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MIRRORING PEOPLE: HOW WE CONNECT WITH OTHERS
BY MARCO IACOBONI
Imagine you are out and about, perhaps doing some shopping, or planning an evening at the movies with friends. Lots of people are around you, coming and going, all busy with their own plans. You look at them, they look at you. Where do you think they are looking, when they look at you? | read |
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WHY THINK? EVOLUTION AND THE RATIONAL MIND
BY RONALD DE SOUSA
Humans, it has been said since Aristotle, are rational animals. Those who scoff at the phrase misunderstand it as contrasting with irrationality. But the proper contrast is with the non- rational, or arational. Inanimate objects are arational, because it makes no sense to tax them with irrationality. Humans are rational precisely because we are capable of irrationality... | read |
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RATIONALITY AND RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT
BY ROBERT AUDI
Why should there be yet another book in the philosophy of religion, and why should I in particular write one? Rationality and Religious Commitment has grown from a great deal of my work on both these topics... | read |
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THE ETHICAL PROJECT
BY PHILIP KITCHER
Most people who have ever lived have subscribed to principles about how to act and doctrines about what is valuable, ethical views they regard as handed down from an authoritative source, usually from a being or beings far more powerful and... | read |
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MARX AND ALIENATION
BY SEAN SAYERS
Alienation is a pervasive but puzzling feature of modern life. It is one of the few theoretical terms from Marxism that has entered into ordinary language. There it usually denotes a vague feeling of malaise or meaninglessness. In Marx, however, it has a precise meaning derived from Hegel's philosophy, and it plays a central role in Marx's critique of capitalism and his conception of an alternative form of society... | read |
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STATES OF WAR
BY DAVID WILLIAM BATES
States of War addresses one of the most pressing concerns of modern democratic states: how to reconcile the foundational drive to defend the nation with the principles of law and civic rights? | read |
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CHOICE AND THE FREE MARKET
BY KENT GREENFIELD
We may be quite aware of various ways we are constrained in life-biology, social norms, authority-but one area we are told embodies robust, unlimited choice is the free market. The free market allows us to choose among... | read |
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THE PROMISE OF THRIFT
BY JOSHUA J. YATES
Until recently, the word "thrift" had largely disappeared from the active vocabulary of most Americans. Like chastity and temperance, thrift was well on its way to becoming a virtue relic of a bygone era. Yet just when the word itself seemed on the verge... | read |
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THE STOICS AND THE EPICUREANS ON FRIENDSHIP, SEX, AND LOVE
BY RICHARD KREITNER
Ancient philosophy - especially after Aristotle - largely focused on how to achieve self-sufficiency on the one hand, and peace of mind on the other; it thus became fundamentally therapeutic, in nature and goal... | read |
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THE INSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION
BY DOUGLAS W. ALLEN
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the best known early modern novel. It tells the timeless tale of two young people along a bumpy path destined to bring them together... | read |
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THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
BY ANDRÉ GAGNÉ
In reading the Gospel Thomas, one immediately notices similarities with the New Testament writings. But even with such congruency, some scholars believe that Thomas is independent from the canonical Christian texts... | read |
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CAPITALISM AND CRISIS
BY JAMES FULCHER
We are in the midst of a crisis of capitalism and commentators compete to provide accounts of its origins in misguided policies or corporate malpractices, as though it is in some way a deviation from the normal functioning of capitalist economies... | read |
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GRAVITY'S GHOST
BY HARRY COLLINS
How do scientists decide they have discovered something? Gravity's Ghost is a detective story about a potential discovery called 'the Equinox Event'. At the same time, it's an investigation of the nature of science... | read |
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WHY PEOPLE BECOME POOR
BY ANIRUDH KRISHNA
Is it possible to prevent or forestall poverty?
| read |
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DIGNITY
DONNA HICKS
Dignity: The Essential Role it Plays in Resolving Conflict reveals a hidden force within us so powerful that it can affect the way we feel about ourselves, our relationships... | read |
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DEATH
BY TODD MAY
Each of us will die. Sooner or later, each of you reading this words, as well as I who write them, will be dead. This fact about us affects our lives perhaps more profoundly than any... | read |
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CONSERVATISM
BY KIERON O'HARA
Defining conservatism is surprisingly hard; well, perhaps not that surprising, since self-described conservatives have adopted many apparently incompatible positions in recent years. Hayek advocated small government, but Reagan and Bush increased its size. The religious right and extreme libertarians claim the term... | read |
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DEPTH | MICHAEL STREVENS
Humanity's single greatest achievement is, perhaps, to understand something about the way that the world really works...
