How can I find purpose in my life?

Many of us go through our lives unsure of what we are for, struggling every day to find meaning. But the timeless wisdom of Indian culture shows us another way.

In Hindu philosophy, there are four goals that all human beings strive for: virtue, prosperity, love and freedom. If you can find the balance between them, you will discover the Four-Way Path – and begin a journey into true and lasting fulfilment.

Inspiring and comforting, this book honours some of the oldest and greatest spiritual practices to explain how the Four-Way Path can awaken your purpose, free you from stress and fear, and find lasting peace. It will unlock a life full of happiness and meaning.

Big ideas that just might save the world. the Guardian A serious book on an important subject. Without imagination, where are we? Sir Quentin Blake What if we took play seriously? What if we considered imagination vital to our health? What if we followed nature’s lead? What if school nurtured young imaginations? What if things turned out okay? Rob Hopkins asks the most important question that society has somehow forgotten – What If? Hopkins explores what we must do to revive and replenish our collective imagination. If we can rekindle that precious creative spark, whole societies and cultures can change – rapidly, dramatically and unexpectedly – for the better. There really is no end to what we might accomplish. From What Is to What If is the most inspiring, courageous and necessary book you will read this year; a call to action to reclaim and unleash the power of our imaginations and to solve the problems of our time. Meet the individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now – and creating brighter futures for us all.  At last, we have a design for our dreams. I believe we have a debt of honour to take action. Please read this book and defy the herd. Are we golden or are we debris? Mark Stewart, musician, The Pop Group and Mark Stewart & The Maffia

The author's royalties from this book are being donated to Saint Frances Hospice, a charity that cares for people with palliative and end of life care needs. The kindness project is full of practical, actionable ideas on how you can make the world a kinder place one small step at a time, and in turn improve your own personal wellbeing. We'll explore how you can be kind every single day we'll look at how to be kind whilst at home and at work, and examine, importantly, how to be kinder to ourselves. From the co-host of the Kindness Project Podcast, Chris Daems, comes a book about hope, about faith in his fellow humans and why finding small incremental ways to be kind every single day can help us become happier and healthier. Learning from some of the kindest people on our planet, Chris explains how we all benefit from being a little kinder and whilst looking for kindness in others found his own road to being a little bit kinder himself. Further details "In The Kindness Project, Chris Daems gifts readers a brazenly honest and highly engaging account of his own quest to be kinder in life. -Lauren Janus "This is a book that makes you reflect on your own character and relationships, what it means to be kind to yourself and others. A warm, enjoyable, inspirational read, packed full of wisdom and actionable ideas." -KeithBoyes

considers the metaphysical tradition of the contemplation of Being: Homer, the Greek Tragedians, Plato, Plotinus and the development of the tradition in the Middle Ages. Von Balthasar then explores the analogy between the metaphysical vision of Being and the Christian vision of the Trinity.

This work presents a sustained reflection on the New Testament vision of God's revelation of his glory in Christ. This divine "appearing" is grounded in the self-emptying of the eternal Logos in the incarnation, cross and descent into hell, yet this is the means whereby his glory is manifested and enriches all who are seized by its beauty.

An utterly unique and accessible introduction to the ancient principles of Taoism with the world's favourite bear, Winnie-the-Pooh and his friend Piglet.

Winnie-the-Pooh has a certain way about him, a way of doing things that has made him the world's most beloved bear, and Pooh's Way, as Benjamin Hoff brilliantly demonstrates, seems strangely close to the ancient Chinese principles of Taoism. And as for Piglet, he embodies the very important principle of Te, meaning Virtue of the Small.

"It's hard to be brave,' said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal."
Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: "It is because you are a very small animal that you will be useful in the adventure before us."

Benjamin Hoff's explanations of Taoism and Te through Pooh and Piglet show that this is not an ancient and remote philosophy but something that you can use, here and now. Beautifully illustrated by E H Shepard.

In this volume von Balthasar turns to the works of the lay theologians, the poets and the philosopher theologians who have kept alive the Grand Tradition of Christian theology in writings formally very different from the works of the Fathers and the great Scholastics. This volume contains studies of Dante, John of the Cross, Pascal, Hamann, Soloviev, Hopkins and Peguy.

offers a series of earlier Christian theology when the aesthetic view was still held and appreciated. Drawing insights from some of the leading figures of the early Church such as Anselm, Augustine, Bonaventura, Denys and Irenaeus, von Balthasar presents his views with a freshness and vigour rarely excelled in contemporary theological writing about the Grand Tradition.

This timely and up to date new edition of Biomedicine and Beatitude features an entirely new chapter on the ethics of bodily modification. It is also updated throughout to reflect the pontificate of Pope Francis, recent concerns including ethical issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, and feedback from the many instructors who used the first edition in the classroom

Following the catastrophic events of the 2008 global financial crisis, an anonymous hacker released Bitcoin to claw back power from commercial and central banks. It quickly garnered an enthusiastic following who sought to forge a stable and democratic global economy—a world free from hierarchy and control. In their eyes, Bitcoin's underlying architecture, blockchain, hailed the dawn of decentralisation. Money Code Space shatters these emancipatory claims. In their place, Jack Parkin constructs a new framework for revealing the geographies of power that lie behind blockchain networks. Drawing on first-hand experience in cryptocurrency communities and start-up companies from Silicon Valley to London, Parkin untangles the complex web of culture, politics, and economics that truly drive decentralisation.

