This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Sky Island by L. Frank Baum - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of L. Frank Baum’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Baum includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘Sky Island by L. Frank Baum - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Baum’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the text Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Witch’s Head by H. Rider Haggard - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of H. Rider Haggard’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Haggard includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘The Witch’s Head by H. Rider Haggard - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Haggard’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the text Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

The city of Serenstad has never been stronger, and superstitions are waning in the light of reason and civilization. For the Guild of Dream Finders this has proved disastrous, until Duke Ibris, troubled by mystifying and unsettling dreams, orders Antyr, leader of the Guild, to become the Dream Nexus. Dream Finder is an independent novel set in the world of The Chronicles of Hawklan". --------------- "This is good grown-up stuff; more please." -- Interzone "Big meaty fantasy." -- Darlington Northern Echo "This is wonderful stuff." -- Brum Group News "

The Constitution of the Athenians describes the political system of ancient Athens. The treatise was composed between 330 and 322 BC.

Confucius believed that the welfare of a country depended on the moral cultivation of its people, beginning from the nation's leadership. He believed that individuals could begin to cultivate an all-encompassing sense of virtue through ren, and that the most basic step to cultivating ren was devotion to one's parents and older siblings. He taught that one's individual desires do not need to be suppressed, but that people should be educated to reconcile their desires via rituals and forms of propriety, through which people could demonstrate their respect for others and their responsible roles in society.

On Interpretation is among the earliest surviving philosophical works in the Western tradition to deal with the relationship between language and logic in a comprehensive, explicit, and formal way.

The reasons for some animals being long-lived and others short-lived, and, in a word, causes of the length and brevity of life.

Once upon a time there was a very mischievous little monkey, who lived in a big banyan tree, and his name was Jacko. And in the jungle below there lived a huge, fierce old lion and lioness.

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Proserpine by Mary Shelley - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Mary Shelley’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Shelley includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘Proserpine by Mary Shelley - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Shelley’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the text Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency in our literature—a library edition of the Essays of Montaigne. This great French writer deserves to be regarded as a classic, not only in the land of his birth, but in all countries and in all literatures. His Essays, which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of his productions, form a magazine out of which such minds as those of Bacon and Shakespeare did not disdain to help themselves; and, indeed, as Hallam observes, the Frenchman's literary importance largely results from the share which his mind had in influencing other minds, coeval and subsequent. But, at the same time, estimating the value and rank of the essayist, we are not to leave out of the account the drawbacks and the circumstances of the period: the imperfect state of education, the comparative scarcity of books, and the limited opportunities of intellectual intercourse. Montaigne freely borrowed of others, and he has found men willing to borrow of him as freely. We need not wonder at the reputation which he with seeming facility achieved. He was, without being aware of it, the leader of a new school in letters and morals. His book was different from all others which were at that date in the world. It diverted the ancient currents of thought into new channels. It told its readers, with unexampled frankness, what its writer's opinion was about men and things, and threw what must have been a strange kind of new light on many matters but darkly understood. Above all, the essayist uncased himself, and made his intellectual and physical organism public property. He took the world into his confidence on all subjects. His essays were a sort of literary anatomy, where we get a diagnosis of the writer's mind, made by himself at different levels and under a large variety of operating influences. Of all egotists, Montaigne, if not the greatest, was the most fascinating, because, perhaps, he was the least affected and most truthful. What he did, and what he had professed to do, was to dissect his mind, and show us, as best he could, how it was made, and what relation it bore to external objects. He investigated his mental structure as a schoolboy pulls his watch to pieces, to examine the mechanism of the works; and the result, accompanied by illustrations abounding with originality and force, he delivered to his fellow-men in a book. W. C. H. KENSINGTON, November 1877. THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE The author of the Essays was born, as he informs us himself, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the day, the last of February 1533, at the chateau of St. Michel de Montaigne. His father, Pierre Eyquem, esquire, was successively first Jurat of the town of Bordeaux (1530), Under-Mayor 1536, Jurat for the second time in 1540, Procureur in 1546, and at length Mayor from 1553 to 1556. He was a man of austere probity, who had "a particular regard for honour and for propriety in his person and attire . . . a mighty good faith in his speech, and a conscience and a religious feeling inclining to superstition, rather than to the other extreme. Between 1556 and 1563 an important incident occurred in the life of Montaigne, in the commencement of his romantic friendship with Etienne de la Boetie, whom he had met, as he tells us, by pure chance at some festive celebration in the town. From their very first interview the two found themselves drawn irresistibly close to one another, and during six years this alliance was foremost in the heart of Montaigne, as it was afterwards in his memory, when death had severed it.

Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba: At first, her gover Modo maxima rerum, Tot generis, natisque potens... Nunc trahor exul, inops. —Ovid, Metamorphoses. xiii under the administration of the dogmatists, was an absolute despotism. But, as the legislative continued to show traces of the ancient barbaric rule, her empire gradually broke up, and intestine wars introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics, like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living, attacked from time to time those who had organized themselves into civil communities. But their number was, very happily, small; and thus they could not entirely put a stop to the exertions of those who persisted in raising new edifices, although on no settled or uniform plan. In recent times the hope dawned upon us of seeing those disputes settled, and the legitimacy of her claims established by a kind of physiology of the human understanding—that of the celebrated Locke. But it was found that—although it was affirmed that this so-called queen could not refer her descent to any higher source than that of common experience, a circumstance which necessarily brought suspicion on her claims—as this genealogy was incorrect, she persisted in the advancement of her claims to sovereignty. Thus metaphysics necessarily fell back into the antiquated and rotten constitution of dogmatism, and again became obnoxious to the contempt from which efforts had been made to save it. At present, as all methods, according to the general persuasion, have been tried in vain, there reigns nought but weariness and complete indifferentism—the mother of chaos and night in the scientific world, but at the same time the source of, or at least the prelude to, the re-creation and reinstallation of a science, when it has fallen into confusion, obscurity, and disuse from ill directed effort. I do not mean by this a criticism of books and systems, but a critical inquiry into the faculty of reason, with reference to the cognitions to which it strives to attain without the aid of experience; in other words, the solution of the question regarding the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics, and the determination of the origin, as well as of the extent and limits of this science. All this must be done on the basis of principles. ABOUT AUTHOR: That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it. But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion), an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it. It is, therefore, a question which requires close investigation, and not to b

F?r? a propune o terminologie aristotelic? bine precizat? pe teritoriul limbii rom?ne, transpunerea de fa?? reprezint? un moment important ?n raportarea rom?neasc? la opera Stagiritului.Traducere de ?tefan Bezdechi efectuat? dup? textul grec publicat de W. Christ ?n colec?ia ?Teubner“, Lipsca, 1906. Pentru realizarea ei au fost utilizate urm?toarele surse:Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles, traducere ?n limba german? de J. R. V. Kirchmann, ap?rut? ?n dou? volume ?i prev?zut? cu note ample ?n colec?ia ?Philosophische Bibliothek“, numerele 38 ?i 39, la Berlin, ?n 1871;Aristoteles, Metaphysik, traducere ?n limba german? de Adolf Lasson, ?n care cele patrusprezece c?r?i ale Metafizicii sunt a?ezate ?ntr-o r?nduial? mai logic? dec?t a?a cum au fost transmise ?n originalul grec, traducere ap?rut? ?n 1924, la Jena;Aristote, Métaphysique, traducere ?n limba francez? de J. Tricot, cu o prefa?? de A. Diés, ap?rut? ?n colec?ia ?Bibliothèque des textes philosophiques“, J. Vrin, la Paris, ?n 1933.La marginea textului a fost trecut? pagina?ia edi?iei Bekker, dup? care se fac ?n mod obi?nuit cita?iile din opera lui Aristotel.Confruntarea traducerii a fost f?cut? de prof. Aram M. Frenkian.

