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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Philosophy of mind
- integrates relevant philosophy in a way that makes it
understandable and palatable to psychoanalytic readers - there
isn't much direct competition to this book; it's an original
contribution
Beyond Humanism seeks to set humanism on a new footing.
Enlightenment ideals of an autonomous, disconnected, and rational
self are unrealistic. Together with Romantic dreams of authenticity
and expression of the self it has had adverse effects, contributing
to egotism and narcissism. Instead, this book employs a philosophy
oriented towards the relationship between self and other. The book
gives a critical discussion of religion, the Enlightenment and
Romanticism. It seeks a way between Nietzsche's philosophy of the
flourishing of life and Levinas's philosophy of the other. It
argues that the self requires the other for its flourishing. The
other is needed for the development of the self, for freedom also
from the delusions and prejudices of the self, for transcendence of
the self, for learning and innovation, for making sense in
language, and for a life that aims not at a hereafter for the self
but a hereafter that benefits others after one's death.
"Here, at last, is a book about what happiness really means, and
why it often eludes us in our stressed-out, always-on lives."
-Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive A young philosopher
and Guinness World Record holder in pull-ups argues that the key to
happiness is not goal-driven striving but forging a life that
integrates self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature.
What is the meaning of the good life? In this strikingly original
book, Adam Adatto Sandel draws on ancient and modern thinkers and
on two seemingly disparate pursuits of his own, philosophy and
fitness, to offer a surprising answer to this age-old human
question. Sandel argues that finding fulfillment is not about
attaining happiness, conceived as a state of mind, or even about
accomplishing one's greatest goals. Instead, true happiness comes
from immersing oneself in activity that is intrinsically rewarding.
The source of meaning, he suggests, derives from the integrity or
"wholeness" of self that we forge throughout the journey of life.
At the heart of Sandel's account of life as a journey are three
virtues that get displaced and distorted by our goal-oriented
striving: self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature.
Sandel offers illuminating and counterintuitive accounts of these
virtues, revealing how they are essential to a happiness that
lasts. To illustrate the struggle of living up to these virtues,
Sandel looks to literature, film, and television, and also to his
own commitments and adventures. A focal point of his personal
narrative is a passion that, at first glance, is as narrow a
goal-oriented pursuit as one can imagine: training to set the
Guinness World Record for Most Pull-Ups in One Minute. Drawing on
his own experiences, Sandel makes philosophy accessible for readers
who, in their own infinitely various ways, struggle with the
tension between goal-oriented striving and the embrace of life as a
journey.
This book investigates the significance of Wittgenstein's
philosophy for aesthetic understanding. Focusing on the aesthetic
elements of Wittgenstein's philosophical work, the authors explore
connections to contemporary currents in aesthetic thinking and the
illuminating power of Wittgenstein's philosophy when considered in
connection with the interpretation of specific works of literature,
music, and the arts. Taken together, the chapters presented here
show what aesthetic understanding consists of and the ways we
achieve it, how it might be articulated, and why it is important.
At a time of strong renewal of interest in Wittgenstein's
contributions to the philosophy of mind and language, this book
offers insight into the connections between
philosophical-psychological and linguistic issues and the
understanding of the arts.
The book explores concepts throughout the history of philosophy
that suggest the possibility of unconscious thought and lay the
foundation for ideas of unconscious thought in modern philosophy
and psychoanalysis. The focus is on the workings of unconscious
thought and the role it plays in thinking, language, perception,
and human identity.
Different from traditional research on the mind-body problem often
discussed from an epistemological viewpoint, which assumes that
mental processes are internal to the person, this book demonstrates
the crucial role of contextual relevance in the workings of the
mind and illustrates how mind emerges from the individual's
interactions with her physical, social, and cultural environments.
It also develops the interpersonal and social aspects of embodied
mind. The body that creates meaning is not only an emotional,
kinesthetic, and aesthetically experiencing body; the body that
creates meaning is a social body. It suggests that mind-body
relations are not only achieved through the interaction between our
own mind and body, but by other minds in our intersubjective
interactions. It is related to epistemology, metaphysics, ethics,
value theory, action theory, and the philosophies of mind, science,
logic, and technology. The readership may include graduate and
undergraduate students studying philosophy, law, political science,
sociology, psychology, etc., educators, researchers, scholars, and
anyone who shows an interest in philosophy.
Comedy, Seriously provides a philosophical interpretation of comedy
and argues that comedy displays a particular kind of rationality
that reflects philosophical thinking. In particular, that comedy is
defined not so much by laughter or jokes, but rather the structure
of its plot, which is isomorphic with that of the philosophical
argument. Comedy allows for the resolution of a conflict and the
achievement of well-being and equality through action that follows
the comic plot. Moreover, such action is propelled by the 'thinker
on stage,' who, as socially and politically oppressed, contributes
to the liberation of all and the achievement of the good life.
