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Quantum Social Theory for Critical International Relations Theorists: Quantizing Critique (Palgrave Studies in International Relations)
by Michael P. MurphyThis book examines the crossroads of quantum and critical approaches to International Relations and argues that these approaches share a common project of uncovering complexity and uncertainty. The “quantum turn” in International Relations theory has produced a number of interesting insights into the complex ways in which our assumptions about the physics of the world around us can limit our understanding of social life. While critique is possible within a Newtonian social science, core assumptions of separability and determinism of classical physics impose limits on what is imaginable. The author argues that by adopting a quantum imaginary, social theory can move beyond its Newtonian limits, and explore two methods for quantizing conceptual models—translation and application. This book is the first introductory book to quantum social theory ideas specifically intended for an audience of critical International Relations.
Quantum Theory and Free Will
by Henry P. StappThis book explains, in simple but accurate terms, how orthodox quantum mechanics works. The author, a distinguished theoretical physicist, shows how this theory, realistically interpreted, assigns an important role to our conscious free choices. Stapp claims that mainstream biology and neuroscience, despite nearly a century of quantum physics, still stick essentially to failed classical precepts in which mental intentions have no effect upon our bodily actions. He shows how quantum mechanics provides a rational basis for a better understanding of this connection, even allowing an explanation of certain phenomena currently held to be "paranormal". These ideas have major implications for our understanding of ourselves and our mental processes, and thus also for the meaningfulness of our lives.
Quantum Theory and Local Causality (SpringerBriefs in Philosophy)
by Péter Vecsernyés Gábor Hofer-SzabóThis book summarizes the results of research the authors have pursued in the past years on the problem of implementing Bell's notion of local causality in local physical theories and relating it to other important concepts and principles in the foundations of physics such as the Common Cause Principle, Bell's inequalities, the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) scenario, and various other locality and causality concepts. The book is intended for philosophers of science with an interest in the formal background of sciences, philosophers of physics and physicists working in foundation of physics.
Quantum Theory and the Flight from Realism: Philosophical Responses to Quantum Mechanics (Critical Realism Ser.)
by Christopher NorrisThis book is a critical introduction to the long-standing debate concerning the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics and the problems it has posed for physicists and philosophers from Einstein to the present. Quantum theory has been a major infulence on postmodernism, and presents significant problems for realists. Keeping his own realist position in check, Christopher Norris subjects a wide range of key opponents and supporters of realism to a high and equal level of scrutiny. With a characteristic combination of rigour and intellectual generosity, he draws out the merits and weaknesses from opposing arguments. In a sequence of closely argued chapters, Norris examines the premises of orthodox quantum theory, as developed most influentially by Bohr and Heisenberg, and its impact on varous philosophical developments. These include the ideas developed by W.V Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Michael Dummett, Bas van Fraassen, and Hilary Puttnam. In each case, Norris argues, these thinkers have been influenced by the orthodox construal of quantum mechanics as requiring drastic revision of principles which had hitherto defined the very nature of scientific method, causal explanati and rational enquiry. Putting the case for a realist approach which adheres to well-tried scientific principles of causal reasoning and inference to the best explanation, Christopher Norris clarifies these debates to a non-specialist readership and scholars of philosophy, science studies and the philosophy of science alike. Quantum Theory and the Flight From Realism suggests that philosophical reflection can contribute to a better understanding of these crucial, current issues.
Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery
by Karl Popper W. W. Bartley IIIQuantum Theory and the Schism in Physics is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s Postscript to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The Postscript is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics is the third volume of the Postscript. It may be read independently, but it also forms part of Popper’s interconnected argument in the Postscript. It presents Popper’s classic statement on quantum physics and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science and physics as a whole.
