Author: David Wise
File Type: pdf
The first full, authentic account of the CIA -- its fantastic blunders, its incredible successes, its terrifying power.
Author: Catherine L. Langford
File Type: pdf
An analysis of the discrepancy between the ways Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued the Constitution should be interpreted versus how he actually interpreted the law. Antonin Scalia is considered one of the most controversial justices to have been on the United States Supreme Court. A vocal advocate of textualist interpretation, Justice Scalia argued that the Constitution means only what it says and that interpretations of the document should be confined strictly to the directives supplied therein. This narrow form of constitutional interpretation, which limits constitutional meaning to the written text of the Constitution, is known as textualism. Scalia v. ScaliaOpportunistic Textualism in Constitutional Interpretation examines Scalias discussions of textualism in his speeches, extrajudicial writings, and judicial opinions. Throughout his writings, Scalia argues textualism is the only acceptable form of constitutional interpretation. Yet Scalia does not clearly define his textualism, nor does he always rely upon textualism to the exclusion of other interpretive means. Scalia is seen as the standard bearer for textualism. But when textualism fails to support his ideological aims (as in cases that pertain to states rights or separation of powers), Scalia reverts to other forms of argumentation. Langford analyzes Scalias opinions in a clear area of law, the cruel and unusual punishment clause a contested area of law, the free exercise and establishment cases and a silent area of law, abortion. Through her analysis, Langford shows that Scalia uses rhetorical strategies beyond those of a textualist approach, concluding that Scalia is an opportunistic textualist and that textualism is as rhetorical as any other form of judicial interpretation.
Author: Peter Gizzi
File Type: pdf
About Threshold Songs, the voices in these poems perform at the interior thresholds encountered each day, where we negotiate the unfathomable proximities of knowing and not knowing, the gulf of seeing and feeling, the uncanny relation of grief to joy, and the borderless nature of selfhood and tradition. Both conceptual and haunted, these poems explore the asymmetry of the bodys chemistry and its effects on expression and form. The poems in Threshold Songs tune us to the microtonal music of speaking and being spoken. Check for the online readers companion at httppetergizzi.site.wesleyan.edu.**
Author: Roberto Esposito
File Type: pdf
Terms of the Political Community, Immunity, Biopolitics presents a decade of thought about the origins and possibilities of political theory from one of contemporary Italys most prolific and engaging political theorists, Roberto Esposito. He has coined a number of critical concepts in current debates about the past, present, and future of biopolitics-from his work on the implications of the etymological and philosophical kinship of community (communitas) and immunity (immunitas) to his theorizations of the impolitical and the impersonal. Taking on interlocutors from throughout the Western philosophical tradition, from Aristotle and Augustine to Weil, Arendt, Nancy, Foucault, and Agamben, Esposito announces the eclipse of a modern political lexicon-freedom, democracy, sovereignty, and law-that, in its attempt to protect human life, has so often produced its opposite (violence, melancholy, and death). Terms of the Political calls for the opening of political thought toward a resignification of these and other operative terms-such as community, immunity, biopolitics, and the impersonal-in ways that affirm rather than negate life. An invaluable introduction to the breadth and rigor of Espositos thought, the book will also welcome readers already familiar with Espositos characteristic skill in overturning and breaking open the language of politics. **
Author: Declan Smithies
File Type: pdf
The topic of introspection stands at the interface between questions in epistemology about the nature of self-knowledge and questions in the philosophy of mind about the nature of consciousness. What is the nature of introspection such that it provides us with a distinctive way of knowing about our own conscious mental states? And what is the nature of consciousness such that we can know about our own conscious mental states by introspection? How should we understand the relationship between consciousness and introspective self-knowledge? Should we explain consciousness in terms of introspective self-knowledge or vice versa? Until recently, questions in epistemology and the philosophy of mind were pursued largely in isolation from one another. This volume aims to integrate these two lines of research by bringing together fourteen new essays and one reprinted essay on the relationship between introspection, self-knowledge, and consciousness. **
Author: Matthew Spalding
File Type: mobi
