Berkeley's Puzzle

Berkeley's Puzzle PDF Author: John Campbell
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198716257
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Sensory experience seems to be the basis of our knowledge and conception of mind-independent things. The puzzle is to understand how that can be: even if the things we experience (apples, tables, trees, etc), are mind-independent how does our sensory experience of them enable us to conceive of them as mind-independent? George Berkeley thought that sensory experience can only provide us with the conception of mind-dependent things, things which cannot exist when they aren't being perceived. It's easy to dismiss Berkeley's conclusion but harder to see how to avoid it. In this book, John Campbell and Quassim Cassam propose very different solutions to Berkeley's Puzzle. For Campbell, sensory experience can be the basis of our knowledge of mind-independent things because it is a relation, more primitive than thought, between the perceiver and high-level objects and properties in the mind-independent world. Cassam opposes this 'relationalist' solution to the Puzzle and defends a 'representationalist' solution: sensory experience can give us the conception of mind-independent things because it represents its objects as mind-independent, but does so without presupposing concepts of mind-independent things. This book is written in the form of a debate between two rival approaches to understanding the relationship between concepts and sensory experience. Although Berkeley's Puzzle frames the debate, the questions addressed by Campbell and Cassam aren't just of historical interest. They are among the most fundamental questions in philosophy.

Berkeley's Puzzle

Berkeley's Puzzle PDF Author: John Campbell
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198716257
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
Sensory experience seems to be the basis of our knowledge and conception of mind-independent things. The puzzle is to understand how that can be: even if the things we experience (apples, tables, trees, etc), are mind-independent how does our sensory experience of them enable us to conceive of them as mind-independent? George Berkeley thought that sensory experience can only provide us with the conception of mind-dependent things, things which cannot exist when they aren't being perceived. It's easy to dismiss Berkeley's conclusion but harder to see how to avoid it. In this book, John Campbell and Quassim Cassam propose very different solutions to Berkeley's Puzzle. For Campbell, sensory experience can be the basis of our knowledge of mind-independent things because it is a relation, more primitive than thought, between the perceiver and high-level objects and properties in the mind-independent world. Cassam opposes this 'relationalist' solution to the Puzzle and defends a 'representationalist' solution: sensory experience can give us the conception of mind-independent things because it represents its objects as mind-independent, but does so without presupposing concepts of mind-independent things. This book is written in the form of a debate between two rival approaches to understanding the relationship between concepts and sensory experience. Although Berkeley's Puzzle frames the debate, the questions addressed by Campbell and Cassam aren't just of historical interest. They are among the most fundamental questions in philosophy.

Encountering Mystery

Encountering Mystery PDF Author: Dale C. Allison
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467464341
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Despite widespread skepticism on the matter, a significant number of people today have stories of religious experience—moments of inexplicable terror or rapturous joy, visions, near-death experiences of the afterlife, encounters with angels, heavenly voices, and premonitions. How should rationally minded people respond? What would your reaction be if someone told you that, one night while sitting alone, she saw through the window a brilliant light descend from the sky until it was so large that it filled the room—and that it radiated a feeling of “pure love”? And what would you say if a friend confided that one night he woke up and could not move, felt he was being suffocated, and sensed an evil spirit in the room? By default in the secular age we are skeptical about anything mysterious or supernatural. More likely than not, most people would respond to the stories above with embarrassment and concern about the person’s grasp of reality, or they would attempt to explain them away through rational or scientific means. But the truth is that religious experiences like these are not as uncommon as they seem—although talking about such experiences often is. This is the case even in a faith tradition such as Christianity, despite the Bible’s numerous accounts of miraculous and mysterious happenings. In Encountering Mystery, noted biblical scholar Dale Allison makes the argument that stories of religious experience are meaningful and not to be marginalized—and that we have a moral prerogative to lovingly engage with such stories regardless of whether we have had similar experiences. Through a close look at phenomena such as moments of inexplicable terror or rapturous joy, visions, near-death experiences of the afterlife, encounters with angels, heavenly voices, and premonitions, Allison shows how ordinary practices of faith need not be at odds with individual religious experiences. Above all, he enjoins us to be honest about the persistence of religious experience in a secular age and to make space for those who encounter mystery in their lives.

Mystifying Logic Puzzles

Mystifying Logic Puzzles PDF Author: Norman D. Willis
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
ISBN: 9780806997216
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
Your brain will go into a tizzy solving these twisted, perplexing logic puzzles! But untangling them will challenge your mind, expand your knowledge, and develop your powers of deduction and reasoning. Success begins with a process of trial and error: examine the propositions, and logically test one against the other. Some will cancel each other out. Others point to additional information that helps you arrive at the correct answer. Give the six sections a shot: each one contains a different type of puzzle, starts with the simplest, and becomes increasingly intricate. Here's just a sample of what you'll find! By looking at the five statements, figure out in which subject Prince Tal excelled, and in which he did especially well: 1. If he excelled in chivalry, he did especially well in horsemanship. 2. If he excelled in horsemanship, he did especially well in fencing. 3. If he did especially well in horsemanship, he excelled in fencing. 4. If he excelled in fencing, he did especially well in chivalry. 5. If he did especially well in chivalry, he excelled in horsemanship. The answer is number two. Can you figure out why? 96 pages, 5 3/8 x 8 1/4.