The Quantum Universe: (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)
by Brian Cox Jeff ForshawThe world we live in is stranger than we can possibly imagine. The closest we've got to understanding it - so far - is with quantum physics. But what is quantum physics? And how, exactly, can it help us make sense of the universe?In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw give us the real science behind the bizarre, wonderful, mind-boggling behaviour of the atoms and energy that make up the cosmos, and reveal just how everything that can happen, does happen. 'An engaging, ambitious and creative tour of our quantum universe. ' Guardian'Given that Einstein himself never quite got his head around the quantum universe, the task that the two professors have taken on - to demystify quantum physics - is not to be taken lightly . . . they do a great job. ' The Times'As breezily a written accessible account of the theory of quantum mechanics as you could wish for. ' Observer'The authors' love for their subject shines through the book. ' Economist
The Quantum World
by Hervé Zwirn Bernard D'EspagnatIn this largely nontechnical book, eminent physicists and philosophers address the philosophical impact of recent advances in quantum physics. These are shown to shed new light on profound questions about realism, determinism, causality or locality. The participants contribute in the spirit of an open and honest discussion, reminiscent of the time when science and philosophy were inseparable. After the editors’ introduction, the next chapter reveals the strangeness of quantum mechanics and the subsequent discussions examine our notion of reality. The spotlight is then turned to the topic of decoherence. Bohm’s theory is critically examined in two chapters, and the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics is likewise described and discussed. The penultimate chapter presents a proposal for resolving the measurement problem, and finally the topic of loop quantum gravity is presented by one of its founding fathers, Carlo Rovelli. The original presentations and discussions on which this volume is based took place under the auspices of the French “Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques”. The book will appeal to everybody interested in knowing how our description of the world is impacted by the results of the most powerful and successful theory that physicists have ever built.
Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be
by Tyler VolkOur world is nested, both physically and socially, and at each level we find innovations that are necessary for the next. Consider: atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form single-celled organisms; when people come together, they build societies. Physics has gone far in mapping the basic mechanics of the simplest things and the dynamics of the overall nesting, as have biology and the social sciences for their fields. But what can we say about this beautifully complex whole? How does one stage shape another, and what can we learn about human existence through understanding an enlarged field of creation and being?In Quarks to Culture, Tyler Volk answers these questions, revealing how a universal natural rhythm—building from smaller things into larger, more complex things—resulted in a grand sequence of twelve fundamental levels across the realms of physics, biology, and culture. He introduces the key concept of “combogenesis,” the building-up from combination and integration to produce new things with innovative relations. He explores common themes in how physics and chemistry led to biological evolution, and biological evolution to cultural evolution. Volk also provides insights into linkages across the sciences and fields of scholarship, and presents an exciting synthesis of ideas along a sequence of things and relations, from physical to living to cultural. The resulting inclusive natural philosophy brings clarity to our place in the world, offering a roadmap for those who seek to understand big history and wrestle with questions of how we came to be.
The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry: Studies in Ancient Thought
by Stanley RosenThe Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry focuses on the theoretical and practical suppositions of the long-standing conflict between philosophy and poetry. Stanley Rosen--one of the leading Plato scholars of our day--examines philosophical activity, questioning whether technical philosophy is a species of poetry, a political program, an interpretation of human existence according to the ideas of 19th and 20th-century thinkers, or a contemplation of beings and Being.
The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry: Studies in Ancient Thought
by Stanley RosenNow available in paperback, The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry focuses on the theoretical and practical suppositions of the long-standing conflict between philosophy and poetry. Stanley Rosen--one of the leading Plato scholars of our day--examines philosophical activity, questioning whether technical philosophy is a species of poetry, a political program, an interpretation of human existence according to the ideas of 19th and 20th-century thinkers, or a contemplation of beings and Being.