Comedy, therefore, establishes the universal pattern for justice
and well-being and allows us to rethink the notion of subjectivity
not as the modern isolated subject, but rather as integrated with
others through shared action and dialogical involvement.
In this open access book, Carlos Montemayor illuminates the
development of artificial intelligence (AI) by examining our drive
to live a dignified life. He uses the notions of agency and
attention to consider our pursuit of what is important. His method
shows how the best way to guarantee value alignment between humans
and potentially intelligent machines is through attention routines
that satisfy similar needs. Setting out a theoretical framework for
AI Montemayor acknowledges its legal, moral, and political
implications and takes into account how epistemic agency differs
from moral agency. Through his insightful comparisons between human
and animal intelligence, Montemayor makes it clear why adopting a
need-based attention approach justifies a humanitarian framework.
This is an urgent, timely argument for developing AI technologies
based on international human rights agreements. The ebook editions
of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by
Carlos Montemayor and San Francisco State University.
What place does motivation have in the lives of intelligent agents? Mele's answer is sensitive to the concerns of philosophers of mind and moral philosophers and informed by empirical work. He offers a distinctive, comprehensive, attractive view of human agency. This book stands boldly at the intersection of philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and metaphysics.
This volume brings together a collection of recent essays on the
philosophy and theory of history. This is a field of lively
interdisciplinary discussion and research, to which historians,
philosophers and theorists of culture and literature have
contributed. The author is a philosopher by training, and his
inspiration comes primarily from the continental-phenomenological
tradition. Thus the influence of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty
and Ricoeur can be discerned here. This background opens up a
unique perspective on the issues under discussion. Phenomenology
differs from other philosophical approaches, like metaphysics and
epistemology. Phenomenology asks, of anything that exists or may
exist: how is it given, how does it enter our experience, what is
our experience of it like? Very broadly we can say: phenomenology
is about experience. At first glance, this approach may seem
ill-suited to history. In our language, "history" usually means
either 1) what happened, i.e. past events, or 2) our knowledge of
what happened. We can't experience past events, and whatever
knowledge we have of them must come from other sources-memory,
testimony, physical traces. But the author maintains that we
actually do experience historical events, and these essays explain
how this is so. Sitting at the intersection of philosophy and
history, and divided into three parts-Historicity, Narrative, and
Time, Teleology and History, and Embodiment and Experience-this is
the ideal volume for those interested in experience from a
philosophical and historical perspective.
The "THINKING: Bioengineering of Science and Art" is to discuss
about philosophical aspects of thinking at the context of Science
and Art. External representations provide evidence that the
fundamental process of thinking exists in both animal subjects and
humans. However, the diversity and complexity of thinking in humans
is astonishing because humans have been permitted to integrate
scientific accounts into their accounts and create excellent
illustrations for the effects of this integration. The book
necessarily begins with the origins of human thinking and human
thinking into self and others, body, and life. Multiple factors
tend to modify the pattern of thinking. They all will come into
play by this book that brings thinking into different disciplines:
humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, and
applied sciences. The thinking demands full processing of
information, and therefore, the book considers the economy of
thinking as well. The book thoroughly intends to explore thinking
beyond the boundaries. Specifically, several chapters are devoted
to discipline this exploration either by artistic thinking alone or
by art and mathematics-aided engineering of complexities. In this
manner, the book models variations on thinking at the individual
and systems levels and accumulates a list of solutions, each good
for specific scenarios and maximal outcomes.
This book provides an integrative interdisciplinary view of how
intellectual and moral virtues are understood in two separate
practices, science and music. The authors engage with philosophical
and psychological accounts of virtue to understand scientists' and
musicians' understandings of intellectual and moral virtues. They
present empirical evidence substantiating the MacIntyrean claim
that traditions and practices are central to understanding the
virtues."
Intentionality - the relationship between conscious states and
their objects - is one of the most discussed topics in contemporary
debates in philosophy of mind, cognitive neuroscience and the study
of consciousness. Long a foundational concept in Phenomenology, it
has also received considerable coverage in the writings of analytic
philosophers. This book is the first study to offer an impartial,
well-informed assessment of the two traditions' approaches through
an in-depth investigation of the principal thinkers' ideas, so that
their positions emerge side-by-side, converging and diverging on
certain shared themes. Beginning with a historical discussion of
the development of the term in the work of Continental thinkers in
the 19th and early 20th centuries, the book considers the work of
Brentano and Husserl and subsequent existentialist critiques. From
there, it explores how empirical-analytic philosophers took up the
topic, drawn as they were to materialist and computer models of the
mind. Finally MacDonald presents a new hybrid' account of
intentionality that will be a crucial work for scholars working on
consciousness and the mind.