Volumul cuprinde dou? din cele mai reprezentative lucr?ri ?n care filosoful german ??i expune concep?ia moral?: ?ntemeierea metafizicii moravurilor (1785) ?i Critica ra?iunii practice (1788). ?n ?ntemeierea metafizicii moravurilor Immanuel Kant expune principiile moralit??ii, iar ?n Critica ra?iunii practice ??i construie?te propriul s?u sistem etic, ceea ce face ca aceasta s? fie considerat?, dup? Critica ra?iunii pure, a doua sa oper? fundamental?.?ntre cele dou? lucr?ri este o at?t de str?ns? leg?tur?, ?nc?t cunoa?terea numai a uneia din ele ne-ar oferi o imagine incomplet? asupra concep?iei sale morale.Immanuel Kant a avansat idei etice ?i ?n alte opere ulterioare (Religia ?n limitele ra?iunii – 1793 sau Metafizica moravurilor – 1797), dar numai ?n cele reunite ?n acest volum se ocup? de problemele teoretice ale moralit??ii.Traducerea a fost f?cut? dup? edi?ia german? din 1956 (Leipzig, Hrsg. Von Raymund Schimidt).

Das Buch besteht aus vier Teilen. Der erste Teil erschien 1883, der zweite und dritte 1884, der vierte 1885 als Privatdruck. 1886 ver?ffentlichte Nietzsche die drei ersten Teile als ?Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. In drei Teilen.“ Im Gegensatz zu den frühen Werken Nietzsches handelt es sich beim Zarathustra nicht um ein Sachbuch. In hymnischer Prosa berichtet ein personaler Erz?hler vom Wirken eines fiktiven Denkers, der den Namen des Persischen Religionsstifters Zarathustra tr?gt. Nietzsche selbst nennt den Stil, in dem Also sprach Zarathustra geschrieben ist, halkyonisch und wünscht sich Leser, die eines ?gleichen Pathos f?hig und würdig sind“: ?Man muss vor Allem den Ton, der aus diesem Munde kommt, diesen halkyonischen Ton richtig h?ren, um dem Sinn seiner Weisheit nicht erbarmungswürdig Unrecht zu tun“. Dass Nietzsche diese Leserschaft in seiner Gegenwart nicht gesehen hat, legt der Untertitel des Werkes nahe: ?Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen“.

Critica ra?iunii pure, tradus? de Nicolae Bagdasar ?i Elena Moisuc ?n 1969, a ajuns la cea de-a treia edi?ie. Cu acest prilej, profesorul dr. Ilie P?rvu, de la Facultatea de Filosofie a Universit??ii din Bucure?ti a ?ngrijit noua opera?ie de editare, fiind astfel corectate unele erori de tipar ?i unele inconsecven?e terminologice. Totodat?, exist? un motiv ?n plus pentru ca studen?ii care posed? edi?ia a II-a a traducerii, ap?rut? ?n 1995, s? apeleze ?i la cea de-a treia edi?ie: ?n aceasta din urm? au fost indicate diferen?ele dintre edi?ia I german? (din 1781) ?i edi?ia a II-a (din 1787).

Volumul red? circuitului public, pentru prima oar? ?n limba rom?n?, trei din operele g?nditorului atenian. Este vorba de Scrisori (?n num?r de treisprezece, deosebit de importante pentru cunoa?terea g?ndirii platoniciene, dar ?i pentru ?n?elegerea epocii ?i a personalit??ilor cu care a venit ?n contact filosoful), Dialoguri suspecte (Minos, Rivalii, Theages, Hipparhos, Clitofon) ?i Dialoguri apocrife (Axiohos, Despre drept, Despre virtute, Demodocus, Sisyfos, Eryxias).Traducerea apara?ine lui ?tefan Bezdechi, care a realizat ?i aparatul critic al Scrisorilor (introducere ?i note).

