The Importance of Existence

The Importance of Existence PDF Author: Josh Penn-Pierson
Publisher: Lifetimes Infinity
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Of all the humans to exist, one must necessarily be the last. Billions of years after the fall of Earth, a lone being wanders the far-flung moons among one of the last harbor galaxies. All that remains of humanity's cosmic presence is a final set of transmissions cast out with no more intent than to fall upon the deafening expanse of a rifting universe. What could the transmissions hope to achieve? To what ends had humanity's efforts been for? A half-maddened being flung into the void? A human mind conscripted to push well beyond what was once considered human? Countless beautiful destinies were undoubtedly forgone to articulate this solitary human to the far-distant end of life's story. Yet, we were the ones who dared to fasten ourselves to anything that would bear our souls so we could map our bare beings against scales unfathomed. What such thoughts did we allow to inundate the performances of our lives? And perhaps more importantly, in the desperate race against time, what paths went unchosen in the abstinence of existential immobilization? Either way, our questions into the importance of this existence would not go unanswered.

The Importance of Existence

The Importance of Existence PDF Author: Josh Penn-Pierson
Publisher: Lifetimes Infinity
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
Of all the humans to exist, one must necessarily be the last. Billions of years after the fall of Earth, a lone being wanders the far-flung moons among one of the last harbor galaxies. All that remains of humanity's cosmic presence is a final set of transmissions cast out with no more intent than to fall upon the deafening expanse of a rifting universe. What could the transmissions hope to achieve? To what ends had humanity's efforts been for? A half-maddened being flung into the void? A human mind conscripted to push well beyond what was once considered human? Countless beautiful destinies were undoubtedly forgone to articulate this solitary human to the far-distant end of life's story. Yet, we were the ones who dared to fasten ourselves to anything that would bear our souls so we could map our bare beings against scales unfathomed. What such thoughts did we allow to inundate the performances of our lives? And perhaps more importantly, in the desperate race against time, what paths went unchosen in the abstinence of existential immobilization? Either way, our questions into the importance of this existence would not go unanswered.

The Different Modes of Existence

The Different Modes of Existence PDF Author: Étienne Souriau
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1937561801
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
What relation is there between the existence of a work of art and that of a living being? Between the existence of an atom and that of a value like solidarity? These questions become our own each time a reality—whether it is a piece of music, someone we love, or a fictional character—is established and begins to take on an importance in our lives. Like William James or Gilles Deleuze, Souriau methodically defends the thesis of an existential pluralism. There are indeed different manners of existing and even different degrees or intensities of existence: from pure phenomena to objectivized things, by way of the virtual and the “super-existent,” to which works of art and the intellect, and even morality, bear witness. Existence is polyphonic, and, as a result, the world is considerably enriched and enlarged. Beyond all that exists in the ordinary sense of the term, it is necessary to allow for all sorts of virtual and ephemeral states, transitional realms, and barely begun realities, still in the making, all of which constitute so many “inter-worlds.”

The Importance of Being Rational

The Importance of Being Rational PDF Author: Errol Lord
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192546759
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The Importance of Being Rational systematically defends a novel reasons-based account of rationality. The book's central thesis is that what it is for one to be rational is to correctly respond to the normative reasons one possesses. Errol Lord defends novel views about what it is to possess reasons and what it is to correctly respond to reasons. He shows that these views not only help to support the book's main thesis, they also help to resolve several important problems that are independent of rationality. The account of possession provides novel contributions to debates about what determines what we ought to do, and the account of correctly responding to reasons provides novel contributions to debates about causal theories of reacting for reasons. After defending views about possession and correctly responding, Lord shows that the account of rationality can solve two difficult problems about rationality. The first is the New Evil Demon problem. The book argues that the account has the resources to show that internal duplicates necessarily have the same rational status. The second problem concerns the deontic significance of rationality. Recently it has been doubted whether we ought to be rational. The ultimate conclusion of the book is that the requirements of rationality are the requirements that we ultimately ought to comply with. If this is right, then rationality is of fundamental importance to our deliberative lives.

