Starting from S&øren Kierkegaard's insight that fully accepting the human condition requires one to live with the persistent temptation to escape from it, Ronald Hall finds similar concerns reflected in the work of two modern-day philosophers, Stanley Cavell and Martha Nussbaum, who equally find in a philosophy of love and marriage the key to understanding how humans may achieve happiness in the acceptance of their humanity. All three thinkers follow a &"logic of paradox&" in showing how success in the human quest to be human depends crucially on the struggle humans experience with the ever-present opportunities to pursue alternative paths. What Kierkegaard called &"living existentially&" can be achieved only after confronting and refusing the possibilities of living in &"aesthetic,&" &"ethical,&" or even &"religious&" denial of one's true humanity. By creating this dialogue between the nineteenth-century Danish thinker and two eminent twentieth-century philosophers, Hall reveals the continuing relevance of Kierkegaard's thought to our own age and its cogency as an interpretation of the human predicament.
Starting from S&øren Kierkegaard's insight that fully accepting the human condition requires one to live with the persistent temptation to escape from it, Ronald Hall finds similar concerns reflected in the work of two modern-day philosophers, Stanley Cavell and Martha Nussbaum, who equally find in a philosophy of love and marriage the key to understanding how humans may achieve happiness in the acceptance of their humanity. All three thinkers follow a &"logic of paradox&" in showing how success in the human quest to be human depends crucially on the struggle humans experience with the ever-present opportunities to pursue alternative paths. What Kierkegaard called &"living existentially&" can be achieved only after confronting and refusing the possibilities of living in &"aesthetic,&" &"ethical,&" or even &"religious&" denial of one's true humanity. By creating this dialogue between the nineteenth-century Danish thinker and two eminent twentieth-century philosophers, Hall reveals the continuing relevance of Kierkegaard's thought to our own age and its cogency as an interpretation of the human predicament.
Comic, elegaic, and always formally intricate, using political allegory and painterly landscape, philosophic story and dramatic monologue, these poems describe a moment when something marvelous and unforeseen alters the course of a single day, a year, or an entire life.
To be free is to escape all limitations and obstacles&—or so we think at first. But if we probe further, we discover that freedom embraces its own necessities, a set of conditions without which it could not exist. Freedom's Embrace explores these necessities of freedom. J. Melvin Woody surveys competing conceptions of freedom and traces debates about the nature and reality of freedom to confusions about knowledge, humanity, and nature that are rooted in some of the most fundamental assumptions of modern Western thought. The preemption of freedom as an exclusively human privilege with all nature relegated to mechanical necessity is a fatal error that renders both humanity and nature equally unintelligible. What distinguishes human beings from other animals is not freedom but the use of symbols, which vastly extends the range of available options and enables us to envision freedom as an ideal by which customary institutions and norms may be judged and transformed. By carefully surveying its necessary conditions and limitations, Woody reconciles the salient competing conceptions of freedom and weaves them together into a richer and broader theory that resolves old controversies and opens the way toward an ethics of freedom that can meet the challenges of relativism and nihilism that arise from recognizing the historicity and malleability of culture.
Winner of the Believer Book Award The triumphant follow-up collection to The Game of Boxes, winner of the James Laughlin Award Catherine Barnett’s tragicomic third collection, Human Hours, shuttles between a Whitmanian embrace of others and a kind of rapacious solitude. Barnett speaks from the middle of hope and confusion, carrying philosophy into the everyday. Watching a son become a young man, a father become a restless beloved shell, and a country betray its democratic ideals, the speakers try to make sense of such departures. Four lyric essays investigate the essential urge and appeal of questions that are “accursed,” that are limited—and unanswered—by answers. What are we to do with the endangered human hours that remain to us? Across the leaps and swerves of this collection, the fevered mind tries to slow—or at least measure—time with quiet bravura: by counting a lover’s breaths; by remembering a father’s space-age watch; by envisioning the apocalyptic future while bedding down on a hard, cold floor, head resting on a dictionary. Human Hours pulses with the absurd, with humor that accompanies the precariousness of the human condition.
Life and humanity are integral parts of being a human. Living a human life as an individual interacting with others in a dynamic and rapidly-changing world is not easy. There is often more confusion than clarity and more unknown than known. Complacency can take opportunities to learn away swiftly from one’s attention, leaving one puzzling why one is left behind. There are so many areas, issues, and perspectives that one may have to deal with along one’s own life trajectory. The majority of them manifest as challenges that may turn into a fortune or misfortune or simply learning experiences depending on how one could deal with them. The conceptual integration of pinpoint moments and illustrative factual illuminations may help one imagine or visualize the processes of image formations and reality manifestations. Metaphorically, the mandalas herein are the imagery displays of a human’s cognition concerning beings and life-livings of humans in the context of natural, symbolic, and social environments. The written part of this book includes many aspects of humans’ lives accumulated from the writer’s learning experiences and observations that may or may not completely resonate with others. It covers only a little fraction, neither comprehensive nor exhaustive, of the reality. It’s merely an attempt to lighten the important linkages between (among) humans and societal developments, thereby leading to a wishful promotion of everyone’s natural rights and courage to live a meaningful life with dignity, liberty, and peace. Navigation and application of humans’ collective intelligence can constructively change the impossible to the possible and the hopeless to the hopeful. A chance to learn and realize the immeasurable values of life and humanity is so important that everyone should have it; humans’ love, kindness, empathy, compassion, intelligence, collaborative efforts, and effective actions can make it affordable.
