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A Long Way from Euclid
by Constance ReidMathematics has come a long way indeed in the last 2,000 years, and this guide to modern mathematics traces the fascinating path from Euclid's Elements to contemporary concepts. No background beyond elementary algebra and plane geometry is necessary to understand and appreciate author Constance Reid's simple, direct explanations of the arithmetic of the infinite, the paradoxes of point sets, the "knotty" problems of topology, and "truth tables" of symbolic logic. Reid illustrates the ways in which the quandaries that arose from unsolvable problems promoted new ideas. Numerical concepts expanded to accommodate such concepts as zero, irrational numbers, negative numbers, imaginary numbers, and infinite numbers.Geometry advanced into the widening territories of projective geometry, non-Euclidean geometries, the geometry of n-dimensions, and topology or "rubber sheet" geometry. More than 80 drawings, integrated with the text, assist in cultivating a grasp of the abstract foundations of modern mathematics, the search for truly consistent assumptions, the recognition that absolute consistency is unattainable, and the realization that some problems can never be solved.
A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
by Nancy L. Rosenblum Russell MuirheadHow the new conspiracists are undermining democracy—and what can be done about itConspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.Classic conspiracy theory insists that things are not what they seem and gathers evidence—especially facts ominously withheld by official sources—to tease out secret machinations. The new conspiracism is different. There is no demand for evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of shadowy plotters. Dispensing with the burden of explanation, the new conspiracism imposes its own reality through repetition (exemplified by the Trump catchphrase “a lot of people are saying”) and bare assertion (“rigged!”).The new conspiracism targets democratic foundations—political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. It makes it more difficult to argue, persuade, negotiate, compromise, and even to disagree. Ultimately, it delegitimates democracy.Filled with vivid examples, A Lot of People Are Saying diagnoses a defining and disorienting feature of today’s politics and offers a guide to responding to the threat.
A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
by Nancy L. Rosenblum Russell MuirheadHow the new conspiracists are undermining democracy—and what can be done about itConspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, how it undermines democracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.
A Love Letter To The Planet
by Thich Nhat HanhA passionate appeal for ecological mindfulness and strengthening our relationship to the Earth. Based on the best selling The World We Have.
A Love for Nothingness, A Love for Death: The Metaphysics of Desire
by Alberto CastelliThis book aims at explaining romantic love between straight adults through literary texts of the western canon from the nineteenth and twentieth century. Each chapter comes with a multidisciplinary approach in which protagonists are mutilated in their quest for loving as alternative to annihilation. The book emphasizes love as an obsession, thus as an exploration of the mind. From the passion-myth of Tristan and Isolde to the nihilist modernist representations, the western world has created a perverse concept of love. A love for nothingness, for death. Narcissistic and at times destructive, love is gained by overcoming obstacles. If without obstacles there is no love, then love becomes love for obstacles. Within this masochistic frame, love, falling in love, being loved always stand at the edge of pathology. At its core this book narrates a love story, more precisely a story of loves, the haunting evocation of a desire that by its very nature cannot be fulfilled. Inherent in the nature of love is a subtle dialectical activity between presence and absence, between creation and destruction, reality and void. Accordingly, the narrative raises questions that the past two centuries were incapable of answering. Does love only last the time of a kiss? Is its promise fatally destined to dissolve? What about violence? Physical, emotional, temporal. Is it an ineliminable part of love or its most extreme profanation? And what is the mystery that accompanies loves that know how to last without resigning themselves to the death of desire? It is to answer some of these questions that I wrote this text. Love is an unconscious process that dominates reason and destroys it when reason cannot be a mode of communication. Hence, the amorous romance is madness and this text is written as a loud reminder.
A Love of UIQ (Univocal)
by Félix GuattariThroughout a large part of the 1980s, Félix Guattari, known for his collaborations with Gilles Deleuze and his experimental and groundbreaking practices in psychotherapy, decides to shift his experimental work into a different medium of artistic and creative thought practice: the world of science fiction. Part self-analysis, part cinematic expression of his theoretical work, Guattari&’s screenplay merges his theoretical concepts with his passion for comic books, free radio movements, and film. So begins Guattari&’s journey to write a screenplay wherein a group of squatters makes contact with a superior intelligence coming from the infinitely small Universe of the Infra-quark (UIQ). Guattari worked feverishly on his film, attempting to secure a budget, traveling to Hollywood, and enlisting the help of American screenwriter Robert Kramer. But the film would never see the light of day. Through the important archival work of artists, Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson, Guattari&’s script is now published here, for the first time in English.
