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Monism
by Todd H. WeirThe first survey in the English language of the history of naturalistic monism in the works of Haeckel, Spinoza, and others. Contributors demonstrate that, to a greater extent than previously shown, monism provided an essential epistemological framework for numerous religious, political and cultural movements between the 1840s and 1940s.
The Monk and the Philosopher
by Matthieu Ricard Jean Francois RevelJean Francois-Revel, a pillar of French intellectual life in our time, became world famous for his challenges to both Communism and Christianity. Twenty-seven years ago, his son, Matthieu Ricard, gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism -- not as a detached observer but by immersing himself in its practice under the guidance of its greatest living masters.Meeting in an inn overlooking Katmandu, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored the questions that have occupied humankind throughout its history. Does life have meaning? What is consciousness? Is man free? What is the value of scientific and material progress? Why is there suffering, war, and hatred? Their conversation is not merely abstract: they ask each other questions about ethics, rights, and responsibilities, about knowledge and belief, and they discuss frankly the differences in the way each has tried to make sense of his life.Utterly absorbing, inspiring, and accessible, this remarkable dialogue engages East with West, ideas with life, and science with the humanities, providing wisdom on how to enrich the way we live our lives.From the Hardcover edition.
The Monk of Park Avenue: A Modern Daoist Odyssey
by Yun RouPriceless Wisdom from a Modern Tao Te Ching Odyssey“...this book will completely absorb your attention from the beginning...” —Emanuele Pettener, PhD, assistant professor of Italian and writer in residence at Florida Atlantic University#1 New Release in Chinese Poetry, Asian Poetry, and Tao Te ChingA literary memoir like no other, Monk of Park Avenue recounts novelist and martial master Monk Yon Rou’s spiritual journey of self-discovery. Learn from Yon Rou as he tackles tragedy and redemption on an unforgettable soul-searching odyssey.A spiritual journey with extraordinary encounters. Yon Rou’s memoir is a kaleidoscopic ride through the upper echelons of New York Society and the nature-worshipping, sword-wielding world of East Asian religious and martial arts. Monk of Park Avenue divulges a privileged childhood in Manhattan, followed by the bitter rigors of kung fu in China and meditations in Daoist temples. Join Yon Rou’s adventure as he encounters kings, Nobel laureates, and the Mob. Witness this martial master’s incarceration in a high-mountain Ecuadorian hellhole and fight for survival in Paraguay’s brutal thorn jungle. Meet celebrities along the way. A story of love, loss, persistence, triumph, and mastery, The Monk of Park Avenue is peopled with the likes of Milos Forman, Richard Holbrooke, Paul McCartney, Warren Beatty and now-infamous opioid purveyors, the Sackler Family. Yun Rou’s memoir is no mere celebrity tell-all, but a novelist and martial master’s path to self-discovery.The Monk of Park Avenue offers you:Paths for personal and spiritual growthAnecdotal stories of self-discovery and insights into how to liveAn eloquent, candid exploration of spiritual transformationIf you loved Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, To Shake the Sleeping Self, or Lao Tzu by Ursula K. Le Guin, you’ll love The Monk of Park Avenue. Also, be sure to read Monk Yon Rou’s Mad Monk Manifesto, winner of both the Gold & Silver 2018 Nautilus Book Award.
Monkey: A Journey to the West
by David KherdianPart spiritual pilgrimage, part historical epic, the folk novel Journey to the West, which came to be known as Monkey, is the most popular classic of Asian literature. Originally written in the sixteenth century, it is the story of the adventures of the rogue-trickster Monkey and his encounters with a bizarre cast of characters as he travels to India with the Buddhist pilgrim Tripitaka in search of sacred scriptures. Much more than a picaresque adventure novel, Monkey is a profound allegory of the struggle that must occur before spiritual transformation is possible. David Kherdian's masterful telling brings this classic of Chinese literature to life in a way that is true to the scope and depth of the original.