Quasi-Things: The Paradigm of Atmospheres (SUNY series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy)
by Tonino GrifferoIn this book, Tonino Griffero introduces and analyzes an ontological category he terms "quasi-things." These do not exist fully in the traditional sense as substances or events, yet they powerfully act on us and on our states of mind. He offers an original approach to the study of emotions, regarding them not as inner states of the subject, but as atmospheres, that is as powers poured out into the lived space we inhabit. Griffero first outlines the general and atmospheric characters of quasi-things, and then considers examples such as pain, shame, the gaze, and twilight—which he argues is responsible for penetrating and suggestive moods precisely because of its vagueness. With frequent examples from literature and everyday life, Quasi-Things provides an accessible aesthetic and phenomenological account of feelings based on the paradigm of atmospheres.
Quaternions for Computer Graphics
by John VinceIf you have ever wondered what quaternions are — then look no further, John Vince will show you how simple and useful they are. This 2nd edition has been completely revised and includes extra detail on the invention of quaternions, a complete review of the text and equations, all figures are in colour, extra worked examples, an expanded index, and a bibliography arranged for each chapter. Quaternions for Computer Graphics includes chapters on number sets and algebra, imaginary and complex numbers, the complex plane, rotation transforms, and a comprehensive description of quaternions in the context of rotation. The book will appeal to students of computer graphics, computer science and mathematics, as well as programmers, researchers, academics and professional practitioners interested in learning about quaternions. John Vince explains in an easy-to-understand language, with the aid of useful figures, how quaternions emerged, gave birth to modern vector analysis, disappeared, and reemerged to be adopted by the flight simulation industry and computer graphics. This book will give you the confidence to use quaternions within your every-day mathematics, and explore more advanced texts.
Quaternions for Computer Graphics
by John VinceSir William Rowan Hamilton was a genius, and will be remembered for his significant contributions to physics and mathematics. The Hamiltonian, which is used in quantum physics to describe the total energy of a system, would have been a major achievement for anyone, but Hamilton also invented quaternions, which paved the way for modern vector analysis. Quaternions are one of the most documented inventions in the history of mathematics, and this book is about their invention, and how they are used to rotate vectors about an arbitrary axis. Apart from introducing the reader to the features of quaternions and their associated algebra, the book provides valuable historical facts that bring the subject alive. Quaternions for Computer Graphics introduces the reader to quaternion algebra by describing concepts of sets, groups, fields and rings. It also includes chapters on imaginary quantities, complex numbers and the complex plane, which are essential to understanding quaternions. The book contains many illustrations and worked examples, which make it essential reading for students, academics, researchers and professional practitioners.
Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī and the Configuration of the Heavens: A Comparison of Texts and Models
by Kaveh NiaziAs a leading scientist of the 13th century C. E. Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī wrote three substantial works on hay'a (or the configuration of the celestial orbs): Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk ("The Limits of Attainment in the Understanding of the Heavens"), al-Tuḥfa al-shāhīya fī 'ilm al-hay'a ("The Royal Offering Regarding the Knowledge of the Configuration of the Heavens"), and Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī ("The Muẓaffarī Elections"). Completed in less than four years and written in two of the classical languages of the Islamic world, Arabic and Persian, these works provide a fascinating window to the astronomical research carried out in Ilkhanid Persia. Shīrāzī and his colleagues were driven by their desire to rid Ptolemaic astronomy from its perceived shortcomings. An intriguing trail of revisions and emendations in Shīrāzī's hay'a texts serves to highlight both those features of Shīrāzī's astronomy that were inherited from his predecessors, as well as his original contributions to this branch of astronomical research. As a renowned savant, Shīrāzī spent a large portion of his career near centers of political power in Persia and Anatolia. A study of his scientific output and career as a scholar is an opportunity, therefore, for an examination of the patronage of science and of scientific works within the Ilkhanid realms. Not only was this patronage important to the work of scholars such as Shīrāzī but it was critical to the founding and operation of one of the foremost scientific institutions of the medieval Islamic world, the Marāgha observatory. The astronomical tradition in which Shīrāzī carried out his research has many links, as well, to the astronomy of Early Modern Europe, as can be seen in the astronomical models of Copernicus.
