First published in 1959, this book aims to provide a practical introduction to semantics, relating the critical study of language to real-life situation, with a wealth of anecdotes and numerous illustrations drawn from everyday personal predicaments. This book provides much information and much material for profitable discussion, helping to make accessible what can be a highly academic subject comprehensible only to a minority. This book provides a highly valuable foundation for students of linguistics and will provide preparation for further study.

First published in 2000, this book is about sentences containing the word or, dealing primarily with sentences in which or conjoins clauses, but also some cases in which it conjoins expressions of other categories. The author aims to give an account of the discourse properties and felicity conditions of disjunction, and to use this account in explaining the behaviour of presupposition projection and of anaphora in disjunctive sentences. The author begins by giving an account of the discourse properties and felicity conditions of disjunction before turning to the presupposition projection problem. The final two chapters discuss anaphora and its interactions with disjunction.

-The topic of time psychology, although fundamental for an understanding of all other mental faculties, is still under-represented. This book offers an overarching understanding of concepts beyond methodological detail, uniquely offering a developmental psychology perspective. -From Philippe Rochat, outstanding expert in developmental aspects of the self, it considers key topics including our developing awareness of spatial and temporal vanishing, developmental origins of human subjectivity and sense of separation and guilt, and how we are all constrained to knowingly exist in finite time. -For all advanced students and scholars of the psychology of time, human development and self-consciousness from psychological, philosophical and social science backgrounds.

This book explores the nature of technology - participatory media in particular - and its effects on our friendships and our fundamental sense of togetherness A timely and relevant book, as we increasingly use technology to create and maintain friendships Situating the notion of friendship in the modern era, the author examines the possibilities and challenges of technology on our friendships Taking a media ecology approach to interpersonal communication, she looks at issues around phenomenology, recognition of friends as unique, hermeneutics in a digital world and mediated communication, social dimensions of time and space, and communication ethics Examining friendship as a communicative phenomenon and exploring the ways in which it is created, sustained, managed, produced, and reproduced, this book will be relevant to scholars and students of interpersonal communication, mediated communication, communication theory and philosophy, and media ecology

'A joy to read ... mind-expanding' Book of the Week, Guardian 'A bold and brave paean to our planet's ligneous, leafy kingdom' Telegraph 'An impressive exploration and dazzling insight into the lives of plants' Reaction Book Digest What is it like to be a plant? It's not a question we might think to contemplate, even though many of us live surrounded by plants. Science has long explored the wonderful ways in which plants communicate, behave and shape their environments: from chemical warfare to turning their predators to cannibalism. But they're usually just the backdrop to our frenetic animal lives. While plants may not have brains or move around as we do, cutting-edge science is revealing that they have astonishing inner worlds of an alternate kind to ours. They can plan ahead, learn, recognise their relatives, assess risks and make decisions. They can even be put to sleep. Innovative new tools might allow us to actually see them do these things - from electrophysiological recordings to MRI and PET scans. If you can look in the right way, a world full of drama unfurls. In PLANTA SAPIENS, Professor Paco Calvo offers a bold new perspective on plant biology and cognitive science. Using the latest scientific findings, Calvo challenges us to make an imaginative leap into a world that is so close and yet so alien - one that will expand our understanding of our own minds. From their rich subjective experiences to how they are inspiring novel ways of approaching the ecological crisis, PLANTA SAPIENS is a dazzling exploration of the lives of plants and a call to approach how we think about the natural world in a new, maverick way.

Taking Auden's Age of Anxiety as a leitmotiv and drawing on literature from law, philosophy, political theory, international relations, and sociology, Toope argues with passion that a renewed faith in the rule of law can address troubling developments in our own anxious times: populist nationalism; globalisation; and disruptive technologies with their dominating platforms. We can address anxiety by bolstering social resilience, drawing upon a plural intellectual heritage. That heritage reveals a unique type of 'authority' in society, 'epistemic practical authority' built up continuously through social discourse and action, shifting focus from the state of 'being' to the dynamic of 'becoming.' What is law's role in this world? The modest, yet powerful, version of the rule of law advocated here is one that draws on a wellspring of practical wisdom - prudence gleaned from pragmatic experience. It chastens power, while not disconnecting law from other sources of social action and human agency.

