Psychoanalysis has become in the West the dominant paradigm for understanding our emotional lives. But do we know what it's all about? Using examples from popular culture and everyday experience, each book in the series explains a psychoanalytical concept and its ability to illuminate the nature of human society and culture.
Psychoanalysis has become in the West the dominant paradigm for understanding our emotional lives. But do we know what it's all about? Using examples from popular culture and everyday experience, each book in the series explains a psychoanalytical concept and its ability to illuminate the nature of human society and culture.
Everybody wants to be famous for fifteen minutes.
This title explores the concept of Eros through three main questions: What is sexuality? What is love? What is imagination? As the author explores the Eros concept – life instinct – developed by Freud which he considerd to be the drive to endure and procreate.
That man ever managed to develop a 'scientific' attitude to the natural world is one of the true wonders of human thought. And answering the question of where and how this attitude began can help us better understand the world we live in and the science that governs it. Eureka! shows that science began with the Greeks. Disciplines as diverse as Medicine, Biology, Engineering, Mathematics and Cosmology all have their roots in the Ancient Greeks. Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Archimedes and Hippocrates were amongst its stars, master architects all of modern science as well as the ancient. What lay behind this colossal eruption of scientific activity? Free from intellectual and religious dogma, the Greeks rejected explanation in terms of myths and capricious gods and, in distinguishing between the natural and supernatural, they effectively discovered nature. Theories began to be tested, leading to a rapid increase in their sophistication with new and better ones being developed. Furthermore, the Greeks came to be conscious of the distinction between science and technology. Andrew Gregory unravels the genesis of science in this fascinating exploration of the origins of Western civilisation, and our desire for a rational, legitimating system of the world.
Want information, but don't know where to start? There are millions of Internet Websites of varying quality and value. How do you know which are worthwhile and which don't bear a second look? Search engines only cover a small proportion of the Web. So, how do you ensure you are not missing the best and most useful Websites? And how do you know which Websites you need, when you don't know what's out there? Websites from A to Z will help. By highlighting tried and tested sites from a range of useful categories, Websites from A to Z will save you time, effort and energy, to ensure you get the most from the Internet.
The last 100 years has seen science deal with issues outside itself, communicate with the public and try to answer questions long considered the province of religion. A collection of accessible essays exploring the big questions of contemporary science.
We live in a knowledge economy. Competition now straddles the world, and competitive advantage will be produced from now on by knowledge and creativity. Acquiring and managing knowledge better has become a political imperative. And yet – what is knowledge? The arguments have changed little since Plato. Arguing against sceptics who claim we have no knowledge at all, philosophers have focused on knowledge of facts, on how to distinguish true knowledge from mere belief. But the knowledge economy is less interested in knowledge about facts as in know-how – the Internet provides anyone with a PC and a phone line with access to billions of documents. We are drowning in information, while being starved of knowledge. What we really want is to get clever things done, in smarter ways. Plato and the Internet argues that what is important is not 'what facts you know', but 'what you know how to do', and that the essential contrast is not between knowledge and belief, but between knowledge and information. Is the Internet really something new – or a continuation of the past by other means?
Is perversion an emotion? Where do guilty feelings come from? What is the function of anxiety in the development of human personality? Freud died 60 years ago, his legacy the enigmatic language of psychoanalysis. But what are these terms really all about? On a Darkling Plain is a collection of vibrant essays exploring a selection of Freud's great terms, explaining their relevance to everyday life and their use in the understanding of our culture. Using a wide range of references to visual art, cinema, literature, popular culture and examples from real life, analysts and counsellors for whom these terms are part of everyday language explore why Freud is still the major thinker in the understanding of our emotions.
Electricity was the scientific fashion of the Enlightenment, 'an Entertainment for Angels, rather than for Men'. Lecturers attracted huge audiences to marvel at sparkling fountains, flaming drinks, pirouetting dancers and electrified boys. Enlightenment optimists predicted that this new-found power of nature would cure illnesses, improve crop production, even bring the dead back to life.
Benjamin Franklin, better known as one of America's founding fathers, played a key role in developing the new instruments and theories of electricity during the eighteenth century. Celebrated for drawing lightning down from the sky with a kite, Franklin was an Enlightenment expert on electricity, developing one of the most successful explanations of this mysterious phenomenon.
But Patricia Fara, Senior Tutor of Clare College Cambridge, reveals how the study of electricity became intertwined with Enlightenment politics. By demonstrating their control of the natural world, Enlightenment philosophers hoped to gain authority over society. And their stunning electrical performances provided dramatic evidence of their special powers.
Traces our quest for knowledge from Greek and Roman antiquity to the origins of experimental science and the insights of sociology, psychology and neurological investigations.
Psychoanalysis has become in the West the dominant paradigm for understanding our emotional lives. But do we know what it's all about? Using examples from popular culture and everyday experience, each book in the series explains a psychoanalytical concept and its ability to illuminate the nature of human society and culture.
Francis Bacon is one of the leading figures in the history of science ranking alongside even Isaac Newton. And yet, Bacon never made one major scientific discovery. His claim to fame rests on his status as the man to define scientific method.
An Internet consultant's guide to the lingo, jargon, and tech-speak surrounding the Internet covers everything from Dongles to Bozo Filters with style panache. Original.
Psychoanalysis has become in the West the dominant paradigm for understanding our emotional lives. But do we know what it's all about? Using examples from popular culture and everyday experience, each book in the series explains a psychoanalytical concept and its ability to illuminate the nature of human society and culture.
Reconstructs and intervenes in the fascinating debates that have pitted the history of thinking about film. Both an engaging history and an invaluable sourcebook, this book examines a vast pool of thought.
William Gilbert, royal physician and Elizabeth the First's most distinguished man of science, came to conceive the Earth as a vast spherical magnet, enabling the determination of a ship's position.
How do we reconcile the advantages of science with its perils? What do scientists actually do? Is science 'value-free'? How has science evolved through history? Where is science leading us? We now begin to see that uncertainty and ignorance tend to increase with changes in the production of knowledge. We have arrived at the threshold of post-normal science. Introducing Science is a clear and incisively illustrated anatomy of science. It is essential reading for students, ordinary citizens and scientists themselves.
The British monarchy has created monsters. Far from being an institution we should respect and revere, it is incompatible with the 21st century and, Johann Hari argues, must now go. Hari exposes the truth about the Windsors, from the late Queen Mother to the young Princes, and argues that it is time this tragic comedy closed.
