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Author: Jennifer Church
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000052931
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
Most of us experience the world through competing perspectives. A job or a religion seems important and fulfilling when looked at in one way, but from a different angle they seem tedious or ridiculous. A friend is obtuse from one point of view, wise from another. Continuing to hold both views at once can be unsettling, highlighting conflicts between our own judgments and values and undermining our ability to live purposefully and effectively. Yet, as Jennifer Church argues in this book, inner conflict can be a good thing, and not just as a temporary road bump on the road to resolution. This book describes several desirable types of “double consciousness” – or being of two minds – and explains why and how they should be maintained. Church looks critically at some common ideas about identity, including a popular belief about narratives that suggests our lives should “make sense” as a story. She also examines how empathy can helpfully cause us to be of two minds, and how various forms of irony and laughter enable us to benefit from holding onto opposing views. Finally, Church shows the merit of acknowledging reality while sometimes being guided by fantasy. Why It’s OK to Be of Two Minds is for anyone who’s held two opposing views simultaneously, which is to say it’s for everyone. Key Features • Argues against a long-standing philosophical idea: that it is important to resolve inner conflicts that result from competing systems of beliefs. • Examines the role of empathy and friendship in maintaining a valuable form of double consciousness. • Considers how irony and laughter allow us to dedicate ourselves to our particular projects while acknowledging their ultimate insignificance. • Shows how fantasies that conflict with our beliefs can make a positive contribution to the way we live our lives.
Author: Jennifer Church
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000052931
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Get Book Here
Book Description
Most of us experience the world through competing perspectives. A job or a religion seems important and fulfilling when looked at in one way, but from a different angle they seem tedious or ridiculous. A friend is obtuse from one point of view, wise from another. Continuing to hold both views at once can be unsettling, highlighting conflicts between our own judgments and values and undermining our ability to live purposefully and effectively. Yet, as Jennifer Church argues in this book, inner conflict can be a good thing, and not just as a temporary road bump on the road to resolution. This book describes several desirable types of “double consciousness” – or being of two minds – and explains why and how they should be maintained. Church looks critically at some common ideas about identity, including a popular belief about narratives that suggests our lives should “make sense” as a story. She also examines how empathy can helpfully cause us to be of two minds, and how various forms of irony and laughter enable us to benefit from holding onto opposing views. Finally, Church shows the merit of acknowledging reality while sometimes being guided by fantasy. Why It’s OK to Be of Two Minds is for anyone who’s held two opposing views simultaneously, which is to say it’s for everyone. Key Features • Argues against a long-standing philosophical idea: that it is important to resolve inner conflicts that result from competing systems of beliefs. • Examines the role of empathy and friendship in maintaining a valuable form of double consciousness. • Considers how irony and laughter allow us to dedicate ourselves to our particular projects while acknowledging their ultimate insignificance. • Shows how fantasies that conflict with our beliefs can make a positive contribution to the way we live our lives.
Author: Hrishikesh Joshi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000344959
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 181
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Book Description
Political protests, debates on college campuses, and social media tirades make it seem like everyone is speaking their minds today. Surveys, however, reveal that many people increasingly feel like they’re walking on eggshells when communicating in public. Speaking your mind can risk relationships and professional opportunities. It can alienate friends and anger colleagues. Isn’t it smarter to just put your head down and keep quiet about controversial topics? In this book, Hrishikesh Joshi offers a novel defense of speaking your mind. He explains that because we are social creatures, we never truly think alone. What we know depends on what our community knows. And by bringing our unique perspectives to bear upon public discourse, we enhance our collective ability to reach the truth on a variety of important matters. Speaking your mind is also important for your own sake. It is essential for developing your own thinking. And it’s a core aspect of being intellectually courageous and independent. Joshi argues that such independence is a crucial part of a well-lived life. The book draws from Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, and a range of contemporary thinkers to argue that it’s OK to speak your mind. Key Features Shows that we have not just a right but a moral duty to publicly share what we know. Argues that discussing your unique ideas with others is essential for developing as a critical thinker. Explores the value of intellectual honesty and independence in the writings of John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche and connects their thinking to contemporary problems. Argues that avoiding cultural blind spots today is important for the fate of future generations.
