This is my first book of poems, featuring references to love, life, death and philosophy and such. Some poems were penned quite some years back and others this very month.
Kirjahaku
Etsi kirjoja tekijän nimen, kirjan nimen tai ISBN:n perusteella.
1000 tulosta hakusanalla Barry Emery
How do homeless people perceive their plight? Specifically, how does their situation affect their sense of personal dignity? In intensive interviews with one hundred adult heads of homeless families, Barry Seltser and Donald Miller ask these questions, previously not dealt with in the growing literature on homelessness. Homeless Families sensitizes readers, challenging them to consider their own moral and social responses to homeless people.
Even with just forty-one recordings to his credit, Robert Johnson (1911-38) is a towering figure in the history of the blues. His vast influence on twentieth-century American music, combined with his mysterious death at the age of twenty-seven, still encourage the speculation and myth that have long obscured the facts about his life. The most famous legend depicts a young Johnson meeting the Devil at a dusty Mississippi crossroads at midnight and selling his soul in exchange for prodigious guitar skills. Barry Lee Pearson and Bill McCulloch examine the full range of writings about Johnson and weigh the conflicting accounts of Johnson's life story against interviews with blues musicians and others who knew the man. Their extensive research uncovers a life every bit as compelling as the fabrications and exaggerations that have sprung up around it. In examining the bluesman's life and music, and the ways in which both have been reinvented and interpreted by other artists, critics, and fans, Robert Johnson: Lost and Found charts the cultural forces that have mediated the expression of African American artistic traditions.
Discover one hundred of the greatest folk artists practicing in the United States in Folk Masters: A Portrait of America. Over the past 25 years, photographer Tom Pich has traveled the country to the homes and studios of recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor given to folk and traditional artists in the US. His portraits give us a glimpse into their art, their process, and their culture. While each image tells a story on its own, Barry Bergey, former Director of Folk and Traditional Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts, provides further insight into the lives of each featured artist as well as the remarkable stories behind each photograph. Folk Masters honors again the extraordinary women and men who simultaneously take the traditional arts to new heights while ensuring their continuation from generation to generation.
Reading Wiredu is the first comprehensive overview of the philosophical thought of Kwasi Wiredu. Born in Ghana in 1931, Wiredu, an important observer and critic of philosophy generally, remains an original and penetrating African thinker. Interrelating Wiredu's philosophical writings from across decades, Barry Hallen sets forth the basic tenets and the defining features of his philosophy. Wiredu's thought is divided into five distinct but interconnected areas: his response to the philosophy of Quine on issues of logic and ontology, issues of language in philosophical reflection, the nature of truth as a practical and philosophical concern, the principle of sympathetic impartiality that all human beings must live by to survive as a group, and finally, consensus building as rooted in intentional, negotiated, and rational exchanges that are part of everyday life. Reading Wiredu explores the scope and depth of Wiredu's philosophical thought, which can be framed through what he calls a genetic methodology—a methodology that privileges environmental considerations in the production of various forms of thought. Hallen's overview is intended to assist scholars and students in grasping Wiredu's complex philosophical thought.
Reading Wiredu is the first comprehensive overview of the philosophical thought of Kwasi Wiredu. Born in Ghana in 1931, Wiredu, an important observer and critic of philosophy generally, remains an original and penetrating African thinker. Interrelating Wiredu's philosophical writings from across decades, Barry Hallen sets forth the basic tenets and the defining features of his philosophy. Wiredu's thought is divided into five distinct but interconnected areas: his response to the philosophy of Quine on issues of logic and ontology, issues of language in philosophical reflection, the nature of truth as a practical and philosophical concern, the principle of sympathetic impartiality that all human beings must live by to survive as a group, and finally, consensus building as rooted in intentional, negotiated, and rational exchanges that are part of everyday life. Reading Wiredu explores the scope and depth of Wiredu's philosophical thought, which can be framed through what he calls a genetic methodology—a methodology that privileges environmental considerations in the production of various forms of thought. Hallen's overview is intended to assist scholars and students in grasping Wiredu's complex philosophical thought.
