128 results for "Psychology"

Time and Free Will

Henri Bergson
"Time and Free Will" is Henri Bergson's doctoral thesis, which was first published in French in 1889. In the work French philosopher Bergson introduces us to his theory of duration, a response to Immanuel Kant's ideas regarding free will as something only possible outside of time and space. Bergson argues that the traditional concept of free will is merely confusion among philosophers caused by an illegitimate translation of the unextended into the extended and a lack of understanding of mechanics. He contends instead that free will is bound to causality and could only be understood in reference to first-person experience and perception. Duration was a way of understanding free will as it referred to each individual person's experience of time, not as a linear mathematical progression, but as something that slows down or speeds up as the person experiences and reflects upon life events. Bergson was one of the most influential philosophers of his day and his ideas, beginning with the publication of "Time and Free Will", profoundly changed the direction of modern European philosophy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and follows the translation of F. L. Pogson.
Digireads.com Publishing 2021-11-28 122 pages

The Way of Transformation Daily Life as Spiritual Practice

Karlfried Graf Durckheim
The guiding theme of psychotherapist Karlfried Dürckheim’s work is that one can become "transparent to transcendence.” An early Western authority on Zen, he was one of the first to bring its methods to Europe. Incorporating Zen and depth psychology into his practice, Dürckheim was also one of the earliest transpersonal psychologists. His spiritual practice of combining Jung, Meister Eckhart, and Zazen proved to lead to moments of higher consciousness, which he described as "privileged moments.” In The Way of Transformation, one of his most concise and profound works, Dürckheim shows that once readers scrape away personal barriers and free the divine spark within, these radiant, life-altering occasions can occur at any time. His meditative approach to daily activities turns simple tasks such as making tea, posting a letter, or washing dishes into moments of new awareness: everyday life as a spiritual practice.
Morning Light Press 2006-12-07 137 pages

The Good, the Bad & the Difference How to Tell the Right From Wrong in Everyday Situations

Randy Cohen
The man behind the New York Times Magazine ’s immensely popular column “The Ethicist”–syndicated in newspapers across the United States and Canada as “Everyday Ethics”–casts an eye on today’s manners and mores with a provocative, thematic collection of advice on how to be good in the real world. Every week in his column on ethics, Randy Cohen takes on conundrums presented in letters from perplexed people who want to do the right thing (or hope to get away with doing the wrong thing), and responds with a skillful blend of moral authority and humor. Cohen’s wisdom and witticisms have now been collected in The Good, the Bad & the Difference , a collection of his columns as wise and funny as a combination of “Dear Abby,” Plato, and Mel Brooks. The columns are supplemented with second thoughts on (and sometimes complete reversals of) his original replies, follow-up notes on how his advice affected the actions of various letter writers, reactions from readers both pro and con, and observations from such “guest ethicists” as David Eggers and the author’s mom. Each chapter also features an “Ethics Pop Quiz,” and readers will be invited to post their answers on the book’s Web site. The best of them will appear in a future paperback edition of the book. The Good, the Bad & the Difference is divided into seven sections: •Civic Life (what we do in public) •Family Life (what we do at home) •Social Life (what we do in other people’s homes) •Commercial Life (what we do in situations where money is a factor) •Medical Life (the rights and obligations of patients and caregivers) •Work Life (ethics for the professional sphere) •School Life (moral questions from and about kids) Each section provides a window into how we live today, shedding light on the ways in which a more ethical approach to the decisions we make, and to our daily behavior, can make a big difference in how we feel about ourselves tomorrow.
Harmony/Rodale/Convergent 2003-03-25 304 pages

Questions of cultural identity

Hall, Stuart,du Gay, Paul
Questions of Cultural Identity offers a wide-ranging exploration of these issues. Stuart Hall outlines the reasons why the question of identity is so compelling, and yet so problematic. Individual contributors interrogate different dimensions of the crisis of identity, providing both theoretical and substantive insights into its contemporary manifestations. Rather than privileging any one approach to the problem of identity, the book opens up a number of significant questions and offers insights into different approaches to understanding identity. In doing so it both illuminates and advances debates about identity and its futures. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in cultural studies and sociology, and across a wide range of the humanities and social sciences.
Sage 1996 198 pages

