Download or read book Political Physics written by John Protevi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2001-08-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political Physics analyses the work of two of the most influential thinkers of our time - Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze. The book takes the reader on a transversal journey, crossing the boundaries of philosophy and science.Political Physics explores the limits and strengths of Derridean and Deleuzean philosophical approaches. Focussing on their differing approaches to the question of the 'body politic' - in all its registers, from the physical-chemical body, to the economic, the social and the political body - the book reveals a profound difference in ontological commitment. The book argues that the straightforward materialism of Deleuzean philosophy can operate across the range of analysis whereas Derridean deconstruction effectively operates at the level of reason, consciousness and culture.Cross-cutting a Derridean analysis of the history of philosophy with a Deleuzian approach to creative dialogue and complexity theory, Political Physics illuminates the value of both approaches to the analysis of contemporary culture, politics and science and to the rereading of the history of ideas.

Download or read book Physics and Politics Or Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of Natural Selection and Inheritance to Political Society written by Walter Bagehot and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-07-18 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society by Walter Bagehot One peculiarity of this age is the sudden acquisition of much physical knowledge. There is scarcely a department of science or art which is the same, or at all the same, as it was fifty years ago. A new world of inventions-of railways and of telegraphs-has grown up around us which we cannot help seeing; a new world of ideas is in the air and affects us, though we do not see it. A full estimate of these effects would require a great book, and I am sure I could not write it; but I think I may usefully, in a few papers, show how, upon one or two great points, the new ideas are modifying two old sciences-politics and political economy. Even upon these points my ideas must be incomplete, for the subject is novel; but, at any rate, I may suggest some conclusions, and so show what is requisite even if I do not supply it. If we wanted to describe one of the most marked results, perhaps the most marked result, of late thought, we should say that by it everything is made 'an antiquity.' When, in former times; our ancestors thought of an antiquarian, they described him as occupied with coins, and medals, and Druids' stones; these were then the characteristic records of the decipherable past, and it was with these that decipherers busied themselves. But now there are other relics; indeed, all matter is become such. Science tries to find in each bit of earth the record of the causes which made it precisely what it is; those forces have left their trace, she knows, as much as the tact and hand of the artist left their mark on a classical gem. It would be tedious (and it is not in my way) to reckon up the ingenious questionings by which geology has made part of the earth, at least, tell part of its tale; and the answers would have been meaningless if physiology and conchology and a hundred similar sciences had not brought their aid. Such subsidiary sciences are to the decipherer of the present day what old languages were to the antiquary of other days; they construe for him the words which he discovers, they give a richness and a truth-like complexity to the picture which he paints, even in cases where the particular detail they tell is not much. But what here concerns me is that man himself has, to the eye of science, become 'an antiquity.' She tries to read, is beginning to read, knows she ought to read, in the frame of each man the result of a whole history of all his life, of what he is and what makes him so, -of all his fore-fathers, of what they were and of what made them so. Each nerve has a sort of memory of its past life, is trained or not trained, dulled or quickened, as the case may be; each feature is shaped and characterised, or left loose and meaningless, as may happen; each hand is marked with its trade and life, subdued to what it works in We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Download or read book Niels Bohr s Times written by Abraham Pais and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-10-17 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life of Niels Bohr spanned times of revolutionary change in science itself as well as its impact on society. Along with Albert Einstein, Bohr can be considered to be this century's major driving force behind the new philosophical and mathematical descriptions of the structure of the atom and the nucleus. Abraham Pais, the acclaimed biogrpaher of Albert Einstein, here traces Bohr's progress from his well-to-do origins in late nineteenth-century Denmark to his position at centre stage in the world political scene, particularly during the Second World War and the development of atomic weapons. Pais' description moves through the science as it was before Bohr, as it became because of Bohr, and thence to Bohr's scientific and philosophical legacy. That legacy is contained both in theory as it is now universally enshrined, as well as in its practice in such great Danish institutions as Riso. But more than that, Pais captures the essence of Bohr, the intensely private family figure who, despite appalling personal tragedy, became one of the most loved cultural figures of recent times.

Download or read book Physics and Politics in Revolutionary Russia written by Paul R. Josephson and published by University of California Presson Demand. This book was released on 1991 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Will certainly become one of the standard works on the history of modern scientific institutions."--Spencer Weart, American Institute of Physics

Download or read book Physics for Future Presidents written by Richard Muller and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn the science behind the headlines in this work that outlines the tools of terrorists, the dangers of nuclear power, and the reality of global warming.

