Download or read book Paradoxical Thinking written by Jerry L. Fletcher and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 1997-06 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking advantage of contradictory elements in oneself and one's situation can lead to better performance all around. In this guide, the authors present a five-step process for using paradoxes to find solutions to a wide range of problems. Includes case studies showing how real people have used paradoxical thinking to solve real problems.
Download or read book The Importance of Being Paradoxical written by Patrick M. Horan and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Horan asserts that Speranza's love of Irish myth fostered young Wilde's love of fantasy, which is evidenced in his fairy tales and The Picture of Dorian Gray. He concludes that Wilde wrote fantasy, in part, to identify humanity's inhumanity, to acknowledge that love is often unreciprocated, and to affirm the naturalness of homosexuality.
Download or read book Paradoxical Life written by Andreas Wagner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can a fingernail tell us about the mysteries of creation? In one sense, a nail is merely a hunk of mute matter, yet in another, it's an information superhighway quite literally at our fingertips. Every moment, streams of molecular signals direct our cells to move, flatten, swell, shrink, divide, or die. Andreas Wagner's ambitious new book explores this hidden web of unimaginably complex interactions in every living being. In the process, he unveils a host of paradoxes underpinning our understanding of modern biology, contradictions he considers gatekeepers at the frontiers of knowledge. Though we tend to think of concepts in such mutually exclusive pairs as mind-matter, self-other, and nature-nurture, Wagner argues that these opposing ideas are not actually separate. Indeed, they are as inextricably connected as the two sides of a coin. Through a tour of modern biological marvels, Wagner illustrates how this paradoxical tension has a profound effect on the way we define the world around us. Paradoxical Life is thus not only a unique account of modern biology. It ultimately serves a radical--and optimistic--outlook for humans and the world we help create.
Download or read book The Paradoxical Brain written by Narinder Kapur and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-21 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Paradoxical Brain focuses on a range of phenomena in clinical and cognitive neuroscience that are counterintuitive and go against the grain of established thinking. The book covers a wide range of topics by leading researchers, including: • Superior performance after brain lesions or sensory loss • Return to normal function after a second brain lesion in neurological conditions • Paradoxical phenomena associated with human development • Examples where having one disease appears to prevent the occurrence of another disease • Situations where drugs with adverse effects on brain functioning may have beneficial effects in certain situations A better understanding of these interactions will lead to a better understanding of brain function and to the introduction of new therapeutic strategies. The book will be of interest to those working at the interface of brain and behaviour, including neuropsychologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists.
Download or read book The Paradox of Choice written by Barry Schwartz and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Download or read book Merleau Ponty and the Paradoxes of Expression written by Donald A. Landes and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merleau-Ponty and the Paradoxes of Expression offers a comprehensive reading of the philosophical work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a central figure in 20th-century continental philosophy. By establishing that the paradoxical logic of expression is Merleau-Ponty's fundamental philosophical gesture, this book ties together his diverse work on perception, language, aesthetics, politics and history in order to establish the ontological position he was developing at the time of his sudden death in 1961. Donald A. Landes explores the paradoxical logic of expression as it appears in both Merleau-Ponty's explicit reflections on expression and his non-explicit uses of this logic in his philosophical reflection on other topics, and thus establishes a continuity and a trajectory of his thought that allows for his work to be placed into conversation with contemporary developments in continental philosophy. The book offers the reader a key to understanding Merleau-Ponty's subtle methodology and highlights the urgency and relevance of his research into the ontological significance of expression for today's work in art and cultural theory.
Download or read book The Paradox of Scale written by Cristina M. Balboa and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of why NGOs often experience difficulty creating lasting change, with case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Why do nongovernmental organizations face difficulty creating lasting change? How can they be more effective? In this book, Cristina Balboa examines NGO authority, capacity, and accountability to propose that a “paradox of scale” is a primary barrier to NGO effectiveness. This paradox—when what gives an NGO authority on one scale also weakens its authority on another scale—helps explain how NGOs can be seen as an authority on particular causes on a global scale, but then fail to effect change at the local level. Drawing on case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, The Paradox of Scale explores how NGOs build, maintain, and lose authority over time. Balboa sets a new research agenda for the study of governance, offering practical concepts and analysis to help NGO practitioners. She introduces the concept of authority as a form of legitimated power, explaining why it is necessary for NGOs to build authority at multiple scales when they create, implement, or enforce rules. Examining the experiences of Conservation International in Papua New Guinea, International Marinelife Alliance in the Philippines, and the Community Conservation Network in Palau, Balboa explains how a paradox of scale can develop even for those NGOs that seem powerful and effective. Interdisciplinary in its approach, The Paradox of Scaleoffers guidance for interpreting the actions and pressures accompanying work with NGOs, showing why even the most authoritative NGOs often struggle to make a lasting impact.