Author: Justin Tosi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000994546
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
Every year, millions of students in the United States and around the world graduate from high school and college. Commencement speakers—often distilling the hopes of parents and four years of messaging from educators—tell graduates that they must do something grand, ambitious, or far-reaching. Change the world. Disrupt the status quo. Every problem in the world is your problem, awaiting your solutions. This book is an antidote to that advice. It provides a clear-eyed assessment of three types of people who tend to believe and promote a commencement speaker’s view of the world: the moralizer, who imposes unnecessary social costs by inappropriately enforcing morality; the busybody, who thinks the stranger and close friend merit equal shares of our benevolent attention; and the pure hearted, who equates acting with good intentions with just outcomes. The book also provides a bold defense of living an ordinary life by putting down roots, creating a good home, and living in solitude. A quiet, peaceful life can be generous and noble. It’s OK to mind your own business.
Author: Dan C. Shahar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000466388
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 170
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Book Description
Vegetarians have argued at great length that meat-eating is wrong. Even so, the vast majority of people continue to eat meat, and even most vegetarians eventually give up on their diets. Does this prove these people must be morally corrupt? In Why It’s OK to Eat Meat, Dan C. Shahar argues the answer is no: it’s entirely possible to be an ethical person while continuing to eat meat—and not just the "fancy" offerings from the farmers' market but also the regular meat we find at most supermarkets and restaurants. Shahar’s examination forcefully echoes vegetarians’ concerns about the meat industry’s impacts on animals, workers, the environment, and public health. However, he shows that the most influential ethical arguments for avoiding meat on the basis of these considerations are ultimately unpersuasive. Instead of insisting we all become vegetarians, Shahar argues each of us has broad latitude to choose which of the world’s problems to tackle, in what ways, and to what extents, and hence people can decline to take up this particular form of activism without doing anything wrong. Key Features First book-length defense of meat-eating written for a popular audience Punchy, accessible introduction to the multifaceted debate over the ethics of eating meat Includes pioneering new examinations of humane labeling practices Shows why appeals to universalized patterns of behavior can’t vindicate vegetarians’ claims that there’s a duty to avoid meat Develops a novel theory of ethical activism with potential applications to a wide range of other issues
Author: Christopher Freiman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100006235X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
Do you feel like you’re the only person at your office without an "I Voted!" sticker on Election Day? It turns out that you're far from alone – 100 million eligible U.S. voters never went to the polls in 2016. That’s about 35 million more than voted for the winning presidential candidate. In this book, Christopher Freiman explains why these 100 million need not feel guilty. Why It’s OK to Ignore Politics argues that you’re under no obligation to be politically active. Freiman addresses new objections to political abstention as well as some old chestnuts ("But what if everyone stopped voting?"). He also synthesizes recent empirical work showing how our political motivations distort our choices and reasoning. Because participating in politics is not an effective way to do good, Freiman argues that we actually have a moral duty to disengage from politics and instead take direct action to make the world a better place. Key Features: Makes the case against a duty of political participation for a non-expert audience Presupposes no knowledge of philosophy or political science and is written in a style free of technical jargon Addresses the standard, much-repeated arguments for why one should vote (e.g., one shouldn’t free ride on the efforts of others) Presents the growing literature on politically motivated reasoning in an accessible and entertaining way Covers a significant amount of new ground in the debate over a duty of political participation (e.g., whether participating absolves us of our complicity in state injustice) Challenges the increasingly popular argument from philosophers and economists that swing state voting is effective altruism Discusses the therapeutic benefits of ignoring politics—it’s good for you, your relationships, and society as a whole.
