Monday, 12 July 2010
Steven Pinker - Το Γλωσσικό Ένστινκτο
«Πηγαίνετε αμέσως, όχι περπατώντας αλλά τρέχοντας, να προμηθευτείτε Το γλωσσικό ένστικτο. Σ’ αυτό το όντως κατατοπιστικό και απολαυστικό βιβλίο, ο Steven Pinker αναλαμβάνει να σας εισαγάγει στον υπέροχο κόσμο της γλώσσας. Αποφεύγει να σας ταλαιπωρήσει με την "αργκό" των γλωσσολόγων και κατευθύνει την προσοχή σας σε μιαν αναλλοίωτη αλήθεια: η γλώσσα είναι ένα ένστικτο. Στηριζόμενος σε τούτη τη θεμελιώδους σημασίας ανακάλυψη, μας αποκαλύπτει τα μυστικά της νόησης. Πρόκειται για ένα πραγματικά έξοχο επίτευγμα.»
-Michael 5. Gazzaniga, Διευθυντής του Κέντρου Νευροεπιστήμης, Πανεπιστήμιο της Καλιφόρνιας
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Sunday, 11 July 2010
Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl
Imagine a post-petroleum world where internal combustion and electricity are vanishingly rare and almost all energy comes from biology: muscles and, ultimately, food. Can't? Let Paolo Bacigalupi do it for you. In this future, the entire global economy is built on calories: growing them as crops, consuming them as food, expending them as energy. Everything from guns to cars to factories runs on springs, wound by hand by humans or monstrous genetically altered elephants. As digital technology faded, biotech mutated out of control, and as a result humanity is ravaged by genetically engineered plagues and the streets are infested with genetically modified supercats. Bacigalupi is a worthy successor to William Gibson: this is cyberpunk without computers. Our heroine is Emiko, the windup girl of the title. She is a "New Person," a heavily genetically modified girl brewed up from scratch by the Japanese as a toy. But her DNA is not so compromised that she doesn't still yearn to be human.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Pascal Boyer - Religion Explained
Cognitive anthropologist Boyer does not shrink from the task of explaining "the full history of all religion (ever)" in this engaging but somewhat oversold synopsis of anthropological findings, purporting to show how "the intractable mystery that was religion is now just another set of difficult but manageable problems."
Boyer eloquently critiques mainstream academic treatments of religion that, in his view, distort the facts by imposing a single explanatory theory on a complex assortment of religious phenomena. At the same time, he argues that the variety of human religious concepts is not infinite, suggesting an underlying pattern in the way certain kinds of religious concepts engage the mind by "successful activation of a whole variety of mental systems."
These patterns increase the probability that such concepts will be remembered and transmitted. Besides the religious concepts' appeal in stimulating individual minds, Boyer's account sees no deeper function or significance in them, a stance he realizes will leave most religious believers nonplussed. "People who think that we have religion because religion is true... will find little here to support their views and in fact no discussion of these views," he cautions.
Boyer's strategy of explaining religion in terms of mundane, everyday thought processes puts him at odds with recent neuropsychological studies that identify "special" cognitive structures or events associated with religious experience. Ultimately, it may be Boyer's criticism of the mere concept of "religious experience" that makes this book such a fascinating exercise in devil's advocacy. Publishers Weekly
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Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Dalai Lama - The Art of Hapiness (Audiobook)
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit down with the Dalai Lama and really press him about life's persistent questions? Why are so many people unhappy? How can I abjure loneliness? How can we reduce conflict? Is romantic love true love? Why do we suffer? How should we deal with unfairness and anger? How do you handle the death of a loved one? These are the conundrums that psychiatrist Howard Cutler poses to the Dalai Lama during an extended period of interviews in The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living.
At first, the Dalai Lama's answers seem simplistic, like a surface reading of Robert Fulghum: Ask yourself if you really need something; our enemies can be our teachers; compassion brings peace of mind. Cutler pushes: But some people do seem happy with lots of possessions; but "suffering is life" is so pessimistic; but going to extremes provides the zest in life; but what if I don't believe in karma? As the Dalai Lama's responses become more involved, a coherent philosophy takes shape. Cutler then develops the Dalai Lama's answers in the context of scientific studies and cases from his own practice, substantiating and elaborating on what he finds to be a revolutionary psychology. Like any art, the art of happiness requires study and practice--and the talent for it, the Dalai Lama assures us, is in our nature. At first, the Dalai Lama's answers seem simplistic, like a surface reading of Robert Fulghum: Ask yourself if you really need something; our enemies can be our teachers; compassion brings peace of mind. Cutler pushes: But some people do seem happy with lots of possessions; but "suffering is life" is so pessimistic; but going to extremes provides the zest in life; but what if I don't believe in karma? As the Dalai Lama's responses become more involved, a coherent philosophy takes shape. Cutler then develops the Dalai Lama's answers in the context of scientific studies and cases from his own practice, substantiating and elaborating on what he finds to be a revolutionary psychology. Like any art, the art of happiness requires study and practice - and the talent for it, the Dalai Lama assures us, is in our nature.
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Labels:
Audiobooks,
Philosophy,
Psychology,
Religion,
Spirituality
M. Sara Rosenthal - 50 Ways to Prevent and Manage Stress
This quick and easy volume features 50 solutions you can use to alleviate the effects of stress and related disorders. 50 Ways to Prevent and Manage Stress includes information on the health toll of stress, work and home adjustments that can help reduce stress, body work, diet and herbal relief, exercise, counseling, and creative outlets.
