This revised and extended second edition evaluates the diverse approaches to organizational change that have defined the field. Explaining the assumptions and implications that accompany these diverse philosophies, this book demystifies the complexities of conflicting perspectives and delivers valuable insights into the research and practice of organizational change.
If you're facing a dilemma -- whether it's handling a relationship, living ethically, dealing with a career change, or finding meaning in life -- the world's most important thinkers from centuries past will help guide you toward a solution compatible with your individual beliefs. From Kirkegaard's thoughts on coping with death to the I Ching's guidelines on adapting to change, Plato, Not Prozac! makes philosophy accessible and shows you how to use it to solve your everyday problems. Gone is the need for expensive therapists, medication, and lengthy analysis. Clearly organized by common problems to help you tailor Dr. Lou Marinoff's advice to your own needs, this is an intelligent, effective, and persuasive prescription for self-healing therapy that is giving psychotherapy a run for its money.
To increasing numbers of people, sustainability is the key challenge of the twenty-first century. In the many fields where it is a goal, persistent problems obstruct the efforts of those trying to make a difference. The task of this book is to provide an overview of the current state of philosophy in the context of what philosophy is, could be or should be – in relation to sustainability and the human future on Earth. The book is conceived as a contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, helping to link work on philosophy and sustainability. Critiquing Sustainability, Changing Philosophy focusses on the importance of philosophical work to the formation and effectiveness of global civil society and social movements for sustainability in the context of the Anthropocene age of the Earth. It takes a transdisciplinary systems approach that challenges philosophy and concludes by proposing a greatly enhanced role for philosophy in contributing to global public reason for sustainability. This book will be of interest to philosophers, sustainability practitioners and thinkers, policy makers and all those engaged in the global movement for sustainability.
Rather than see love as a natural form of affection, Love As Human Freedom sees love as a practice that changes over time through which new social realities are brought into being. Love brings about, and helps us to explain, immense social-historical shifts—from the rise of feminism and the emergence of bourgeois family life, to the struggles for abortion rights and birth control and the erosion of a gender-based division of labor. Drawing on Hegel, Paul A. Kottman argues that love generates and explains expanded possibilities for freely lived lives. Through keen interpretations of the best known philosophical and literary depictions of its topic—including Shakespeare, Plato, Nietzsche, Ovid, Flaubert, and Tolstoy—his book treats love as a fundamental way that we humans make sense of temporal change, especially the inevitability of death and the propagation of life.
In this timely book, two philosophers_one American, one Bulgarian_explore the significance of the changes in Eastern Europe that began in 1989, and offer two alternative perspectives about them. The momentous events taking place in this region challenge philosophers to look for deeper understandings and explanations than are called for in purely strategic, political accounts. Philosophical Reflections on the Changes in Eastern Europe is written with an explicit awareness of the great differences_in cultural traditions, recent history, and current conditions_among the different regions and countries of Central and Eastern Europe, but the authors focus above all on certain significant commonalities that are fully understandable only within a larger, global context. They explore such issues as the role of ideology, past and present; 'conversions, ' real or apparent, of intellectuals; the place of philosophers in politics; the relationship between democratic slogans and everyday realities; and special concerns of women. Social and political philosophers, political scientists, and scholars of Eastern Europe will want to have this book on their shelves
In The Philosophy of Change, the distinguished scholar of Chinese philosophy Chung-ying Cheng advances our understanding of the Yijing by analyzing its philosophy in comparison to Western philosophical traditions. Cheng focuses on critically comparing philosophies of science, religion, and metaphysics in Leibniz, Whitehead, Neville, and Cobb alongside classical Chinese views on reality, divinity, knowledge, and morality. The book begins and ends with questions related to the character of Chinese metaphysical traditions, which contrast with the mainline metaphysical traditions found in Western Europe and North America. Cheng argues throughout the book that the philosophical underpinnings of basic concepts in Chinese culture are ultimately rooted in key claims found within the Yijing 易經 and one of its standard commentaries, the Yizhuan 易傳. The book serves as a complementary volume to the author's previous book, The Primary Way: Philosophy of the Yijing, which lays out a comprehensive and systematic philosophy based on the symbolism and text of the classical document and its traditional commentaries.
The question of unintelligibility does not arise with regard to books of fiction, such as the stories and novels, irrespective of how they are written. Even if a story is not understood, there is no great harm done. The problem is with the theoretical essays. Even there, there is no problem with the essays related to the natural science, if the language is simple. The real problem is with the books of philosophy! When we find the word ‘philosophy’ on the face of the book, we feel that ‘this book is meant for the scholars, not for us,’ The very word ‘philosophy’ at the outset will scare us immensely. When we read the word ‘philosophy’ on the face of a book, it does not mean that it represents ‘a great truth’ or ‘a great science.' The contents of the book could be correct or useless or a blend of both. The logic of the book will be in accordance with the philosophy of the book. A correct one will have a correct logic, a wrong one will have a wrong logic, and a vacillating one will have a vacillating logic.
This edition comprises, brings together, incorporates, synthesizes some of the author's works, books, articles, chapters, ideas, fragments, in print and electronic form, with themes, topics, ideas that address the relation between philosophy and social work/ welfare/ policy, with emphasis on the humanistic paradigm/ approach, published in academic format, between 2011 and 2023. No new sections were introduced, but the bibliography was partially updated, bringing to attention relevant titles that appeared after the previous edition. In the book it is analyzed the complex and delicate relationship between philosophy and social work/welfare, between the philosophical system of concepts and ideas and the theory/axiology of social work/welfare, especially from a humanistic perspective, bringing face to face, on the one hand, the great branches or sub-domains of philosophy, respectively ontology, ethics, social philosophy, personology, and, on the other hand, the great sub-domains or issues of social work/welfare, respectively the way of representation the client and the social problem (difficult situation, risk situation, vulnerability, resilience, etc.), the system of constitutive values and principles, the way of representation of the professional and the specific practice/methodology, etc. The relation between philosophy and social work is, no doubt, biunivocal. philosophy encompasses, in its purpose and history, the "social" issue/dimension, in its broader human sense, especially with the preoccupations in the sphere of ethics and social philosophy, but also of the existentialist-humanistic and humanistic-personalist philosophies, as the, social work, as general theory and axiology, cannot be conceived without a consistent philosophical representation. Both the system of fundamental values and the mission or methodology of social work/welfare are, most often, stated in the terms of an explicit applied social, ethical and humanistic philosophy, even if not always this aspect it is highlighted in an assumed way. An important observation that must to be done is that the author does not proposes in his book (and nor does it accomplish) an exhaustive, profound and complete approach and exposure of the relation, connection - from a humanistic point of view - between philosophy and social work/welfare, between their sub-domains, but only he brings into attention this subject, this theme, very little approached in the literature in relation to its indisputable importance. Regarding the destination of this paper, its design, content and bibliography are made in such a way that to be useful both to the academic community, to students and teachers in philosophy and social sciences and practices, and also to the professional community, to social workers, psychotherapists, educators, social managers, etc.