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THE SCIENCE OF EVIL | SIMON BARON-COHEN
When we try to explain acts of human cruelty, there is no scientific value in the term 'evil' but there is scientific value in using the term 'empathy erosion'...
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THE LAST UTOPIA | SAMUEL MOYN
The Last Utopia assesses how deeply rooted in history the notion of "international human rights" is...
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A BOOK FORGED IN HELL | STEVEN NADLER
Writing in May, 1670, the German theologian Jacob Thomasius fulminated against a recent, anonymously published book. It is, he claimed, "a godless document" that should be immediately banned in all countries lest its dangerous message disseminate among the masses...
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PSYCHOLOGY AND CATHOLICISM
BY ROBERT KUGELMANN
Relationships between sciences and religions are a thorny issue in our day. All too often, dogmatic statements proclaim animosity between them, as when atheist thinkers condemn religion in the name of science, or when fundamentalist Christians usurp scientific authority by reference to the Book of Genesis...| read |
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THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM | RICHARD SWEDBERG
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber is one of the world's most famous studies in social science, competing for the first place with works such as Capital by Karl Marx and Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville...
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THE FRUIT, THE TREE, AND THE SERPENT | LYNNE A. ISBELL
I still find it amazing that my dog's eyesight is so poor. The other day he confused another man standing perhaps three meters away, with my husband...
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THE REAL REAL THING | WENDY STEINER
Any creation story is a story about models, for as King Lear reminds us, "Nothing can come of nothing." Models generate entities "made in their own image..."
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MERLEAU-PONTY AND PROUST: MYSTERIOUS OPERATION
BY RICHARD KREITNER
The phenomenological project, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, is to study, as far as is possible given the nature of human consciousness, the experience of experience... | read |
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WHEN NEWS FOCUSES ON THOSE ABOUT TO DIE | BARBIE ZELIZER
Death has long been seen as the ultimate equalizer, yet its depiction in the news takes shape across unequal parameters...
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THE MANUSCRIPT THAT MUST BE SAVED | BESTE ALPAY
While Walter Benjamin was carrying his heavy briefcase as he was crossing the Pyrenees to escape from Nazi occupation he said "It is the manuscript that must be saved. It is more important than I am..."
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THE CRISIS OF CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY
BY
RICHARD A. POSNER
The essence of Keynes's analysis of the macroeconomy (that is, the economy considered as a whole, as distinct from specific industries) is recognition of its inherent instability, which derives in turn from the uncertainty of the economic environment and, what is closely related, the psychology of consumers and of businessmen... | read |
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FREEDOM AND THE LAWS OF NATURE
BY
STEVEN HORST
One of the central projects of philosophy since the seventeenth century has been the attempt to reconcile our self-image as human beings with the picture of the world emerging from the natural sciences... | read |
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DOES SCIENCE CONTRADICT RELIGION?
