Download or read book The Philosopher s Tree written by Peter Day and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-11-27 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive selection of Michael Faraday's writings, taken from all aspects of his life, intimate and public. It is designed to show the relationships between his many activities, especially with the Royal Institution, for whose bicentenary this collection is published.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Tree written by Peter Day and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Faraday's social origins, his thought processes, his methods of experimentation, and his religion have all been subjects of exhaustive analysis by historians and philosophers of science. One aspect of his work, which provides unique insight into his career path and the way in which his mind worked, has not received much emphasis outside the realm of academic professionals: namely, his writing. The Philosopher's Tree: Michael Faraday's Life and Work in His Own Words is an illustrated anthology of Faraday's writings compiled with commentary by Professor Peter Day, the director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. From when he was a teenage apprentice bookbinder until his final resignation from the Royal Institution due to failing memory, Faraday wrote voluminously and his output took many forms. Apart from letters, Faraday kept journals (both scientific and personal); as a practicing scientist, he wrote articles in learned journals; as an adviser to the government and to many other agencies, he wrote reports; and as a supremely successful communicator (especially to young people), he left lecture notes and transcripts. All of these writings add life, color, and depth of focus to the stereotypical scientific colossus. Although Faraday's life was largely lived within what might appear to be very narrow geographical confines (just a few miles around 21 Albemarle Street in London's West End), his professional, social, and family relationships were extensive and diverse, and his responses to them equally complex. Through all the forms of expression that his multifaceted career required of him, one fact shines clearly: not only is Faraday one of the world greatest scientists, he showed enviable quality as a writer.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Plant written by Michael Marder and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite their conceptual allergy to vegetal life, philosophers have used germination, growth, blossoming, fruition, reproduction, and decay as illustrations of abstract concepts; mentioned plants in passing as the natural backdrops for dialogues, letters, and other compositions; spun elaborate allegories out of flowers, trees, and even grass; and recommended appropriate medicinal, dietary, and aesthetic approaches to select species of plants. In this book, Michael Marder illuminates the elaborate vegetal centerpieces and hidden kernels that have powered theoretical discourse for centuries. Choosing twelve botanical specimens that correspond to twelve significant philosophers, he recasts the development of philosophy through the evolution of human and plant relations. A philosophical history for the postmetaphysical age, The PhilosopherÕs Plant reclaims the organic heritage of human thought. With the help of vegetal images, examples, and metaphors, the book clears a path through philosophyÕs tangled roots and dense undergrowth, opening up the discipline to all readers.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Plant written by Michael Marder and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite their conceptual allergy to vegetal life, philosophers have used germination, growth, blossoming, fruition, reproduction, and decay as illustrations of abstract concepts; mentioned plants in passing as the natural backdrops for dialogues, letters, and other compositions; spun elaborate allegories out of flowers, trees, and even grass; and recommended appropriate medicinal, dietary, and aesthetic approaches to select species of plants. In this book, Michael Marder illuminates the elaborate vegetal centerpieces and hidden kernels that have powered theoretical discourse for centuries. Choosing twelve botanical specimens that correspond to twelve significant philosophers, he recasts the development of philosophy through the evolution of human and plant relations. A philosophical history for the postmetaphysical age, The PhilosopherÕs Plant reclaims the organic heritage of human thought. With the help of vegetal images, examples, and metaphors, the book clears a path through philosophyÕs tangled roots and dense undergrowth, opening up the discipline to all readers.
Download or read book Plant Thinking written by Michael Marder and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The margins of philosophy are populated by non-human, non-animal living beings, including plants. While contemporary philosophers tend to refrain from raising ontological and ethical concerns with vegetal life, Michael Marder puts this life at the forefront of the current deconstruction of metaphysics. He identifies the existential features of plant behavior and the vegetal heritage of human thought so as to affirm the potential of vegetation to resist the logic of totalization and to exceed the narrow confines of instrumentality. Reconstructing the life of plants "after metaphysics," Marder focuses on their unique temporality, freedom, and material knowledge or wisdom. In his formulation, "plant-thinking" is the non-cognitive, non-ideational, and non-imagistic mode of thinking proper to plants, as much as the process of bringing human thought itself back to its roots and rendering it plantlike.
Download or read book The Book of Dead Philosophers written by Simon Critchley and published by Melbourne Univ. Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diogenes died by holding his breath. Plato allegedly died of a lice infestation. Diderot choked to death on an apricot. Nietzsche made a long, soft-brained and dribbling descent into oblivion after kissing a horse in Turin. From the self-mocking haikus of Zen masters on their deathbeds to the last words (gasps) of modern-day sages, The Book of Dead Philosophers chronicles the deaths of almost 200 philosophers-tales of weirdness, madness, suicide, murder, pathos and bad luck. In this elegant and amusing book, Simon Critchley argues that the question of what constitutes a 'good death' has been the central preoccupation of philosophy since ancient times. As he brilliantly demonstrates, looking at what the great thinkers have said about death inspires a life-affirming enquiry into the meaning and possibility of human happiness. In learning how to die, we learn how to live.
