Can the worlds of science and philosophy work together to recognise our destructive emotions such as hatred, craving, and delusion? Bringing together ancient Buddhist wisdom and recent breakthroughs in a variety of fields from neuroscience to child development, Daniel Goleman's extraordinary book offers fresh insights into how we can recognise and transform our destructive emotions. Out of a week-long discussion between the Dalai Lama and small group of eminent psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers, Goleman weaves together a compelling narrative account. Where do these destructive emotions (craving, anger and delusion, known in Buddhism as the three poisons) come from? And how can we transform them to prevent them from threatening humanity's collective safety and its future?

"This book poses the question of why revolutions--from the French Revolution through the Russian and more recent revolutions--tend to produce tragic outcomes. As the author puts it: 'I have become intrigued with the idea of writing a short book on why so many revolutions turn into bloody catastrophes. Though a huge amount has obviously been written about revolutions, I think a good short review of why they so often disappoint so badly could find a good audience. Of course the planned book would not please those with different views. I want to insist on the contingent nature of what happened rather than seeing revolutions in a Marxist way as necessary and inevitable steps toward world historical progress. I also believe that key individuals make a big difference, so the purely structural analyses that predominate in sociology and political science lack an important element. Then, too, the age of revolutions is far from over, and while I don't really think that history repeats itself, there are recurrent patterns to watch out for.' Chirot proceeds by exploring the combination of extremism and incompetence that characterize most revolutionary movements, the effects of counter-revolutionary forces in complications post-revolutionary regimes, the often tyrannical application of idealistic norms on societies experiencing revolutionary change, and the corruption and oppression that often characterize post-revolutionary regimes. He plans to end the book with a chapter on what can be learned from his study with respect to future revolutionary movement"--

How can you unlock creativity and imagination to inspire, teach, and lead? What mental models do the world's most accomplished scientists use to supercharge their creativity and strengthen their most precious collaborations? In this mesmerizing collection of interviews with some of the world's brightest minds, you'll discover that achieving greatness doesn't require genius. Instead, dedication to a simple set of principles, habits, and tools can boost your creativity, stoke your imagination, and unlock your full potential for out-of-this-universe success. Through their own words, you will discover why Nobel Prize-winning scientists credit often-overlooked ‘soft skills’ like communication, motivation, and introspection as keys to their success. You'll see why they turn to curiosity, beauty, serendipity, and joy when they need a fresh view of some of the universe's most vexing problems... and how you can too, no matter what you do! Within the pages of ‘Into the Impossible: Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner’, the wisdom of nine Nobel Laureates has been distilled and compressed into concentrated, actionable data you can use. While each mind is unique, they are united in their emphasis that no one wins alone, and that science, and success itself, belongs to us all.

It is widely accepted in science that the universe is a closed deterministic system in which everything can, ultimately, be explained by purely physical causation. And yet we all experience ourselves as having the freedom to choose between alternatives presented to us -- 'we' are in the driving seat. The puzzling status of volition is explored in this issue by a distinguished body of scientists and philosophers.

This book is a collection of writings by active researchers in the field of Artificial General Intelligence, on topics of central importance in the field. Each chapter focuses on one theoretical problem, proposes a novel solution, and is written in sufficiently non-technical language to be understandable by advanced undergraduates or scientists in allied fields. This book is the very first collection in the field of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) focusing on theoretical, conceptual, and philosophical issues in the creation of thinking machines. All the authors are researchers actively developing AGI projects, thus distinguishing the book from much of the theoretical cognitive science and AI literature, which is generally quite divorced from practical AGI system building issues. And the discussions are presented in a way that makes the problems and proposed solutions understandable to a wide readership of non-specialists, providing a distinction from the journal and conference-proceedings literature. The book will benefit AGI researchers and students by giving them a solid orientation in the conceptual foundations of the field (which is not currently available anywhere); and it would benefit researchers in allied fields by giving them a high-level view of the current state of thinking in the AGI field. Furthermore, by addressing key topics in the field in a coherent way, the collection as a whole may play an important role in guiding future research in both theoretical and practical AGI, and in linking AGI research with work in allied disciplines

Abstraction and Specification in Program Development offers professionals in program design and software engineering a methodology that will enable them to construct programs that are reliable and reasonably easy to understand, modify, and maintain. Good programming involves the systematic mastery of complexity, and this book provides the first unified treatment of the techniques of abstraction and specification, which, the authors argue, are the linchpin of any effective approach to programming. They place particular emphasis on the use of data abstraction to produce highly modular programs. The authors focus on the process of decomposing large program projects into independent modules that can be assigned to independent working groups. They discuss methods of decomposition, the kinds of modules that are most useful in this process, and techniques to increase the likelihood that modules produced can in fact be recombined to solve the original programming problem. There are many examples of abstractions throughout the text, and each chapter ends with pertinent references and exercises. Most of the sample implementations in the book are written in CLU, one of a growing number of languages able to support data abstraction. Sufficient material is included, however, to allow the reader to work in Pascal as well. The material in this book was developed by the authors during a decade of teaching undergraduate, graduate, and professional-level courses. Barbara Liskov, the developer of CLU, is Professor and John Guttag an Associate Professor of Computer Science at MIT. Abstraction and Specification in Program Development is included in the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science series.

