Download or read book The Delusions of Certainty written by Siri Hustvedt and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE EUROPEAN ESSAY PRIZE FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHAT I LOVED 'It's hard to overstate the pleasure and the comfort that such demystification provides . . . it does indeed make the world feel larger, more expansive, more alive to the touch' Vivian Gornick, New York Times Book Review Prizewinning novelist, feminist, and scholar Siri Hustvedt turns her brilliant and critical eye toward the metaphysical issues of neuropsychology in this lauded, standalone volume. Originally published in her collection A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, The Delusions of Certainty exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped - and often distorted and confused - contemporary thought in neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary psychology. PRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT: 'Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom' Salman Rushdie 'One of our finest novelists' Oliver Sacks 'Reading a Hustvedt novel is like consuming the best of David Lynch' Financial Times 'Few contemporary writers are as satisfying and stimulating to read as Siri Hustvedt' Washington Post
Download or read book A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women written by Siri Hustvedt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling, radical, “richly explored” (The New York Times Book Review), and “insightful” (Vanity Fair) collection of essays on art, feminism, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy from prize-winning novelist Siri Hustvedt, the acclaimed author of The Blazing World and What I Loved. In a trilogy of works brought together in a single volume, Siri Hustvedt demonstrates the striking range and depth of her knowledge in both the humanities and the sciences. Armed with passionate curiosity, a sense of humor, and insights from many disciplines she repeatedly upends received ideas and cultural truisms. “A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women” (which provided the title of this book) examines particular artworks but also human perception itself, including the biases that influence how we judge art, literature, and the world. Picasso, de Kooning, Louise Bourgeois, Anselm Kiefer, Susan Sontag, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Karl Ove Knausgaard all come under Hustvedt’s intense scrutiny. “The Delusions of Certainty” exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped and often distorted and confused contemporary thought in neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary psychology. “What Are We? Lectures on the Human Condition” includes a powerful reading of Kierkegaard, a trenchant analysis of suicide, and penetrating reflections on the mysteries of hysteria, synesthesia, memory and space, and the philosophical dilemmas of fiction. A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women is an “erudite” (Booklist), “wide-ranging, irreverent, and absorbing meditation on thinking, knowing, and being” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
Download or read book The Halo Effect written by Phil Rosenzweig and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-09 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some companies prosper while others fail? Despite great amounts of research, many of the studies that claim to pin down the secret of success are based in pseudoscience. THE HALO EFFECT is the outcome of that pseudoscience, a myth that Philip Rosenzweig masterfully debunks in THE HALO EFFECT. THE HALO EFFECT highlights the tendency of experts to point to the high financial performance of a successful company and then spread its golden glow to all of the company's attributes - clear strategy, strong values, and brilliant leadership. But in fact, as Rosenzweig clearly illustrates, the experts are not just wrong, but deluded. Rosenzweig suggests a more accurate way to think about leading a company, a robust and clearheaded approach that can save any business from ultimate failure.
Download or read book Beyond Redemption written by Michael R. Fletcher and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Set in a world where madness equates to power . . . An alarming, original and compulsive tale laced with a blackly comic sensibility.” —Anthony Ryan, New York Times–bestselling author A darkly imaginative writer in the tradition of Joe Abercrombie, Peter V. Brett, and Neil Gaiman conjures a gritty mind-bending fantasy, set in a world where delusion becomes reality . . . and the fulfillment of humanity’s desires may well prove to be its undoing. Faith shapes the landscape, defines the laws of physics, and makes a mockery of truth. Common knowledge isn’t an axiom, it’s a force of nature. What the masses believe is. But insanity is a weapon, conviction a shield. Delusions give birth to foul new gods. Violent and dark, the world is filled with the Geisteskranken—men and women whose delusions manifest, twisting reality. High Priest Konig seeks to create order from chaos. He defines the beliefs of his followers, leading their faith to one end: a young boy, Morgen, must Ascend to become a god. A god they can control. But there are many who would see this would-be-god in their thrall, including the High Priest’s own Doppels, and a Slaver no one can resist. Three reprobates—The Greatest Swordsman in the World, a murderous Kleptic, and possibly the only sane man left—have their own nefarious plans for the young god. As these forces converge on the boy, there’s one more obstacle: time is running out. When one’s delusions become more powerful, they become harder to control. The fate of the Geisteskranken is to inevitably find oneself in the Afterdeath. The question, then, is: Who will rule there?
