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From Biology to Linguistics: The Definition of Arthron in Aristotle's Poetics (Unipa Springer Ser.)
by Patrizia LaspiaThis book attempts to solve Aristotle's definition of arthron in the XX chapter of the Poetics by seeing it in a new light. This definition has always been considered an unsolvable problem. Starting with a detailed analysis of the Greek text, and of the various attempts to emend the text in order to make sense of it, the book provides an analytical description of the critical literature, showing that the solutions proposed up to now need to be revised.The possible solution is found in viewing the XX chapter of the Poetics not as a classification of parts of speech, as it was usually supposed, but by considering the biological definitions of arthron in Aristotle's corpus. This leads to the conclusion that, in linguistics as well as in biology, arthron is a "joint". In this light, the book offers a new textual conjecture for the first example of arthron in the Poetics.
From Bubble to Bridge: Educating Christians for a Multifaith World
by Eboo Patel Marion H. Larson Sara L. ShadyUnderstanding our religious neighbors is more important than ever—but also more challenging. bridgesFrom Bubble to Bridge
FROM CERTAINTY TO UNCERTAINTY: The Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century
by F. David PeatEarly theorists believed that in science lay the promise of certainty. Built on a foundation of fact and constructed with objective and trustworthy tools, science produced knowledge. But science has also shown us that this knowledge will always be fundamentally incomplete and that a true understanding of the world is ultimately beyond our grasp. In this thoughtful and compelling book, physicist F. David Peat examines the basic philosophic difference between the certainty that characterized the thinking of humankind through the nineteenth century and contrasts it with the startling fall of certainty in the twentieth. The nineteenth century was marked by a boundless optimism and confidence in the power of progress and technology. Science and philosophy were on firm ground. Newtonian physics showed that the universe was a gigantic clockwork mechanism that functioned according to rigid laws—that its course could be predicted with total confidence far into the future. Indeed, in 1900, the President of the Royal Society in Britain went so far as to proclaim that everything of importance had already been discovered by science. But it was not long before the seeds of a scientific revolution began to take root. Quantum Theory and the General Theory of Relativity exploded the clockwork universe, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that our knowledge was, at best, incomplete—and would probably remain that way forever. There were places in the universe, such as black holes, from which no information at all could ever be obtained. Chaos Theory also demonstrated our inherent limits to knowing, predicting, and controlling the world around us and showed the way that chaos can often be found at the heart of natural and social systems. Although we may not always recognize it, this new world view has had a profound effect not only on science, but on art, literature, philosophy, and societal relations. The twenty-first century now begins with a humble acceptance of uncertainty. From Certainty to Uncertainty traces the rise and fall of the deterministic universe and shows the evolving influences that such disparate disciplines now have on one another. Drawing on the lessons we can learn from history, Peat also speculates on how we will manage our lives into the future.
From Charity to Justice: How NGOs Can Revolutionise Our Response to Extreme Poverty
by Vincent FangThis book focuses on the ethical demands of extreme poverty and develops a political theory of practical change. Welding together political realism and moral aspirations, it argues that a re-imagined form of development NGO can help the global North break free from the dominant and persistent charity paradigm and drift towards a justice-based understanding of extreme poverty. It offers an original explanation of why the charity paradigm persists and why the “justice not charity” messages from development NGOs have changed few minds. The author argues that anyone concerned with a paradigm shift from charity to justice need to radically rethink the problem of political communication: who should communicate what messages about extreme poverty in what ways? Based on a rational choice critique of the competitive development NGO sector, the author calls for sector-wide reform and the emergence of a new political agent – the Avant-garde NGO - which transcends the charity frame that NGOs currently find themselves locked in. Further, inspired by literary theory and social psychology, he offers a fresh account of how the Avant-garde NGO could, through reflective public engagement, induce attitude change and lead genuine social and political reform.
From Chemistry to Consciousness
by Harald Atmanspacher Ulrich Müller-HeroldThis book reflects on the significant and highly original scientific contributions of Hans Primas. A professor of chemistry at ETH Zurich from 1962 to 1995, Primas continued his research activities until his death in 2014. Over these 50 years and more, he worked on the foundations of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, contributed to a number of significant issues in theoretical chemistry, helped to clarify central topics in quantum theory and the philosophy of physics, suggested innovative ways of addressing interlevel relations in the philosophy of science, and introduced cutting-edge approaches in the flourishing young field of scientific studies of consciousness. His work in these areas of research and its continuing impact is described by noted experts, colleagues, and collaborators of Primas. All authors contextualize their contributions to facilitate the mutual dialog between these fields.