Aquinas's Way to God

Aquinas's Way to God PDF Author: Gaven Kerr OP
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190266384
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Gaven Kerr provides the first book-length study of St. Thomas Aquinas's much neglected proof for the existence of God in De Ente et Essentia Chapter 4. He offers a contemporary presentation, interpretation, and defense of this proof, beginning with an account of the metaphysical principles used by Aquinas and then describing how they are employed within the proof to establish the existence of God. Along the way, Kerr engages contemporary authors who have addressed Aquinas's or similar reasoning. The proof developed in the De Ente is, on Kerr's reading, independent of many of the other proofs in Aquinas's corpus and resistant to the traditional classificatory schemes of proofs of God. By applying a historical and hermeneutical awareness of the philosophical issues presented by Aquinas's thought and evaluating such philosophical issues with analytical precision, Kerr is able to move through the proof and evaluate what Aquinas is saying, and whether what he is saying is true. By means of an analysis of one of Aquinas's earliest proofs, Kerr highlights a foundational argument that is present throughout the much more commonly studied Thomistic writings, and brings it to bear within the context of analytical philosophy, showing its relevance to the contemporary reader.

The Importance of Time

The Importance of Time PDF Author: L.N. Oaklander
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401733627
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The Philosophy of Time Society grew out of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar on the Philosophy of Time offered by George Schlesinger in 1991. The members of that seminar wanted to promote interest in the philosophy of time and Jon N. Turgerson offered to become the first Director of the society with the initial costs underwritten by the Drake University Center for the Humanities. Thus, the Philosophy of Time Society (PTS) was formed in 1993. Its goal is to promote the study of the philosophy of time from a broad analytic perspective, and to provide a forum as an affiliated group with the American Philosophical Association, to discuss the issues in and related to the philosophy of time. The society held its first meeting during the Eastern Division of the AP A in Atlanta, George, in December 1993. In 1997 I began my tenure as Executive Director of PTS and with my term ending in 2000, I decided to put together a volume of selected papers read at PTS meetings over the years. The result is the present volume. It contains some of the latest developments in the field, including discussions of recent books by Michael Tooley, Time, Tense, and Causation, and D. H. Mellor, Real Time II, and much more. The main issue in the philosophy of time is and remains the status of temporal becoming and the passage of time.

The Letter Before the Spirit: The Importance of Text Editions for the Study of the Reception of Aristotle

The Letter Before the Spirit: The Importance of Text Editions for the Study of the Reception of Aristotle PDF Author: Aafke M. I. van Oppenraaij
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004234144
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description
This text underlines the importance for scholars to have at their disposal reliable scientific text editions of Aristotle's works in the Semitico-Latin, and the Graeco-Latin, translation and commentary traditions.

The Importance of New Technologies and Entrepreneurship in Business Development: In The Context of Economic Diversity in Developing Countries

The Importance of New Technologies and Entrepreneurship in Business Development: In The Context of Economic Diversity in Developing Countries PDF Author: Bahaaeddin Alareeni
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030692213
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 2139

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Book Description
This book introduces the students, researchers and practitioners into the subject and enabling technologies and applications pertaining to of technology, entrepreneurship and business development through research articles, case studies etc. It is primarily intended for academic purposes for learners of computer Science, management, accounting and information systems disciplines, economics,- entrepreneurship. Publishing chapters in the book is new innovative idea to spread the book in the Middle East and Arab countries and make the book achieve more sales. As many students in all levels, graduates and undergraduates in addition to research, professionals are not able to get sufficient resources because of the language concern.

