In this book, Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer debate whether or not we should choose to live forever. This ancient question is as topical as ever: while billions of people believe they will live forever in an otherworldly realm, billions of dollars are currently being poured into anti-ageing research in the hope that we will be able to radically extend our lives on earth. But are we wise to wish for immortality? What would it mean for each of us as individuals, for society, and for the planet? In this lively and accessible debate, the authors introduce the main arguments for and against living forever, along with some new ones. They draw on examples from myth and literature as well as new thought experiments in order to bring the arguments to life. Cave contends that the aspiring immortalist is stuck on the horns of a series of dilemmas, such as boredom and meaninglessness, or overpopulation and social injustice. Fischer argues that there is a vision of radically longer lives that is both recognizably human and desirable. This book offers both students and experienced philosophers a provocative new guide to a topic of perennial importance. Key Features Gives a comprehensive overview of the main arguments for and against living forever. Uses lively examples from myth, literature, and novel thought experiments. Highly accessible - avoiding jargon and assuming no prior knowledge - without sacrificing intellectual rigor. Includes helpful pedagogical features, including chapter summaries, an annotated reading list, a glossary, and clear examples.

In this book, Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer debate whether or not we should choose to live forever. This ancient question is as topical as ever: while billions of people believe they will live forever in an otherworldly realm, billions of dollars are currently being poured into anti-ageing research in the hope that we will be able to radically extend our lives on earth. But are we wise to wish for immortality? What would it mean for each of us as individuals, for society, and for the planet? In this lively and accessible debate, the authors introduce the main arguments for and against living forever, along with some new ones. They draw on examples from myth and literature as well as new thought experiments in order to bring the arguments to life. Cave contends that the aspiring immortalist is stuck on the horns of a series of dilemmas, such as boredom and meaninglessness, or overpopulation and social injustice. Fischer argues that there is a vision of radically longer lives that is both recognizably human and desirable. This book offers both students and experienced philosophers a provocative new guide to a topic of perennial importance. Key Features Gives a comprehensive overview of the main arguments for and against living forever. Uses lively examples from myth, literature, and novel thought experiments. Highly accessible - avoiding jargon and assuming no prior knowledge - without sacrificing intellectual rigor. Includes helpful pedagogical features, including chapter summaries, an annotated reading list, a glossary, and clear examples.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses. While many philosophers in the "continental tradition"-those known as "existentialists"-have engaged these issues at length and often with great popular appeal, English-speaking philosophers have had relatively little to say on these important questions. Yet, the methodology they bring to philosophical questions can, and occasionally has, been applied usefully to "existential" questions. This volume draws together a representative sample of primarily English-speaking philosophers' reflections on life's big questions, divided into six sections, covering (1) the meaning of life, (2) creating people, (3) death, (4) suicide, (5) immortality, and (6) optimism and pessimism. These key readings are supplemented with helpful introductions, study questions, and suggestions for further reading, making the material accessible and interesting for students. In short, the book provides a singular introduction to the way that philosophy has dealt with the big questions of life that we are all tempted to ask.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses. While many philosophers in the "continental tradition"-those known as "existentialists"-have engaged these issues at length and often with great popular appeal, English-speaking philosophers have had relatively little to say on these important questions. Yet, the methodology they bring to philosophical questions can, and occasionally has, been applied usefully to "existential" questions. This volume draws together a representative sample of primarily English-speaking philosophers' reflections on life's big questions, divided into six sections, covering (1) the meaning of life, (2) creating people, (3) death, (4) suicide, (5) immortality, and (6) optimism and pessimism. These key readings are supplemented with helpful introductions, study questions, and suggestions for further reading, making the material accessible and interesting for students. In short, the book provides a singular introduction to the way that philosophy has dealt with the big questions of life that we are all tempted to ask.

