Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? These questions form the title of an 1897 painting by the French artist Paul Gauguin. He knew he was pushing the limits of human knowledge by asking them. He also knew they are not new questions. Our ancestors began to ask them on the African savannah. The Roman poet Lucretius posed them in his long poem On the Nature of Things, written just before the Christian era. He sought natural explanations for the behaviour of matter, without recourse to gods. But he also knew that the world we see is largely a creation of our mind. Since then, science has answered most of his 'how' questions, almost to the point of offering us a 'Theory of Everything'. But Gauguin's 'why' questions remain largely unanswered. They require a personal response from us, without which, as Lucretius intuited, nothing can be joyous or lovely. In The Stupendous Story of Us, we consider the narrative from all angles: our mastery of the realm of things, our exploration of our inner world, and our connectedness to each other. The pace is frantic because life is short, knowledge is infinite, and the challenges ahead are pressing.

Intellectual history and early modern history have always occupied an important place in Past and Present. First published in 1974, this volume is a collection of original articles and debates, published in the journal between 1953 and May 1973, dealing with many aspects of the intellectual history of the seventeenth century. Several of the contributions have been extremely influential, and the debates represent major standpoints in controversies over genesis of modern ideas. Although England is the focus of attention for most of the contributors, their themes have wider significance. Among the topics covered in the collection are the political thought of the Levellers and of James Harrington; radical social movements of the Puritan Revolution; the ideological context of physiological theories associated with William Harvey; the relationship between science and religion and the social relations of science; and the function of millenariansim and eschatology in the seventeenth century. The editor's Introduction indicates the context in which the articles were composed and provides valuable bibliographical information about the subjects discussed.

Public Intellectuals: An Endangered Species? investigates the definition, role, and decline of public intellectuals in American society. Drawing from a wide range of commentaries and studies, this edited volume demonstrates the unique importance of public intellectuals and probes the timely question of how their voices can continue to be effective in our ever-changing social, academic and political climates. At a time when many argue that public intellectuals are dying out, the book addresses questions such as who qualifies as a public intellectual? Have their ranks thinned out and their qualities diminished? What is that special service that public intellectuals are supposed to render for the body politic? And, above all, is society being shortchanged?

Inspired by recent developments in science studies, this book offers an innovative type of analysis of the recent history of rational expectations economics. In the course of exploring the multiple dimensions of rational expectations analysis, Professor Sent focuses on the work of Thomas Sargent, an instrumental pioneer in the development of this school of thought. The investigation attempts to avoid a Whiggish history that sees Sargent's development as inevitably progressing to better and better economic analysis. Instead, it provides an illustration of what happened to the approach through a contextualization of Sargent's work vis-a-vis that of other scholars and ideas. The treatment aims to illuminate some of the shifting negotiations and alliances that characterize the rise and shift of direction in rational expectations economics. The Evolving Rationality of Rational Expectations won the 1998 Gunnar Myrdal Prize of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy for the best monograph on a theme broadly in accord with the EAEPE Theoretical Perspectives.

The contemporary challenge of postmodernity draws our attention to the nature of reality and the ways in which experience is constructed.
Sensuous Geographies explores our immediate sensuous experience of the world. Touch, smell, hearing and sight - the four senses chiefly relevant to geographical experience - both receive and structure information. The process is mediated by historical, cultural and technological factors.
Issues of definition are illustrated through a variety of sensuous geographies. Focusing on postmodern concerns with representation, the book brings insights from individual perceptions and cultural observations to an analysis of the senses, challenging us to reconsider the role of the sensuous as not merely the physical basis of understanding but as an integral part of the cultural definition of geographical knowledge.

We take it for granted that the streets outside out homes are designed for movement from A to B, nothing more. But what happens if we radically rethink how we use these public spaces? Could we change our lives for the better? Our dependence on cars is damaging our health - and the planet's. The Dutch seem to have the right idea, with thousands of bike highways, but even then, what happens to pedestrians or people who want to cycle at a more leisurely pace? What about children playing outside their homes? Or wildlife, which enriches our local areas? Why do we prioritise traffic above all else? Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking the fundamental questions: who do our streets belong to, what do we use them for, and who gets to decide? Join journalist Thalia Verkade and urban mobility expert Marco te Broemmelstroet as they confront their own underlying beliefs and challenge us to rethink our way of life to put people at the centre of urban design. But be warned: you will never look at the street outside your front door in the same way again.

