and power, job and success, pain and joy, and happiness and love. Knowledge and inner truths will come to fruition through the universal connectedness of everything in existence.

• An inspiring dialogue on the philosophical questions of life
• For all who are in a phase of change and searching for new paths in life
• For fans of John Strelecky, Paulo Coelho, and Tessa Randau

Matthias Strolz is an impact and startup entrepreneur, bestselling author, publicist, keynote speaker, people mover, free spirit, and coach. He studied political science, international economics, and systemic organisational development in Austria and internationally. Developing potential has been something close to his heart ever since his teenage years. As a coach and consultant, he advises individuals, non-profit organisations, and companies in strategy and development processes. In May 2020 his bestseller « Strength and Inspiration for These Times » (story.one) appeared, a book filled with inspirations for a proactive lifestyle and the good life.

THE WORLD BEHIND THE WORLD d’Erik Hoel

In a sweeping intellectual narrative, award-winning neuroscientist and author Erik Hoel argues there are two fundamental perspectives on reality: the intrinsic and the extrinsic. The intrinsic perspective is that of consciousness and experience, the feelings and sensations that make up your waking world. The extrinsic perspective is that of science, which views the universe as a set of mechanisms and relations.

THE WORLD BEHIND THE WORLD:
Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science
by Erik Hoel
Avid Reader, Fall 2023
(via Writers House)

The two perspectives have had an uneasy, sometimes troubled relationship. Throughout history some cultures have emphasized one perspective more than the other, which has radically changed how humans think about and conceptualize our own selves. Technologies and media often implicitly enforce one perspective: for instance, television and movies take the extrinsic perspective, exploring the world of relations and images, while literature and novels take the intrinsic perspective, exploring the world of consciousness.
Hoel offers a whirlwind tour of the two perspectives across the ages, like how the intrinsic perspective is absent from Homeric epics and earlier eras, its historical development and ultimate culmination in the invention of the novel, the separation of the two perspectives by Galileo Galilei when he recommended science remove the observer to focus solely on the extrinsic, and the reintroduction of the intrinsic perspective to science by Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA, who proposed a search for the neural correlates of consciousness that continues to this day.
Hoel shows how our picture of reality is incomplete following Galileo’s separation and emphasis on the extrinsic. The ignored intrinsic perspective sheds light on fundamental scientific questions like causation, emergence, how the brain functions, the biological purpose of dreaming, artificial intelligence, and even why humans create art. He reveals how our own culture is becoming more based in the extrinsic perspective over time, neglecting the intrinsic and forgetting the importance of human consciousness, all to its cultural, scientific, and artistic detriment.
Ultimately, the two perspectives have stood apart for too long and must be reunited. To this end Hoel proposes a way to merge the intrinsic and the extrinsic in a radical new theory of consciousness.

Erik Hoel received his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Madison-Wisconsin. He is a research assistant professor at Tufts University and was previously a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University in the NeuroTechnology Lab, and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Hoel is a 2018 Forbes “30 under 30” for his neuroscientific research on consciousness. His first novel, The Revelations, was published in April 2021 by The Overlook Press. He lives in Massachusetts.