Jacques Loeb

Jacques Loeb PDF Author: Charles Rasmussen
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871692290
Category : Biologists
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Rman born, Jacques Loeb was both a biologist (nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1901) & political activist. Drawing on his correspondence, the authors highlight Loeb's organizational actions & political opinions during the years of 1906 to 1924, the year of his death. As a social activist & scientist, Loeb influenced, Rasmussen & Tilman say, "the scientific community, the politically sensitive public, & ultimately the underlying population against conservative & reactionary attitudes toward race, ethnicity, poverty, criminality, war & religion." In chapters on Loeb's research agenda, position on World War I, social activism, his influence on the economist Thorstein Veblen & finally on his philosophy & politics, the authors sketch a man who was hailed early in his career for his work on spontaneous generation of marine embryos & recognized later for his active challenge to social intolerance.

Chemical Ecology of Insects

Chemical Ecology of Insects PDF Author: William J. Bell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1489933689
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
Our objective in compiling a series of chapters on the chemical ecology of insects has been to delineate the major concepts of this discipline. The fine line between presenting a few topics in great detail or many topics in veneer has been carefully drawn, such that the book contains sufficient diversity to cover the field and a few topics in some depth. After the reader has penetrated the crust of what has been learned about chemical ecology of insects, the deficiencies in our understanding of this field should become evident. These deficiencies, to which no chapter topic is immune, indicate the youthful state of chemical ecology and the need for further investigations, especially those with potential for integrating elements that are presently isolated from each other. At the outset of this volume it becomes evident that, although we are beginning to decipher how receptor cells work, virtually nothing is known of how sensory information is coded to become relevant to the insect and to control the behavior of the insect. This problem is exacerbated by the state of our knowledge of how chemicals are distributed in nature, especially in complex habitats. And finally, we have been unable to understand the significance of orientation pathways of insects, in part because of the two previous problems: orientation seems to depend on patterns of distri bution of chemicals, the coding of these patterns by the central nervous system, and the generation of motor output based on the resulting motor commands.

Perspectives in Ethology

Perspectives in Ethology PDF Author: P.P.G Bateson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780306429484
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Nine chapters on diverse topics that include: an analysis of whether sociobiology has killed ethology or revitalized it; aims, limitations, and the future of ethology and comparative ethology; the tyranny of anthropocentrism; psychoimmunology; gender differences in behavior; behavioral development.

Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences

Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences PDF Author: Alexander Riegler
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0585296057
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
urrently a paradigm shift is occurring in for the conventional understanding of represen- which the traditional view of the brain as tions. The paper also summarizes the rationale for C representing the "things of the world" is the selection of contributions to this volume, which challenged in several respects. The present volume will roughly proceed from relatively "realist" c- is placed at the edge of this transition. Based on the ceptions of representation to more "constructivist" 1997 conference "New Trends in Cognitive Sci- interpretations. The final chapter of discussions, ence" in Vienna, Austria, it tries to collect and in- taped during and at the end of the conference, p- grate evidence from various disciplines such as p- vides the reader with the possibility to reflect upon losophy of science, neuroscience, computational the different approaches and thus contributes to b- approaches, psychology, semiotics, evolutionary ter and more integrative understanding of their biology, social psychology etc. , to foster a new thoughts and ideas. understanding of representation. The subjective experience of an outside world This book has a truly interdisciplinary character. It seems to suggest a mapping process where environ- is presented in a form that is readily accessible to mental entities are projected into our mind via some professionals and students alike across the cognitive kind of transmission. While a profound critique of sciences such as neuroscience, computer science, this idea is nearly as old as philosophy, it has gained philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

Holism and Evolution

Holism and Evolution PDF Author: Jan Christiaan Smuts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description


Mindstorms

Mindstorms PDF Author: Seymour A Papert
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 154167510X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
In this revolutionary book, a renowned computer scientist explains the importance of teaching children the basics of computing and how it can prepare them to succeed in the ever-evolving tech world. Computers have completely changed the way we teach children. We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers. Technology changes every day, but the basic ways that computers can help us learn remain. For thousands of teachers and parents who have sought creative ways to help children learn with computers, Mindstorms is their bible.

Curiosity and Information Seeking in Animal and Human Behavior

Curiosity and Information Seeking in Animal and Human Behavior PDF Author: Wojciech Pisula
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 1599426005
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
The purpose of the book is to deliver a critical review of the literature and author's research data relevant for understanding the phenomena of curiosity, information seeking behavior, and novelty seeking. The book is designed to be a comprehensive and systematic lecture of areas related to the main subject in a way that will enable the reader to grasp the notion of development in terms of the evolutionary time scale and ontogenesis. Each of the subjects is explained on the basis of three perspectives: ultimate factors, integrative levels, and proximate mechanisms. This work is intended to integrate approaches adopted within psychology, ethology, and behavioral neuroscience. The major uniqueness is related to the integrative levels framework, which is not very often utilized the the contemporary books on the subject. This is why the book offers holistic, complete presentation of the area that it does cover. It should be of interests of students of psychology, animal behavior, as well teachers and educators. It provides refreshing cues for creative thinking about human curiosity. The present edition includes new data and the discussion of the new literature on the subject.