A Lover's Discourse: Fragments
by Richard Howard Roland BarthesA Lover's Discourse, at its 1978 publication, was revolutionary: Roland Barthes made unprecedented use of the tools of structuralism to explore the whimsical phenomenon of love. Rich with references ranging from Goethe's Werther to Winnicott, from Plato to Proust, from Baudelaire to Schubert, A Lover's Discourse artfully draws a portrait in which every reader will find echoes of themselves.
A Lullaby to Awaken the Heart: The Aspiration Prayer of Samantabhadra and Its Commentaries
by Karl BrunnhölzlA key Dzogchen text—available together with its Tibetan commentaries, including from the fifteenth Karmapa—from a preeminent translator.The Aspiration Prayer of Samantabhadra, one of the most famous and often-recited Dzogchen texts, is at once an entreaty by the primordial buddha, Samantabhadra, that all sentient beings recognize the nature of their minds and thus become buddhas, and also a wake-up call by our own buddha nature itself. This monumental text outlines the profound view of Dzogchen in a nutshell and, at the same time, provides clear instructions on how to discover the wisdom of a buddha in the very midst of afflictions. In this volume, Karl Brunnhölzl offers translations of three versions of the Aspiration Prayer and accompanies them with translations of the commentaries by Jigmé Lingpa, the Fifteenth Karmapa, and Tsültrim Sangpo. He offers further contextualization with his rich annotation and appendices, which include additional translation from Jigmé Lingpa, Longchenpa, and Patrul Rinpoche. This comprehensive, comprehensible book illuminates this profound text and greatly furthers our understanding of Dzogchen—and of our own nature.
A Man of Little Faith (SUNY series in Contemporary French Thought)
by Michel DeguyIn A Man of Little Faith the French poet and philosopher Michel Deguy reflects on the loss of religious faith both personally and culturally. Disenchanted not only with the oversimplifications of radical atheism but also with what he sees as an insipid sacralization of art as the influence of religion has waned, Deguy refuses to focus on loss or impossibility. Instead he actively suspends belief, producing a poetic deconstruction that, though resolutely a-theistic, makes a plea for an earthly piety and for the preservation of the relics of religion for the world to come. Two essays by Jean-Luc Nancy and a recent interview with Deguy are included, which reveal the impact and implications of Deguy's ongoing reflection and its significance within his generation of French thought.
A Manual for Creating Atheists
by Michael Shermer Peter BoghossianFor thousands of years, the faithful have honed proselytizing strategies and talked people into believing the truth of one holy book or another. Indeed, the faithful often view converting others as an obligation of their faith—and are trained from an early age to spread their unique brand of religion. The result is a world broken in large part by unquestioned faith. As an urgently needed counter to this tried-and-true tradition of religious evangelism, A Manual for Creating Atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith—but for talking them out of it. Peter Boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than 20 years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason.
A Map of Selves: Beyond Philosophy of Mind (Routledge Studies in Metaphysics)
by N.M.L. NathanA Map of Selves defines a concept of selfhood, radically different from the Cartesian, neo-Humean, materialist and animalist concepts which now dominate analytical philosophy of mind. A self, as this book defines it, is an enduring substance with a quality which is its constant possession, which it does not share with any other substance, and which is often remembered by it as its own. The author maintains that we are selves as so defined. He criticises the panpsychist theory that material objects are composed of selves analogous to ours, and argues, further, for the existence of at least one transcendent self, whose activity explains both our own existence and the existence of the natural world. He ends by considering whether things would be worse for us if selves as the book defines them did not exist, and we were, as some philosophers suppose we are, just brains, or sequences of mental events, or hylemorphic structures, or subjects which last no longer than the specious present. Nathan’s carefully argued and original book will be of interest to researchers in metaphysics and philosophical psychology, and to their students.