Download or read book The End Of The World Delusion written by Justin Deering and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-05 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The End-of-the-World Delusion is a well-written, thoroughly researched, and very readable book. Deering's lively narrative makes complex and complicated topics accessible to the average reader. He certainly pulled me into his book despite my cynical view of the topic. Deering offers the reader riveting histories of end-of-the world beliefs and covers an extraordinary array of ground in this well-researched book, discussing everything from the Mayan end-of-times predictions, Christian rapture beliefs, pandemics, economic doomsday scenarios, and other apocalyptic predictions. Robert Watson, PhD, author/editor of thirty-four books, including The Presidents' Wives and America's War on Terror People from many different corners of civilization seem to be saying the same thing: the end is near. In The End-of-the-World Delusion, author Justin Deering explores such scenarios, discussing why they are not likely to occur or have any visible impact on this planet within our lifetime. Providing a thorough analysis, Deering chronicles the numerous instances of such predictions throughout history, examines frequent religious and cultural sources of these end-of-world claims, analyzes the sociological and psychological dynamics and dangers, and outlines other forms of end-times beliefs, ranging from religious to pop culture in nature. The End-of-the-World Delusion provides concrete information that helps evaluate these dubious assertions, relates how such beliefs have harmed individuals and society, and talks about why people are inclined to nurture such beliefs in the first place. Setting the record straight by detailing the history of failed doomsdays, Deering shows that nothing can be gained by worrying about the end of time, and that we must learn a lesson from the past, live in the present, and plan for the future.
Download or read book Memories of the Future written by Siri Hustvedt and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence A provocative, exuberant novel about time, memory, desire, and the imagination from the internationally bestselling and prizewinning author of The Blazing World, Memories of the Future tells the story of a young Midwestern woman’s first year in New York City in the late 1970s and her obsession with her mysterious neighbor, Lucy Brite. As she listens to Lucy through the thin walls of her dilapidated building, S.H., aka “Minnesota,” transcribes her neighbor’s bizarre and increasingly ominous monologues in a notebook, along with sundry other adventures, until one frightening night when Lucy bursts into her apartment on a rescue mission. Forty years later, S.H., now a veteran author, discovers her old notebook, as well as early drafts of a never-completed novel while moving her aging mother from one facility to another. Ingeniously juxtaposing the various texts, S.H. measures what she remembers against what she wrote that year and has since forgotten to create a dialogue between selves across decades. The encounter both collapses time and reframes its meanings in the present. Elaborately structured, intellectually rigorous, urgently paced, poignant, and often wildly funny, Memories of the Future brings together themes that have made Hustvedt among the most celebrated novelists working today: the fallibility of memory; gender mutability; the violence of patriarchy; the vagaries of perception; the ambiguous borders between sensation and thought, sanity and madness; and our dependence on primal drives such as sex, love, hunger, and rage.
Download or read book Delusions Etc of John Berryman written by John Berryman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1972 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry by John Berryman including the poems under "Opus Dei" and "Scherzo."
Download or read book Mysteries of the Rectangle written by Siri Hustvedt and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2006-08-10 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Hustvedt gives us nine essays on the significance of particular works of art, replete with original insights and a few startling discoveries. In her essay on Giorgione's The Tempest, a painting that has mystified art critics for hundreds of years, the author reinterprets the canvas as a work about art and voyeurism. While looking at The Third of May, she was astonished to discover that Goya had hidden his own self-portrait in a shadowy corner of his iconic masterwork. More than anything, the essays in this book display a true passion for art, from the still lifes of Jean-Baptiste Chardin and Giorgio Morandi to the contemporary works of Joan Mitchell and Gerhard Richter. Hustvedt captures perfectly the pleasure found in giving oneself up to the complexities and ambiguities of painting, discovering new subtleties and surprises the longer one takes the time to look.--Back cover.
