Author: John Fizer File Type: pdf Unlike studies which confine psychologism to the second half of the nineteenth century, and to an explicit claim of psychology as a Grundwissenschaft during that period, this work attempts to trace psychologisms emergence in Greek antiquity, in hedonistic tendencies of the Renaissance, and in British Empiricism. Thus, psychologism figures as a generic concept, embracing a variety of both positivistic and idealistic arguments concerning the localization of normative sciences, particularly aesthetics and literary theory, in psychological space. This study also considers the implicit psychologism of even those psychoaesthetic theories which claimed to be against the exclusive status of psychology. In their actual treatment of aesthetic and literary facts, such theories inadvertently did indeed resort to psychologistic arguments. The position from which I have chosen to look at psychologistically committed aesthetics and literary theory is essentially phenomenological. The author seeks to present psychologism as a central tendency of psychoaesthetics as well as to assert critically psychologisms basic assumptions.**
Author: Todd E. Feinberg
File Type: pdf
How is consciousness created? When did it first appear on Earth, and how did it evolve? What constitutes consciousness, and which animals can be said to be sentient? In this book, Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt draw on recent scientific findings to answer these questions -- and to tackle the most fundamental question about the nature of consciousness how does the material brain create subjective experience? After assembling a list of the biological and neurobiological features that seem responsible for consciousness, and considering the fossil record of evolution, Feinberg and Mallatt argue that consciousness appeared much earlier in evolutionary history than is commonly assumed. About 520 to 560 million years ago, they explain, the great Cambrian explosion of animal diversity produced the first complex brains, which were accompanied by the first appearance of consciousness simple reflexive behaviors evolved into a unified inner world of subjective experiences. From this they deduce that all vertebrates are and have always been conscious -- not just humans and other mammals, but also every fish, reptile, amphibian, and bird. Considering invertebrates, they find that arthropods (including insects and probably crustaceans) and cephalopods (including the octopus) meet many of the criteria for consciousness. The obvious and conventional wisdom--shattering implication is that consciousness evolved simultaneously but independently in the first vertebrates and possibly arthropods more than half a billion years ago. Combining evolutionary, neurobiological, and philosophical approaches allows Feinberg and Mallatt to offer an original solution to the hard problem of consciousness. **Review A very level-headed, deeply informed, and magisterial approach to the neurobiological basis of consciousness that considers the evolutionary history, the neuroanatomy, and the behavior of extant animals. The book casts a wide net and pinpoints the origin of consciousness to the time of the Cambrian explosion. (Christof Koch, author of Consciousness Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist) The Ancient Origins of Consciousness will get you thinking about thinking in a way you never have before. This important, challenging, and surely controversial book opens the possibility that our worlds fellow creatures are far more alert, alive, and sentient than many scientists and philosophers have previously suggested. I hope its read widely and discussed with vigor by both academics and laypersons alike. (Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness) This book provides a much-needed evolutionary context for examining the origin and material basis of sentience and consciousness. Treating these as adaptive responses to real biological needs, each with its own evolutionary history, demystifies a subject too often framed in a top-down, primate-centric way. Progress in science often depends on first tackling the simplest available example, as with the hydrogen molecule in the case of chemical bond theory. For the biological problem of sentience and consciousness, the equivalent is to seek rudimentary forms of these phenomena as they emerge in evolution. This is the perspective of the authors, who develop their argument at some length in a thought-provoking and insightful way. (Thurston Lacalli, Professor Emeritus of Biology, University of Saskatchewan Adjunct Professor of Biology, University of Victoria) This books argument that consciousness probably extends hugely further back in time than we commonly suppose is welcome. It is a thoughtful and immensely informative survey of evolutionary neurobiology, which is sure to become a classic in the field of consciousness studies. (Iain McGilchrist, consultant neuropsychiatrist author of The Master and His Emissary The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World) [Feinberg and Mallatts] neuroevolutionary approach is the best we will have if we are to respect the power of our own human consciousness and also to locate it within a biological framework. (Steven Rose The Guardian) About the Author Todd E. Feinberg is Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. Jon M. Mallatt is Associate Professor of Biology and Medical Sciences at Washington State University and the University of Washington.
