{"title":"Books by David Edmonds","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780198702696","title":"Philosophy Bites Again","description":"Philosophy Bites Again is a brand new selection of interviews from the popular podcast of the same name. It offers engaging and thought-provoking conversations with leading philosophers on a selection of major philosophical issues that affect our lives. Their subjects include pleasure, pain, and humour; consciousness and the self; free will, responsibility, and punishment; the meaning of life and the afterlife. Everyone will find ideas in this book to fascinate, provoke, and inspire them. Philosophy Bites was set up in 2007 by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton. 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The result is a book that is a taster for the whole enterprise of philosophy, and gives unexpected insights into hot topics spanning ethics, politics, metaphysics, aesthetics, and the meaning of life.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227536142709,"sku":"9780199694662","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780199694662_2c246204-7daf-4b4c-8a6d-622fa3ac5c28.jpg?v=1786012779"},{"product_id":"9780571214129","title":"Bobby Fischer Goes to War","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePERFECT FOR FANS OF NETFLIX'S \u003ci\u003eTHE QUEEN'S GAMBIT\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Gripping.' \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSUNDAY TIMES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Pure drama.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eINDEPENDENT\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Compelling.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBobby Fischer Goes to War\u003c\/i\u003e by David Edmonds and John Eidinow details the occasion when Bobby Fischer met Boris Spassky in one of the most thrilling and politically charged chess matches of all time.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor decades, the USSR had dominated world chess. Evidence, according to Moscow, of the superiority of the Soviet system. But in 1972 along came the American, Bobby Fischer: insolent, arrogant, abusive, vain, greedy, vulgar, bigoted, paranoid and obsessive — and apparently unstoppable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAgainst him was Boris Spassky: complex, sensitive, the most un-Soviet of champions. As the authors reveal, when Spassky began to lose, the KGB decided to step in. . .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291261579637,"sku":"9780571214129","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571214129_a4fecf39-bb35-44d3-89be-ca30ceffe4bd.jpg?v=1786013567"},{"product_id":"9780571227358","title":"Wittgenstein's Poker","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A wonderful book.' Bill Clinton\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Those ten minutes shook the world of Western philosophy literally to its foundations . . . Edmonds and Eidinow have a very good story to tell, and they tell it wonderfully well.' \u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 25 October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The encounter lasted only ten minutes, and did not go well. Almost immediately, rumours started to spread around the world that the two philosophers had come to blows, armed with red-hot pokers. But what really happened?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003eWittgenstein's Poker\u003c\/i\u003e engagingly winds together philosophy, history and biography into a compelling piece of detective work. It ranges from the place of assimilated Jews in \u003ci\u003efin-de-siècle \u003c\/i\u003eVienna, to what happens to memory under stress, to a vivid portrait of Cambridge and its eccentric set of philosophy dons, including Bertrand Russell (who acted as umpire during the altercation). At the centre of the story stand the philosophers themselves, proud, irascible, larger than life, and spoiling for a fight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'A meaty, exceedingly well-researched and engaging book. In its dramatic readability \u003ci\u003eWittgenstein's Poker \u003c\/i\u003ebrings to mind Simon Winchester's \u003ci\u003eThe Professor and the Madman\u003c\/i\u003e; in the depth and breadth of its scholarship it evokes Carl Schorske's \u003ci\u003eFin-de-si\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eè\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003ecle Vienna\u003c\/i\u003e . . . a marvel of passionate journalism.' \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291549446517,"sku":"9780571227358","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571227358_28786629-ce8e-41c1-ba8c-59db135a510b.jpg?v=1786013727"},{"product_id":"9780691164908","title":"The Murder of Professor Schlick – The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle","description":"From the author of Wittgenstein's Poker and Would You Kill the Fat Man?, the story of an extraordinary group of philosophers during a dark chapter in Europe's historyOn June 22, 1936, the philosopher Moritz Schlick was on his way to deliver a lecture at the University of Vienna when Johann Nelböck, a deranged former student of Schlick's, shot him dead on the university steps. Some Austrian newspapers defended the madman, while Nelböck himself argued in court that his onetime teacher had promoted a treacherous Jewish philosophy. David Edmonds traces the rise and fall of the Vienna Circle—an influential group of brilliant thinkers led by Schlick—and of a philosophical movement that sought to do away with metaphysics and pseudoscience in a city darkened by fascism, anti-Semitism, and unreason.   