¿Qué decimos cuando decimos el credo?
by Enrique Martínez LozanoTodo lo que acaece en el tiempo y el espacio es relativo, dice relación a aquellas coordenadas espaciotemporales en las que surge. Así ocurre con el Credo, nacido dentro de un idioma cultural concreto, y en un contexto sociohistórico determinado. Si pretendemos que tenga sentido para quienes nos hallamos en un contexto bien diferente y hablamos otro idioma muy distinto, se hace necesaria una traducción o trasvase cultural.Es la tarea que emprende el autor. A partir de la comprensión de lo que quisieron expresar nuestros antepasados con aquellas fórmulas, hace una relectura de las mismas, queriendo ser fiel tanto a su contenido como al momento de mutación cultural en el que nos encontramos. Para facilitar la relectura propuesta, el texto va precedido de una Introducción, en la que, de modo sintético, se plantea la novedad de nuestro momento, caracterizado por la emergencia del modelo no-dual de cognición. Desde este modelo es desde donde se aborda la lectura del Credo.En el Epílogo, el autor propone ir más allá del Credo, abogando por una espiritualidad transreligiosa y transconfesional, e insistiendo con vehemencia en la necesidad de cultivar la inteligencia espiritual, como condición para una vida más plena.Enrique Martínez Lozano (Guadalaviar, Teruel, 1950) es psicoterapeuta, sociólogo y teólogo. Es autor de varios libros y se halla comprometido en la tarea de articular psicología y espiritualidad, abriendo nuevas perspectivas que favorezcan el crecimiento integral de la persona. Su trabajo asume y desarrolla la teoría transpersonal y el modelo no-dual de cognición. www.enriquemartinezlozano.com
Que gane el más mejor
by Eduardo Engel Patricio Navia«Con gran lucidez los autores argumentan que si el Estado cumple a cabalidad su rol de igualar las oportunidades y proveer protección social para los débiles, la competencia aflora como el sistema más justo y eficiente en la adjudicación de roles.» Nicolás Eyzaguirre, ex ministro de Hacienda «El Chile de las diferencias abrumadoras, aquel donde cuentan decisivamente los contubernios del poder, la clase y hasta la raza, aparece al desnudo en este estupendo libro de lectura imprescindible.» Fernando Villegas, columnista y escritor «Los autores dejan en evidencia que estamos lejos de la igualdad de oportunidades. Con una mirada certera y aguda, ofrecen soluciones audaces, como aumentar la competencia no sólo entre las AFP, sino incluso entre los colegios de los barrios más pobres. Es un libro para quienes buscan dirigir y comprender el país.» Patricia Politzer, periodista «Para quien tenga interés en entender la evolución reciente de la sociedad chilena, este libro es un excepcional aporte, fresco y entretenido, muy fácil de leer.»Felipe Lamarca, economista
¿Qué piensan los que no piensan como yo?: Diez controversias éticas
by Diana Cohen AgrestUna mirada inteligente, cauta y movilizadora sobre los temas máscontrovertidos. El matrimonio homosexual, la homoparentalidad, el aborto, la eutanasiavoluntaria y el suicidio asistido, la prostitución, la venta de órganos,el alquiler de vientre, la pena de muerte, la tenencia de drogas, elperfil genético de los delincuentes... todos estos temas son hoy elcentro de debates tan resonantes como inconclusos. Pues dudamos de todoaquello que puede ser hecho y, en un único gesto, de que debe ser hecho.En circunstancias imposibles de ser procesadas y asimiladas, inmersos ensituaciones límite sobre las cuales, tarde o temprano, deberemospronunciarnos.Deslizándose en los márgenes de lo "políticamente incorrecto", esteDiana Cohen Agrest nos acerca las razones esgrimidas en torno de estasprácticas polémicas que, de otro modo, suelen permanecer confinadas enlos círculos de los especialistas. La premisa básica queatraviesa esta obra es la necesidad de alentar el pluralismo, queimplica la coexistencia, en igualdad de condiciones, de diferentesperspectivas desde las cuales reflexionar sobre la realidad que nostoca. Lejos de adoptar una posición que clausure el debate, la autoraofrece los argumentos a favor y en contra de cada una de esascuestiones, desafiando al lector a tomar una decisión crítica propia.A todos nos gusta opinar fundando nuestras creencias en razonesvaliosas. Porque sentimos que así colaboramos en la construcción de unmundo un poco mejor. Si el don de la palabra instaura con el hombre eluniverso simbólico, podemos ser partícipes de la construcción deaquellos valores que, hoy como siempre, deberían sostener cualquierconducta humana. «¿Qué piensan los que no piensan como yo?» contribuye aeste fin con claridad, profundo conocimiento y valentía.
