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Showing 1 - 25 of 61 matches in All Departments
Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies, Fourth Edition, provides a unique and interdisciplinary sampling of key articles focusing on the diverse facets of peace and conflict studies. Featuring both classic and contemporary work, it enables students to read highly influential articles while also introducing them to the most current perspectives in the field. Timeless classics from Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau are included alongside contemporary pieces by illustrious contributors including Noam Chomsky, bell hooks, Vandana Shiva, and Pope Francis.
There is a revolution underway in biology. It is based on a new perception of bodies and genes, in which the former are the end product of the latter within the continuum of evolution. Twenty five years after Richard Dawkins helped revolutionize our thinking about "selfish genes," it is time to re-evaluate. Revolutionary Biology explains in simple, vivid terms what this exciting approach has to offer, and then applies its stunning insights to human beings. This novel perspective, galvanizes our understanding of how evolution works, what living things are all about and, not least what it means to be human. The controversial disciplines of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have generated startling insights into longstanding questions concerning the nature and purpose of families, altruism vs. selfishness, and free will vs. biological determinism. Written by one of its foremost figures, Revolutionary Biology is a manifesto and educated layman's guide to this ongoing revolution.Barash's purpose is to demystify the basic concepts of the genetic revolution and take the reader on a tour--accessible and authoritative--of the principles that underlie this fascinating turn in scientific thought. Much has been written about evolution, animals, and the animal and evolutionary origins of human behavior, yet only recently have biologists begun to appreciate these connections. The key concept is that genes--not species, not groups, and not even individuals--are the apple of evolution's eye. The result has been a major biological paradigm shift that is making itself felt in the social sciences as well. Barash explores the phenomenon of altruism both at the animal level, and the human level.Barash draws not only on a wealth of biological evidence but on literature, philosophy, and the familiar details of everyday life to communicate the essentials of this increasingly influential approach to the study of the human species. Clearly and engagingly written, Revolutionary Biology will be fascinating reading for those seeking an entry into this new science.
In A Systemic View as the Base of Philological Thought, Olga Valentinova, Vladimir Denisenko, Sergey Preobrazhenskii, and Mikhail Rybakov explore the interrelation of language material, structure, and functions in various subjects of philological research, such as grammatical systems of language, semantics, linguistic personality, literary text, and formal aspects of verse. Their systemic approach is rooted in the theories of Wilhelm von Humboldt and his followers, including Russian scholars Alexander Potebnya, Gustav Shpet, and more recently Gennadii Prokop'evichMel'nikov (1928-2000). The authors use the concept of systemicity as an opportunity to see the studied whole in development, to show the functional interaction of linear and supra-linear connections, to explain their interdependence, and to predict further changes within the system. This book displays the scientific potential of the systemic approach to linguistics and related spheres, employing the framework of systematicity to revise the modern trends of philology and to map out an alternative paradigm for linguistic and philological thought that could restore the status of philology as a holistic science.
There is a revolution underway in biology. It is based on a new perception of bodies and genes, in which the former are the end product of the latter within the continuum of evolution. Twenty five years after Richard Dawkins helped revolutionize our thinking about "selfish genes," it is time to re-evaluate. "Revolutionary Biology" explains in simple, vivid terms what this exciting approach has to offer, and then applies its stunning insights to human beings. This novel perspective, galvanizes our understanding of how evolution works, what living things are all about and, not least what it means to be human. The controversial disciplines of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have generated startling insights into longstanding questions concerning the nature and purpose of families, altruism vs. selfishness, and free will vs. biological determinism. Written by one of its foremost figures, "Revolutionary Biology" is a manifesto and educated layman's guide to this ongoing revolution. Barash's purpose is to demystify the basic concepts of the genetic revolution and take the reader on a tour--accessible and authoritative--of the principles that underlie this fascinating turn in scientific thought. Much has been written about evolution, animals, and the animal and evolutionary origins of human behavior, yet only recently have biologists begun to appreciate these connections. The key concept is that genes--not species, not groups, and not even individuals--are the apple of evolution's eye. The result has been a major biological paradigm shift that is making itself felt in the social sciences as well. Barash explores the phenomenon of altruism both at the animal level, and the human level. Barash draws not only on a wealth of biological evidence but on literature, philosophy, and the familiar details of everyday life to communicate the essentials of this increasingly influential approach to the study of the human species. Clearly and engagingly written, "Revolutionary Biology" will be fascinating reading for those seeking an entry into this new science.
