Tag Archives | Michael Lunts

WAGNER’S ‘RING’ AND ITS SYMBOLS

The Myth and the Music With 200 music examples

By Robert Donington
Read by Michael Lunts
13 hours 33 minutes

‘This enthralling book is an examination – deep analysis might be the word – of Wagner and his great work in terms not of politics or merely musical values, but in those of the depth psychology which it is simplest to call “post-Jungian”. In a short review, one can hardly do justice to the patience and thoroughness of Professor Donington’s analysis, not only of the principal characters but of the enormous structure of symbol, irony and illusion drawn from the primordial myths, and relating it to the music which is so powerful and direct a language. Continue Reading →

CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

By Immanuel KANT
Read by Michael Lunts
27 hours 38 minutes

Immanuel Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ can lay claim to being the most important single work of modern philosophy, a work whose methodology, if not necessarily always its conclusions, has had a profound influence on almost all subsequent philosophical discourse. In this work Kant addresses, in a ground-breaking elucidation of the nature of reason, the age-old question of philosophy: “How do we know what we know?” and the limits of what it is that we can know with certainty. Continue Reading →

MATTER AND MEMORY

By Henri Bergson
Read by Michael Lunts
9 hours 13 minutes

Matter and Memory, (Matière et Mémoire) published in 1896, was the second book written by Henri Bergson (1859-1941), one of the leading French philosophers of his age. It followed Time and Free Will (1889) and helped to establish him as a major force in anti-mechanistic thought, opposing the trend towards uncompromisingly secular and scientific views. However, when Matter and Memory appeared Bergson was 39 and had yet to become the hugely influential figure he became in the first decades of the 20^th century. Continue Reading →

PROLEGOMENA

TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS THAT WILL BE ABLE TO PRESENT ITSELF AS A SCIENCE

By Immanuel KANT
Read by Michael Lunts
5 hours 45 minutes

Kant’s Prolegomena, although a small book, is without doubt the most important of his writings, writes the translator, Paul Carus. Prolegomena means, literally, prefatory or introductory remarks and it furnishes us with a key to his main work, The Critique of Pure Reason; in fact, it is an extract containing all the salient ideas of Kant’s system. Continue Reading →

LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC

By A. J. AYER
Read by Michael Lunts
6 hours 43 minutes

The front cover of the second edition of Language, Truth and Logic carried this statement in capital letters: ‘THE CLASSIC TEXT WHICH FOUNDED LOGICAL POSITIVISM – AND MODERN BRITISH PHILOSOPHY.’ It was a bold statement, but the book, first published in 1936 when A. J. Ayer was just 25 and a lecturer on philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford, drew unstinting praise from leading figures in the field, including Bertrand Russell. Continue Reading →

ENQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE And its Influence on Morals and Happiness

ENQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE

And its Influence on Morals and Happiness

By William Godwin
Read by Michael Lunts
27 hours 49 minutes

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness by William Godwin (1756-1836) was first published in February 1793, the month following the execution of Louis XVI of France. It proved to be immediately popular and influential. Godwin, the son of a Calvinist preacher, was educated at Hoxton Academy, after which, he became a minister to a dissenter congregation in Ware. Continue Reading →

THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

By Adam SMITH
Read by Michael Lunts
16 hours 28 minutes

The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776, is the first book of modern political economy and still provides the foundation for the study of that discipline. An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, to give it is full title, it was an immediate bestseller, and has since rightfully claimed its place in the Western intellectual canon. Its author, Adam Smith (1723-1790), was one of the brightest stars of the 18^th century Scottish Enlightenment. Continue Reading →

TIME AND FREE WILL

An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

By Henri Bergson
Read by Michael Lunts
6 hours 44 minutes

Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) was the leading French philosopher of the first half of the twentieth century. Near the end of his life when he was forced to register with the police in Nazi occupied France he wrote: ‘Academic. Philosopher. Nobel prize winner. Jew.’ Continue Reading →

THE DAWN OF DAY Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

THE DAWN OF DAY

Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

By Friedrich Nietzsche
Read by Michael Lunts
11 hours 29 minutes

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is one of the towering intellectual figures of the nineteenth century, a philologist, philosopher and poet of profound complexity and range whose writings in moral philosophy continue to resonate in the present day. ‘The Dawn of Day’, (Morgenröte) first published in 1881 marked a clear shift in his thinking and prefigures many of the ideas that would be further developed in his later writings. Continue Reading →

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS TRUTH AND LIES IN THE NONMORAL SENSE

