Inevitable Illusions
Inevitable Illusions

Author: Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini

Publisher: Wiley

Published: 1996-11-18

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780471159629

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"Fascinating and insightful. . . . I cannot recall a book that has made me think more about the nature of thinking." -- Richard C. Lewontin Harvard University Everyone knows that optical illusions trick us because of the way we see. Now scientists have discovered that cognitive illusions, a set of biases deeply embedded in the human mind, can actually distort the way we think. In Inevitable Illusions, distinguished cognitive researcher Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini takes us on a provocative, challenging, and thoroughly entertaining exploration of the games our minds play. He opens the doors onto the newly charted realm of the cognitive unconscious to reveal the full range of illusions, showing how they inhibit our ability to reason--no matter what our educational background or IQ. Inevitable Illusions is stimulating, eye-opening food for thought.

Cognitive Illusions
Cognitive Illusions

Author: Rüdiger F Pohl

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2016-07-22

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 1317448294

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Cognitive Illusions explores a wide range of fascinating psychological effects in the way we think, judge and remember in our everyday lives. Featuring contributions from leading researchers, the book defines what cognitive illusions are and discusses their theoretical status: are such illusions proof for a faulty human information-processing system, or do they only represent by-products of otherwise adaptive cognitive mechanisms? Throughout the book, background to phenomena such as illusions of control, overconfidence and hindsight bias are discussed, before considering the respective empirical research, potential explanations of the phenomenon, and relevant applied perspectives. Each chapter also features the detailed description of an experiment that can be used as classroom demonstration. Featuring six new chapters, this edition has been thoroughly updated throughout to reflect recent research and changes of focus within the field. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of cognitive illusions, specifically, those focusing on thinking, reasoning, decision-making and memory.

Cognitive Illusions
Cognitive Illusions

Author: Rüdiger Pohl

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 1841693510

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Cognitive Illusions investigates a wide range of fascinating psychological effects in the way we think, judge and remember in our everyday lives. At the beginning of each chapter, leading researchers in the field introduce the background to phenomena such as illusions of control, overconfidence and hindsight bias. This is followed by an explanation of the experimental context in which these illusions can be investigated and a theoretical discussion drawing conclusions about the wider implications of these fallacy and bias effects. Written with researchers and instructors in mind, this tightly edited, reader-friendly text provides both an overview of research in the area and many lively pedagogic features such as chapter summaries, further reading lists and suggestions for classroom demonstrations.

Rational Episodes
Rational Episodes

Author: Keith M. Parsons

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2018-03-21

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1615928847

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Logic is the skill that enables humans to think clearly, accurately, and rigorously and so to draw only the inferences that the evidence warrants. Some people, like scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and computer programmers, get plenty of on-the-job practice in thinking logically. The rest of us generally don’t. In this accessible, concise yet comprehensive introduction to a sometimes-formidable subject, philosopher Keith Parsons presents elementary topics in logic for people who have little background in mathematics or science and have no career goals in those fields. Parsons presupposes no specialized background and strives to introduce even abstract concepts in an intuitive and unintimidating way. His informal, conversational style leads the reader painlessly, even entertainingly, through three essential areas of logic. The first part of the book deals with sentential and predicate logic, as well as inductive and scientific reasoning, including inference to the best explanation. The second part explains basic probability, Bayes’ Theorem, and why thinking about probability is so prone to error and illusion. The third part considers informal reasoning and critical thinking, including such topics as rhetoric, fallacies, political spin, and the detection of pseudoscience and pseudohistory. Why be logical? Even if you’re a poet, an artist, or just a free spirit, logic can help you determine the facts behind the political propaganda, religious claims, advertising, and sales talk that we are all subjected to. As a logically literate person, you will be a better-informed citizen, wiser consumer, and a clearer thinker.

Illusions in Motion
Illusions in Motion

Author: Erkki Huhtamo

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2013-02-22

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 0262018519

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Tracing the cultural, material, and discursive history of an early manifestation of media culture in the making. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, huge circular panoramas presented their audiences with resplendent representations that ranged from historic battles to exotic locations. Such panoramas were immersive but static. There were other panoramas that moved—hundreds, and probably thousands of them. Their history has been largely forgotten. In Illusions in Motion, Erkki Huhtamo excavates this neglected early manifestation of media culture in the making. The moving panorama was a long painting that unscrolled behind a “window” by means of a mechanical cranking system, accompanied by a lecture, music, and sometimes sound and light effects. Showmen exhibited such panoramas in venues that ranged from opera houses to church halls, creating a market for mediated realities in both city and country. In the first history of this phenomenon, Huhtamo analyzes the moving panorama in all its complexity, investigating its relationship to other media and its role in the culture of its time. In his telling, the panorama becomes a window for observing media in operation. Huhtamo explores such topics as cultural forms that anticipated the moving panorama; theatrical panoramas; the diorama; the "panoramania" of the 1850s and the career of Albert Smith, the most successful showman of that era; competition with magic lantern shows; the final flowering of the panorama in the late nineteenth century; and the panorama's afterlife as a topos, traced through its evocation in literature, journalism, science, philosophy, and propaganda.

