Towards a Theory of Thinking

Towards a Theory of Thinking
Author: Britt Glatzeder
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2010-03-20
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 3642031293

What is Thinking? – Trying to Define an Equally Fascinating and Elusive Phenomenon Human thinking is probably the most complex phenomenon that evolution has come up with until now. There exists a broad spectrum of definitions, from subs- ing almost all processes of cognition to limiting it to language-based, sometimes even only to formalizable reasoning processes. We work with a “medium sized” definition according to which thinking encompasses all operations by which cog- tive agents link mental content in order to gain new insights or perspectives. Mental content is, thus, a prerequisite for and the substrate on which thinking operations are executed. The largely unconscious acts of perceptual object stabilization, ca- gorization, emotional evaluation – and retrieving all the above from memory inscriptions – are the processes by which mental content is generated, and are, therefore, seen as prerequisites for thinking operations. In terms of a differentia specifica, the notion of “thinking” is seen as narrower than the notion of “cognition” and as wider than the notion of “reasoning”. Thinking is, thus, seen as a subset of cognition processes; and reasoning processes are seen as a subset of thinking. Besides reasoning, the notion of thinking includes also nonexplicit, intuitive, and associative processes of linking mental content. According to this definition, thinking is not dependant on language, i. e. also many animals and certainly all mammals show early forms of thinking.

Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value

Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value
Author: D. Graeber
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2001-12-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0312299060

Now a widely cited classic, this innovative book is the first comprehensive synthesis of economic, political, and cultural theories of value. David Graeber reexamines a century of anthropological thought about value and exchange, in large measure to find a way out of ongoing quandaries in current social theory, which have become critical at the present moment of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism. Rooted in an engaged, dynamic realism, Graeber argues that projects of cultural comparison are in a sense necessarily revolutionary projects: He attempts to synthesize the best insights of Karl Marx and Marcel Mauss, arguing that these figures represent two extreme, but ultimately complementary, possibilities in the shape such a project might take. Graeber breathes new life into the classic anthropological texts on exchange, value, and economy. He rethinks the cases of Iroquois wampum, Pacific kula exchanges, and the Kwakiutl potlatch within the flow of world historical processes, and recasts value as a model of human meaning-making, which far exceeds rationalist/reductive economist paradigms.

Towards a Theory of Development

Towards a Theory of Development
Author: Alessandro Minelli
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0191651184

Is it possible to explain and predict the development of living things? What is development? Articulate answers to these seemingly innocuous questions are far from straightforward. To date, no systematic, targeted effort has been made to construct a unifying theory of development. This novel work offers a unique exploration of the foundations of ontogeny by asking how the development of living things should be understood. It explores the key concepts of developmental biology, asks whether general principles of development can be discovered, and examines the role of models and theories. The two editors (one a biologist with long interest in the theoretical aspects of his discipline, the other a philosopher of science who has mainly worked on biological systems) have assembled a team of leading contributors who are representative of the scientific and philosophical community within which a diversity of thoughts are growing, and out of which a theory of development may eventually emerge. They analyse a wealth of approaches to concepts, models and theories of development, such as gene regulatory networks, accounts based on systems biology and on physics of soft matter, the different articulations of evolution and development, symbiont-induced development, as well as the widely discussed concepts of positional information and morphogenetic field, the idea of a 'programme' of development and its critiques, and the long-standing opposition between preformationist and epigenetic conceptions of development. Towards a Theory of Development is primarily aimed at students and researchers in the fields of 'evo-devo', developmental biology, theoretical biology, systems biology, biophysics, and the philosophy of science.

