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Francis Bacon’s Skeptical Recipes for New Knowledge
By Jagdish Hattiangadi. 2024
The book sets an ambitious goal. It devises a new account of scientific methodology that makes it possible to explain…
how scientists manage, at least occasionally, to find true models of reality. The new methods may be contrasted with all those currently available that employ “coherence theories” of knowledge. Under this designation are grouped positions that can seem very different (such as those of Poincaré, Duhem, Popper, Hempel, Quine, Kuhn, and Feyerabend) but are united by the idea that the most general statements of science are merely hypotheses. They may be conjectures, opinions, conventions, posits, paradigms, or even myths. The most we can claim to know from such generalities is that they are internally consistent and coherent with empirical data. Consistency is insufficient to establish the truth of a conceptual system because many different systems, perhaps an infinite number, can be logically consistent and cohere with recorded data. Such is the well-known problemof the empirical under-determination of theories. Francis Bacon’s Skeptical Recipes for New Knowledge suggests a new methodology that solves this fundamental problem of knowledge.This book is an unprecedented consideration of the challenges of what we can do for generations yet to come. Many…
growing intergenerational conflicts of interest, such as climate change and fiscal sustainability, are the result of the historically new progress of increasing human power, and the resolution of those conflicts demands a new intergenerational ethic. The book offers fresh new ideas for resolving intergenerational conflicts through the exploration of an entirely new field, conceptualized in philosophy, developed in economics, and tested in experiments. In particular, this work develops the theory of intergenerational cooperation based on a new relationship of direct reciprocity between generations. From experimental results, the possibility of intergenerational cooperation through Kantian categorical imperative is shown. The book also examines the effectiveness of inviting representatives of future generations, which are called "imaginary future generations", into the deliberations for current policy decisions. The original Japanese edition of this book was awarded the 66th Nikkei Prize for Excellent Books in Economic Science. The prize was established in 1958 to contribute to the advancement of academics and knowledge in the fields of economics, management, and accounting, as well as to its general dissemination and application.Enlightenment Biopolitics: A History of Race, Eugenics, and the Making of Citizens (The Life of Ideas)
By William Max Nelson. 2024
A wide-ranging history tracing the birth of biopolitics in Enlightenment thought and its aftermath. In Enlightenment Biopolitics, historian William Max…
Nelson pursues the ambitious task of tracing the context in which biopolitical thought emerged and circulated. He locates that context in the Enlightenment when emancipatory ideals sat alongside the horrors of colonialism, slavery, and race-based discrimination. In fact, these did not just coexist, Nelson argues; they were actually mutually constitutive of Enlightenment ideals. In this book, Nelson focuses on Enlightenment-era visions of eugenics (including proposals to establish programs of selective breeding), forms of penal slavery, and spurious biological arguments about the supposed inferiority of particular groups. The Enlightenment, he shows, was rife with efforts to shape, harness, and “organize” the minds and especially the bodies of subjects and citizens. In his reading of the birth of biopolitics and its transformations, Nelson examines the shocking conceptual and practical connections between inclusion and exclusion, equality and inequality, rights and race, and the supposed “improvement of the human species” and practices of dehumanization.The book is arguably the first comprehensive collection of essays on Michael Polanyi’s social, political philosophy. The essays combine philosophical…
and historical approaches to show Polanyi’s social thought in the context of his epistemology and philosophy of science as well as the 20th century intellectual history. This volume appeals to specialists in Michael Polanyi’s philosophy, political philosophers who are interested in the 20th century political thought, mainly conservative-liberal political tradition. Furthermore it appeals to scholars focusing on the intersections between epistemology and political philosophy.Human Minds and Cultures
By Sanjit Chakraborty. 2024
This book puts forward a harmonious analysis of similarities and differences between two concepts—human minds and cultures—and strives for a…
