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The Great Philosophers: Popper (Great Philosophers Ser. #17)
By Frederic Raphael. 1998
Karl Popper 1902-1994 The political history of the twentieth century has been full of savage `certainties?. A similar idea of…
history warranted the callous savageries of both Marxism and Fascism. They shared a faith in what Karl Popper called `Historicism?: the belief that the future could be predicted and that man had to align himself with its bloody progress. Totalitarianism, Popper maintained, was based on ideas implicit in Western philosophy, from Plato to Hegel and Marx. It was his unique achievement to challenge the fundamental arguments in which Left and Right cloaked their authority. At a time when Communism and Fascism were devastatingly alluring to many intellectuals, Popper attacked their philosophical roots with passionate reasonableness and unflinching scepticism. As Frederic Raphael suggests in this elegant and intriguing introduction to his philosophy of science and history, Popper?s epic modesty may have made him the most radical thinker of our times.The Great Philosophers: Kant (Great Philosophers Ser.)
By Ralph Walker. 1998
Immanuel Kant 1724-1804 `Dry, obscure? prolix.? That was Kant?s own critique of his first Critique ? and exasperated students since…
have extended it to the rest of his work. Yet despite its sprawling form and forbidding content, Kant?s moral philosophy has continued to compel the attention of every serious thinker in the field. Today, indeed, it seems more important than ever. Never has the need for moral absolutes been more pressing than in this age of genocide and oppression, and yet as old certainties dissipate themselves in doubt and disillusion, not only religious faith but humanist confidence have found themselves supplanted by cynicism. If the appeal to a judging deity appears an evasion, even to believers, utilitarian head-counting seems no more than an exercise in ethical accountancy. This is where Kant comes in. Clear, concise ? and overwhelmingly convincing ? Ralph Walker?s lucid guide spells out the power and renewed relevance of his thinking: a genuinely objective, absolute basis for a modern moral law.Ethical Principles and Economic Transformation - A Buddhist Approach
By Laszlo Zsolnai. 2011
Buddhism points out that emphasizing individuality and promoting the greatest fulfillment of the desires of the individual conjointly lead to…
destruction. The book promotes the basic value-choices of Buddhism, namely happiness, peace and permanence. Happiness research convincingly shows that not material wealth but the richness of personal relationships determines happiness. Not things, but people make people happy. Western economics tries to provide people with happiness by supplying enormous quantities of things and today's dominating business models are based on and cultivates narrow self-centeredness.But what people need are caring relationships and generosity. Buddhist economics makes these values accessible by direct provision. Peace can be achieved in nonviolent ways. Wanting less can substantially contribute to this endeavor and make it happen more easily. Permanence, or ecological sustainability, requires a drastic cutback in the present level of consumption and production globally. This reduction should not be an inconvenient exercise of self-sacrifice. In the noble ethos of reducing suffering it can be a positive development path for humanity.Semiotics of International Law
By Evandro Menezes de Carvalho. 2010
Language carries more than meanings; language conveys a means of conceiving the world. In this sense, national legal systems expressed…
through national languages organize the Law based on their own understanding of reality. International Law becomes, in this context, the meeting point where different legal cultures and different views of world intersect. The diversity of languages and legal systems can enrich the possibilities of understanding and developing international law, but it can also represent an instability and unsafety factor to the international scenario. This multilegal-system and multilingual scenario adds to the complexity of international law and poses new challenges. One of them is legal translation, which is a field of knowledge and professional skill that has not been the subject of theoretical thinking on the part of legal scholars. How to negotiate, draft or interpret an international treaty that mirrors what the parties, - who belong to different legal cultures and who, on many occasions, speak different mother tongues - ,want or wanted to say? By analyzing the decision-making process and the legal discourse adopted by the WTO's Appellate Body, this book highlights the active role of language in diplomatic negotiations and in interpreting international law. In addition, it also shows that the debate on the effectiveness and legitimacy of International Law cannot be separated from the linguistic issue.The Phenomenological Mind
By Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi. 2012
The Phenomenological Mind is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology.…
Key questions and topics covered include: • what is phenomenology? • naturalizing phenomenology and the cognitive sciences • phenomenology and consciousness • consciousness and self-consciousness • time and consciousness • intentionality • the embodied mind • action • knowledge of other minds • situated and extended minds • phenomenology and personal identity. This second edition includes a new preface, and revised and improved chapters. Also included are helpful features such as chapter summaries, guides to further reading, and a glossary, making The Phenomenological Mind an ideal introduction to key concepts in phenomenology, cognitive science and philosophy of mind.The Xmas Files: The Philosophy Of Christmas