Left is not woke

Neiman, Susan
"If you're woke, you're left. If you're left, you're woke. We blur the terms, assuming that if you're one you must be the other. That, Susan Neiman argues, is a dangerous mistake. The intellectual roots and resources of wokeism conflict with ideas that have guided the left for more than 200 years: a commitment to universalism, a firm distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress. Without these ideas, Neiman argues, they will continue to undermine their own goals and drift, inexorably and unintentionally, towards the right. In the long run, they risk becoming what they despise. One of the world's leading philosophical voices, Neiman makes this case by tracing the malign influence of two titans of twentieth-century thought, Michel Foucault and Carl Schmitt, whose work undermined ideas of justice and progress and portrayed social life as an eternal struggle of us against them. A generation schooled with these voices in their heads, raised in a broader culture shaped by the ruthless ideas of neoliberalism and evolutionary psychology, has set about changing the world. It's time they thought again."--
Polity Press 2023-03-20 154 pages

The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche

Carl Gustav Jung,Wolfgang Ernst Pauli
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) and Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (1900 - 1958) were two of the greatest thinkers of modern times. Jung is the founder of Analytical Psychology and is one of the best known researchers in the field of Dream Interpretation and Symbolization. Pauli was one of the pioneers of Quantum Physics. In 1945, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics after being nominated by Albert Einstein for his "decisive contribution through his discovery of a new law of Nature, the exclusion principle" involving spin theory underpinning the structure of matter and the whole of chemistry. Together they collaborated on this book that was First published in 1952 in German as Naturerklarung und Psyche. C. G. Jung: Synchronizitat als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhange. W. Pauli: Der Einfluss archetypischer Vorstellungen auf die Bildung naturwissenschaftlicher Theorien bei Kepler. However, our reviewer, himself an eminent professor of mathematics, concludes, "After thoroughly studying their writings for many months now, I have come to see clearly that they are both utterly mad.""
Ishi Press International 2012-02 280 pages

The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World

James Hillman
Two groundbreaking essays, "The Thought of the Heart" and "Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World", by James Hillman that launched Archetypal Psychology and began the renaissance of a psychology that returns psychic reality to the world. Following Marsilio Ficino who was the first to place the soul in the center of his vision, Hillman argues for a psychology that reflects the world it works in.
SPRING PUBN 2021-10-28 78 pages

Social Interest A Challenge to Mankind

Alfred Adler
2011 Reprint of 1938 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Alfred Adler (1870-1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the Adlerian school of individual psychology. In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement and a core member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. He was the first major figure to break away from psychoanalysis to form an independent school of psychotherapy and personality theory. In this late work, "Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind", Adler turns to the subject of metaphysics. He argues his vision of society: "Social feeling means above all a struggle for a communal form that must be thought of as eternally applicable... when humanity has attained its goal of perfection... an ideal society amongst all mankind, the ultimate fulfillment of evolution." This social feeling for Adler is a community feeling whereby one feels he or she belongs with others and has also developed an ecological connection with nature (plants, animals, the crust of this earth) and the cosmos as a whole.
Martino Fine Books 2011 312 pages

The Creative Mind

Henri. Bergson
The Creative Mind is a philosophical work written by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Originally published in 1934, the book explores the nature of creativity and the creative process. Bergson argues that creativity is not simply a matter of individual genius, but is a fundamental aspect of life itself. He suggests that creativity arises from a tension between the past and the present, and that it is the result of a continual process of invention and adaptation.Bergson draws on a wide range of examples, from the arts to the sciences, to illustrate his ideas about creativity. He discusses the role of intuition and imagination in the creative process, and explores the relationship between creativity and the unconscious mind. He also considers the social and cultural factors that can either encourage or inhibit creativity.Throughout the book, Bergson emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment, and of being open to new experiences and ideas. He argues that creativity is not something that can be taught or learned, but is instead a natural expression of the human spirit.Overall, The Creative Mind is a thought-provoking and insightful exploration of one of the most fundamental aspects of human experience. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the nature of creativity, and in the ways in which we can cultivate it in ourselves and others.This is a new release of the original 1946 edition.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
Literary Licensing, LLC 2013-10 306 pages

