Edited by two preeminent scholars, this book provides coverage of the policy issues related to the increasingly diverse treatments, practices, and applications of psychedelics. Hallucinogenic substances like LSD, mescaline, peyote, MDMA, and ayahuasca have a reputation as harmful substances that are enjoyed only by recreational users committing criminal acts. But leading international researchers and scholars who contributed to this book hold that the use of psychedelic substances for health, religious, intellectual, and artistic purposes is a Constitutional right-and a human right. Based on that conclusion, these scholars focus on policy issues that regulate the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine, religion, personal life, and higher education, arguing that existing regulations should match current and anticipated future uses. This volume has two parts. The first surveys research on the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine, religion, and truth-seeking, following these topics through history and contemporary practice. The second section treats government policices that regulate the psychological, physiological, biochemical, and spiritual aspects of research and experience in these fields. The Psychedelic Policy Quagmire: Health, Law, Freedom, and Society challenges medical and legal policy experts, ethicists, scientists, and scholars with the question: How can we formulate policies that reduce the dangers of psychedelics' misuse and at the same time maximize the emerging diverse benefits? Covers history, law, social use, intellectual and sacramental practice, and current medical research, bringing the debate about psychedelic drugs up to date for the 21st century Summarizes evidence regarding the positive therapeutic effects of psychoactive drugs to show why regulations need to be changed Encompasses the work of the leading international researchers in the field Includes personal observations, vignettes, and narratives

This handbook brings together a range of global perspectives in the field of critical studies in education to illuminate multiple ways of knowing, learning, and teaching for social wellbeing, justice, and sustainability. The handbook covers areas such as critical thought systems of education, critical race (and racialization) theories of education, critical international/global citizenship education, and critical studies in education and literacy studies. In each section, the chapter authors illuminate the current state of the field and probe more inclusive ways to achieve multicentric knowledge and learning possibilities.

This book is about the function and use of official statistics. It welcomes the aspiration for official statistics to be an indispensable element in the information system of a democratic society, serving the government, the economy and the public with data about the economic, demographic, social and environmental situation. The book identifies the political role of official statisticians, who decided what gets measured as well as how it is measured. While thousands of official statistics are published every year, and some are quoted by politicians, used by policy-makers or reported in the media, the authors observe that, in the main, official statistics do not feature much in everyday lives of people and businesses. The book concludes with suggestions for more that should be done, especially in the context of improving wellbeing and helping meet the worldwide set of sustainable development goals set for 2030.

This volume presents recent developments in identity theory and research. Identities are the basic building blocks of society and hold a central place in every social science discipline. Identity theory provides a systematic conceptualization of identities and their relationship to behavior. The research in this volume demonstrates the usefulness of this theory for understanding identities in action in a variety of areas and settings. The volume is organized into three general areas: ethnicity and race; family, religion, and work; and networks, homophily, and the physical environment. This comprehensive and authoritative volume is of interest to a wide readership in the social and behavioral sciences, including students and researchers of sociology, social psychology, psychology, and other social science disciplines.

This book addresses the fate of intellectuals in modern culture and politics. Russell Jacoby's seminal The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe (1987, 2000) introduced the term "public intellectual" and gave rise to heated controversy. Here Jacoby assesses contemporary public intellectuals, their profound failings and limited achievements. The book includes biting appraisals of well-known intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky, Hannah Arendt, and Bernard-Henri Levy, as well as interventions on violence, utopia and multiculturalism.

This book describes and analyzes the conceptual ambiguity of vulnerability, in an effort to understand its particular applications for legal and political protection when relating to groups. Group vulnerability has become a common concept within legal and political scholarship but remains largely undertheorized as a phenomenon itself. At the same time, in academia and within legal circles, vulnerability is primarily understood as a phenomenon affecting individuals, and the attempts to identify vulnerable groups are discredited as essentialist and stereotypical. In contrast, this book demonstrates that a conception of group vulnerability is not only theoretically possible, but also politically and legally necessary. Two conceptions of group vulnerability are discussed: one focuses on systemic violence or oppression directed toward several individuals, while another requires a common positioning of individuals within a given context that conditions their agency, ability to cope with risks and uncertainties, and manage their consequences. By comparing these two definitions of group vulnerability and their implications, Macioce seeks a more precise delineation of the theoretical boundaries of the concept of group vulnerability.

