Before Religion


Book Description

Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Brent Nongbri dispels the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as ancient religion. Nongbri shows how misleading it is to speak as though religion was a concept native to pre-modern cultures.




Wittgenstein and Meaning in Life


Book Description

What could Wittgenstein's work contribute to the rapidly growing literature on life's meaning? This book not only examines Wittgenstein's scattered remarks about value and 'sense of life' but also argues that his philosophy and 'way of seeing' has far reaching implications for the ways theorists approach an ancient question: 'How shall one live?'.




Good Economics for Hard Times


Book Description

The winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day. Figuring out how to deal with today's critical economic problems is perhaps the great challenge of our time. Much greater than space travel or perhaps even the next revolutionary medical breakthrough, what is at stake is the whole idea of the good life as we have known it. Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change--these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there--what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable. In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.




Wittgenstein's Heirs and Editors


Book Description

Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the most widely read philosophers of the twentieth century. But the books in which his philosophy was published – with the exception of his early work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – were posthumously edited from the writings he left to posterity. How did his 20,000 pages of philosophical writing become published volumes? Using extensive archival material, this Element reconstructs and examines the way in which Wittgenstein's writings were edited over more than fifty years, and shows how the published volumes tell a thrilling story of philosophical inheritance. The discussion ranges over the conflicts between the editors, their deviations from Wittgenstein's manuscripts, other scholarly issues which arose, and also the shared philosophical tradition of the editors, which animated their desire to be faithful to Wittgenstein and to make his writings both available and accessible. The Element can thus be read as a companion to all of Wittgenstein's published works of philosophy.




Freud in Cambridge


Book Description

The authors explore the influence of Freud's thinking on twentieth-century intellectual and scientific life within Cambridge and beyond.




Skill and Education: Reflection and Experience


Book Description

This book has an important starting point in the conference held in Stockholm in May-June 1988 on Culture, Language and Artifidal Intelligence. It assembled more than 300 researchers and practitioners in the fields of technology, philosophy, history of ideas, literature, linguistics, sodal science etc. The conference was an initiative from the Swedish Center for Working Life, based on the project AI-Based Systems and the Future of Language, Knowledge and Responsibility in Professions within the COST 13 programme of the European Commission. Partidpants in the conference and researchers related to its aims were chosen to contribute to this book. It is preceded by Knowledge, Skill and Artificial Intelligence (ed. B. Göranzon and I. Josefson, Springer-Verlag, 1988), Artifidal Intelligence, Culture and Language (ed. B. Göranzon and M. Florin, Springer-Verlag, 1990) and Dialogue and Technology: Art and Knowledge (ed. B. Göranzon and M. Florin, Springer-Verlag, 1991). The two latter books have the same conference connection as this one, and their aim is to present the contours of a research field with a multitude of issues that demands thorough investigation. The contributors' thinking in this field varies greatly; so do their styles of writing. For example: contributors have varied in their choice of "he" or "helshe" for the third person. No distinc tion is intended, but chapters have been left with the original usage to avoid extensive changes. Similarly, individual contribu tor's preference as to notes or reference lists have been followed.