By Stephen Law. 2003
A philosophical but fun look at the meanings of Christmas myths and rituals, from carving the turkey to why Santa…
wears red.Picture the scene: Aunt Gertrude has just given you the most appalling Christmas tie, complete with snow-flecked kittens in a bowler hat. Do you smile, nod, and confine it to the bottom drawer? Or do you tell the truth and spare yourself future ties from hell? Kant would say that we must, at all costs, tell the truth - whilst Mill would insist that we should think of the consequences. THE XMAS FILES is a philosophical meander though the myths and rituals of Christmas today, asking such important questions as does Santa exist? What's wrong with Christmas kitsch? Is it all just a commercial racket? What was Augustine's attitude to 'peace on earth'? And what would David Hume have to say about the virgin birth? For underneath all the festive fun, the way we celebrate Christmas does raise serious questions about the beliefs that sustain us, and the ways in which we still value ritual and tradition as a means of coming together.The Great Philosophers: Spinoza (Great Philosophers Ser. #21)
By Roger Scruton. 1998
Born to be misunderstood, Spinoza was a man whose theology was banned for Godlessness. The very virtuosity of his reasoning…
left logicians unsettled, while even to professional thinkers in our own time, Spinoza has seemed too clever by half. And yet, as Roger Scruton shows in this strikingly readable introduction to the man and his though, Spinoza's concerns were both simple and sublime. Few philosophers, indeed, have shown such a straightforward, sustained and honest interest in uncovering the most fundamental aspects of existence. Too important to be dismissed as a mere genius, Spinoza is rediscovered here in all his quiet and consoling simplicity.The Great Philosophers: Derrida (Great Philosophers Ser. #5)
By Christopher Johnson. 1999
Part of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series. Jacques Derrida 1930-2004 As critics investigate the 'death of the author', they find Derrida's…
prints all over the murder weapon. No other recent philosopher has aroused so much suspicion - or been so badly misrepresented. His every idea a tug at the rug beneath us, questioning our sense of ourselves, our world and the language by which both are articulated, Derrida would make uncomfortable reading under any circumstances. Add to this an at time vertiginous abstruseness and a following whose 'deconstructive' readings appear to be doing away with writing as we know it, and the hostility is understandable. Yet as Christopher Johnson shows in this eloquent, exhilarating guide, 'deconstruction' doesn't mean 'destruction' - nor does it involve any 'con'. In what may seem mere convoluted cleverness, momentous consistencies can be found; in Derrida's apparently rarefied rhetoric can be read the most radical, relevant commentary we have on the world we inhabit today.What is Good?: The Search For The Best Way To Live
By A. C. Grayling. 2003
A.C. Grayling answers the most important question - How do we live a good life?One of the most fundamental questions…
in our life is to find out what we value - what principles we want to live by and which codes we will use to guide our behaviour. Most of us want to live a good life. But what, in today's secular society, does 'good' actually mean?To classical Greeks, the acquisition of knowledge, the enjoyment of the senses, creativity and beauty were all aspects of life to strive for. Then came the volcanic declarations of St Paul and his fundamentalist ideas on sin and human nature. In WHAT IS GOOD?, A.C. Grayling examines these and other proposals on how to live a good life, from the 'heroic' ideals of the Greek poets to Kant's theories on freedom and the UN Declaration on Human Rights.Introduction to Symbolic Logic and Its Applications
By Rudolf Carnap. 1958
A clear, comprehensive, and rigorous treatment develops the subject from elementary concepts to the construction and analysis of relatively complex…
logical languages. It then considers the application of symbolic logic to the clarification and axiomatization of theories in mathematics, physics, and biology. Hundreds of problems, examples, and exercises. 1958 edition.Restoring the Classic in Sociology
By Alan R. How. 2016
This book demonstrates that classical sociology is essential to cutting-edge debates in the contemporary social sciences. It has become fashionable…
to play down the importance of the classic text in sociology and critique the ideas of Weber, Marx and Durkheim as ideologically outdated. The author mounts a strong challenge to this view, criticising such notions as de-traditionalization, structuration and postmodernism, emphasizing instead the relevance of habit, re-traditionalization, and social integration across time. Arguing that sociology has eliminated the importance of the past, history, and tradition in favour of the transience of the present, he revisits the Habermas-Gadamer debate to argue that tradition is the ground of the classic, and the classic something that must prove itself anew in subsequent situations. He uses the work of Durkheim, Simmel and Weber to illustrate this process. Making a distinction between 'classic' and 'canon' which parallels that between 'agency' and 'structure', he allows the reader to appreciate the separate value of both. This major contribution to the field is essential reading for scholars and students of sociology and social theory.The Great Philosophers: Plato (Great Philosophers Ser.)