From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda
by Elisabeth KingThis book questions the conventional wisdom that education builds peace by exploring the ways in which ordinary schooling can contribute to intergroup conflict. Based on fieldwork and comparative historical analysis of Rwanda, it argues that from the colonial period to the genocide, schooling was a key instrument of the state in contributing to the construction, awareness, collectivization and inequality of ethnic groups in Rwanda - all factors that underlay conflict. The book further argues that today's post-genocide schools are dangerously replicating past trends. This book is the first to offer an in-depth study of education in Rwanda and to analyze its role in the genesis of conflict. The book demonstrates that to build peace, we cannot simply prescribe more education, but must understand who has access to schools, how schools are set up, and what and how they teach.
From Cogito to Covid: Rethinking Lacan’s “Science and Truth” (The Palgrave Lacan Series)
by Molly A. Wallace Concetta V. PrincipeThis edited collection examines the contemporary relevance of Lacan’s 1965 essay “Science and Truth” to debates on science, psychoanalysis, ethics and truth. In doing so, it re-considers the established understanding of its argument that psychoanalysis is the only science for the human subject. Over fifty years after Lacan attempted to formalize the relationship between science and psychoanalysis in “Science and Truth,” this volume returns to the categorically systematic yet deeply puzzling ideas of this lecture-turned-essay. The volume begins with a rigorous analysis of the formal logic animating the cogito, which serves as a foundation for the remainder of the book to force a confrontation between the themes laid out in “Science and Truth” and the cultural, intellectual, political, economic, and, of course, scientific movements that we face today. The following five chapters examine various contemporary phenomena, including the destabilizing forces of post-truthism and political nihilism, the ‘non-science’ of filmic depictions of science, the prosopopeia of Lacan’s so-called secular Name of the Father, the pseudoscientific discourse of involuntary celibates, or ‘incels,’ and, finally, the alliance between science and capitalism that has developed out of the Covid-19 pandemic. This project offers an important contribution to contemporary debates about science and ethics that will be of interest to academics working in psychoanalytic and critical theory, and the philosophy and history of science; as well as to clinicians.
From Cognition to Being: Prolegomena for Teachers
by Henry Davis Mchenry Jr.Teachers must constantly invent and re-invent ways of being together with their students to enable both a shared mastery and a shared apprenticeship.
From Complexity to Systems
by Hrvoj VančikThis book sheds new light on the interactions between the science of complexity and the science of systems. Though both of these fields have been independently studied extensively, their interrelations have not been satisfactorily analyzed. By a superficial view, both the sciences are based on the same principles of the holistic behavior of the ensembles consisting of components. The author providing an expert analysis on the theory of complexity and bridges the gap to generalize it, by elaborating on all the observable manifestations of complex forms and behaviors and explaining how it is related to general theory of systems.Particular attention is given to the use of chemical concepts throughout the text to demonstrate the theories as well as the interactions between the two. The central point of this book is the new rational representation of systems that origins from some chemical concepts about the structure of molecules and graph theoretical chemical theory. Thisnovel text appeals to experienced researchers, students, and all those curious about theories of systems, complexities, and theoretical chemistry.
From Computational Logic to Computational Biology: Essays Dedicated to Alfredo Ferro to Celebrate His Scientific Career (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14070)
by Domenico Cantone Alfredo PulvirentiAlfredo Ferro’s impact on information technology has traversed diverse domains, encompassing Computational Logic, Data Mining, Bioinformatics, and Complex Systems. After first studying Mathematics at the University of Catania, he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from NYU in 1981, working under the supervision of Jacob Theodor (Jack) Schwartz. He returned to the University of Catania where he established the Computer Science undergraduate program, served as the coordinator of the Ph.D. program in Computer Science, cofounded the Ph.D. program in Biology, Human Genetics, and Bioinformatics, and retired as a full professor in 2021.Alfredo’s academic career as a computer scientist is characterized by two distinct research phases: Computational Logic until approximately 1995, followed by a notable focus on Data Mining and Bioinformatics. The contributions in this volume reflect the quality and the scope of his personal and collaborative successes.He also taught andinspired many excellent scientists. A pioneering initiative was to establish summer schools for Ph.D. students in 1989, leading to the so-called Lipari School, now the J.T. Schwartz International School for Scientific Research, where Alfredo continues to serve as director. This prestigious series includes schools focused on Computer Science, Complex Systems, and Computational Biology, featuring world-class scientists as lecturers and mentors.