Work Process Knowledge brings together the findings of twenty-four leading researchers on new forms of work and the demands these place on workers' knowledge and skill. Their findings, based on a new set of investigations in a wide range of manufacturing and service industries, identify the kinds of knowledge required to work effectively in the post-Taylorist industrial organization. Raising fundamental issues for current industrial policy, science and technology policy, and ways of managing the post-Taylorist organization and developing human resources, this book will be of essential interest to academics and professionals working in the fields of management, human resource development, and workplace learning.

Series: Studies in Modern Tibetan Culture, Lexington Books Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Since the central government of China started major campaigns for western development in the mid-1990s, the economies of the Tibetan areas in Western China have grown rapidly and living standards have improved. However, grievances and protests have also intensified, as dramatically evidenced by the protests that spread across most Tibetan areas in spring 2008 and by the more recent wave of self-immolation protests that started in 2011. This book offers a detailed and careful exploration of this synergy between development and conflict in Tibet from the mid-1990s onwards, when rapid economic growth has occurred in tandem with a particularly assimilationist approach of integrating Tibet into China. Fischer argues that the intensified economic integration of Tibet into regional and national development strategies on these assimilationist terms, within a context of continued political disempowerment, and through the massive channeling of subsidies through Han Chinese dominated entities based outside the Tibetan areas, has accentuated various dynamics of subordination and marginalization faced by Tibetans of all social strata. Whether or not these dynamics are intended to be discriminatory, they effectively accentuate the discriminatory, assimilationist and disempowering characteristics of development, even while producing considerable improvements in the material consumption of local Tibetans. In particular, strong cultural, linguistic and political biases intensify ethnically-exclusionary dynamics among middle and upper strata of the Tibetan labor force, which is problematic considering the rapid shift of Tibetans out of agriculture and towards the highly subsidy-dependent sectors of the economy, especially in urban areas. The combination of these disempowering dynamics with the sheer speed of dislocating and disembedding social change provides important insights into recent tensions given that it has accentuated insecurity while restricting the ability of Tibetan communities to adapt in autonomous and self-determined ways. The study represents one of the only macro-level and systemic analyses of its kind in the scholarship on Tibet, based on accessible economic analysis and extensive interdisciplinary fieldwork. It also carries much interest for those interested in China and in the interactions between development, inequality, exclusion and conflict more generally.

Series: Studies in Modern Tibetan Culture, Lexington Books Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Since the central government of China started major campaigns for western development in the mid-1990s, the economies of the Tibetan areas in Western China have grown rapidly and living standards have improved. However, grievances and protests have also intensified, as dramatically evidenced by the protests that spread across most Tibetan areas in spring 2008 and by the more recent wave of self-immolation protests that started in 2011. This book offers a detailed and careful exploration of this synergy between development and conflict in Tibet from the mid-1990s onwards, when rapid economic growth has occurred in tandem with a particularly assimilationist approach of integrating Tibet into China. Fischer argues that the intensified economic integration of Tibet into regional and national development strategies on these assimilationist terms, within a context of continued political disempowerment, and through the massive channeling of subsidies through Han Chinese dominated entities based outside the Tibetan areas, has accentuated various dynamics of subordination and marginalization faced by Tibetans of all social strata. Whether or not these dynamics are intended to be discriminatory, they effectively accentuate the discriminatory, assimilationist and disempowering characteristics of development, even while producing considerable improvements in the material consumption of local Tibetans. In particular, strong cultural, linguistic and political biases intensify ethnically-exclusionary dynamics among middle and upper strata of the Tibetan labor force, which is problematic considering the rapid shift of Tibetans out of agriculture and towards the highly subsidy-dependent sectors of the economy, especially in urban areas. The combination of these disempowering dynamics with the sheer speed of dislocating and disembedding social change provides important insights into recent tensions given that it has accentuated insecurity while restricting the ability of Tibetan communities to adapt in autonomous and self-determined ways. The study represents one of the only macro-level and systemic analyses of its kind in the scholarship on Tibet, based on accessible economic analysis and extensive interdisciplinary fieldwork. It also carries much interest for those interested in China and in the interactions between development, inequality, exclusion and conflict more generally.