BY ALVIN PLANTINGA
Many people, these days, hold the opinion that religion and science conflict; in some deep way they are opposed to each other... | read |
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ON THE ORIGIN OF STORIES
BY BRIAN BOYD
Who doesn't love stories? On page, stage or screen, fiction can be as engrossing as sex. But why do we need to explain why we love fiction, any more than why we enjoy sex? | read |
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BOREDOM: A YEAR'S HISTORY
BY PETER TOOHEY
"Yes. You do. There's nothing left to believe in anymore..." | read |
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TAKING MOVIES SERIOUSLY
BY
DANIEL SHAW
There are several themes on which I have consistently focused my efforts as a philosopher of film. I have always had a deep concern for the ethical content of films... | read |
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DIALOGUES BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON
BY JOHN H. SMITH
Dialogues tells a story about how we got to where we are and hopes that the very telling of that story will help create a way for readers themselves to engage in reasonable dialogues... | read |
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MINDREADING ANIMALS
BY ROBERT W. LURZ
The Debate over What Animals Know about Other Minds | read |
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RETURNING DIGNITY TO ECONOMICS
BY MARK D. WHITE
A Review of Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character. | read |
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THE INVENTION OF MARKET FREEDOM
BY ERIC MACGILVRAY
Through most of human history the word "freedom" has been used to distinguish the members of a social and political elite from those classes of people - women, slaves, serfs, menial laborers, and foreigners - who do not enjoy their privileges or... | read |
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ON ART AND WAR AND TERROR
BY ALEX DANCHEV
'Poetry makes nothing happen,' said the poet W. H. Auden. How wrong he was... | read |
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WHY WE COOPERATE
BY MICHAEL TOMASELLO
As we read the newspaper each day, most of us ask ourselves why people can't be nicer to one another, more helpful, more cooperative?
And indeed, one could phrase the central normative question of the social sciences... | read |
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BRAINTRUST: WHAT NEUROSCIENCE TELLS US ABOUT MORALITY
BY PATRICIA SMITH CHURCHLAND
Self-preservation is embodied in our brain's circuitry: we seek food when hungry, warmth when cold, and sex when lusty. In the evolution of the mammalian brain, circuitry for regulating one's own survival and well-being was modified... | read |
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SLOUCHING TOWARD GAUTAMA: TOWARD A BUDDHIST POLITICS OF FREEDOM
BY ZACH DORFMAN
There is a central teaching in certain schools of Mahayana Buddhist metaphysics that all phenomena are shunya, or empty of inherent existence... | read |
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THE WELFARE STATE AND THE RISE OF PATERNALISM
BY GILLES SAINT-PAUL
We live in increasingly paternalistic societies; almost every day, somewhere in the developed world, a new law regulates what people can eat, drink, smoke, view, or read... | read |
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THE CLASH OF IDEAS IN WORLD POLITICS
BY JOHN M. OWEN IV
The Arab Awakening - the chain of rebellions and revolutions that have rocked the Arab world since last December - has riveted the attention of people the world over... | read |
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NEITHER BEAST NOR GOD
BY GILBERT MEILAENDER
The term 'dignity' has been used with increasing frequency--but in very different ways--in the field of bioethics... | read |
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AGE OF FRACTURE
BY DANIEL T. RODGERS
In the midst of a heated political discussion, you may still hear it said that ideas don't matter. Ideas are mere veils, we say: gauze draped over the harder stuff of interests and prejudice... | read |
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BLIND SPOTS
BY MAX H. BAZERMAN AND ANN E. TENBRUNSEL
During the trying times that have followed the financial collapse of 2008, a long list of culprits has been blamed: homebuyers, mortgage lenders, bankers, Congress, and the Bush administration... | read |
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ON INTELLIGENCE
BY MICHAEL MILBURN
Although I recognized the concept of intelligence from an early age, it wasn't until high school that I realized that being smart meant more than getting good grades, and that different people could be smart in different ways... | read |
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BOOKS | ECONOMIC ORIGINS OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY
BY ROBERT B. EKELUND Jr. and ROBERT D. TOLLISON
The Roman Catholic Church, a principal world religion today in competition with other Christian faiths, had, by 1600, achieved dominance over huge swaths of Europe... | read |
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IDEAS | THE CURRENT CRISIS AND THE ESSENCE OF CAPITALISM
THOMAS K. McCRAW
The worldwide economic downturn is no short-term blip but a full-fledged crisis of capitalism. Amid the din of commentary and political posturing, it is appropriate to return to first principles for a better understanding of the crisis. What are these principles? The answer requires a foray into history... | read |
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BOOKS | HUMAN DIGNITY
BY GEORGE KATEB
My book is a defense of human dignity. I mean that it is a defense of the equal status of individuals or persons vis-à-vis one another, and a defense of the superior stature of the human species vis-à-vis all others species... | read |
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BOOKS | DARWIN'S CONJECTURE
BY GEOFFREY M. HODGSON and THORBJORN KNUDSEN
Social scientists have been wary of applying Darwin's ideas. In our book Darwin's Conjecture: The Search for General Principles of Social and Economic Evolution we argue that these misgivings are ungrounded... | read |
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BOOKS | THE HEBREW REPUBLIC
BY ERIC NELSON
It has become commonplace to attribute the rise of modern political thought in the West to a process of "secularization." In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, so the story goes, political thought was fundamentally Christian, an exercise in applied theology... | read |
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BOOKS | WHY JANE AUSTEN?