Every day, new warnings emerge about artificial intelligence rebelling against us. All the while, a more immediate dilemma flies under the radar. Have forces been unleashed that are thrusting humanity down an ill-advised path, one that's increasingly making us behave like simple machines? In this wide-reaching, interdisciplinary book, Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger examine what's happening to our lives as society embraces big data, predictive analytics, and smart environments. They explain how the goal of designing programmable worlds goes hand in hand with engineering predictable and programmable people. Detailing new frameworks, provocative case studies, and mind-blowing thought experiments, Frischmann and Selinger reveal hidden connections between fitness trackers, electronic contracts, social media platforms, robotic companions, fake news, autonomous cars, and more. This powerful analysis should be read by anyone interested in understanding exactly how technology threatens the future of our society, and what we can do now to build something better.
About the Book: Unlock the Power Within ! … A Guide to Leadership Excellence Discover the key to unlocking your true potential with this indispensable book, tailored specifically for those in executive positions across private and government organizations. From the ambitious junior employee to the seasoned top-tier executive, this enlightening read offers invaluable insights and strategies to propel your career to unprecedented heights. Embracing a diverse range of readers, including entrepreneurs and individuals in influential leadership roles, even within the political arena, this book is a beacon of wisdom for those committed to the collective welfare of society, the betterment of our communities and the transformation of our nation. The book will help the readers to strive to make Bharat/India … a shining example of greatness on the global stage. Calling all aspiring Leaders of Tomorrow ! This book is an essential companion on the journey to become an effective and efficient leader in the near future. With its practical advice and visionary concepts, it equips you with the tools necessary to ascend the stairs of success at an accelerated pace. Don't miss out on this invaluable resource … it's a must-read for students who dare to dream big and are determined to make a lasting impact. ‘Satyamev Jayate’ … not a mere a slogan, it reflects the core values and aspirations of the Indian people. It encapsulates the timeless and universal principle that truth has the power to overcome darkness and lead to a better world. It serves as a constant reminder for individuals and society to uphold truth, righteousness and moral values in all endeavours. Let all of us rethink … The book provides an opportunity for an introspection by all the readers and to re-think about their current style of leadership and how it could really be for better governance, … throws light on various steps for perusal and also the suggested actions for implementation at ground level. About the Author: BK & Vir Sapan Kumar Bardhan is an author and a veteran stalwart of national repute in the field of Total Quality Management (TQM), Life Coaching, People & Organisation/Human Resource Development, Integrated Management Systems & Assessments, Training & Business Consulting. He is a Civil Engineer by profession but Professionally Qualified in TQM through IRD Inc. USA & AOTS, Japan along with a vast number of prestigious National & International Certifications in Lean Management & IMS Auditing and Business Process Re-engineering. Mr. Sapan is a motivational speaker too and has an enriched experience of about forty five years in Industries, which includes Senior Positions in large corporates, Consulting Faculty, Trainer and Assessor of numerous organisations. His first book ‘Unfolding Success‘ -Amazon Bestseller has acted like a guiding lighthouse to many readers and continues to inspire new readers.
What if you could be smarter, stronger, and have a better memory just by taking a pill? What if we could alter our genes to cure Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s? What if we could halt or even reverse the human aging process? What if we could communicate with each othersimply by thinking about it? These questions were once the stuff of science fiction. Today, advances in biotechnology have shown that they’re plausible, even likely to be accomplished in the near future. In labs around the world, researchers looking for ways to help the sick and injured have stumbled onto techniques that enhance healthy animals—making them stronger, faster, smarter, and longer-lived—in some cases, even connecting their minds to robots and computers across the Internet. Now science is on the verge of applying this knowledge to healthy men and women, allowing us to alter humanity in ways we’d previously only dreamed possible. The same research that could cure Alzheimer’s is leading to drugs and genetic techniques that could boost human intelligence. The techniques being developed to stave off heart disease and cancer have the potential to slow or even reverse human aging. And brain implants that restore motion to the paralyzed and sight to the blind are already allowing a small set of patients to control robots and computers simply by thinking about it. Not everyone welcomes this scientific progress. Cries of “against nature” arise from skeptics even as scientists break new ground at an astounding pace. Across the political spectrum, the debate roils: Should we embrace the power to alter our minds and bodies, or should we restrict it? Distilling the most radical accomplishments being made in labs worldwide, including gene therapy, genetic engineering, stem cell research, life extension, brain-computer interfaces, and cloning,More Than Humanoffers an exciting tour of the impact biotechnology will have on our lives. Throughout this remarkable trip, author Ramez Naam shares an impassioned vision for the future with revealing insight into the ethical dilemmas posed by twenty-first-century science. Encouraging us to celebrate rather than fear these innovations, Naam incisively separates fact from myth, arguing that these much-maligned technologies have the power to transform the human race for the better, so long as individuals and families are left free to decide how and if to use them. If you’ve ever wondered about the boundaries of humanity,More Than Humanoffers a vision of a world where we use our knowledge to improve ourselves, unhindered by the fear of change.
Posthuman Suffering investigates the core assumptions of posthumanist discourse via philosophy, cultural studies, psychoanalytic theory, and close textual and filmic readings of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, Don DeLillo's White Noise and Steven Spielberg's film, AI: Artificial Intelligence, bringing the more ontological and epistemological implications of posthumanism to the forefront. In the age of technology our own limitations are legitimized as unique to the human condition.