Being and Time

Being and Time PDF Author: Martin Heidegger
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061575593
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
"What is the meaning of being?" This is the central question of Martin Heidegger's profoundly important work, in which the great philosopher seeks to explain the basic problems of existence. A central influence on later philosophy, literature, art, and criticism—as well as existentialism and much of postmodern thought—Being and Time forever changed the intellectual map of the modern world. As Richard Rorty wrote in the New York Times Book Review, "You cannot read most of the important thinkers of recent times without taking Heidegger's thought into account." This first paperback edition of John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson's definitive translation also features a new foreword by Heidegger scholar Taylor Carman.

Death and the Afterlife

Death and the Afterlife PDF Author: Samuel Scheffler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019998252X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Suppose you knew that, though you yourself would live your life to its natural end, the earth and all its inhabitants would be destroyed thirty days after your death. To what extent would you remain committed to your current projects and plans? Would scientists still search for a cure for cancer? Would couples still want children? In Death and the Afterlife, philosopher Samuel Scheffler poses this thought experiment in order to show that the continued life of the human race after our deaths--the "afterlife" of the title--matters to us to an astonishing and previously neglected degree. Indeed, Scheffler shows that, in certain important respects, the future existence of people who are as yet unborn matters more to us than our own continued existence and the continued existence of those we love. Without the expectation that humanity has a future, many of the things that now matter to us would cease to do so. By contrast, the prospect of our own deaths does little to undermine our confidence in the value of our activities. Despite the terror we may feel when contemplating our deaths, the prospect of humanity's imminent extinction would pose a far greater threat to our ability to lead lives of wholehearted engagement. Scheffler further demonstrates that, although we are not unreasonable to fear death, personal immortality, like the imminent extinction of humanity, would also undermine our confidence in the values we hold dear. His arresting conclusion is that, in order for us to lead value-laden lives, what is necessary is that we ourselves should die and that others should live. Death and the Afterlife concludes with commentary by four distinguished philosophers--Harry Frankfurt, Niko Kolodny, Seana Shiffrin, and Susan Wolf--who discuss Scheffler's ideas with insight and imagination. Scheffler adds a final reply.

Life on Purpose

Life on Purpose PDF Author: Victor J. Strecher
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062409670
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
A step-by-step guide to improving your energy, willpower, health & long-term happiness using science, philosophy & the author’s own tragedies and triumphs. Imagine a drug that was proven to add years to your life, reduce risk of heart attack and stroke, cut your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by more than half, help you relax during the day and sleep better at night, double your chances of staying drug- and alcohol-free after treatment, activate your natural killer cells, diminish your inflammatory cells, increase your good cholesterol, and repair your chromosomes. What if this imaginary drug reduced hospital stays so much that it put a dent in the national health care crisis? The pharmaceutical company who made the drug would be worth billions. The inventors of the drug would receive Nobel Prizes and have institutes named for them. But it’s not a drug. It’s purpose. And it’s free. Victor Strecher, an award-winning pioneer in the field of behavioral science and professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, lost his nineteen-year-old daughter, Julia, to a rare heart disease that resulted from an infant case of chicken pox. This life event challenged every aspect of Strecher’s personal and professional experience and drove him to an exhaustive search, from ancient philosophy to cutting-edge science, to pinpoint the potential and impact of purpose in our lives. What is it? How can we discover it? And what does the latest research tell us about the importance of how purpose affects our overall health and happiness? The results of this groundbreaking investigation are revelatory and the crux of this engaging book. But Life on Purpose does more than just provide the latest science, it offers a step-by-step program for improving energy, willpower, health, and long-term happiness. Strecher’s smart, personal, and highly practical book will fundamentally change the way we understand what it means to lead a good life. “With a powerful combination of science, philosophy, and personal tragedies and triumphs, this is a poignant read on the key ingredients for purpose in life.” —Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times–bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take “Strecher . . . gifts us the ability to define our purpose and immediately start instilling into our own lives. Make no mistake, understanding this concept is not only good for your health—it is good for the whole world.” —Sanjay Gupta, New York Times–bestselling author and Chief Medical Correspondent CNN