Parables for the Virtual

Parables for the Virtual PDF Author: Brian Massumi
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822383578
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Although the body has been the focus of much contemporary cultural theory, the models that are typically applied neglect the most salient characteristics of embodied existence—movement, affect, and sensation—in favor of concepts derived from linguistic theory. In Parables for the Virtual Brian Massumi views the body and media such as television, film, and the Internet, as cultural formations that operate on multiple registers of sensation beyond the reach of the reading techniques founded on the standard rhetorical and semiotic models. Renewing and assessing William James's radical empiricism and Henri Bergson's philosophy of perception through the filter of the post-war French philosophy of Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault, Massumi links a cultural logic of variation to questions of movement, affect, and sensation. If such concepts are as fundamental as signs and significations, he argues, then a new set of theoretical issues appear, and with them potential new paths for the wedding of scientific and cultural theory. Replacing the traditional opposition of literal and figural with new distinctions between stasis and motion and between actual and virtual, Parables for the Virtual tackles related theoretical issues by applying them to cultural mediums as diverse as architecture, body art, the digital art of Stelarc, and Ronald Reagan's acting career. The result is an intriguing combination of cultural theory, science, and philosophy that asserts itself in a crystalline and multi-faceted argument.

Dynamics in Action

Dynamics in Action PDF Author: Alicia Juarrero
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262600477
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
What is the difference between a wink and a blink? The answer is important not only to philosophers of mind, for significant moral and legal consequences rest on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary behavior. However, "action theory"—the branch of philosophy that has traditionally articulated the boundaries between action and non-action, and between voluntary and involuntary behavior—has been unable to account for the difference. Alicia Juarrero argues that a mistaken, 350-year-old model of cause and explanation—one that takes all causes to be of the push-pull, efficient cause sort, and all explanation to be prooflike—underlies contemporary theories of action. Juarrero then proposes a new framework for conceptualizing causes based on complex adaptive systems. Thinking of causes as dynamical constraints makes bottom-up and top-down causal relations, including those involving intentional causes, suddenly tractable. A different logic for explaining actions—as historical narrative, not inference—follows if one adopts this novel approach to long-standing questions of action and responsibility.

An Introduction to Social Psychology

An Introduction to Social Psychology PDF Author: Luther Lee Bernard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description
"The present Introduction to Social Psychology represents an attempt at a more synthetic type of treatment of the field than has ordinarily been given. It seems to the writer that the time has arrived when "schools" of social psychology may properly be regarded as obsolete and the subject as a whole may be presented systematically. In a sense social psychology overlaps a very large portion of social science and of psychology and education. In this respect it is central to all psychological and social science disciplines. This fact necessarily renders the content of social psychology voluminous. It is no longer possible to treat this subject adequately in small compass. The text-books which have so far appeared, although for the most part excellent from their several viewpoints, are nevertheless but partial treatments. So notably true is this that there exists a marked controversy as to what properly constitutes social psychology. In Part I of this volume an attempt has been made to bring this controversy into relief for the purpose of enabling the reader to see the subject as a whole. Originally the writer intended to publish this volume in five parts to make the synthetic treatment more pronounced. But the length of the volume as thus planned was prohibitive and it was decided to change the plan somewhat. The synthetic character of the treatment has been retained, but the detailed presentation of the process of the development of personality and of self and social consciousness has been reserved for a second volume. The present volume treats the subject from the standpoint of the more objective factors which integrate the personality and its responses in a social environment. Throughout it has been the intention of the writer, not only to make the treatment complete in itself, but to keep the presentation on such a level that the volume can be used successfully as a second book in social theory, following directly upon the introductory course in sociology in departments sociology. If the approach to the social sciences is a psychological one, the organization of this volume should make it available as an introduction to the first course in sociology, economics, politics, and more advanced courses in history and literature, in those departments which care to use it in this way. That social psychology will ultimately be regarded as a necessary introduction to the several social sciences and the literatures can scarcely be doubted. While the present volume is intended for undergraduate students, it is hoped that it may also be used profitably in more advanced courses in combination with the more extended treatment of the subjective aspects of personality development later to be published"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans

A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans PDF Author: Jakob von Uexküll
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452903798
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
“Is the tick a machine or a machine operator? Is it a mere object or a subject?” With these questions, the pioneering biophilosopher Jakob von Uexküll embarks on a remarkable exploration of the unique social and physical environments that individual animal species, as well as individuals within species, build and inhabit. This concept of the umwelt has become enormously important within posthumanist philosophy, influencing such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari, and, most recently, Giorgio Agamben, who has called Uexküll “a high point of modern antihumanism.” A key document in the genealogy of posthumanist thought, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans advances Uexküll’s revolutionary belief that nonhuman perceptions must be accounted for in any biology worth its name; it also contains his arguments against natural selection as an adequate explanation for the present orientation of a species’ morphology and behavior. A Theory of Meaning extends his thinking on the umwelt, while also identifying an overarching and perceptible unity in nature. Those coming to Uexküll’s work for the first time will find that his concept of the umwelt holds new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the framework of biopolitics.