Let's face it, say Barash and Lipton: Males and females, boys and girls, men and women are different. To be sure, these differences are often heightened by distinctions in learning, cultural tradition, and social expectation, but underpinning them all is a fundamental difference that derives from biology. Throughout the natural world, males are those creatures that make sperm; females make eggs. The oft-noticed "gender gap" derives, in turn, from this "gamete gap." In "Gender Gap," Barash and Lipton (husband and wife, professor and physician, biologist and psychiatrist) explain the evolutionary aspects of male-female differences. After describing the theory underlying the evolutionary explanation of male-female differences-in accessible, lay-person's language-they show how it applies to specific examples of animal behavior. Then, they demonstrate comparable male-female differences in the behavior of human beings cross-culturally, as well as within the United States. Barash and Lipton apply this approach to male-female differences in sexual inclinations, propensities for violence, parenting styles, and childhood experiences. They invoke much work within the traditional social sciences, such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology, which have typically ignored biological factors in the past. Part of the highly successful revolution in scientific thought has been the recognition that evolutionary insights can illuminate behavior, no less than anatomy and physiology. This new discipline, sometimes called "sociobiology" or "evolutionary psychology," promises to help us make sense of ourselves and of our most significant others, shedding new light on what it means to be male or female. Now available in paperback with a new introduction by the authors, this accessible volume integrates work from a variety of fields, applying a new paradigm to research on gender differences.
In a review of the work of Karl Jaspers composed several years before the publication of his book Being and Time, Martin Heidegger suggested that the philosophical orientations of his period had made a wrong turn and skirted by the fundamental path of thought. He suggested that instead of taking up a heritage of original questions, his contemporaries had become preoccupied with secondary issues, accepting as fundamental what was in fact only incidental. In the years that followed, Heidegger's promise to reorient philosophy in terms of the Seinsfrage, the question of Being, exercised a well-known influence on successive generations of thinkers on a global scale. The present book delves into the philosophical sources of this influence and raises the question whether Heidegger indeed made good on the promise to reveal for thought what is truly fundamental. In proposing this investigation, the author assumes that it is not sufficient to take Heidegger at his word, but that it is necessary to scrutinize what is posited as fundamental in light of its broader implications-above all for ethico-political judgment and for historical reflection. After addressing this question in the first part of the book, the second part examines the significance of Heidegger's reorientation of philosophy through the prism of its critical reception in the thought of Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Paul Ricoeur.
Travel through history and around the world to learn about the greatest mistakes, blunders, and bloopers of all time! Everyone makes mistakes and nearly everyone likes to know about them, especially when made by someone else! The Worst Blunders of All Time: Shocking Tales from Pandora's Box to Putin's Invasion presents some of our most notable blunders, from the silly to the consequential, from ancient history to current events. It offers the pleasure of Schadenfreude and of an easy-going reading experience, as well as--here and there--some learning opportunities. The reader will see when relatively big things have gone wrong and couldn't be called back, such as iconic, mythical blunders like Pandora opening that troublesome box and Eve taking her ill-advised bite, to great historical oops such as Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, as well as some less monumental but nonetheless exemplary mistakes, such as the "Curse of the Bambino," when the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth--at the time, a pitcher--to the New York Yankees. These and other exemplary oops are presented in a light-hearted way, with some exceptions being catastrophic, current catastrophes, such as Trump's egregious mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Author David P. Barash will take readers from the tragic to the whimsical, with the latter represented by, for example, "Wrong Way Corrigan," an early twentieth century aviator who thought he was flying nonstop from New York to California, but, confused by a heavy fog, ended up in Ireland. Pointing out these and other mistakes will be an exercise in Monday morning quarterbacking and 20-20 hindsight. Thus, The Worst Blunders of All Time shall "backstrapolate" looking in the rear-view mirror at mistakes made by others. The Worst Blunders of All Time is neither an advice book nor a series of cautionary tales. It's an easy and accessible read, especially useful as therapy in these difficult times. However, its nonetheless accurate and informative, giving rise to some potentially useful take-home messages, keyed to its material. Ideally, we should all benefit from our own mistakes, making lemonade out of lemons, while also following Eleanor Roosevelt's advice: "Learn from the mistakes of others. You cannot live long enough to make them all yourself."
