A radical is a person who holds extreme or unconventional convictions and who advocates fundamental political, economic, or social reforms. In this volume, the Scottish philosopher, John MacCunn, presents the life and thought of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Richard Cobden, Thomas Carlyle, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Thomas Hill Green-- six radical thinkers whose influence produced fundamental and progressive change in 19th century society.

"I would rather go mad than feel pleasure."- Antisthenes.For Cynics the secret to happiness was living a life of virtue in harmony with Nature with only the bare essentials necessary for survival. They rejected materialism and were free of belongings. Many were homeless and proud of it. The Cynics emphasized the value of self-sufficiency, or autarkeia. They ate one (vegetarian) meal a day and made a habit of walking vast distances to stay in shape. The school extol...

“The truth is hypothetical.”Scepticism (or skepticism), the belief that requires all information to be well supported by evidence, originated in the Skeptikoi, a first century BC Greek school who “asserted nothing.” The school was founded by Aenesidemus; our main source of the school’s teachings is Sextus Empiricus and the leader of the Sceptics was Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 BC) who had traveled to India and studied with the gymnosophists (naked lovers of wisdom). F...

“It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.”-EpicurusFounded in the fourth century BC, Epicureanism was the main alternative philosophy to its popular rival Stoicism. Based upon the teachings of Greek philosopher Epicurus, the philosophy propounded an ethic of individual pleasure as the sole or chief good in life. Epicurus advocated living in such a way as to derive the greatest amount of pleasure possible during one's li...

"To relax the mind is to lose it."Stoic Six Pack 2 brings together six more essential texts for students of Stoicism:Consolations From A Stoic by SenecaOn The Shortness of Life by SenecaLectures and Fragments of Musonius RufusEthical Fragments by HieroclesMeditations In Verse by Marc...

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”Stoic Six Pack brings together the six essential texts of Stoic Philosophy:Meditations by Marcus AureliusThe Golden Sayings of EpictetusFragments of EpictetusDiscourses of EpictetusSeneca’s Letters from a Stoic: Epi...

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.Stoic Six Pack brings together the six essential texts of Stoic Philosophy:Meditations by Marcus AureliusThe Golden Sayings of EpictetusFragments of EpictetusSelected Discourses of Ep...

If you strip Stoicism of its paradoxes and its wilful misuse of language, what is left is simply the moral philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, dashed with the physics of Heraclitus. Stoicism was not so much a new doctrine as the form under which the old Greek philosophy finally presented itself to the world at large.