Four men in a cell in Rebibbia prison, Rome, awaiting trial on serious charges of subversion. One of them, the political thinker Antonio Negri, spends his days writing. Among his writings are twenty letters addressed to a young friend in France letters in which Negri reflects on his own personal development as a philosopher, theorist and political activist and analyses the events, activities and movements in which he has been involved. The letters recount an existential journey that links a rigorous (...) philosophical education with a powerful political passion, set against the historical backdrop of postwar Italy. Crucially, Negri recalls the pivotal moment in 1978 when the former prime minister of Italy, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades, and how the institutions then pinned that killing onto him and his associates. Published here for the first time, these letters offer a unique and invaluable insight into the factors that shaped the thinking of one of the most influential political theorists of our time and they document Negri’s role in the development of political movements like Autonomia. They are a vivid testimony to one man’s journey through the political upheavals and intellectual traditions of the late 20th century, in the course of which he produced a body of work that has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on radical thought and politics around the world. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Fact of God M onotheism is shown, by researches among the most ancient religions, to have been the original, at least the earliest known conception of Deity. The one God which the ongmal and universal idea of the super natural recognized was evidently the ob ject of the most ancient worship. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical (...) work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age examines a variety of significant multidisciplinary and multicultural topics within the subject of aesthetics. Addressing the vexed relation of the arts and criticism to current political and cultural concerns, the contributors to this volume attempt to bridge the two decades-old gap between scholars and critics who hold conflicting views of the purposes of art and criticism. By exploring some of the ways in which global migration and expanding ethnic diversity are affecting cultural productions and prompting (...) reassessment of the nature and role of aesthetic discourse, this volume provides a new evaluation of aesthetic ideas and practices within contemporary arts and letters. (shrink)

In Process Studies 39.1 Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki draws renewed attention to one of the formative issues within early process theology—the question of whether God may best be understood as a single actual entity, as Whitehead had said, or as a serially ordered or personally ordered society of occasions. Suchocki’s support for Whitehead’s original thinking is a welcome event. Unfortunately, Suchocki employs the term “dynamic” to disguise an unresolved incompatibility between temporal and non-temporal process in God. This makes her overall position (...) unstable, if not untentable. A second criticism is that methodologically Suchocki relies almost entirely on logical inferences drawn from previously accepted concepts, making her argument insufficiently empirical. Some brief suggestions are offered as hints for ways in which these problems might be resolved. (shrink)

To bring the significance of Lyotard's reading of Kant's sublime into full relief, I will begin by considering some of the philosophical developments of Descartes and Hume as they relate to issues of subjectivity and consciousness. The thought of these two modern writers informs the critical philosophy of Kant. I will then explain the aesthetics of Kant and show how with the sublime there is a unique kind of time distinct from the common time of cognition. This aesthetic time destabilizes (...) what Kant had earlier described as the basis for the way that we think about the self. In light of this concept of aesthetic temporality, I will examine, in the conclusions of my essay, Galen Strawson's pearl theory of the self, and suggest a possible alternative view. (shrink)

At a moment of cultural and political crisis, with forces of reaction seemingly ascendant throughout the West, it's fair to ask what use does anyone have for America, God, or any other similar fictions? What use does theological language have for the radical facing the apocalypse? Among the subjects considered: the need for an Augustinian left, legacies of American violence, speaking in tongues, the humanities facing climate change, the maturity of realizing that you will die, how to sail towards Utopia, (...) and witches."--Back cover. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Smell 'sensations' are among the most mysterious of conscious experiences, and have been cited in defense of the thesis that the character of perceptual experience is independent of the physical events that seem to give rise to it. Here we review the scientific literature on olfaction, and we argue that olfaction has a distinctive profile in relation to the other modalities, on four counts: in the physical nature of the stimulus, in the sensorimotor interactions that characterize its use, in the (...) structure of its intramodal distinctions and in the functional role that it plays in people's behaviour. We present two thought experiments in which we detail what would be involved in transforming sounds into smells, and also smells into colours. Through these thought-experiments, we argue that the experiential character of smell derives precisely from the structural features of olfaction, and that an embodied account of olfactory phenomenology is called for. (shrink)