A Map of the Divine Subtle Faculty: The Concept of the Heart in the Works of Ghazali, Said Nursi, and Fethullah Gulen
by Mehmet Yavuz SekerThe heart in the Islamic understanding is the expression of a human being's spiritual existence. It is a Divine gift and Divine subtle faculty bestowed upon humanity. It is a polished mirror reflecting God. Like a general, the heart commands all other bodily organs and faculties, which are its troops, Everything that comes from a human being, whether good or bad, is a product of the heart. Mehmet Y. Seker, a scholar of Sufism and tasawwuf, studies the concept of the heart in the Islamic tradition looking at how it is approached by three prominent scholars and thinkers of Islam: Ghazali, Said Nursi, and Fethullah Gulen. Being the first in English to take as its focus the human heart from an Islamic spiritual, this book comparatively analyzes classical and modern age interpretations and evaluations on the concept and adds to the rich literature of spirituality in the Islamic tradition.
A Mark of the Mental: In Defense of Informational Teleosemantics (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)
by Karen NeanderDrawing on insights from causal theories of reference, teleosemantics, and state space semantics, a theory of naturalized mental representation.In A Mark of the Mental, Karen Neander considers the representational power of mental states—described by the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn as the “second hardest puzzle” of philosophy of mind (the first being consciousness). The puzzle at the heart of the book is sometimes called “the problem of mental content,” “Brentano's problem,” or “the problem of intentionality.” Its motivating mystery is how neurobiological states can have semantic properties such as meaning or reference. Neander proposes a naturalistic account for sensory-perceptual (nonconceptual) representations. Neander draws on insights from state-space semantics (which appeals to relations of second-order similarity between representing and represented domains), causal theories of reference (which claim the reference relation is a causal one), and teleosemantic theories (which claim that semantic norms, at their simplest, depend on functional norms). She proposes and defends an intuitive, theoretically well-motivated but highly controversial thesis: sensory-perceptual systems have the function to produce inner state changes that are the analogs of as well as caused by their referents. Neander shows that the three main elements—functions, causal-information relations, and relations of second-order similarity—complement rather than conflict with each other. After developing an argument for teleosemantics by examining the nature of explanation in the mind and brain sciences, she develops a theory of mental content and defends it against six main content-determinacy challenges to a naturalized semantics.
A Marxist Critique of the Ruined University (Debating Higher Education: Philosophical Perspectives #15)
by Krystian Szadkowski Jakub KrzeskiThis book revitalizes the Marxian concept of critique for research into the transformation of universities. It consists of a set of comprehensive and interconnected theoretical tools, starting from the reflection on the political ontology of higher education, through the critique of political economy of the sector to the analysis of activist struggles within the universities, and back to the ontological concept of the common – a foundation for the university alternative design. The tools offered and discussed in context throughout the book allow for a productive use in overcoming the current crisis of the university, as well as to avoid the pitfalls present in contemporary debates around it. Unlike the dominant discussions on the university in crisis, the authors argue that to grasp its nature, one has to reach more profound than the level of appearances such as marketization and commodification. Szadkowski and Krzeski offer a compelling reappraisal of critique as a mechanism to liberate intellectual work. By linking critique to how knowledge is structured and commodified, they help us transcend reductionist narratives of a crisis-ridden University. Prioritising ontological renewal, they embrace the political and the common, enriching our collective ways of knowing the world as a movement. Pivoting around academic and student protests in Poland, the book enables us to imagine spaces and times of critical hope that resist the capitalist subjugation of intellectual activity to knowledge production. Richard Hall, Professor of Education and Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK In the century since Antonio Gramsci new works in the Marxist tradition have made only modest contributions to social thought: the combined result of the savage repression in the West of the dangerous revolutionary ideas, plus the collapse in the East into jacobin conspiracy and dogmatism. If a living, vibrant Marxism had been part of the twentieth century mainstream then much catastrophe would have been averted. Now the drive for capital accumulation, sovereign individualism and rampant nationalism have brought us to the brink of ecological disaster and World War III. Into the void step two emerging scholars, Krystian Szadkowski and Jakub Krzeski with an original Marxist critique of higher education and the common good. There is hope in this development, vital resources for reflection, discussion and action. Simon Marginson, Professor of Higher Education at the Universities of Bristol and Oxford, UK, Honorary Professor at Tsinghua University in China, and Joint Editor in Chief of the journal 'Higher Education'
A Marxist History of Capitalism
by Henry HellerHenry Heller’s short account of the history of capitalism combines Marx’s economic and political thought with contemporary scholarship to shed light on the current capitalist crisis. It argues that capitalism is an evolving mode of production that has now outgrown its institutional and political limits. The book provides an overview of the different historical stages of capitalism, underpinned by accessible discussions of its theoretical foundations. Heller shows that capitalism has always been a double-edged sword, on one hand advancing humanity, and on the other harming traditional societies and our natural environment. He makes the case that capitalism has now become self-destructive, and that our current era of neoliberalism may trigger a transition to a democratic and ecologically aware form of socialism.