Author: Jason Brennan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000051765
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Finger-wagging moralizers say the love of money is the root of all evil. They assume that making a lot of money requires exploiting others, and that the best way to wash off the resulting stain is to give a lot of it away. In Why It’s OK to Want to Be Rich, Jason Brennan shows that the moralizers have it backwards. He argues that, in general, the more money you make, the more you already do for others, and that even an average wage earner is productively “giving back” to society just by doing her job. In addition, wealth liberates us to have the best chance of leading a life that’s authentically our own. Brennan also demonstrates how money-based societies create nicer, more trustworthy, and more cooperative citizens. And in another chapter that takes on the new historians of capitalism, Brennan argues that wealthy nations became wealthy because of their healthy institutions, not from their horrific histories of slavery or colonialism. While writing that the more money one has, the more one should help others, Brennan also notes that we weren’t born into a perpetual debt to society. It’s OK to get rich and it’s OK to enjoy being rich, too. --- Key Features Shows how the desire to become wealthy in an open and fair market helps maximize cooperation and lessens the chance of violence and war Argues that it is much easier for the average for-profit business to add value to the world than it is for the average non-profit Demonstrates that the kinds of virtues (e.g., conscientiousness, thoughtfulness, hard work) that lead to desirable personal and civic states (e.g., happy marriages, stable families, engaged citizens) also make people richer Argues that living in small clans for most of their history has given humans a negative attitude towards anyone acquiring more than her "fair share," an attitude that’s ill-suited for our market-driven, globally connected world In a final, provocative chapter, maintains that ideal economic growth is infinite.
Author: Hrishikesh Joshi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367141714
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
Political protests, debates on college campuses, and social media tirades make it seem like everyone is speaking their minds today. Surveys, however, reveal that many people increasingly feel like they're walking on eggshells when communicating in public. Speaking your mind can risk relationships and professional opportunities. It can alienate friends and anger colleagues. Isn't it smarter to just put your head down and keep quiet about controversial topics? In this book, Hrishikesh Joshi offers a novel defense of speaking your mind. He explains that because we are social creatures, we never truly think alone. What we know depends on what our community knows. And by bringing our unique perspectives to bear upon public discourse, we enhance our collective ability to reach the truth on a variety of important matters. Speaking your mind is also important for your own sake. It is essential for developing your own thinking. And it's a core aspect of being intellectually courageous and independent. Joshi argues that such independence is a crucial part of a well-lived life. The book draws from Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, and a range of contemporary thinkers to argue that it's OK to speak your mind. Key Features Shows that we have not just a right but a moral duty to publicly share what we know. Argues that discussing your unique ideas with others is essential for developing as a critical thinker. Explores the value of intellectual honesty and independence in the writings of John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche and connects their thinking to contemporary problems. Argues that avoiding cultural blind spots today is important for the fate of future generations.
Author: T.M. Luhrmann
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679744932
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
With sharp and soulful insight, T. M. Luhrmann examines the world of psychiatry, a profession which today is facing some of its greatest challenges from within and without, as it continues to offer hope to many. At a time when mood-altering drugs have revolutionized the treatment of the mentally ill and HMO’s are forcing caregivers to take the pharmacological route over the talking cure, Luhrmann places us at the heart of the matter and allows us to see exactly what is at stake. Based on extensive interviews with patients and doctors, as well as investigative fieldwork in residence programs, private psychiatric hospitals, and state hospitals, Luhrmann’s groundbreaking book shows us how psychiatrists develop and how the enormous ambiguities in the field affect its practitioners and patients.
Author: Gabor Maté, MD
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 030737470X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From renowned mental health expert and speaker Dr. Gabor Maté, this acclaimed, bestselling guide provides insight into the mind-body link between illness and health, and the critical role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases. In this accessible and groundbreaking book—filled with the moving stories of real people—medical doctor and bestselling author Gabor Maté shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and many others. An international bestseller translated into over thirty languages, When the Body Says No promotes learning and healing, providing transformative insights into how illlness can be the body's way of saying no to what the mind cannot or will not acknowledge. With great compassion and erudition, Dr. Maté demystifies medical science and empowers us all to be our own health advocates.
Author: Robert Silverberg
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0765305372
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 579
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Book Description
Twenty-six of the greatest science fiction stories ever written. Robert Heinlein in "The Roads Must Roll" describes an industrial civilization of the future caught up in the deadly flaws of its own complexity. "Country of the Kind," by Damon Knight, is a frightening portrayal of biological mutation. "Nightfall, " by Isaac Asimov, one of the greatest stories in the science fiction field, imagines a planet where the sun sets only once every millennium and is a chilling study in mass psychology.
