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[title:] Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg: edited, with introduction, bibliography notes, glossary, and appendices [editor:] Fr. Klaeber [book info:] Third edition with first and second supplements [publisher:] D.C. Heath and Company Lexington, Massachusetts [Book is "Old English", or anglo-saxon. This was an undergraduate book from years&years ago, "independent study" translating the whole thing; sadly, at some point over the years I got careless & part of the book itself got mold, & I keep it in a bag until I figure out how to fix that or lose my sentimentality over it & toss it.]

[Title:] Against The Fascist Creep [author:] Alexander Reid Ross [2017 book. Cover illustration by N.O. Bonzo. Someone holding a dagger surrounded by plantlife. In other hand holding a severed head by hair with nazi symbol on collar. Head is being held over a bowl which sits on a pedestal. Skulls in corner with symbols on them. Large snake on right.] [from back cover: "...fascism in all its white nationalist and 'alt-right' permutations is alive and well in the United States. A terrifying tour of the history and influence of the forces that helped bring the 45th president to power, Against The Fascist Creep maps the connections and names the names. It traces today's often-disguised forms of right-wing extremism through the decades and across the globe to show how infiltration is a conscious and clandestine program for neofascist groups that seek to co-opt and undermine both mainstream and the new social movements of the left."]

[title:] Paraconsistent Logic Essays on the Inconsistent [Editors:] Graham Priest, Richard Routley, Jean Norman [middle of page is "Contributors" over 2 columns of names, I give only the last names:] Arruda, Asenjo, Batens, Brady, Bunder, da Costa, Giambrone, Goldstein, Jennings, Kotas, Meyer, Morensen, Norman, Pema, Plumwood, Priest, Quesada, Routley, Schotch, Slaney, Vakarelov [bottom is the word "Philosophia", which is probably part of the name of the publisher] [This is the title page, not the cover of the book. This is my paper copy of book so I don't have the cover. 1989 book, for me, was a kind of introduction to paraconsistent logics and it fascinated me at the time as an odd thing. Still fascinated decades later these logics make more sense. Ok, slow. But, whatever. Step back: inconsistencies and contradictions are troubles for most everyone in life, and really get us to begin wondering about how to go about trying to think better.]

[title] Being Amoral: psychopathy and moral incapacity [editor] edited by Thomas Schramme [There are four silhouettes, shades of black with one blue/green, the two on the left appear to be different people, the two on the right seem to double a single person; other than that it's unclear what's going on in the picture, so imagine.] [2014 book with 13 contributors, 12 papers/sections; and from inside front flap: "...philosophers will be better equipped to determine what they mean by 'the moral point of view' when they connect debates in moral philosophy to the psychiatric notion of psychopathy, which provides some guidance on what humans need in order [to] be able to feel the normative pull of morality. And the empirical work done by psychiatrists and researchers in psychopathy can benefit from the conceptual clarifications offered by philosophy."]

[upper left corner, price tag from a library book sale] [title in middle on ribbons around a heart:] The Kindness of Strangers [words top of book: of fate & fortune on the road including original stories by Jan Morris, Tim Cahill, Simon Winchester, & Dave Eggers] [A circle contains: winner 2004 independent publishers book awards] [text across the bottom: a wonderful idea beautifully realized. I enjoyed it immensely. -- Bill Bryson. Preface by hisholiness the dalai lama. Edited by Don George.] [Cover illustration by Daniel New] [From the Introduction:] "In [25] years of wandering the world, I have learned two things: the first is that when you travel, at some point you will find yourself in a dire predicament --- ... The second is that someone will miraculously emerge to take care of you --- . . . This book is meant to bridge those rifts [e.g., ignorance, greed, divisiveness, despair, distrust, stereotypes, threats, fearful specters, so on], to remind us that we are all members of one grand, globe-encircling family...The Kindness of Strangers began as a simple collection of travelers' tales around a common theme. But as it has come together, it has cohered into something more: a palpable parable of how we are all intricately interconnected on life's journey, every day, everywhere. ... The kindness of strangers is ours to give and to take; we shape the world with each embrace."

[series title:] A Wisdom Advanced Book Blue Series. [book title:] Compassion: a Tibetan Analysis: A Buddhist Monastic Textbook. [author:] Guy Newland. [Cover: "Avalokiteshvara, the embodiment of compassion. From a painting by contemporary [1984 book] Tibetan artist, A-la Rig-ta." Also from front cover flap: Newland translated Ornament Adorning the Throats of the Fortunate by Jay-dzun Chö-gyi Gyel-tsen...its subject--the development of compassion as expounded by ...Chandrakirti, and elucidated by Dzong-ka-ba ... is dealt with in the highly technical language of debate...Newland has expertly extracted ... major ideas and presented them so that they are comprehensible, relevant and accessible." Content is wonderful, but fleetingly frustrated by absence of explicit summarizing compressed definition of "compassion". Don't think that matters in the long run.] [Fascinating book fact: though bought in some used bookstore, it was originally a gift to author's parents, & penned on title page the author handwrote "To Mom + Pop, Thanks, Love Guy".]

