Schizophrenia has been investigated predominately from psychological, psychiatric and neurobiological perspectives. This book is unique in examining it from a philosophical point of view. It should appeal to every reader who wants to better understand this major mental illness, providing unique insights into the 'experience' of schizophrenia.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Reproduction of the original: Mental Evolution in Man by George John Romanes.

Though Nicholson (b.1760) devoted his life to a number of radical causes -- among them popular education, women's rights, democratic government, and animal welfare -- he was not part of the London circle of radical political reforms that their enemies called English Jacobins, but a printer far from the city. He did however contribute to the movement that brought a number of reforms during the 19th century, including legislation to protect animal interests. He argues not only that eating meat is (...) cruel to animals, but that it is unnatural for humans and therefore unhealthy. (shrink)

Western society has been diverted from the goal of spiritual freedom and autonomy as expressed in the ancient Pythagorean 'theory of the cosmos'. Indeed, following Heidegger's analysis, it can be seen that modern Western society has arrived at the opposite pole of anthropocentric 'absolute subjectivism' in which the entire non-human world is seen as a material resource to be consumed in the satisfaction of our egoistic passive desires. It is further argued that Spinozism is actually a modern version of the (...) 'theory of the cosmos' which, when supplemented by a vision of man's identity with the ecological world, would provide us with the only adequate portrayal of the God/Nature/Man relationship. (shrink)

“The end of society is peace and mutual protection, so that the individual may reach the fullest and highest life attainable by man. The rules of conduct by which this end is to be attained are discoverable-like the other so-called laws of Nature-by observation and experiment, and only in that way.”THOMAS HUXLEYThe present moment is a portentous one in the history of human relations. Only yesterday the armies of half the world were locked in a death struggle with the armies (...) of the other half. And even now, as the representatives of the various governments gather together in attempts to organize an international State, the shadow of a weapon that threatens to end all life upon this earth lies athwart their deliberations. The moment with which we are faced is the more portentous because of the persistent hope man vainly entertains that a world of wholeness and peace will somehow issue out of these two warring and divided half-worlds. Even the student of behavior fondly believes that out of this divided world an undivided peace will come. Along with the rest of mankind even the seasoned psychiatrist fails to see that the overwhelming impetus to man's behavior—to his feeling and thinking—now stems from a social artifact of division. He does not see that, owing to a discrepancy in man's mental and social processes, the artificial world man has created is necessarily a world of conflict. In this hour of universal confusion and discord it would appear that we who study the problems of human adaptation are confronted with nothing less than a false, unilateral principle of motivation affecting the organism of man throughout. (shrink)

This chapter addresses questions such as what is unique about human beings, and what makes humans human. It begins exploration of such questions by looking back on some of the major events and themes of the past 1000 years in Western civilization and the primitive human instincts they illustrate. The second millennium opened with holy wars: local wars, such as the Spanish Reconquista to retake Spain from the Moors, and the broader multi‐state Crusades to take the Holy Lands from the (...) Muslims. Many scholars date postmodernism from Hiroshima and the Holocaust, one an instantaneous annihilation, the other a systematic one. Like space exploration, work on human genetics is dominated by governmental agencies and commercial interests. The chapter argues that genocidal proclivity of the past millennium could lead to genocide on an even more horrible scale if we create a new or “better” human species (or subspecies) through genetic engineering. (shrink)

As the work of thinkers such as Michel Foucault, François Jacob, Louis Althusser, and Pierre Bourdieu demonstrates, Georges Canguilhem has exerted tremendous influence on the philosophy of science and French philosophy more generally. In Knowledge of Life, a book that spans twenty years of his essays and lectures, Canguilhem offers a series of epistemological histories that seek to establish and clarify the stakes, ambiguities, and emergence of philosophical and biological concepts that defined the rise of modern biology. How do transformations (...) in biology and modern medicine shape conceptions of life? How do philosophical concepts feed into biological ideas and experimental practices, and how are they themselves transformed? How does knowledge "undo the experience of life so as to help man remake what life has made without him, in him or outside of him?" Knowledge of Life is Canguilhem's effort to explain how the movements of knowledge and life come to rest upon each other. Published at the dawn of the genetic revolution and still pertinent today, the book tackles the history of cell theory, the conceptual moves toward and away from mechanical understandings of the organism, the persistence of vitalism, and the nature of normality in science and its objects. (shrink)