BY RACHEL M. BROWNSTEIN
Somewhere near the middle of Why Jane Austen?, a book that combines literary and cultural criticism with recollections of teaching and travel and anecdotes about friends, neighbors, and strangers, I describe a gathering of Jane Austen fans I attended some years ago in England... | read |
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BOOKS | EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS, DEISTS, AND AMERICA'S FOUNDING
BY THOMAS S. KIDD
On New Year's Day of 1802, the Baptist evangelist John Leland delivered a remarkable gift to the White House: a 1,235 block of cheese. Newspapers called it the "mammoth cheese." It came from Leland's village of Cheshire, Massachusetts, sent by evangelical Baptists of New England, to honor their beloved president, Thomas Jefferson... | read |
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BOOKS | DESIGN AND TRUTH
BY ROBERT GRUDIN
Perhaps the two most salient aspects of our humanity are our ability to communicate and our ability to design... | read |
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BOOKS | A JANE AUSTEN EDUCATION
BY WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ
The idea that reading books can change your life has not been very fashionable this last century or so... | read |
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BOOKS & REFLECTIONS | ANATHEISM
BY
FANNY HOWE
Recently I have discovered the term anatheism, which describes my experience with the world we have now... | read |
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BOOKS | BARBAROUS PHILOSOPHERS
BY CHRISTOPHER COKER
In his book The Invention Of Peace Michael Howard quotes the nineteenth century English jurist, Sir Henry Maine. "It is not peace which was natural and primitive and old, but rather war... | read |
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BOOKS | ORIGINS OF POLITICAL EXTREMISM
BY MANUS I. MIDLARSKY
Political extremism is one of the most pernicious, destructive, and nihilistic forms of human expression... | read |
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BOOKS | RADICAL DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY
BY JEFFREY W. ROBBINS
Unbeknownst to many, the world is undergoing a monumental change with regard to the understanding and practice of the proper relationship between religion and politics... | read |
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BOOKS | ADAM SMITH, RADICAL AND EGALITARIAN
BY IAIN McLEAN
A few years ago, I published a book with this title, responding to a question posed by Gordon Brown... | read |
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ESSAYS |
YOU CAN'T ALWAYS WANT WHAT YOU WANT
BY BERNARD QUETCHENBACH
After the late local news, I click aimlessly through channels, settling on one of those music specials that seem... | read |
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BOOKS | THE ORIGINS OF BUSINESS, MONEY, AND MARKETS
BY KEITH ROBERTS
Prior to The Origins of Business, Money, and Markets, nobody has ever described how business, the practice of selling at a profit, first began... | read |
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BOOKS | BOMBAY ISLAM
BY NILE GREEN
Along an alleyway amid a shanty town in the old port district of Bombay where in the nineteenth century the great steamship company P&O built its vast dockyard stands a shrine... | read |
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ESSAYS | 14 DEGREES SOUTHERN LATITUDE
BY BRAD COMANN
After flying in a two-engine job from Pago Pago (that cheap t-shirt of a town) to Apia, capitol of Western Samoa, a local merchant showed me a series of postcards... | read |
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GOD(S) AND PHILOSOPHY AND PHYSICS
BY ROBERT EHRLICH
For us humans the years go by slowly and swiftly. But time for us is a relative term and each person's experience of it is unique to that individual... | read |
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BOOKS | SOCIAL CONTRACT
BY PETER CORNING
It seems that fairness is an idea whose time has come. True, some cynics view fairness as nothing more than a mask for self-interest. But the cynics are wrong... | read |
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BOOKS | FROM MAO TO MARKET: CHINA RECONFIGURED
BY
ROBIN PORTER
It was late autumn 1968. Trudging through the snow along Rue de la Montagne in Montreal as the day drew to a close, I met up with an old family friend... | read |
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BOOKS | TUNNEL VISION: ON ERNESTO SABATO
MALCOLM FORBES
In his essay 'The Argentine Writer and Tradition' Borges talks of a 'rupture' between his country and Europe, New World and Old, and that 'we Argentines are cut off from the past'... | read |
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BOOKS | THE ENLARGEMENT OF LIFE: MORAL IMAGINATION AT WORK
BY JOHN KEKES
The title comes from Santayana, writing in Three Philosophical Poets of "a steady contemplation of all things in their order and worth. Such a contemplation is imaginative..." | read |
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BOOKS | WHAT LITERATURE TEACHES US ABOUT EMOTION
BY PATRICK COLM HOGAN
Li Ch'ing-Chao was one of the greatest poets of China. Writing nine hundred years ago, she reflected once on... | read |
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BOOKS | WAS AMERICA FOUNDED AS A CHRISTIAN NATION?