The Heart of Man

Erich Fromm
This book is a counterpart to the classic The Art of Loving. Whereas the main topic there was man's capacity to love, the main topic here is his capacity to destroy, his narcissism, and his incestuous fixations. Whereas the topic of non-love fills most of these pages, the problem of love is taken up in a new and broader sense, namely, the love of life. The love of life, independence, and the overcoming of narcissism form "a syndrome of growth" against "a syndrome of decay" formed by love of death and malignant narcissism.
American Mental Health Foundation Incorporated 2022-06-17 154 pages

The human test: how predictability, creativity, and the quantum mind will redefine life in the age of AI

Folman, Ron
"As data harvesting continues its exponential growth and computing power increases beyond what we can even imagine, AI and Big Data will be able to predict what we want for breakfast, what shoes we will buy, which political party we will vote for, and who we will fancy in a bar. Indeed, these deep-learning machines will know us better than we know ourselves. The day awaits when academia and big business will be able to quantify just how predictable each of us are. If indeed we are predictable like machines, to what extent are we alive, and under what definition? In The Human Test, quantum physicist Ron Folman unites findings from cognitive science, quantum physics, philosophy, and technology to offer a prescient look into this startling new era of human existence. If we are indeed found to be predictable, it will change everything we thought we knew about human nature. The Human Test strives for a new paradigm, and this new paradigm is found in human predictability. Existing monitors of general brain activity measure only very rudimentary aspects of the human experience, or what may be called human life; could the advent of a disruptive new technology bring about a much more insightful measure of who we are? While The Human Test describes a new and profound near-future impact of AI, it is rooted in a topic of paramount importance to humans: the enigma of consciousness and how it defines human life-or, what differentiates humans from all other life forms. Ultimately, The Human Test addresses some of the most fundamental questions about our species, starting with the most crucial: do we have free will, or are we merely machines? Fortunately, there is an antidote to predictability: creativity, that wondrous state of being original and inherently not predictable. Ultimately, Folman argues that if we can understand predictability, we can learn how to distance ourselves from it, and transcend to a purer idea of what human life should look like"-- Provided by publisher.
Prometheus 2025-03-25 267 pages

The Great Partnership Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning

Jonathan Sacks
Impassioned, erudite, thoroughly researched, and beautifully reasoned, The Great Partnership argues not only that science and religion are compatible, but that they complement each other—and that the world needs both. “Atheism deserves better than the new atheists,” states Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “whose methodology consists of criticizing religion without understanding it, quoting texts without contexts, taking exceptions as the rule, confusing folk belief with reflective theology, abusing, ridiculing, and demonizing religious faith and holding it responsible for the great crimes against humanity. Religion has done harm; I acknowledge that. But the cure for bad religion is good religion, not no religion, just as the cure for bad science is good science, not the abandonment of science.” Rabbi Sacks’s counterargument is that religion and science are the two essential perspectives that allow us to see the universe in its three-dimensional depth. Science teaches us where we come from. Religion explains to us why we are here. Science is the search for explanation. Religion is the search for meaning. There have been times when religion tried to dominate science. And there have been times, including our own, when it is believed that we can learn all we need to know about meaning and relationships through biochemistry, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. In this fascinating look at the interdependence of religion and science, Rabbi Sacks explains why both views are tragically wrong. ***National Jewish Book Awards 2012, Finalist*** Dorot Foundation Award for Modern Jewish Thought and Experience
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2014-09-02 384 pages

Living dharma: teachings and meditation instructions from twelve Theravada masters

