Sarah Hutton presents a rich historical study of one of the most fertile periods in modern philosophy. It was in the seventeenth century that Britain's first philosophers of international stature and lasting influence emerged. Its most famous names, Hobbes and Locke, rank alongside the greatest names in the European philosophical canon. Bacon too belongs with this constellation of great thinkers, although his status as a philosopher tends to be obscured by his status as father of modern science.
The Age of the Poets revisits the age-old problem of the relation between literature and philosophy, arguing against both Plato and Heidegger’s famous arguments. Philosophy neither has to ban the poets from the republic nor abdicate its own powers to the sole benefit of poetry or art. Instead, it must declare the end of what Badiou names the “age of the poets,” which stretches from Hölderlin to Celan.
This dazzling anthology -- edited by Gardner R. Dozois and Jonathan Strahan -- includes epic interstellar adventures, tales of space and wonder, from some of the brightest names in science fiction.
The Nine Billion Names of God: The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, 1951-1956 (Audiobook, mp3)
With so little serious sf currently available on unabridged audio, the release of this comprehensive collection of Clarke's short stories is an occasion for celebration, for he is an undisputed master of hard sf, that which combines creative storytelling with ideas grounded in plausible science. Clarke is, after all, best known as the writer behind 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the few films that depicts space travel realistically.