From Concept to Objectivity: Thinking Through Hegel's Subjective Logic (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy)
by Richard Dien WinfieldFrom Concept to Objectivity uncovers the nature and authority of conceptual determination by critically thinking through neglected arguments in Hegel’s Science of Logic pivotal for understanding reason and its role in philosophy. Winfield clarifies the logical problems of presuppositionlessness and determinacy that prepare the way for conceiving the concept, examines how universality, particularity, and individuality are determined, investigates how judgment and syllogism are exhaustively differentiated, and, on that basis, explores how objectivity can be categorized without casting thought in irrevocable opposition to reality. Winfield's book will be of interest to readers of Hegel as well as anyone wondering how thought can be objective.
From Crisis to Coalition
by Peter Dorey Mark Garnett Andrew DenhamIn 2010 the Conservative Party returned to office after over a decade of largely ineffective opposition to New Labour. This book explains why it took so long to recover, and why the party was unable to win an overall majority despite the charismatic leadership of David Cameron. It covers all aspects of Conservative Party politics since 1997.
From Crisis to Communisation (Revolutionary Pocketbooks)
by Gilles DauvéRising out of the radical Marxist French millieu and events of 1968 to criticize global capitalism and encourage revolution in theory and practice, From Crisis to Communisation places libertarian communist theory in historical and contemporary context. Communisation means something quite straightforward: a revolution that starts to change social relations immediately. The concept was born out of a specific period, and this book investigates how people personally and collectively experienced the crises of the 1960s and 1970s. The notion is now developing in the maelstrom of a new crisis, among other reasons because of its ecological dimension, that has the scope and magnitude of a crisis of civilization. This is not a book that glorifies existing struggles as if their present accumulation was enough to result in revolution. Radical theory is meaningful if it addresses this question: how can proletarian resistance to exploitation and dispossession achieve more than aggravate the crisis? How can it reshape the world?
From Despotism to Democracy: How a World Government Can Save Humanity
by Torbjörn TännsjöThis book is about how best to respond to existential global threats posed by war and global heating. The stakes have become existential. A strong claim in the book is that we need a world state to save humanity. The book sheds new light on why this is so. The present author has long advocated global democracy. A strong argument against global democracy has been, however, that no state has ever been established without the resort to violence. In this book, the author bites the bullet and advocates a route to global democracy that passes through a phase where a global state is established in the form of global despotism. First despotism, then democracy! But, as the author insists and the reader will find, this is at most something we can hope for. We may fail. The moral importance of failure is thoroughly discussed.The book explored the following topics:· The tragedy of the commons is presented as the best explanation of why we do so little to obviate the causes behind climate change.· A world government presents a way out of the tragedy of the commons.· Standard arguments against a world state are examined.· The question of whether it matters if humanity goes extinct is taken seriously.· What if the attempt to establish a world state fails. The book is written by a philosopher, but the intended audience is broad. It has a place in courses in political philosophy, but it is possible for anyone who wants to do so to dig deeper into the questions should be able to read it. And regardless of whether you who read the book are a scholar or a layperson, there is no way for you to avoid its topic. Global existential issues concern all of us, regardless of profession or nationality.
From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era
by Thomas C. Field Jr.During the most idealistic years of John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress development program, Bolivia was the highest per capita recipient of U.S. foreign aid in Latin America. Nonetheless, Washington’s modernization programs in early 1960s' Bolivia ended up on a collision course with important sectors of the country’s civil society, including radical workers, rebellious students, and a plethora of rightwing and leftwing political parties. In From Development to Dictatorship, Thomas C. Field Jr. reconstructs the untold story of USAID’s first years in Bolivia, including the country’s 1964 military coup d’état.Field draws heavily on local sources to demonstrate that Bolivia’s turn toward anticommunist, development-oriented dictatorship was the logical and practical culmination of the military-led modernization paradigm that provided the liberal underpinnings of Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. In the process, he explores several underappreciated aspects of Cold War liberal internationalism: the tendency of “development” to encourage authoritarian solutions to political unrest, the connection between modernization theories and the rise of Third World armed forces, and the intimacy between USAID and CIA covert operations. Challenging the conventional dichotomy between ideology and strategy in international politics, From Development to Dictatorship engages with a growing literature on development as a key rubric for understanding the interconnected processes of decolonization and the Cold War.
