Five Thousand B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies by Raymond Smullyan is a collection of paradoxes, dialogues, problems, and essays exploring philosophical ideas. This fascinating book will challenge your understanding of reality, truth, morality, existence, and death. Raymond Smullyan is a logician, mathematician, and philosopher and is the author of books including The Tao Is Silent, What Is the Name of This Book?, To Mock a Mockinbird and others.

The Tao Is Silent Is Raymond Smullyan's beguiling and whimsical guide to the meaning and value of eastern philosophy to westerners. "To me," Writes Smullyan, "Taoism means a state of inner serenity combined with an intense aesthetic awareness. Neither alone is adequate; a purely passive serenity is kind of dull, and an anxiety-ridden awareness is not very appealing." This is more than a book on Chinese philosophy. It is a series of ideas inspired by Taoism that treats a wide variety of subjects about life in general. Smullyan sees the Taoist as "one who is not so much in search of something he hasn't, but who is enjoying what he has." Readers will be charmed and inspired by this witty, sophisticated, yet deeply religious author, whether he is discussing gardening, dogs, the art of napping, or computers who dream that they're human.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This volume was originally published in 1989 and contains columns from published 1976-1978. This 1997 MAA edition contains three new columns written specifically for this volume including the resurrection of the lamented Dr. Matrix.

From Simon & Schuster, This Book Needs No Title is Raymond Smullyan's budget of living paradoxes—the author of What is the Name of This Book? Including eighty paradoxes, logical labyrinths, and intriguing enigmas progress from light fables and fancies to challenging Zen exercises and a novella and probe the timeless questions of philosophy and life.

A new edition of the bestselling classic – published with a special introduction to mark its 10th anniversary 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. As he shows, it is the right side which is the more reliable and insightful. Without it, our world would be mechanistic – stripped of depth, colour and value.

Table of contents - Plato, Knowledge and Opinion, from 'Republic'; - Augustine, Three Things True and Certain, from 'City of God'; - Aquinas, Whether Faith is More Certain than Science . . . ? from 'Summa Theologica'; - Descartes, Meditations I, II, VI, from 'Meditations'; - Leibniz, On the Method of Distinguishing Real from 'Imaginary Phenomena'; - Hume, Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy, from 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'; - Reid, Reflections on the Common Theory of Ideas, from 'Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man'; - Husserl, First Meditation; the Way to the Transcendental Ego, from 'Cartesian Meditations'; - Moore, Certainty, from 'Philosophical Papers'; - Wittgenstein, On Certainty, from 'On Certainty'; - Reichenbach, The Search for Certainty and the Rationalistic Conception of Knowledge, from 'The Rise of Scientific Philosophy'; - Malcolm, Do I Know I Am Awake? from 'Dreaming'; - Bouwsma, Descartes Evil Genius, from 'Philosophical Essays'; - Smullyan, Dream or Reality, from 5000 B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies; - Octavio Paz, Certainty, a poem from 'Configurations'.

‘A rare and remarkable book.' Times Literary Supplement Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. He is a key figure in poststructuralism, and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Félix Guattari (1930-1992) was a psychoanalyst at the la Borde Clinic, as well as being a major social theorist and radical activist. A Thousand Plateaus is part of Deleuze and Guattari's landmark philosophical project, Capitalism and Schizophrenia - a project that still sets the terms of contemporary philosophical debate. A Thousand Plateaus provides a compelling analysis of social phenomena and offers fresh alternatives for thinking about philosophy and culture. Its radical perspective provides a toolbox for ‘nomadic thought' and has had a galvanizing influence on today's anti-capitalist movement. Translated by Brian Massumi>

A lively and engaging look at logic puzzles and their role in mathematics, philosophy, and recreation Logic puzzles were first introduced to the public by Lewis Carroll in the late nineteenth century and have been popular ever since. Games like Sudoku and Mastermind are fun and engrossing recreational activities, but they also share deep foundations in mathematical logic and are worthy of serious intellectual inquiry. Games for Your Mind explores the history and future of logic puzzles while enabling you to test your skill against a variety of puzzles yourself. In this informative and entertaining book, Jason Rosenhouse begins by introducing readers to logic and logic puzzles and goes on to reveal the rich history of these puzzles. He shows how Carroll's puzzles presented Aristotelian logic as a game for children, yet also informed his scholarly work on logic. He reveals how another pioneer of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan, drew on classic puzzles about liars and truthtellers to illustrate Kurt Gödel's theorems and illuminate profound questions in mathematical logic. Rosenhouse then presents a new vision for the future of logic puzzles based on nonclassical logic, which is used today in computer science and automated reasoning to manipulate large and sometimes contradictory sets of data. Featuring a wealth of sample puzzles ranging from simple to extremely challenging, this lively and engaging book brings together many of the most ingenious puzzles ever devised, including the "Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever," metapuzzles, paradoxes, and the logic puzzles in detective stories.