In a few pages I would like to express and to justify my admiration for the exceptional book of Jeffrey Barash. His training as an his torian, complemented by that of the philosopher, has served him richly, not only in the discovery of rare texts and of unpublished correspondence but in the reconstruction of the philosophical landscape at the beginning of the century, and then in the period between the two wars. Standing out in the foreground of this land scape are the two mountains constituted by Sein und Zeit and Hei degger's work following the Kehre. This reconstruction by no means intends to establish 'influences' in the mediocre, mechanis tic sense, but rather subterranean continuities between Heidegger's work and his intellectual environment in order to enhance, by the effect of their contrast, the specific intelligibility of this work. In order to appreciate the consequences of continuity as well as of discontinuity, it was necessary to identify and to emphasize a touchstone-question, endowed with the quality of great per durability, and to summon before it all of the protagonists, in cluding Heidegger himself, in an intellectual combat dating back nearly a hundred years. Announced in the title of the work, this question concerns historical meaning. By this term the author wanted to designate the stubborn ques tion, most exactly approximated by the term coherence in its ap plication to history.
"Barash . . . brilliantly integrat[es] science, literature, and pop culture into elegant and insightful commentaries on the most interesting and important questions of our time. A delightful read."-Michael Shermer, author of The Science of Good and Evil "Entertaining and thought-provoking."-Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate If we are, in part, a product of our genes, can free will exist? Incisive and engaging, this indispensable tour of evolutionary biology runs the gamut of contemporary debates, from science and religion to our place in the universe. David Barash is the author of The Myth of Monogamy and Madame Bovary's Ovaries. He lives in Redmond, Washington.
What does your Shabbat look like? Join this little boy and his adorable beagle puppy Ellie for a Shabbat spent in the sun, and learn about traditions and the importance of quality time with family, friends and neighbours. After a very busy day - walking to the synagogue and back, a delicious picnic with Gran and Uncle Dave, playing on the beach with Sarina - one by one, everyone drifts off to sleep With bright and colourful illustrations by an award-winning illustrator, This is My Shabbat is a heart-warming story, perfect for reading together at bedtime.
Do the fractious groups of Arabs and Israelis actually need each
other? Can the Pentagon find new enemies to replace the USSR? Are
married couples held together by a shared sense of enmity toward
outside parties and even each other? Who is more likely to
cultivate enemies - men or women? Is the "devil" a created enemy?
Is the need for enemies psychological, sociological, or biological?
These and other fascinating questions are explored by David P.
Barash as he skillfully combines findings from biology, psychology,
sociology, politics, history, and even literature to shed new and
unexpected light on the human condition.
In a few pages I would like to express and to justify my admiration for the exceptional book of Jeffrey Barash. His training as an his torian, complemented by that of the philosopher, has served him richly, not only in the discovery of rare texts and of unpublished correspondence but in the reconstruction of the philosophical landscape at the beginning of the century, and then in the period between the two wars. Standing out in the foreground of this land scape are the two mountains constituted by Sein und Zeit and Hei degger's work following the Kehre. This reconstruction by no means intends to establish 'influences' in the mediocre, mechanis tic sense, but rather subterranean continuities between Heidegger's work and his intellectual environment in order to enhance, by the effect of their contrast, the specific intelligibility of this work. In order to appreciate the consequences of continuity as well as of discontinuity, it was necessary to identify and to emphasize a touchstone-question, endowed with the quality of great per durability, and to summon before it all of the protagonists, in cluding Heidegger himself, in an intellectual combat dating back nearly a hundred years. Announced in the title of the work, this question concerns historical meaning. By this term the author wanted to designate the stubborn ques tion, most exactly approximated by the term coherence in its ap plication to history."
This book constitutes the revised selected papers of the Third International Workshop on Engineering Dependable and Secure Machine Learning Systems, EDSMLS 2020, held in New York City, NY, USA, in February 2020. The 7 full papers and 3 short papers were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 16 submissions. The volume presents original research on dependability and quality assurance of ML software systems, adversarial attacks on ML software systems, adversarial ML and software engineering, etc.
So how "did" women get their curves? Why do they have breasts, while other mammals only develop breast tissue while lactating, and why do women menstruate, when virtually no other beings do so? What are the reasons for female orgasm? Why are human females kept in the dark about their own time of ovulation and maximum fertility, and why are they the only animals to experience menopause? David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton, coauthors of acclaimed books on human sexuality and gender, discuss the theories scientists have advanced to explain these evolutionary enigmas (sometimes called "Just-So stories" by their detractors) and present hypotheses of their own. Some scientific theories are based on legitimate empirical data, while others are pure speculation. Barash and Lipton distinguish between what is solid and what remains uncertain, skillfully incorporating their expert knowledge of biology, psychology, animal behavior, anthropology, and human sexuality into their entertaining critiques. Inviting readers to examine the evidence and draw their own conclusions, Barash and Lipton tell an evolutionary suspense story that captures the excitement and thrill of true scientific detection.