Blending high-interest original writing with select primary sources on political theory, From Concept to Dialogue: An Introduction to Political Theory fosters appreciation for and critical thinking about major political concepts. The text poses thought-provoking questions that guide readers into drawing critical information out of challenging material. Part I introduces students to several concepts that political philosophers assume regarding human nature, knowledge, rationality, and morality. Part II examines different arguments for why government exists, how extensive political authority is, and who should rule. In Part III, students draw upon the knowledge they gained in Parts I and II to consider two main variants of democratic citizenship: liberal citizenship and participatory citizenship. Students are challenged to distinguish between these two models and consider what rights and obligations they have as citizens. The second edition features updated information and concepts throughout to reflect recent developments in politics and society. The book has been reorganized into three parts to better explore the overarching topics of political assumptions, government, and good citizenship. Dialogue boxes at the end of certain chapters engage students in applying concepts to different situations. Designed to help readers become more informed on popular policy debates and to inspire a greater level of civic mindedness, From Concept to Dialogue is an ideal textbook for courses in introductory political science and political philosophy.

This book tests critical reassessments of US radical writing of the 1930s against recent developments in theories of modernism and the avant-garde. Multidisciplinary in approach, it considers poetry, fiction, classical music, commercial art, jazz, and popular contests (such as dance marathons and bingo). Relating close readings to social and economic contexts over the period 1856-1952, it centers in on a key author or text in each chapter, providing an unfolding, chronological narrative, while at the same time offering nuanced updates on existing debates. Part One focuses on the roots of the 1930s proletarian movement in poetry and music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Part Two analyzes the output of proletarian novelists, considered alongside contemporaneous works by established modernist authors as well as more mainstream, popular titles.

Alain Badiou has claimed that Quentin Meillassoux's book After Finitude (Bloomsbury, 2008) "opened up a new path in the history of philosophy." And so, whether you agree or disagree with the speculative realism movement, it has to be addressed. Lacanian Realism does just that. This book reconstructs Lacanian dogma from the ground up: first, by unearthing a new reading of the Lacanian category of the real; second, by demonstrating the political and cultural ingenuity of Lacan's concept of the real, and by positioning this against the more reductive analyses of the concept by Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Saul Newman, Todd May, Joan Copjec, Jacques Ranciere, and others, and; third, by arguing that the subject exists intimately within the real. Lacanian Realism is an imaginative and timely exploration of the relationship between Lacanian psychoanalysis and contemporary continental philosophy.

Revisiting Marx's Critique of Liberalism offers a theoretical reconstruction of Karl Marx's new materialist understanding of justice, legality, and rights through the vantage point of his widely invoked but generally misunderstood critique of liberalism. The book begins by reconstructing Marx's conception of justice and rights through close textual interpretation and extrapolation. The central thesis of the book is, firstly, that Marx regards justice as an essential feature of any society, including the emancipated society of the future; and secondly, that standards of justice and right undergo transformation throughout history. The book then tracks the enduring legacy of Marx's critique of liberal justice by examining how leading contemporary political theorists such as John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Nancy Fraser have responded to Marx's critique of liberalism in the face of global financial capitalism and the hollowing out of democratically-enacted law. The Marx that emerges from this book is therefore a thoroughly modern thinker whose insights shed valuable light on some of the most pressing challenges confronting liberal democracies today.

Within literature, history, politics, philosophy and theology, the interpretation of utopian ideals has evolved constantly. Juxtaposing historical views on utopian diagnoses, prescriptions and on the character and value of utopian thought with more modern interpretations, this volume explores how our ideal utopia has transformed over time. Challenging long-held interpretations, the contributors turn a fresh eye to canonical texts, and open them up to a twenty-first century audience. From Moore's Utopia to Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Utopian Moments puts forward a lively and accessible debate on the nature and significance of utopian thought and tradition. Each essay focuses on a key passage from the selected work using it to encourage both the specialist and the reader new to the field to read afresh. Written by an international team of leading scholars, the essays range from the sixteenth century to the present day and are designed to be both stimulating and accessible.