Unto Others: the evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. [authors:] Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson. [Picture of face in hood, closing eyes, tear on cheek, nothing other than shape of body, a small figure of bald person on top of a ladder reaching to dab tear maybe.] ["In this book, we will thoroughly explore the concepts of altruism and selfishness in evolutionary biology, psychology, and philosophy...our argument builds a strong case for both evolutionary and psychological altruism..." A 1998 book.]

Meaning, Truth, and the Limits of Analysis: Ten Studies. [author:] David Wiggins. [At the top is publisher: Oxford.] ["Analysis" here is not mathy, but alludes to conceptual analysis and elucidation, from and for philosophical viewpoints. imo especially wrt truth: there are marks, components, of truth, dependent on inquiry. "We cannot leave it to chance whether what we believe is true." "...the idea of truth is something we grasp by being gradually drawn into the whole set of practices, practices that culminate in speaking, understanding, and thinking--and in trying to get something right."]

[title] The Book of Embraces [author] Eduardo Galeano [top red space: winner of the lannan prize for cultural freedom. Beneath author name: author of Memory of Fire. Below that: translated by Cedric Belfrage.] [Cover design Beth Tondreau Design; Cover photograph by Marcelo Isarrualde of handmade birds from the island of Solentiname.] [Images throughout the book drawn by Galeano. A birthday gift from my best friend of long ago, reminding me "recordar: to remember; from the latin re-cordis to pass back through the heart", "the world...is a heap of people, a sea of tiny flames", that "the wind whistles within me...master of nothing, master of no one, not even master of my own convictions, I am my face in the wind, against the wind, and I am the wind that strikes my face".]

Interpretation and overinterpretation: with Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler and Christine Brooke-Rose.[right column author of main text: Umberto Eco] Edited by Stefan Collini. [in the blue and black, picture of Eco smoking a cig looking at his name] "...the difference between sane interpretation and paranoiac interpretation lies in recognizing that this relationship [e.g., analogy, contiguity, or similarity, to everything else, pick one] is minimal, and not, on the contrary, deducing from this minimal relationship the maxiumum possible." "The word dog is not similar to a dog." "The overestimation of the importance of clues is often born of a propensity to consider the most immediately apparent elements as significant, whereas the very fact that they are apparent should allow us to recognize that they are explicable in much more economical terms." E.g., doctor notices liver cirrhosis in pts who drink whisky&soda, cognac&soda, gin&soda, screws up by interpreting then thinking soda causes cirrhosis. It's just easier to notice the presence of water and overinterpret, underinterpret, extra interpret, then deduce induce abduce whatever etc..

The Soul of the Indian [author:] Eastman. [The full title is The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation. It's by Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa). Originally published around 1911. Of course, "Indian" does not refer to India, but, relative to Eastman, Indigenous NorthAmerica. Read this when I was very young, this very book. One of those books that kickstarted part of mind. And it was even before I heard the story of how Dr. Eastman helped to birth my great uncle.]

[title] Healing the Soul Wound: counseling with American Indians and Other Native Peoples [author] Eduardo Duran [series title] Multicultural Foundations of Psychology and Counseling Series, Edited by Allen E. Ivey and Derald Wing Sue. There's a rectangle left corner with water,dirt, or sand (u pick) and a circle of dots with intersecting vertical and horizontal lines, i.e., 4 directions etc. Background of cover is probable bonedry river bed, or whatever (u pick). The 4 direction circle is repeated with shadow dots. From the Introduction: "This work is motivated by a quest for a healing process that includes the healer....Healers who are part of the Traditional system of healing in Original communities do not pretend that they are beyond the frailties of being human...." Better thinking allround.

[title] indigenous quotient stalking words: American Indian Heritage as Future [author] Juan Gómez-Quiñones [Cover Art: Memories (detail) Malaquias Montoya. There is one page on the art and artist. The detail from a triptych 1992 re Columbus arrival; on top of triptych is Galeano quote "My memory will retain what is worthwhile. My memory knows more about me than I do; it doesn't lose what deserves to be saved".] [From 1st essay, "American Indian ancestries and heritages ought to be integral to K-12 curriculums and university explorations and graduate expositions...The Indigenous voice matters, yesterday and today, in substantive pedagogical and philosophical discourses". "[Indigenous] life-affirming narratives and interpretive claims are far different from those that have shaped them as 'others' in the narratives of domination yesterday, and of appropriation today."] You encounter colonization, domination, deception, murder, etc., your memory, & make you wish, among other things, there was more critical thinking everywhere.

