Catalog Search Results
Author
Language
English
Description
It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest. Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist Edward O. Wilson examines what makes human beings supremely different from all other species and posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way.
Author
Pub. Date
2011.
Language
English
Description
"The Most Human Human" is a provocative, exuberant, and profound exploration of the ways in which computers are reshaping our ideas of what it means to be human. Its starting point is the annual Turing Test, which pits artificial intelligence programs against people to determine if computers can "think.
Author
Language
English
Description
Zeldin studies the problems of modern society in light of demonstrating how individuals pay attention to, or ignore, the experience of previous generations and cultures. Some of his examples are how people have acquired immunity to loneliness, how older fears give rise to new fears, and why people choose a way of life and what they do when it does not wholly satisfy them.
Author
Publisher
Metropolitan Books
Pub. Date
2007.
Language
English
Description
What do we really know? What are we in relation to the world around us? Playwright and novelist Frayn takes on the great questions of his career--and of our lives. Humankind, scientists agree, is an insignificant speck in the impersonal vastness of the universe. But what would that universe be like if we were not here to say something about it? Would there be numbers if there were no one to count them? With wit, charm, and brilliance, this epic work...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Journalist "explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes relationships." She claims that "error is both a given and a gift -- one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves."
Author
Series
Brown and Haley lectures ; 1964
Publisher
Rutgers University Press
Pub. Date
[1964]
Language
English
Author
Series
Publisher
Semiotext(e)
Pub. Date
[2014]
Language
English
Description
"All history is the history of struggles for spheric expansion.--from Globes. In Globes -- the second, and longest, volume in Peter Sloterdijk's celebrated magnum opus Spheres trilogy -- the author attempts nothing less than to uncover the philosophical foundations of the political history -- the history of humanity -- of the last two thousand years. The first, well-received volume of the author's Spheres trilogy, Bubbles, dealt with microspheres:...
Author
Publisher
Gedisa Editorial
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
Español
Description
"¿Cuál es el origen de la humanidad? ¿Por qué existe una especie como la nuestra en el planeta tierra? ¿Gozamos de una posición privilegiada? ¿Adónde nos dirigimos? Y quizás la pregunta más difícil de todas: ¿por qué? En "El sentido de la existencia humana", su obra más filosófica hasta la fecha, el biólogo Edward O. Wilson se lleva a sus lectores de viaje para examinar qué es lo que nos hace tan especiales, pero también nos invita...
Author
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
What makes for a good life, or a beautiful one, or, perhaps most important, a meaningful one? Throughout history most of us have looked to our faith, our relationships, or our deeds for the answer. But in A Significant Life, philosopher Todd May offers an exhilarating new way of thinking about these questions, one deeply attuned to life as it actually is: a work in progress, a journey -- and often a narrative. Offering moving accounts of his own life...