a personal confession of its creator and a kind of involuntary and unperceived memoir.". Stewart affirms this maxim in his colorful reinterpretation of the lives and works of 17th-century philosophers Spinoza and Leibniz. In November 1676, the foppish courtier Leibniz, "the ultimate insider... an orthodox Lutheran from conservative Germany," journeyed to The Hague to visit the self-sufficient, freethinking Spinoza, "a double exile... an apostate Jew from licentious Holland." A prodigious polymath, Leibniz understood Spinoza's insight that "science was in the process of rendering the God of revelation obsolete; that it had already undermined the special place of the human individual in nature." Spinoza embraced this new world. Seeing the orthodox God as a "prop for theocratic tyranny," he articulated the basic theory for the modern secular state. Leibniz, on the other hand, spent the rest of his life championing God and theocracy like a defense lawyer defending a client he knows is guilty. He elaborated a metaphysics that was, at bottom, a reaction to Spinoza and collapses into Spinozism, as Stewart deftly shows. For Stewart, Leibniz's reaction to Spinoza and modernity set the tone for "the dominant form of modern philosophy"—a category that includes Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger and "the whole 'postmodern' project of deconstructing the phallogocentric tradition of western thought." Readers of philosophy may find much to disagree with in these arguments, but Stewart's wit and profluent prose make this book a fascinating read.

    Renowned scientist David Bohm believed there was a better way for humanity to discover meaning and to achieve harmony. He identified creative dialogue, a sharing of assumptions and understanding, as a means by which the individual, and society as a whole, can learn more about themselves and others, and achieve a renewed sense of purpose.

    Index

    Work Hard. Be Persistent. That's the typical success advice you can probably repeat in your sleep. The type of advice that doesn't seem to work for you -- or anyone you know, for that matter." You work your butt off, but at the end of the day, you're no closer to success than you were yesterday. The ugly truth is that it's not what you're doing that is holding you back. It's who you are. It's the baggage between your ears that keeps you from achieving your dreams and goals. That's why Dan Waldschmidt is changing the conversation about success. It's why you need to have an EDGY conversation. EDGY Conversations is a gut-wrenchingly honest, no-holds-barred discussion about what it takes to be success today. It's based on the stories of 1,000 ordinary people in business, math, politics, sports and science who achieved mind-blowing feats of extraordinary greatness. EDGY is how ordinary people become extraordinary. EDGY is how a master chef, a World War II veteran, a 15-year-old girl, a homeless retired paramedic, an Australian potato farmer and a shoe executive became amazing, did the unthinkable and forever changed their corner of the world. And EDGY is how you can achieve outrageous success, regardless of who or where you are in life right now. You don't need another book on success. You just need to be more EDGY. Let's talk about it.

    Inspired by and expanding on a series of lectures presented by Leonard Peikoff, David Harriman presents a fascinating answer to the problem of induction-the epistemological question of how we can know the truth of inductive generalizations.Ayn Rand presented her revolutionary theory of concepts in her book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. As Dr. Peikoff subsequently explored the concept of induction, he sought out David Harriman, a physicist who had taught philosophy, for his expert knowledge of the scientific discovery process.Here, Harriman presents the result of a collaboration between scientist and philosopher. Beginning with a detailed discussion of the role of mathematics and experimentation in validating generalizations in physics-looking closely at the reasoning of scientists such as Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Lavoisier, and Maxwell-Harriman skillfully argues that the inductive method used in philosophy is in principle indistinguishable from the method used in physics.

    Previously known as Gone Fishin', this book has brought Jay Rubin more feedback than any of his literary translations or scholarly tomes, "even if," he says, "you discount the hate mail from spin-casters and the stray gill-netter."To convey his conviction that "the Japanese language is not vague," Rubin has dared to explain how some of the most challenging Japanese grammatical forms work in terms of everyday English. Reached recently at a recuperative center in the hills north of Kyoto, Rubin declared, "I'm still pretty sure that Japanese is not vague. Or at least, it's not as vague as it used to be. Probably."The notorious "subjectless sentence" of Japanese comes under close scrutiny in Part One. A sentence can't be a sentence without a subject, so even in cases where the subject seems to be lost or hiding, the author provides the tools to help you find it. Some attention is paid as well to the rest of the sentence, known technically to grammarians as "the rest of the sentence."Part Two tackles a number of expressions that have baffled students of Japanese over the decades, and concludes with Rubin's patented technique of analyzing upside-down Japanese sentences right-side up, which, he claims, is "far more restful" than the traditional way, inside-out."The scholar," according to the great Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume, is "one who specializes in making the comprehensible incomprehensible." Despite his best scholarly efforts, Rubin seems to have done just the opposite.Previously published in the Power Japanese series under the same title and originally as Gone Fishin' in the same series.