First published in 1990, Laws, Men and Machines is an original interpretation of the lasting influence that Newtonian mechanics has had on the design and operation of the American political system. The author argues that it is this mechanistic tradition that now instinctively shapes the way we conceive of, analyse, and evaluate American politics, and that the Newtonian conception of the world still finds expression in the 'checks and balances' of the American system.

Despite extensive study of the Galileo affair in recent years, there are still some important documents relating to the case which have received little attention in the English-speaking world. In his translation of Thomas Campanella's Apologia pro Galileo, Richard J. Blackwell presents for the first time in English a reliable and highly readable translation of this important and neglected work. Campanella, the maverick Dominican, sought to head off the confrontation between Galileo and the theologians by defending Galileo's right to develop, debate, and publish his ideas freely. By making available at last a well-documented English version of this treatise--one in which the theological dimensions of the dispute receive their clearest presentation yet--Blackwell makes a worthy contribution to a heightened awareness of the doctrinal issues in the Galileo affairs. Written in 1616 while Campanella was imprisoned by the Inquisition, the Apologia pro Galileo was banned in Rome at the time of its publication in 1622, therefore having little influence on the outcome of the Galileo case. However, then as now it stands as an important document calling for intellectual freedom as related to the Galileo case in particular, and as a plea for intellectual freedom in general.

Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript is a classic of existential literature. It concludes the first and richest phase of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous authorship and is the text that philosophers look to first when attempting to define Kierkegaard's own philosophy. Familiar Kierkegaardian themes are introduced in the work, including truth as subjectivity, indirect communication, the leap, and the impossibility of forming a philosophical system for human existence. The Postscript sums up the aims of the preceding pseudonymous works and opens the way to the next part of Kierkegaard's increasingly tempestuous life: it can thus be seen as a cornerstone of his philosophical thought. This volume offers the work in a new and accessible translation by Alastair Hannay, together with an introduction that sets the work in its philosophical and historical contexts.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche gives an impassioned analysis of Western religion, specifically Christianity, that confronts its authoritative view of humans and nature. Nietzsche introduces a counterargument that dismisses groupthink or herd mentality and emphasizes a person's "will to power." He demystifies past ideas, encouraging a bold alternative. An honest study of different ideologies and their influence on positive and negative behaviors. With nearly 300 aphorisms, the author criticizes the state of philosophy and its link to conventional wisdom. He also rejects a universal code of ethics as it doesn't account for the distinct characteristics of each individual. Nietzsche suggests every person has a lived experience that affects their outlook on what's right and wrong. Nietzsche is one of the most famous and controversial thinkers of all-time. His works are staples within the intellectual community and are used to discuss identity, nobility and personal growth. He is often a point of reference for other scholars, including psychologists, scientists and political leaders. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Beyond Good and Evil is both modern and readable.

This is an analytical examination of Ibn Khaldun's epistemology, centred on Chapter Six of the Muqaddima. In this chapter, entitled The Book of Knowledge (Kitab al'Ilm), Ibn Khaldun sketched his general ideas about knowledge and science and its relationship with human social organisation and the establishment of a civilisation.

In this bold new book, Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth traces the broadly established challenges to modernity that now confront historians and citizens of Western societies generally. She puts forward a clear definition of both The Modern Condition and of The Discursive Condition that challenges it, and she briefly introduces the most important practical implications of those challenges to accepted definitions and tools of thought. After decades of conflicting work on related issues this book provides a succinct, lucid and wide-ranging discussion of what is at stake. Drawing on a broad range of intellectual and cultural history from Homer to Hayden White and from the arts to physics, philosophy and politics, this book defines a new stage in the history of ideas. With the practice and assumptions of historians at its core, the book demonstrates the importance of interdisciplinary practice in addressing the big questions currently confronting the humanities and social sciences.

This book presents a provocative new interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil, arguably Nietzsche's most important work. The problem is that it appears to express merely a loosely connected set of often questionable opinions. Can Nietzsche really be an important philosopher if this is his most important book? Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick address this question with a close reading that emphasizes how Nietzsche writes. They argue that the first part of Beyond Good and Evil presents coherent and interconnected arguments for subtle and well-thought-out positions on traditional issues. Nietzsche's infamous doctrine of the will to power turns out to be a compelling account of the structure and origin of the human soul. And although he rejects some aspects of traditional philosophy, Nietzsche's aim is to show how philosophy's traditional aspirations to seek both the true and the good can be fulfilled. Beyond Good and Evil turns out to be a major work of philosophy and Nietzsche's masterpiece.

