Nasty, Brutish, and Short

2022-05-03

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Author: Scott Hershovitz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984881825
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 385

An NPR Best Book of 2022 * One of Christian Science Monitor's 10 best books of May “This amazing new book . . . takes us on a journey through classic and contemporary philosophy powered by questions like ‘What do we have the right to do? When is it okay to do this or that?’ They explore punishment and authority and sex and gender and race and the nature of truth and knowledge and the existence of God and the meaning of life and Scott just does an incredible job.” —Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Some of the best philosophers in the world gather in surprising places—preschools and playgrounds. They debate questions about metaphysics and morality, even though they’ve never heard the words and perhaps can’t even tie their shoes. They’re kids. And as Scott Hershovitz shows in this delightful debut, they’re astoundingly good philosophers. Hershovitz has two young sons, Rex and Hank. From the time they could talk, he noticed that they raised philosophical questions and were determined to answer them. They re-created ancient arguments. And they advanced entirely new ones. That’s not unusual, Hershovitz says. Every kid is a philosopher. Following an agenda set by Rex and Hank, Hershovitz takes us on a fun romp through classic and contemporary philosophy, powered by questions like, Does Hank have the right to drink soda? When is it okay to swear? and, Does the number six exist? Hershovitz and his boys take on more weighty issues too. They explore punishment, authority, sex, gender, race, the nature of truth and knowledge, and the existence of God. Along the way, they get help from professional philosophers, famous and obscure. And they show that all of us have a lot to learn from listening to kids—and thinking with them. Hershovitz calls on us to support kids in their philosophical adventures. But more than that, he challenges us to join them so that we can become better, more discerning thinkers and recapture some of the wonder kids have at the world.

Leviathan

2012-10-03

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Author: Thomas Hobbes
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048612214X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Written during a moment in English history when the political and social structures were in flux and open to interpretation, Leviathan played an essential role in the development of the modern world.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short

2012-03-27

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Author: Mark Totten
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 1459400380
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Mark Totten has spent fifteen years learning about youth gangs. He has interviewed over 500 gang members in cities across the country, tracing their lives from infancy to adulthood, and exploring the roots of their involvement in crime and their reliance on violence. This book offers a picture of the reality of youth gangs in Canada. Much of what Totten has to say is at odds with popular ideas. His research leads him to believe that breaking through the circumstances that produce young criminals is far more difficult than most people think. For individuals caught in gang life, exiting that world is next to impossible-in fact, the most common way out is an early death from violence or suicide.

Twilight of Abundance

2014-03-24

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Author: David Archibald
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1621571580
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Baby boomers enjoyed the most benign period in human history: fifty years of relative peace, cheap energy, plentiful grain supply, and a warming climate due to the highest solar activity for 8,000 years. The party is over—prepare for the twilight of abundance.

Everything must change

2021-06-10

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Author: Vittorio Bufacchi
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526158760
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 157

The philosopher Michel de Montaigne said that facing our mortality is the only way to learn the ‘art of living’. This book asks what we can learn from COVID-19, both as individuals and collectively as a society. Written during the first and second lockdowns, Everything must change offers philosophical perspectives on some of the most pressing issues raised by the pandemic. It argues that the pandemic is not a misfortune but an injustice; that it has exposed our society’s inadequate treatment of its most vulnerable members; that populist ideologies of post-truth are dangerous and potentially disastrous. In considering these issues and more, the book draws on a diverse range of philosophers, from Cicero, Hobbes and Arendt to prominent contemporary thinkers. At the heart of the book is a simple argument: politics can be the difference between life and death. With careful reflection we can avoid knee-jerk decision making and ensure that the right lessons are learned, so that this crisis ultimately changes our lives for the better, ushering in a society that is both more compassionate and more just.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short

2010-04-13

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Author: Pat Senson
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0771079680
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Birds do it, and bees do it, so do all animals, some of them in weird and wonderful ways. Quirks & Quarks' latest book explores the more bizarre behaviours of more than 100 creatures, from barnacles to Panda bears. The tiny spider that has to tear off one of its two huge sex organs just to be able to get around; the sea slug that produces a powerful love drug and mates with both males and females; the bedbug that stabs its penis into the female's abdomen — the range of animal sexual practices is mind-boggling. And it's not only reproduction that has them doing very strange things. There's a beetle that shoots a stream of boiling hot, toxic liquid when it's threatened; a lizard that can run on water; a shrimp that explodes its prey. Quirks & Quarks' latest guide is much more than a catalogue of peculiar practices, it's an engrossing look at the astonishing behaviours different animals have evolved in order to survive and reproduce. With an introduction by Bob McDonald, host of Quirks & Quarks.

