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万本电子书0元读

Throne in Brussels
Throne in Brussels
Belien, Paul
¥107.81
Offers a history of the monarchy of Belgium, a country artificially created in 1817. This book argues that the pan-European super-state resembles a 'Greater-Belgium' rather than a 'Greater-Switzerland'.
Being Cultured
Being Cultured
Kennedy, Angus
¥107.81
Today culture is everywhere as maybe never before. We read culture reviews, watch culture shows, live in Cities of Culture, and witness the Cultural Olympiad. Government, museums and arts councils worry that we are not getting enough culture and shape policy around notions of art and culture for all. Access and inclusion are in. Difficulty and exclusivity out. In "e;Being Cultured: in defence of discrimination"e; Angus Kennedy asks if this explosion of culture, and the breaking down of distinctions between high and low culture, has emancipated us or left us adrift without cultural moorings. Is it true that all cultures are equal? Is cultural diversity a good thing? Is it unacceptably elitist to insist on the highest standards of judgment? To argue that some cultural works stand the test of time and some don't? Can anyone dare to call themselves cultured anymore? Might it even be the case that culture no longer actually means anything much to us? That our nervousness about exercising discrimination and good taste - the erosion of cultural authority - might have left us with a culture that may be open to all, but lacking in depth? This provocative book strikes a blow for discrimination in culture and argues that there is a responsibility on each of us as individuals to always be becoming more cultured beings: our best selves. Kennedy revisits the tradition - from Cicero to Kant, Arnold to Arendt - of autonomy in culture: both in the sense of its intrinsic value and how it rests on our individual freedom - quite apart from state and society - to discriminate and judge. A freedom, without which, we risk a widening culture of consensus and conformity. But which is the constitutive element of a world in common.
Church-going, Going, Gone!
Church-going, Going, Gone!
Horan, Michael
¥107.81
In Church-going, Going, Gone! Michael Horan argues that although the Christian church in Britain may be in terminal decline, that is not to be equated with a national decline in spiritual values. Most if not all people have some level of awareness of what he calls the 'Other-than-oneself', even though they have rejected, or never accepted, the church's now outdated teaching. Church-going, Going, Gone! is concerned less with teaching than with learning. The book provides atheists, agnostics and believers-in-exile, as well as those who have given little thought to belief, with a framework for collaborating as learners, working toward equality, peace and reconciliation, and dedicated to unselfish and imaginative social action. A new movement of the human spirit is beginning.
Felix Wild
Felix Wild
Broadbent, Peter
¥107.81
Gosport, 1860. Felix Wild has lived on the streets and on his wits for all his young life. He's been a mudlark at The Hard, eaten tallow when there was nothing else to be had, picked oakum in Forton Gaol, and acquired a skill for 'tup-tup-tupping' from the women of Haslar. He has no family, no idea of how old he might be, and has never heard of Christmas. But he has one remarkable talent: he can make a perfect drawing, from memory, of anything that he has seen.Saved from a further spell in prison by the wealthy William Kettle, Felix joins the Kettle household in East London and is employed to make drawings of the building of a magnificent new iron-clad vessel, HMS Warrior. His eagerness to learn new things knows no bounds: from working out how to use a knife and fork, and reading a dictionary from cover to cover, to being given the 'tipsy key' for the chronometers during his first voyage on board Warrior as she conducts sea-trials. While the men he meets are in awe of his drawing skills, the young women are absorbed in rather less cerebral matters, namely the fit of his fashionably tight 'gas-pipe' trousers and his distinctive looks - one eye is blue, the other green.Felix Wild is a captivating novel that has all the affectionate humour and vivid sense of place that has made Peter Broadbent's naval memoirs so popular.
Francis Hutcheson
Francis Hutcheson
McHugh, John
¥107.81
Known today mainly as a teacher of Adam Smith (1723-90) and an influence on David Hume (1711-76), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) was a first-rate thinker whose work deserves study on its own merit. While his most important contribution to the history of ideas was likely his theory of an innate sense of morality, Hutcheson also wrote on a wide variety of other subjects, including art, psychology, law, politics, economics, metaphysics, and logic. Spanning his entire literary career, this collection brings together selections from Hutcheson's greater and lesser known works, including his youthful "e;Thoughts"e; (1725) on Thomas Hobbes' (1588-1679) egoistic theory of laughter.