multicultural spectrum of philosophical explorations that could assist them in pondering the striking pursuit of envisaging human minds and cultures as an essential appraisal of philosophy and the social sciences. The book hinges on a theoretical understanding of the indispensable liaison between the dichotomy of minds and objectivity residing in semantic-ontological conjectures. The ethnographic sense of cultures confines the scope of cultural scientism, an evolutionary paradigm on the functionalist turn, where one could enthral the cultural phenomenon from the contentment of the conflict of scientific quandaries. Hence, cultural relativism concedes that cultures have some descriptive contents, like customs, beliefs, moral codes, other minds, etc., that are followed by an individual or a group of people. However, the notion of societalsemiotics embarks on the ‘semiotic conception of culture’ that deploys modernity and values centred on ethical conjectures. Human Minds and Cultures conspicuously attune the cultural edifice of moral minds and cope with the enduring prospects of ethics, genders, laws, and socio-political affairs. Essential reading for anyone with a sparkling interest in human minds and cultures.Admiral Nimitz: The Commander of the Pacific Ocean Theater
By Brayton Harris. 2012
The biography of legendary admiral Chester W. Nimitz, master military strategist and visionary of submarine operations.Chester Nimitz was an admiral's…
Admiral, considered by many to be the greatest naval leader of the last century. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz assembled the forces, selected the leaders, and - as commander of all U.S. and Allied air, land, and sea forces in the Pacific Ocean - led the charge one island at a time, one battle at a time, toward victory. A brilliant strategist, he astounded contemporaries by achieving military victories against fantastic odds, outpacing more flamboyant luminaries like General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral "Bull" Halsey. And he was there to accept, on behalf of the United States, the surrender of the Japanese aboard the battleship USS Missouri in August 1945. In this first biography in over three decades, Brayton Harris uses long-overlooked files and recently declassified documents to bring to life one of America's greatest wartime heroes.To Hell and Back: The Classic Memoir of World War II by America's Most Decorated Soldier
By Audie Murphy. 1949
The classic bestselling war memoir by the most decorated American soldier in World War II. Originally published in 1949, To…
Hell and Back was a smash bestseller for fourteen weeks and later became a major motion picture starring Audie Murphy as himself. Many decades later, this classic wartime memoir is just as gripping as it was then. Desperate to see action but rejected by both the marines and paratroopers because he was too short, Murphy eventually found a home with the infantry. He fought through campaigns in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Although still under twenty-one years old on V-E Day, he was credited with having killed, captured, or wounded 240 Germans. He emerged from the war as America's most decorated soldier, having received twenty-one medals, including our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. To Hell and Back is a powerfully real portrayal of American GI's at war.The Scariest Place in the World: A Marine Returns to North Korea
By James Brady. 2005
A memoir from the New York Times bestselling author of Warning of War and Marines of Autumn, James Brady's The…
Scariest Place in the World. Half a century after he fought there as a young lieutenant of Marines, James Brady returns to the brooding Korean ridgelines and mountains to sound taps for a generation. It's been years since Brady first wrote of Korea in The Coldest War, drawing raves from Walter Cronkite and The New York Times, which called it "a superb personal memoir of the way it was." In the spring of 2003, Brady and Pulitzer Prize–winning combat photographer Eddie Adams flew in Black Hawk choppers and trekked the Demilitarized Zone where it meanders into North Korea, interviewing four-star generals and bunking in with tough U.S. recon troops, in Brady's words, "raw meat on the point of a sharpened stick." Brady recalls that first time on bloody Hill 749, the men who died there, what happened to the Marines who lived to make it home, and experiences yet again the emotional pull of a lifelong love affair with the Corps in which they all served. Brady summons up the past and illuminates the present, be it the Korea of "the forgotten war," the Yanks who fought there long ago, or today's soldiers standing wary sentinel over "the scariest place in the world." The result is uplifting, inspiring, often heartbreaking, and this Brady memoir proves as powerful as his first.Mirror of God: Christian Faith as Spiritual Practice
By James W. Jones. 2003
What are the benefits of being a spiritual person? This is the question that James Jones explores in his newest…