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Dalai Lama - Kindness, Clarity, Insight
This best-selling book contains teachings for Western audiences during His Holiness' tours of North America. He covers a wide variety of spiritual and human concerns in a practical and direct manner with his characteristic warmth, wit and perception. The teachings move ever deeper: Religious Values and Human Society, The Luminous Nature of the Mind, Altruism and the Six Perfections; Deities; Transforming the Mind Through Meditation; Eight Verses of Training the Mind; Om Mani Padme Hum; The Path to Enlightenment; Tibetan Views on Dying; Self and Selflessness; The Two Truths.
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Mathew Ricketson - Writing Feature Stories
A systematic and user-friendly approach to journalistic feature story writing for journalism students, professionals, freelancers, and beginners is provided in this guide. Writers will learn to move beyond conventional news stories and embrace their creativity to create compelling features. Generating fresh ideas, gathering factual information, sifting through raw material, choosing the best angle, and working with editors are all explored. Discussion questions and exercises reinforce the ideas presented in each chapter. Pop culture examples and recently published articles are used to make concepts memorable and easily accessible.
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The Cambridge Companion to Atheism
In this volume, eighteen of the world's leading scholars present original essays on various aspects of atheism: its history, both ancient and modern, defense and implications. The topic is examined in terms of its implications for a wide range of disciplines including philosophy, religion, feminism, postmodernism, sociology and psychology. In its defense, both classical and contemporary theistic arguments are criticized, and, the argument from evil, and impossibility arguments, along with a non religious basis for morality are defended. These essays give a broad understanding of atheism and a lucid introduction to this controversial topic
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All original essays designed to give a broad understanding of atheism and a lucid introduction to this controversial topic.
Essays relevant to both philosophy and religion.
Written by leading experts in their fields.
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The Routledge History of Philosophy
The Routledge History of Philosophy series provides a chronological survey of the history of Western Philosophy fro its beginnings in the sixth century BC to the present time. It discusses all the major philosophical developments in depth, and covers all those regarded as great philosophers and many lesser figures of philosophypast and present. We are pleased to announce all 10 volumes are now available in paperback for the first time.
From the Beginning to Plato covers one of the most remarkable periods in human thought. In the space of two and a half centuries, philosophy developed from quasi-mythological speculation to a state in which many of the most fundamental questions about the universe, the mind, and human behaviour were vigorously pursued, and where some of the most enduring masterworks of Western thought were written. The essays present the fundamental approaches and thinkers of Greek philosophy in chronological order. From an introduction to the polis to the lasting contribution of Plato, each essay takes account of the large amount of high-quality work done in the last few decades on Platonic and pre-Platonic philosophy.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/cd94f0e41cc5/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Volume_I_From_the_Beginning_to_Plato_-_C.C.W.Taylor.pdf.html
From Aristotle to Augustine. This work explores the schools of thought that developed in the wake of Platonism through the time of Augustine.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/b677df1188de/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Vol_II_From_Aristotle_to_Augustine_-_David_Furley.pdf.html
Medieval Philosophy is devoted to the period known as the Middle Ages. It considers the rich traditions of Arab, Jewish and Latin philosophy, which began to flourish in the ninth century and continued, in the Latin West, until the early seventeenth century. The volume begins with Boethius, the late antiquity thinker who was enormously influential in the medieval Latin West, and covers a spectrum including Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides, Abelard, Aquinas, Aureoli, all the way to medieval logic and the cultural context of medieval philosophy in both Islam and the Christian West. Medieval Philosophy offers fresh perspectives on a complex and rapidly changing area of research, in which Arab and Jewish Philosophy are considered in their own right, rather than, as sources for Latin thinkers, and where the different traditions in medieval philosophy are clearly explained.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/080b3d559a37/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Vol_III_Medieval_Philosophy_-_John_Marenbon.pdf.html
The Renaissance and 17th Century Rationalism. This volume covers a period of three hundred and fifty years, from the middle of the fourteenth century to the early years of the eighteenth century: the birth of modern philosophy.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/26d8faf482f9/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Volume_IV_The_Renaissance.pdf.html
The Age of German Idealism.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/32e1c90ab3ad/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Volume_VI_The_Age_of_German_Idealism_-_Robert_C.Solomon.pdf.html
The Nineteenth Century. This volume covers many of the most important philosophers and movements of the nineteenth century, includign utilitarianism, positivism and pragmatism.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/d7094ea21933/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Volume_VII_The_Nineteenth_Century_-_C.L.Ten.pdf.html
Continental Philosophy in the 20th Century. Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century"s most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/8a0ac8721a4a/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Volume_VIII_Twentieth-Century.pdf.html
Philosophy of Science, Logic and Mathematics in the 20th Century.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/502c7b1000a7/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Volume_IX_Philosophy_of_Science_Logic_and_Mathematics.pdf.html
Philosophy of Meaning, Knowledge and Value in the 20th Century.
http://kewlshare.com/dl/f6c91d6bf879/Routledge_History_of_Philosophy_Volume_X_Philosophy_of_Meaning__Knowledge_and_Value.pdf.html
Icons of Unbelief: Atheists, Agnostics, and Secularists
In the opinion of many critics and philosophers, we are entering an age of atheism marked by the waning of Christian fundamentalism and the flourishing of secular thought. Through alphabetically arranged entries written by expert contributors, this book profiles 27 iconic figures of unbelief whose ideas have shaped American society over the last 200 years. Included are entries on influential figures of the past, such as Albert Einstein and Voltaire, as well as on such contemporary figures as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Each entry discusses the ideas and lasting significance of each person or group, provides sidebars of interesting information and illuminating quotations, and cites works for further reading. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Students in social studies and history classes will welcome this reference as a guide to the ideas central to the American separation of Church and State and to many of the political debates at the heart of society today.
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