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Wilshire (philosophy, Rutgers) looks behind the shift of focus from teaching to research in universities, and sees a tight-knit fraternity bound by archaic initiation, purification, and exclusionary practices. He recommends some changes. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
In this capstone work, the late Bruce Wilshire seeks to rediscover the fullness of life in the world by way of a more complete activation of the body’s potentials. Appealing to our powers of hearing and feeling, with a special emphasis on music, he engages a rich array of composers, writers, and thinkers ranging from Beethoven and Mahler to Emerson and William James. Wilshire builds on James’s concept of the much-at-once to name the superabundance of the world that surrounds, nourishes, holds, and stimulates us; that pummels and provokes us; that responds to our deepest need—to feel ecstatically real.
Why is it that even amidst affluence and power, our culture is plagued by a variety of addiction? In this pioneering book, the author searchers for answers by giving serious attention to our genetic legacy from our hunter-gatherer ancestors as well as to the unique ways we adapt to our environment through the practice of science addiction - including drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling - suggesting that wilderness exploration, in the arts, myths, and ceremonies, can help us rediscover what it means to be human creatures. Bringing together the insights of philosophy, religion, cultural anthropology, behavioural biology, and the vast socio-medical literature on addiction. The author ingeniously explores the limits of our adaptive capacity and the costs of depleting the natural regenerative functions of the body.
Thoreau wrote that we have professors of philosophy but no philosophers. Can't we have both? Why doesn't philosophy hold a more central place in our lives? Why should it? Eloquently opposing the analytic thrust of philosophy in academia, noted pluralist philosopher Bruce Wilshire answers these questions and more in an effort to make philosophy more meaningful to our everyday lives. Writing in an accessible style he resurrects classic yet neglected forms of inquiring and communicating. In a series of personal essays, Wilshire describes what is wrong with the current state of philosophy in American higher education, namely the cozy but ultimately suffocating confinements of professionalism. He reclaims the role of the philosopher as one who, like Socrates, would goad us out of self-contentedness into a more authentic way of being and knowing.
"[Wilshire] establishes a phenomenology of theatre, a theory of enactment, and a theory of appearance, none of which American theatre... has ever had." —Performing Arts Journal "... Wilshire makes unique contributions to understanding major aspects of the human condition in its necessary search for selfhood." —Process Studies "It is one of the American classics." —Human Studies
One of America's foremost philosophers reflects on the discipline and its relation to everyday life.
Why do groups become genocidal and try to incapacitate all members of an alien group, even sometimes killing fetuses? Prematurely alluding to evil or to the Devil blocks the possibility for further inquiry. Get 'Em All! Kill 'Em! is the first systematic attempt to explain what, up until now, has seemed to be inexplicable phenomena.
The most convenient and accessible guide to James currently available.
This groundbreaking book charts the origins and spread of the systems movement. After World War II, a systems approach to solving complex problems and managing complex systems came into vogue among engineers, scientists, and managers, fostered in part by the diffusion of digital computing power. Enthusiasm for the approach peaked during the Johnson administration, when it was applied to everything from military command and control systems to poverty in American cities. Although its failure in the social sphere, coupled with increasing skepticism about the role of technology and "experts" in American society, led to a retrenchment, systems methods are still part of modern managerial practice....