BY JOHN FEA
During the week of June 11, 2007, four thousand Christians converged on Williamsburg, Virginia, to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown-the first successful English colony in North America... | read |
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BOOKS |
APART
BY JUSTIN GEST
Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West | read |
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BOOKS | THE ANCIENT ORACLES
BY RICHARD STONEMAN
For more than a thousand years, the peoples of ancient Greece consulted oracles for guidance. In political decisions or in the quandaries of daily life, they turned to the gods (usually Apollo), and asked for advice in words... | read |
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BOOKS | DO-IT-YOURSELF SCIENCE
BY
STEVE FULLER
We live in a time of devolved authority from the state to communities, groups and individuals. This applies no less to science... | read |
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BOOKS | HOW DID I BECOME "ME"?
BY MEL THOMPSON
When I meet someone, I know them to be a person. I can start to get to know them, learn their history, their views, their aspirations. I may immediately sense... | read |
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BOOKS |
PLATO'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
BY MARK BLITZ
"Plato's Political Philosophy", examines the central phenomena of political life by clarifying Plato's understanding of them. Plato's understanding is especially useful because he offers the first articulation of the core elements of human... | read |
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ART | BEHIND VASARI'S PRINTED WORD
LYALL F. HARRIS
"...that villain time cannot consume what you have written." These were Paolo Giovio's words in a letter to Giorgio Vasari after the 1550 publication of Lives of the Artists... | read |
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LES HOUCHES IS VERY COMPLICATED
BY CHRISTOPHER FLYNN
"Un billet pour Les Huaches," I tell the young man in the glass booth."Les Huaches?" he repeats. "What is Les Huaches?" The way he says it and the suffering in his face tell me... | read |
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AN ELEMENTAL GRISLINESS
BY JAMES AITCHISON
For a few poets and many readers, there is only one kind of poetic truth. When Keats imagines the Grecian urn saying: '"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"', he understands that beauty is... | read |
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ON PERSONALITY
BY
MICHAEL MILBURN
There's at least one at every party, in every classroom, commanding attention, enlivening conversation... | read |
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THE MFA DEBATE
BY CURT ERIKSEN
I wonder whether or not I should venture into the fray. As a continuously aspiring writer it's tempting... | read |
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BOOKS | GOD AFTER DARWIN
BY JOHN F. HAUGHT
Evolutionary biology claims that organisms and species are the product of three main factors: accidental variations or mutations, blind natural selection, and an enormous amount of time... | read |
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BOOKS | SPINOZA, THE MORAL HERETIC
BY
MATTHEW J. KISNER
Examining one of history's most and important and misunderstood figures | read |
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THE WAY OF THE WORLD
CURT ERIKSEN
As I leave Europe behind and fly across the Atlantic Ocean it occurs to me that Carl Jung was simply not satisfied with causal and linear thinking... | read |
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CLEAVAGE CULTURE
BY LIN D. JENSEN
I immigrated to the United States in the early 90s, nevertheless the summer time each year - especially its beginning... | read |
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BOOKS | REVOLUTION: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
BY
JAMES DEFRONZO AND JUNGYUN GILL
Revolutions amaze the world and can change it radically. The American, French and Russian Revolutions thrilled millions while simultaneously filling others with dread... | read |
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BOOKS | THE PARADOX OF UNDERSTANDING REVOLUTION
PATRICK VAN INWEGEN
Revolutions are like great stories, they have an introductory phase where the stage is set and all of the actors are arranged in relation to each other... | read |
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ISLAM AND CAPITALISM, REVISITED
BY
DAROMIR RUDNYCKYJ
Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have prompted renewed interest in the work of Max Weber, the great German sociologist who documented the correlation between Protestantism and economic development in Europe and North America... | read |
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BOOKS | DAVID BROOKS' "THE SOCIAL ANIMAL"
BY MAURICE CHAMMAH