Download or read book Essays on Paradoxes written by Terry Horgan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together many of Terence Horgan's essays on paradoxes: Newcomb's problem, the Monty Hall problem, the two-envelope paradox, the sorites paradox, and the Sleeping Beauty problem. Newcomb's problem arises because the ordinary concept of practical rationality constitutively includes normative standards that can sometimes come into direct conflict with one another. The Monty Hall problem reveals that sometimes the higher-order fact of one's having reliably received pertinent new first-order information constitutes stronger pertinent new information than does the new first-order information itself. The two-envelope paradox reveals that epistemic-probability contexts are weakly hyper-intensional; that therefore, non-zero epistemic probabilities sometimes accrue to epistemic possibilities that are not metaphysical possibilities; that therefore, the available acts in a given decision problem sometimes can simultaneously possess several different kinds of non-standard expected utility that rank the acts incompatibly. The sorites paradox reveals that a certain kind of logical incoherence is inherent to vagueness, and that therefore, ontological vagueness is impossible. The Sleeping Beauty problem reveals that some questions of probability are properly answered using a generalized variant of standard conditionalization that is applicable to essentially indexical self-locational possibilities, and deploys "preliminary" probabilities of such possibilities that are not prior probabilities. The volume also includes three new essays: one on Newcomb's problem, one on the Sleeping Beauty problem, and an essay on epistemic probability that articulates and motivates a number of novel claims about epistemic probability that Horgan has come to espouse in the course of his writings on paradoxes. A common theme unifying these essays is that philosophically interesting paradoxes typically resist either easy solutions or solutions that are formally/mathematically highly technical. Another unifying theme is that such paradoxes often have deep-sometimes disturbing-philosophical morals.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox written by Wendy K. Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-07 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of paradox dates back to ancient philosophy, yet only recently have scholars started to explore this idea in organizational phenomena. Two decades ago, a handful of provocative theorists urged researchers to take seriously the study of paradox, and thereby deepen our understanding of plurality, tensions, and contradictions in organizational life. Studies of organizational paradox have grown exponentially over the past two decades, canvassing varied phenomena, methods, and levels of analysis. These studies have explored such tensions as today and tomorrow, global integration and local distinctions, collaboration and competition, self and others, mission and markets. Yet even with both the depth and breadth of interest in organizational paradoxes, key issues around definitions and application remain. This Handbook seeks to aid, engage, and fuel the expanding interest in organizational paradox. Contributions to this volume depict how paradox studies inform, and are informed, by other theoretical perspectives, while creating a resource that enables scholars to learn about and apply this lens across varied organizational phenomena. The increasing complexity, volatility, and ambiguity in our world continually surfaces paradoxical dynamics. Thus, this Handbook offers insights to scholars across organizational theory.
Download or read book The Passion Paradox written by Brad Stulberg and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The coauthors of the bestselling Peak Performance dive into the fascinating science behind passion, showing how it can lead to a rich and meaningful life while also illuminating the ways in which it is a double-edged sword. Here’s how to cultivate a passion that will take you to great heights—while minimizing the risk of an equally great fall. Common advice is to find and follow your passion. A life of passion is a good life, or so we are told. But it's not that simple. Rarely is passion something that you just stumble upon, and the same drive that fuels breakthroughs—whether they're athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial, or artistic—can be every bit as destructive as it is productive. Yes, passion can be a wonderful gift, but only if you know how to channel it. If you're not careful, passion can become an awful curse, leading to endless seeking, suffering, and burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness once again team up, this time to demystify passion, showing readers how they can find and cultivate their passion, sustainably harness its power, and avoid its dangers. They ultimately argue that passion and balance--that other virtue touted by our culture--are incompatible, and that to find your passion, you must lose balance. And that's not always a bad thing. They show readers how to develop the right kind of passion, the kind that lets you achieve great things without ruining your life. Swift, compact, and powerful, this thought-provoking book combines captivating stories of extraordinarily passionate individuals with the latest science on the biological and psychological factors that give rise to—and every bit as important, sustain—passion.
Download or read book Paradoxes of Time Travel written by Ryan Wasserman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ryan Wasserman explores a range of fascinating puzzles raised by the possibility of time travel, with entertaining examples from physics, science fiction, and popular culture, and he draws out their implications for our understanding of time, tense, freedom, fatalism, causation, counterfactuals, laws of nature, persistence, change, and mereology.
Download or read book Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein s Philosophy written by David Pears and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book Paradoxical Psychotherapy written by Gerald R. Weeks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-24 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1982. Paradoxical psychotherapy has rapidly become one of the most· important approaches to family therapy and psychotherapy during the past few years. The aim of this book is to present an overview of paradoxical therapy. Paradoxical Psychotherapy: Theory and Practice with Individuals, Couples, and Families Is designed for all clinical psychologists. Applications are offered for the individual, marital, and family therapist.