Mary Douglas is an outstanding example of an evaluative thinker at work. In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, she delves in great detail into existing arguments that portray traditional societies as "evolving" from "savage" beliefs in magic, to religion, to modern science, then explains why she believes those arguments are wrong. She also adeptly chaperones readers through a vast amount of data, from firsthand research in the Congo to close readings of the Old Testament, and analyzes it in depth to provide evidence that traditional and Western religions have more in common than the first comparative religion scholars and early anthropologists thought. First evaluating her scholarly predecessors by marshalling their arguments, Douglas identifies their main weakness: that they dismiss traditional societies and their religions by identifying their practices as "magic," thereby creating a chasm between savages who believe in magic and sophisticates who practice religion.

Comprehensive, multidisciplinary analysis of contemporary Japan Features leading scholars from around the globe providing an insiders' view on what happened in Japan and why its significant for understanding the challenges of a nation facing stark dilemmas Delves deeply into the layers of a complex and increasingly diverse society in the context of simmering ethnonationalism, economic torpor, political stagnation and cultural dynamism One of the few volumes to provide insights from the social sciences and humanities Asia is in flux and here we examine how this is forcing Japan to question longstanding verities and values and what this portends for its future and regional relations

'The perfect guide for a course correction in life' Deepak Chopra If we open our eyes and see clearly it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant An insightful exploration into the origins and history of Zen Buddhism from pioneering Zen scholar Alan Watts. With a rare combination of freshness and lucidity, Watts explores the principles of Zen and how it can revolutionize our daily life.

Television and the Embodied Viewer appraises the medium's capacity to evoke sensations and bodily feelings in the viewer. Presenting a fresh approach to television studies, the book examines the sensate force of onscreen bodies and illustrates how TV's multisensory appeal builds viewer empathy and animates meaning. The book draws extensively upon interpretive viewpoints in the humanities to shed light on a range of provocative television works, notably The Americans, Mad Men, Little Women: LA, and Six Feet Under, with emphasis on the dramatization of gender, disability, sex, childbearing, and death. Advocating a biocultural approach that takes into account the mind sciences, Cassidy argues that interpretive meanings, shaped within today's dynamic cultural matrix, are amplified by somatic experience. At a time when questions of embodiment and affect are crossing disciplines, this book will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of television, film, and media studies, both in the humanities and cognitive traditions.

This book explores the life and poetry of Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873–1934) in the context of European national literature between the French Revolution and World War I, showing how he helped create a modern Hebrew national culture, spurring the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. The author begins with Bialik’s background in the Tsarist Empire, contextualizing Jewish powerlessness in Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century. As European anti-Semitism grew, Bialik emerged at the vanguard of a modern Hebrew national movement, building on ancient biblical and rabbinic tradition and speaking to Jewish concerns in neo-prophetic poems, love poems, poems for children, and folk poems. This book makes accessible a broad but representative selection of Bialik’s poetry in translation. Alongside this, a variety of national poets are considered from across Europe, including Solomos in Greece, Mickiewicz in Poland, Shevchenko in Ukraine, Njegoš in Serbia, Petőfi in Hungary, and Yeats in Ireland. Aberbach argues that Bialik as Jewish national poet cannot be understood except in the dual context of ancient Jewish nationalism and modern European nationalism, both political and cultural. Written in clear and accessible prose, this book will interest those studying modern European nationalism, Hebrew literature, Jewish history, and anti-Semitism.

Space is crucial to geography and is widely used as a concept across the humanities and social sciences. Space will provide the first accessible, in-depth textbook which provides a critical introduction to different geographical approaches to space, tracing the link between conceptualisations of space and key traditions in the history and philosophy of geography, as well as broader thinking in philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences Consolidates and develops recent debates about how different species of space co-exist in contemporary geographical thought, as such it will clarify existing debates and provide useful pointers for further conceptual and theoretical elaboration. Use of the same three case studies throughout the various books chapters offers an excellent strategy for conveying the continuities and discontinuities that distinguish the ebbs, flows and evaporation of intellectual currents. It will include 'key idea boxes', 'key scholar boxes', 'case study boxes' and guides for further reading. The case studies will include both 'longitudinal' and 'one-off' examples. Thematic organization provides an effecient and creative way of synthesizing diverse material and drawing out differences between theorizations of space and spatiality Each chapter has been planned so as to demonstrate how space has been approached and analysed by scholars working in specific traditions of geography (as well as traditions of thought within the humanities and social sciences). This will enable the text to be used as a core reading for compulsory first/second year undergraduate courses on the 'history and philosophy of geography' and 'theory and methodology in geography' the book draws upon the author's own theoretical research on theories of space and spatiality, to advance original arguments as to what space is and what spacing and spatiality entail

