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Plato’s Phaedrus: Love, Truth And The Power Of Speech

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Speech has the power to transform the soul. It can reveal, enlighten, and heal. Or it can deceive, manipulate, and defile. In Plato’s Phaedrus dialogue, Socrates is in a battle for Phaedrus’ soul as he attempts to show Phaedrus the difference between the true love of a friend and the false love of a manipulator. This seminar explores the intimate connection of speech and love, and their relevance in our personal and political lives. This seminar accompanies Plato’s Symposium (see Fall 2018), but may also be taken as a stand-alone. Reading List: The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues (trans. William S. Cobb, SUNY Press) SEMINAR GUIDE: Monica Vilhauer earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. After a decade…

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$125

Neal Stephenson

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, OR, United States

Neal Stephenson, bestselling author of Seveneves, Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon, returns with a wildly inventive and entertaining science fiction thriller – Paradise Lost by way of Philip K. Dick – that unfolds in the near future, in parallel worlds. Fall; or, Dodge in Hell (William Morrow) is pure, unadulterated fun: a grand drama of analog and digital, man and machine, angels and demons, gods and followers, the finite and the eternal. In his exhilarating new epic, Stephenson raises profound existential questions and touches on the revolutionary breakthroughs that are transforming our future. Combining the technological, philosophical, and spiritual in one grand myth, he delivers a mind-blowing speculative literary saga for the modern age.

Free

What Is Justice? A Personal Exploration – Bill Denham

Another Read Through 3932 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for a reading from What is Justice? by Bill Denham. Matthew Avery Solomon and Noel Espinoza were murdered on September 4, 2008. Three men were charged with the crime. In What Is Justice?: A Personal Exploration, author Bill Denham studies the crime and what it reveals about himself and about our broader culture’s pursuit of retributive justice. Incorporating poetry, philosophy, theology, and memoir, Denham suggests an alternative system borne out of our inter-connectedness and reliant on the exercise of our imaginations. What Is Justice?: A Personal Exploration is an engaging, deeply personal, and deeply felt exploration into the meaning of justice. It is an essential and thought-provoking piece. “In death will come, poet Bill Denham attempts the near impossible, coming to terms with the…

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Free

What It Means to Be Moral

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

In What It Means to Be Moral (Counterpoint), Phil Zuckerman argues that morality does not come from God. Rather, it comes from us: our brains, our evolutionary past, our ongoing cultural development, our social experiences, and our ability to reason, reflect, and be sensitive to the suffering of others. By deconstructing religious arguments for God-based morality and guiding readers through the premises and promises of secular morality, Zuckerman argues that the major challenges facing the world today are best approached from a nonreligious ethical framework.

Free

Michael Meade: Chaos, Climate, and Creation

First Unitarian Portland 1211 SW Main St, Portland, OR, United States

As the chaos in the world increases, most ideas of the future become fatalistic. Yet, the situation only seems “hopeless” when viewed from the narrow logic of a collapsing world view. Old ways of seeing the world are blocking more vital paths of imagination, vision and healing. The point is not simply evolution or progress, rather there needs to be a collective rite of passage that transforms our world view. Transformation is required to move us from despair and overwhelm to awakening and imagination. We are either on the way to transformation or on the road to greater tragedy. The agony of the earth calls for each of us to defeat the growing alienation and isolation of life in order to become more human and…

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$10 – $15

Ryan Holiday

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

In The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, author Ryan Holiday made ancient wisdom wildly popular with a new generation of leaders in sports, politics, and technology. In his new book, Stillness Is the Key (Portfolio), Holiday draws on timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy to show why slowing down is the secret weapon for those charging ahead. The stillness that we all seek is the path to meaning, contentment, and excellence in a world that needs more of it than ever.

Free

Delve Fall 2019: The Pre-Socratic Thinkers: The Greeks on Gods, Humanity, and Nature Before Socrates

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

The Pre-Socratic thinkers lived from about 650 to about 450 B.C.E. in the towns along the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, and many of the Greek islands, throughout Thrace and Pelopenesos on the Greek mainland, and in the Greek colonies of Sicily and southern Italy. Their world included the heroes of Homer and the hard virtues of the archaic life of farming, warfare, and trade, as well the arts and music of the Greek peoples. A precious group of fragmented passages from the first thinkers in what became the Western tradition of philosophy and science have survived as an inspired and marvelously varied set of views on human life and ethics, on nature, on the gods, and on the question of what reality itself is. Their…

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$220

Passages Bookshop HOLIDAY CLEARANCE SALE: 30% OFF

Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660, Portland, OR, United States

Visit Passages Bookshop between now and December 21 for great holiday bargains! * *  ALL BOOKS 30% OFF  * * PLUS: Hundreds of books, and all framed art, marked down 50–75% Markdowns in all categories: Poetry / Literature / Philosophy Music / Film / Video Art / Photography / Graphic Design Original prints, drawings, photographs; mixed media pieces; posters: Karel Appel / Tom Phillips / Antoni Tapies Mar Goman / John Martineau / Clayton Holcomb Josef Hodek / Ben Nelson / Jacqueline Brito * *  TWO WEEKENDS ONLY  * *  Thurs-Sat, December 12-14 Thurs-Sat, December 19-21 12:00-6:00 pm each day = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =…

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Free

Passages Bookshop HOLIDAY CLEARANCE SALE: 30% OFF

Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660, Portland, OR, United States

Visit Passages Bookshop between now and December 21 for great holiday bargains! * *  ALL BOOKS 30% OFF  * * PLUS: Hundreds of books, and all framed art, marked down 50–75% Markdowns in all categories: Poetry / Literature / Philosophy Music / Film / Video Art / Photography / Graphic Design Original prints, drawings, photographs; mixed media pieces; posters: Karel Appel / Tom Phillips / Antoni Tapies Mar Goman / John Martineau / Clayton Holcomb Josef Hodek / Ben Nelson / Jacqueline Brito * *  TWO WEEKENDS ONLY  * *  Thurs-Sat, December 12-14 Thurs-Sat, December 19-21 12:00-6:00 pm each day = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =…

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Free

Virtual Book Launch – Walking the High Desert: Reading and Q&A with author Ellen Waterston

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us to hear author Ellen Waterston read from her new title, Walking the High Desert: Encounters with Rural America along the Oregon Desert Trail. Uniting stories from across this diverse landscape—the humans and non-human voices—Waterston weaves an incomparable narrative of wonder, science, history and prose. Walking the High Desert is at once travelogue, meditation, memoir, history, philosophy, social commentary,  and commonplace book. It deeply explores the desert and the complex interplay of humans with this piece of the Intermountain West, calling out regional challenges that, more often than not, turn out to be issues the nation, and in some cases, the world, are grappling with. A selection of stunning images will accompany the reading. A live audience question and answer session will follow. In addition to Walking the High…

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Free
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