Towards the end of the introduction to his new book The Social Animal , author and New York Times columnist David Brooks mentions, with just the right touch of modesty... | read |
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BOOKS & WRITERS | THE BAG OF BEANS
BY DAVID E. HILTON
Usually, when an author sets out to write his or her first novel, it's with an effort and desire that springs from the collaboration of experience. At least, that was my finding when I wrote Kings of Colorado... | read |
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ART HISTORY | BURSTING THE DAM
BY RACE CAPET
Norm and Exception in the Career of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1848-1853 | read |
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IMAGINE LIVING THROUGH THE PROGRESS
BY MIKE MERCER
A consideration on early 20th century American culture | read |
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ON EDUCATION, RESPECT, AND ZEN
BY GRAEME LOTTERING
By order of magnitude, the Japanese phrase, "oshiète kudasai" is the most humble, reverent, and powerful sentence I have ever come across in any language... | read |
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A FORECLOSURE STORY | THE KEYS ARE IN THE MAIL
BY JANEEN McGUIRE
I am in trouble. The keys to my house clink against each other like small brass symbols as I remove... | read |
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LETTER FROM HUNGARY | ORIENTATION
BY MARGARET McMULLAN
Even though Pécs, Hungary is very much alive, it has its own tombstone at Yad Vashem... | read |
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PERSONAL HISTORY | BETWEEN TWO YARDS
BY ALISA A. GASTON-LINN
I can hear the chimes from my neighbors' yards, restful clings that sway in and out of placid tones... | read |
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CULTURE & POLITICS | THE RISK CONTAINED WITHIN THE POLITICALLY CORRECT
BY CURT ERIKSEN
What do the scheduled publication of a sanitized version of Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn... | read |
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BOOKS | UNREPENTANT: DISROBING THE EMPEROR
BY ANN DIAMOND
An unwitting United Church minister, hired to bring the word of God to a remote community on Vancouver Island... | read |
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ESSAY | FOUR REFLECTIONS ON THE COUNTERFEITERS
BY ROBERT WEXELBLATT
André Gide, reared by strict Protestant women, entered adult life in a state of restless religious captivity... | read |
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LETTER FROM CAMBRIDGE | WHITE GODDESS GHOSTS
BY KRISTINA ZDRAVIC REARDON
The colleges on King's Parade, one of Cambridge, England's main streets, are tall, craggy giants... | read |
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LETTER FROM INDIA | SIGNS OF LIFE IN INDIA
BY ROBERT ROSENBERG
I touched down in Mumbai at 3 AM. without a hotel reservation. On the line through customs... | read |
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REVIEW | THE ROUSING CALL OF DEMOCRACY
BY ANDREW GIBSON
A Review of The Trotsky | read |
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IDEAS | CONFLICT AND ITS MEANING
Marginal Notes | read |
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BOOKS & THOUGHTS | BIBLIOPHILIA
BY BRADLEY SHINGLETON
They crowd the house, upstairs and down, boxed, stacked and shelved... | read |
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IDEAS | NEW MEDIA AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS
Many years ago, perhaps twenty or more, I read a book... | read |
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THE RECENT DEBATE ON STATE INTERVENTION IN ECONOMY
"The Debate on Salt and Iron" is one of the most contemporary and amazing texts... | read |
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ESSAY | DAOISM: TRUTH AND PARADOXES
If this short essay got into the hands of a Daoist, he would discard it after the first sentence... | read |
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HISTORY | THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES: PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE
To what extent was the Treaty of Versailles a cause for the Second World War?| read |
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HISTORY & DEBATES | STANDARD OF LIVING AND ECONOMIC TRANSITION
BY T.S. TSONCHEV
The importance and meaning of the question about the standard of living in periods of swift transition from one form of economic organization to another. | read |
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IDEAS | THE ORIGINS OF REVOLUTION
BY T.S. TSONCHEV
This essay aims to give a very short answer to the question of the origins of revolution and in particular of the role of the autocratic regime in the revolutionary change in France in 1789. | read |
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CHILDREN'S MEDIA: WHAT IS IT SAYING?
