Ivan Pavlov: a Very Short Introduction

2022
Ivan Pavlov: a Very Short Introduction

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  • Author: Daniel P. Todes
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0190906693
  • Category : Physiologists
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 161

"Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) is famous for his Nobel Prize-winning studies of digestion and, especially, his investigations of conditional reflexes, through which he attempted to understand and ease the "torments" of human consciousness. Based on rich archival materials, this work provides a uniquely rich and readable introduction to his life and work. The book follows Pavlov from his youth as a provincial seminarian to his scientific studies, traumas, and professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg through world war and two revolutions, international celebrity status, and his complex relationship with the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Stalin. Exploring Pavlov's quest to constrain the psyche within mechanistic law, the work explains his innovative experimental techniques and approach, discusses his interpretive practices as a physiologist, reveals the personalities and importance of his favorite experimental dogs, and analyzes his important, but little-known, experiments on chimpanzees. The work ends with a discussion of the two manuscripts on which Pavlov labored during his last days, which reveal the relationship between the great scientist's work and his psychological drive for certainty amid the unforeseeable calamities in life and express his final thoughts about the relationship between science, Christianity, and Communism"--

Ivan Pavlov: a Very Short Introduction

2022
Ivan Pavlov: a Very Short Introduction

PDF Ivan Pavlov: a Very Short Introduction Download

  • Author: Daniel Philip Todes
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9780190906702
  • Category : Physiologists
  • Languages : en
  • Pages :

"Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) is famous for his Nobel Prize-winning studies of digestion and, especially, his investigations of conditional reflexes, through which he attempted to understand and ease the "torments" of human consciousness. Based on rich archival materials, this work provides a uniquely rich and readable introduction to his life and work. The book follows Pavlov from his youth as a provincial seminarian to his scientific studies, traumas, and professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg through world war and two revolutions, international celebrity status, and his complex relationship with the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Stalin. Exploring Pavlov's quest to constrain the psyche within mechanistic law, the work explains his innovative experimental techniques and approach, discusses his interpretive practices as a physiologist, reveals the personalities and importance of his favorite experimental dogs, and analyzes his important, but little-known, experiments on chimpanzees. The work ends with a discussion of the two manuscripts on which Pavlov labored during his last days, which reveal the relationship between the great scientist's work and his psychological drive for certainty amid the unforeseeable calamities in life and express his final thoughts about the relationship between science, Christianity, and Communism"--

Ivan Pavlov

2014
Ivan Pavlov

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  • Author: Daniel Philip Todes
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
  • ISBN: 0199925194
  • Category : Biography & Autobiography
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 897

This is a definitive, deeply researched biography of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and is the first scholarly biography to be published in any language. The book is Todes's magnum opus, which he has been working on for some twenty years. Todes makes use of a wealth of archival material to portray Pavlov's personality, life, times, and scientific work. Combining personal documents with a close reading of scientific texts, Todes fundamentally reinterprets Pavlov's famous research on conditional reflexes. Contrary to legend, Pavlov was not a behaviorist (a misimpression captured in the false iconic image of his "training a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell"); rather, he sought to explain not simply external behaviors, but the emotional and intellectual life of animals and humans. This iconic "objectivist" was actually a profoundly anthropomorphic thinker whose science was suffused with his own experiences, values, and subjective interpretations. This book is also a traditional "life and times" biography that weaves Pavlov into some 100 years of Russian history-particularly that of its intelligentsia--from the emancipation of the serfs to Stalin's time. Pavlov was born to a family of priests in provincial Ryazan before the serfs were emancipated, made his home and professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg in late imperial Russia, suffered the cataclysmic destruction of his world during the Bolshevik seizure of power and civil war of 1917- 1921, rebuilt his life in his 70s as a "prosperous dissident" during the Leninist 1920s, and flourished professionally as never before in 1929-1936 during the industrialization, revolution, and terror of Stalin. Todes's story of this powerful personality and extraordinary man is based upon interviews with surviving coworkers and family members (along with never-before-analyzed taped interviews from the 1960s and 1970s), examination of hundreds of scientific works

Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

2002-02-21
Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

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  • Author: Edward Craig
  • Publisher: OUP Oxford
  • ISBN: 0191500747
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 144

How ought we to live? What really exists? How do we know? This book introduces important themes in ethics, knowledge, and the self, via readings from Plato, Hume, Descartes, Hegel, Darwin, and Buddhist writers. It emphasizes throughout the point of doing philosophy, explains how different areas of philosophy are related, and explores the contexts in which philosophy was and is done. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Risk: A Very Short Introduction

2011-05-26
Risk: A Very Short Introduction

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  • Author: Baruch Fischhoff
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0199576203
  • Category : Business & Economics
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 185

Risk is everywhere - from genetically modified crops, dams, and stem-cell therapy to heartbreak, online predators, inflation, and robbery. This Very Short Introduction examines what science has learned about how people deal with risks, what we can learn through decision theory, and how we can evaluate risk in our own lives.

