Regular price: $11.17

Membership details Membership details
  • A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook, free.
  • 1 credit/month after trial – good for any book, any price.
  • Easy exchanges – swap any book you don’t love.
  • Keep your audiobooks, even if you cancel.
  • After your trial, Audible is just $14.95/month.
OR
In Cart

People who bought this also bought...

Nietzsche in 90 Minutes audiobook cover art

  • Nietzsche in 90 Minutes

  • By: Paul Strathern
  • Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
  • Length: 1 hr and 12 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    3.5 out of 5 stars 128
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 70
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 67

With Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophy was dangerous not only for philosophers but for everyone. His ideas presaged a collective madness that had horrific consequences in Europe in the early 1900s. Though his philosophy is more one of aphorisms than a system, it is brilliant, persuasive, and incisive. His major concept is the will to power, which he saw as the basic impulse for all our acts. Christianity he saw as a subtle perversion of this concept, thus Nietzsche's famous pronouncement, "God is dead."

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • A short biography

  • By Peter on 09-21-04
Spinoza in 90 Minutes audiobook cover art

  • Spinoza in 90 Minutes

  • By: Paul Strathern
  • Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
  • Length: 1 hr and 11 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 85
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 55
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 55

Spinoza's brilliant metaphysical system was derived neither from reality nor experience. Starting from basic assumptions, with a series of geometric proofs he built a universe which was also God, one and the same thing, the classic example of pantheism. Although his system seems an oddity today, Spinoza's conclusions are deeply in accord with modern thought, from science (the holistic ethics of today's ecologists) to politics (the idea that the state exists to protect the individual).

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Very Useful for the Beginner

  • By Jesse on 05-06-06
Plato in 90 Minutes audiobook cover art

  • Plato in 90 Minutes

  • By: Paul Strathern
  • Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
  • Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 58
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 32
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 31

In an age when philosophers had scarcely glimpsed the horizons of the mind, a boy named Aristocles decided to forgo his ambitions as a wrestler. Adopting the nickname Plato, he embarked instead on a life in philosophy. In 387 B.C. he founded the Academy, the world's first university, and taught his students that all we see is not reality but merely a reproduction of the true source. And in his famous Republic he described the politics of "the highest form of state."

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • In 90 Minutes Series overview

  • By L Mark Higgins on 08-01-12
Hume in 90 Minutes audiobook cover art

  • Hume in 90 Minutes

  • By: Paul Strathern
  • Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
  • Length: 1 hr and 17 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 72
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 45
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 46

David Hume reduced philosophy to ruins: he denied the existence of everything, except our actual perceptions themselves. I alone exist, he argued, and the world is nothing more than part of my consciousness. Yet we know that the world remains, and we go on as before. What Hume expressed was the status of our knowledge about the world, a world in which neither religion nor science is certain.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • In 90 Minutes Series overview

  • By L Mark Higgins on 08-01-12
Socrates in 90 Minutes audiobook cover art

  • Socrates in 90 Minutes

  • By: Paul Strathern
  • Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
  • Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 74
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 40
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 39

Just a century after it had begun, philosophy entered its greatest age with the appearance of Socrates, who spent so much of his time talking about philosophy on the streets of Athens that he never got around to writing anything down. His method of aggressive questioning, called dialectic, was the forerunner of logic; he used it to cut through the twaddle of his adversaries and arrive at the truth. Rather than questioning the world, he believed, we would be better off questioning ourselves.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • I thought it was OK

  • By Theodore on 11-21-11
Kant in 90 Minutes audiobook cover art

  • Kant in 90 Minutes

  • By: Paul Strathern
  • Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
  • Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 67
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 35
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 34

Immanuel Kant taught and wrote prolifically about physical geography yet never traveled further than forty miles from his home in Kvnigsberg. How appropriate it is then that in his philosophy he should deny that all knowledge was derived from experience. He insisted that all experience must conform to knowledge. According to Kant, space and time are subjective; along with various "categories," they help us to see the phenomena of the world, though never its true reality.

  • 2 out of 5 stars

  • Kant lite

  • By Jacques Ray on 05-25-04

Publisher's Summary

Rene Descartes spent most of his childhood in solitude, a situation that also came to characterize his adult life. Fortunately, these countless lonely hours helped Descartes produce the declaration that changed all philosophy: "I think, therefore I am." Eventually convincing himself to doubt and disregard sensory knowledge, Descartes found he could prove his existence through his thoughts. This internal information, he believed, was the true reality and external forces were hopelessly deceiving.

In Descartes in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Descartes' life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world.

©1996 Paul Strathern (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks

What members say

Average Customer Ratings

Overall

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    15
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Performance

  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Story

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Audible.com Reviews
Amazon Reviews
Sort by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

In 90 Minutes Series overview

If you could sum up Descartes in 90 Minutes in three words, what would they be?
aka Cliff Notes

Would you recommend Descartes in 90 Minutes to your friends? Why or why not?
Yes - I've listened to each book in the series about a major philosopher that is available on Audible. Strathern's books don't have the analytical depth found in Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy" books, but he does a good job summarizing each philosopher's biography, major philosophical points, and criticisms. Additionally, Strathern's breadth is broader than Durant's in that he covers a greater number of philosophers. I believe that the time spent listening to these books has been well-spent.

My reviews for each book in the series about a philosopher are identical.

What about Robert Whitfield’s performance did you like?
Voice is clear, well-modulated, and easily understood, even at 1 1/2 speed.

0 of 2 people found this review helpful