The Constitution of Knowledge
The Constitution of Knowledge

Author: Jonathan Rauch

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2021-06-22

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0815738870

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Arming Americans to defend the truth from today's war on facts “In what could be the timeliest book of the year, Rauch aims to arm his readers to engage with reason in an age of illiberalism.” —Newsweek A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood. In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods, and too often didn't even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: “cancel culture.” At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony. In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”—our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do—and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone.

Original Meanings
Original Meanings

Author: Jack N. Rakove

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-04-21

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0307434516

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From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times to different groups of Americans.

The Constitution of Society
The Constitution of Society

Author: Anthony Giddens

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-06-28

Total Pages: 585

ISBN-13: 0745665284

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Anthony Giddens has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade. In The Constitution of Society he outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form. A particular feature is Giddens's concern to connect abstract problems of theory to an interpretation of the nature of empirical method in the social sciences. In presenting his own ideas, Giddens mounts a critical attack on some of the more orthodox sociological views. The Constitution of Society is an invaluable reference book for all those concerned with the basic issues in contemporary social theory.

The Constitution of Algorithms
The Constitution of Algorithms

Author: Florian Jaton

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-04-27

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0262542145

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A laboratory study that investigates how algorithms come into existence. Algorithms--often associated with the terms big data, machine learning, or artificial intelligence--underlie the technologies we use every day, and disputes over the consequences, actual or potential, of new algorithms arise regularly. In this book, Florian Jaton offers a new way to study computerized methods, providing an account of where algorithms come from and how they are constituted, investigating the practical activities by which algorithms are progressively assembled rather than what they may suggest or require once they are assembled.

Kindly Inquisitors
Kindly Inquisitors

Author: Jonathan Rauch

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 022613055X

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The classic “compelling defense of free speech against its new enemies” now in an expanded edition with a foreword by George F. Will (Kirkus Reviews). “A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism; it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will.” So writes Jonathan Rauch in Kindly Inquisitors, which has challenged readers for decades with its provocative analysis of attempts to limit free speech. In it, Rauch makes a persuasive argument for the value of “liberal science” and the idea that conflicting views produce knowledge within society. In this expanded edition of Kindly Inquisitors, a new foreword by George F. Will explores the book’s continued relevance, while a substantial new afterword by Rauch elaborates upon his original argument and brings it fully up to date. Two decades after the book’s initial publication, the regulation of hate speech has grown both domestically and internationally. But the answer to prejudice, Rauch argues, is pluralism—not purism. Rather than attempting to legislate bias and prejudice out of existence, we must pit them against one another to foster a more vigorous and fruitful discussion. It is this process, Rauch argues, that will enable our society to replace hate with knowledge, both ethical and empirical.

The Constitution of Social Practices
The Constitution of Social Practices

Author: Kevin McMillan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1351717731

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Practices – specific, recurrent types of human action and activity – are perhaps the most fundamental "building blocks" of social reality. This book argues that the detailed empirical study of practices is essential to effective social-scientific inquiry. It develops a philosophical infrastructure for understanding human practices, and argues that practice theory should be the analytical centrepiece of social theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. What would social scientists’ research look like if they took these insights seriously? To answer this question, the book offers an analytical framework to guide empirical research on practices in different times and places. The author explores how practices can be identified, characterised and explained, how they function in concrete contexts and how they might change over time and space. The Constitution of Social Practices lies at the intersection of philosophy, social theory, cultural theory and the social sciences. It is essential reading for scholars in social theory and the philosophy of social science, as well as the broad range of researchers and students across the social sciences and humanities whose work stands to benefit from serious consideration of practices.

The Constitution in Jeopardy
The Constitution in Jeopardy

Author: Russ Feingold

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2022-08-30

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1541701542

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A former U.S. senator joins a legal scholar to examine a hushed effort to radically change our Constitution, offering a warning and a way forward. Over the last two decades, a fringe plan to call a convention under the Constitution's amendment mechanism—the nation's first ever—has inched through statehouses. Delegates, like those in Philadelphia two centuries ago, would exercise nearly unlimited authority to draft changes to our fundamental law, potentially altering anything from voting and free speech rights to regulatory and foreign policy powers. Such a watershed moment would present great danger, and for some, great power. In this important book, Feingold and Prindiville distill extensive legal and historical research and examine the grave risks inherent in this effort. But they also consider the role of constitutional amendment in modern life. Though many focus solely on judicial and electoral avenues for change, such an approach is at odds with a cornerstone ideal of the Founding: that the People make constitutional law, directly. In an era defined by faction and rejection of long-held norms, The Constitution in Jeopardy examines the nature of constitutional change and asks urgent questions about what American democracy is, and should be.

America's Unwritten Constitution
America's Unwritten Constitution

Author: Akhil Reed Amar

Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)

Published: 2012-09-11

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 0465029574

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Reading between the lines: America's implicit Constitution -- Heeding the deed: America's enacted Constitution -- Hearing the people: America's lived Constitution -- Confronting modern case law: America's "warrented" Constitution -- Putting precedent in its place: America's doctrinal Constitution -- Honoring the icons: America's symbolic Constitution -- "Remembering the ladies" : America's feminist Constitution -- Following Washington's lead: America's "Georgian" Constitution -- Interpreting government practices: America's institutional Constitution -- Joining the party: America's partisan Constitution -- Doing the right thing: America's conscientious Constitution -- Envisioning the future: America's unfinished Constitution -- Afterward -- Appendix: America's written Constitution.

What You Should Know About the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights
What You Should Know About the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Author: John Coleman

Publisher: Bridger House Pub

Published: 2016-05-13

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9781893157033

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A book like no other book ever written about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Some of the most priceless constitutional gems are found in these pages. Dr. Coleman has done 26 year of research to find them, putting together a highly-readable book which provides insight into the articles and amendments to the Constitution. It shows their true intent and purpose in sharp relief, and what it is that make this document so great and so lasting. "What You Should Know About the United States Constitution" is a telling blow to those enemies of this nation who are seeking to destroy our Republic. "Knowledge is power" which the book provides in full measure, enabling every citizen to understand and defend the United States against enemies, external and internal.

If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution
If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution

Author: Elizabeth Levy

Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13: 9780590451598

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This behind-the-scenes study of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 details the events of the convention, the debate over constitutional issues, and the delegates