Few philosophers are as widely read or as widely misunderstood as Friedrich Nietzsche. When Danto's classic study was first published in 1965, many regarded Nietzsche as a brilliant but somewhat erratic thinker. Danto, however, presented a radically different picture, arguing that Nietzsche offered a systematic and coherent philosophy that anticipated many of the questions that define contemporary philosophy. Danto's clear and insightful commentaries helped canonize Nietzsche as a philosopher and continue to illuminate subtleties in Nietzsche's work as well as his immense contributions to the philosophies of science, language, and logic. This new edition, which includes five additional essays, not only further enhances our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy; it responds to the misunderstandings that continue to muddy his intellectual reputation. Even today, Nietzsche is seen as everything from a precursor of feminism and deconstruction to a prophetic writer and spokesperson for disgruntled teenage boys. As Danto points out in his preface, Nietzsche's writings have purportedly inspired recent acts of violence and school shootings. Danto counters these misreadings by elaborating an anti-Nietzschian philosophy from within Nietzsche's own philosophy "in the hope of disarming the rabid Nietzsche and neutralizing the vivid frightening images that have inspired sociopaths for over a century." The essays also consider specific works by Nietzsche, including Human, All Too Human and The Genealogy of Morals , as well as the philosopher's artistic metaphysics and semantical nihilism.

"A down-to-earth, inspiring book about the American promise fulfilled." -President Bill Clinton "Fascinating . . . . Made me wish I had been born in the Bronx." -Barbara Walters A touching and provocative collection of memories that evoke the history of one of America's most influential boroughs-the Bronx-through some of its many success stories The vivid oral histories in Arlene Alda's Just Kids from the Bronx reveal what it was like to grow up in the place that bred the influencers in just about every field of endeavor. The Bronx is where Michael Kay, the New York Yankees' play-by-play broadcaster, first experienced baseball; where J. Crew's CEO Millard ("Mickey") Drexler found his ambition; where Neil deGrasse Tyson and Dava Sobel fell in love with science; and where local music making inspired singer-songwriter Dion DiMucci and hip-hop's Grandmaster Melle Mel. The parks, the pickup games, the tough and tender mothers, the politics, the gangs, the food-for people who grew up in the Bronx, childhood recollections are fresh. Arlene Alda's own Bronx memories were a jumping-off point from which to reminisce with a nun, a police officer, an urban planner, and with Al Pacino, Carl Reiner, Colin Powell, Maira Kalman, Bobby Bonilla, Mary Higgins Clark, and many other leading artists, athletes, scientists, and entrepreneurs-experiences spanning six decades of Bronx living. Alda then arranged these pieces of the past, from looking for violets along the banks of the Bronx River to the wake-up calls from teachers who recognized potential, into one great collective story, a filmlike portrait of the Bronx from the early twentieth century until today.

A comprehensive, integral account of European life, society, politics, arts, science, philosophy, economics, manners, and morals of the epoch.

One of Slate ’s 10 Best Books of the Year Anthony Gottlieb’s landmark The Dream of Reason and its sequel challenge Bertrand Russell’s classic as the definitive history of Western philosophy. Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason , Anthony Gottlieb documented the first burst, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now, in his sequel, The Dream of Enlightenment , Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period—from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution—Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. As Gottlieb explains, all these men were amateurs: none had much to do with any university. They tried to fathom the implications of the new science and of religious upheaval, which led them to question traditional teachings and attitudes. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity—and what, actually, is government for? Such questions remain our questions, which is why Descartes, Hobbes, and the others are still pondered today. Yet it is because we still want to hear them that we can easily get these philosophers wrong. It is tempting to think they speak our language and live in our world; but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times and the development of scientific ideas while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy in lively prose. With chapters focusing on Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Pierre Bayle, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire—and many walk-on parts— The Dream of Enlightenment creates a sweeping account of what the Enlightenment amounted to, and why we are still in its debt.

