This website offers material on philosophy, religion and ethics, notes for students and examples of my travel photography. Please come and take a look around!
From the dramatic to the sublime... We've just returned from a trip to the USA, including Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Some of my images are already available on Shutterstock, and will appear on this website shortly.
Why 'Philosophy and Ethics'?
I believe that there is nothing more important than exploring the fundamental existential questions. Who am I? What is the purpose of life? What should I do? How can I find and promote happiness? How should I relate to those around me and the natural world? Such questions are crucial and urgent, whether they are asked from a religious perspective or a secular one. They impact on morality, politics, sociology, psychology and the environment.
These issues are universal. So religious questions should be explored carefully and sensitively by secular thinkers, because they touch on profound issues of what it means to be human. But religious thinkers equally should pay attention to secular questions, for they embody the exploration of meaning and value that is universal and relevant, irrespective of a person's cultural or religious background.
In June 1916, two remarkable religious thinkers found themselves on opposite sides of the battle of Verdun; for both the experience was uniquely formative, but they responded to it very differently. It transformed their ideas of God, their careers and their lives.
A German Lutheran chaplain and a French Jesuit stretcher bearer, although separated by only a few hundred yards of mud and barbed wire, tried to cope with, and make sense of, that horror of death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. They – Paul Tillich and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – reflect a century of thinking about religion, politics, humanism, existential angst and the global future.
It's the story of two men and their struggles with religious belief, but also of the whole way in which ideas about God and religion have been shaped and re-shaped during the last hundred years. Paperback @ £7.99 / $11.50 | Kindle ebook @ £1.99 / $2.99
Click here for more information and to order your copy.
Explore the moral issues and arguments that direct our lives, express our values, and shape our future.
Ethics for Life, is an extensively revised 6th edition of my original Teach Yourself Ethics title.
In addition to giving a broad introduction to Ethics, this book - like Philosophy for Life - gives the subject a personal edge, exploring why Ethics matters to us as individuals.
Click the cover for more details.
From the publisher's publicity...
Philosophy For Life is the essential introduction to the history of Western thought, covering key thinkers, both ancient and modern, and the major branches of philosophy. But more than that, it is a toolkit for developing new insights into the world we live in.
In Philosophy For Life you will develop your own critical and creative thinking by exploring the key ideas in Western Philosophy and the arguments that continue to shape our world.
More information on this title...
Its first review on Amazon (from a 'Top 500 Reviewer', unknown to me) concludes:
'Mel Thompson's clearly written and intellectually stimulating book is a superb introduction which should appeal to the general reader as well as students of philosophy.'
Click an image below to see some of my travel photography, or here for the whole range of destinations.
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Listen in, but watch out!
John Murray learning / Teach Yourself have produced a Philosophy Masterclass audiobook. Half of it is taken straight from my Philosophy for Life title - so if you've read the book, you might not want to get the audiobook.
However, it also offers material from Mark Vernon, and if you click on the sample on Amazon, you will hear most of the introduction to Philosophy for Life, beautifully read, for nothing!
Better still, the whole audiobook comes FREE if you try Audible free for 30 days!