Work Process Knowledge brings together the findings of twenty-four leading researchers on new forms of work and the demands these place on workers' knowledge and skill. Their findings, based on a new set of investigations in a wide range of manufacturing and service industries, identify the kinds of knowledge required to work effectively in the post-Taylorist industrial organization.
Raising fundamental issues for current industrial policy, science and technology policy, and ways of managing the post-Taylorist organization and developing human resources, this book will be of essential interest to academics and professionals working in the fields of management, human resource development, and workplace learning.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203219694

Over the last three decades there has been a tremendous amount of philosophical work in the Anglo-American tradition on the cluster of topics pertaining to Free Will. Of course, this work has in many instances built on and extended the historical treatments of this great area of philosophical interest. The issues range from fairly abstract philosophical questions about the logic of arguments about human freedom (and its relationship to prior predictability of our choices and actions, or God's foreknowledge, or causal determinism and scientific explanation) to more concrete practical questions about legal and criminal accountability.
The contemporary work has in some instances been in the form of lively debates between proponents of different viewpoints, and the literature is characterized by a genuine vitality. Work has appeared in a wide variety of different places: academic and (and even trade) monographs, anthologies, philosophical and legal academic journals, and conference proceedings. This collection selects the very best of this material and presents it in a single, accessible set of volumes.

This collection of seventeen essays deals with the metaphysical, as opposed to the moral issues pertaining to death. For example, the authors investigate (among other things) the issue of what makes death a bad thing for an individual, if indeed death "is" a bad thing. This issue is more basic and abstract than such moral questions as the particular conditions under which euthanasia is justified, if it "is" ever justified.
Though there are important connections between the more abstract questions addressed in this book and many contemporary moral issues, such as euthanasia, suicide, and abortion, the primary focus of this book is on metaphysical issues concerning the nature of death: What is the nature of the harm or bad involved in death? (If it is not pain, wha is it, and how can it be bad?) Who is the subject of the harm or bad? (if the person is no longer alive, how can he be the subject of the bad? An if he is not the subject, who is? Can one have harm with no subject?) When does the harm take place? (Can a harm take place after its subject ceases to exist? If death harms a person, can the harm take place before the death occurs?) If death can be a bad thing, would immorality be a desirable alternative? This family of questions helps to fram ethe puzzle of why--and how--death is bad.
Other subjects addressed include the Epicurean view othat death is not a misfortune (for the person who dies); the nature of misfortune and benefit; the meaningulness and value of life; and the distinction between the life of a person and the life of a living creature who is not a person. There is an extensive bibiography that includes science-fiction treatments of death and immorality.

This two-volume set provides a comprehensive overview of the multidisciplinary field of Embodied Cognition. With contributions from internationally acknowledged researchers from a variety of fields, Foundations of Embodied Cognition reveals how intelligent behaviour emerges from the interplay between brain, body and environment. Drawing on the most recent theoretical and empirical findings in embodied cognition, Volume 2 Conceptual and Interactive Embodiment is divided into four distinct parts, bringing together a number of influential perspectives and new ideas. Part one introduces the field of embodied language processing, before part two presents recent developments in our understanding of embodied conceptual understanding. The final two parts look at the applied nature of embodied cognition, exploring the embodied nature of social co-ordination as well as the emerging field of artificial embodiment. Building on the idea that knowledge acquisition, retention and retrieval are intimately interconnected with sensory and motor processes, Foundations of Embodied Cognition is a landmark publication in the field. It will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students from across the cognitive sciences, including those specialising in psychology, neuroscience, intelligent systems and robotics, philosophy, linguistics and anthropology.

