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What Is Progress
- Narrated by: Mike Ortego
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
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What Is Progress
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Publisher's summary
Does the idea of progress still apply to our times? If so, what does progress really mean?
Today, many believe that progress is a word to be avoided, a relic from a past, the dangerous product of an era of intellectual naivety that would be best forgotten. Yet, the idea of progress is rooted in a human impulse that is both profound and essential, a way of interpreting history without which our ability to plan the future, our very identity would be at stake.
Written just before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic — which is now putting its argument to the hardest of tests — this lucid essay explores how science and technology have been, and can still be, a powerful engine for human and humane advancement.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 214
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
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Anaximander
- And the Birth of Science
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story5 out of 5 stars 45
Over two millennia ago, the prescient insights of Anaximander paved the way for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biology, setting in motion a new way of seeing the world. His legacy includes the revolutionary ideas that the Earth floats in a void, that animals evolved, that the world can be understood in natural rather than supernatural terms, and that universal laws govern all phenomena. In this elegant work, the renowned theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli brings to light the importance of Anaximander’s overlooked influence on modern science
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4 out of 5 stars
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Wide ranging case for a Critical Figure in the Evolution of Science
- By Tom on 03-20-23
By: Carlo Rovelli
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The Ascent of Humanity
- Civilization and the Human Sense of Self
- By: Charles Eisenstein
- Narrated by: Steve Wojtas
- Length: 27 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. He argues that our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of science, religion, money, technology, economics, medicine, and education as we know them. It has fired our near-pathological pursuit of technological Utopias even as we push ourselves and our planet to the brink of collapse.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I love this author!
- By Tamara Smith on 12-03-17
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Between Past and Future
- Eight Exercises in Political Thought
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story5 out of 5 stars 40
Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just stunning
- By Peter Stephens on 02-26-18
By: Hannah Arendt
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The Master and His Emissary
- The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 552
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 453
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 446
This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain - the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the "rational" side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Master and His Emissary
- By Michael on 11-07-20
By: Iain McGilchrist
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Orientalism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 591
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 477
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 478
This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."
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5 out of 5 stars
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We're lucky to have this on audio
- By Delano on 02-27-13
By: Edward Said
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Irrational Man
- A Study in Existential Philosophy
- By: William Barrett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
Widely recognized as the finest definition of existentialist philosophy ever written, this book introduced existentialism to America in 1958. Irrational Man begins by discussing the roots of existentialism in the art and thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoevski, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book explains the views of the foremost existentialists - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. The result is a marvelously lucid definition of existentialism and a brilliant interpretation of its impact.
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4 out of 5 stars
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heady
- By A. Antine on 07-28-22
By: William Barrett
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The Function of Reason
- By: Alfred North Whitehead
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 2 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Whitehead presented these three lectures at Princeton University in 1929. Although 85 years have passed, his central thesis and his analysis remain remarkably current. The scientific materialism that Whitehead opposed with such vigor continues to dominate in academic circles, and even now those who question that worldview are often accused of being antiscientific. This is especially true in discussions of the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body (particularly the brain).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good
- By Benjamin on 06-17-22
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How to Save the West
- Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises
- By: Spencer Klavan
- Narrated by: Spencer Klavan
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 176
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 161
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Story5 out of 5 stars 159
It has been proclaimed many times, but perhaps never more convincingly than now, when every news cycle seems to deliver further confirmation of a world gone mad. Is this the endgame? Author Spencer Klavan is a classicist, with a Ph.D. from Oxford, and a deep understanding of the West. His analysis: The situation is dire. But every crisis we face today, we have faced before. And we can surmount each one. Klavan brings to the West’s defense the insights of Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, and the Founding Fathers to show that in the wisdom of the past lies hope for the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Spectacular! A must read!
- By M.A. on 02-15-23
By: Spencer Klavan
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Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
- Thinkers of the New Left
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. Scruton delivers a critique of modern left-wing thinking.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deconstructing the New Left
- By Wayne on 01-17-20
By: Roger Scruton
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The Hedgehog and the Fox (Second Edition)
- An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History
- By: Isaiah Berlin, Henry Hardy - editor, Michael Ignatieff - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." This ancient Greek aphorism, preserved in a fragment from the poet Archilochus, describes the central thesis of Isaiah Berlin's masterly essay on Leo Tolstoy and the philosophy of history, the subject of the epilogue to War and Peace. Although there have been many interpretations of the adage, Berlin uses it to mark a fundamental distinction between human beings who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things and those who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Fox Who Tried To Be A Hedgehog
- By Rich S. on 12-14-21
By: Isaiah Berlin, and others
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Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers
- The Ideas That Have Shaped Our World
- By: Philip Stokes
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4 out of 5 stars 94
This engaging and accessible book invites the listener to explore the questions and arguments of philosophy through the work of 100 of the greatest thinkers within the Western intellectual tradition - covering philosophical, scientific, political, and religious thought over a period of 2500 years.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unpretentious, honest, with a big picture
- By Mike S. on 05-29-17
By: Philip Stokes
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Martin Heidegger
- By: George Steiner
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
With characteristic lucidity and style, Steiner makes Heidegger's immensely difficult body of work accessible to the general reader. In a new introduction, Steiner addresses language and philosophy and the rise of Nazism. "It would be hard to imagine a better introduction to the work of philosopher Martin Heidegger." (George Kateb, The New Republic)
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic - very approachable yet competent
- By Bob on 04-15-19
By: George Steiner
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The Nutmeg's Curse
- Parables for a Planet in Crisis
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis.
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5 out of 5 stars
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performance....
- By Bonnie on 11-15-22
By: Amitav Ghosh