Originally published in 1991, this is the first book in English to chart the history of economic thought in Sweden. Concentrating on the major figures of Davidson,Wicksell, Cassel, and Heckscher, and on the members of the Stockholm School, it discusses Swedish contributions to both the neo-classical and Keynesian revolutions. Throghout, Swedish economic thought is seen in the context both of international economics and of domestic institutional developments.

Written in a clear and engaging style, this text demonstrates Nietzsche's significance as a philosopher and as a political theorist by highlighting his critique of liberalism (in both its philosophical and political forms) and by elaborating the form of ethical and political understanding which his philosophy discloses. In describing Nietzsche's diagnosis of the modern condition, this book explains the central aspects of his thought including the will to power, the Overman and amor fati. David Owen traces the relevance of Nietzsche's philosophy to current debates in political theory and engages with key figures such as MacIntyre, Taylor, Rorty and Rawls. Owen argues that the liberalism of the latter two can be seen as the contemporary expression of Nietzsche's dystopian vision of the Last Man and develops Nietzsche's political agonism as articulating a cogent alternative to liberal political theory.

This book deals with the relationship between historical scholarship and politics in twentieth century Egypt. It examines the changing roles of the academic historian, the university system, the state and non-academic scholarship and the tension between them in contesting the modern history of Egypt. In a detailed discussion of the literature, the study analyzes the political nature of competing interpretations and uses the examples of Copts and resident foreigners to demonstrate the dissonant challenges to the national discourse that testify to its limitations, deficiencies and silences.

For a country that can boast a distinguished tradition of political economy from Sir William Petty through Swift, Berkeley, Hutcheson, Burke and Cantillon through to that of Longfield, Cairnes, Bastable, Edgeworth, Geary and Gorman, it is surprising that no systematic study of Irish political economy has been undertaken.

In this book the contributors redress this glaring omission in the history of political economy, for the first time providing an overview of developments in Irish political economy from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Logistically this is achieved through the provision of individual contributions from a group of recognized experts, both Irish and international, who address the contribution of major historical figures in Irish political economy along the analysis of major thematic issues, schools of thought and major policy debates within the Irish context over this extended period.

The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family: the Father and the Son do not get on. It might be thought that so cumbersome a notion is inconceivable before the rise of Romanticism but the Ophite Gnostics of the second century AD appear to have thought that God the Father was a jealous tyrant because he forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and that the serpent, who led the way to the Tree of Knowledge, was really Christ. This book explores the possibility of an underground `perennial heresy', linking the Ophites to Blake. The `alternative Trinity' is intermittently visible in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and even in Milton's Paradise Lost. Blake's notorious detection of a pro-Satan anti-poem, latent in this `theologically patriarchal' epic is less capricious, better grounded historically and philosophically, than is commonly realised.

This book examines the ways in which studies of science intertwined with Cold War politics, in both familiar and less familiar "battlefields" of the Cold War. Taken together, the essays highlight two primary roles for science studies as a new field of expertise institutionalized during the Cold War in different political regimes. Firstly, science studies played a political role in cultural Cold War in sustaining as well as destabilizing political ideologies in different political and national contexts. Secondly, it was an instrument of science policies in the early Cold War: the studies of science were promoted as the underpinning for the national policies framed with regard to both global geopolitics and local national priorities. As this book demonstrates, however, the wider we cast our net, extending our histories beyond the more researched developments in the Anglophone West, the more complex and ambivalent both the "science studies" and "the Cold War" become outside these more familiar spaces. The national stories collected in this book may appear incommensurable with what we know as science studies today, but these stories present a vantage point from which to pluralize some of the visions that were constitutive to the construction of "Cold War" as a juxtaposition of the liberal democracies in the "West" and the communist "East."

Francois Quesnay is best known for the Tableau Economique, the proposition that only agriculture generates a positive 'net product' and that industry is 'sterile'. He recommended a 'single tax' on ground rent and invented the slogan 'laissez faire, laissez passe'. He was the first to found a school of economists called the 'physiocrats' which enjoyed an immense vogue in France for about a decade in the 1750s. The practical programme of the physiocrats was to eliminate the vestiges of medieval tolls and restrictions in the countryside, to rationalize the fiscal system, to amalgamate small-holdings into large-scale agricultural estates, to free the corn trade from all mercantilist restrictions - in short to emulate England. Placed in its historical context these were eminently reasonable views but the attempt to provide these reforms with a watertight theoretical argument produced some forced reasoning and slightly absurd conclusions.

