We make choices all the time - about trivial matters, about how to spend our money, about how to spend our time, about what to do with our lives. And we are also constantly judging the decisions other people make as rational or irrational. But what kind of criteria are we applying when we say that a choice is rational? What guides our own choices, especially in cases where we don't have complete information about the outcomes? What strategies should be applied in making decisions which aff...

Originally published in 1987 this highly original work explores how the nature and institutions of society are determined by our unconscious as well as our conscious aims – how individuals join together in ‘unconscious contracts’. The author does this by integrating psychoanalysis and social science to generate a psychoanalytical theory of society. The key to this theory is the interpretation of both psychoanalysis and social science in terms of the interplay between conflict and co-operat...

This book presents a critical appraisal of the main theories of distributive justice. It develops the view that all such theories, or at least all liberal theories, may be seen as expressions of laissez-faire with compensations for factors that they consider to be morally arbitrary.More precisely, these theories are interpreted as specifying that the outcome of individuals acting independently, without the intervention of any central authority, is just, provided that those who fare...

We make choices all the time—about how to spend our money, about how to spend our time, about what to do with our lives. And we are also constantly judging the decisions other people make as rational or irrational. But what kind of criteria are we applying when we say that a choice is rational? What guides our own choices, especially in cases where we don't have complete information about the outcomes? What strategies should be applied in making decisions which affect a lot of people, as i...

In this enlightening Very Short Introduction, Simon Critchley shows us that Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by the analytic tradition. He discusses the ideas and approaches of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida. He also introduces key concepts such as existentialism, nihilism, and phenomonology,...

Quantum theory is the most revolutionary discovery in physics since Newton. This book gives a lucid, exciting, and accessible account of the surprising and counterintuitive ideas that shape our understanding of the sub-atomic world. It does not disguise the problems of interpretation that still remain unsettled seventy-five years after the initial discoveries. Uncertainty, probabilistic physics, complementarity, the problematic character of measurement, and decoherence are among the many t...

Memories are an integral part of being human. They haunt us, we cherish them, and in our lives we collect more of them with each new experience. Without memory, you would not be able to maintain a relationship, drive your car, talk to your children, read a poem, watch television, or do much of anything at all.Memory: A Very Short Introduction explores the fascinating intricacies of human memory. Is it one thing or many? Why does it seem to work well sometimes and not other...

Games are everywhere: Drivers maneuvering in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. The supermarket's price for corn flakes is decided by playing an economic game. This Very Short Introduction offers a succinct tour of the fascinating world of game theory, a groundbreaking field that analyzes how to play games in a rational way. Ken Binmore, a renowned game theorist, explains the theory in a way that is both entert...

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was an extraordinarily original thinker, whose influence on twentieth-century thinking far outside the bounds of philosophy alone. In this engaging Introduction, A. C. Grayling makes Wittgenstein's thought accessible to the general listener by explaining the nature and impact of Wittgenstein's views. He describes both his early and later philosophy, the differences and connections between them, and gives a fresh assessment of Wittgenstein's continui...

Chaos exists in systems all around us. Even the simplest system of cause and effect can be subject to chaos, denying us accurate predictions of its behavior, and sometimes giving rise to astonishing structures of large-scale order. Our growing understanding of Chaos Theory is having fascinating applications in the real world—from technology to global warming, politics, human behavior, and even gambling on the stock market.Leonard Smith shows that we all have an intuitive understand...

In Politics: A Very Short Introduction, Kenneth Minogue begins with a discussion of issues arising from a historical account of politics, and goes on to offer chapters dealing with the Ancient Greeks and the idea of citizenship; Roman law; medieval Christianity and individualism; freedomsince Machiavelli and Hobbes; the challenge of ideologies; democracy, oligarchy, and bureaucracy; power and order in modern society; and politics in the West.

What is dreaming, and what causes it? Why are dreams so strange and why are they so hard to remember? Replacing dream mystique with modern dream science, J. Allan Hobson provides a new and increasingly complete picture of how dreaming is created by the brain. Focusing on dreaming to explain the mechanisms of sleep, this book explores how the new science of dreaming is affecting theories in psychoanalysis, and how it is helping our understanding of the causes of mental illness.J. Al...