Nietzsche este, poate, cea mai ilustr? victim? a aventurii socratice a cunoa?terii de sine. Via?a nu posed? fenomene originale, ci numai unele repetitive, care prin reluarea lor ve?nic identic? ??i tocesc conturul lor original. Cadrul repeti?iei nu este via?a, c?ci via?a ?ns??i este un fenomen de repeti?ie. Omul este condamnat s? tr?iasc? ?ntr-un plictisitor ?ir de repeti?ii ?i relu?ri din care nu poate evada. Nu exist? fenomene absolut unice, care s? nu fie repetitive ?i, probabil, la fel este ?i cu oamenii. To?i au mai fost nu o dat?, ci de nenum?rate ori ?n trecut ?i vor mai fi de nenum?rate ori ?n viitor. Tot ce trebuia ?i putea s? se produc? s-a produs deja. Restul este doar monoton? repeti?ie: ve?nic? revenire a aceluia?i. Eterna ?ntoarcere exprim? nu devenirea heraclitean? f?r? repaos, ci marile linii de stabilitate din cadrul existen?ei. Prin ea, Nietzsche vrea s? eternizeze trec?torul, socotind timpul ca etern, etern? ?ntoarcere, adic? schimbare ?i stabilitate. Ecce homo este ?i exerci?iul acestui impas al g?ndirii lui Nietzsche. Prin aceasta ?ns? Nietzsche ?i-a adus contribu?ia la instaurarea unui nou ?idol“ al lumii moderne dup? ce aceasta a denun?at prezen?a ?idolilor“ de tot felul ?n spa?iul ei de con?tiin??. (Vasile Musc?)??ntruc?t, ?n scurt timp, va trebui s? m? adresez omenirii cu cea mai grea solicitare care i-a fost prezentat? vreodat?, mi se pare imperios necesar s? spun cine sunt. ?n principiu, ar trebui s? se ?tie: c?ci nu m-am l?sat ?neatestat?. Dar discrepan?a dintre m?re?ia misiunii mele ?i micimea contemporanilor mei ?i-a g?sit expresia ?n faptul c? nici nu am fost auzit, nici nu am fost v?zut. Tr?iesc pe propriul meu credit, s? fie poate o simpl? prejudecat? faptul c? tr?iesc?... Este de ajuns s? stau de vorb? cu vreun ?om cultivat?, care vine vara ?n Engadina de Sus, ca s? m? conving c? nu tr?iesc... ?n aceste ?mprejur?ri, este o ?ndatorire ?mpotriva c?reia obi?nuin?a mea ?i, mai mult chiar dec?t aceasta, m?ndria instinctelor mele, se revolt?, anume aceea de a spune: Auzi?i-m?! c?ci eu sunt cutare ?i cutare. ?nainte de toate, nu cumva s? m? confunda?i!“ (Friedrich Nietzsche)