Monkey Trouble: The Scandal of Posthumanism
by Christopher PetersonAccording to scholars of the nonhuman turn, the scandal of theory lies in its failure to decenter the human. The real scandal, however, is that we keep trying. The human has become a conspicuous blind spot for many theorists seeking to extend hospitality to animals, plants, and even insentient things. The displacement of the human is essential and urgent, yet given the humanist presumption that animals lack a number of allegedly unique human capacities, such as language, reason, and awareness of mortality, we ought to remain cautious about laying claim to any power to eradicate anthropocentrism altogether. Such a power risks becoming yet another self-accredited capacity thanks to which the human reaffirms its sovereignty through its supposed erasure. Monkey Trouble argues that the turn toward immanence in contemporary posthumanism promotes a cosmocracy that absolves one from engaging in those discriminatory decisions that condition hospitality as such. Engaging with recent theoretical developments in speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, as well as ape and parrot language studies, the book offers close readings of literary works by J.M. Coetzee, Charles Chesnutt, and Walt Whitman and films by Alfonso Cuarón and Lars von Trier. Anthropocentrism, Peterson argues, cannot be displaced through a logic of reversal that elevates immanence above transcendence, horizontality over verticality. This decentering must cultivate instead a human/nonhuman relationality that affirms the immanent transcendency spawned by our phantasmatic humanness.
Monographs in Tang Official Historiography: Perspectives from the Technical Treatises of the History of Sui (Sui shu) (Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter #3)
by Daniel Patrick Morgan Damien ChaussendeThis book examines the role of medieval authors in writing the history of ancient science. It features essays that explore the content, structure, and ideas behind technical writings on medieval Chinese state history. In particular, it looks at the Ten Treatises of the current History of Sui, which provide insights into the writing on the history of such fields as astronomy, astrology, omenology, economics, law, geography, metrology, and library science. Three treatises are known to have been written by Li Chunfeng, one of the most important mathematicians, astronomers, and astrologers in Chinese history.The book not only opens a new window on the figure of Li Chunfeng by exploring what his writings as a historian of science tell us about him as a scientist and vice versa, it also discusses how and on what basis the individual treatises were written.The essays address such themes as (1) the recycling of sources and the question of reliability and objectivity in premodern history-writing; (2) the tug of war between conservatism and innovation; (3) the imposition of the author’s voice, worldview, and personal and professional history in writing a history of a field of technical expertise in a state history; (4) the degree to which modern historians are compelled to speak to their own milieu and ideological beliefs.
Monologion and Proslogion: with the replies of Gaunilo and Anselm
by Anselm Thomas Williams"Williams's translations are scrupulously faithful and accurate without being slavishly literal, and yet are lively and graceful." --Paul Vincent Spade, Indiana University
Monotheism, Intolerance, and the Path to Pluralistic Politics
by Christopher A. HawDiscussions of monotheism often consider its bigotry toward other gods as a source of conflict, or emphasize its universality as a source of peaceful tolerance. Both approaches, however, ignore the combined danger and liberation in monotheism's 'intolerance.' In this volume, Christopher Haw reframes this important argument. He demonstrates the value of rejecting paradigms of inclusivity in favor of an agonistic pluralism and intolerance of absolutism. Haw proposes a model that retains liberal, pluralistic principles while acknowledging their limitations, and he relates them to theologies latent in political ideas. His volume offers a nuanced, evolutionary, and historical understanding of the biblical tradition's emergence and its political consequences with respect to violence. It suggests how we can mediate impasses between liberal and conservative views in culture wars; between liberal inclusivity and conservative decisionism; and, on the religious front, between apologetics for exclusive monotheism and critiques of its intolerance.
Monotonicity in Logic and Language: Second Tsinghua Interdisciplinary Workshop on Logic, Language and Meaning, TLLM 2020, Beijing, China, December 17-20, 2020, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #12564)
by Dun Deng Fenrong Liu Mingming Liu Dag WesterståhlEdited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information this book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second Interdisciplinary Workshop on Logic, Language, and Meaning, TLLM 2020, held in Tsinghua, China, in December 2020. The 12 full papers together presented were fully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions.Due to COVID-19 the workshop will be held online.The workshop covers a wide range of topics where monotonicity is discussed in the context of logic, causality, belief revision, quantification, polarity, syntax, comparatives, and various semantic phenomena in particular languages.
The Monroe Doctrine and the Greek Revolution (Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations)
by Aristotle TziampirisThis book attempts to explain why despite widespread popular support (the “Greek Fire”) in the United States of America for the Greek Revolution, the promulgation in 1823 of the Monroe Doctrine led to Washington D.C.’s non-recognition of the Hellenic efforts. It examines the origins and tradition of the diplomatic doctrine of neutrality and argues that the Monroe Doctrine represents its full realization. The new foreign policy doctrine is placed within its proper diplomatic framework, while the role of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams is highlighted. What remains remarkable, is how high on the U.S. policy agenda the Greek War of Independence was and how close it came to being politically vindicated. The epilogue of this book demonstrates based on specific historical episodes, that the “Greek Fire” and the Monroe Doctrine set in many ways the political framework that came to define Hellenic-American relations for almost the next two centuries.