[upper right corner full title] Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race [author] Charles W. Mills [half title in shade of black, "Black" with "ness" below, behind white "Visible"] From Preface, "These essays represent my exploration of the possibilities generated when race is taken seriously in some of the standard areas of the field: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, applied ethics, social and political philosophy. With one exception, all were written within the span of four years and show the development of my thinking." And thinking critically, understanding, clarifying are some tools on the ways to solutions.

[title] Fear of Black Consciousness [author] Lewis R. Gordon [from the dust jacket flaps] "...Gordon cuts through the mist of white narcissism and the versions of consciousness it perpetuates. He illuminates the different forms of invisibility that define black life, and he exposes the bad faith at the heart of many discussions about race and racism, not only in North America but also across the globe, including in countries where disucssants regard themselves as 'colorblind'. Gordon reveals that these lies about race and its supposed irrelevance confer upon many white people an inherited sense of being extraordinary. More than being privileged or entitled, they act with a license to do as they please. But for many if not most blacks, living an ordinary life in a white-dominated society is an extraordinary achievement." And for others. The challenge calls for better thinking, critically, among strategies & tactics.

[author] Vine Deloria Jr. [title] We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf. [Cover designed by John Nieto called "Plains Observer". The figure supposed to be representative [you know indigenous appear in a wide variety of appearances, but Vine was Standing Rock, so probably etc.] of an indigenous guy colorfully dressed, a single feather, unbraided hair. ] New introduction by Suzan Shown Harjo. [This was published originally 1970, this edition 2007. From back cover: "Written at a time when the traditions of the formerly omnipotent Anglo-Saxon male were crumbling under the pressures of a changing world, Deloria's book interprets racial conflict, inflation, the ecological crisis, and power groups as symptoms rather than causes of the American malaise: 'The glittering generalities and mythologies of American society no longer satisfy the need and desire to belong,' a theory as applicable today as it was in 1970."]

(author) Pierre Saint-Amand (title) THE LAWS OF HOSTILITY: Politics, Violence, and the Enlightenment. (underneath title) Foreword by CHANTAL MOUFFE (under that) Translated by Jennifer Curtis Gage. (Cover design by Dennis Anderson. In between the main title and subtitle is a black ink picture of spirals of plantlife on either end, a chunky naked person with a curved sword about to slash at another lying down who has a straight sword & a shield. There's a bird perched on shield pecking at forehead of person about to slash. In right background is another person about to swing straight sword at horse laying on ground.) (Violence, cruelty, a side of sociability necessary to acknowledge in order to get clear on how democracies can succeed. Violence, cruelty, sadism, antagonism, rivalry, debauchery, contradictory to good passions; the types of things that make you wish there was more critical thinking in the world.)

(author) Alain Robbe-Grillet (title) DANS LE LABRYINTHE (under title is the word 'roman', under that is a star with subscript "m", under that in small caps "les éditions de minuit".) Abandonment, rejection, left there, a vague idea of what's going on, carrying something someone could use I suppose. Snowing. Moving and thinking, outside, inside, labyrinths I guess. Think well.

(Author) Philip A. Cowan (Title) Piaget with feeling: cognitive, social, and emotional dimensions (Cover has a picture above the title of a yellow beret and round eyeglasses. Under the title is a schematic picture of a bicycyle. Perhaps cover designer intended the title-content to connect movement with perception. To me this book represents development of a seeing of actuals, possibles, combinations, & initiation into seeing patterns, then mind objects, & access to the abstract. Relevant to development of critical thinking capacities, it seems.)

Edmund Husserl. Cartesian Meditations: an introduction to Phenomenology. Translated by Dorion Cairns. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. [The subjective, the intersubjective, what it feels like to be you and they them, & everyone's got this, and an uneasy reading for the first books in phenomenology read (and no index). Ever since that first read still harbor uneasiness at what seems obvious and not worth much saying and that overwhelming feeling of missing something profound. Might begin to think might need to develop some critical thinking capacities.]

The View From Within: First-person approaches to the study of consciousness. Edited by Francisco Varela and Jonathan Shear. [Picture of a blue person seated at bluewood table; we see left side of face & neck, the left eye is open; wearing blue shirt holding in left hand round brown&white bread and touching a brown jug with right hand. In between hands is a blue dish. There’s a blue-ish cloth under his right elbow.] [From inside cover: “The Blind Man’s Meal” by Pablo Picasso.] [The book and experience makes for wishing everyone with an inner life should develop critical thinking skills. My culture: The inward, a seventh direction.]

Jean-Paul Sartre. L'existentialisme est un humanisme. [Présentation et notes par Arlette Elkaϊm-Sartre] Cover picture: a question mark formed by numerous little standing silhouetted people; the "dot" is one taller little silhouette. [This book reminds me of possibilities that crowd in and make me wish there was more critical thinking in the world.]

