From popular introductions to biographies and television programmes, philosophy is everywhere. Many people even want to be philosophers, usually in the café or the pub. But what do real philosophers do? What are the big philosophical issues of today? Why do they matter? How did some our best philosophers get into philosophy in the first place?
Read New British Philosophy and find out for the first time. Clear, engaging and designed for a general audience, sixteen fascinating interviews with some of the top philosophers from the new generation of the subject's leaders range from music to the mind and feminism to the future of philosophy.
Each interview is introduced and conducted by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom of The Philosophers Magazine. This is a unique snapshot of philosophy in Great Britain today and includes interviews with:
Ray Monk - Biography; Nigel Warburton - the Public; Aaron Ridley - Music; Jonathan Wolff - Politics; Roger Crisp - Ethics; Rae Langton - Pornography; Miranda Fricker - Knowledge; M.G.F.Martin - Perception; Timothy Williamson - Vagueness; Tim Crane - Mind; Robin Le Poidevin - Metaphysics; Christina Howells - Sartre; Simon Critchley - Phenomenology; Simon Glendinning - Continental; Stephen Mulhall - the Future; Keith Ansell Pearson - the Human.

The new book from high profile philosophy writers Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom (authors of the hugely successful "Why Truth Matters"), exploring a topical and controversial religious and cultural issue in a highly accessible manner.This fascinating book explores the role that religion and culture play in the oppression of women. Philosophy writers Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom ask probing questions about the way that religion shields the oppression of women from criticism and why many Western liberals, leftists and feminists have remained largely silent on the subject.The lives of women in the industrialized world have improved enormously in the last hundred years, especially so, in social, cultural and political terms, in the last forty. But throughout the rest of the world, a great many women lead lives of misery and sometimes plain horror. They are often considered and treated as the property of men and have few, if any, rights. Such treatment is generally sustained and protected by a combination of religion and culture."Does God Hate Women?" explores instances of the oppression of women in the name of religious and cultural norms and how these issues play out both in the community and in the political arena. Drawing on philosophical concerns such as truth, relativism, knowledge and ethics, Benson and Stangroom assess the current situation and provide a rallying call for a progressive politics that is committed to universal values. This important new book will appeal to anyone interested in issues of global justice, human rights and multiculturalism.

Truth has always been a central preoccupation of philosophy in all its forms and traditions. However, in the late twentieth century truth became suddenly rather unfashionable. The precedence given to assorted political and ideological agendas, along with the rise of relativism, postmodernism and pseudoscience in academia, led to a decline both of truth as a serious subject, and an intellectual tradition that began with the Enlightenment. Why Truth Matters is a timely, incisive and entertaining look at how and why modern thought and culture lost sight of the importance of truth. It is also an eloquent and inspiring argument for restoring truth to its rightful place. Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson, editors of the successful butterfliesandwheels website - itself established to 'fight fashionable nonsense' - identify and debunk such nonsense, and the spurious claims made for it, in all its forms. Their account ranges over religious fundamentalism, Holocaust denial, the challenges of postmodernism and deconstruction, the wilful misinterpretation of evolutionary biology, identity politics and wishful thinking. Why Truth Matters is both a rallying cry for the Enlightement vision and an essential read for anyone who's ever been bored, frustrated, bewildered or plain enraged by the worst excesses of the fashionable intelligentsia.

A philosopher and mathematician presents fifty of the most engrossing, ingenious riddles ever devised.

Riddles, paradoxes, and puzzles have been confusing and delighting people for millennia. Zeno of Elea wondered how a hare could ever catch a tortoise in a race: every time the hare catches up, the tortoise has moved very slightly ahead. Schrodinger had his cat, Bertrand his box, and Russell his paradoxes.

These time-honored mind benders have tantalized and mesmerized us for years. Now, in one book, Jeremy Stangroom presents the classics in this field: the Monty Hall Problem; the Liar's Paradox; the Hangman's Paradox; and, of course, Einstein's Riddle. Stylishly designed and lucidly written, this book is a classic of its genre. It's perfect for beginning logicians--Einstein devised the titular riddle when he was a child--and advanced thinkers the world around.

By turns infuriating, fascinating, and gloriously satisfying, these puzzles will keep you thinking and guessing from beginning to end.

'There is a powerful and revealing means to find out what scientists think. You ask them.' From the Foreword, By Marek Kohn 'A pleasure at last to get access to the varied views of scientists', Lewis Wolpert, University College London What are scientists working on today? What do they worry about? What do they think about the working of the brain, climate change, animal experimentation, cancer, and mental illness? Is science progressing or in retreat? Is this century humankind's last? These are just some of the compelling and provocative questions tackled here by twelve of world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify many of the most urgent scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today. Steven Pinker Evolutionary Psychology Robin Murray Psychiatry and schizophrenia Kevin Warwick Cybernetics Susan Greenfield The Brain and human consciousness Norman Levitt Science under threat E.O. threats Michael Stratton Cancer research Martin Rees Science: It's Dangers and It's Public Colin Blakemore Medical Research, Animal Experimentation and Science Kenan Malik Science and the human animal Essential reading for anyone interested in popular science, What Scientists Think is edited and written by Jeremy Stangroom of the of the highly successful The Philosopher's Magazine. With a Foreword by Marek Kohn, author of A Reason for Everything: Natural Selection and the British Imagination. Steven Pinker, Robin Murray, Kevin Warwick, Susan Greenfield, Norman Levitt, E.O. Wilson, Steve Jones, Dorothy Crawford, Michael Stratton, Martin Rees, Colin Blakemore, John Polkinghorne