In the past few decades social changes have impacted how we understand justice, as societies become both more multicultural and more interconnected globally. Much philosophical thought, however, seems to proceed in isolation from these developments. While philosophers from Plato onwards have portrayed justice as an abstract, universal ideal, Miller argues that principles of justice are always rooted in particular social contexts, and connects these ideas to the changing conditions of human life. In this important contribution to political philosophy, it is argued that philosophers need to pay more attention to the way that people actually think about what's fair, and only defend principles that are feasible to apply in the real world. To understand equality of opportunity, for example, we must explore the cultural constraints that people face when presented with life choices. Justice for Earthlings also explains how national boundaries make justice at global level different from social justice.

What is humanism and why does it matter? Is there any doctrine every humanist must hold? If it rejects religion, what does it offer in its place? Have the twentieth century's crimes against humanity spelled the end for humanism? On Humanism is a timely and powerfully argued philosophical defence of humanism. It is also an impassioned plea that we turn to ourselves, not religion, if we want to answer Socrates' age-old question: what is the best kind of life to lead? Although humanism has much in common with science, Richard Norman shows that it is far from a denial of the more mysterious, fragile side of being human. He deals with big questions such as Darwinism and 'creation science', matter and consciousness, euthanasia and abortion, and then argues that it is ultimately through the human capacity for art, literature and the imagination that humanism is a powerful alternative to religious belief. This revised second edition includes a new chapter on the debates between 'the New Atheists' such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and their religious critics, asking why the two sides in the debate so often seem to be talking past one another, and suggesting how the conversation could be made more fruitful. Richard Norman is a committed humanist and the author of many books including The Moral Philosophers and Ethics, Killing and War. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent, Canterbury

As a woman with a husband and other partners, philosopher Carrie Jenkins knows that love is complicated. Love is most often associated with happiness, satisfaction and pleasure. But it has a darker side we ignore at our peril. Love is often an uncomfortable and difficult feeling. The people we love can let us down badly. And the ways we love are often quite different to the romantic ideals society foists upon us. Since we are inevitably disappointed by love, wouldn't we be better off without it? No, says Carrie Jenkins. Instead, we need a new philosophy of love, one that recognizes that the pain and suffering love causes are a natural, even a good part of what makes love worthwhile. What Jenkins calls "sad love" offers no bogus "happy ever afters". Rather, it tries to find a way properly to integrate heartbreak and disappointment into the lived experience of love. It's time we liberated love.

Siegfried Kracauer was one of the most important German thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings on Weimar culture, mass society, photography and film were groundbreaking and they anticipated many of the themes later developed members of the Frankfurt School and other cultural theorists. No less remarkable were the circumstances under which he made these contributions. After his early years as a journalist in Germany, the rise of the Nazis forced Kracauer into exile - first in Paris and then, after a protracted flight via Marseilles and Lisbon, to the United States. The existential challenges, personal losses and unrelenting hardship Kracauer faced during these years of exile formed the backdrop against which he offered his acute observations of modern life. Joerg Spater provides the first comprehensive biography of this extraordinary man. Based on extensive archival research, Spater's biography expertly traces the key influences on Kracauer's intellectual development and presents his most important works and ideas with great clarity. At the same time, Spater ably documents the intensity of Kracauer's personal relationships, the trauma of his flight and exile, and his embrace of his new homeland, where, finally, the 'groundlessness' of refugee existence gave way to a more stable life and, with it, some of the intellectually most fruitful years of Kracauer's career. The result is a vivid portrait of a man driven both by an urge to capture reality - to attend to the things that are 'overlooked or misjudged', that still 'lack a name', as he put it - and by a need to find his place in a hostile, threatening world.