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

TRUTH AND LIES IN THE NONMORAL SENSE

By Friedrich Nietzsche
Read by Michael Lunts
4 hours 22 minutes

Though ‘Twilight of the Idols’ (written in a week in 1888 and subtitled ‘How to Philosophize with a Hammer’) came near the end of Nietzsche’s creative life he actually recommended it as a starting point for the study of his work. This was because from the beginning he viewed it as an introduction to his wide-ranging views. After an opening chapter of aphorisms – ‘Maxims and Arrows’ – he takes a challenging look at ‘The Problem of Socrates’, continues to buck the trend with ‘Morality as Anti-Nature’, and ‘The Four Great Errors’ (starting with ‘The Error of Confusing Cause and Effect’). He makes a scathing attack on conventional morality in ‘The Improvers of Mankind’, and finishes with a critical look at his own nation in ‘What Germans Lack’. Continue Reading →

NIETZSCHE AND BUDDHISM

By Robert G Morrison
Read by Michael Lunts
10 hours 36 minutes

Morrison offers an illuminating study of two linked traditions that have figured prominently in twentieth-century thought: Buddhism and the philosophy of Nietzsche. Nietzsche admired Buddhism, but saw it as a dangerously nihilistic religion; he forged his own affirmative philosophy in reaction against the nihilism that he feared would overwhelm Europe. Continue Reading →

THE WILL TO POWER

By Friedrich Nietzsche
Read by Michael Lunts
23 hours 23 minutes

Nietzsche never recovered from his breakdown in 1889 and therefore was unable to further any plans he had for the ‘magnum opus’ he had once intended, bringing together in a coherent whole his mature philosophy. Continue Reading →

Michael Lunts

UNTIMELY CONSIDERATIONS

By Friedrich Nietzsche
Read by Michael Lunts
• 12 hours 57 minutes

Untimely Considerations contain four essays: David Strauss – Writer and Confessor; On the Use and Abuse of History for Life; Schopenhauer as Educator; and Richard Wagner at Bayreuth. Continue Reading →

THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS

By Adam SMITH
Read by Michael Lunts
16 hours 28 minutes

‘How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.’ So begins The Theory of Moral Sentiments, (1759) the first major text by Adam Smith who, seven years later, was to publish what was to become one of the major economic classics, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Continue Reading →

CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT

By Immanuel KANT
Read by Michael Lunts
15 hours 10 minutes

Kant’s Critique of Judgement is the third and final part of his series of Critiques, which began with Critique of Pure Reason and continued with Critique of Practical Reason. Continue Reading →

CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON

By Immanuel KANT
Read by Michael Lunts
7 hours 6 minutes

The Critique of Practical Reason was published in 1788, seven years after his major work, Critique of Pure Reason. In it, Kant sets out his moral philosophy – and it proved a seminal text in the history of the subject. Continue Reading →

THE GAY SCIENCE

THE GAY SCIENCE (The Joyful Wisdom)

By Friedrich Nietzsche
Read by Michael Lunts
10 hours 55 minutes

The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom) is one of Nietzsche’s greatest books. His wonderfully fertile mind roams over mankind, his thoughts, his emotions, his behaviour and his weaknesses with remarkable clarity, with insight – but also with humour! In this work are 383 separate paragraphs, some short, some long, but all singular observations – the epitome of his famous aphoristic style. ‘Morality is the herd instinct in the individual.’ Continue Reading →

HUMAN ALL TOO HUMAN • MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS • THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW

HUMAN ALL TO HUMAN • MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS • THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW

By Friedrich Nietzsche
Read by Michael Lunts
15 hours 26 minutes

It was with Human, All Too Human, first published in 1878, that Nietzsche developed the aphoristic style that so suited his challenging views and uncompromising style. The text is divided into three main sections: Of the First and Last Things; History of the Moral Feelings and The Religious Life. But the style remains the same: he declares the subjects – Dream and Civilisation; Private Ethics and World Ethics; Gratitude and Revenge; Well-Wishing; Vanity – and then discusses them in a few sentences, or sometimes in a longer passage. This style enables him to cover an extraordinarily wide range of topics as his fertile and lively mind wandered over man in his element. This audiobook also contains the two parts of Volume II: Miscellaneous Maxims and The Wanderer and His Shadow. These two collections are less well known, – unjustly so as they are packed with Nietzsche’s wonderfully uncompromising views and observation on a lucky dip of topics including Debauchery, Bach, Danger in Admiration, Deception in Love, Dishonest Praise. Here is an example: ‘End and Goal. Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if a melody has not reached its end, it has also not reached its goal. A parable.’ All in all, this 11-hour collection in an appropriately conversational reading by Michael Lunts, is a fascinating, at times infuriating, yet always entertaining discovery.Translation: Alexander Harvey Continue Reading →