Doubt: A History

Doubt: A History PDF Author: Jennifer Hecht
Publisher: HarperOne
ISBN: 9780060097950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind especially-from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin to Wittgenstein and Hawking. This is an account of the world's greatest ‘intellectual virtuosos,' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin—and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning, This remarkable book ranges from the early Greeks, Hebrew figures such as Job and Ecclesiastes, Eastern critical wisdom, Roman stoicism, Jesus as a man of doubt, Gnosticism and Christian mystics, medieval Islamic, Jewish and Christian skeptics, secularism, the rise of science, modern and contemporary critical thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, the existentialists.

Doubt: A History

Doubt: A History PDF Author: Jennifer Hecht
Publisher: HarperOne
ISBN: 9780060097950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 576

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind especially-from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin to Wittgenstein and Hawking. This is an account of the world's greatest ‘intellectual virtuosos,' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin—and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning, This remarkable book ranges from the early Greeks, Hebrew figures such as Job and Ecclesiastes, Eastern critical wisdom, Roman stoicism, Jesus as a man of doubt, Gnosticism and Christian mystics, medieval Islamic, Jewish and Christian skeptics, secularism, the rise of science, modern and contemporary critical thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, the existentialists.

Unbelievers

Unbelievers PDF Author: Alec Ryrie
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674243277
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
“How has unbelief come to dominate so many Western societies? The usual account invokes the advance of science and rational knowledge. Ryrie’s alternative, in which emotions are the driving force, offers new and interesting insights into our past and present.” —Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, pointing to science and reason as the twin culprits, but in this lively, startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through the heart more than the mind. Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, he shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. As Protestant radicals eroded time-honored certainties and ushered in an age of anger and anxiety, some defended their faith by redefining it in terms of ethics, setting in motion secularizing forces that soon became transformational. Unbelievers tells a powerful emotional history of doubt with potent lessons for our own angry and anxious times. “Well-researched and thought-provoking...Ryrie is definitely on to something right and important.” —Christianity Today “A beautifully crafted history of early doubt...Unbelievers covers much ground in a short space with deep erudition and considerable wit.” —The Spectator “Ryrie traces the root of religious skepticism to the anger, the anxiety, and the ‘desperate search for certainty’ that drove thinkers like...John Donne to grapple with church dogma.” —New Yorker

Bodies in Doubt

Bodies in Doubt PDF Author: Elizabeth Reis
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421441853
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
This renowned history of intersex in America has been comprehensively updated to reflect recent shifts in attitudes, bioethics, and medical and legal practices. In Bodies in Doubt, Elizabeth Reis traces the changing definitions, perceptions, and medical management of intersex (atypical sex development) in America from the colonial period to the present. Arguing that medical practice must be understood within its broader cultural context, Reis demonstrates how deeply physicians have been influenced by social anxieties about marriage, heterosexuality, and same-sex desire throughout American history In this second edition, Reis adds two new chapters, a new preface, and a revised introduction to assess recent dramatic shifts in attitudes, bioethics, and medical and legal practices. Human rights organizations have declared early genital surgeries a form of torture and abuse, but doctors continue to offer surgical "repair," and parents continue to seek it for their children. While many are hearing the human rights call, controversies persist, and Reis explains why best practices in this field remain fiercely contested.

Doubt in Islamic Law

Doubt in Islamic Law PDF Author: Intisar A. Rabb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107080991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
This book considers the rarely studied but pervasive concepts of doubt that medieval Muslim jurists used to resolve problematic criminal cases.