From Aristotle to the present, memory has been grasped as a
trace or impression of lost reality - bridging physiological
experience and consciousness. Philosophers have vainly sought the
nature of this bridge. The present-day physiologizing/naturalizing
of consciousness is not resolving their congenital continuity, in
which the very existence and practice of life is rooted. We have to
change our approach (Erwin Straus). The Aristotelian congenital
ties between memory and temporality, acquire crucial significance
in our primogenital ontopoiesis of life (Tymieniecka). It reveals
memory to be the factor that carries this coalescence and the
becoming of life itself. This can be the fruit only of the
generative springs of life, first phenomenology/philosophy, the
ontopoietic logos of life.
In this collection we explore memory in the constitution of
reality: rememorizing and interpretation, consciousness/action,
facts/imagination, history/myths,
self-realization/metamorphosis.
This book offers an accessible and inclusive overview of the major
debates in the philosophy of action. It covers the distinct
approaches taken by Donald Davidson, G.E.M. Anscombe, and numerous
others to answering questions like "what are intentional actions?"
and "how do reasons explain actions?" Further topics include
intention, practical knowledge, weakness and strength of will,
self-governance, and collective agency. With introductions,
conclusions, and annotated suggested reading lists for each of the
ten chapters, it is an ideal introduction for advanced
undergraduates as well as any philosopher seeking a primer on these
issues.
In Self-Reliance, Emerson expounds on the importance of trusting
your soul, as well as divine providence, to carve out a life. A
firm believer in nonconformity, Emerson celebrates the individual
and stresses the value of listening to the inner voice unique to
each of us?even when it defies society's expectations. This new
2019 edition of Self-Reliance from Logos Books includes The
American Scholar, a stirring speech of Emerson's, as well as
footnotes and images throughout.
Slips of the tongue, unwitting favoritism, and stereotyped
assumptions are just some examples of microaggression. Nearly all
of us commit microaggressions at some point, even if we don't
intend to. Yet over time a pattern of microaggression can cause
considerable harm by reminding members of marginalized groups of
their precarious position. The Ethics of Microaggression is a much
needed and clearly written exploration of this pervasive yet
complex problem. What is microaggression and how do we know when it
is occurring? Can we be held responsible for microaggressions and
if so, how? How has social media affected the problem? What role
can philosophy play in understanding microaggression? Regina Rini
explores these highly topical and controversial questions in an
engaging and fair-minded way, arguing that an event is a
microaggression precisely because it causes a marginalized person
to experience an ambiguous encounter with oppression. She
illustrates her argument with compelling examples from media,
politics, and psychology and explains the significance of essential
concepts, such as media representation, reparative renaming, and
safe spaces. The Ethics of Microaggression explains what
microaggression is and offers strategies for combating it. Assuming
no prior knowledge of the topic or philosophy, it demystifies a
controversial and extremely important topic in clear language. It
is ideal for anyone coming to the topic for the first time and for
students in philosophy, gender studies, race theory, disability
theory, and social and political philosophy.
Brain, Decision Making, and Mental Health acknowledges that
thinking is not a constant phenomenon but varies considerably
across cultures. Critical thinking is particularly important in
bridging thinking divisions and its applicability across sciences,
particularly medical sciences. We see critical thinking as educable
and the arts as means to achieve this purpose. We address the
multidimensional relationship between thinking and health and
related mechanisms. Thinking mainly affects emotion regulation and
executive function; in other words, both mental and physical health
are related as a function of thoughts. Considering the
thinking-feeling-emotion regulation/executive function pathway, it
would be reasonable to propose thinking capacities-based
interventions to impact emotion regulation and executive function,
such as mindfulness and psychotherapy. We review decision-making
taking place in integrated and social contexts and discuss the
decision-making styles-decision outcomes relation. Finally,
artificial thinking and intelligence prepare us for decision-making
outside the human mind.
This book explores a new way of applying clinical ethics.
Empathy-based ethics is based on the patient-doctor relationship
and seeks to encourage a more humane form of medical practice. The
author argues that the current emphasis on the biomedical model of
medicine and a detached concern form of professionalism have
damaged the patient-doctor relationship. He investigates examples
of the dehumanization of patients and demonstrates a contrasting
view of humane care. The book presents empathy as a relational
construct - it provides an in-depth analysis of the process of
empathizing. It discusses an empathy-based ethics approach
underpinned by clinical examples of the practical application of
this new approach. It suggests how empathy-based ethics can be
embedded in clinical practice, medical education and research. The
book concludes by examining the challenges in implementing such an
approach and looks to a future which redresses the current
imbalance between biomedical and psychosocial approaches to
medicine.
This volume, - is an introspective read on Krishnamurti as a
radical philosopher, - discusses the possibilities of change
through education, the school and the school culture as catalysts
for transformation - will be of great interest to students and
researcher of philosophy, education, South Asia studies, and the
social sciences.
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