Now in its seventh edition, Ingrid Rima's classic textbook charts the development of the discipline from the classical age of Plato and Aristotle, through the middle ages to the first flowering of economics as a distinct discipline - the age of Petty, Quesnay and Smith - to the era of classical economics and the marginalist revolution. The book then goes on to offer extensive coverage of the twentieth century - the rise of Keynesianism, econometrics, the Chicago School and the (...) neoclassical paradigm. The concluding chapters analyze the birth of late twentieth century developments such as game theory, experimental economics and competing schools of economic thought. This text includes a number of practical features: a "family tree" at the beginning of each section, illustrating how the different developments within economics are interlinked the inclusion of readings from the original key texts a summary and questions to discuss, along with glossaries and suggestions for further reading This book provides the clearest, most readable guide to economic thought that exists and encourages students to examine the relevance of the discipline's history to contemporary theory. (shrink)

This is the sixth edition of a textbook that has been instrumental in introducing a generation of students to the history of economic thought. It charts the development of economics from its establishment as an analytical discipline in the eighteenth century through to the late twentieth century. The book discusses the work of, amongst others: Ricardo, Malthus, Marx, Walras, Marshall and Keynes as well as the institutionalists, the Chicago School and the emergence of econometrics. This edition has been fully revised (...) and updated and includes: * chronologies of the key dates in the development of economics * extracts from original texts * an examination of how the study of the history of economic thought impinges upon modern thinking. (shrink)

The Faust motif provides an opportunity to explore the spectrum of attitudes among Christians toward science and technology by placing them into a historic context. Depending on one's understanding of the relationship of God and the world, the accomplishments of a Leonardo, a Paracelsus, a Faust, an Oppenheimer, or some future scientist credited with the “production” of the first successfully cloned human being can be interpreted as divine or diabolic in origin. I use the example of Faust to demonstrate that (...) the Christian assessment of the scientific enterprise is closely correlated to the level of doctrinaire dualism informing the particular version of Christianity that inspires the assessment. I show that, contrary to what seems obvious, Faust's damnation originated not in medieval times but in early modern northern Europe, reflecting a dualistic obsession with human sinfulness more characteristic of Reformation Germany than of Renaissance Italy. Encouraged by hellfire‐and‐brimstone preachers, the common folk saw demons, devils, and witches in every dark corner, while humanist scholars sought to recapture the brilliant past of the Greeks and the Romans. Goethe's interpretation represents a return to earlier versions of the story, while some continue to accuse contemporary Faustians of Satanic connections for seeking forbidden knowledge and daring to play God by manipulating the stuff of life. (shrink)

In the second part of the study the Chiliastic Soul concept is discussed as the goal of unity. This is done by focusing on the Castalian "game" and the death of Joseph Knecht. In addition, evidence is presented for certain fundamental conceptual similarities in the thought of Hesse and Hegel and Hesse and Jung, respectively. The author argues not only for the relevance of dialectics as key to a full understanding of Hesse but for the proposition that Hegel, Jung, and (...) Hesse share a primary intuition of ultimate unity or non-duality which shows striking parallels to the metaphysical foundations of the I Ching, Lao-Tze's tao, and the Vedantic atman-brahman identity. Finally, the death of Joseph Knecht is interpreted as affirmation of transformation in the light of Jungian alchemical symbolism. (shrink)

This article explores a rarely acknowledged and all too often specifically denied possibility: the relevance of Hegel’s philosophy to the interpretation of the literary work of Hermann Hesse. Contemporary Hesse scholars critical of this position, such as Edmund Gnefkow, Martin Pfeifer, and Mark Boulby, tend to view Hegel primarily as a rigorously rationalist philosopher of history. Thus they perpetuate a myth which has long been abandoned by the mainstream of Hegelian scholarship and should have been permanently laid to rest by (...) Iwan Iljin in Die Philosophie Hegels als kontemplative Gotteslehre when he presented convincing evidence for considering Hegel as an “intuitively-rational clairvoyant”. (shrink)