Veterinary Science: A Very Short Introduction

2018-02-13
Veterinary Science: A Very Short Introduction

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  • Author: James Yeates
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0192508407
  • Category : Medical
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 144

Every year billions of animals, from housecats to racehorses to pythons, are treated by veterinarians. The use of veterinary science to treat the health of animals has a long history; for the past five centuries it has developed as our understanding of animals' fundamental biology, pathology, and pharmacology has grown. Rapid global changes expected in the twenty-first century will require the profession to respond proactively, embracing new challenges and opportunities. James Yeates, Chief Veterinary Officer of the RSPCA, introduces the field of veterinary science, covering the history of its scientific and clinical aspects from early practices to recent challenges such as the outbreak of BSE and antibiotic resistance, and considering the differences between human medicine and veterinary medicine. Analysing the key roles played by diagnosis, treatment, and prevention with regard to the health of farm animals and pets, he relates this to wider aspects concerning public health, such as zoonoses (diseases that jump from animals to humans). Yeates also covers recent 'One Health' approaches involving the health of both humans and animals, seen as synergistic, and discusses the challenges for the future of veterinary medicine, including the ethical dilemmas in balancing the interests of owners and animals when they do not coincide. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction

2003-04-24
Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction

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  • Author: P. H. Matthews
  • Publisher: OUP Oxford
  • ISBN: 0191577510
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 144

Linguistics falls in the gap between arts and science, on the edges of which the most fascinating discoveries and the most important problems are found. Rather than following the conventional organization of many contemporary introductions to the subject, the author of this stimulating guide begins his discussion with the oldest, 'arts' end of the subject and moves chronologically through to the newest research - the 'science' aspects. A series of short thematic chapters look in turn at such areas as the prehistory of languages and their common origins, language and evolution, language in time and space (the nature of change inherent in language), grammars and dictionaries (how systematic is language?), and phonetics. Explication of the newest discoveries pertaining to language in the brain completes the coverage of all major aspects of linguistics from a refreshing and insightful angle. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Violence: A Very Short Introduction

2022-03-24
Violence: A Very Short Introduction

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  • Author: Philip Dwyer
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0192567608
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 153

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Violence is part and parcel of human history and of human nature. It is one of our most distinctive traits, the one thing that all cultures and societies, across time, share in common. It has defined not only the ways in which individuals relate to each other, but also how collective entities and states have interacted with each other over the millennia. All societies are violent and all individuals have the capacity for violence. However, not all societies and not all individuals are equally violent, and nor does violence exist with the same intensity across cultures. This Very Short Introduction examines the more visible, physical acts of violence - interpersonal, gendered, collective, religious, sexual, criminal, and political - in the modern world. It explores how violence in the pre-modern world was different from the modern world, and what is significant about those differences. It also discusses what violence is by examining understandings of the ideas, values, and cultural practices embedded in an act of violence, and considering acts of violence as the outcome of a process dependent on the cultural context in which they take place. Along the way Dwyer considers some core questions, asking whether violence is always 'bad', and if there are any limits to human violence? Why is it that what was once considered acceptable - wife beating, duelling, slavery - at some point becomes unacceptable in some societies and cultures, and yet continues in others? And finally, are we becoming more or less violent? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Copernicus

2016
Copernicus

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  • Author: Owen Gingerich
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0199330964
  • Category : Astronomers
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 115

Leading historian of science Owen Gingerich offers a fascinating portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), who developed the concept of a heliocentric universe and is a pivotal figure in the birth of modern science.

Existentialism

2009
Existentialism

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  • Author: Thomas Flynn
  • Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781402768743
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 196

"A series of concise, engrossing, and enlightening books that explore every subject under the sun with unique insight. One of the twentieth century's most significant philosophical movements, existentialism influenced literature, the arts and humanities, and politics. Here, thomas Flynn examines the philosophy's core beliefs and introduces leading existentialist thinkers, from Nietzsche to Sartre."--Page 4 of cover.