The Most Important Book on Money You'll Ever Read Also Includes Acres of Diamond The Richest Man in Babylon is a transformative book that has changed the way millions of people think about money since it was first published in 1926. Through light, entertaining parables author George S. Clason shares profound truths about wealth and success that will revolutionize the way you relate to money and interact with your finances. Clason's wisdom has inspired countless readers to gain, grow, and (...) maintain their wealth, making this one of the most beloved finance books of all time. This special edition also includes the bonus book Acres of Diamond by Russell Conwell, a powerful exploration of the nature of true wealth. The Richest Man In Babylon is part of the GPS (Good, Practical, Simple) Guides to Life Series, which brings classic success books to a modern audience. Each edition features new modern design while staying true to the text of the original editions. (shrink)

The transhumanist project of reshaping human beings by promoting their improvement through technological innovations has a broad agenda. This study focuses on the enhancement of the human organism through genetic modification techniques. Transhumanism values and a discussion of their philosophical background provide a framework to understand its ideals. Genetics and ethics are employed to assess the claims of the transhumanist program of human enhancement. A succinct description of central concepts in genetics and an explanation of current techniques to edit the (...) human genome serve to assess the capabilities and limitations of editing techniques. Potential benefits and liabilities of human enhancement through genome editing are discussed to appraise its feasibility. Ethical considerations of genome editing inform a reflection on the implications of introducing heritable changes in the genome of individuals. It is concluded that the transhumanist program is underpinned by a large number of hypotheses rather than by sufficient evidence. (shrink)

"Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple laws which govern its acquisition." Read by millions, The Richest Man in Babylon is a classic that offers today's readers a path to success, prosperity, and happiness. Originally published in 1926 as a series of inspirational pamphlets for financial institutions, Clason's work offers financial advice for creating personal wealth using parables set in ancient Babylon. The stories, based on a fictional character, Arkad, are easy to read and packed with priceless wisdom. (...) Offering seven basic principles on saving and investing money, it's often cited as one of the most popular books ever written on the fundamentals of financial success. (shrink)

William Christian has selected some three hundred letters, postcards, telegrams, and journal entries which reveal much about Grant - both the troubled man and the daring thinker.

In the course of the Complaint, which Thomas Hoccleve composed, probably in 1420, as the first part of his so-called Series, the poet claims to have derived comfort from a certain “lamentacioun of a woful man” which he found in a book. There he read of a dialogue between the woeful man and Reason; and he reports the lamentations of the one and the good advice of the other up to the point at which, he says, the owner of the (...) book asked for it back. This text remained a mystery until, in the 1970 volume of this journal, A. G. Rigg identified it as a work of Isidore of Seville, the Synonyma, commonly subtitled De lamentatione animae peccatricis. This Latin treatise of moral advice and spiritual consolation, though now commonly overshadowed by the same author's Etymologiae, was a work widely read and admired in the Middle Ages. Professor Rigg was assisted in his identification by the fact that five of the six surviving copies of the Complaint accompany the English verse with a series of Latin glosses evidently taken from Hoccleve's source. Consulting the Patrologia Latina text of the Synonyma, Rigg found that these glosses could be matched there more or less exactly, scattered over the first twenty-four paragraphs of that edition. (shrink)

As individuals and as communities we have suddenly awakened to find ourselves enveloped in a welter of unprecedented changes—social, political, economic and scientific. If our minds are to keep pace with the restless current on which we are being carried along, if our senses are to become alert to the teeming dislocations that mark the present, it will be necessary to raise our sights to the farther reaches of a rapidly oncoming future. In this hurrying hour the outstanding domains of (...) man's thought are found wanting. Accepted tenets in many fields of his activity are giving way to rapidly broadening concepts. In this moment of new assessments it is safe to predict that the field of psychopathology must also gird itself for very radical alterations. It is safe to predict that present-day preoccupations with interpersonal affects, domestic transferences, sexual irregularities, marital conflicts, psychotic episodes, and the vast array of neurotic symptoms that comprise our psychiatric systems will in the scientific reckoning of the future appear to us quite obsolete and inept. They will appear to us as humdrum and archaic, I feel sure, as old wives' tales when contrasted with the basic and encompassing constructs of an organismic phylobiology. (shrink)

Our current moral relativism has blurred the distinction between true and false and even between right and wrong by accepting multiple truths and subjective truths as valid evaluations of reality. Serban documents that man, in the process of pursuing his goals, tends to manipulate others. Adapting through deception, particularly in crisis, is part of our animal heritage. Our thought processes, protective of our emotions and self-image, are perfectly adapted for the task of lying.