This two-volume set provides a comprehensive overview of the multidisciplinary field of Embodied Cognition. With contributions from internationally acknowledged researchers from a variety of fields, Foundations of Embodied Cognition reveals how intelligent behaviour emerges from the interplay between brain, body and environment. Drawing on the most recent theoretical and empirical findings in embodied cognition, Volume 2 Conceptual and Interactive Embodiment is divided into four distinct parts, bringing together a number of influential perspectives and new ideas. Part one introduces the field of embodied language processing, before part two presents recent developments in our understanding of embodied conceptual understanding. The final two parts look at the applied nature of embodied cognition, exploring the embodied nature of social co-ordination as well as the emerging field of artificial embodiment. Building on the idea that knowledge acquisition, retention and retrieval are intimately interconnected with sensory and motor processes, Foundations of Embodied Cognition is a landmark publication in the field. It will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students from across the cognitive sciences, including those specialising in psychology, neuroscience, intelligent systems and robotics, philosophy, linguistics and anthropology.

Das Verhaltnis von Berufsarbeit und beruflichem Lernen und Lehren ist in der Arbeitsforschung von besonderer Bedeutung und steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Bandes. Die Beitrage zeigen die Qualitat und den Ertrag von vertiefenden Arbeitsanalysen in verschiedenen Bereichen und Disziplinen auf, mit denen eine Brucke zwischen empirisch vorzufindenden Arbeitsverhaltnissen und dem beruflichen Lernen geschlagen wird. Die Ertrage der Arbeitsforschung fur das berufliche Lernen beschranken sich dabei nicht auf die Reproduktion gesellschaftlicher Praxis; sie tragen zur Aufklarung uber Berufe bei und zeigen Potenziale zur Verbesserung der Berufsbildungspraxis auf. Mit dem Band werden die Diskussionen aus dem Forschungsworkshop Arbeitsbezogene Forschung und Erkenntnisse fur die Kompetenzentwicklung vertieft und dokumentiert, der im Sommer 2013 an der Universitat Bremen stattgefunden hat.

This collection of seventeen essays deals with the metaphysical, as opposed to the moral issues pertaining to death. For example, the authors investigate (among other things) the issue of what makes death a bad thing for an individual, if indeed death "is" a bad thing. This issue is more basic and abstract than such moral questions as the particular conditions under which euthanasia is justified, if it "is" ever justified.
Though there are important connections between the more abstract questions addressed in this book and many contemporary moral issues, such as euthanasia, suicide, and abortion, the primary focus of this book is on metaphysical issues concerning the nature of death: What is the nature of the harm or bad involved in death? (If it is not pain, wha is it, and how can it be bad?) Who is the subject of the harm or bad? (if the person is no longer alive, how can he be the subject of the bad? An if he is not the subject, who is? Can one have harm with no subject?) When does the harm take place? (Can a harm take place after its subject ceases to exist? If death harms a person, can the harm take place before the death occurs?) If death can be a bad thing, would immorality be a desirable alternative? This family of questions helps to fram ethe puzzle of why--and how--death is bad.
Other subjects addressed include the Epicurean view othat death is not a misfortune (for the person who dies); the nature of misfortune and benefit; the meaningulness and value of life; and the distinction between the life of a person and the life of a living creature who is not a person. There is an extensive bibiography that includes science-fiction treatments of death and immorality.

Winner of the International Studies in Poverty Prize awarded by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) and Zed Books. Poverty has become the central focus of global development efforts, with a vast body of research and funding dedicated to its alleviation. And yet, the field of poverty studies remains deeply ideological and has been used to justify wealth and power within the prevailing world order. Andrew Martin Fischer clarifies this deeply political character, from conceptions and measures of poverty through to their application as policies. Poverty as Ideology shows how our dominant approaches to poverty studies have, in fact, served to reinforce the prevailing neoliberal ideology while neglecting the wider interests of social justice that are fundamental to creating more equitable societies. Instead, our development policies have created a 'poverty industry' that obscures the dynamic reproductions of poverty within contemporary capitalist development and promotes segregation in the name of science and charity. Fischer argues that an effective and lasting solution to global poverty requires us to reorient our efforts away from current fixations on productivity and towards more equitable distributions of wealth and resources. This provocative work offers a radical new approach to understanding poverty based on a comprehensive and accessible critique of key concepts and research methods. It upends much of the received wisdom to provide an invaluable resource for students, teachers and researchers across the social sciences.