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Peter Cave

    Peter Cave is a philosopher whose work is dedicated to exploring fundamental philosophical questions and making them accessible to a wide audience. Through his books and lectures, he prompts readers to contemplate complex concepts, offering fresh perspectives on human existence and the world around us. His engaging approach demystifies profound ideas, inviting readers into the ongoing dialogue of philosophical inquiry.

    The Big Think Book
    Can a Robot Be Human?
    Primary School in Japan
    How to Outwit Aristotle
    The Myths We Live by
    Invisible Enemy in Kazakhstan
    • 2024

      An entertaining guide to history's most fascinating philosophers - from Sappho to Kant, and Aristotle to Simone de Beauvoir - which seeks to help us answer life's big questions. In showing how the great philosophers of human history lived and thought - and what they thought about - Peter Cave provides an accessible and enjoyable introduction to thinking philosophically and how it can change our everyday lives. He addresses questions such as: Is there anything 'out there' that gives meaning to our lives? Does reality tell us how we ought to live? What indeed is reality and what is appearance - and how can we tell the difference? This book paints vivid portraits of an assortment of inspiring thinkers: from Lao Tzu to Avicenna to Iris Murdoch; from Hannah Arendt to Socrates and Plato to Karl Marx; from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Sartre to Samuel Beckett - and let us not forget Lewis Carroll for some thought-provoking fantasies and Ludwig Wittgenstein for the anguishes of a genius. As well as displaying optimists and pessimists, believers and non- believers, the book displays relevance to current affairs, from free speech to abortion to the treatment of animals to our leaders' moral character. Cave brings to life these often prescient, always compelling philosophical thinkers, showing how their ways of approaching the world grew out of their own lives and times and how we may make valuable use of their insights today. Now, more than ever, we need to understand how to live, and how to understand the world around us.

      How to Think Like a Philosopher: Scholars, Dreamers and Sages Who Can Teach Us How to Live
    • 2023

      In showing how the great philosophers of human history lived and thought - and what they thought about - Peter Cave provides an accessible and enjoyable introduction to thinking philosophically and how it can change our everyday lives. With a lightness of touch, he addresses questions such as: Is there anything 'out there' that gives meaning to our lives? Does reality tell us how we ought to live? What indeed is reality and what is appearance - and how can we tell the difference?This book paints vivid portraits of an assortment of inspiring thinkers: from Lao Tzu to Avicenna to Iris Murdoch; from Hannah Arendt to Socrates and Plato to Karl Marx; from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Sartre to Samuel Beckett - and let us not forget Lewis Carroll for some thought-provoking fantasies and Ludwig Wittgenstein for the anguishes of a genius. As well as displaying optimists and pessimists, believers and non-believers, the book displays relevance to current affairs, from free speech to abortion to the treatment of animals to our leaders' moral character.In each brief chapter, Cave brings to life these often prescient, always compelling philosophical thinkers, showing how their ways of approaching the world grew out of their own lives and times and how we may make valuable use of their insights today. Now, more than ever, we need to understand how to live, and how to understand the world around us. This is the perfect guide.

      How to Think Like a Philosopher
    • 2019

      The Myths We Live by

      • 352 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      Discover how philosophy can shine a light on the world's most divisive issues.

      The Myths We Live by
    • 2018

      Jews

      • 301 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      Covers what it is like to be a Jew in modern times authored by a rabbi and a philosopher.

      Jews
    • 2016
    • 2016

      Schooling Selves

      • 296 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      Balancing the development of autonomy with that of social interdependence is a crucial aim of education in any society, but nowhere has it been more hotly debated than in Japan, where controversial education reforms over the past twenty years have attempted to reconcile the two goals. In this book, Peter Cave explores these reforms as they have played out at the junior high level, the most intense pressure point in the Japanese system, a time when students prepare for the high school entrance exams that will largely determine their educational trajectories and future livelihoods.           Cave examines the implementation of “relaxed education” reforms that attempted to promote individual autonomy and free thinking in Japanese classrooms. As he shows, however, these policies were eventually transformed by educators and school administrators into curricula and approaches that actually promoted social integration over individuality, an effect opposite to the reforms’ intended purpose. With vivid detail, he offers the voices of teachers, students, and parents to show what happens when national education policies run up against long-held beliefs and practices, and what their complex and conflicted interactions say about the production of self and community in education. The result is a fascinating analysis of a turbulent era in Japanese education that offers lessons for educational practitioners in any country. 

      Schooling Selves
    • 2016

      Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission, But can the SAS prevent Britain descending into war-torn anarchy?

      War on the Streets
    • 2015

      Ethics

      • 230 pages
      • 9 hours of reading
      3.5(27)Add rating

      A bestselling thinker combines theory and practice in this essential primer to the most popular branch of philosophy

      Ethics
    • 2015

      The Big Think Book

      • 544 pages
      • 20 hours of reading
      3.7(62)Add rating

      Peter Cave’s best-selling trio of humorous philosophy titles — What’s Wrong With Eating People?, Can a Robot be Human?, and Do Llamas Fall in Love? — brought together in one big book.What makes me, me – and you, you?What is this thing called ‘love’? Does life have a point?Is ‘no’ the right answer to this question?Philosophy transports us from the wonderful to the weird, from the funny to the very serious indeed. With the aid of tall stories, jokes, fascinating insights and common sense, Peter Cave offers a comprehensive survey of all areas of philosophy, addressing the big puzzles in ethics and politics, metaphysics and knowledge, religion and the emotions, aesthetics and logic. Replete with a smorgasbord of amusing and mind-boggling examples, The Big Think Book is perfect for anyone who delights in life’s conundrums.

      The Big Think Book
    • 2012