Necessary Losses
Necessary Losses

Author: Judith Viorst

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-05-08

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 1439134863

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The classic New York Times bestseller about the many forms of loss we experience throughout our lives, and the necessity of letting go. In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers’ protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life-affirming and life-changing. Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting a universal human experience. “One of the most sensitive and comprehensive books about the human condition I have read in a long time.” —Harold S. Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People “Viorst has synthesized a vast amount of research into a very readable and generous whole.” —The New York Times Book Review

Opportunity
Opportunity

Author: Donald Morris

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2013-05-28

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 1615924035

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Donald Morris's Opportunity ... considers choices that promise a significant change in the life of the person making the choice. ... Morris's survey of the literature is wide-ranging in terms of both literary sources and topics considered, thus offering insights to a variety of readers.-Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emerita, Philosophy Department, Southern Illinois University; Author of two books on Bertrand Russell's philosophyCan you recognize an opportunity when it comes your way? Even though the concept seems fairly basic, most people harbor regrets about missed opportunities that in retrospect might have significantly improved their lives. This book will give you the critical tools to sort through the complexities that often obscure the perception of an opportunity and help you take full advantage of what author Donald Morris calls high-end opportunities - pivotal situations that can change your life for the better.Morris begins by developing a model of opportunity in the abstract, analyzing its elements and the contexts and frameworks that affect our recognition of opportunities. Drawing from a wide range of applications, including investing, business, law, criminology, gambling, and even religion, he shows how opportunities can be defined in various contexts. He also examines highly undesirable situations, where opportunity is lacking, such as poverty and historical instances of slavery, to further illustrate, by way of contrast, the defining characteristics of opportunity.How does a significant opportunity differ from a simple option? How does taking advantage of opportunities differ from being an opportunist? Does our ability to predict the future affect our opportunities? What do we mean by equality of opportunity? By addressing these and other probing questions, Morris shows how to develop more critical perceptions of real opportunities.Donald Morris, CPA, Ph.D., is professor of accounting and chair of the Accounting, Finance, and CIS Department at Eastern New Mexico University. The former owner of an accounting firm and a onetime instructor of philosophy, he is the author of Dewey and the Behavioristic Context of Ethics.

Theory's Empire
Theory's Empire

Author: Daphne Patai

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 752

ISBN-13: 9780231134163

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"... the essays in [this volume] question the inflated claims, facile slogans, and political pretensions that have in our time turned theory into a ubiquitous orthodoxy. [This is a] ... collection of essays that returns sanity and rationality to literary criticism, rescuing it from the esotericism, jargon, and delusions under which it had been buried by the "theorizers." -Back cover.

Sexuality, Gender and Power
Sexuality, Gender and Power

Author: Anna G. Jónasdóttir

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-12-14

Total Pages: 653

ISBN-13: 1136852794

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Bringing together essays by a distinguished international group of leading and emerging scholars of sexuality and gender, this stimulating and accessible collection explores a range of theoretical and "real world" perspectives current in the field. Treating these approaches as complementary, Sexuality, Gender and Power fosters critical conversations about sexuality across disciplinary, cultural, national and ideological boundaries. Underpinned by a broad editorial commitment to intersectionality, the chapters deploy approaches that range from historical materialism to queer theory, and from contract theory to theories of the gendered sexual self to address recurrent questions around agency, power, identity and self-hood. Theoretical debates inform and are informed by more empirically oriented chapters focusing on topics such as gay identity in contemporary Croatia, sexual politics in the Commonwealth Caribbean, western "tango tourists," sexual violence in war, prostitution, femme fashion, changing sexual norms in China and Taiwan, and feminist politics in the 2008 US presidential campaign. Each chapter is interesting and important in its own right; taken together, they advance gender theory and research by developing a complex conception of sexuality that explores intersections between and amongst theories, levels of analysis and identities, linking case studies to international trends and theoretical debates to everyday experiences.