Download or read book Science and Polity in France written by Charles Coulston Gillispie and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of the eighteenth century, the French dominated the world of science. And although science and politics had little to do with each other directly, there were increasingly frequent intersections. This is a study of those transactions between science and state, knowledge and power--on the eve of the French Revolution. Charles Gillispie explores how the links between science and polity in France were related to governmental reform, modernization of the economy, and professionalization of science and engineering.

Download or read book Einstein on Politics written by Albert Einstein and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-10 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most famous scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein was also one of the century's most outspoken political activists. Deeply engaged with the events of his tumultuous times, from the two world wars and the Holocaust, to the atomic bomb and the Cold War, to the effort to establish a Jewish homeland, Einstein was a remarkably prolific political writer, someone who took courageous and often unpopular stands against nationalism, militarism, anti-Semitism, racism, and McCarthyism. In Einstein on Politics, leading Einstein scholars David Rowe and Robert Schulmann gather Einstein's most important public and private political writings and put them into historical context. The book reveals a little-known Einstein--not the ineffectual and naïve idealist of popular imagination, but a principled, shrewd pragmatist whose stands on political issues reflected the depth of his humanity. Nothing encapsulates Einstein's profound involvement in twentieth-century politics like the atomic bomb. Here we read the former militant pacifist's 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany might try to develop an atomic bomb. But the book also documents how Einstein tried to explain this action to Japanese pacifists after the United States used atomic weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that spurred Einstein to call for international control of nuclear technology. A vivid firsthand view of how one of the twentieth century's greatest minds responded to the greatest political challenges of his day, Einstein on Politics will forever change our picture of Einstein's public activism and private motivations.

Download or read book Nuclear Politics written by James M. Jasper and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did nuclear energy policies in France, Sweden, and the United States, very similar at the time of the oil crisis of 1973 and 1974, diverge so greatly in the following years? In answering this question, James Jasper challenges one of the most popular trends in political analysis: explanations relying exclusively on political and economic structures to account for public policies. Jasper proposes a new cultural and state-centered approach--one heeding not only structural factors but cultural meanings, individual biographies, and elite discretion. Surveying the period from the successful commercialization of light-water-reactor technology in the early 1960s to the present, he explains the events that occurred after 1973: France built even more reactors than it needed, the United States canceled most reactor orders, and Sweden completed planned nuclear plants but decided to phase out nuclear energy by 2010. This work is based on one hundred interviews with managers, policymakers, and activists in the three countries. In addition to providing a unique theoretical perspective, it broadens our understanding of nuclear policy by looking at three countries in depth and over a long historical span. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book Science and Religion written by Yves Gingras and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today we hear renewed calls for a dialogue between science and religion: why has the old question of the relations between science and religion now returned to the public domain and what is at stake in this debate? To answer these questions, historian and sociologist of science Yves Gingras retraces the long history of the troubled relationship between science and religion, from the condemnation of Galileo for heresy in 1633 until his rehabilitation by John Paul II in 1992. He reconstructs the process of the gradual separation of science from theology and religion, showing how God and natural theology became marginalized in the scientific field in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast to the dominant trend among historians of science, Gingras argues that science and religion are social institutions that give rise to incompatible ways of knowing, rooted in different methodologies and forms of knowledge, and that there never was, and cannot be, a genuine dialogue between them. Wide-ranging and authoritative, this new book on one of the fundamental questions of Western thought will be of great interest to students and scholars of the history of science and of religion as well as to general readers who are intrigued by the new and much-publicized conversations about the alleged links between science and religion.

Download or read book Quantum Politics written by Theodore Lewis Becker and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1991-04-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quantum physics, according to Theodore Becker, provides the means for replacing outdated eighteenth-century political and economic philosophies with a new paradigm more appropriate to our current understanding of physical reality. Becker had selected contributions by a number of political scientists who subscribe to the view that a Newtonian worldview is inadequate to explain today's political phenomena. These theorists believe that the laws and findings of quantum physics provide a more appropriate scientific paradigm. Becker terms intellectual forays exploring this hypothesis thought experiments. Together they comprise a major challenge to prevailing views held by the wealthy, government officials, and corporate executives. Newtonian theory, according to one contributor to this volume, is related to classic, liberal democratic thought and thereby to indirect, representative democracy. Quantum theory is linked with participatory democratic thinking--a more direct and purer form of democracy. The book moves from a discussion of the relationship of physical and political theory to an explanation of the meaning of quantum politics. One thought experiment argues that all political perception is subjective. Another shows why the quantum focus on energy instead of momentum yields a better gauge of political stability and entropy. Among the author's compendium of ideas from the perspective of the political quantum are: quantum theory provides the scientific basis for selecting representatives by random sampling; the hydrogen citizen only captures one electron in his or her lifetime; Marxism is the most ambitious child of Newtonian Europe; and the dogma of individual freedom is hardly more than a myth. The book will elicit serious reflection on fundamental assumptions by anyone interested in government, politics, or political science.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory written by John S Dryzek and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008-06-12 with total page 898 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oxford Handbooks of Political Science are the essential guide to the state of political science today. With engaging contributions from 51 major international scholars, the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory provides the key point of reference for anyone working in political theory and beyond.