A Materialism for the Masses: Saint Paul and the Philosophy of Undying Life (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
by Ward BlantonNietzsche and Freud saw Christianity as metaphysical escapism, with Nietzsche calling the religion a "Platonism for the masses" and faulting Paul the apostle for negating more immanent, material modes of thought and political solidarity. Integrating this debate with the philosophies of difference espoused by Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ward Blanton argues that genealogical interventions into the political economies of Western cultural memory do not go far enough in relation to the imagined founder of Christianity.Blanton challenges the idea of Paulinism as a pop Platonic worldview or form of social control. He unearths in Pauline legacies otherwise repressed resources for new materialist spiritualities and new forms of radical political solidarity, liberating "religion" from inherited interpretive assumptions so philosophical thought can manifest in risky, radical freedom.
A Materialist Theory of Justice: A Methodological, Philosophical and Moral Justification
by Isaak DoreThis book presents a comprehensive theory of justice that has a threefold justification. For the first justification, the book presents a rigorously empirical methodology based on the stark realities of the human condition. It has a strong anthropological grounding in that it is adapted from the methodology of cultural materialism which, in turn, is founded on the materialist epistemology of Karl Marx. The second justification is philosophical. The theory of justice derived from the above methodology is further buttressed by and/or tested against the major trends of Western philosophy as represented by the thought of Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Georg W. F. Hegel, John Finnis, John Dewey, George Mead, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Axel Honneth, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer, Martha Nussbaum, John Maynard Keynes, Amartya Sen and Karl Marx. The third justification is moral. The promotion of human flourishing on the basis of fairness and equality are the minimum goals to be achieved; after which a more ambitious and comprehensive theory of overall goodness —based on individual and governmental action —can be implemented.
A Materialist Theory of the Mind (International Library of Philosophy)
by D.M. ArmstrongBreaking new ground in the debate about the relation of mind and body, David Armstrong's classic text - first published in 1968 - remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical.In the preface to this new edition, the author reflects on the book's impact and considers it in the light of subsequent developments. He also provides a bibliography of all the key writings to have appeared in the materialist debate.
A Materialist Theory of the Mind (Routledge Classics)
by D. M. ArmstrongD. M. Armstrong's A Materialist Theory of the Mind is widely known as one of the most important defences of the view that mental states are nothing but physical states of the brain. A landmark of twentieth-century philosophy of mind, it launched the physicalist revolution in approaches to the mind and has been engaged with, debated and puzzled over ever since its first publication over fifty years ago. Ranging over a remarkable number of topics, from behaviourism, the will and knowledge to perception, bodily sensation and introspection, Armstrong argues that mental states play a causally intermediate role between stimuli, other mental states and behavioural responses. He uses several illuminating examples to illustrate this, such as the classic case of pain. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Peter Anstey, placing Armstrong's book in helpful philosophical and historical context.
A Mathematical Approach to Marxian Value Theory: Time, Money, and Labor Productivity (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms)
by Dong-Min RieuThis book clarifies the quantitative relationship between time, money, and labor productivity from the perspective of Marxian labor theory of value. The book is divided into four main parts. Part I introduces the relationship between time and money in the context of Marxian value theory. Part II explores the theory of labor exploitation. Part III turns to analysis of the rate of profit, which is a primary characteristic of classical and Marxian economics. Part IV is devoted to suggesting a new research direction in light of the main conceptual innovation of the book.
A Mathematical History of the Golden Number
by Roger Herz-FischlerThe first complete, in-depth study of the origins of division in extreme and mean ratio (DEMR)-"the Golden Number"-this text charts every aspect of this important mathematical concept's historic development, from its first unequivocal appearance in Euclid's Elements through the 18th century.Readers will find a detailed analysis of the role of DEMR in the Elements and of its historical implications. This is followed by a discussion of other mathematical topics and of proposals by modern commentators concerning the relationship of these concepts to DEMR. Following chapters discuss the Pythagoreans, examples of the pentagram before 400 H.C., and the writings of pre-Euclidean mathematicians. The author then presents his own controversial views on the genesis, early development and chronology of DEMR. The second half of the book traces DEMR's post-Euclidean development through the later Greek period, the Arabic world, India, and into Europe. The coherent but rigorous presentation places mathematicians' work within the context of their time and dearly explains the historical transmission of their results. Numerous figures help clarify the discussions, a helpful guide explains abbreviations and symbols, and a detailed appendix defines terminology for DEMR through the ages.This work will be of interest not only to mathematicians but also to classicists, archaeologists, historians of science and anyone interested in the transmission of mathematical ideas. Preface to the Dover Edition. Foreword. A Guide for Readers. Introduction. Appendixes. Corrections and Additions. Bibliography.