G. E. Moore's 1912 work Ethics has tended to be overshadowed by his famous earlier work Principia Ethica. However, its detailed discussions of utilitarianism, free will, and the objectivity of moral judgements find no real counterpart in Principia, while its account of right and wrong and of the nature of intrinsic value deepen our understanding of Moore's moral philosophy. Moore himself regarded the book highly, writing late in his career, "I myself like [it] better than Principia Ethica, because it seems to me to be much clearer and far less full of confusions and invalid arguments." Short but philosophically rich, and written with impressive precision and intellectual candor, Ethics is a minor classic which repays careful study. This new edition includes Moore's essay "The Nature of Moral Philosophy" as well as editorial notes, an introduction, and a guide to further reading.

The importance of oaths to ancient Greek culture can hardly be overstated, especially in the political and judicial fields; but they have never been the object of a comprehensive, systematic study. This volume derives from a research project on the oath in ancient Greece, and comprises seventeen chapters by experts in law, in political and social history, in literary criticism, and in cross-cultural studies, exploring a wide range of aspects of the subject. Topics covered include the nature of ancient Greek oaths; the functions they performed within communities and in relations between them; their exploitation in literary texts and at critical moments in history; and connections between Greek oath phenomena and those of other cultures with which Greeks came into contact, from the Hittites to the Romans. It is an important phenomenon of ancient society that has never before been systematically and comprehensively studied.

Porosity between Politics and the Economy addresses the relationships between politics and the economy in deeply original ways. It is motivated by a sense of urgency derived from both the failure of modern capitalism to fulfill its promise and the consequences of the environmental crisis. Egidius Berns argues that the relations between politics and the economy are porous, and subsequently, he investigates the consequences of this porosity. By mapping out of a number of conceptual fault lines that constitute the weaknesses of post-industrial capitalist societies, Berns provides a fresh look at the current crisis of western capitalism and democracy. Finally, the book offers a preliminary elucidation of a path to reform the relations between the economy and politics, by analyzing the web of conceptual connections that link them and inform any possible configuration between them. It finds a way into the future in a certain ethics of restraint and combativeness.

'Endlessly insightful and full of surprises - exactly what you would expect from Tim Harford' BILL BRYSON 'Entertaining . . . A lively introduction to some of the most ingenious, yet often overlooked inventions that have changed the way we live' The Times 'Every Tim Harford book is cause for celebration' MALCOLM GLADWELL 'Harford is a fine, perceptive writer, and an effortless explainer of tricky concepts. His book teems with good things, and will expand the mind of anyone lucky enough to read it' Daily Mail In Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy, the revolutionary, acclaimed book, radio series and podcast, bestselling economist Tim Harford introduced us to a selection of fifty radical inventions that changed the world. Now, in this new book, Harford once again brings us an array of remarkable, memorable, curious and often unexpected 'things' - inventions that teach us lessons by turns intimate and sweeping about the complex world economy we live in today. From the brick, blockchain and the bicycle to fire, the factory and fundraising, and from solar PV and the pencil to the postage stamp, this brilliant and enlightening collection resonates, fascinates and stimulates. It is a wonderful blend of insight and inspiration from one of Britain's finest non-fiction storytellers.

This book presents a systemic analysis of Spinoza's philosophy and challenges the traditional views. It deals with Spinoza's concepts of substance, truth conditions, attributes, and the first, second, and supreme grades of knowledge. Based upon an analysis of the relevant details in all of Spinoza's philosophical works, the book reveals many important points, including the following: Spinoza's system is not, nor is meant to be, a foundational-deductive system but was meant to be a coherent system of a network model. Spinoza's reality is not made in the image of a mathematical model. Imaginatio, the first grade of knowledge, and ratio, the second grade, are parts or properties of the supreme grade of knowledge, scientia intuitiva, which is their essence. Finite beings, especially humans, are necessary and eternal (unless they are mistakenly perceived by imaginatio) whereas time, place, and death are simply "entities of imagination." The salvation, happiness, and blessedness that Spinoza's Ethics offers us, are active and depend only upon us. Concluding a careful examination and interpretation, the book suggests additional novel viewpoints in interpreting Spinoza's philosophical psychology and political philosophy.