Why Philosophize? is a series of lectures given by Jean-Francois Lyotard to students at the Sorbonne embarking on their university studies. The circumstances obliged him to be both clear and concise: at the same time, his lectures offer a profound and far-reaching meditation on how essential it is to philosophize in a world where philosophy often seems irrelevant, outdated, or inconclusive. Lyotard begins by drawing on Plato, Proust and Lacan to show that philosophy is a never-ending desire - for wisdom, for the other . In the second lecture he draws on Heraclitus and Hegel to explore the close relation between philosophy and history: the same restlessness, the same longing for a precarious unity, drives both. In his third lecture, Lyotard examines how philosophy is a form of utterance, both communicative and indirect. Finally, he turns to Marx, exploring the extent to which philosophy can be a transformative action within the world. These wonderfully accessible lectures by one of the most influential philosophers of the last 50 years will attract a wide readership, since, as Lyotard says, How can one not philosophize? They are also an excellent introduction to Lyotard s mature thought, with its emphasis on the need for philosophy to bear witness, however obliquely, to a recalcitrant reality.

This fine edition of Cicero's treatises on the topics of friendship, old age and life contains the respected translation of E. S. Shuckburgh. Written in the second century A.D., these writings encapsulate the wisdom and ability possessed by their author. Already well into maturity, it is here that the accumulated experience of a man who had - in an illustrious career of public service in the Roman Empire - seen and known all manner of events and people in his bustling society. The attributes important to friendship are identified by Cicero as he discusses the qualities a good friend should have. There are several intractable virtues of friendship, which must be preserved lest the union be damaged. The second treatise elaborates upon what it is to be old. Writing so as to echo the much esteemed Cato the Elder, the beauty and profundity of the words in this essay are significant. The clear and plain yet succinct and wistfully eloquent words elaborate on aging and the concerns that arrive with it.