By Bernard Williams. 1998
Plato c428 ? c348BC Without the work of Plato, western thought is, quite literally, unthinkable. No single influence has been…
greater, in every age and in every philosophic field. Even those thinkers who have rejected Plato?s views have found themselves working to an agenda he set. Yet between the neo-platonist interpretations and the anti-platonist reactions, the stuff of `Platonism? proper has often been obscured. The philosopher himself has not necessarily helped in the matter: at times disconcertingly difficult, at other disarmingly simple, Plato can be an elusive thinker, his meanings hard to pin down. His dialogues complex and often ironically constructed and do not simply expand his views, which in any case changed and developed over a long life. In this lucid and exciting new introductory guide, Bernard Williams takes his reader back to first principles, re-reading the key texts to reveal what the philosopher actually said. The result is a rediscovered Plato: often unexpected, always fascinating and rewarding.The Great Philosophers: Parliament Under Pressure (Great Philosophers Ser. #4)
By Aaron Ridley. 1999
R. G. Collingwood 1889-1943 Many philosophers have been interested in aesthetics, but Collingwood was passionate about art. His theories were…
never merely theoretical: aesthetics for him was a vivid, vibrant thing, to be experienced immediately in worked paint and in sculpted stone, in poetry and music. Art and life were no dichotomy for Collingwood ? for how could you have one without the other? Works of art were created in and for the real world, to be enjoyed by real people, to enchant and enhance. Aaron Ridley?s fascinating introduction opens up the work of this most rewarding of aesthetic thinkers, tracing his thought from its philosophic origins through to its practical consequence and ethical implications. The man who saw art as `the community?s medicine for the worst disease of mind? had a sense of its urgent importance which we ignore at our peril today.The Great Philosophers: Berkeley (Great Philosophers Ser. #Vol. 12)
By David Berman. 1999
Part of the GREAT PHILOSOPHERS series. George Berkeley 1685-1753 A scientist, theologian and writer on medicine and economics, George Berkeley…
was in his way a most improbable philosopher. A master of English prose, he was suspicious of language; scornful of abstractions, he looked instead to immediate experience for the basis of his thought. David Berman's readable guide traces Berkeley's experimentalism - for experiments with sight and touch to near-death experience - finding in his writings an intriguing marriage of philosophy and psychology.Marconi's Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology
By Aaron Toscano. 2011
This book examines the discourse surrounding the wireless, created by the Anglo-Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The wireless excited early twentieth-century…
audiences before it even became a viable black box technology. The wireless adhered to modernist values--speed, efficiency, militarization, and progress. Language surrounding the wireless is a form of technical communication, overlooked by today's practitioners. This book establishes a broader definition for technical communication by examining a selection of the discourse surrounding Marconi's wireless. The book's main themes are the following: 1) technical communication is all discourse surrounding technology, 2) the field of technical communication (or technical writing) should incorporate analyses of discourse surrounding technologies into its epistemology, 3) the wireless is a product of the society from which it comes (early twentieth-century Western civilization), and 4) the discourse surrounding the wireless is infused with tropes of progress--speed, efficiency, evolution, and ahistoricity.Prophet for Our Times: The Life & Teachings of Peter Deunov
By David Lorimer. 1991
Peter Deunov Beinsa Dounov who lived in Bulgaria from 1864 to 1944 was a great and…
inspired teacher of the Perennial Wisdom - the essential thread of truth running through all the major world religions He was an extraordinary man who at once embodied great simplicity and tremendous profundity All those who knew him testified to the fact that he inspired inner excellence in very ordinary people His teachings are both direct and clear and will speak to everybody whatever their creed Essentially they give a prescription for living in harmony with others with the Earth and with the Divine Prophet for Our Times is being brought back into print following Dr Wayne D Dyer s desire to share the work of the philosopher who greatly influenced him This selection of teachings makes ideal reading for anyone on the spiritual path It explains simply and directly how to find love wisdom truth justice harmony and balance in life It also gives advice on techniques of prayer meditation and visualization and valuable information on right diet and exercise to assist inner focus and clarity Peter Deunov s wise words will speak to everyone and will have special appeal to those searching for an authentic spiritual tradition of Western originLeadership, Gender, and Organization
