Search Results: Philosophy & Religion from Respublica Books LLC

Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. First edition. Octavo. Original cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor edge wear to dust jacket, and typical color fade at spine of gray to light green (though less than usual), else fine. Fine in near-fine dust jacket.. A fine first edition of Alasdair MacIntyre's (b. 1929) masterpiece-a book regularly counted among the twentieth century's greatest works of ethical philosophy, and the book that ushered in a revival of Aristotelian thought and virtue ethics. First published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 1981, After Virtue has since been reissued in two subsequent editions; the second edition, published in 1984, added a postscript by MacIntyre responding to certain critics of the book, and the third edition, published in 2007, added a prologue ("After Virtue after a Quarter of a Century") in which he reflects on the development and prospects of the ideas put forward in the book and reiterates his commitment to its central… Read More

New York: Schocken Books, Inc, 1971. First US edition. Octavo. Original green cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Laid-in is an inscribed notecard by Alasdair MacIntyre to fellow Brandeis professor, Henry D. Aiken: "Henry / With love and regard / from Alasdair," with the Brandeis University name and emblem affixed to card. Fine in fine dust jacket.. A fine first edition of Alasdair MacIntyre's (b. 1929) Against the Self-Images of the Age: Essays on Ideology and Philosophy with tipped-in inscription to fellow Brandeis professor, Henry D. Aiken. In this work, the author of the 1981 groundbreaking work After Virtue offers a poignant critique of organized Christianity, Marxism, and psychoanalysis for their failure to express the forms of thought and action that constitute our contemporary social life, and argues that a greater understanding of our complex modern world can only be achieved by a more thorough inquiry into the philosophy of the social sciences. First published in the US by Schocken… Read More

New York: Random House, 1957. First edition, first printing. Octavo. Original green cloth over boards with gilt titling and dust jacket (not price-clipped) with $6.95 price and 10/57 on front inside flap and publisher's full address to rear inside flap. Superb first printing in a bright dust jacket, minor edgewear to dust jacket at spine and folds, with slight chipping to head of spine, and small abrasions to front and spine of dust jacket, else fine in a very good dust jacket.. Exceptional first edition of Ayn Rand's (1905-1982) magnum opus and libertarian classic. Reportedly born from a conversation between Rand and fellow libertarian novelist, Isabel Paterson, Atlas Shrugged explores the morality of self-interest by depicting the consequences of a general strike by creative professionals who henceforth refuse to share with the world their art, innovations, and ideas. Set in a dystopic future America, Atlas Shrugged combines science fiction, mystery, philosophy, and romance to investigate several… Read More

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1903. First US edition. Octavo. Publisher's original navy cloth, blind-stamped and gilt. Minor scuffing and spotting to boards; some bubbling to rear board cloth; faint toning to leaves, else near-fine.. Rare and uncommonly bright first U.S. edition of Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) classic polemical work The Dawn of Day (also translated as Daybreak), first published in the US by The Macmillan Company in 1903 (translation by Johanna Volz), after its initial publication in German in 1881 (Morgenröthe: Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurtheile). In The Dawn of Day Nietzsche presents an early attack on moral systems, commencing a sustained critique that would mature in his later works after he fully developed his concept of the "will to power." The work is also an early example of Nietzsche's skill in the aphoristic style, which would garner worldwide renown in the decades following his death in 1900. Drawing upon the ascendant materialism of his day, Nietzsche… Read More

London: Printed, and are to be sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1698. First edition. Folio (310 x 200 mm). Modern brown quarter calf, red morocco spine label and raised bands, with marbled boards, edges sprinkled red. Comes in a blue, flat-back cloth box. Ownership signature of "Adam Brown, 1797," and shelf mark to title page, several annotations and ink marks to contents, including sig. 302 verso. Contents occasionally spotted with small nick to top edge of S4 and short closed tear to lower edge of 2V2, else a very bright and clean copy housed in a nice custom box.. First edition of this major work of republican theory by English politician and republican theorist Algernon Sidney (1623-1683). Sidney wrote his Discourses Concerning Government between 1681 and 1683, and it originally circulated in manuscript form as a polemical refutation of Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha (1680), which defended the divine right of kings under absolute monarchy. Sidney opposed absolute monarchy as a… Read More

