Solomon, the legend goes, had a magic ring which enabled him to speak to the animals in their own language. Konrad Lorenz was gifted with a similar power of understanding the animal world. He was that rare beast, a brilliant scientist who could write (and indeed draw) beautifully. He did more than ...

Two businessmen are bankrupted: how come one of them continues to bubble with new ideas while the other just throws in the towel? Why does a misplaced remark gnaw away at someone for days when others can simply shrug it off?

Stress, burnout and depression are the afflictions of our time.

How, why and when did man meet dog and cat? How much are they in fact guided by instinct, and what sort of intelligence have they? What is the nature of their affection or attachment to the human race? Professor Lorenz says that some dogs are descended from wolves and some from jackals, with ...

Preface by Gaetano Benedetti

The concept of autonomy, which does not mean power and superiority but full conformity of a human being to his feelings and needs, is an important factor of modern psychology. If this autonomy is lacking - more often the rule than the exception - ...

Contents:

Eastern philosophy (Upanishades, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism) - Antiquity (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicure) - Patristic - Scholasticism - Arab philosophy - The Enlightenment (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Montesquieu) - Idealism (Kant, Fichte, ...

How to stay young - even if you're growing old!

When do you start growing old? At 30? At 50? At 70? Or even later? According to scientists, there's no hard and fast rule. Countless scientific studies leave us in no doubt that our lifestyle has a major influence on how youthful ...

Everything children really want to know about sex-and aren't afraid to ask

How much sex education do primary school children need? As much as they ask for, say the experts. And what exactly is it that children want to know? When teaching primary school classes about the human ...

Established author Michael Köhlmeier has written and held numerous speeches over the years which always refl ect his deeply humanistic approach to all topics, both in literature and in politics. In May 2018 he spoke to a large group of high-ranking politicians. "Do not expect me to feign ...

What is freedom, are we born free or is freedom conveyed to us by others? Can it be taken away? Is freedom only an absence of fear and constraint or does it not rather imply the need to take part in the political and social discourse? Th is essay by Hannah Arendt was fi rst published in German by ...

Based on a fragment of a manuscript rediscovered in 2015, this text depicts the violent revolt of the London citizens in the 16th century against the Hugenot refugees. 400 years aft er its creation, the text is still a plea for a humane society in times of radical change. Th e editor and ...

Many of our decisions have no major influence on our lives, while others are a matter of do or die. And some of them are so insane in retrospect that we can hardly believe we took them. A single good or bad decision can change the course of our lives forever. But what influences our decisions?

These days, many people are searching for their "true selves". However the "I" isn't a fixed quantity, but in constant flux. Christina Berndt has dedicated herself to the big, intriguing question of how we become what we are. She focuses on the creation and development of our personalities, and on ...