From Dezinformatsiya to Disinformation: A Critical Analysis of Strategies and Effect on the Digital Public Sphere
by Suania AcampaThe book takes a critical look at the phenomenon of disinformation by identifying the historical, technological and human elements that contribute to the current success of disinformation strategies. The author examines the origin of the word "Dezinformatsiya", used by Russian planners in the 1950s, to understand how military strategy has transformed into militarization of information. The book pays particular attention to the power of algorithmic platforms on the selection and dissemination of digital content and their role in the spread of misinformation. This influences traditional editorial practices, disintermediating the production and distribution of news and amplifying a particular human cognitive mechanism: confirmation bias. The author investigates the Italian case to identify general archetypes, and typical and salient elements of disinformation strategies. The results offer a further interpretative aspect to studying disinformation, which represents a fracture in the digital public sphere, a kind of irrational object circulating in a space believed to be governed by rational engagement norms. The book conclusively shows how polarizing narratives used in disinformation strategies are the expression of complex ideological undergrowth embodied in extremes of the political spectrum. This highly topical book is for students and researchers from across the social sciences and media interested in the disinformation phenomenon.
From Digital Divide to Digital Inclusion: Challenges, Perspectives and Trends in the Development of Digital Competences (Lecture Notes in Educational Technology)
by Łukasz Tomczyk Francisco D. Guillén-Gámez Julio Ruiz-Palmero Akhmad HabibiThis book offers an expert perspective on two key phenomena in the development of the information society, namely digital inclusion and digital exclusion. Despite the intensive digitalization of various areas in human activity, the lack of proper information and communications technology (ICT) literacy, the lack of access to high-speed Internet, and the still unsatisfactory level of e-services are a reality in many regions and countries. This edited book presents a unique overview of research related to the dynamics of digital exclusion and the development of digital competences, as well as an analysis of the most effective educational solutions to foster the digital inclusion of disadvantaged groups. This book is particularly useful for educators dealing with the topic of digital exclusion and inclusion and who are looking for knowledge on enhancing digital competences in disadvantaged groups. It is also helpful for social policy makers involved in designing solutions to minimize various forms of digital exclusion. Finally, this book serves as a reference for academics and students from the disciplines of pedagogy, social policy, new media psychology, media sociology, and cultural anthropology.
From Divine Timemaker to Divine Watchmaker: An Exploration of God’s Temporality (Routledge Studies in Analytic and Systematic Theology)
by R.T. MullinsThis book offers the most extensive exploration of divine temporality to date. It focuses on five main questions. First, what is time? Second, how is God responsible for the existence of time? Third, what does it mean to say that God is temporal? Fourth, what kind of structure might God give to a time series? Fifth, what are the implications for theological doctrines such as the Trinity, creation, providence, and life after death? The author offers a deep, critical engagement with the Christian tradition but also goes beyond to build analytic bridges to Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, and Jainist philosophical theology. The book provides an up-to-date discussion of issues within analytic metaphysics, philosophy of time, and philosophy of religion and draws on the resources of contemporary systematic, historical, and biblical theology.
From Education Policy to Education Practice: Unpacking the Nexus (Policy Implications of Research in Education #15)
by Tine S. Prøitz Petter Aasen Wieland WermkeThis open access book addresses the complex interrelations between education policy and education practice developed under new ways of governance. It illuminates the nexuses of the interrelated fields of education policy and education practice including the characteristics of these relationships. The book offers a selection of cases with varied approaches to the question of how different actors and stakeholders are situated in contemporary policy and practice nexuses. The cases presented includes theoretical and conceptual studies; historical studies; ethnographic studies; and studies combining empirical interview data and quantitative data. The book shows what constitutes the contemporary nexuses in education and discusses the need to re-consider how we in education research approach policy and practice in the interface between structure and agency for the future developments in the education policy-practice nexus.