Amazon.com ReviewOne of the most popular words in American politics today is character. Authors Spalding and Garrity present George Washington not only as a president of impeccable personal credentials, but also as a man who had important lessons for the American people regarding the character of their leaders. These lessons are embodied in his Farewell Address, which is best remembered for its warning against foreign entanglements. Yet its really a meditation on how a nation can cultivate the habits, morals and civic virtues necessary for stable self-government. Bonus for history buffs Daniel Boorstin writes the introduction. From Library JournalIn this election year, its fitting to remember our only unopposed president and the farewell address that set the standard. Congress regularly reprints it, but there has been little analytical popular literature on this seminal address. (There would not be another significant one until Eisenhowers warning about the military-industrial complex 164 years later.) Despite rumblings about Francophobic touches, the farewell address is a document that attempts to set out a rationale for the Union and its conservative foreign policy. Yet Spalding (Heritage Foundation) and Garrity (Claremont Inst.) focus as much on the effect of Washingtons character on the new republic as on his speech. The first few chapters constitute a brief biography that gets us past the mythological facade that Parson Weems created. The bulk of the book outlines Washingtons efforts to impress his character traits on the new government and to establish its course. With the full text of the farewell address appended, this is a good choice for both academic and public libraries.?James Doyle, Macomb Community Coll., Warren, Mich.br 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Author: Mir Tamim Ansary
File Type: mobi
We in the west share a common narrative of world history. But our story largely omits a whole civilization whose citizens shared an entirely different narrative for a thousand years.In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as the Islamic world saw it, from the time of Mohammed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. He clarifies why our civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe?a place it long perceived as primitive and disorganized?had somehow hijacked destiny. In Destiny Disrupted, Ansary tells the rich story of world history as it looks from that other perspective. With the evolution of the Muslim community at the center, his story moves from the lifetime of Mohammed through a succession of far-flung empires, to the struggles and ideological movements that have wracked the Muslim world in recent centuries, to the tangle of modern conflicts that culminated in the events of 911. He introduces the key people, events, ideas, legends, religious disputes, and turning points of world history from that other perspective, recounting not only what happened but how those events were interpreted and understood in that framework. He clarifies why these two great civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe - a place it long perceived as primitive - had somehow hijacked destiny.--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Susan Blackmore
File Type: pdf
The last great mystery for science, consciousness has become a controversial topic. Consciousness A Very Short Introduction challenges readers to reconsider key concepts such as personality, free will, and the soul. How can a physical brain create our experience of the world? What creates our identity? Do we really have free will? Could consciousness itself be an illusion? Exciting new developments in brain science are opening up these debates, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments and clearly describes the major theories, with illustrations and lively cartoons to help explain the experiments. Topics include vision and attention, theories of self, experiments on action and awareness, altered states of consciousness, and the effects of brain damage and drugs. This lively, engaging, and authoritative book provides a clear overview of the subject that combines the perspectives of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience--and serves as a much-needed launch pad for further exploration of this complicated and unsolved issue. About the Series Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of lifes most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.**
Author: Gorazd AndrejĨ
File Type: pdf
This book critically examines three distinct interpretations of Ludwig Wittgenstein, those of George Lindbeck, David Tracy, and David Burrell, while paying special attention to the topic of interreligious disagreement. In theological and philosophical work on interreligious communication, Ludwig Wittgenstein has been interpreted in very different, sometimes contradicting ways. This is partly due to the nature of Wittgensteins philosophical investigation, which does not consist of a theory nor does it posit theses about religion, but includes several, varying conceptions of religion. In this volume, Gorazd Andrejc illustrates how assorted uptakes of Wittgensteins conceptions of religion, and the differing theological perspectives of the authors who formulated them, shape interpretations of interreligious disagreement and dialogue. Inspired by selected perspectives from Tillichian philosophical theology, the book suggests a new way of engaging both descriptive and normative aspects of Wittgensteins conceptions of religion in the interpretation of interreligious disagreement. **