books on the mind, consciousness, cognitive science…
December 4, 2013
$0.99 Kindle Countdown Deal – 'Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data & the Future of Privacy' by Scoble.. http://t.co/H0gWMRLjjr via @amazon
— Debbie A Foster (@mymindonbooks) December 4, 2013
November 28, 2013
Concepts of the Self, 3rd ed. by Anthony Elliott (Polity, 2013)
Book description from the publisher:
More than ten years on from its original publication, Concepts of the Self still mesmerizes with its insight, comprehensiveness and critique of debates over the self in the social sciences and humanities. Anthony Elliott has written a new preface to this third edition to address some of the most recent developments in the field, and offers a powerful challenge to what he describes as ‘the emergence of anti-theories of the self’.
The first two editions have proven exceptionally popular among students and teachers worldwide. Anthony Elliott provides a scintillating introduction to the major accounts of the self from symbolic interactionism and psychoanalysis to post-feminism and postmodernism. This new edition has been extensively revised and updated to take account of more recent theoretical developments, and a new chapter has been added on individualization which focuses on how the self becomes an agent of ‘do-it-yourself’ autobiographical reconstruction in an age of intensive globalization.
Concepts of the Self remains the most lively, lucid and compelling introduction to contemporary controversies over the self and self-identity in the social sciences and humanities. Written by an author of international reputation, it connects debates about the self directly to identity politics, the sociology of personal relationships and intimacy, and the politics of sexuality, and will continue to be an invaluable introductory text for students in of social and political theory, sociology, social psychology, cultural studies, and gender studies.
Google Books preview:
See also: Author’s homepage
November 26, 2013
The Power of Knowledge: How Information and Technology Made the Modern World by Jeremy Black (Yale University Press)
Book description from the publisher:
Information is power. For more than five hundred years the success or failure of nations has been determined by a country’s ability to acquire knowledge and technical skill and transform them into strength and prosperity. Leading historian Jeremy Black approaches global history from a distinctive perspective, focusing on the relationship between information and society and demonstrating how the understanding and use of information have been the primary factors in the development and character of the modern age.
Black suggests that the West’s ascension was a direct result of its institutions and social practices for acquiring, employing, and retaining information and the technology that was ultimately produced. His cogent and well-reasoned analysis looks at cartography and the hardware of communication, armaments and sea power, mercantilism and imperialism, science and astronomy, as well as bureaucracy and the management of information, linking the history of technology with the history of global power while providing important indicators for the future of our world.
Google Books preview:
See also: Author’s website
October 30, 2013
1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think by Robert Arp (Atria, 2013)
Book description from the publisher:
An elegant addition to the successful “1001” series—a comprehensive, chronological guide to the most important thoughts from the finest minds of the past 3,000 years.
From Democracy to Cultural Revolution, Courtly Love to Survival of the Fittest, and Kant’s Enlightenment to the Oedipus Complex, here are the big ideas that have revolutionized our world. 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think offers a wealth of stimulation and amusement for any reader with a curious mind, showing how once-radical propositions have become accepted truths.
Besides the great, eternal questions (how was the universe created and what is the place of humans within it? How should a person live? And how can we build a just society?), 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think also includes a host of hypotheses that are remarkable for their sheer audacity—from the concept of the transmigration of souls to parallel universes and the theoretical paradoxes of time travel. Discover the mathematical proof of the existence of life in other galaxies, and relearn inspiring ideas ranging from Gandhi’s theory of civil disobedience to Mary Wollstonecraft’s groundbreaking advocacy of women’s rights.
Abounding with quotations and more than 900 full-color, gorgeous illustrations, this is both an in-depth history of ideas and a delightfully accessible popular reference.
Google Books preview:
See also: Author’s website
October 24, 2013
Novelty: A History of the New by Michael North (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
Book description from the publisher:
If art and science have one thing in common, it’s a hunger for the new—new ideas and innovations, new ways of seeing and depicting the world. But that desire for novelty carries with it a fundamental philosophical problem: If everything has to come from something, how can anything truly new emerge? Is novelty even possible?
In Novelty, Michael North takes us on a dazzling tour of more than two millennia of thinking about the problem of the new, from the puzzles of the pre-Socratics all the way up to the art world of the 1960s and ’70s. The terms of the debate, North shows, were established before Plato, and have changed very little since: novelty, philosophers argued, could only arise from either recurrence or recombination. The former, found in nature’s cycles of renewal, and the latter, seen most clearly in the workings of language, between them have accounted for nearly all the ways in which novelty has been conceived in Western history, taking in reformation, renaissance, invention, revolution, and even evolution. As he pursues this idea through centuries and across disciplines, North exhibits astonishing range, drawing on figures as diverse as Charles Darwin and Robert Smithson, Thomas Kuhn and Ezra Pound, Norbert Wiener and Andy Warhol, all of whom offer different ways of grappling with the idea of originality.
Novelty, North demonstrates, remains a central problem of contemporary science and literature—an ever-receding target that, in its complexity and evasiveness, continues to inspire and propel the modern. A heady, ambitious intellectual feast, Novelty is rich with insight, a masterpiece of perceptive synthesis.
Google Books preview:
See also: Excerpt, “The Making of ‘Make It New'” at Guernica Magazine