Kornfield, Jack
A collection of teachings on the practice of meditation by twelve contemporary Buddhist masters from Southeast Asia—curated by the author of A Path with Heart Living Dharma explores the teachings of the Theravada Buddhist tradition through the wisdom of twelve highly respected masters from Southeast Asia whose teachings have shaped the course of Buddhist practice in the West. Jack Kornfield, a renowned teacher and psychologist, provides an overview of Buddhist philosophy and the meditation practices found in Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, and Laos. The detailed instructions from these teachers emphasize mindfulness, compassion, and the pursuit of inner freedom. Readers will gain invaluable insight into the sophisticated nature of Buddhist psychology, learning techniques to cultivate laser-like concentration and deep understanding of the mind and heart. This book dispels the notion of a singular path to enlightenment, showcasing a rich tapestry of practices that foster patience, wisdom, and clarity. With a focus on both the challenges and transformative potential of meditation, Living Dharma serves as a guide for those seeking to integrate Eastern practices into their daily lives. For those yearning to deepen their meditation practice or explore the depths of Theravada Buddhism, it offers an opportunity to engage with teachings that are both profound and practical. Kornfield bridges the gap between East and West, presenting these teachings in an accessible manner that resonates with contemporary readers. Jack Kornfield’s first three chapters give an overview of Buddhist philosophy and, specifically, the meditation practices of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. The teachings in this volume are from Achaan Chaa, Mahasi Sayadaw, Sunlun Sayadaw, Achaan Buddhadasa, Achaan Naeb, Achaan Maha Boowa, Tuangpulu Sayadaw, Mohnyin Sayadaw, Mogok Sayadaw, U Ba Khin, Achaan Dhammadaro, and Achaan Jumnien.
Shambhala 2010-10-12 320 pages

The rise of scientific philosophy

Reichenbach, Hans
This book represents a new approach to philosophy. It treats philosophy as not a collection of systems, but as a study of problems. It recognizes in traditional philosophical systems the historical function of having asked questions rather than having given solutions. Professor Reichenbach traces the failures of the systems to psychological causes. Speculative philosophers offered answers at a time when science had not yet provided the means to give true answers. Their search for certainty and for moral directives led them to accept pseudo-solutions. Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and many others are cited to illustrate the rationalist fallacy: reason, unaided by observation, was regarded as a source of knowledge, revealing the physical world and "moral truth." The empiricists could not disprove this thesis, for they could not give a valid account of mathematical knowledge. Mathematical discoveries in the early nineteenth century cleared the way for modern scientific philosophy. Its advance was furthered by discoveries in modern physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology. These findings have made possible a new conception of the universe and of the atom. The work of scientists thus altered philosophy completely and brought into being a philosopher with a new attitude and training. Instead of dictating so-called laws of reason to the scientist, this modern philosopher proceeds by analyzing scientific methods and results. He finds answers to the age-old questions of space, time, causality, and life; of the human observer and the external world. He tells us how to find our way through this world without resorting to unjustifiable beliefs or assuming a supernatural origin for moral standards. Philosophy thus is no longer a battleground of contradictory opinions, but a science discovering truth step by step. Professor Reichenbach, known for his many contributions to logic and the philosophy of science, addresses this book to a wider audience. He writes for those who do not have the leisure or preparation to read in the fields of mathematics, symbolic logic, or physics. Besides showing the principal foundations of the new philosophy, he has been careful to provide the necessary factual background. He has written a philosophical study, not a mere popularization. It contains within its chapters all the necessary scientific material in an understandable form—and, therefore, conveys all the information indispensable to a modern world-view. The late Hans Reichenbach was Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. His previous books include
University of California Press 1951 333 pages

Rethinking democratic education: the politics of reform

Steiner, David M.
In this timely book David Steiner argues that democratic education should equip citizens to be "the measure of all things." Questioning, criticizing, and reconstructing the language of the day, dissecting the rhetoric of politics, economy, and culture--these are the skills, Steiner contends, needed by those who will one day be the sovereign voices of our society. But this goal is not the focus of current educational reform--which aims at educating "productive citizens"--nor is it encouraged by democratic theorists in colleges and universities. A Theory of Democratic Education is the first work since John Dewey's to provide a model of education focused on the human capacity to judge and construct a well-measured life--a model in which philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy are brought together in a single, over-arching conception.
Johns Hopkins University Press 1994-08-01 253 pages

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast The Evolutionary Origins of Belief

Lewis Wolpert
Why do 70 percent of Americans believe in angels, while others are convinced that they were abducted by aliens? What makes people believe in improbable things when all the evidence points to the contrary? And don't almost all of us, at some time or another, engage in magical thinking? In Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, evolutionary biologist Lewis Wolpert delves into the important and timely debate over the nature of belief, looking at its psychological foundations to discover just what evolutionary purpose it could serve. Wolpert takes us through all that science can tell us about the beliefs we feel are instinctive. He deftly explores different types of belief those of children, of the religious, and of those suffering from psychiatric disorders and he asks whether it is possible to live without belief, or whether it is a necessary component of a functioning society."
W.W. Norton & Company 2007 243 pages