How many different ways could I have lived my life? There’s an indefinite number, no doubt large but still I could count them if I had a lot of time to goof off. Why would I choose one way over the others? There’s an indefinite number of reasons and possible situations and possible environments and possible histories and possible interactions of an indefinite number of elements that are not me. There is an indefinite number of ways this particular planet could unfold. And an indefinite number of ways this universe could have turned out. Those are still countable. The power set of all the elements of this universe is still countable, I’d bet. And it’s still a finite number. We haven’t even come close to the infinites yet. There is an indefinite number of possible universes. And an indefinite number of power sets of all the elements of all those possible universes. Still countable I'd guess. Still finite. And we seem to run out of all those imaginable possibilities, that is, we come to the end of the possibilities. We can’t imagine or conceive any more possibilities after that last one. So our epistemic virtues suggest we leave open a place for a possibility that seems beyond our reach. But we could count that one too, whatever it would be. But best leave room for the next one we couldn’t say is possible for us, in the interests of being epistemically humble. Yet we can count that too. There’s a whole bunch of these countable yet unknowable etc. additions isn’t there? In fact we might as well run the table on those and say there’s a whole infinity of countable additions, matching each one with a natural number. Well, it seems we’ve finally hit upon an infinity. Yet the power set of that one is something to consider. We are well on our way of stacking infinities. Speaking for myself I find that all deeply interesting, satisfying. If reincarnation is true in all its absurd vagueness, there really is a lot to do, an endless variety of things to do, or not, as you will.

[Author, Editor, revising translator:] Myles Burnyeat [Title:] The Theaetetus of Plato [Translator, Florence Margaret Jane Levett:] M.J. Levett
This book contains a "Memoir" of M.J. Levett and a "Preface" by Burnyeat. The real deal is the coherently beautiful "Introduction" by Burnyeat. It is 254 pages. Plato's Theaetetus is a mere 92. The following is from the Preface and Intro: "No other dialogue of Plato's speaks so directly to the concerns of the working philosopher in modern times....[I]t is a classic treatment in the full sense of a work to which the philosopher can return time and again to find a challenge or stimulus to reflection. It is also a literary masterpiece, but with this difference...artistic imagination is excited less by the interplay of the three characters who conduct the discussion than by the philosophical ideas themselves and the to-and-fro of dialectical argument....As the focus of discussion moves from perception in Part I to true judgement in Part II and on to accounts in Part III, the philosophical issues become more abstract, the writing less sensuous, and Plato leaves more and more of the thinking to his readers." The essence is a reply to skeptics. Something Galileo, Descartes, and Newton followed up on.

[Series info:] Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy [Author:] Sextus Empiricus [Title:] Outlines of Scepticism [Editors:] Edited by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes
For the sake of clarity and understanding scepticism, consider this passage from the Introduction --- "Sextus opens the Outlines by assuring us that a sceptic is essentially a searcher, someone who continues the inquiry.... The Greek word for 'sceptic' means something like 'inquisitive', 'investigative'; and Sextus intends the word in its ordinary sense. If you undertake any inquiry, he says, one of three things will result: you wil hit upon a solution to the problem, you will determine that it is impossible to hit upon a solution, or you will continue the search. (Sextus omits a fourth possibility: you may give up the search for want of funds or want of time or from sheer boredom. A sceptic, according to Sextus, is one who continues the search." In practice a skeptic is a collector of information used as reasons; also an analyst of the info & inferences made therefrom. All with aim of truth or probable truth. The editors, sort of jokingly, seemed to have added not just a 4th but also 5th and 6th possibilities. There are numerous other possibilities of course. For instance, your overweight neighbor with a dog is clomping around so your ceiling vibrates like a quake causing you to curse yet again the inflationary greed of rising rents.

$Epictetus: The Discourses as reported by Arrian, The Manual, and Fragments. [Translator info:] With an english translation by W.A. Oldfather, University of Illinois. [Other info:] In Two Volumes, Vol.I, Discourses, Books I and II. [Round seal "Loeb Classical Library", seated "old greekish" figure holding a figure with wings -- I'm not a classicist nor was ancient greek philosophy my speciality so I cannot identify the figure, maybe some other reader can.] [Publisher info:] Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, London, William Heinemann LTD, MCMLXXIX. [I consider the 2 volumes one book. Greek (though I'd say not classical Greek of Plato etc, but correct me if I'm wrong) on one page, English on the facing page. And I consider this a book of the 90s. Epictetus banished from Rome probably in 92\93 & started a "school" elsewhere "which was a great success" (Giovanni Reale). Epictetus wrote large amount of notes but apparently never published books. He talked. What we got are the Discourses, so I think it's logical to say he began "writing" this book in the 90s.]$