Download or read book Overcomplicated written by Samuel Arbesman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "Overcomplicated," complexity scientist Samuel Arbesman offers a fresh, insightful field guide to living with complex technologies that defy human comprehension. As technology grows more complex, Arbesman argues, its behavior mimics the vagaries of the natural world more than it conforms to a mathematical model. If we are to survive and thrive in this new age, we must abandon our need for governing principles and rules and accept the chaos. By embracing and observing the freak accidents and flukes that disrupt our lives, we can gain valuable clues about how our algorithms really work. What's more, we will become better thinkers, scientists, and innovators as a result.
Download or read book A Philosophy of Walking written by Frédéric Gros and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2023-07-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “passionate affirmation of the simple life” explores how walking has influenced history’s greatest thinkers—from Henry David Thoreau and John Muir to Gandhi and Nietzsche (Observer) “It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.” —Nietzsche In this French bestseller, leading thinker and philosopher Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B—the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble—and reveals what they say about us. Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau’s eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other.
Download or read book Patterns in Nature written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed science writer “curates a visually striking, riotously colorful photographic display…of physical patterns in the natural world” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Though at first glance the natural world may appear overwhelming in its diversity and complexity, there are regularities running through it, from the hexagons of a honeycomb to the spirals of a seashell and the branching veins of a leaf. Revealing the order at the foundation of the seemingly chaotic natural world, Patterns in Nature explores not only the math and science but also the beauty and artistry behind nature’s awe-inspiring designs. Unlike the patterns we create, natural patterns are formed spontaneously from the forces that act in the physical world. Very often the same types of pattern and form—such as spirals, stripes, branches, and fractals—recur in places that seem to have nothing in common, as when the markings of a zebra mimic the ripples in windblown sand. But many of these patterns can be described using the same mathematical and physical principles, giving a surprising unity to the kaleidoscope of the natural world. Richly illustrated with 250 color photographs and anchored by accessible and insightful chapters by esteemed science writer Philip Ball, Patterns in Nature reveals the organization at work in vast and ancient forests, powerful rivers, massing clouds, and coastlines carved out by the sea. By exploring similarities such as the branches of a tree and those of a river network, this spectacular visual tour conveys the wonder, beauty, and richness of natural pattern formation.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Tool Kit written by Steven Scott Aspenson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise introduction to the basic elements of argumentative prose and the conceptual tools necessary to understand, analyze, criticize, and construct arguments: as well as to the philosophical mainstays of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical analysis.
Download or read book The Songs of Trees written by David George Haskell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No Marketing Blurb
Download or read book The Philosopher s Dictionary Third Edition written by Robert M. Martin and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2002-05-06 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central aim of The Philosopher's Dictionary is to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date guide of philosophical terms. Definitions are brief, clear, and user-friendly. Notes on usage, spelling, and pronunciation are included, and there are brief entries on hundreds of the best-known philosophers. Throughout, Martin writes in a style at once informative and authoritative, making difficult concepts intelligible without distorting them. The third edition has been revised throughout, and includes many new entries on philosophical concepts, from Berry's paradox to the Chinese room example to perfectionism and satisfice. The number of entries on active philosophers has also been considerable increased.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Dictionary written by Robert M. Martin and published by Peterborough, Ont. : Broadview Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Philosopher s Table written by Marietta McCarty and published by TarcherPerigee. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a guide for starting a "philosophy dinner club," a club that meets to discuss philosophy and cook food from each philosopher's home country.
Download or read book Boccaccio the Philosopher written by Filippo Andrei and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-07 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the tangled relationship between literary production and epistemological foundation as exemplified in one of the masterpieces of Italian literature. Filippo Andrei argues that Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron has a significant though concealed engagement with philosophy, and that the philosophical implications of its narratives can be understood through an epistemological approach to the text. He analyzes the influence of Dante, Petrarch, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and other classical and medieval thinkers on Boccaccio's attitudes towards ethics and knowledge-seeking. Beyond providing an epistemological reading of the Decameron, this book also evaluates how a theoretical reflection on the nature of rhetoric and poetic imagination can ultimately elicit a theory of knowledge.
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 735 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Tree written by Peter Day and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-11-27 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive selection of Michael Faraday's writings, taken from all aspects of his life, intimate and public. It is designed to show the relationships between his many activities, especially with the Royal Institution, for whose bicentenary this collection is published.