Download or read book Delusions of Invulnerability written by G.E.R. Lloyd and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How were the aims of philosophy and the responsibilities of philosophers conceived in ancient Greece and China? How were the learned elite recruited and controlled; how were their speculations and advice influenced by the different types of audiences they faced and the institutions in which they worked? How was a yearning for invulnerability reconciled with a sense of human frailty? In each chapter of this fascinating analysis ancient Greek and Chinese ideas and practices are used as a basis for critical reflections on the predicaments we continue to face today, with a particular focus on the key Greek ideas of the equal participation of all citizens in the political process, and on the key Chinese one of a dedication to the ideal of the welfare of all under heaven
Download or read book Fooled by Randomness written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-10-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Fooled by Randomness is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb–veteran trader, renowned risk expert, polymathic scholar, erudite raconteur, and New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan–has written a modern classic that turns on its head what we believe about luck and skill. This book is about luck–or more precisely, about how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill–the world of trading–Fooled by Randomness provides captivating insight into one of the least understood factors in all our lives. Writing in an entertaining narrative style, the author tackles major intellectual issues related to the underestimation of the influence of happenstance on our lives. The book is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: the baseball legend Yogi Berra; the philosopher of knowledge Karl Popper; the ancient world’s wisest man, Solon; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Odysseus. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life but falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness. However, the most recognizable character of all remains unnamed–the lucky fool who happens to be in the right place at the right time–he embodies the “survival of the least fit.” Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru’s insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained by chance. Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? It may be impossible to guard ourselves against the vagaries of the goddess Fortuna, but after reading Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared. Named by Fortune One of the Smartest Books of All Time A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year
Download or read book The Master and His Emissary written by Iain McGilchrist and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of the bestselling classic – published with a special introduction to mark its 10th anniversary This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain – the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the ‘rational’ side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master. As he shows, it is the right side which is the more reliable and insightful. Without it, our world would be mechanistic – stripped of depth, colour and value.
Download or read book One Century of Karl Jaspers General Psychopathology written by Giovanni Stanghellini and published by . This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2013 sees the centenary of Jaspers' foundation of psychopathology as a science with the publication of his magnum opus the Allgemeine Psychopathologie (General Psychopathology), Many of the issues concerning methodology and diagnosis are today the subject of much discussion and debate. This volume brings together leading psychiatrists and philosophers to discuss the impact of this volume, its relevance today, and the legacy it left.
Download or read book Mipham s Beacon of Certainty written by John W. Pettit and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dzogchen--the oft-misunderstood Tibetan meditation practice--is dissected inreat detail here, revealing the buried rational origins and interpretationf this spiritual practice. Original.
Download or read book Living Thinking Looking written by Siri Hustvedt and published by Picador. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The internationally acclaimed novelist Siri Hustvedt has also produced a growing body of nonfiction. She has published a book of essays on painting (Mysteries of the Rectangle) as well as an interdisciplinary investigation of a neurological disorder (The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves). She has given lectures on artists and theories of art at the Prado, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 2011, she delivered the thirty-ninth annual Freud Lecture in Vienna. Living, Thinking, Looking brings together thirty-two essays written between 2006 and 2011, in which the author culls insights from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, and literature. The book is divided into three sections: the essays in Living draw directly from Hustvedt's life; those in Thinking explore memory, emotion, and the imagination; and the pieces in Looking are about visual art. And yet, the same questions recur throughout the collection. How do we see, remember, and feel? How do we interact with other people? What does it mean to sleep, dream, and speak? What is "the self"? Hustvedt's unique synthesis of knowledge from many fields reinvigorates the much-needed dialogue between the humanities and the sciences as it deepens our understanding of an age-old riddle: What does it mean to be human?
Download or read book The Sense of an Ending written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Download or read book Delusions of Grandeur written by Joey Franklin and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Delusions of Grandeur Joey Franklin examines the dreams and delusions of America's most persistent mythologies--including the beliefs in white supremacy and rugged individualism and the problems of toxic masculinity and religious extremism--as they reveal themselves in the life of a husband and father fast approaching forty. With prose steeped in research and a playful, lyric attention to language, Franklin asks candid questions about what it takes to see clearly as a citizen, a parent, a child, a neighbor, and a human being. How should a white father from the suburbs talk with his sons about the death of Trayvon Martin? What do video games like Fortnite and Minecraft reveal about our appetites for destruction? Is it possible for Americans to celebrate bootstrap pioneer history while also lamenting the slavery that made it possible? How does the American tradition of exploiting cheap labor create a link between coal mining and plasma donation in southeast Ohio? Part cultural critique, part parental confessional, Delusions of Grandeur embraces the notion that the personal is always political, and reveals important, if sometimes uncomfortable, truths about our American obsessions with race, class, religion, and family.
Download or read book The Science Delusion written by Rupert Sheldrake and published by Coronet. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freeing the Spirit of EnquiryThe Science Delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality. The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. In this book (published in the US as Science Set Free), Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, shows that science is being constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The 'scientific worldview' has become a belief system. All reality is material or physical. The world is a machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls. Sheldrake examines these dogmas scientifically, and shows persuasively that science would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and more fun.In The God Delusion Richard Dawkins used science to bash God, but here Rupert Sheldrake shows that Dawkins' understanding of what science can do is old-fashioned and itself a delusion.