A Mathematical Odyssey: Journey from the Real to the Complex
by Harold R. Parks Steven G. KrantzMathematics is a poem. It is a lucid, sensual, precise exposition of beautiful ideas directed to specific goals. It is worthwhile to have as broad a cross-section of mankind as possible be conversant with what goes on in mathematics. Just as everyone knows that the Internet is a powerful and important tool for communication, so everyone should know that the Poincaré conjecture gives us important information about the shape of our universe. Just as every responsible citizen realizes that the mass-production automobile was pioneered by Henry Ford, so everyone should know that the P/NP problem has implications for security and data manipulation that will affect everyone. This book endeavors to tell the story of the modern impact of mathematics, of its trials and triumphs and insights, in language that can be appreciated by a broad audience. It endeavors to show what mathematics means for our lives, how it impacts all of us, and what new thoughts it should cause us to entertain. It introduces new vistas of mathematical ideas and shares the excitement of new ideas freshly minted. It discusses the significance and impact of these ideas, and gives them meaning that will travel well and cause people to reconsider their place in the universe. Mathematics is one of mankind's oldest disciplines. Along with philosophy, it has shaped the very modus of human thought. And it continues to do so. To be unaware of modern mathematics is to miss out on a large slice of life. It is to be left out of essential modern developments. We want to address this point, and do something about it. This is a book to make mathematics exciting for people of all interests and all walks of life. Mathematics is exhilarating, it is ennobling, it is uplifting, and it is fascinating. We want to show people this part of our world, and to get them to travel new paths.
A Mathematical Prelude to the Philosophy of Mathematics
by Stephen PollardThis book is based on two premises: one cannot understand philosophy of mathematics without understanding mathematics and one cannot understand mathematics without doing mathematics. It draws readers into philosophy of mathematics by having them do mathematics. It offers 298 exercises, covering philosophically important material, presented in a philosophically informed way. The exercises give readers opportunities to recreate some mathematics that will illuminate important readings in philosophy of mathematics. Topics include primitive recursive arithmetic, Peano arithmetic, Gödel's theorems, interpretability, the hierarchy of sets, Frege arithmetic and intuitionist sentential logic. The book is intended for readers who understand basic properties of the natural and real numbers and have some background in formal logic.
A Mathematician's Journeys: Otto Neugebauer and Modern Transformations of Ancient Science (Archimedes #45)
by Alexander Jones John M. Steele Christine ProustThis book explores facets of Otto Neugebauer's career, his impact on the history and practice of mathematics, and the ways in which his legacy has been preserved or transformed in recent decades, looking ahead to the directions in which the study of the history of science will head in the twenty-first century. Neugebauer, more than any other scholar of recent times, shaped the way we perceive premodern science. Through his scholarship and influence on students and collaborators, he inculcated both an approach to historical research on ancient and medieval mathematics and astronomy through precise mathematical and philological study of texts, and a vision of these sciences as systems of knowledge and method that spread outward from the ancient Near Eastern civilizations, crossing cultural boundaries and circulating over a tremendous geographical expanse of the Old World from the Atlantic to India.
A Mathematician's Lament
by Paul Lockhart Keith Devlin"One of the best critiques of current mathematics education I have ever seen."--Keith Devlin, math columnist on NPR's Morning EditionA brilliant research mathematician who has devoted his career to teaching kids reveals math to be creative and beautiful and rejects standard anxiety-producing teaching methods. Witty and accessible, Paul Lockhart's controversial approach will provoke spirited debate among educators and parents alike and it will alter the way we think about math forever.Paul Lockhart, has taught mathematics at Brown University and UC Santa Cruz. Since 2000, he has dedicated himself to K-12 level students at St. Ann's School in Brooklyn, New York.