Rare books, articles, and correspondence, 1928-1989. English and German language works. Voegelin, Erich: Ueber die form des amerikanischen geistes: Tübingen, Germany: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1928. First edition. Original paper wrappers. Minor creasing and edgewear to wraps; former library sticker to spine and two-inch sticker scar to front wrap; library stamp to title page with penciled strike-through; otherwise leaves bright and unmarked. A scarce and well-preserved first edition of Voegelin's first published book (later translated as On the Form of the American Mind). [German language work]Voegelin, Erich: Rasse und staat: Tübingen, Germany: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1933. First edition. Original paper wrappers. Minor creasing and edgewear to wrappers with some rubbing and spotting; chipping to head and foot of spine; faint sunning to wrappers; occasional pencil underlining and marginalia; otherwise well-preserved. [German language work]Voegelin, Erich: Die… Read More

London: Socialist Labour League, 1960. Pamphlet. Stapled wraps, 7 x 5 inches, 8 pp. Toning to wrappers and pages with "Labor Book Shop" stamp to front wrapper; faint crease marks to upper-right leaves; one-inch chip to top of rear wrapper (along spine); one-inch closed tear to rear wrapper; wrappers pulling from staples. A delicate and rare pamphlet written by Alasdair MacIntyre for the Socialist Labour League. Very good.. Rare original printing of Alasdair MacIntyre's (b. 1929) early pamphlet discussing and debating a proposed change to Clause 4 of the Labour Party Constitution. Celebrated for his monumental work on virtue ethics, After Virtue (1981), MacIntyre was early influenced by Marxist thought and principles, and briefly joined the Socialist Labour League as a young scholar. His first book, Marxism: An Interpretation, published in 1953, evaluated the influence of theological concepts on Marxist thought. Although his Marxist sympathies would evolve throughout his distinguished career,… Read More

Berkeley, California: The University Press: Philosophical Union of the University of California offprint from the University of California Chronicle, Volume XIII, No. 4, 1911. Offprint. Pamphlet. Stapled wraps, 5.75 x 8.75 inches, 26 pp. Faint spotting to wrappers; crease to front wrapper with several half-inch closed tears to head of wrappers and title page; some separation of wrappers along spine; discreet, one-inch tape repair to head of front wrapper (verso); toning to wrappers and leaves; pages bright and unmarked. Very good.. Original offprint setting forth George Santayana's (1863-1952) remarks before the Philosophical Union of the University of California on August 25, 1911 on "The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy." In what would become his farewell address to America, Santayana analyzes American culture and tradition at the turn of the twentieth century, presenting America with a vision of itself that would, in the decades ahead, begin to fade away before the advent of democratic… Read More

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1948. First edition. Octavo. Original boards and dust jacket (not price-clipped). One-inch closed tear to foot of front jacket and small sticker stain to head of rear jacket panel, minor edgewear and toning to the dust jacket, else a fine first edition in a very good-plus dust jacket.. Exceptional first edition of Richard Weaver's (1910-1963) seminal work on the decline of the West and the consequences of its movement away from philosophical realism in favor of moral and intellectual relativism. Weaver was an American professor of English and rhetoric at the University of Chicago and a conservative intellectual in the Southern tradition. Weaver earned his degree in English in 1932 from the University of Kentucky and thereafter pursued his master's degree in English at Vanderbilt University, where John Crowe Ransom supervised his thesis, The Revolt Against Humanism-a critique of the humanism of Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More. He would later pursue a Ph.D.… Read More

Bologna: Il Mulino, 1964. First edition (in Italian). Octavo. Original paper wrappers and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor edgewear and toning to wrappers and dust jacket, else fine.. First edition of Augusto Del Noce's (1910-1989) first book, Il problema dell'ateismo, published by Il Mulino in 1964. Del Noce was among Italy's preeminent post-war political and philosophical thinkers whose works and thought have begun to reach the wider Western world thanks to the recent English translations by Carlo Lancelloti of the City University of New York (College of Staten Island) and the McGill-Queen's University Press. In this, his magnum opus, Del Noce assembled his finest works on atheism, Marxism, and Western secularization, evaluating the secularizing trends of modernity and tracing their philosophical roots into our precarious present. Del Noce sought to advance a genealogical history of modern philosophy to explain the modern West's turn toward atheism and its shift away from classical… Read More