From Electrons to Elephants and Elections: Exploring the Role of Content and Context (The Frontiers Collection)
by Shyam Wuppuluri Ian StewartThis highly interdisciplinary book, covering more than six fields, from philosophy and sciences all the way up to the humanities and with contributions from eminent authors, addresses the interplay between content and context, reductionism and holism and their meeting point: the notion of emergence. Much of today’s science is reductionist (bottom-up); in other words, behaviour on one level is explained by reducing it to components on a lower level. Chemistry is reduced to atoms, ecosystems are explained in terms of DNA and proteins, etc. This approach fails quickly since we can’t cannot extrapolate to the properties of atoms solely from Schrödinger's equation, nor figure out protein folding from an amino acid sequence or obtain the phenotype of an organism from its genotype. An alternative approach to this is holism (top-down). Consider an ecosystem or an organism as a whole: seek patterns on the same scale. Model a galaxy not as 400 billion-point masses (stars) but as an object in its own right with its own properties (spiral, elliptic). Or a hurricane as a structured form of moist air and water vapour. Reductionism is largely about content, whereas holistic models are more attuned to context. Reductionism (content) and holism (context) are not opposing philosophies — in fact, they work best in tandem. Join us on a journey to understand the multifaceted dialectic concerning this duo and how they shape the foundations of sciences and humanities, our thoughts and, the very nature of reality itself.
From Empiricism to Expressivism
by Robert B. BrandomWilfrid Sellars ranks as one of the leading critics of empiricism--a philosophical approach to knowledge that seeks to ground it in human sense experience. Robert Brandom clarifies what Sellars had in mind when he talked about moving analytic philosophy from its Humean to its Kantian phase and why such a move might be of crucial importance today.
From Empiricism to Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars
by Robert B. BrandomUnifying and extending Sellars's most important ideas, Robert Brandom constructs a theory of pragmatic expressivism which, in contrast to empiricism, understands meaning and knowledge in terms of the role expressions play in social practices.
From Eternity to Eternity: Memoirs of a Korean Buddhist Nun
by Bulpil SunimFrom Eternity to Eternity is the story of Bulpil Sunim, arguably the most respected female Seon (Zen) master in Korea. Written with candor and an unpretentious sense of humor, her memoir provides both a fascinating record of her life and a deeply accessible window into Buddhist thought and spirituality. Describing and reflecting on her own experience of meditation and her journey as a woman in a male-dominated religious practice, she reveals the largely unknown realities of female monastic life in Korea. She also provides an unprecedented glimpse into her relationship with her father, the legendary Seon Master Seongcheol Sunim, who was widely considered a living Buddha in Korea. This lyrical autobiography, the first of its kind in Korean Buddhist literature, offers readers a chance to learn about Korean Seon meditation and practice from a woman’s perspective and will be of interest not only to scholars of Buddhism but to general readers curious about Buddhism, the experiences of religious women, or simply the remarkable life of a great spiritual leader.
From Evolutionary Biology to Economics and Back: Parallels and Crossings between Economics and Evolution (History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences #28)
by Philippe Huneman Jean Gayon Bernard Walliser Mikael Cozic Jean-Baptiste André Silvia De Monte Johannes MartensThis book offers a comprehensive exploration of the major key concepts common to economics and evolutionary biology. Written by a group of philosophers of science, biologists and economists, it proposes analyses of the meaning of twenty-five concepts from the viewpoint respectively of economics and of evolutionary biology –each followed by a short synthesis emphasizing major discrepancies and commonalities. This analysis is surrounded by chapters exploring the nature of the analogy that connects evolution and economics, and chapters that summarize the major teachings of the analyses of the keywords. Most scholars in biology and in economics know that their science has something in common with the other one, for instance the notions of competition and resources. Textbooks regularly acknowledge that the two fields share some history – Darwin borrowing from Malthus the insistence on scarcity of resources, and then behavioral ecologists adapting and transforming game theory into evolutionary game theory in the 1980s, while Friedman famously alluded to a Darwinian process yielding the extant firms. However, the real extent of the similarities, the reasons why they are so close, and the limits and even the nature of the analogy connecting economics and biological evolution, remain inexplicit. This book proposes basis analyses that can sustain such explication. It is intended for researchers, grad students and master students in evolutionary and in economics, as well as in philosophy of science.
From Extreme Violence to the Problem of Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy
by Étienne BalibarIn this impassioned argument, Étienne Balibar boldly confronts the insidious causes of violence, racism, nationalism, and ethnic cleansing worldwide. Through a novel synthesis of theory and empirical studies of violence drawn from contemporary life, Balibar tests the limits of political philosophy to formulate new, productive conceptions of war, revolution, sovereignty, and class. Balibar explores how the relationship between politics and violence effects the way violence continues to exist in our society, and further how "civility" presents itself within this contemporary dichotomy. Balibar introduces the need to view politics as "counter-violence" versus "anti-violence" and other conversions in power and authority to better aptly respond to cruelty and violence.