Convinced that the crisis in contemporary Western philosophy rises from the sundering of moral or value considerations from notions of rationality and the nature of reality, Deutsch (philosophy, U. of Hawai'i) advocates a kind of pluralistic but not relativistic philosophical anthropology, ontology, ethics, and epistemology in a cross-cultural context. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
"This is the account of twenty-three years of wilderness wandering, sea voyages and overland treks to survey the earth, with no home or possessions other than what fit in my trusty backpack. There was no specific destination in mind except to visit countries, not the airports and luxury hotels but the country itself, to experience local culture and ways of life. This entailed sleeping in tribesmen's huts and cheap hostels and using local transportation whenever possible: traversing jungle roads packed eighteen souls to a single Peugeot station wagon in Guinea-Bissau, boating the length of the Amazon snacking on roasted piranha, and hitchhiking across Iraq during the war. I've floated on dilapidated ferries across surging estuaries, ridden horseback or in military trucks across deserts and plains, followed the course of rivers, crossed wastelands, bused and trekked through deep jungle, traversed mountain ranges and lounged on the remotest beaches. I adopted local customs and ate local food: roasted goat's eye as the guest of honour at a Mongolian tribal feast, alligator nuggets, mystery kabobs, ‘bush meat' ubiquitous to certain regions of Africa ... but drew the line at wheelbarrows brimming over with smoked monkey corpses. A man's got to know his limitations." --Mike Spencer Bown In 1990, Calgary-raised Mike Spencer Bown packed a backpack and began a journey that would eventually take him through each of the world's 195 countries and span more than two decades. From relaxing on the white sand beaches of Bali to waiting out blizzards in Tibetan caves, Bown trekked from country to country, driven by a desire to see the world in the most authentic way possible, not to just collect stamps on his passport. Eventually, he began to earn international recognition for some of his more unconventional destinations--such as a memorable trip to war-torn Mogadishu. The World's Most Travelled Man is an eye-opening account of the universal human experience as seen from each corner of the changing world. Blending a romantic connection to nature through solitude and the social examination of culture, Bown fully immerses himself in each experience, however diverse, dangerous or dirty, veering way, way off the backpacker circuit to see the world through an unparalleled perspective. The World's Most Travelled Man is a journey of global proportions shared with the humility of a man who simply wants to satisfy his own curiosity and live life to the fullest.
Philosophically Thinking about World Religions is different from other works in the discipline today. It deviates from the typical approaches used for the study of world religions. Its goal is to engage readers in thinking hard about world religions, not about the data surrounding those traditions. By focusing on philosophical questions, each reader should be challenged to do their own investigations that may reveal the heart of these traditions. Another stance that this project takes that distinguishes it from other texts in the discipline is that it advocates an inclusivist perspective regarding the world religions. Pluralism, which is the predominate assumption today, ends either in contradiction or in the development of a metatheory that dismisses crucial distinctions between the various traditions or eliminates some ancient religions because they do not fit the metatheory. By taking an open inclusivist approach, all religious traditions may engage at the table of dialogue. The final essay is about justice and social affairs. While that discussion is couched within the context of a particular tradition, each religious tradition must have the discussion. But it must be more than an intrareligious dialogue; it must become an interreligious dialogue.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.
This book integrates secular literature such as psychology, sociology, management, and organization studies with Christian and spiritual biblical literature. This book explores the importance of human worth in our personal and professional lives through an interdisciplinary approach that integrates human and societal worth with Christian and spiritual worth. Moreover, the book highlights values that receive little or no attention in secular literature. Overall, this book shows readers how human worth is often manipulated and undermined within societal worth in contrast to Christian worth with implications for cultivating leadership and education. This book focuses more on the biblical texts rather than the theological differences. In addition, this book situates itself on common biblical interests across Christian church denominations worldwide rather than exploring more on the secular cultural differences. This book positions itself from a non-denominational and Western perspective with a focus on biblical texts, theology, and secular literature. Readers that would be interested in this book are scholars and students in religion, ethics, and spirituality.
The central philosophical challenge of metaethics is to account for the normativity of moral judgment without abandoning or seriously compromising moral realism. In Morality in a Natural World, David Copp defends a version of naturalistic moral realism that can accommodate the normativity of morality. Moral naturalism is often thought to face special metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic problems as well as the difficulty in accounting for normativity. In the ten essays included in this volume, Copp defends solutions to these problems. Three of the essays are new, while seven have previously been published. All of them are concerned with the viability of naturalistic and realistic accounts of the nature of morality, or, more generally, with the viability of naturalistic accounts of reasons.
How people understand God has significant implications for their worldview. Unlike traditional apologetic approaches that seek to establish God's existence through purely abductive reasoning, A Personal God and A Good World adopts a more nuanced approach, delving into the intricacies of modified classical theism, a form of theism that emphasizes God's personal nature. Ronnie Campbell and David Baggett, a philosopher and a theologian, seamlessly blend their expertise to present a comprehensive and engaging examination of this theological framework. The book is structured into three distinct parts, intended to unravel the complexities of theistic personalism and its implications for morality. Part One provides a comprehensive defense of Anselmian theism and its alignment with the concept of moral truths. Part Two delves deeper into modified classical theism, defending its validity and highlighting its strengths. Finally, Part Three showcases the relevance of the Triune God of Christian theism in illuminating the moral landscape of our universe. Through a series of compelling arguments, the authors demonstrate how the Christian understanding of God provides a profound and meaningful explanation for the existence of moral truths and values. A Personal God and A Good World is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the connection between the Christian view of God and morality. Through its rigorous philosophical and theological analysis, the book challenges readers to reexamine their own beliefs and consider the profound implications of God's existence in shaping a moral and just world.
After fi fty years of futile research on mind and behavior, trying to fi nd their causes in the brain, without success, psychiatrists and psychologists are turning their attention to the emotions, also looking for their causes in the brain, also without success. The problem is that there is no generally accepted theory or paradigm for understanding the emotions. William James suggested that such a paradigm must meet two criteria: (1) it must explain each individual emotion (i.e., anxiety, anger, depression, etc.), and (2) it must relate all the emotions to each other. This book presents such a paradigm. It is based on the accepted biological principle that all organisms from the lowest to the highest function in two biological motives, which I call bipolar reactivity. All organisms seek pleasure and/or that which sustains and promotes life, and all organisms seek to avoid pain and/or that which threatens or disables life. Interestingly, this biological principle corresponds to a basic principle of Buddhist psychology that the pain we cause to ourselves and to each other is caused by the Three Poisons: desire, aversion, and ego. Desire and aversion link humans to the great chain of being, and ego distinguishes humans from all other beings and recognizes our unique capacity for symbolic reactivity. I have used this paradigm for fi fty years in my practice of psychotherapy and have found it very useful for understanding my patients' mental and emotional pain and helping them to understand and heal themselves.