Queen and Country: The Fifty-Year Reign of Elizabeth II
by William ShawcrossDescribes the public persona of the Queen
Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe
by William Layher"Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe" offers a unique perspective on aspects of female rulership in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. Working with historical as well as literary evidence from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, this book shows how three queens - Agnes of Denmark, Eufemia of Norway, and Margareta, the union queen of the Scandinavian kingdoms - marshaled the power of the royal voice in order to effect political change. In conceptualizing the political landscape of late-medieval Scandinavia as an acoustic landscape, Layher charts a new path of historical and cultural analysis into the reach and resonance of royal power in the Middle Ages.
The Queer Art of Failure
by Judith HalberstamThe Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives--to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives. Judith Halberstam proposes "low theory" as a mode of thinking and writing that operates at many different levels at once. Low theory is derived from eccentric archives. It runs the risk of not being taken seriously. It entails a willingness to fail and to lose one's way, to pursue difficult questions about complicity, and to find counterintuitive forms of resistance. Tacking back and forth between high theory and low theory, high culture and low culture, Halberstam looks for the unexpected and subversive in popular culture, avant-garde performance, and queer art. She pays particular attention to animated children's films, revealing narratives filled with unexpected encounters between the childish, the transformative, and the queer. Failure sometimes offers more creative, cooperative, and surprising ways of being in the world, even as it forces us to face the dark side of life, love, and libido.
Queer Beauty: Sexuality and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Freud and Beyond (Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts)
by Whitney DavisThe pioneering work of Johann Winckelmann (1717-1768) identified a homoerotic appreciation of male beauty in classical Greek sculpture, a fascination that had endured in Western art since the Greeks. Yet after Winckelmann, the value (even the possibility) of art's queer beauty was often denied. Several theorists, notably the philosopher Immanuel Kant, broke sexual attraction and aesthetic appreciation into separate or dueling domains. In turn, sexual desire and aesthetic pleasure had to be profoundly rethought by later writers. Whitney Davis follows how such innovative thinkers as John Addington Symonds, Michel Foucault, and Richard Wollheim rejoined these two domains, reclaiming earlier insights about the mutual implication of sexuality and aesthetics. Addressing texts by Arthur Schopenhauer, Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Vernon Lee, and Sigmund Freud, among many others, Davis criticizes modern approaches, such as Kantian idealism, Darwinism, psychoanalysis, and analytic aesthetics, for either reducing aesthetics to a question of sexuality or for removing sexuality from the aesthetic field altogether. Despite these schematic reductions, sexuality always returns to aesthetics, and aesthetic considerations always recur in sexuality. Davis particularly emphasizes the way in which philosophies of art since the late eighteenth century have responded to nonstandard sexuality, especially homoeroticism, and how theories of nonstandard sexuality have drawn on aesthetics in significant ways. Many imaginative and penetrating critics have wrestled productively, though often inconclusively and "against themselves," with the aesthetic making of sexual life and new forms of art made from reconstituted sexualities. Through a critique that confronts history, philosophy, science, psychology, and dominant theories of art and sexuality, Davis challenges privileged types of sexual and aesthetic creation imagined in modern culture-and assumed today.
