This book outlines the evolution of our political nature over two million years and explores many of the rituals, plays, films, and other performances that gave voice and legitimacy to various political regimes in our species' history. Our genetic and cultural evolution during the Pleistocene Epoch bestowed a wide range of predispositions on our species that continue to shape the politics we support and the performances we enjoy. The book's case studies range from an initiation ritual in the Mbendjela tribe in the Congo to a 1947 drama by Bertolt Brecht and include a popular puppet play in Tokugawa Japan. A final section examines the gradual disintegration of social cohesion underlying the rise of polarized politics in the USA after 1965, as such films as The Godfather, Independence Day, The Dark Knight Rises, and Joker accelerated the nation's slide toward authoritarian Trumpism.

The study of self-consciousness helps humans understand themselves and restores their identities. But self-consciousness has been a mystery since the beginning of history, and this mystery cannot be resolved by conventional natural science. In Self-Consciousness, author Masakazu Shoji takes the mystery out of self-consciousness by proposing the idea that the human brain and body are a biological machine. A former VLSI microprocessor designer and semiconductor physicist, Shoji was guided by the ideas of ancient sages to create a conceptual design of a human machine brain model. He explains how it works, how it senses itself and the outside world, and how the machine creates the sense of existence of the subject SELF to itself, just as a living human brain does. A follow-up to Shoji's previous book, Neuron Circuits, Electronic Circuits, and Self-Consciousness, this new volume examines self-consciousness from three unconventional viewpoints to present a complex theory of the mind and how self-consciousness develops.

Listen. Hear your deepest longings, triumphs and
trials in these ancient tales of the human experience.

Journey through these fascinating stories and you will see how myths and tales retold from many cultures bring universal themes from love and life, fears and foibles, straight into your heart.

From the learned housekeeper who imparts her wisdom on the importance of listening, to a juggler who shows that gifts from the heart are truly the best of all, these stories offer timeless insight and inspiration. They will allow you to connect with the strength and value of your own myths and tales.

Drawn from many cultures and faith traditions including Irish, Scottish, English, European, Asian, Indian and Middle Eastern each retelling illustrates the healing and powerful connection that stretches across the globe and unites us all in an embrace of wisdom through words. You will see your own struggles and successes mirrored in the lives of the characters contained in these pages: As you travel through their stories, you will hear a gentle voice urging you to tap into your own endless power and potential.

Prolegomena to a Carnal Hermeneutics introduces the importance of body politics from both Eastern and Western perspectives. Hwa Yol Jung begins with Giambattista Vico's anti-Cartesianism as the birth of the discipline. He then explores the homecoming of Greek mousike (performing arts), which included oral poetry, dance, drama, and music; Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogical body politics; the making of body politics in Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Luce Irigaray; Marshall McLuhan's transversal and embodied philosophy of communication; and transversal geophilosophy. This tour de force will be an engaging read for anyone interested in the above thinkers, as well as for students and scholars of comparative philosophy, communication theory, environmental philosophy, political philosophy, or continental philosophy

This volume brings together new papers advancing contemporary debates in foundational, conceptual, and methodological issues in cognitive neuroscience. The different perspectives presented in each chapter have previously been discussed between the authors, as the volume builds on the experience of Neural Mechanisms (NM) Online - webinar series on the philosophy of neuroscience organized by the editors of this volume. The contributed chapters pertain to five core areas in current philosophy of neuroscience. It surveys the novel forms of explanation (and prediction) developed in cognitive neuroscience, and looks at new concepts, methods and techniques used in the field. The book also highlights the metaphysical challenges raised by recent neuroscience and demonstrates the relation between neuroscience and mechanistic philosophy. Finally, the book dives into the issue of neural computations and representations. Assembling contributions from leading philosophers of neuroscience, this work draws upon the expertise of both established scholars and promising early career researchers.