The Monroe Doctrine and United States National Security in the Early Twentieth Century (Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World)
by Alex BryneThis book demonstrates that during the early twentieth century, the Monroe Doctrine served the role of a national security framework that justified new directions in United States foreign relations when the nation emerged as one of the world’s leading imperial powers. As the United States’ overseas empire expanded in the wake of the Spanish-American War, the nation’s decision-makers engaged in a protracted debate over the meaning and application of the doctrine, aligning it to two antithetical core values simultaneously: regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere on the one hand, and Pan-Americanism on the other. The doctrine’s fractured meaning reflected the divisions that existed among domestic perceptions of the nation’s new role on the world stage and directed the nation’s approach to key historical events such as the acquisition of the Philippines, the Mexican Revolution, the construction of the Panama Canal, the First World War, and the debate over the League of Nations.
The Monsoon Diaries: A Doctor’s Journey of Hope and Healing from the ER Frontlines to the Far Reaches of the World
by Calvin D. Sun"There are heroes among us, and Dr. Calvin Sun is one of them. Read this book." -Lisa Ling, journalistThe Monsoon Diaries is the firsthand account of Dr. Calvin Sun, an emergency room doctor who worked tirelessly on the front lines in multiple hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.Drawing upon the lessons he learned from his adventures traveling to more than 190 countries in ten years, as well as from the grief he experienced as a teen when his father died, Dr. Sun shares his journey, from growing up as a young Asian American in New York to his calling first to medical school and then to the open road.He believes that the fight for a better world creates meaning when all feels meaningless, and he hopes that telling his story will help readers reframe this tragic moment in our lifetimes into possibility, with the goal of building a more empathetic society.
The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu, and the Plagues of Capitalism
by Mike DavisA new edition of a classic book on viral catastrophes--the Spanish flu, the Avian flu, and now, Covid-19In his book, The Monster at Our Door, the renowned activist and author Mike Davis warned of a coming global threat of viral catastrophes. Now in this expanded edition of that 2005 book, Davis explains how the problems he warned of remain, and he sets the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of previous disastrous outbreaks, notably the 1918 influenza disaster that killed at least forty million people in three months and the Avian flu of a decade and a half ago.In language both accessible and authoritative, The Monster Enters surveys the scientific and political roots of today&’s viral apocalypse. In doing so it exposes the key roles of agribusiness and the fast-food industries, abetted by corrupt governments and a capitalist global system careening out of control, in creating the ecological pre-conditions for a plague that has brought much of human existence to a juddering halt.
The Monster in the Machine: Magic, Medicine, and the Marvelous in the Time of the Scientific Revolution
by Zakiya HanafiThe Monster in the Machine tracks the ways in which human beings were defined in contrast to supernatural and demonic creatures during the time of the Scientific Revolution. Zakiya Hanafi recreates scenes of Italian life and culture from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries to show how monsters were conceptualized at this particular locale and historical juncture--a period when the sacred was being supplanted by a secular, decidedly nonmagical way of looking at the world. Noting that the word "monster" is derived from the Latin for "omen" or "warning," Hanafi explores the monster's early identity as a portent or messenger from God. Although monsters have always been considered "whatever we are not," they gradually were tranformed into mechanical devices when new discoveries in science and medicine revealed the mechanical nature of the human body. In analyzing the historical literature of monstrosity, magic, and museum collections, Hanafi uses contemporary theory and the philosophy of technology to illuminate the timeless significance of the monster theme. She elaborates the association between women and the monstrous in medical literature and sheds new light on the work of Vico--particularly his notion of the conatus--by relating it to Vico's own health. By explicating obscure and fascinating texts from such disciplines as medicine and poetics, she invites the reader to the piazzas and pulpits of seventeenth-century Naples, where poets, courtiers, and Jesuit preachers used grotesque figures of speech to captivate audiences with their monstrous wit. Drawing from a variety of texts from medicine, moral philosophy, and poetics, Hanafi's guided tour through this baroque museum of ideas will interest readers in comparative literature, Italian literature, history of ideas, history of science, art history, poetics, women's studies, and philosophy.