Download or read book The Sexual Paradox written by Susan Pinker and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After four decades of eradicating gender barriers at work and in public life, why do men still dominate business, politics and the most highly paid jobs? Why do high-achieving women opt out of successful careers? Psychologist Susan Pinker explores the illuminating answers to these questions in her groundbreaking first book. In The Sexual Paradox, Susan Pinker takes a hard look at how fundamental sex differences continue to play out in the workplace. By comparing the lives of fragile boys and promising girls, Pinker turns several assumptions upside down: that the sexes are biologically equivalent; that smarts are all it takes to succeed; that men and women have identical goals. If most children with problems are boys, then why do many of them as adults overcome early obstacles while rafts of competent, even gifted women choose jobs that pay less or decide to opt out at pivotal moments in their careers? Weaving interviews with men and women into the most recent discoveries in psychology, neuroscience and economics, Pinker walks the reader through these minefields: Are men the more fragile sex? Which sex is the happiest at work? What does neuroscience tell us about ambition? Why do some male school drop-outs earn more than the bright, motivated girls who sat beside them in third grade? Pinker argues that men and women are not clones, and that gender discrimination is just one part of the persistent gender gap. A work world that is satisfying to us all will recognize sex differences, not ignore them or insist that we all be the same.
Download or read book People of Paradox written by Terryl L. Givens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-29 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe. Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration of learning and intellectual investigation; by existence in exile and a yearning for integration and acceptance by the larger world. Givens divides Mormon history into two periods, separated by the renunciation of polygamy in 1890. In each, he explores the life of the mind, the emphasis on education, the importance of architecture and urban planning (so apparent in Salt Lake City and Mormon temples around the world), and Mormon accomplishments in music and dance, theater, film, literature, and the visual arts. He situates such cultural practices in the context of the society of the larger nation and, in more recent years, the world. Today, he observes, only fourteen percent of Mormon believers live in the United States. Mormonism has never been more prominent in public life. But there is a rich inner life beneath the public surface, one deftly captured in this sympathetic, nuanced account by a leading authority on Mormon history and thought.
Download or read book The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership written by Tim Elmore and published by HarperCollins Leadership. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Become a next generation leader—rich in emotional and social intelligence and orchestrating outstanding collaborative results—by mastering these eight status quo-shattering paradoxes. The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership unpacks the fresh strategies and new mindset required today from a next generation leader. Author Dr. Tim Elmore helps leaders of all kinds navigate increasingly complex, rapidly changing environments, as well as manage teams who bring a range of new demands and expectations to the workplace that haven’t been seen even one generation prior. After working alongside John C. Maxwell for twenty years, Tim offers counter-intuitive paradoxes that, when practiced, enable today’s leader to differentiate themselves and better connect with their team and customers. The book furnishes ideas that equip leaders to inspire team members in a way a paycheck never could. Having trained hundreds of thousands of young professionals to develop into leaders—Dr. Elmore shares the secrets of next generation leaders who have practiced the unique paradoxes outlined in this book and inspired their team members in a way that a paycheck never could. In The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership, readers will: Learn how today’s team members require a combination of different qualities from their leaders than they did in even the recent past; Grasp the importance of eight key paradoxes that are critical for next generation leaders to put into practice right now; Be inspired by historic and modern-day leaders who lived the eight paradoxes; and Understand how they too can lead with the eight paradoxes, guiding them to emotional and social intelligence that resonates with their teams and leads to outstanding collaborative results.
Download or read book The Yablo Paradox written by Roy T Cook and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-05-29 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roy T Cook examines the Yablo paradox—a paradoxical, infinite sequence of sentences, each of which entails the falsity of all others later than it in the sequence—with special attention paid to the idea that this paradox provides us with a semantic paradox that involves no circularity. The three main chapters of the book focus, respectively, on three questions that can be (and have been) asked about the Yablo construction. First we have the Characterization Problem, which asks what patterns of sentential reference (circular or not) generate semantic paradoxes. Addressing this problem requires an interesting and fruitful detour through the theory of directed graphs, allowing us to draw interesting connections between philosophical problems and purely mathematical ones. Next is the Circularity Question, which addresses whether or not the Yablo paradox is genuinely non-circular. Answering this question is complicated: although the original formulation of the Yablo paradox is circular, it turns out that it is not circular in any sense that can bear the blame for the paradox. Further, formulations of the paradox using infinitary conjunction provide genuinely non-circular constructions. Finally, Cook turns his attention to the Generalizability Question: can the Yabloesque pattern be used to generate genuinely non-circular variants of other paradoxes, such as epistemic and set-theoretic paradoxes? Cook argues that although there are general constructions-unwindings—that transform circular constructions into Yablo-like sequences, it turns out that these sorts of constructions are not 'well-behaved' when transferred from semantic puzzles to puzzles of other sorts. He concludes with a short discussion of the connections between the Yablo paradox and the Curry paradox.