"This is an outstanding contribution to both libertarian political philosophy and communication theory. It is far and away the most comprehensive work on communication issues in libertarian theory ever published. The author has integrated successfully the libertarian insights of Mises, Rothbard, Block, Kinsella and others with the philosophy of language as developed by Austin, Searle and Grice. He has done so in a unique and unprecedented way. The book would appeal to students and scholars interested in libertarian theory and more generally, to philosophers and political scientists interested in high-level scholarship." - David Gordon, libertarian philosopher and intellectual historian, Ludwig von Mises Institute.

We are still looking for a satisfactory definition of what makes an individual being a human individual. The understanding of human beings in terms of organism does not seem to be satisfactory, because of its reductionistic flavor. It satisfies our need for autonomy and benefits our lives thanks to its medical applications, but it disappoints our needs for conscious and free, self-determination. For similar reasons, i.e. because of its anti-libertarian tone, an organicistic understanding of the relationship between individual and society has also been rejected, although no truly satisfactory alternative for harmonizing individual and social wellness has been put forth. Thus, a reassessment of the very concepts of individual and organism is needed. In this book, the authors present a specific line of thought which started with Leibniz' concept of monad in 17th century, continued through Kant and Hegel, and as a result reached the first Eastern country to attempt to assimilate, as well as confront, with Western philosophy and sciences, i.e. Japan. The line of thought we are tracing has gone on to become one the main voices in current debates in the philosophy of biology, as well as philosophical anthropology, and social philosophy. As a whole, the volume offers a both historical, and systematic account of one specific understanding of individuals and their environment, which tries to put together its natural embedding, as well as its dialectical nature. Such a historical, systematic map will also allow to better evaluate how life sciences impact our view of our individual lives, of human activities, of institutions, politics, and, finally, of humankind in general.

Thomas Hobbes argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Influenced by the English Civil War, Hobbes wrote that chaos or civil war-situations identified with a state of nature and the famous motto Bellum omnium contra omnes ("the war of all against all")-could only be averted by strong central government. He thus denied any right of rebellion toward the social contract, which would be later added by John Locke and conserved by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (However, Hobbes did discuss the possible dissolution of the State. Since the social contract was made to institute a state that would provide for the "peace and defense" of the people, the contract would become void as soon as the government no longer protected its citizens. By virtue of this fact, man would automatically return to the state of nature until a new contract is made).

Contemporary discussions about the nature of leadership abound. But what constitutes a good leader? Are ethics and leadership even compatible? Accounts of leadership often lie at either end of an ethical spectrum: on one end are accounts that argue ethics are intrinsically linked to leadership; on the other are (Machiavellian) views that deny any such link-intrinsic or extrinsic. Leadership appears to require a normative component of virtue; otherwise 'leadership' amounts to no more than mere power or influence. But are such accounts coherent and justifiable? Approaching a controversial topic, this series of essays tackles key questions from a range of philosophical perspectives, considering the nature of leadership separate from any formal office or role and how it shapes the world we live in.

This edited collection evaluates the relationship between Marxism and religion in two ways: Marxism's treatment of religion and the religious aspects of Marxism. Its aim is to complicate the superficial understanding of Marxism as a simple rejection of religion both in theory and practice. Divided into two parts (Theory and Praxis), this book brings together the three different themes of Marxism, religion, and emancipation for the first time. The first part explores the more theoretical discussions regarding the relationship between Marxism and various themes (or currents) within religious thought, to highlight points of compatibility as well as incompatibilities/conflicts. The studies in the second part of the collection refer to how Marxist ideas are received in different parts of the world. They show that as soon as Marxism arrives in a new place, the theory interacts and bonds with a pre-existing stock of ideas, each changing the other reciprocally.