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma
by Claire DedererA passionate, provocative and blisteringly smart interrogation of how we experience art in the age of #MeToo, and whether we can separate an artist's work from their biography.What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is history an excuse? What makes women artists monstrous? And what should we do with beauty, and with our unruly feelings about it?Claire Dederer explores these questions and our relationships with the artists whose behaviour disrupts our ability to apprehend the work on its own terms. She interrogates her own responses and her own behaviour, and she pushes the fan, and the listener, to do the same. Morally wise, deeply considered and sharply written, Monsters gets to the heart of one of our most pressing conversations.(P) 2023 Penguin Audio
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma
by Claire Dederer'An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life' JENNY OFFILL'An incredible book, the best work of criticism I have read in a very long time' NICK HORNBY'Wise and bold and full of the kind of gravitas that might even rub off' LISA TADDEOA passionate, provocative and blisteringly smart interrogation of how we experience art in the age of #MeToo, and whether we can separate an artist's work from their biography.What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? What makes women artists monstrous? And what should we do with beauty, and with our unruly feelings about it?Claire Dederer explores these questions and our relationships with the artists whose behaviour disrupts our ability to understand the work on its own terms. She interrogates her own responses and behaviour, and she pushes the fan, and the reader, to do the same. Morally wise, deeply considered and sharply written, Monsters gets to the heart of one of our most pressing conversations.'A blisteringly erudite and entertaining read . . . It's a book that deserves to be widely read and will provoke many conversations' NATHAN FILER'Fascinating . . . Dederer poses so many topical questions, plays with so many pertinent ideas, that I'm still thinking about this book long after I finished it' CLAIRE FULLER
The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? (Short Circuits)
by Slavoj Zizek John MilbankA militant Marxist atheist and a “Radical Orthodox” Christian theologian square off on everything from the meaning of theology and Christ to the war machine of corporate mafia. In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a militant atheist who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, “Radical Orthodox” theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have not only proven themselves worthy adversaries, they have shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed. Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, Universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others. Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with “paradox.” The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation. Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher and cultural critic. He has published over thirty books, including Looking Awry, The Puppet and the Dwarf, and The Parallax View (these three published by the MIT Press). John Milbank is an influential Christian theologian and the author of Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason and other books. Creston Davis, who conceived of this encounter, studied under both Žižek and Milbank.
The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?
by Slavoj Zizek John Milbank Creston DavisIf the theological was marginalized in the age of Western secular modernity, it has now returned with a vengeance. Theology is reconfiguring the very makeup of the humanities in general, with disciplines like philosophy, political science, literature, history, psychoanalysis, and critical theory, in particular, feeling the impact of this return.
Monstrous Crimes and the Failure of Forensic Psychiatry
by John Douard Pamela D. SchultzThe metaphor of the monster or predator--usually a sexual predator, drug dealer in areas frequented by children, or psychopathic murderer--is a powerful framing device in public discourse about how the criminal justice system should respond to serious violent crimes. The cultural history of the monster reveals significant features of the metaphor that raise questions about the extent to which justice can be achieved in both the punishment of what are regarded as "monstrous crimes" and the treatment of those who commit such crimes. This book is the first to address the connections between the history of the monster metaphor, the 19th century idea of the criminal as monster, and the 20th century conception of the psychopath: the new monster. The book addresses, in particular, the ways in which the metaphor is used to scapegoat certain categories of crimes and criminals for anxieties about our own potential for deviant, and, indeed, dangerous interests. These interests have long been found to be associated with the fascination people have for monsters in most cultures, including the West. The book outlines an alternative public health approach to sex offending, and crime in general, that can incorporate what we know about illness prevention while protecting the rights, and humanity, of offenders. The book concludes with an analysis of the role of forensic psychiatrists and psychologists in representing criminal defendants as psychopaths, or persons with certain personality disorders. As psychiatry and psychology have transformed bad behavior into mad behavior, these institutions have taken on the legal role of helping to sort out the most dangerous among us for preventive "treatment" rather than carceral "punishment."
Montaigne: with La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
by Michel De Montaigne David Sices James B. AtkinsonA superb achievement, one that successfully brings together in accessible form the work of two major writers of Renaissance France. This is now the default version of Montaigne in English. --Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley
Montaigne: A Life
by Steven Rendall Philippe Desan Lisa NealOne of the most important writers and thinkers of the Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) helped invent a literary genre that seemed more modern than anything that had come before. But did he do it, as he suggests in his Essays, by retreating to his chateau, turning his back on the world, and stoically detaching himself from his violent times? In this definitive biography, Philippe Desan, one of the world's leading authorities on Montaigne, overturns this longstanding myth by showing that Montaigne was constantly concerned with realizing his political ambitions—and that the literary and philosophical character of the Essays largely depends on them. The most comprehensive and authoritative biography of Montaigne yet written, this sweeping narrative offers a fascinating new picture of his life and work.As Desan shows, Montaigne always considered himself a political figure and he conceived of each edition of the Essays as an indispensable prerequisite to the next stage of his public career. He lived through eight civil wars, successfully lobbied to be raised to the nobility, and served as mayor of Bordeaux, special ambassador, and negotiator between Henry III and Henry of Navarre. It was only toward the very end of Montaigne’s life, after his political failure, that he took refuge in literature. But, even then, it was his political experience that enabled him to find the right tone for his genre.In this essential biography, we discover a new Montaigne—caught up in the events of his time, making no separation between private and public life, and guided by strategy first in his words and silences. Neither candid nor transparent, but also not yielding to the cynicism of his age, this Montaigne lends a new depth to the Montaigne of literary legend.
Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy
by Michael PerryThe beloved memoirist and bestselling author of Population: 485 reflects on the lessons he’s learned from his unlikely alter ego, French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne."The journey began on a gurney," writes Michael Perry, describing the debilitating kidney stone that led him to discover the essays of Michel de Montaigne. Reading the philosopher in a manner he equates to chickens pecking at scraps—including those eye-blinking moments when the bird gobbles something too big to swallow—Perry attempts to learn what he can (good and bad) about himself as compared to a long-dead French nobleman who began speaking Latin at the age of two, went to college instead of kindergarten, worked for kings, and once had an audience with the Pope. Perry "matriculated as a barn-booted bumpkin who still marks a second-place finish in the sixth-grade spelling bee as an intellectual pinnacle . . . and once said hello to Merle Haggard on a golf cart."Written in a spirit of exploration rather than declaration, Montaigne in Barn Boots is a down-to-earth (how do you pronounce that last name?) look into the ideas of a philosopher "ensconced in a castle tower overlooking his vineyard," channeled by a midwestern American writing "in a room above the garage overlooking a disused pig pen." Whether grabbing an electrified fence, fighting fires, failing to fix a truck, or feeding chickens, Perry draws on each experience to explore subjects as diverse as faith, race, sex, aromatherapy, and Prince. But he also champions academics and aesthetics, in a book that ultimately emerges as a sincere, unflinching look at the vital need to be a better person and citizen.
Montaigne's Politics: Authority and Governance in the Essais
by Biancamaria FontanaMichel de Montaigne (1533-92) is principally known today as a literary figure--the inventor of the modern essay and the pioneer of autobiographical self-exploration who retired from politics in midlife to write his private, philosophical, and apolitical Essais. But, as Biancamaria Fontana argues in Montaigne's Politics, a novel, vivid account of the political meaning of the Essais in the context of Montaigne's life and times, his retirement from the Bordeaux parliament in 1570 "could be said to have marked the beginning, rather than the end, of his public career." He later served as mayor of Bordeaux and advisor to King Henry of Navarre, and, as Fontana argues, Montaigne's Essais very much reflect his ongoing involvement and preoccupation with contemporary politics--particularly the politics of France's civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. Fontana shows that the Essais, although written as a record of Montaigne's personal experiences, do nothing less than set forth the first major critique of France's ancien régime, anticipating the main themes of Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire and Diderot. Challenging the views that Montaigne was politically aloof or evasive, or that he was a conservative skeptic and supporter of absolute monarchy, Fontana explores many of the central political issues in Montaigne's work--the reform of legal institutions, the prospects of religious toleration, the role of public opinion, and the legitimacy of political regimes.
The Montauk Project: Experiments In Time
by Preston B. NicholsDiscover the truth about time. This book chronicles the most amazing and secretive research project in recorded history. We all know something is out there, we're just not sure exactly what. This book begins to provide some solid clues.
Montesquieu: Discourses, Dissertations, and Dialogues on Politics, Science, and Religion (Bibliotheque Du Xviiie Siecle Ser. #19)
by David W. Carrithers Philip StewartA number of Montesquieu's lesser-known discourses, dissertations and dialogues are made available to a wider audience, for the first time fully translated and annotated in English. The views they incorporate on politics, economics, science, and religion shed light on the overall development of his political and moral thought. They enable us better to understand not just Montesquieu's importance as a political philosopher studying forms of government, but also his stature as a moral philosopher, seeking to remind us of our duties while injecting deeper moral concerns into politics and international relations. They reveal that Montesquieu's vision for the future was remarkably clear: more science and less superstition; greater understanding of our moral duties; enhanced concern for justice, increased emphasis on moral principles in the conduct of domestic and international politics; toleration of conflicting religious viewpoints; commerce over war, and liberty over despotism as the proper goals for mankind.