This is a comprehensive reference guide to current research in Philosophy of Mind, assembled by an international team of leading scholars in the discipline. From new questions concerning qualia, representation, embodiment and cognition to fresh thinking about the long-standing problems of physicalism, dualism, personal identity and mental causation, this book is an authoritative guide to the latest research in the Philosophy of Mind. Across twelve entries, experts in the field explore the current thinking in one of the most active areas of interest in philosophy today. To aid researchers further, the Companion also includes overviews of perennial problems and new directions in contemporary philosophy of mind, an extended glossary of terms for quick reference, a detailed chronology, a guide to research for ongoing study and a comprehensive bibliography of key classic and contemporary publications in the philosophy of mind. "The Continuum Companions" series is a major series of single volume companions to key research fields in the humanities aimed at postgraduate students, scholars and libraries. Each companion offers a comprehensive reference resource giving an overview of key topics, research areas, new directions and a manageable guide to beginning or developing research in the field. A distinctive feature of the series is that each companion provides practical guidance on advanced study and research in the field, including research methods and subject-specific resources.

"Philadelphia A Story Sequence in Verse" is a window on the work of esoteric schools. It portrays a small, representative group of loving friends who at first naively and later decisively with the potent ancient knowledge in which they have been instructed engage in storytelling's highest purpose: to remind and remind and remind us again to remember and hold ourselves aware of what our busy minds are always forgetting - the present, where the divine resides. John Craig, the author, is a poet and teacher who with his wife Victoria,a native of Phila-delphia,lives in the Sierra foothills of northern California. They have two grown sons.

Following the core principle of phenomenology as a return "to the things themselves," Body Matters attends to the phenomena of bodily afflictions and examines them from three different standpoints: from society in general that interprets them as "sicknesses," from the medical professions that interpret them as "diseases," and from the patients themselves who interpret them as "illnesses." By drawing on a crucial distinction in German phenomenology between two senses of the body the quantifiable, material body (Korper) and the lived-body(Leib) the authors explore the ways in which sickness, disease, and illness are socially and historically experienced and constructed. To make their case, they draw on examples from a multiplicity of disciplines and cultures as well as a number of cases from Euro-American history. The intent is to unsettle taken-for-granted assumptions that readers may have about body troubles. These are assumptions widely held as well by medical and allied health professionals, in addition to many sociologists and philosophers of health and illness. To this end, Body Matters does not simply deconstruct prejudices of mainstream biomedicine; it also constructively envisions more humane and artful forms of therapy."

This edited collection provides the first comprehensive volume on A. J. Ayer's 1936 masterpiece, Language, Truth and Logic. With eleven original chapters the volume reconsiders the historical and philosophical significance of Ayer's work, examining its place in the history of analytic philosophy and its subsequent legacy. Making use of pioneering research in logical empiricism, the contributors explore a wide variety of topics, from ethics, values and religion, to truth, epistemology and philosophy of language. Among the questions discussed are: How did Ayer preserve or distort the views and conceptions of logical empiricists? How are Ayer's arguments different from the ones he aimed at reconstructing? And which aspects of the book were responsible for its immense impact? The volume expertly places Language, Truth and Logic in the intellectual and socio-cultural history of twentieth-century philosophical thought, providing both introductory and contextual chapters, as well as specific explorations of a variety of topics covering the main themes of the book. Providing important insights of both historical and contemporary significance, this collection is an essential resource for scholars interested in the legacy of the Vienna Circle and its effect on ethics and philosophy of mind.

This book demonstrates for the first time how the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein can transform 4E Cognitive Science. In particular, it shows how insights from Wittgenstein can empower those within 4E to reject the long held view that our minds must involve representations inside our heads. The book begins by showing how proponents of 4E are divided amongst themselves. Proponents of Extended Mind insist that internal representations are always needed to explain the human mind. However, proponents of Enacted Mind reject this claim. Using insights from Ludwig Wittgenstein, the book introduces and defends a new theoretical framework called Structural Enacted or Extended Mind (STEEM). STEEM brings together Enacted Mind and Extended Mind in a way that rejects all talk of internal representations. STEEM thus highlights the anti-representationalist credentials of 4E and so demonstrates how 4E can herald a new beginning when it comes to thinking about the mind.