BY REBECCA ROSE TAYLOR
It is natural for children to love having bedtime stories read to them but have you ever really thought about what it is that you are actually reading them... | read |
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TO INVENT YOUR OWN LIFE
Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control.
Above all, resist the fear of failure... | read |
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BOOKS | THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR
A review of A.J. P. Taylor's book "The Origins of The Second World War" | read |
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ON DESCARTES' "OPTICS"
The objects must be illuminated in order to be seen, says René Descartes in his "Optics." And the objects are perceived by us as ideas... | read |
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"PERCEPTIONS OF TERRORISM: POST 9/11"
BY ERIN McIVER
The September 11th attacks were a tragedy that affected most Americans. It put terrorism on the national stage as a hot button issue. However, it also put a face on terrorism: one of Middle Eastern descent that practices Islam... | read |
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UTOPIA A OR B
BY MIKE MERECER
Two visions for the future | read |
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"MORALITY IN MEDIEVAL ECONOMICS"
BY MIKE MERCER
A study on usury | read |
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WHY DO SOME PEOPLE NOT UNDERSTAND JACQUES ELLUL?
BY DANIEL BOIS
Jacques Ellul wrote a book about propaganda, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
. This book is unique because it talks about long term propaganda and most of the books today on this subject tend to speak on short term or obvious forms like advertising. | read |
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THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW YORK'S NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS
If you ask a Spaniard, a German or a Russian, to name one or two popular magazines... | read |
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CINEMA | TO INCEPTION & BEYOND
BY CONOR McDONNELL
Philip French recently wrote in the Observer that (re)viewing Inception and Toy Story 3 in the same week reminded him that it was good to be alive, how true... | read |
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THE STORY OF KIM FROM THE VIETNAM NAPALM PULITZER PHOTOGRAPH 1972
BY ROY BERGER
I first saw Kim in the summer of 1972. I didn't know her name then. June, 1972 is not a difficult time for me to remember... | read |
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THE USE OF VIOLENCE
Mike Mercer argues that man's actions can be controlled by violence but their minds can not, thus violence is no real solution... | read |
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IS AMERICA THE NEW ROME?
There are astonishing similarities between the rise of the American state and power and the upsurge of Roman Republic... | read |
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THE JUDGE AS A LAWMAKER
Essay about the role of judges in the development of the law.| read |
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THE PEACE THAT LED TO WAR
French revolutionary wars undermined the European status quo and after the defeat of Napoleon, the European powers felt urgent need for creation of more secure European order... | read |
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CHINA THREATENS AMERICA WITH ITS EXAMPLE
America and the West face a very serious challenge from the East, but not in terms of the conventional definitions of the China threat, says Stefan Halper from the American Spectator. Halper argues that China has no interest of military competition with the United States... | read |
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IDEAS & HISTORY | THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
The creation of an empire is like the formation of atmospheric air tides. The whirlwind comes from nowhere; it grows fast and changes the weather over vast territories... | more |
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IDEAS | ESTRANGED LABOUR TODAY
Karl Marx's theory of estranged labour is still applicable... | read |
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THE POLITICAL CHANGE IN DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM
We must be sure that if post-war Iraq were able to achieve an even partially democratic political system, like those in Turkey, it would be more stable than the present Iran under the ayatollahs... | read |
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END OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC
"I liberated the Republic which was oppressed by the tyranny of a faction..." These words were inscribed on a bronze pillar before the mausoleum of a man who ruled the most powerful Empire in human history, who was called Pater Patriae and Divi Augusti, the first Roman emperor, the Princeps of Rome... | read |
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