The Vienna Circle's members included Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, and the eccentric logician Kurt Gödel. On its fringes were two other philosophical titans of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. The Circle championed the philosophy of logical empiricism, which held that only two types of propositions have cognitive meaning, those that can be verified through experience and those that are analytically true. For a time, it was the most fashionable movement in philosophy. Yet by the outbreak of World War II, Schlick's group had disbanded and almost all its members had fled. Edmonds reveals why the Austro-fascists and the Nazis saw their philosophy as such a threat.   The Murder of Professor Schlick paints an unforgettable portrait of the Vienna Circle and its members while weaving an enthralling narrative set against the backdrop of economic catastrophe and rising extremism in Hitler's Europe.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57688215748981,"sku":"9780691211961","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":56292945363317,"sku":"9780691164908","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780691164908.jpg?v=1792686147"},{"product_id":"9780691165639","title":"Would You Kill The Fat Man? – The trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong","description":"A runaway train is racing toward five men who are tied to the track. Unless the train is stopped, it will inevitably kill all five men. You are standing on a footbridge looking down on the unfolding disaster. However, a fat man, a stranger, is standing next to you: if you push him off the bridge, he will topple onto the line and, although he will die, his chunky body will stop the train, saving five lives. Would you kill the fat man? The question may seem bizarre. But it's one variation of a puzzle that has baffled moral philosophers for almost half a century and that more recently has come to preoccupy neuroscientists, psychologists, and other thinkers as well. In this book, David Edmonds, coauthor of the best-selling Wittgenstein's Poker, tells the riveting story of why and how philosophers have struggled with this ethical dilemma, sometimes called the trolley problem. In the process, he provides an entertaining and informative tour through the history of moral philosophy. Most people feel it's wrong to kill the fat man. But why? After all, in taking one life you could save five. As Edmonds shows, answering the question is far more complex--and important--than it first appears.   In fact, how we answer it tells us a great deal about right and wrong.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294539067765,"sku":"9780691165639","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780691165639_27ce926c-7e38-4479-833d-5a9cbda42af5.jpg?v=1786014796"},{"product_id":"9780691254029","title":"Death in a Shallow Pond","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the bestselling coauthor of \u003ci\u003eWittgenstein’s Poker\u003c\/i\u003e, a fascinating account of Peter Singer’s controversial “drowning child” thought experiment—and how it changed the way people think about charitable giving\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImagine this: You’re walking past a shallow pond and spot a toddler thrashing around in the water, in obvious danger of drowning. You look around for her parents, but nobody is there. You’re the only person who can save her and you must act immediately. But as you approach the pond you remember that you’re wearing your most expensive shoes. Wading into the water will ruin them—and might make you late for a meeting. Should you let the child drown? The philosopher Peter Singer published this thought experiment in 1972, arguing that allowing people in the developing world to die, when we could easily help them by giving money to charity, is as morally reprehensible as saving our shoes instead of the drowning child. Can this possibly be true? In \u003ci\u003eDeath in a Shallow Pond\u003c\/i\u003e, David Edmonds tells the remarkable story of Singer and his controversial idea, tracing how it radically changed the way many think about poverty—but also how it has provoked scathing criticisms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDeath in a Shallow Pond\u003c\/i\u003e describes the experiences and world events that led Singer to make his radical case and how it moved some young philosophers to establish the Effective Altruism movement, which tries to optimize philanthropy. The book also explores the reactions of critics who argue that the Shallow Pond and Effective Altruism are unrealistic, misguided, and counterproductive, neglecting the causes of—and therefore perpetuating—poverty. 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From the ancient classics of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to the groundbreaking modern thought of Wittgenstein, Rawls, and Derrida, this volume spans over two and a half millennia of western philosophy and illuminates its most fascinating ideas. Philosophy Bites was set up in 2007 by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton. It has had over 12 million downloads, and is listened to all over the world.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57680062579061,"sku":"9780198705963","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198705963.jpg?v=1792423028"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-david-edmonds.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}