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Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time > Time (chronology) > General
How have figures of speech configured new concepts of time, space,
and mind throughout history? Brian J. McVeigh answers this question
in A Psychohistory of Metaphors: Envisioning Time, Space, and Self
through the Centuries by exploring "meta-framing:" our
ever-increasing capability to "step back" from the environment,
search out its familiar features to explain the unfamiliar, and
generate "as if" forms of knowledge and metaphors of location and
vision. This book demonstrates how analogizing and abstracting have
altered spatio-visual perceptions, expanding our introspective
capabilities and allowing us to adapt to changing social
circumstances.
Originally published in 1921, this book provides a concise guide to
the Western Calendar. Information is provided on its origin and
development, the principles of its construction, the purposes for
which it is employed, its deficiencies and the means by which these
deficiencies can be amended. The text also contains a list of
authorities on the calendar and a table of astronomical data in
mean solar time. This book will be of value to anyone with an
interest in the Western Calendar and the measurement of time in
general.
The smooth functioning of an ordered society depends on the
possession of a means of regularising its activities over time.
That means is a calendar, and its regularity is a function of how
well it models the more or less regular movements of the celestial
bodies - of the moon, the sun or the stars. Greek and Roman
Calendars examines the ancient calendar as just such a time-piece,
whose elements are readily described in astronomical and
mathematical terms. The story of these calendars is one of a
continuous struggle to maintain a correspondence with the
regularity of the seasons and the sun, despite the fact that the
calendars were usually based on the irregular moon. But on another,
more human level, Greek and Roman Calendars steps beyond the merely
mathematical and studies the calendar as a social instrument, which
people used to organise their activities. It sets the calendars of
the Greeks and Romans on a stage occupied by real people, who
developed and lived with these time-pieces for a variety of
purposes - agricultural, religious, political and economic. This is
also a story of intersecting cultures, of Greeks with Greeks, of
Greeks with Persians and Egyptians, and of Greeks with Romans, in
which various calendaric traditions clashed or compromised.
The subject of 'time' is currently experiencing a revival in the
most diverse areas of academic discourse. Contemporary time theory
attempts to relate theoretical time concepts both to one another
and to everyday experience of time. This book deals with the
philosopher Martin Heidegger and the chemo-physicist Iyla Prigogine
(Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1977), two prominent advocates of
pioneering time concepts in the 20th century. The author not only
provides a transdisciplinary introduction to modern debate on the
problem of time, but suggests how the basic tendencies in this
debate might be pragmatically interlinked with each other.
With the advent of the new millennium, the notion of the future,
and of time in general, has taken on greater significance in
postmodern thought. Although the equally pervasive and abstract
concept of space has generated a vast body of disciplines, time,
and the related idea of "becoming" (transforming, mutating, and
metamorphosing) have until now received little theoretical
attention. This volume explores the ontological, epistemic, and
political implications of rethinking time as a dynamic and
irreversible force. Drawing on ideas from the natural sciences, as
well as from literature, philosophy, politics, and cultural
analyses, its authors seek to stimulate further research in both
the sciences and the humanities which highlights the temporal
foundations of matter and culture.The first section of the volume,
"The Becoming of the World," provides a broad introduction to the
concepts of time. The second section, "Knowing and Doing
Otherwise," addresses the forces within cultural and intellectual
practices which produce various becomings and new futures. It also
analyzes how alternative models of subjectivity and corporeality
may be generated through different conceptions of time. "Global
Futures," the third section, considers the possibilities for the
social, political, and cultural transformation of individuals and
nations.
With the advent of the new millennium, the notion of the future,
and of time in general, has taken on greater significance in
postmodern thought. Although the equally pervasive and abstract
concept of space has generated a vast body of disciplines, time,
and the related idea of "becoming" (transforming, mutating and
metamorphosing) have until now received little theoretical
attention.
This volume explores the ontological, epistemic, and political
implications of rethinking time as a dynamic and irreversible
force. Drawing on ideas from the natural sciences, as well as from
literature, philosophy, politics, and cultural analyses, its
authors seek to stimulate further research in both the sciences and
the humanities which highlights the temporal foundations of matter
and culture.
The first section of the volume, "The Becoming of the World, "
provides a broad introduction to the concepts of time. The second
section, "Knowing and Doing Otherwise, " addresses the forces
within cultural and intellectual practices which produce various
becomings and new futures. It also analyzes how alternative models
of subjectivity and corporeality may be generated through different
conceptions of time. "Global Futures, " the third section,
considers the possibilities for the social, political, and cultural
transformation of individuals and nations.
This ground-breaking book addresses transformations in the
understanding of time and the generation and degeneration of value
at the cutting edge of modernity and postmodernity. The book is a
multi-disciplinary contribution to current work in the social
sciences, in cultural theory and in more pragmatic areas such as
advertising and global communication. It brings together the work
of distinguished international scholars and new young thinkers.
"Time and Value" contains an exploration of such themes as the
timescapes of nature and the impact of disease, ecological
catastrophe, and many other issues. In theoretical terms, the
collection draws in particular upon writers such as Jacques
Derrida, Michel Serres, Paul Virilio and Martin Heidegger, whose
work is particularly relevant in considering how technology has had
a powerful impact upon the construal of time and the explanation of
how time constructs human lives in late modernity.
The compression of time and its fragmentation correspond with a
collapse in and reconstruction of value systems. This
deconstruction of time is juxtaposed with a range of possibilities
that emerge when the specific times of the media, literature, art,
virtuality, nature, performance, fashion, semiotic codings,
spirituality, the self and the body are understood as creative
opportunity.
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