The Disobedient Generation

The Disobedient Generation PDF Author: Alan Sica
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226756254
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
The Disobedient Generation collects newly written autobiographies by an international cross-section of well-known sociologists, all of them "children of the '60s". It illuminates the human experience of living through that decade as apprentice scholars and activists, encountering the issues of class, race, the Establishment, the decline of traditional religion, feminism, war, and the sexual revolution. In each case the interlinked crises of young adulthood, rapid change, and nascent professional careers shaped this generation's private and public selves.

UFOs, the Absurd, and the Limit of Anthropological Knowledge

UFOs, the Absurd, and the Limit of Anthropological Knowledge PDF Author: Diana Espírito Santo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040099246
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
This book offers an ethnographic and conceptual analysis of contemporary UFO phenomena, focusing specifically on Chilean ufology and the ufological “absurd”, nonsensical instances for their experiencers in which there is no conceptual way out. It asks how anthropology can come to terms with what is not said, what is not known, what is in the dark, or even with what both “is” and “is not”. The work draws on three years of participant observation with empirical ufologists, amateur sky watchers, and contactees of varying kinds in Chile. The chapters mobilize three main bodies of literature to elucidate the ufological absurd: negative theology, anthropology of play and deceit, and the physics of dark matter. They explore notions of parallax, paradox, and trickster anthropology. The author takes UFO phenomena, specifically the absurd aspects, as a heuristic with which to posit a conversation between domains; a conversation which highlights darknesses, finiteness, and the limits of representation and media in anthropology, one that could perhaps signal the route to a new language. Consideration is given to how not-knowing can be a space of extreme productiveness for the discipline. The argument put forward is that only by doing an anthropology that looks outside of itself for conceptual inspiration can we come to terms with the non-representable, the un-conceptualizable, the fully paradoxical. This innovative book will be of particular interest to scholars of anthropological theory and religion.

Burdens of Political Responsibility

Burdens of Political Responsibility PDF Author: Jade Schiff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107041627
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Burdens of Political Responsibility discusses experiences of political responsibility through a variety of disciplines, including political theory, phenomenology, sociology, and literary criticism.

Ancient Warfare, Volume II

Ancient Warfare, Volume II PDF Author: Jared Kreiner
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527570401
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This volume demonstrates the wide array of topics in ancient warfare currently studied by researchers around the world. Arranged chronologically in Greek and Roman history sections, the book takes readers through all manner of current research topics on ancient warfare, from traditional battle narratives or strategic analyses of campaigns, through the logistical considerations of armies in the field, to the ideology of women in war and mythology. The study of ancient war deals with a myriad of different topics and deals with themes in all types of history: social, cultural, economic, religious, literary, numismatical, epigraphical, ethnographical, topographical, prosopographical, and mythical, as well as the usual political and military. The study of ancient war is a field that is growing in popularity and continues to surprise us with many innovative new ideas, as shown in this collection of papers by established academics and current graduate students.

UFOs

UFOs PDF Author: Emily Rose Oachs
Publisher: Bellwether Media
ISBN: 1681035979
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
Most sightings of unidentified flying objects can be explained--but not all of them. Those that cannot be are the focus of investigation by UFO researchers. They use video cameras, binoculars, radar, and other technology together with eyewitness accounts to try and identify strange objects in the sky. Students who read this title will find themselves later wondering: what is that strange object in the sky?

The Workplace Within

The Workplace Within PDF Author: Larry Hirschhorn
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262581011
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
In this revealing study, Larry Hirschhorn examines the rituals, or social defenses, organizations develop to cope with change. Using extended ease studies from offices, factories, and social services, he describes why these often irrational practices that fragment and injure individuals within the workplace exist, how they operate, and how they can be reshaped to enhance people's work experience.

Hair of the Alien

Hair of the Alien PDF Author: Bill Chalker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416510249
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
SHOCKING. CONTROVERSIAL. UNPRECEDENTED. A CASE LIKE UNLIKE ANY OTHER IN THE ANNALS OF UFO INVESTIGATION, DNA RESEARCH, OR ALIEN ABDUCTION. Sydney, Australia. July 23, 1992. Twenty-eight-year-old Peter Khoury was awoken by what appeared to be two females—both striking and unearthly—kneeling on his bed. What transpired between them was a physical assault as bizarre and disorienting as it was unnatural. Then, as quickly as they had arrived, they vanished. Khoury had become one of a legion of alien abductees with inexplicable experiences, but this particular incident stood apart from all the others. This time, there was evidence—two strands of white-blond hair from one of the females. Khoury’s case would result in the very first forensic DNA analysis of “alien abduction” evidence and revealed an extraordinary biological anomaly—one genetically close to human yet almost impossibly far from the human mainstream. A gripping account of one of the great mysteries of our time, Hair of the Alien, brings us closer than ever before to understanding our past, our origings, and our place in the universe.