book, The Mirror of God. Jones contends that true religious belief is not a passive process and that one must work hard towards believing in God through acts such as prayer, meditation and communal worship. He explores the boundaries between psychotherapy and religious practice, looks at what Christians might learn from Buddhists and shows their effects on the body and mind. Jones is a psychologist as well as a professor of religion and, ultimately, he provides a blueprint for worship that's smart, effective and grounded in the real lives we all live.Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature
By Alva Noë. 2015
A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselvesIn his new book, Strange…
Tools: Art and Human Nature, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë raises a number of profound questions: What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Drawing on philosophy, art history, and cognitive science, and making provocative use of examples from all three of these fields, Noë offers new answers to such questions. He also shows why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been and will continue to be unsuccessful.The Epistemic Injustice of Genocide Denialism (Routledge Studies in Epistemology)
By Melanie Altanian. 2024
The injustice of genocide denial is commonly understood as a violation of the dignity of victims, survivors, and their descendants,…
and further described as an assault on truth and memory. This book rethinks the normative relationship between dignity, truth, and memory in relation to genocide denial by adopting the framework of epistemic injustice.This framework performs two functions. First, it introduces constructive normative vocabulary into genocide scholarship through which we can gain a better understanding of the normative impacts of genocide denial when it is institutionalized and systematic. Second, it develops and enriches current scholarship on epistemic injustice with a further, underexplored case study. Genocide denialism is relevant for political and social epistemology, as it presents a substantive epistemic practice that distorts normativity and social reality in ways that maintain domination. This generates pervasive ignorance that makes denial rather than recognition of genocide appear as the morally and epistemically right thing to do. By focusing on the prominent case of Turkey’s denialism of the Armenian genocide, the book shows the serious consequences of this kind of epistemic injustice for the victim group and society as a whole.The Epistemic Injustice of Genocide Denialism will appeal to students and scholars working in social, political, and applied epistemology, social and political philosophy, genocide studies, Armenian studies, and memory studies.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Any third party material in this book is not included in the OA Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Please direct any permissions enquiries to the original rightsholder.Funded by: Swiss National Science FoundationGrant: A Biography (Great Generals Series)
By John Mosier. 2006
Grant: A Biography tells of the extraordinary life and legacy of one of America's most ingenious military mindsA modest and…
unassuming man, Grant never lost a battle, leading the Union to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War, ultimately becoming President of the reunited states. Grant revolutionized military warfare by creating new leadership tactics by integrating new technologies in classical military strategy. In this compelling biography, John Mosier reveals the man behind the military legend, showing how Grant's creativity and genius off the battlefield shaped him into one of our nation's greatest military leaders.I You We Them, Vol. 1: Walking into the World of the Desk Killer (I You We Them)
By Dan Gretton. 2019
A Washington Post notable nonfiction book of 2020"I You We Them is a uniquely gripping journey around the landscapes of…
mass murder." --Philippe Sands, author of East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against HumanityA Spectator (UK) Best Book of 2019A landmark historical investigation into crimes against humanity and the nature of evilVast and revelatory, Dan Gretton’s I You We Them is an unprecedented study of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity: the “desk killers” who ordered and directed some of the worst atrocities of the modern era. From Albert Speer’s complicity in Nazi barbarism to Royal Dutch Shell’s role in the murders of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and the rest of the Ogoni Nine, Gretton probes the depths of the figure “who, by giving orders, uses paper or a phone or a computer to kill, instead of a gun.”Over the past twenty years, Gretton has interviewed survivors and perpetrators, and pored over archives and thousands of pages of testimony. His insight into the psychology of the desk killer is contextualized by the journey he took to penetrate it. Woven into the narrative are his contemplative interludes—perspectives gleaned during walks in the woods, reminiscences about a lost love, and considerations of timeless moral conundrums. The result is a genre-bending work steeped as much in personal reflection as it is in literature and historical and psychological illumination.A synthesis of history, reportage, and memoir, I You We Them is the first volume of a groundbreaking journal of discovery that bears witness to and reckons with the largest and most pressing questions before humanity.Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession
By Marjorie Garber. 2020
What is “character”?Since at least Aristotle’s time, philosophers, theologians, moralists, artists, and scientists have pondered the enigma of human character.…
In its oldest usage, “character” derives from a word for engraving or stamping, yet over time, it has come to mean a moral idea, a type, a literary persona, and a physical or physiological manifestation observable in works of art and scientific experiments. It is an essential term in drama and the focus of self-help books. In Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession, Marjorie Garber points out that character seems more relevant than ever today, omnipresent in discussions of politics, ethics, gender, morality, and the psyche. References to character flaws, character issues, and character assassination and allegations of “bad” and “good” character are inescapable in the media and in contemporary political debates. What connection does “character” in this moral or ethical sense have with the concept of a character in a novel or a play? Do our notions about fictional characters catalyze our ideas about moral character? Can character be “formed” or taught in schools, in scouting, in the home? From Plutarch to John Stuart Mill, from Shakespeare to Darwin, from Theophrastus to Freud, from nineteenth-century phrenology to twenty-first-century brain scans, the search for the sources and components of human character still preoccupies us. Today, with the meaning and the value of this term in question, no issue is more important, and no topic more vital, surprising, and fascinating. With her distinctive verve, humor, and vast erudition, Marjorie Garber explores the stakes of these conflations, confusions, and heritages, from ancient Greece to the present day.Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond
By Jane Maas. 2012
"Breezy and salty." -The New York Times"Hilarious! Honest, intimate, this book tells it as it was." -Mary Wells Lawrence, author…
of A Big Life (In Advertising) and founding president of Wells Rich Greene "Breezy and engaging [though] ...The chief value of Mad Women is the witness it bears for younger women about the snobbery and sexism their mothers and grandmothers endured as the price of entry into mid-century American professional life." -The Boston Globe"A real-life Peggy Olson, right out of Mad Men." -Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & MatherWhat was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the 60s and 70s - that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? A real-life Peggy Olson reveals it all in this immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir.Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world by Jane Maas, a copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male jungle depicted in the hit show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: was there really that much sex at the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally "yes." Her book, based on her own experiences and countless interviews with her peers, gives the full stories, from the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he'd used to find "a date" for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather's annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers.Full Battle Rattle: My Story as the Longest-Serving Special Forces A-Team Soldier in American History
By Changiz Lahidji, Ralph Pezzullo. 2018
Over 100 combat missions, 24 years as a Green Beret—Full Battle Rattle tells the legend of a soldier who served…
America in every war since Vietnam.Master Sergeant Changiz Lahidji served on Special Forces A teams longer than anyone in history, completing over a hundred combat missions in Afghanistan. Changiz is a Special Forces legend. He also happens to be the first Muslim Green Beret. Changiz served this country starting with Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when he entered Tehran on a one-man mission to spy on Iranian soldiers guarding the US Embassy where 52 US diplomats were being held hostage. Three years later, he was in Beirut, Lebanon when a suicide car bomb exploded in front of the US Embassy killing 83 people. Weeks after that, he was shot by Hezbollah terrorists on a night mission. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, he led a convoy that was ambushed on its way to Fallujah. He was clearing houses in Mogadishu, Somalia on October, 1993 when a US Black Hawk helicopter was shot down 50 feet away from him in the incident that inspired Black Hawk Down. In 2002, he dressed as a farmer and snuck into Eastern Afghanistan and located Osama Bin Laden for the CIA. Along the way, Changiz earned numerous commendations, including the Special Forces Legion of Merit, Purple Hearts, and many others. Last year he was nominated for induction in Military Intelligence Hall of Fame and cited as “the finest noncommissioned officer to ever serve in Special Forces.” His story is an amazing tale of perseverance and courage, of combat and one man’s love of his adopted country.China's First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors
By Frances Wood. 2007
Unifier or destroyer, law-maker or tyrant? China's First Emperor (258-210 BC) has been the subject of debate for over 2,000…
years. He gave us the name by which China is known in the West and, by his unification or elimination of six states, he created imperial China. He stressed the rule of law but suppressed all opposition, burning books and burying scholars alive. His military achievements are reflected in the astonishing terracotta soldiers—a veritable buried army—that surround his tomb, and his Great Wall still fascinates the world.Despite his achievements, however, the First Emperor has been vilified since his death. China's First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors describes his life and times and reflects the historical arguments over the real founder of China and one of the most important men in Chinese history.This book addresses the most suggestive themes of transhumanism and critical posthumanism by placing them in dialogue with classic problems…
of metaphysics, and with some great thinkers of the past (Bruno, Spinoza, and above all Leibniz). The main purpose of this comparison is to invite transhumanists and critical posthumanists to consider a highly complex problematic tradition rooted in the history of philosophy. This study also makes use of examples drawn from the history of mythology, angelology, and mysticism. At the same time, the book promotes dialogue between scholars of classical metaphysics and philosophy of religion, and the potential metaphysical/spiritual theories developed independently by transhumanist and posthumanist thinkers within an anti-dualist and naturalistic philosophical framework. The goal is to ‘enhance’ contemporary transhumanism and posthumanism by promoting the need to safeguard intelligence as a principle, without falling into the trap of a violent and egotistic metaphysics.Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam
By James A. Warren. 2013
An in-depth look at the strategy and tactics of the visionary commander who beat the United States in the Vietnam…
War.General Vo Nguyen Giap was the commander in chief of the communist armed forces during two of his country's most difficult conflicts—the first against Vietnam's colonial masters, the French, and the second against the most powerful nation on earth, the United States. After long and bloody conflicts, he defeated both Western powers and their Vietnamese allies, forever changing modern warfare. In Giap, military historian James A. Warren dives deep into the conflict to bring to life a revolutionary general and reveal the groundbreaking strategies that defeated world powers against incredible odds. Synthesizing ideas and tactics from an extraordinary range of sources, Giap was one of the first to realize that war is more than a series of battles between two armies and that victory can be won through the strength of a society's social fabric. As America's wars in the Middle East rage on, this is an important and timely look at a man who was a master at defeating his enemies even as they thought they were winning.Caring Economics: Conversations on Altruism and Compassion, Between Scientists, Economists, and the Dalai Lama
By Tania Singer and Matthieu Ricard. 2015
A COLLECTION OF INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED SCIENTISTS AND ECONOMISTS IN DIALOGUE WITH HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA, ADDRESSING THE NEED FOR…
A MORE ALTRUISTIC ECONOMYCan the hyperambitious, bottom-line-driven practices of the global economy incorporate compassion into the pursuit of wealth? Or is economics driven solely by materialism and self-interest? In Caring Economics, experts consider these questions alongside the Dalai Lama in a wide-ranging, scientific-based discussion on economics and altruism. Begun in 1987, the Mind and Life Institute arose out of a series of conferences held with the Dalai Lama and a range of scientists that sought to form a connection between the empiricism of contemporary scientific inquiry and the contemplative, compassion-based practices of Buddhism. Caring Economics is based on a conference held by the Mind and Life Institute in Zurich in which experts from all over the world gathered to discuss the possibility of having a global economy focused on compassion and altruism. Each chapter consists of a presentation by an expert in the field, followed by a discussion with the Dalai Lama in which he offers his response and his own unique insights on the subject. In this provocative and inspiring book, learn how wealth doesn't need to be selfish, how in fact, empathy and compassion may be the path to a healthier world economy.