New Idea of a University
New Idea of a University
Maskell, Duke
¥107.81
Something has gone deeply wrong with the university - too deeply wrong to be put right by any merely bureaucratic means. What's wrong is, simply, that our official idea of education, the idea that inspires all government policies and 'initiatives', is itself uneducated. With the growing emphasis in higher education on training in supposedly useful skills, has the very ethos of the university been subverted? And does this more utilitarian university succeed in adding to the national wealth, the basis on which politicians justify the large public expenditure on the higher education system? Should we get our idea of a university from politicians and bureaucrats or from J.H. Newman, Jane Austen and Socrates?The New Idea of a University is an entertaining and highly readable defence of the philosophy of liberal arts education and an attack on the sham that has been substituted for it. It is sure to scandalize all the friends of the present establishment and be cheered elsewhere.
Lotteries for Education
Lotteries for Education
Boyle, Conall
¥107.81
Lotteries are widely used to decide places (seats) at schools, colleges and universities. Conall Boyle explores many examples to find out why. The emotional turmoil that the use of ballots can cause to students and parents alike is graphically described. But lottery selection teaches lessons too; now we can find proper answers to controversial questions like "e;Does choice work?"e;This book will be of interest to parents, pupils and teachers as well as educational administrators. Any student applying for admission to a university course should learn about the amazing weighted lottery for entry to medical schools in the Netherlands. There is a better way: it's a lottery!
John Macmurray
John Macmurray
McIntosh, Esther
¥107.81
The philosophy of John Macmurray is only now receiving the attention it deserves. It is in the contemporary climate of dissatisfaction with individualism that Macmurray's emphasis on the relations of persons has come to the fore. Moreover, Macmurray's recognition of the central importance of acknowledging human embodiment is being favourably received by a wide range of fields, which includes philosophers, theologians and psychologists.Macmurray's overriding concern is to present an adequate account of the person and of personal relationships. Nevertheless, he is an eclectic writer, whose work addresses concerns in education, science and art, which all stem from his understanding of human agency. In addition, this leads Macmurray into a discussion of the ethics of personal and political relations and a critique of otherworldly religion. Hence, Macmurray's philosophy is informed by fairly unconventional religious beliefs.
Adam Ferguson
Adam Ferguson
Heath, Eugene
¥107.81
A philosopher and historian, Adam Ferguson occupies a unique place within eighteenth-century Scottish thought. Distinguished by a moral and historical bent, his work is framed within a teleological outlook that upholds the importance of action and virtue.
Art and Enlightenment
Art and Enlightenment
Friday, Jonathan
¥107.81
During the intellectual and cultural flowering of Scotland in the 18th century few subjects attracted as much interest among men of letters as aesthetics - the study of art from the subjective perspective of human experience. All of the great philosophers of the age - Hutcheson, Hume, Smith and Reid - addressed themselves to aesthetic questions. Their inquiries revolved around a cluster of issues - the nature of taste, beauty and the sublime, how qualitative differences operate upon the mind through the faculty of taste, and how aesthetic sensibility can be improved through education. This volume brings together and provides contextual introductions to the most significant 18th century writing on the philosophy of art. From the pioneering study of beauty by Francis Hutcheson, through Hume's seminal essays on the standard of taste and tragedy, to the end of the tradition in Dugald Stewart, we are swept up in the debate about art and its value that fascinated the philosophers of enlightenment Scotland - and continues to do so to this day.