Author: Howard G. Buffett
File Type: epub
From one of Americas most prominent philanthropists, an eye-opening, myth-busting new perspective on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.Howard G. Buffett has seen first-hand the devastating impact of cheap Mexican heroin and other opiate cocktails across America. Fueled by failing border policies and lawlessness in Mexico and Central America, drugs are pouring over the nations southern border in record quantities, turning Americans into addicts and migrants into drug mules--and killing us in record numbers. Politicians talk about a border crisis and an opioid crisis as separate issues. To Buffett, a landowner on the U.S. border with Mexico and now a sheriff in Illinois, these are intimately connected. Ineffective border policies not only put residents in border states like Texas and Arizona in harms way, they put American lives in states like Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont at risk. Mexican cartels have grown astonishingly powerful by exploiting both the gaps in our border security strategy and the desperation of migrants--all while profiting enormously off Americas growing addiction to drugs. The solution isnt a wall. In this groundbreaking book, Buffett outlines a realistic, effective, and bi-partisan approach to fighting cartels, strengthening our national security, and tackling the roots of the chaos below the border.
Author: Antonio Gramsci
File Type: pdf
This edition of letters by Antonio Gramsci vividly evokes the great and terrible world in which he lived, a description he used a number of times in his correspondence. The letters show Gramsci beginning to form the theoretical concepts that come to fuller fruition in the Prison Notebooks, but they also give an essential and rounded picture of Gramscis development, politically, intellectually and emotionally - the latter especially through letters to his family and wife. Broadly speaking, the letters are of three types early letters to Gramscis family overtly political letters from Turin, Moscow, Vienna, and Rome and letters to the Schucht sisters, including Julka, whom he married while in Moscow. The political letters constitute a fascinating insight into the period, both with regard to the Communist International and, more often, to Italian politics. The volume also includes the famous letter of 1926 in which Gramsci, writing in the name of the Italian Partys Political Bureau, criticises the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party for their handling of internal opposition. The book follows a broadly chronological structure, and includes a general introduction, a guide to the main personalities involved, and additional contextual information for each chapter. It also includes some little-known photographic material. **Review This collection of Gramscis early correspondence provides new insight into his life and work. Through these letters, we follow the development of Gramscis own thought and his involvement with the international communist movement. This book will prove an indispensable resource, not only to Gramsci scholars, but to anyone interested in the history of the left more widely. Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism and Ghosts Of My Life Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures This is a meticulous translation of a selection of Gramscis pre-prison letters with an extensive introduction that places them in their historical context. These letters furnish fascinating new insights into both his personal and political life. Gramsci the man and Gramsci the politician emerge in new depth and detail. The volume is an invaluable asset to anyone interested in better understanding his ideas and his humanity. Professor Anne Showstack Sassoon, author of Gramsci and Contemporary Politics
Author: Gareth Williams
File Type: pdf
The story of the rise and fall of smallpox, one of the most savage killers in the history of mankind, and the only disease ever to be successfully exterminated (30 years ago next year) by a public health campaign. Proceeds from the sale of this book will to to support the Edward Jenner Museum in Berkeley, UK (visit www.jennermuseum.com).**
Author: Hanne von Weissenberg
File Type: pdf
The articles in this volume investigate changes in texts that became to be regarded as holy and unchangeable in Judaism and Christianity. The volume seeks to draw attention to the empirical evidence from Qumran, the Septuagint as well as from passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that have been shaped by the use of other texts. The contributions are divided into three main sections The first section deals with methodological questions concerning textual changes. The second section consists of concrete examples from the Hebrew Bible, Qumran and Septuagint on how the texts were changed, corrected, edited and interpreted. The contributions of the third section will investigate the general influence and impact of Deuteronomistic ideology and phraseology on later texts.
Author: Dolores Hayden
File Type: pdf
Describes the strategies and innovations nineteenth century feminists hoped would socialize housework and child care and gain economic independence for women **
Author: Branko Horvat
File Type: epub
First published in 1976, this book traces the development of the Yugoslav economy from the end of the Second World War to the beginning of 1975, which the author argues was a highly productive era of social innovation. Drawing on personal experience of the Revolution, the Partisan Liberation War and his time as a member of the Federal Planning Board as well as a comprehensive array of written sources, the author attempts to understand the development process, compare policy proclamations with achieved results, study the theories and ideas that led a to certain policy, distinguish the economic and political ingredients in decision making and analyses the causes of success and failure.