Milano: Rusconi, 1978. First edition (in Italian). Octavo. Original red cloth boards and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor scuffing to dust jacket; spotting to top page block; very neat underlining to nine pages (possibly that of A. James Gregor). Inscribed and signed by August Del Noce on front free endpaper to A. James Gregor.. First edition of Augusto Del Noce's (1910-1989) Il suicidio della rivoluzione with inscription to University of California at Berkely political scientist A. James Gregor. A leading light among Italian post-war political and philosophical thinkers, Del Noce spent much of his academic career elucidating the connection between philosophical ideas and socio-political history. Del Noce viewed the growth and expansion of atheism as the fundamental question of modernity, and he asserted that Marxism-and, particularly, the dissolution of Marxism into neo-bourgeois nihilism-was a driving force behind the secularization of the modern West. Il suicidio della rivoluzione was among… Read More

London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1958. Revised edition. Octavo. Original cloth boards and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Foxing and toning to endpapers and pastedowns; foxing, spotting, and rubbing to dust jacket with edgewear, particularly at jacket folds and along head and foot; sunning to spine; small ink inscription to front pastedown; general wear to dust jacket. Signed by Bernard Lonergan on the front free endpaper with message: "Bernard Lonergan S.J. / The fundamental principle is [...] conversion / eg. P. xxii, f. 'The hard fact is...'" Very good in good-plus dust jacket. Scarce with Lonergan's signature and personal annotation.. Bernard Lonergan's (1904-1984) masterpiece, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, with Lonergan's rare personal signature and inscription to front free endpaper. Lonergan's Insight was born out of the success of a 1945 lecture that he gave at the Thomas More Institute in Montreal entitled "Thought and Reality." In the following years he wrote Insight in order to… Read More

Five rare books and associated ephemera (all published in French) from the private library of Maurice de Gandillac, 1930-1966. Maritain, Jacques: Éléments de Philosophie (I): Introduction Générale a la Philosophie, Paris: Pierre Téqui, Libraire-Éditeur, 1930. Reprint of the original 1920 edition. Original wrappers. Minor smudging and toning to wrappers and slight creasing to corners and faint staining to spine; minor toning to leaves. Portions uncut. Very good. Signed and inscribed by Jacques Maritain to Maurice de Gandillac on half-title page: "To Maurice de Gandillac / With affection / Jacques Maritain." Volume 1. Maritain, Jacques: De la Philosophie Chrétienne, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1933. First edition. Original wrappers. Small red ink spot to foot of front wrapper; minor toning to leaves. Very good. Signed and inscribed by Jacques Maritain to Maurice de Gandillac on the front free endpaper: "To Maurice de Gandillac / Very affectionately / Jacques Maritain." Maritain, Jacques: Science… Read More

Paris: Aubier, 1951. First edition. Two volumes. Small octavo. Original wrappers. Minor edgewear to wrappers and spotting to front wrapper of Vol. II; one-inch closed tear to top of first two leaves of Vol. II; minor spotting to page block of Vol. II; both volumes bright and largely uncut. Inscribed by Gabriel Marcel on title page to Vol. I. Very good.. Inscribed first edition, two-volume set collecting Gabriel Marcel's (1889-1973) Gifford Lectures presented at the University of Aberdeen between 1949 and 1950 on the nature and purpose of philosophy, faith, and metaphysics in human life. Marcel was an influential French philosopher, playwright, and music critic who, in the tradition of Søren Kierkegaard, was also a renowned Christian existentialist. Marcel focused much of his thought on the displacement of the authentically human in an increasingly industrial and technological world and, like other existentialist thinkers of his time, sought to explain the roots of human alienation. The Mystery of… Read More