Max Stirner on the Path of Doubt

Max Stirner on the Path of Doubt PDF Author: Lawrence S. Stepelevich
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793636893
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Max Stirner on the Path of Doubt examines Stirner's incisive criticism of his contemporaries during the period from the death of Hegel, in 1831, to the 1848 German Revolution. Stirner's work, mainly the Ego and His Own, considered each of the major figures within that German school known as “The Young Hegelians.” Lawrence S. Stepelevich argues that for Stirner, they were but “pious atheists,” and their common revolutionary ideology concealed an ancient religious ground – which Stirner set about to reveal. The central doctrine of this school, that Mankind was its own Savior, was initiated in 1835 by the theologian, David F. Strauss's in his Life of Jesus , and it progressed with August von Cieszkowski's mystical recasting of history, followed by Bruno Bauer's absolute atheism and Ludwig Feuerbach's statement that “Man is God.” This soon found reflection in the “Sacred History of Mankind” declared by Moses Hess. Within a decade, the result was the secular reformulation of this theological ideology into the “Scientific Socialism” of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Although linked to it, Max Stirner was the most relentless and feared critic of this school. His work, never out of print, but largely ignored by academics, has inspired countless “individualists” set upon rejecting any form of religious or political “causes,” and finding Stirner's assertion that he had “set his cause upon nothing” took this as their own cause.

Merchants of Doubt

Merchants of Doubt PDF Author: Naomi Oreskes
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408828774
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

Faith After Doubt

Faith After Doubt PDF Author: Brian D. McLaren
Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN: 125026278X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
From the author of A New Kind of Christianity comes a bold proposal: only doubt can save the world and your faith. ONE of the Best Spiritual Books of 2021—Spirituality & Practice "Will help you live fuller and breathe easier..” —Glennon Doyle Sixty-five million adults in the U.S. have dropped out of active church attendance and about 2.7 million more are leaving every year. Faith After Doubt is for the millions of people around the world who feel that their faith is falling apart. Using his own story and the stories of a diverse group of struggling believers, Brian D. McLaren, a former pastor and now an author, speaker, and activist shows how old assumptions are being challenged in nearly every area of human life, not just theology and spirituality. He proposes a four-stage model of faith development in which questions and doubt are not the enemy of faith, but rather a portal to a more mature and fruitful kind of faith. The four stages—Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony—offer a path forward that can help sincere and thoughtful people leave behind unnecessary baggage and intensify their commitment to what matters most.

Shadows of Doubt

Shadows of Doubt PDF Author: Brendan O'Flaherty
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674240170
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Shadows of Doubt reveals how deeply stereotypes distort our interactions, shape crime, and deform the criminal justice system. If you’re a robber, how do you choose your victims? As a police officer, how afraid are you of the young man you’re about to arrest? As a judge, do you think the suspect in front of you will show up in court if released from pretrial detention? As a juror, does the defendant seem guilty to you? Your answers may depend on the stereotypes you hold, and the stereotypes you believe others hold. In this provocative, pioneering book, economists Brendan O’Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi explore how stereotypes can shape the ways crimes unfold and how they contaminate the justice system through far more insidious, pervasive, and surprising paths than we have previously imagined. Crime and punishment occur under extreme uncertainty. Offenders, victims, police officers, judges, and jurors make high-stakes decisions with limited information, under severe time pressure. With compelling stories and extensive data on how people act as they try to commit, prevent, or punish crimes, O’Flaherty and Sethi reveal the extent to which we rely on stereotypes as shortcuts in our decision making. Sometimes it’s simple: Robbers tend to target those they stereotype as being more compliant. Other interactions display a complex and sometimes tragic interplay of assumptions: “If he thinks I’m dangerous, he might shoot. I’ll shoot first.” Shadows of Doubt shows how deeply stereotypes are implicated in the most controversial criminal justice issues of our time, and how a clearer understanding of their effects can guide us toward a more just society.

The Crucible of Doubt

The Crucible of Doubt PDF Author: Terryl Givens
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781609079420
Category : Faith
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This insightful book offers a careful, intelligent look at doubt--at some of its common sources, the challenges it presents, and the opportunities it may open up in a person's quest for faith.

Never in Doubt

Never in Doubt PDF Author: Lynn Kessler
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Survivors of one of the fiercest battles of the war in the Pacific tell their dramatic stories in this collection of oral histories.