The Queer Cultures of 1930s Prose: Language, Identity and Performance in Interwar Britain
by Charlotte CharterisOffering a radical reassessment of 1930s British literature, this volume questions the temporal limits of the literary decade, and broadens the scope of queer literary studies to consider literary-historical responses to a variety of behaviours encompassed by the term ‘queer’ in its many senses. Whilst it is informed by the history of sexuality in twentieth-century Europe, it is also profoundly concerned with what Christopher Isherwood termed ‘the market value of the Odd.’ Drawing, for its methodology, on the work of Raymond Williams, it traces the impact of the Great War on the development of language, examining the use of ten ‘keywords’ in the prose of Christopher Isherwood, Evelyn Waugh and Patrick Hamilton, and that of their respective literary milieux, in order to establish how queer lives and modern sub-cultural identities were forged collaboratively within the fictional realm. By utilizing contemporary perspectives on performativity in conjunction with detailed close readings it repositions these authors as self-conscious agents actively producing their own queer masculinities through calculated acts of linguistic transgression.
Queer Democracy: Desire, Dysphoria, and the Body Politic
by Daniel D. MillerQueer Democracy undertakes an interdisciplinary critical investigation of the centuries-old metaphor of society as a body, drawing on queer and transgender accounts of embodiment as a constructive resource for reimagining politics and society. Daniel Miller argues that this metaphor has consistently expressed a desire for social and political order, grounded in the social body’s imagined normative shape or morphology. The consistent result, from the “concord” discourses of the pre-Christian Stoics, all the way through to contemporary nationalism and populism, has been the suppression of any dissent that would unmake the social body’s presumed normativity. Miller argues that the conception of embodiment at the heart of the metaphor is a fantasy, and that negative social and political reactions to dissent represent visceral, dysphoric responses to its reshaping of the social body. He argues that social body’s essential queerness, defined by fluidity and lack of a fixed morphology, spawns queer democracy, expressed through ongoing social and political practices that aim to extend liberty and equality to new social domains. Queer Democracy articulates a new departure for the ongoing development of theoretical articulations linking queer and trans theory with political theory. It will appeal to both academic and non-academic readers engaged in research on political theory, populism, US religion, gender studies, and queer studies.
Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire
by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce EricksonTreating such issues as animal sex, species politics, environmental justice, lesbian space and "gay" ghettos, AIDS literatures, and queer nationalities, this lively collection asks important questions at the intersections of sexuality and environmental studies. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines present a focused engagement with the critical, philosophical, and political dimensions of sex and nature. These discussions are particularly relevant to current debates in many disciplines, including environmental studies, queer theory, critical race theory, philosophy, literary criticism, and politics. As a whole, Queer Ecologies stands as a powerful corrective to views that equate "natural" with "straight" while "queer" is held to be against nature.
Queer Inclusion in Teacher Education: Bridging Theory, Research, and Practice
by Olivia J. MurrayQueer Inclusion in Teacher Education explores the challenges and promises of building queer inclusive pedagogy and curriculum into teacher education. Weaving together theory, research findings, and practical "how-to" strategies and materials, it fills an important gap by offering a clear roadmap and resources for influencing the knowledge, beliefs, and actions of faculty working with pre-service teachers. While the book has implications for policy change, most immediately, readers will feel empowered with ideas for faculty development they can implement in their own teacher education programs. Looking at both the politics and practices of teacher education and the ways in which queer issues manifest in schools, it is hopeful in suggesting that if teachers and pre-service teachers can critically reflect on homophobia and heteronormativity, they can begin to think about and relate to queer youth in a different, more positive and inclusive way. A Companion Website [http://queerinclusion.com] with additional activities and materials for teacher educators and faculty development and a practical guide enhances the usefulness of the book.