This text opens with a critical review of developments in Protestant and Catholic theology since the Reformation which have led to the steady neglect of aesthetics in Christian theology. Then, von Balthasar turns to the central theme of the volume, the question of theological knowledge. He re-examines the nature of Christian believing, drawing widely on such theological figures as Anselm, Pascal and Newman.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Plato's Republic has influenced Western philosophers for centuries, with its main focus on what makes a well-balanced society and individual.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.`Opportunities multiply as they are seized.'Written in the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise that is still revered today as the ultimate commentary on war and military strategy. Focussing on the principle that one can outsmart your foe mentally by thinking very carefully about strategy before resorting to physical battle, this philosophy continues to be applied to the corporate and business world.Sun Tzu's timeless appraisal of the different aspects of warfare are laid out in 13 chapters, including sections on `Laying Plans', `Waging War' and `Terrain'. Words that are as resonant today in every aspect of our lives as they were when he wrote them.

'A thinker on fire' - Robin D. G. Kelley Identity politics is everywhere, polarising discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media. But the compulsively referenced phrase bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, identity politics is now frequently weaponised as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests. But the trouble, Olufe mi O. Taiwo deftly argues, is not with identity politics itself. Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism, Taiwo identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and liberatory potential by becoming the victim of elite capture -deployed by political, social and economic elites in the service of their own interests. Taiwo's crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond the binary of 'class' vs. 'race'. By rejecting elitist identity politics in favour of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organising across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world.

From one of the most influential thinkers of our time, an enlightening, essential account of how a fear of gender is fuelling reactionary politics around the world

Judith Butler, the ground-breaking philosopher whose work has redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on gender that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed ‘anti-gender ideology movements’ dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilization – and even ‘man’ himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to abolish reproductive justice, undermine protections against violence, and strip trans and queer people of their rights.

But what, exactly, is so disturbing about gender? In this vital, courageous book, Butler carefully examines how ‘gender’ has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations and transexclusionary feminists, and the concrete ways in which this phantasm works. Operating in tandem with deceptive accounts of critical race theory and xenophobic panics about migration, the anti-gender movement demonizes struggles for equality and leaves millions of people vulnerable to subjugation.

An essential intervention into one of the most fraught issues of our moment, Who's Afraid of Gender? is a galvanizing call to make a broad coalition with all those who struggle for equality and fight injustice. Imagining new possibilities for freedom and solidarity, Butler offers us an essentially hopeful work that is both timely and timeless.

Frank Jackson champions the cause of conceptual analysis as central to philosophical inquiry. In recent years conceptual analysis has been undervalued and, Jackson suggests, widely misunderstood; he argues that there is nothing especially mysterious about it and a whole range of important questions cannot be productively addressed without it. He anchors his argument in discussion of specific philosophical issues, starting with the metaphysical doctrine of physicalism and moving on, via free will, meaning, personal identity, motion and change, to the philosophy of colour and to ethics. The significance of different kinds of supervenience theses, Kripke and Putnam's work in the philosophy of modality and language, and the role of intuitions about possible cases receive detailed attention. Jackson concludes with a defence of a version of analytical descriptivism in ethics. In this way the book not only offers a methodological programme for philosophy, but also throws fascinating new light on some much-debated problems and their interrelations. puffs which may be quoted (please do not edit without consulting OUP editor): 'This is an outstanding book. It covers a vast amount of philosophy in a very short space, advances a number of original and striking positions, and manages to be both clear and concise in its expositions of other views and forceful in its criticisms of them. The book offers something new for those interested in the various individual problems it discusses-conceptual analysis, the mind-body relation, secondary qualities, modality, and ethical realism. But unifying these individual discussions is an ambitious structure which amounts to an outline of a complete metaphysical system, and an outline of an epistemology for this metaphysics. It is hard to think of a central area of analytic philosophy which will not be touched by Jackson's conclusions.' Tim Crane, Reader in Philosophy, University College London 'The writing is clear, straightforward, and down to earth-the usual virtues one expects from Jackson . . . what he has to say is innovative and valuable . . . the book deals with a large number of apparently diverse philosophical issues, but it is also an elegantly unified work. What gives it unity is the metaphilosophical framework that Jackson works out with great care and persuasiveness. This is the first serious and sustained work on the methodology of metaphysics in recent memory. What he says about the role of conceptual analysis in metaphysics is an important and timely contribution. . . . It is refreshing and heartening to see a first-class analytic philosopher doing some serious metaphilosophical work . . . I think that the book will be greeted as an important event in philosophical publishing.' Jaegwon Kim, Professor of Philosophy, Brown University

Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. He has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings and listens as the men and women he works with explore new ways to think about their situation. Could we ever be good if we never felt shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness? Could someone in prison ever be more free than someone outside? These questions about how to live are ones we all need to ask, but in this setting they are even more urgent. When Andy steps into jail, he also confronts his inherited guilt: his father, uncle and brother all spent time in prison. He has built a different life for himself, but he still fears that their fate will be his. As he discusses questions of truth, identity and hope with his students, he searches for his own form of freedom. Moving, sympathetic, wise and frequently funny, The Life Inside is an elegantly written and unforgettable book. Through its blend of memoir, storytelling and gentle philosophical questioning, readers will gain a new insight into our justice system, our prisons and the plurality of lives found inside.