Explore the gray areas in your gray matter with philosophical brainteasers from armchair philosopher and bestselling author of The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, Julian Baggini. Is your brain ready for a thorough philosophical health check? Julian Baggini, the author of the international bestseller The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, and his fellow founding editor of The Philosopher's Magazine Jeremy Stangroom have some thought-provoking questions about your thinking: Is what you believe coherent and consistent, or a jumble of contradictions? If you could design a God, what would He, She, or It be like? And how will you fare on the tricky terrain of ethics when your taboos are under the spotlight? Do You Think What You Think You Think features a dozen philosophical quizzes guaranteed to make armchair philosophers uncomfortably shift in their seats. Fun, challenging, and surprising, this book will enable you to discover the you you never knew you were.

The Story of Philosophy sees philosophy for what it is: a passionate, exhilarating quest for human understanding that cannot be reduced to dry categories or simple definitions. It's a story with plot twists, a murder, accidental discoveries, disastrous love affairs, geniuses, idiots, monks, and vagabonds. At the heart of it all are the ideas and obsessions that have captured great thinkers from the very beginning. Packed with intriguing anecdotes and fascinating detail, James Garvey and Jeremy Stangroom bring us face to face with the most important philosophers in western history. Rigorous, refreshingly free of academic jargon, and highly accessible, this is the ideal introduction for anyone who wants to gain a new perspective on philosophy's biggest thoughts.

What are leading scientists working on now? What do they think about the working of the brain, climate change, animal experimentation, cancer, and mental illness? Is science progressing or in retreat? Is this century humankind's last?
These are just some of the compelling questions discussed by twelve of world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers in this fascinating book. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify many of the complex scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today. They also explain what drives their interest in science, revealing something of the often-neglected personal side of science.
Steven Pinker Evolutionary Psychology
Robin Murray Psychiatry and Schizophrenia
Kevin Warwick Cybernetics
Susan Greenfield The Brain and Human Consciousness
Norman Levitt Science under Threat
E.O. Wilson Biodiversity
Steve Jones Genes
Dorothy Crawford Viruses and their Threats
Michael Stratton Cancer Research
Martin Rees Science: Its Dangers and Its Public
Colin Blakemore Medical Research, Animal Experimentation and Science
John Polkinghorne Science and Religion

Following on from the success of the first edition of "What Philosophers Think," this second edition brings together a collection of interviews with some of the world's most important and influential philosophers and intellectuals and leading figures in the arts and politics, including: Bernard Williams - Onora O'Neill - Philippa Foot - Philip Pullman - Bhikhu Parekh - Slavoj i ek - AC Grayling - Igor Alexander - Alexander McCall Smith - Daniel Dennett - Oliver Letwin The interviews - all revised and expanded from "The Philosopher's Magazine" - cover a wide range of issues and offer a unique insight into the minds behind the great ideas of today. Always lively, provocative and accessible, these interviews get to the heart of today's most vital questions.

What does evolution mean today? Do we have free will? How is technology changing the way we understand life? Where is God? Does art have a value? Is science the new philosophy? What are the ethics of making war? How does language hold meaning? Is freedom possible? These are only some of the questions addressed in What Philosophers Think, a collection of interviews with some of the world's leading philosophers and intellectuals. The interviews cover a wide range of themes, including sex, religion, politics, language, consciousness, evil, feminism and art. They offer a unique insight into the minds behind the great ideas of today. Always lively, provocative and accessible, these interviews get to the heart of today's most vital questions.

Great Thinkers, AZ brings together 100 short, accessible snapshots of the people who have shaped Western thought from the ancient Greeks to today. The snapshots, written by the world's leading experts, describe a major thinker's life and work with suggestions for further reading on each one. Covering philosophers as well as cultural and scientific thinkers such as Foucault, Darwin, Einstein and Freud who have had a major impact on philosophy, Great Thinkers, AZ is the ideal book for anyone interested in the history of ideas and in contemporary thought. Entries include: Adorno, Arendt, Aquinas, Aristotle, Augustine, Avicenna, Ayer, Bacon, Baudrillard, de Beauvoir, Benjamin, Bentham, Bergson, Berkeley, Boethius, Brentano, Butler, Camus, Carnap, Chomsky, Churchland, Cixous, Collingwood, Comte, Craik, Croce, Darwin, Davidson, Deleuze, Dennett, Descartes, Derrida, Dewey, Dilthey, Duns Scotus, Einstein, Foucault, Frege, Freud, Gadamer, Godel, Habermas, Hayek, Hegel, Heidegger, Hobbes, Hume, Husserl, Irigaray, James, Kant, Kierkegaard, Kripke, Kristeva, Kuhn, Leibniz, Levinas, Lewis, Locke, Machiavelli, MacIntyre, Marx, Macmurray, Merleau-Ponty, Mill, Montaigne, Moore, Nagel, Negri, Nietzsche, Nozick, Nussbaum, Paine, Pascal, Peirce, Plato, Plotinus, Popper, Putnam, Pythagoras, Quine, Rawls, Rorty, Rousseau, Russell, Santayana, Sartre, Schopenhauer, Searle, Seneca, Sidgwick, Singer, Socrates, Spinoza, Taylor, Turing, Vico, Weil, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Zeno