According to Roger Caillois, play is "an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money." In spite of this--or because of it--play constitutes an essential element of human social and spiritual development. In this classic study, Caillois defines play as a free and voluntary activity that occurs in a pure space, isolated and protected from the rest of life. Play is uncertain, since the outcome may not be foreseen, and it is governed by rules that provide a level playing field for all participants. In its most basic form, play consists of finding a response to the opponent's action--or to the play situation--that is free within the limits set by the rules. Caillois qualifies types of games-- according to whether competition, chance, simulation, or vertigo (being physically out of control) is dominant--and ways of playing, ranging from the unrestricted improvisation characteristic of children's play to the disciplined pursuit of solutions to gratuitously difficult puzzles. Caillois also examines the means by which games become part of daily life and ultimately contribute to various cultures their most characteristic customs and institutions. Presented here in Meyer Barash's superb English translation, Man, Play and Games is a companion volume to Caillois's Man and the Sacred.
Now in paperback, this important book explores the central role of historical thought in the full range of Heidegger's thought, both the early writings leading up to Being and Time, and after the "reversal" or Kehre that inaugurated his later work. Barash examines Heidegger's views on history in a richly developed context of debates that transpired in the early 20th-century German philosophy of history. He addresses a key unifying theme-the problem of historical meaning and the search for coherent criteria of truth in an era of historical relativism-as he traces the engagement with historicity throughout all major epochs and works. Barash revises this edition to explore new material, including Heidegger's lecture course texts from 1910 to 1923, and adds an expanded, updated bibliography.
There is one critical way we honor great tragedies: by never forgetting. Collective remembrance is as old as human society itself, serving as an important source of social cohesion, yet as Jeffrey Andrew Barash shows in this book, it has served novel roles in a modern era otherwise characterized by discontinuity and dislocation. Drawing on recent theoretical explorations of collective memory, he elaborates an important new philosophical basis for it, one that unveils profound limitations to its scope in relation to the historical past. Crucial to Barash's analysis is a look at the radical transformations that symbolic configurations of collective memory have undergone with the rise of new technologies of mass communication. He provocatively demonstrates how such technologies' capacity to simulate direct experience-especially via the image-actually makes more palpable collective memory's limitations and the opacity of the historical past, which always lies beyond the reach of living memory. Thwarting skepticism, however, he eventually looks to literature-specifically writers such as Walter Scott, Marcel Proust, and W. G. Sebald-to uncover subtle nuances of temporality that might offer inconspicuous emblems of a past historical reality.
"It's a rare author who can combine literary erudition and an easy fluency of style together with expert knowledge of psychology and evolutionary biology. David Barash adds to all this a far-seeing wisdom and a humane decency that shines through on every page. The concluding section on the senseless and dangerous futility of nuclear deterrence theory is an irrefutable tour de force which should be read by every politician and senior military officer. If only!" - Richard Dawkins From hurricanes and avalanches to diseases and car crashes, threats are everywhere. Beyond objective threats like these, there are also subjective ones: situations in which individuals threaten each other or feel threatened by society. Animals, too, make substantial use of threats. Evolution manipulates threats like these in surprising ways, leading us to question the ethics of honest versus dishonest communication. Rarely acknowledged-and yet crucially important-is the fact that humans, animals, and even plants don't only employ threats, they often respond with counter-threats that ultimately make things worse. By exploring the dynamic of threat and counter-threat, this book expands on many fraught human situations, including the fear of death, of strangers, and of "the other." Each of these leads to unique challenges, such as the specter of eternal damnation, the murderous culture of guns and capital punishment, and the emergence of right-wing nationalist populism. Most worrisome is the illusory security of deterrence, the idea that we can use the threat of nuclear war to prevent nuclear war! Threats are so widespread that we often don't realize how deeply they are ingrained in our minds or how profoundly and counter-productively they operate. Animals, humans, societies, and even countries internalize threats, behind which lie a myriad of intriguing questions: How do we know when to take a threat seriously? When do threats make things worse? Can they make things better? What can we do to use them wisely rather than destructively? In a comprehensive exploration into questions like these, noted scientist David P. Barash explains some of the most important characteristics of life as we know it.
Peace and Conflict Studies sets the standard for an accessible introduction, a comprehensive exploration, and analysis of 21st-century world events - including updated coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Middle East, the Social Justice movements within the US, and Global Climate Change. The text examines current conflicts, explores the important aspects of positive peace, individual violence, nationalism, and terrorism, provides numerous visual aids, questions for further study, and suggested readings, and furnishes a comprehensive range of material to enlighten and enrich future discussion and encourage further academic pursuit. With a broad and authoritative scope, this introductory text chronicles a plethora of important global topics from pre-history to the present.
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