Suppose you could change people's way of thinking about the world at its very roots, by changing the very concepts by means of which they think. Suppose, further, that this would make the world a better place; that would be quite something. Knowledge and Conceptual Engineering is a comprehensive and systematic study of the nature and normativity of conceptual engineering. This book comprehensively deals with all the central questions in the field: the very possibility of conceptua...

A spirited defense of the relevance of reason for an era of popular skepticism over such matters as climate change, vaccines, and evolution.Why does reason matter, if (as many people seem to think) in the end everything comes down to blind faith or gut instinct? Why not just go with what you believe even if it contradicts the evidence? Why bother with rational explanation when name-calling, manipulation, and force are so much more effective in our current cultural ...

Praise for the Second Edition:"In opposition to most literature on how to conduct good social science research which is either empirically oriented or gives priority to theoretical and philosophical considerations, which tends to make empirical research look odd or irrelevant, this volume on ′Reflexive Methodology′ explicitly turns towards a consideration of the perceptual, cognitive, theoretical, linguistic, political and cultural circumstances as bac...

Humans are social animals and are constantly interacting with each other through conversation, written communication, symbols and other expressions . Discourse: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to the analysis of those interactions and the many forms and meanings they can take. The book draws on a range of international case studies and examples from literature, political speech, advertising and newspaper articles to address key questions such as:

In this highly readable and well-arranged compilation-including his much-celebrated "The Practice of Reading Good Books" and award-winning "Playing with Bateson"-Corey Anton brings together some of his most accessible and well-received essays. The collection, in addition to advancing and integrating the fields of media ecology and general semantics, will be of great interest to people who are concerned over the changing role of reading and literacy in contemporary life. A stimulating and p...

This book provides an exciting and diverse philosophical exploration of the role of practice and practices in human activity. It contains original essays and critiques of this philosophical and sociological attempt to move beyond current problematic ways of thinking in the humanities and social sciences. It will be useful across many disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, science, cultural theory, history and anthropology.

An examination of the new technological mediations between the human sensorium and the planetary media network and of the aesthetic as an enabler of new modes of knowledge.This series of interventions on the ramifications of Speculative Realism for aesthetics ranges from contemporary art's relation to the aesthetic, to accelerationism and abstraction, logic and design.From varied perspectives of philosophy, art, and design, participants examine the new tech...

'A crucial book for feminists, for sociology and the new "political anthropological historical school". It informs us how we are differently "situated" in and through social relations, which texts and images mediate, organise and construct.' Philip Corrigan, Professor of Applied Sociology, Exeter UniversityDorothy E. Smith is Professor of Sociology in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto. She is the author of The Everyday World as Problematic: ...

The field of composition theory has emerged as part of the intellectual turmoil and set of pedagogical debates which have beset higher education for the last four decades and is now revolutionizing the theory and praxis of higher education. This volume examines three of the dominant pedagogical theories within composition theory: expressivist, cognitivist, and social-constructivist and builds its critique on the fact that much of modern composition theory has focused on epistemological con...

Herman Cappelen investigates ways in which language (and other representational devices) can be defective, and how they can be improved. In all parts of philosophy there are philosophers who criticize the concepts we have and propose ways to improve them. Once one notices this about philosophy, it's easy to see that revisionist projects occur in a range of other intellectual disciplines and in ordinary life. That fact gives rise to a cluster of questions: How does the process of conceptual...

This book brings together a collection of essays written by scholars inspired by Eugene Gendlin’s work, particularly those interested in thinking with and beyond Gendlin for the sake of a global community facing significant crises.The contributors take inspiration from Gendlin’s philosophy of the implicit, and his theoretical approach to psychology. The essays engage with Gendlin’s ideas for our era, including critiques and corrections as well as extrapolations of his work. Gendlin...

Confronting Theory presents a methodological (philosophical) and educational evaluation and critique of what has come to be known as Theory (‘with a capital-T’) in cross-disciplinary humanities education. Rather than merely dismissing Theory writing as risibly pretentious and abstract, Confronting Theory examines its principal concepts from the perspective of academic psychology and shows that, although ‘Theory that only dogs can hear’ may sound like revolutionary psychol...