Two theme–setting quotations introduce this essay—that of Yeats's falcon, deaf to the falconer's call, adrift in space above the blood–dimmed tide, counterpoised to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's call to abandon old nationalistic prejudices and build the earth. With primary references to the thought of Teilhard, along with, among others, to Ewert Cousins, Andrew M. Greeley, Karl Jaspers, Marshall McLuhan, Ilya Prigogine, Karl Rahner, Leonard Swidler, David Tracy, and Alfred North Whitehead, I argue that the most crucial intellectual paradigm shift of (...) the twenty–first century will challenge humanity to take the turn from uncritical attachment to rigid absolutism or atomistic fragmentation toward a sense of open–ended, off–centered centeredness and fluid connections—from a static to a dynamic model of reality. Central to my argument is the Teilhardian reinterpretation of the Christian metaphors of creation, fall, incarnation, salvation, and the eschaton in the evolutionary terms of the emergence of cosmic consciousness from the chrysalis of the world of the past—from chaos to order, from biosphere via noosphere to theosphere. Facilitated by the exponential growth of populations, collaborative research, science, technology, and global communication (most dramatically manifested by the Internet), this emergent understanding of what it means to be human can, first, foster the awareness that in humanity evolution has become conscious of itself, and then, gradually, precipitate the formation of “the global village” (the mystical body of Christ), as respectful dialogue replaces diatribe and the dualistic pugilism of Samuel Huntington's “Clash of Civilizations” is gradually transformed into a nonadversarial mentality that values shared humanity and a common purpose. Thus, eons hence, empowered by love–energy, the transmutation of the human into the ultra–human can take the ultimate quantum leap into a yet higher dimension where spirit/energy is no longer in need of flesh/mass, and Earth can be safely left behind. (shrink)

Drawing on philosophy, theology, comparative religion, spirituality, Holocaust studies, physics, biology, psychology, and personal experience, I argue that continued human existence depends on our willingness to reject nihilism–not as an expedient “noble lie” but because faith in a meaningful cosmos and the power of love is at least as validly grounded in human experience as insistence on cosmic indifference and ultimate futility. I maintain that hope will free us to develop nonimperialistic methods of bridging cultural differences by forming a mutually (...) intelligible vocabulary that celebrates diversity, enters the worlds of others in respectful dialogue, and fosters a postmechanistic, organic, ecological, holistic, dynamic, interactive, open‐ended model of reality. I lay the foundation for a “hermeneutics of love” to complement Paul Ricoeur's “hermeneutics of suspicion” and invite speculation on the ways science, technology, and society would be transformed if those “glasses of friendship” were widely applied. (shrink)

The plan for this volume emerged during the international Leipzig conference commemorating the centenary of the death of Gustav Fechner.

Background: The factors influencing parents’ willingness to enroll their children in biobanks are poorly understood. This study sought to assess parents’ willingness to enroll their children, and their perceived benefits, concerns, and information needs under different consent and data-sharing scenarios, and to identify factors associated with willingness. Methods: This large, experimental survey of patients at the 11 eMERGE Network sites used a disproportionate stratified sampling scheme to enrich the sample with historically underrepresented groups. Participants were randomized to receive one of (...) three consent and data-sharing scenarios. Results: In total, 90,000 surveys were mailed and 13,000 individuals responded (15.8% response rate). 5737 respondents were parents of minor children. Overall, 55% (95% confidence interval 50–59%) of parents were willing to enroll their youngest minor child in a hypothetical biobank; willingness did not differ between consent and data-sharing scenarios. Lower educational attainment, higher religiosity, lower trust, worries about privacy, and attitudes about benefits, concerns, and information needs were independently associated with less willingness to allow their child to participate. Of parents who were willing to participate themselves, 25% were not willing to allow their child to participate. Being willing to participate but not willing to allow one’s child to participate was independently associated with multiple factors, including race, lower educational attainment, lower annual household income, public health care insurance, and higher religiosity. Conclusions: Fifty-five percent of parents were willing to allow their youngest minor child to participate in a hypothetical biobank. Building trust, protecting privacy, and addressing attitudes may increase enrollment and diversity in pediatric biobanks. (shrink)

This article reveals a 91-year-old cognitively intact man’s lived experiences of being cared for in a geriatric context in which the majority of the patients were cognitively impaired. A narrative patient story was analysed phenomenologically. The findings indicate that this patient’s basic needs for ethical care were not met. The staff did not see him as a unique individual with his own preferences, resources and abilities to master his life. In order to survive this lack of ethical care, he played (...) the role of an ‘old cognitively impaired man’, which provided him with at least the understanding and attention the cognitively impaired patients received from the staff. The findings also indicate that ethical care is independent of whether or not older cognitively intact and impaired patients stay or live in the same unit, but it is more dependent on a caregiver’s ability to respect and confirm each and every patient for who he or she is and would like to be. (shrink)