Architectures of Time

Architectures of Time
Author: Sanford Kwinter
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2002-08-23
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780262611817

An exploration of twentieth-century conceptions of time and their relation to artistic form. In Architectures of Time, Sanford Kwinter offers a critical guide to the modern history of time and to the interplay between the physical sciences and the arts. Tracing the transformation of twentieth-century epistemology to the rise of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, Kwinter explains how the demise of the concept of absolute time, and of the classical notion of space as a fixed background against which things occur, led to field theory and a physics of the "event." He suggests that the closed, controlled, and mechanical world of physics gave way to the approximate, active, and qualitative world of biology as a model of both scientific and metaphysical explanation. Kwinter examines theory of time and space in Einstein's theories of relativity and shows how these ideas were reflected in the writings of the sculptor Umberto Boccioni, the town planning schema of the Futurist architect Antonio Sant'Elia, the philosophy of Henri Bergson, and the writings of Franz Kafka. He argues that the writings of Boccioni and the visionary architecture of Sant'Elia represent the earliest and most profound deployments of the concepts of field and event. In discussing Kafka's work, he moves away from the thermodynamic model in favor of the closely related one of Bergsonian duree, or virtuality. He argues that Kafka's work manifests a coherent cosmology that can be understood only in relation to the constant temporal flux that underlies it.

Standards of Value

Standards of Value
Author: Jay E. Fishman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2013-04-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118238915

Expert direction on interpretation and application of standards of value Written by Jay Fishman, Shannon Pratt, and William Morrison—three renowned valuation practitioners—Standards of Value, Second Edition discusses the interaction between valuation theory and its judicial and regulatory application. This insightful book addresses standards of value (SOV) as applied in four distinct contexts: estate and gift taxation; shareholder dissent and oppression; divorce; and financial reporting. Here, you will discover some of the intricacies of performing services in these venues. Features new case law in topics including personal good will and estate and gift tax, and updated to cover the new standards issued since the first edition Includes an updated compendium discussing the standards of value by state, new case law covering divorce, personal goodwill, and estate and gift tax, and coverage of newly issues financial standards Shows how the Standard of Value sets the appraisal process in motion and includes the combination of a review of court cases with the valuator's perspective Addresses the codification of GAAP and updates SOV in individual states Get Standards of Value, Second Edition and discover the underlying intricacies involved in determining "value."

The Value of Events

The Value of Events
Author: Erik Lundberg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2017-05-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317193237

The Value of Events fills an important niche in the literature on events, being the first book to comprehensively deal with the subject of value creation and measurement, as opposed to impact assessment and programme evaluation. Value creation and measurement is often done routinely from specific perspectives such as tourism, event management, corporate marketing, or customer satisfaction. However, there exist a number of discourses on value and evaluation that have not yet received adequate attention, including the justification of governmental intervention and the costs and benefits of hosting major events. This edited book, written by an international group of academics with expertise in the relevant fields of events, tourism, sport and culture, offers new insight into events and their relationship to sustainability, social responsibility, cultural and social value. Fostering debate in the context of conceptual thinking, philosophising, multiple stakeholder perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches, it challenges the events industry, students, policy-makers and strategists with new perspectives on value, with implications for impact forecasting and assessment. This is a book for all students pursuing degrees in fields where planned events are important topics, while being of great interest to researchers, policy-makers, evaluators and organisers/managers of planned events. Within a subject in need of further attention, The Value of Events offers the most comprehensive overview of event value to date.

Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses
Author: Rosi Braidotti
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 747
Release: 2013-07-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745665748

The discussions about the ethical, political and human implications of the postmodernist condition have been raging for longer than most of us care to remember. They have been especially fierce within feminism. After a brief flirtation with postmodern thinking in the 1980s, mainstream feminist circles seem to have turned their back on the staple notions of poststructuralist philosophy. Metamorphoses takes stock of the situation and attempts to reset priorities within the poststructuralist feminist agenda. Cross-referring in a creative way to Deleuze's and Irigaray's respective philosophies of difference, the book addresses key notions such as embodiment, immanence, sexual difference, nomadism and the materiality of the subject. Metamorphoses also focuses on the implications of these theories for cultural criticism and a redefinition of politics. It provides a vivid overview of contemporary culture, with special emphasis on technology, the monstrous imaginary and the recurrent obsession with 'the flesh' in the age of techno-bodies. This highly original contribution to current debates is written for those who find changes and transformations challenging and necessary. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, feminist theory, gender studies, sociology, social theory and cultural studies.