London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1958. First bound edition. Octavo. Volume XXXIII (33)-1958, bound in original boards. Minor scuffing and spotting to page block; pencil bookseller notations to front pastedown endpaper, else a near-fine bound edition of Volume 33 (1958) of Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, complete with advertisements.. Uncommon bound first edition of the journal Philosophy with G. E. M. Anscombe's (1919-2001) landmark article "Modern Moral Philosophy," which offered a powerful critique of the Kantian and utilitarian ethical traditions in modern moral philosophy-and is renowned for introducing the term "consequentialism" into the lexicon of analytical philosophy and for inaugurating a revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics. In her article, Anscombe, a distinguished British analytical philosopher and professor at the University of Cambridge, set forth a powerful critique of Kantian and utilitarian ethics, arguing that both sought a foundation for morality… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1970. First edition. Octavo. Original black cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor toning and scuffing to dust jacket, else fine. Bookplate of Japanese-American theologian and Christian environmentalist, Jitsuo Morikawa, is pasted to front free endpaper. Fine in near-fine dust jacket.. First edition of Richard John Neuhaus's (1936-2009) first book, co-authored with Austrian-born sociologist and theologian Peter L. Berger (1929-2017). Neuhaus was among the most influential American Christian intellectuals of the twentieth century who, alongside H. Reinhold Niebuhr, John Courtney Murray, and other prominent contemporary theologians, explored the intersection of religion, politics, and policy in America's modern public square. Neuhaus began his career as a minister in the Lutheran Church after completing his divinity training at Concordia Seminary in 1960. From 1961 to 1978 Neuhaus served as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, overseeing… Read More

N.P.: The Science Press, 1904. Reprint. Octavo. Wrappers. 15 pp. Light toning to wrapper edges, although leaves remain bright; wrappers beginning to separate from staples at bottom spine; minor marginalia to final page; faint creasing across middle. Rare offprint of James's classic essay bearing the front wrapper instruction: "Please return to Mrs. W. James / 95 Irving St. / Cambridge." A wonderful association copy of this uncommon work. Very good.. Bright reprint of William James's (1842-1910) influential essay "The Pragmatic Method," personally owned by his wife, Alice Howe Gibbens James (1849-1922). William James was a leading American philosopher, psychologist, and historian who, with Charles Sanders Peirce, is credited with founding the philosophical school of Pragmatism. James became a pioneer of modern psychology with the publication of his book The Principles of Psychology (1890), and he made important contributions to the fields of philosophy and social thought with works like Essays in… Read More

London: Printed for J. Dodsley, in Pall-Mall, 1790. First edition. Octavo. Period-style half calf and marbled boards, red morocco spine label. Offsetting to endpapers from leather tips, title page browned and spotting to certain leaves. Todd identifies three editions with a 1790 title page, comprising ten impressions. Todd's setting a of [A]2 with the ornamental flower on p. [iv] pointing to the right and the "M" in the imprint immediately below the first "D" of "Dodsley" and setting x of 2A2 with no press figure on p. 354. SC/2/6.. First edition of Edmund Burke's (1729-1797) enduring polemic against the French Revolution and defense of conservative principles. The publication of Burke's pamphlet in 1790 would prove a watershed moment in the birth and development of modern conservatism, as Reflections has been credited as among the first-and finest-transformative statements of traditionalism into a fully conceived political philosophy. Burke was an Irish statesman who served in the House of Commons… Read More

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1932. First American edition, review copy; 1932 book review article from "The Modern Quarterly" enclosed. Octavo. Original cloth with dust jacket (not price-clipped). Rare dust jacket in fair condition, internally and externally mended with tape, chipping (including one-inch chip to bottom spine), with splitting to spine and some staining. Publication date ("Aug 18 1932 / Publication Date") stamped to upper front cover. Very good in a fair and worn (though scarce) original dust jacket from an advance review copy.. A review copy of José Ortega y Gasset's (1883-1955) seminal analysis of the masses and the influence of "mass man" on modern society. Ortega was born in Madrid and was early influenced by his family's liberal leanings. His father was director of El Imparcial, an ideologically liberal newspaper owned by his mother, Dolores Gasset, which was one of the first newspapers in Spain to be published by a company rather than a political party. After earning… Read More

Worcester: Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Jun. sold by him and by Mathew Carey, Philadelphia; also by the various Booksellers throughout the United States, 1802. First US edition. Two volumes bound as one. Contemporary calf. Re-backed, new endpapers, hole in upper margin of title and adjacent leaves, tear on final leaf affecting a few letters, browning and offsetting to pages. Enclosed in an open-end case of brown cloth with leather tips.. The first American edition of Montesquieu's (1689-1755) classic work of political theory that helped form the American Constitution. Montesquieu first published The Spirit of Laws in 1748 in his native France (as De l'esprit des loix) anonymously, in part because his works were subject to censorship. The book became recognized for its pioneering work on political theory and comparative law, and was rapidly translated into other languages and published throughout Europe. Thomas Nugent, the influential Irish historian and travel writer, published the first English… Read More