This book addresses the absence of a strong alignment with the future in contemporary social life and explores anomalous temporal experience as a way to expand political imaginations. In the aftermath of the modern myth of progress, it argues we have entered into a kind of dystopia-brutal or seemingly benign-of the continual present that is resistant to systemic change but is nevertheless animated through cycles of novelty and obsolescence. Exploring a condition in which we are out of ideas and facing a 'non-future' of blind technical improvement and fear, the author examines the heterochronia of eerie atmospheres and temporal suspensions. Rather than a reinstatement of the great dream of The Future, a temporality of possibility is explored in strange dimensions of otherwise mundane sites: logistic spaces and ex-urban landscapes; boredom connected to digital media; and the material culture of a recently abandoned town. Drawing on contemporary social and cultural theory, as well as urban geography and media studies, the book develops its conceptual position through a series of vignettes of key sites and experiences. Through an elliptical and generative approach, it analyses zones where novelty collapses and where figures of defiance and possibility might emerge. A rigorous theoretical examination of contemporary life and culture grounded in a close examination of sites and material examples, Temporal Politics and Banal Culture: Before the Future will appeal to scholars of social theory, sociology, cultural geography, cultural studies and social philosophy.

This book offers a clear and novel method from inserting mystical ideals into theatrical productions. This book introduces a new way of understanding the history of theatre. This book gives an east-to-understand overview of mystical thinking. This book lays out a clear understanding of how theatre might positively influence the audience and society.

What is love? What is it to be loved? Can we trust love? Is it overrated? These are just some of the questions Tony Milligan pursues in his novel exploration of a subject that has occupied philosophers since the time of Plato. Tackling the mood of pessimism about the nature of love that reaches back through Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, he examines the links between love and grief, love and nature, and between love of others and loving oneself. We love too few things in the world, Milligan concludes, adding that we need to be loved too, to appreciate our own value and the worth of life itself.

Exploring the Renaissance from a cognitive perspective, this book sheds light on the Renaissance as a cognitive and creative phenomenon providing researchers and postgraduate students of cognitive history with a new case study on which to apply their tools and the apparatus to do so. This book views the Italian Renaissance not only in the realms of art, architecture, and literature but also in the physical sciences, medicine, craft technology, engineering, and self-discovery. Allowing researchers and postgraduate students to see how viewing the renaissance as a creative phenomenon, through a cognitive approach, can broaden their understanding of the Renaissance period.

We are so used to living in a media-saturated world that we do not notice just how much damage is being done to us daily by the images we see and the articles and posts we read. If you are often anxious or find it hard to sleep, or you regularly want to give up on your fellow human beings, the reason may come down to the relentless influence of the modern media. How Modern Media Destroys Our Minds is a guide for navigating the media today. The book encourages the reader to consider the many peculiarities of the modern media: its excessive focus on scandal, its emphasis on novelty, its capacity to breed envy and self-hatred, its high-minded defence of itself, its ever shorter attention span and its obsession with fame. The book teaches us how to liberate ourselves from the media, in order to achieve calm and a more generous, original and imaginative state of mind. We are shown how to redress the balance and emerge with a stronger, more positive outlook on life.

There would seem to be a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding in the public mind about the life stance of modern humanism and its philosophical underpinnings. As a committed humanist Pat Duffy Hutcheon has made many invaluable contributions to the clarification of the nature and origin of evolutionary naturalism as a necessary component of modern humanism. This collection of topical essays is the most recent addition to her ongoing pursuit, following her analysis of cultural development in Building Character and Culture (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999) and her earlier seminal work tracing the evolution of the naturalistic basis of social-scientific thought in Leaving the Cave (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996). This, her newest book presents the ideas in the context of their time, of some of the most prominent thinkers who have, in one way or another, shaped the evolving philosophy of humanism over the centuries. It is a much needed and most welcome resource for any thoughtful person who wants to better appreciate the naturalistic view of human existence rather than the supernatural or mystical approaches that so regrettably dominate the current scene.

Exploring the Renaissance from a cognitive perspective, this book sheds light on the Renaissance as a cognitive and creative phenomenon providing researchers and postgraduate students of cognitive history with a new case study on which to apply their tools and the apparatus to do so. This book views the Italian Renaissance not only in the realms of art, architecture, and literature but also in the physical sciences, medicine, craft technology, engineering, and self-discovery. Allowing researchers and postgraduate students to see how viewing the renaissance as a creative phenomenon, through a cognitive approach, can broaden their understanding of the Renaissance period.