Knowing, Doing, and Being
Knowing, Doing, and Being
Clarke, Chris
¥107.81
Between 1965 and 2002 several key lines of research emerged which, taken together, can potentially revolutionise our understanding of the place of consciousness in the universe. Two of these are crucial: first, the analyses of human mental processes by Barnard, and independently by McGilchrist, revealing two separate elements, one rational and one based on relationships; and, second, research by several workers linking quantum theory to consciousness in much greater detail then hitherto. Both of these investigations use an alternative logical system in order to make sense of the quantum/consciousness area. In this book the author explains the close connections between these new ingredients - connections which until now have barely been noticed. Using these insights the author set out a new foundation for consciousness studies in which consciousness is integrated with physics while retaining its qualitatively different character. Finally the book discusses how this affects our everyday approach to ecology, religion, and spiritual practice.
James Frederick Ferrier
James Frederick Ferrier
Keefe, Jennifer
¥107.81
This volume contains selections from the philosophical writings of James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864). Ferrier was the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews between 1845 and 1864 and he was one of the earliest post-Hegelian British idealists. He develops a system of absolute idealism via a rejection of the Scottish school of common sense and Enlightenment philosophy in general. These selections focus on his primary philosophical interests: epistemology and ontology. Ferrier denies the possibility of a science of man and suggests that philosophy should focus on self-consciousness, the defining feature of humanity.
School of Freedom
School of Freedom
O'Hear, Anthony
¥107.81
Liberal education is not a theory. It is the tradition by which Western civilisation has preserved and enriched its inheritance for two and a half thousand years. Yet liberal education is a term that has fallen from use in Britain, its traditional meaning now freely confused with its opposite. This book is intended to correct that misapprehension, through the presentation of original source material from the high points in the liberal education tradition with particular focus on the British experience.Section 1: Origins (c. 450 BC to c. 450 AD)Section 2: The British Tradition (c. 750 to 1950)Section 3: After Tradition (1950 onward)Section 4: Liberal Education Redux (America)
Dugald Stewart
Dugald Stewart
Mortera, Emanuele Levi
¥107.81
Dugald Stewart was appointed assistant professor of mathematics in the University of Edinburgh in 1772, aged only 19. He became one of the most influential academics in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European 'Republic of Letters'. Both Stewart's contemporaries and modern scholars have recognised the impact his influential figure had over many young minds. He was one of the leading figures of the Scottish Common Sense school, a name by which we are used to identifying the philosophical tradition headed by Thomas Reid.The selection given here departs in some ways from Stewart's own division of the subject, and aims to reflect the logical priority of each discipline, a priority which Stewart himself seems to give in the internal development of his 'system'.
Paranormal and the Politics of Truth
Paranormal and the Politics of Truth
Northcote, Jeremy
¥107.81
This book is based on the author's ten-year research into the politics of belief surrounding paranormal ideas. Through a detailed examination of the participants, issues, strategies and underlying factors that constitute the contemporary paranormal debate, the book explores the struggle surrounding the status of paranormal phenomena. It examines, on the one hand, how the principal arbiters of religious and scientific truths - the Church and the academic establishment - reject paranormal ideas as "e;occult"e; and "e;pseudo-scientific"e;, and how, on the other hand, paranormal enthusiasts attempt to resist such labels and instead establish paranormal ideas as legitimate knowledge.The author contends that the paranormal debate is the outcome of wider discursive processes that are concerned with the construction and negotiation of truth in Western society generally. More specifically, the debate is seen as an aspect of the "e;boundary work"e; that defines the contours of religious and scientific orthodoxy.The book paves new ground in understanding the nature of belief relating to a topic that has long held fascination to academics and lay people alike - paranormal ideas. It develops a discursive framework for understanding a contemporary social phenomenon, hence placing the study at the cutting edge of ethnographic development that seeks to integrate discursive perspectives with empirical accounts of sociological phenomena. Most importantly, the study is intended to contribute to the debate surrounding communicative action, by outlining a discursive perspective on the negotiation of ideational differences that goes beyond the incommensurability theories that have dominated the sociology of communication and knowledge.