    This textbook provides a lucid and integrative analysis of the central topics in pragmatics - deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and conversational structure. A central concern of the book is the relation between pragmatics and semantics, and Dr Levinson shows clearly how a pragmatic approach can resolve some of the problems semantics have been confronting and simplifying semantic analyses. The exposition is always clear and supported by helpful exemplification. The detailed analyses of selected topics give the student a clear view of the empirical rigour demanded by the study of linguistic pragmatics, but Dr Levinson never loses sight of the rich diversity of the subject. An introduction and conclusion relate pragmatics to other fields in linguistics and other disciplines concerned with language usage - psychology, philosophy, anthropology and literature.

     Now Roy Sorensen offers the first narrative history of paradoxes, a fascinating and eye-opening account that extends from the ancient Greeks, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and into the twentieth century. When Augustine asked what God was doing before He made the world, he wastold: Preparing hell for people who ask questions like that. A Brief History of the Paradox takes a close look at questions like that and the philosophers who have asked them, beginning with the folk riddles that inspired Anaximander to erect the first metaphysical system and ending with suchthinkers as Lewis Carroll, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and W.V. Quine. Organized chronologically, the book is divided into twenty-four chapters, each of which pairs a philosopher with a major paradox, allowing for extended consideration and putting a human face on the strategies that have been taken towardthese puzzles. Readers get to follow the minds of Zeno, Socrates, Aquinas, Ockham, Pascal, Kant, Hegel, and many other major philosophers deep inside the tangles of paradox, looking for, and sometimes finding, a way out. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and vividly written, A Brief History of the Paradox will appeal to anyone who finds trying to answer unanswerable questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavor.

    N. Volosinov's important work, first published in Russian in 1929, had to wait a generation for recognition. This first paperback edition of the English translation will be capital for literary theorists, philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and many others.Volosinov is out to undo the old disciplinary boundaries between linguistics, rhetoric, and poetics in order to construct a new kind of field: semiotics or textual theory. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik have provided a new preface to discuss Volosinov in relation to the great resurgence of interest in all the writing of the circle of Mikhail Bakhtin.

    The Battle for Sanskrit seeks to alert traditional scholars of Sanskrit and sanskriti - Indian civilization - concerning an important school of thought that has its base in the US and that has started to dominate the discourse on the cultural, social and political aspects of India. This academic field is called Indology or Sanskrit studies. From their analysis of Sanskrit texts, the scholars of this field are intervening in modern Indian society with the explicitly stated purpose of removing 'poisons' allegedly built into these texts. They hold that many Sanskrit texts are socially oppressive and serve as political weapons in the hands of the ruling elite; that the sacred aspects need to be refuted; and that Sanskrit has long been dead. The traditional Indian experts would outright reject or at least question these positions.The start of Rajiv Malhotra's feisty exploration of where the new thrust in Western Indology goes wrong, and his defence of what he considers the traditional, Indian approach, began with a project related to the Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Karnataka, one of the most sacred institutions for Hindus. There was, as he saw it, a serious risk of distortion of the teachings of the peetham, and of sanatana dharma more broadly.Whichever side of the fence one may be on, The Battle for Sanskrit offers a spirited debate marshalling new insights and research. It is a valuable addition to an important subject, and in a larger context, on two ways of looking. Is each view exclusive of the other, or can there be a bridge between them? Readers can judge for themselves.

    

    Based on the concept that the ability to create quality nonfiction is a skill that can be learned like any other, The Art of Nonfiction takes readers through the writing process, step-by-step, providing insightful observations and invaluable techniques along the way.In these edited transcripts, Rand discusses the psychological aspects of writing, and the different roles played by the conscious and unconscious minds. From choosing a subject to polishing a draft to mastering an individual writing style--for authors of theoretical works or those leaning toward journalistic reporting--this crucial resource introduces the words and ideas of one of our most enduring authors to a new generation.

    These lectures are based on their seminar course at Columbia University on Western intellectual history augmented by additional lectures by selected "guest" lecturers. Gives a guided tour through 3,000 years of Western thought.In 7 containers (26 cm.).Lectures by Darren M. Staloff, Louis Markos, Jeremy Adams, Phillip Cary, Dennis G. Dalton, Alan Charles Kors, Jeremy Shearmur, Kathleen M. Higgins, Robert Hilary Kane, Robert C. Solomon, Douglas Kellner, and Mark W. Risjord.42 audiocassettes (approximately 2520 min.) : analog, Dolby processed + 7 course guidebooks (22 cm).Contents:pt. 1. Classical origins --pt. 2. Christian age --pt. 3. From the Renaissance to the Age of Reason --pt. 4. Enlightenment and its critics --pt. 5. Age of ideology --pt. 6. Modernism and the age of analysis --pt. 7. Age of modernity.

    The social function of the creative personality is a recurrent theme with Henry Miller, and this book is perhaps his most poignant and concentrated analysis of the artist's dilemma.

    A rich source of information for readers of all ages, this book is divided into two sections, first looking at major sources of symbols (basic shapes, colors and numbers, the natural world), then, placing symbols in context of mythologies and religions, the human life cycle, people and culture, and symbol systems. Clear cross-referencing illuminates connections between symbols, while beautiful artwork and photography make this a collector's edition to treasure.