n Filosofia meritului autorul folosete metoda fenomenologic pentru a prezenta evoluia instituiilor socio-morale care reglementeaz meritele; autorul propune n acest scop concepte originale, cum sunt ideonomia (sistemul de idei care fundamenteaz teoretic un sistem de apreciere a meritului); socionomia (sistemul de reguli care legitimeaz social un merit specific unei comuniti) i politonomia (sistemul de norme prin care se instituionalizeaz juridic meritul politic).Tratatul de Filosofie a meritului este structurat n trei pri corespunztor celor trei domenii existeniale n care se manifest fiina uman, spiritual, social, politic. Lucrarea prezint n extenso criteriile, principiile i formele de manifestare a meritului, premisele constituirii sistemelor sociale de apreciere a meritului, natura bio-psihic i socio-moral a meritelor precum i caracterul normativ al meritelor politico-juridice. Prima parte abordeaz sfera meritele cu caracter antropologic, antroponomic i antropocratic. Partea a doua prezint n extenso meritele cu caracter sociologic, socionomic i sociocratic i partea a treia analizeaz formele de manifestare a meritului din perspectiva politologiei, a politonomiei i a politocraiei. n fiecare capitol se regsesc argumente logice, etimologice i sociologice care justific aprecierea unor atribute i caliti umane ca merite individuale. Fiecare din cele douzeciiapte de capitole explic un tip de merit din tripl perspectiv: ideal social i politic.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) este o figur? legendar? a filosofiei germane, opera sa fiind baza ? revolu?iei copernicane“ petrecute ?n istoria g?ndirii ?n plin? er? de av?nt al romantismului. ?n volumul de fa?? sunt cuprinse dou? eseuri foarte pu?in cunoscute publicului amator de filosofie, ?n care vom reg?si g?ndurile filosofului privitoare la ?nceputuri (ale istoriei omenirii) ?i sf?r?ituri (ale lumii ?n general). Scrise dup? celebra triad? a ? Criticilor“, textele poart? amprenta sistemului kantian de g?ndire, dar constituie totodat? ?ncerc?ri remarcabile de abordare a unor subiecte de larg interes, analizate din perspectiva ve?nicei clauze a ? condi?iilor de posibilitate“. Orice minte uman? care va ?ncerca s? cuprind? ?nceputul ?i sf?r?itul se va vedea constr?ns? ?ntr-un fel sau ?n altul de limitele pe care Kant ?ncearc? s? le expun? aici ?n idei c?t mai simple.? Istoria naturii ?ncepe a?adar cu binele, c?ci este lucrarea lui Dumnezeu, iar istoria libert??ii cu r?ul, c?ci este lucrarea oamenilor. Pentru individ, care, ?n exerci?iul libert??ii prive?te doar c?tre sine, o astfel de schimbare a fost o pierdere pentru natur?, ale c?rei scopuri sunt orientate spre oameni ca specie, a fost un c??tig.“

Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea (1855-1920), critic literar ?i politician intelectual, s-a num?rat printre primii sociologi ai Rom?niei. Lucrarea de fa??, care ?ncheie celebrul studiu Neoiobagia, constituie prima analiz? bine ?ntemeiat? a vie?ii sociale care a caracterizat Rom?nia ?ntre 1866 ?i Al Doilea R?zboi Mondial, fiind o concluzie ?i totodata o sintez? a acestui studiu.Dincolo de cifre ?i de personajele citate, dincolo de obiectele specifice ale analizei, cititorul r?bd?tor poate descoperi c?, sub forma diferit?, vom g?si de data aceasta un fond: fibra profund? din care se ?mpletesc ve?nicele noastre probleme na?ionale.? ?i doar? din cele spuse se vede clar unde rezid? r?ul ??rii. O organiza?ie social? ?i de stat antagonic? ?i contradictorie, care preface institu?iile ei ?n aparen?e ?i minciun?. O via?? politic? ?i economic? plin? de resturi feudale, care nu vor s? moar?, ?i bazat? pe capitalismul modern,care nu poate ?nc? s? tr?iasc?.“ - Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea

Pamfletul Sim?ul comun (1776) a fost un veritabil best-seller ?n epoc?, succesul de care s-a bucurat reflect?ndu-se ?n numeroasele republic?ri. Lucrarea pledeaz?, cu argumente solide, pentru separarea total? a coloniilor americane de Marea Britanie, invoc?nd drepturile naturale ale oamenilor, egalitatea ?i suveranitatea fiec?rei fiin?e, supunerea doar fa?? de lege ?i caracterul absurd al institu?iei monarhiei. Autorul surprinde cu verv? ?i fine?e toate circumstan?ele favorabile desprinderii de patria-mam?, ?ndemn?ndu-?i concet??enii s?-?i decid? singuri soarta.