In Philosophic Values and World Citizenship: Locke to Obama and Beyond, Alain Locke-the central promoter of the Harlem Renaissance, America's most famous African American pragmatist, the cultural referent for Renaissance movements in the Caribbean and Africa-is placed in conversation with leading philosophers and cultural figures in the modern world. The contributors to this collection compare and contrast Locke's views on values, tolerance, cosmopolitanism, and American and world...

The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus is a brilliant and incisive work of satire that combines humor, social critique, and philosophical reflection. Written in playful and witty prose, Erasmus lampoons human pretensions, folly, and the vices of society, while offering profound insights into morality, religion, and the pursuit of wisdom. At the heart of this work lies its compelling hook: through laughter and irony, we uncover the truths about human nature and society. Erasmus uses humo...

Throughout history, from the time of Socrates to our own modern age, the human race has sought the answers to fundamental questions of life: Who are we? Why are we here?In his previous national bestsellers, The Discoverers and The Creators , Daniel J. Boorstin first told brilliantly how e discovered the reality of our world, and then he celebrated man's achievements in the arts. He now turns to the great figures in history who sought meaning and purpose in our existence.Boo...

How did we find ourselves in a "post-truth" world of "alternative facts"? And can we get out of it? A Short History of Truth sets out to answer these questions by looking at the complex history of truth and falsehood. It identifies ten types of supposed truth and explains how easily each can become the midwife of falsehood. There is no species of truth that we can rely on unquestioningly, but that does not mean the truth can never be established. Attaining truth is an achievement ...

Three years before his death, Michel Foucault delivered a series of lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain that until recently remained almost unknown. These lectures—which focus on the role of avowal, or confession, in the determination of truth and justice—provide the missing link between Foucault’s early work on madness, delinquency, and sexuality and his later explorations of subjectivity in Greek and Roman antiquity.Ranging broadly from Homer to the twentieth century, ...

One of our most brilliant minds offers a sweeping intellectual history that argues for the reclamation of culture’s valueCulture is a defining aspect of what it means to be human. Defining culture and pinpointing its role in our lives is not, however, so straightforward. Terry Eagleton, one of our foremost literary and cultural critics, is uniquely poised to take on the challenge. In this keenly analytical and acerbically funny book, he explores how culture and our...

"A gimlet-eyed and often hilarious account of the author's round-the-world reefer safari . . . A surprisingly clear-headed view of potheads worldwide" ( The New Yorker ).In Pot Planet, journalist Brian Preston sets out on a global ganja safari to explore strange new cannabis cultures, to seek out new growers, activists, and other reefer revolutionaries . . . and to boldly get baked with each of them.Presto...

A provocative reflection on the dilemmas of modern loveThe sexual revolution is justly celebrated for the freedoms it brought—birth control, the decriminalization of abortion, the liberalization of divorce, greater equality between the sexes, women's massive entry into the workforce, and more tolerance of homosexuality. But as Pascal Bruckner, one of France's leading writers, argues in this lively and provocative reflection on the contradictions of modern love, our...

I think, therefore I am.René Descartes. "I am out with lanterns, looking for myself."Emily Dickinson. "It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning round."Henry David Thoreau. "I am I because my little dog knows me."Gertrude Stein. "I'm glad I'm not me."Bob Dylan. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."Kurt Vonnegut. Are there many selves? Is there a true self? Are you the one you choose? Or are you the one that chooses you? T...

Illustrated guide to the controversial sociologist Jean Baudrillard, who died in 2007. Did the Gulf War take place? Is it possible to fake a bank robbery? Was sexual liberation a disaster? Jean Baudrillard has been hailed as one of France's most subtle and powerful theorists. But his provocative style and assaults on sociology, feminism and Marxism have exposed him to accusations of promoting a dangerous new orthodoxy - of being the 'pimp' of postmodernism. Introducing Baudrillard cuts ben...

The topic of biopolitics is a timely one, and it has become increasingly important for scholars to reconsider how life is objectified, mobilized, and otherwise bound up in politics. This cutting-edge volume discusses the philosophical, social, and political notions of biopolitics, as well as the ways in which biopower affects all aspects of our lives, including the relationships between the human and nonhuman, the concept of political subjectivity, and the connection between art, science, ...

Are you a utility?Have you seen a robot? How it functions? How it understands?To get a robot to work correctly, you have to make a proper communication with it, so that it can understand what function you want to perform with its help.This purpose of communication is done with a program. A program is a set of commands, which make the robot understand what it has to do. For example, if you want the robot to wash your clothes, you have to make it understand, with the h...