In telling the story of what is perhaps the most anticipated experiment in the history of science, Aczel takes us inside the control rooms at CERN at key moments when an international team of top researchers begins to discover whether this multi-billion euro investment will fulfill its spectacular promise.

In 1993, Alan Rabinowitz, called "the Indiana Jones" of wildlife science by The New York Times , arrived for the first time in the country of Myanmar, known until 1989 as Burma, uncertain of what to expect. Working under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society, his goal was to establish a wildlife research and conservation program and to survey the country's wildlife. He succeeded beyond all expectations, not only discovering a species of primitive deer completely new to science but also playing a vital role in the creation of Hkakabo Razi National Park, now one of Southeast Asia's largest protected areas. Beyond the Last Village takes the reader on a journey of exploration, danger, and discovery in this remote corner of the planet at the southeast edge of the Himalayas where tropical rain forest and snow-covered mountains meet. As we travel through this "lost world" -- a mysterious and forbidding region isolated by ancient geologic forces -- we meet the Rawang, a former slave group, the Taron, a solitary enclave of the world's only pygmies of Asian ancestry, and Myanmar Tibetans living in the furthest reaches of the mountains. We enter the territories of strange, majestic-looking beasts that few people have ever heard of and fewer have ever seen -- golden takin, red goral, blue sheep, black barking deer. The survival of these ancient species is now threatened, not by natural forces but by hunters with snares and crossbows, trading body parts for basic household necessities.The powerful landscape and unique people the author befriends help him come to grips with the traumas and difficulties of his past and emerge a man ready to embrace the world anew. Interwoven with his scientific expedition in Myanmar, and helping to inform his understanding of the people he met and the situations he encountered, is this more personal journey of discovery.

"The Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities is an interdisciplinary and international culmination of the growth of men's studies that also offers insight about future directions for the field. The Handbook provides a broad view of masculinities primarily across the social sciences, with the inclusion of important debates in some areas of the humanities and natural sciences. The various approaches presented in this Handbook range across different disciplines, theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and conceptualizations in relation to the topic of men. Editors Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn, and R. W. Connell have assembled an esteemed group of contributors who are among the best-known experts in their particular fields." The Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities provides scholars, researchers, and students with the most current, incisive scholarship available for the men's studies area of gender studies. It is a vital resource for those interested in the practical or cultural issues about men, boys, and gender, as well as an excellent addition to any academic library.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

According to ancient myths, the Goddess Ariadne fared poorly. But is that simply the story the Ancient Greeks wanted retold in their myths? In this second, updated edition of Ariadne's Thread, Shekhinah Mountainwater argues that reclaiming womanhood and seeking spiritual liberation from patriarchal limitations can change the world-not by flipping the tables to a hierarchical matriarchy but in working toward a peaceful, egalitarian, sustainable society that embraces the traditionally "feminine" values of compassion and nurturing regardless of gender. She looks carefully and with wisdom at the old stories, and skillfully tugs the loose edges of old paradigms. A pioneer of the Goddess feminist movement, Mountainwater employs powerful archetypes and a feminist ethic of care to challenge our assumptions and draw us from the mundane into the mysterious in our own lives. Considered a classic of women's spirituality and goddess worship, Ariadne's Thread offers a magical path of discovery into the mysteries of the Goddess. It includes detailed explorations of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone guiding the cycles of life, as well as rituals to affirm our lunar and natural cycles in the world. As the Library Journal writes, this "well-written book encourages women to find their own spiritual path." Offering her own thread to guide our labyrinth, Mountainwater has illuminated a powerful, poetic, and joyful initiation.

An exploration of how gay men and lesbians are abandoned by their families as soon as AIDS enters their lives, and the courageous and unusual ways they lead their lives, despite this loss.

"Although early Zionist thinkers, perhaps naively, believed that with sovereignty, anti-Jewish persecution would end, anti-Zionism has become one form of the "new" antisemitism following World War II. Because antisemitism has not been effectively addressed, anti-Jewish rhetoric, activism, and deadly violence have flourished around the world. In Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel, editor Robert S. Wistrich and an array of notable academics, journalists, and political scientists analyze multiple aspects of the current surge in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric and violence. Contributors including Ben Cohen, R. Amy Elman, Lesley Klaff, Matthias Kuntzel, Nelly Las, Alvin H. Rosenfeld, and Efraim Sicher, among others, examine antisemitism from the perspectives of history, academia, gender, identity, and religion. Offering a variety of viewpoints and insights into disturbing trends worldwide, the contributors provide a basis for further discussion and increased efforts to counter the increasingly vocal and violent hatred of Jews and Israel"--

Text: English, French (translation)