By Patricia Werhane. 2011
This text provides perspectives on the way in which gender plays a role in leadership dynamics and ethics within organizations.…
It seeks to offer new theoretical models for thinking about leadership and organizational influence. Most studies of women's leadership draw on an ethics of care as characteristic of the way women lead, but as such, it tends towards essentialist gender stereotypes and does little to explain the complex systemic variables that influence the functioning of women within organizations. This book moves beyond the canon in exploring alternative paradigms for thinking about leadership and gender in organizations. The authors draw on the literature available in systems thinking, systemic leadership, and gender theory to offer alternative perspectives for thinking about the ways women lead. The book offers invaluable theoretical perspectives and insightful narratives to graduate students and researchers who are interested in women's leadership, gender and organization. It will be of interest to all women in leadership positions, but specifically to those interested in understanding the systemic nature of leadership and their role within it.A Profile of Mathematical Logic
By Howard Delong. 1998
Anyone seeking a readable and relatively brief guide to logic can do no better than this classic introduction. A treat…
for both the intellect and the imagination, it profiles the development of logic from ancient to modern times and compellingly examines the nature of logic and its philosophical implications. No prior knowledge of logic is necessary; readers need only an acquaintance with high school mathematics. The author emphasizes understanding, rather than technique, and focuses on such topics as the historical reasons for the formation of Aristotelian logic, the rise of mathematical logic after more than 2,000 years of traditional logic, the nature of the formal axiomatic method and the reasons for its use, and the main results of metatheory and their philosophic import. The treatment of the Gödel metatheorems is especially detailed and clear, and answers to the problems appear at the end.Eastern Philosophy
By Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad. 2012
A magisterial overview of the philosophies of the East.'The time has come for global philosophy to move beyond the model…
where the West is at the centre of radiating spokes of comparison.' Challenging the notion that Western philosophy is the best or only yardstick against which to judge the so-called 'non-Western' philosophies, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad sets up a lively debate in which the great thought systems of the East are engaged very much in their own terms. The author's impressive sweep takes him through South Asia east to China and Japan, encompassing 3000 years of philosophy and including the ancient philosophies of India, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. At the same time, Ram-Prasad dispels the romantic illusion that there is some common mystical 'wisdom tradition' that binds together the cultures of the East. His aim is to give a sense of the diversity and depth of these philosophical cultures, as well as their sophistication and originality; and to make comparisons between them to illuminate their varied yet potentially universal appeal.Spatio-temporal Intertwining
By Michela Summa. 2014
This volume explores Husserl's theory of sensibility and his conceptualization of spatial and temporal constitution. The author maps the linkages…
between Husserl's 'transcendental aesthetic', the theory of pure experience in empirio-criticism, as well as Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy. The core argument in this analysis centers on the relationship between spatiality and temporality in Husserl's philosophy. The study interrogates Husserl's understanding of the relationship between spatiality and temporality in terms of stratifications, analogies and parallelisms. It incorporates a discussion of the potentialities and limitations of such an understanding. It concludes that such limits can be overcome by adopting an understanding of spatiality and temporality as interwoven moments of sensible experience--a 'spatio-temporal intertwining'. This 'intertwining' is made explicit in a thorough inquiry into three central topics in the phenomenological analysis of sensible experience: spatio-temporal individuation, perspectival givenness and bodily experience. The book shows how such an inquiry can form the bedrock of a dynamic and relational understanding of experience as a whole.