Research has shown that adults can engage in cognitive offloading, whereby internal processes are offloaded onto the environment to help task performance. Here, we investigate an application of this approach with children, in particular children with poor working memory. Participants were required to remember and recall sequences of colors by placing colored blocks in the correct serial order. In one condition the blocks were arranged to facilitate cognitive offloading (i.e., grouped by color), whereas in the other condition they were arranged (...) randomly. Across two experiments (total N = 166) the ordered condition improved task performance for children with low working memory ability. In addition, participants in Experiment 2 rated the difficulty of the two arrangements and performed a further condition in which they were given an opportunity to freely arrange the blocks before completing the task. Despite performing better in the ordered condition, children with low working memory ability did not rate the ordered arrangement as easier, nor did they choose an ordered arrangement when given the opportunity to do so. This research shows that cognitive offloading can also be a useful process in populations other than typical adults, and the implications of this work for supporting children with poor working memory are discussed. (shrink)

Roland Barthes remains one of the most influential cultural theorists of the postwar period and Image-Music-Text is his most widely taught work. Ed White provides students with a clear guide to this essential but difficult text. As students are increasingly expected to write across a range of media, Barthes' work can be understood as an early mapping of what we now call interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study. The book's detailed section-by-section readings makes Barthes' most important writings accessible to undergraduate readers. This (...) book is a perfect companion for teaching and learning Barthes ideas in cultural studies and literary theory. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.

Within the ambit of modernity, "to be" a "person" means "to have" "a body." But what exactly do we mean when we say: ‘I have a body’? Who or what is this ‘I’ that ‘has’ ‘a body’ anyway? And how and why does this ‘having’, this possessing, of ‘a body’ confer legal and psychological personhood on us? Does such bodily possession necessarily define a mode of ‘self ownership’? Is distinguishing between the notions of ‘being an organism’, or even ‘being alive’, (...) and ‘having a body’ just a matter of semantics? Or are there pragmatic, bio-political consequences to the ways we construe our vitality and embodiment? Can thinking about ‘the body’ as a (or even, the) matter of ‘self possession’ tell us something interesting about how ‘personhood’ informs our lives? After all, what is ‘the nature’ of ‘the body’, if it can be possessed in such a manner? And does this proprietary way of thinking exhaust the possibilities for how we can imagine what it means to be an organism, a person, a citizen or a human? (shrink)

Envy and Jealousy in Classical Athens examines the sensation, expression, and literary representation of envy and jealousy in Classical Athens.

If, as the title of this book suggests, the state of Tractatus commentary has at times recently resembled something close to a state of war, then it has most of all resembled a war of attrition. Against this background, Roger White's "Throwing the Baby Out with the Ladder" makes for refreshing reading. To be sure, White repeats some of the familiar misconceptions of what resolute readers do or must claim that have marred the debate over the adequacies or inadequacies of (...) such an approach to the Tractatus (TLP). But he also introduces some novel and interesting lines of criticism that merit serious attention. Foremost among the latter is White's treatment (in Section III of his paper) of three engaging examples that he sees as making trouble for resolute readers, and for their opposition to the standard idea that the lesson of the Tractatrrs could consist in its communicating, and our grasping, ineffable insights by way of its nonsense-sentences. (shrink)

The ethical frameworks of consequentialism and formalism predict moral awareness and behavior in individuals, but current measures either do not treat these frameworks as independent or lack sufficient theoretical underpinnings and statistical dependability. This paper presents the development and validation of a new scale to measure consequentialism and formalism that is well grounded in prior research. The Ethical Standards of Judgement Questionnaire is validated via six studies. Measurement items are developed in the first three studies, which also confirm the need (...) to eliminate a unidimensional measure and evaluate these frameworks separately. The fourth study addresses discriminant validity and the two remaining studies provide insight into how consequentialism and formalism predict the degree to which behaviors are deemed acceptable by individuals in the context of consumer beliefs and religious beliefs. Suggested uses for the scale in both academia and organizations are presented. (shrink)