Download or read book The Philosophy of Physics written by Dean Rickles and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the future exist already? What is space? Are time machines physically possible? What is quantum mechanical reality like? Are there many universes? Is there a ‘true’ geometry of the universe? Why does there appear to be an arrow of time? Do humans play a special role in the world? In this unique introductory book, Dean Rickles guides the reader through these and other core questions that keep philosophers of physics up at night. He discusses the three pillars of modern physics (quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and the theories of relativity), in addition to more cutting-edge themes such as econophysics, quantum gravity, quantum computers, and gauge theories. The book’s approach is based on the idea that philosophy of physics is a kind of ‘interpretation game’ in which we try to map physical theories onto our world. But the rules of this game often lead to a multiplicity of possible victors: rarely do we encounter a simple answer. The Philosophy of Physics offers a highly accessible introduction to the latest developments in this exciting field. Written in a lively style, with many visual examples, it will appeal to beginner-level students in both physics and philosophy.

Download or read book The Political Machine written by Adam T. Smith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Political Machine investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, Adam Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things—from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. Smith looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance—and he considers how these developments continue to shape politics today. Smith shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or "machines" sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortify political power even in the contemporary world. Smith provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule. From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, The Political Machine sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.

Download or read book Game Theory for Political Scientists written by James D. Morrow and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game theory is the mathematical analysis of strategic interaction. In the fifty years since the appearance of von Neumann and Morgenstern's classic Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton, 1944), game theory has been widely applied to problems in economics. Until recently, however, its usefulness in political science has been underappreciated, in part because of the technical difficulty of the methods developed by economists. James Morrow's book is the first to provide a standard text adapting contemporary game theory to political analysis. It uses a minimum of mathematics to teach the essentials of game theory and contains problems and their solutions suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in all branches of political science. Morrow begins with classical utility and game theory and ends with current research on repeated games and games of incomplete information. The book focuses on noncooperative game theory and its application to international relations, political economy, and American and comparative politics. Special attention is given to models of four topics: bargaining, legislative voting rules, voting in mass elections, and deterrence. An appendix reviews relevant mathematical techniques. Brief bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter suggest further readings, graded according to difficulty. This rigorous but accessible introduction to game theory will be of use not only to political scientists but also to psychologists, sociologists, and others in the social sciences.

Download or read book Reinventing Discovery written by Michael Nielsen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Reinventing Discovery argues that we are in the early days of the most dramatic change in how science is done in more than 300 years. This change is being driven by new online tools, which are transforming and radically accelerating scientific discovery"--

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions written by R. A. W. Rhodes and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-06-12 with total page 836 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of political institutions is among the founding pillars of political science. With the rise of the 'new institutionalism', the study of institutions has returned to its place in the sun. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of where we are in the study of political institutions, covering both the traditional concerns of political science with constitutions, federalism and bureaucracy and more recent interest in theory and the constructed nature of institutions. The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions draws together a galaxy of distinguished contributors drawn from leading universities across the world. Authoritative reviews of the literature and assessments of future research directions will help to set the research agenda for the next decade.

Download or read book Art Science and the Politics of Knowledge written by Hannah Star Rogers and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the tools of STS can be used to understand art and science and the practices of these knowledge-making communities. In Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge, Hannah Star Rogers suggests that art and science are not as different from each other as we might assume. She shows how the tools of science and technology studies (STS) can be applied to artistic practice, offering new ways of thinking about people and objects that have largely fallen outside the scope of STS research. Arguing that the categories of art and science are labels with specific powers to order social worlds—and that art and science are best understood as networks that produce knowledge—Rogers shows, through a series of cases, the similarities and overlapping practices of these knowledge communities. The cases, which range from nineteenth-century artisans to contemporary bioartists, illustrate how art can provide the basis for a new subdiscipline called art, science, and technology studies (ASTS), offering hybrid tools for investigating art–science collaborations. Rogers’s subjects include the work of father and son glassblowers, the Blaschkas, whose glass models, produced in the nineteenth century for use in biological classification, are now displayed as works of art; the physics photographs of documentary photographer Berenice Abbott; and a bioart lab that produces work functioning as both artwork and scientific output. Finally, Rogers, an STS scholar and contemporary art–science curator, draws on her own work to consider the concept of curation as a form of critical analysis.