In the Name of the People
In the Name of the People
Mosley, Ivo
¥107.81
Are our 'democracies' truly democratic? In the Name of the People examines the myth of modern democracy and finds it wanting. The various oligarchies of the world blame the madness of modern life on the greed and stupidity of ordinary people: this book argues that, on the contrary, elites indulge a limitless greed for power and wealth under cover of 'giving the people what they want'. As a coda to his short book, Ivo Mosley examines what true democracy has meant over the last two and a half millennia, and examines how it could be incorporated into current political structures to give them meaning, life and accountability.
Columbanus
Columbanus
Richards, Carol
¥107.81
Columbanus ("e;The Dove of the Church"e;), not to be confused with his near-contemporary Columba of Iona, was a towering figure in the religious and political life of Europe in the Dark Ages. In this lively biography of the saint, Carol Richards evokes the violent and unstable age that laid the foundations for the achievements of the Middle Ages.
In Their Right Minds
In Their Right Minds
Platt, Carole Brooks
¥107.81
In 1976, Julian Jaynes proposed that the language of poetry and prophecy originated in the right, "e;god-side"e; of the brain. Current neuroscientific evidence confirms the role of the right hemisphere in poetry, a sensed presence, and paranormal claims as well as in mental imbalance. Left-hemispheric dominance for language is the norm. An atypically enhanced right hemisphere, whether attained through genetic predisposition, left-hemispheric damage, epilepsy, childhood or later traumas, can create hypersensitivities along with special skills. Dissociative "e;Others"e; may arise unbidden or be coaxed out through occult practices. Based on nearly twenty years of scientific and literary research, this book enters the atypical minds of poetic geniuses - Blake, Keats, Hugo, Rilke, Yeats, Merrill, Plath and Hughes - by way of the visible signs in their lives, beliefs, and shared practices.
Nelson, Hitler and Diana
Nelson, Hitler and Diana
Ryder, Richard D
¥107.81
Clinical psychologist Richard Ryder approaches three iconic celebrities - Horatio Nelson, Adolph Hitler, and Diana Princess of Wales - as though they were his patients and presents a short psycho-biography of each. Beneath their obvious differences he finds striking similarities in their backgrounds and early experience, especially being deprived of their mothers' love. In a short Epilogue the author asks what lessons might be learned for the future from these three famous figures of the past.
Sortition
Sortition
Delannoi, Gil
¥107.81
This volume reflects the up-and-coming academic interest in sortition. It is based on contributions to the first international conference dedicated to the subject held at the University of Political Science (Sciences-Po) in Paris in November 2008.The papers explore important theoretical questions such as how we should recognise and define differing lottery forms; the relationship between sortition and different aspects and forms of democracy; and its potential benefits to current political and commercial practice.Contributors include: Hubertus Buchstein, Gil Delannoi, Oliver Dowlen, Gerhard Goehler, Barbara Goodwin, Michael Hein, Yves Sintomer, Peter Stone and Antoine Vergne.
Jaynes Legacy
Jaynes Legacy
Wile, Lawrence
¥107.81
Julian Jaynes' 1976 book, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, continues to arouse an unsettling ambivalence. Richard Dawkins called it "e;either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between"e;. The present book suggests that the bicameral mind is a phantasm; the dating of the origin of consciousness contradicts archeological and literary evidence; and the theory contributes nothing toward explaining why some physical states are conscious while others are not because the nonconscious bicameral brain is neurophysiologically equivalent to the conscious brain.However, the author pays tribute to Jaynes's work as a work of "e;consummate genius"e; because it compels us to re-evaluate the significance of humankind's earliest traditions and texts that might shine light on the "e;very suspicious totem of evolutionary mythology"e; that consciousness has evolved continuously and gradually from worms to man.The present book suggests that the evolution of the relationship between consciousnesses, mass, energy, and spacetime radically changed nearly 6,000 years ago during the epigenetic, evolutionary degeneration of a little-known, threadlike structure originating from the center of the central nervous system called Reissner's fiber. The earliest Egyptian, Hebrew, Indian and Chinese traditions, buried beneath the dust of fallen Babel and thousands of years of distortions and disguisings, describe this process during the origin of religion and mystical traditions.