The Profound Limitations of Knowledge explores the limitations of knowledge and argues that neither reasoning nor direct or indirect observations can be trusted. We cannot even assign probabilities to claims of what we can know. Furthermore, for any set of data, there are an infinite number of possible interpretations. Evidence suggests that we live in a participatory universe-that is, our observations shape reality.

This book offers an inspiring exploration of current findings from the psychology of meaning in life, analysing cutting-edge research to propose practical, evidence-based applications. Schnell draws on psychological, philosophical and cognitive perspectives to explore basic concepts of meaning and introduce a multidimensional model of meaning in life. Written in an accessible style, this book covers a range of topics including the distinction between meaning and happiness, the impact of meaning on health and longevity, meaning in the workplace, and meaning-centred interventions. Each chapter ends with exercises to encourage self-reflection and measurement tools are presented throughout, including the author's original Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (SoMe), to inspire the reader to consider the role of meaning in their own life. The Psychology of Meaning in Life is essential reading for students and practitioners of psychology, sociology, counselling, coaching and related disciplines, and for general readers interested in exploring the role of meaning in life.

When instruments are harmoniously joined together, beautiful music ensues. Just as in a classic symphony, life often occurs in phases, or movements. In his creative comparison Symphony #1 in a Minor Key, literary exegete Alan Block shares his philosophies on four movements reflected in his own life, each loosely modeled on a different musical form linked to the emotions of a life both fully lived and joyously celebrated. In the first movement, "Sonata Allegro," Block juxtaposes biblical stories with personal experiences as he explores the contradictory nature of what it means to leave home in search of another home. In the second movement, representing a slow march to and from the grave, he focuses his examination on the funerals of three very different people from a Jewish perspective. In strong contrast, Block presents a glimpse into his absurd daily world in the third movement, punctuated by jokes and commentary. Finally, he shares a celebration of life and hope inspired by the final movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, encouraging others to be open to the sublime and realize that none of our worlds is perfect. Symphony #1 in a Minor Key shares one man's reflections as he offers a fascinating meditation on life, death, and everything in between.

This book presents a new structural approach to the psychology of the person, inspired by Kenneth Colby's computer-generated simulation, PARRY. The simulation was of a paranoid psychological state, represented in forms of the person's logic and syntax, as these would be evidenced in personal communication. Harwood Fisher uses a Structural View to highlight similarities in the logical form of the linguistic representations of Donald Trump, his avid followers ("Trumpers"), and the paranoid-referred to as "The Trio." He demonstrates how the Structural View forms a series of logical and schematic patterns, similar to the way that content analysis can bring forth associations meanings, and concepts held in the text. Such comparisons, Fisher argues, can be used to shed light on contingencies for presenting, representing, and judging truth. Specifically, Fisher posits that the major syntactic and logical patterns that were used to produce the computer-generated "paranoid" responses in Colby's project can be used to analyze Donald Trump's rhetoric and his followers' reactions to it. Ultimately, Fisher offers a new kind of structural approach for the philosophy of psychology. This novel work will appeal to students and scholars of social and cognitive psychology, psychology of personality, psychiatric classification, psycholinguistics, rhetoric, and computer science.

This book presents a theoretical critical appraisal of the Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition (MTHC), which is one of the most popular major theories in the contemporary field of cognitive science. It analyses and evaluates whether MTHC provides a unifying account of human cognition and its explanation. The book presents a systematic investigation of the internal and external consistency of the theory, as well as a systematic comparison with other contemporary major theories in the field. In this sense, it provides a fresh look at more recent major theoretical debates in this area of scientific research and a rigorous analysis of one of its most central major theories. Rigorous theoretical work is integrated with objective consideration of relevant empirical evidence, making the discussions robust and clear. As a result, the book shows that MTHC provides a significant theoretical contribution for the field of cognitive science. The content is useful for those interested in theoretical and empirical issues concerning major theories in the contemporary field of cognitive science.