Hobbes

2013-01-11

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Author: A.P. Martinich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135180792
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was the first great English philosopher and one of the most important theorists of human nature and politics in the history of Western thought. This superlative introduction presents Hobbes' main doctrines and arguments, covering all of Hobbes' philosophy. A.P. Martinich begins with a helpful overview of Hobbes' life and work, setting his ideas against the political and scientific background of seventeenth-century England. He then introduces and assesses, in clear chapters, Hobbes' contributions to fundamental areas of philosophy: epistemology and metaphysics, in particular Hobbes' materialism and determinism and his relation to Descartes ethics and political philosophy, concentrating on Hobbes' most famous work, Leviathan, and the theory of the social contract it advances philosophy of science, logic and language, considering Hobbes' theory of nominalism and his writing on rhetoric and the uses of language; religion, examining Hobbes' analyses of revelation, prophets and miracles. The final chapter considers the legacy of Hobbes' thought and his influence on contemporary philosophy.

Disability and the Good Human Life

2014

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Author: Jerome E. Bickenbach
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107027187
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 341

This collection of original essays, from both established scholars and newcomers, takes up a debate that has recently flared up in philosophy, sociology, and disability studies on whether disability is intrinsically a harm that lowers a person's quality of life. While this is a new question in disability scholarship, it is also touches on one of the oldest philosophical questions: What is the good human life? Historically, philosophers have not been interested in the topic of disability, and when they are it is usually only in relation to questions such as euthanasia, abortion, or the moral status of disabled people. Consequently, implicitly or explicitly, disability has been either ignored by moral and political philosophers or simply equated with a bad human life, a life not worth living. This collection takes up the challenge that disability poses to basic questions of political philosophy and bioethics, among others, by focusing on fundamental issues as well as practical implications of the relationship between disability and the good human life.

Seconds of Pleasure

2007-12-01

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Author: Neil LaBute
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802199194
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Stories from the award-winning director and playwright. “Labute’s smart, edgy offering delivers pleasures well beyond the time frame his title suggests.”—Booklist In Seconds of Pleasure, Neil LaBute brings to the page his cutting humor and compelling take on the shadowy terrain of the human heart. Best known for his controversial plays and films, his short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Playboy. Seductive and provocative, each potent and pithy tale in Seconds of Pleasure finds men and women exploiting—or at the mercy of—the hidden fault lines that separate them: In “Time Share,” a woman leaves her family at their vacation home after discovering her husband in a compromising situation; a middle-aged man obsesses over a scab on the calf of a pretty young girl in “Boo-Boo”; and a vain Hollywood actor gets his comeuppance in “Soft Target.” LaBute infuses Seconds of Pleasure with his trademark wit and black humor and unleashes his imagination in stories that offer unflinching insight into our very human shortcomings and impure urges with shocking candor. “LaBute’s usual sleazy suspects are prepared to risk family, love, career, and freedom for the momentary satisfaction of their sometimes brutal desires. It will end badly, we know, and that’s what makes each dark tale as irresistible as good gossip. Fallibility and weakness, LaBute has demonstrated once again, have their own allure.”—Black Book “Seconds captures in print both the nuanced rhythms of contemporary speech and the pitfalls of dark I-Me-Mine gratification.”—LA Weekly “LaBute is a master at crafting shocking situations and nasty characters.”—Publishers Weekly

The Catholic School

2019-08-13

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Author: Edoardo Albinati
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374717451
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1280

A semiautobiographical coming-of-age story, framed by the harrowing 1975 Circeo massacre Edoardo Albinati’s The Catholic School, the winner of Italy’s most prestigious award, The Strega Prize, is a powerful investigation of the heart and soul of contemporary Italy. Three well-off young men—former students at Rome’s prestigious all-boys Catholic high school San Leone Magno—brutally tortured, raped, and murdered two young women in 1975. The event, which came to be known as the Circeo massacre, shocked and captivated the country, exposing the violence and dark underbelly of the upper middle class at a moment when the traditional structures of family and religion were seen as under threat. It is this environment, the halls of San Leone Magno in the late 1960s and the 1970s, that Edoardo Albinati takes as his subject. His experience at the school, reflections on his adolescence, and thoughts on the forces that produced contemporary Italy are painstakingly and thoughtfully rendered, producing a remarkable blend of memoir, coming-of-age novel, and true-crime story. Along with indelible portraits of his teachers and fellow classmates—the charming Arbus, the literature teacher Cosmos, and his only Fascist friend, Max—Albinati also gives us his nuanced reflections on the legacy of abuse, the Italian bourgeoisie, and the relationship between sex, violence, and masculinity.