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Books > Philosophy > Western philosophy
From the Greeks to the Arabs and Beyond written by Hans Daiber, is
a six volume collection of Daiber's scattered writings, journal
articles, essays and encyclopaedia entries on Greek-Syriac-Arabic
translations, Islamic theology and Sufism, the history of science,
Islam in Europe, manuscripts and the history of oriental studies.
It also includes reviews and obituaries. Vol. V and VI are
catalogues of newly discovered Arabic manuscript originals and
films/offprints from manuscripts related to the topics of the
preceding volumes.
The study of Roman society and social relations blossomed in the
1970s. By now, we possess a very large literature on the
individuals and groups that constituted the Roman community, and
the various ways in which members of that community interacted.
There simply is, however, no overview that takes into account the
multifarious progress that has been made in the past thirty-odd
years. The purpose of this handbook is twofold. On the one hand, it
synthesizes what has heretofore been accomplished in this field. On
the other hand, it attempts to configure the examination of Roman
social relations in some new ways, and thereby indicates directions
in which the discipline might now proceed.
The book opens with a substantial general introduction that
portrays the current state of the field, indicates some avenues for
further study, and provides the background necessary for the
following chapters. It lays out what is now known about the
historical development of Roman society and the essential
structures of that community. In a second introductory article,
Clifford Ando explains the chronological parameters of the
handbook. The main body of the book is divided into the following
six sections: 1) Mechanisms of Socialization (primary education,
rhetorical education, family, law), 2) Mechanisms of Communication
and Interaction, 3) Communal Contexts for Social Interaction, 4)
Modes of Interpersonal Relations (friendship, patronage,
hospitality, dining, funerals, benefactions, honor), 5) Societies
Within the Roman Community (collegia, cults, Judaism, Christianity,
the army), and 6) Marginalized Persons (slaves, women, children,
prostitutes, actors and gladiators, bandits). The result is a
unique, up-to-date, and comprehensive survey of ancient Roman
society.
For a long time, analysis of the work of Samuel Beckett has been
dominated by existentialist and post-structuralist interpretations.
This new volume instead raises the question of how to understand
Beckett via the dialectics underpinning his work. The different
chapters explore how Beckett exposes and challenges essential
dialectical concepts such as objectivity, subjectivity,
exteriority, interiority, immanence, transcendence, and most
crucially: negativity. With contributions from prominent scholars
such as Alain Badiou, Mladen Dolar, and Rebecca Comay, Beckett and
Dialectics not only sheds new light on how Beckett investigates the
shapes, types, and forms of negation – as in the all-pervasive
figures of ‘nothing’, ‘no’, ‘null’, and ‘not’ –
but also examines how several phenomena that occur throughout
Beckett’s work are structured in their use of negativity. These
include the relationships between voice and silence, space and
void, movement and stasis, the finite and the infinite and
repetition and transformation. This original analysis lends an
important new perspective to Beckett studies, and even more
fundamentally, to dialectics itself.
Introductory Readings in Philosophy: An Historical Approach is
grounded in the belief that no idea can really be understood or
exist separate from the historical context in which it is born.
This anthology encourages students to consider not only seminal
writings by historical philosophers, but also the philosophers'
values, who they were as people, and the society in which they
lived. Through this approach, students form a holistic
understanding of key philosophical principles and then reflect on
how these principles can apply to our modern lives. The anthology
is laid out topically, with each chapter referencing works from
important figures from the history of philosophy. The chapters pose
a series of questions to readers: What is philosophy? What is
epistemology? What is the foundation for belief? What is
metaphysics? What is moral philosophy? And what is meaning in, and
of, human life? Within these chapters, students read a variety of
philosophical works by Plato, Rene Descartes, Thomas Aquinas,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Aristotle, Confucius, and Immanuel Kant.
Topics addressed include moral philosophy, logical defense of our
actions, creating one's own method of inquiry, the formation of
belief, metaphysics as a way to explain real existence, the concept
of duty, and much more. Introductory Readings in Philosophy
challenges students to examine their lives and thought processes
through the lens of seminal philosophical writings. It is an
exceptional resource for introductory courses in philosophy.
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