The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture Barry Hallen Reveals everyday language as the key to understanding morals and ethics in Yoruba culture. "This contrasts with any suggestion that in Yoruba or, more generally, African society, moral thinking manifests nothing much more than a supine acquiescence in long established communal values. . . . Hallen renders a great service to African philosophy." —Kwasi Wiredu In Yoruba culture, morality and moral values are intimately linked to aesthetics. The purest expression of beauty, at least for human beings, is to possess good moral character. But how is moral character judged? How do actions, and especially words, reveal good moral character in a culture that is still significantly based on oral tradition? In this original and intimate look at Yoruba culture, Barry Hallen asks the Yoruba onisegun—the wisest and most accomplished herbalists or traditional healers, individuals justly reputed to be well versed in Yoruba thought and expression—what it means to be good and beautiful. Posed as an outsider wanting to gain understanding of how to speak Yoruba correctly, Hallen engages the onisegun and has them explain the subtleties and intricacies of Yoruba language use and the philosophy behind particular word choices. Their instructions reveal a striking and profound depiction of Yoruba aesthetic and ethical thought. The detailed interpretations of everyday language that Hallen supplies challenge prevailing Western views that African thought is nothing more than acquiescence to long-established religious or communal values. The philosophy of ordinary language reveals that moral reflection is indeed individual and that evaluations of action and character take place on the basis of clearly and logically delineated criteria. With the onisegun as his guides, Hallen identifies the priorities of Yoruba philosophy and culture through everyday expression and shows that there are rational pathways to both truth and beauty. Barry Hallen has taught philosophy at the Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly University of Ife) in Nigeria. He is a Fellow at the W. E. B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College. He is coauthor (with J. Olubi Sodipo) of Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. Contents Ordinary Language and African Philosophy Moral Epistemology Me, My Self, and My Destiny The Good and the Bad The Beautiful Rationality, Individuality, Secularity, and the Proverbial Appendix of Yoruba-Language Quotations Glossary of Yoruba Terms
A Short History of African Philosophy, Second Edition
Barry Hallen
Indiana University Press
2009
pokkari
A Short History of African Philosophy discusses major ideas, figures, and schools of thought in philosophy in the African context. While drawing out critical issues in the formation of African philosophy, Barry Hallen focuses on recent scholarship and relevant debates that have made African philosophy critical to understanding the rich and complex cultural heritage of the continent. This revised edition expands the historical perspective, takes account of recent discoveries and new canonical figures, highlights new discussions about gender as a cultural and philosophical phenomenon, clarifies issues regarding indigenous cultures and human rights, and builds on the notion that African philosophy shares methods and concerns of philosophy worldwide. This short reference is an essential resource for students, scholars, and general readers.
Death duties are now only a minor source of revenue to the British Exchequer (about 1.5 per cent of Inland Revenue receipts) and they now have few committed advocates. Nevertheless they persist, mainly because of inertia. Dr Bracewell-Milnes analyses the traditional criticism of death duties and adds some novel arguments based on the concept of saving in perpetuity -- saving which is never drawn down, whether or not it was initially planned as perpetual. The perpetual saver is a public benefactor because he or she provides the rest of society with a permanent loan at rates chargeable for loans with maturity dates. Taxing perpetual saving will reduce its supply, thus resulting in losses to the rest of society. Inheritance tax does immense economic damage, according to Dr Bracewell-Milnes, and should be abolished. It is 'perverse and counterproductive for its own ostensible purposes, egalitarian or otherwise.
A bold argument that "and" always means "&," the truth-functional sentential connective.In this book, Barry Schein argues that "and" is always the sentential logical connective with the same, one, meaning. "And" always means "&," across the varied constructions in which it is tokened in natural language. Schein examines the constructions that challenge his thesis, and shows that the objections disappear when these constructions are translated into Eventish, a neo-Davidsonian event semantics, and, enlarged with Cinerama Semantics, a vocabulary for spatial orientation and navigation. Besides rescuing "and" from ambiguity, Eventish and Cinerama Semantics solve general puzzles of grammar and meaning unrelated to conjunction, revealing the book's central thesis in the process: aspects of meaning mistakenly attributed to "and" are discovered to reflect neighboring structures previously unseen and unacknowledged.Schein argues that Eventish and Cinerama Semantics offer a fundamental revision to clause structure and what aspects of meaning are represented therein. Eventish is distinguished by four features: supermonadicity, which enlarges verbal decomposition so that every argument relates to its own event; descriptive event anaphora, which replaces simple event variables with silent descriptive pronouns; adverbialization, which interposes adverbials derived from the descriptive content of every DP; and AdrPs, which replace all NPs with Address Phrases that locate what nominals denote within scenes or frames of reference.With 'And,' Schein rehabilitates an old rule of transformational, generative grammar, answering the challenges to it exhaustively and meticulously.
How we experience space by listening: the concepts of aural architecture, with examples ranging from Gothic cathedrals to surround sound home theater.We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and "hear" the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture's attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to "see" objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling.Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines-including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others-Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects.
Why the current Bretton Woods-like international financial system, featuring large current account deficits in the center country, the United States, and massive reserve accumulation by the periphery, is not sustainable.In Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods, Barry Eichengreen takes issue with the argument that today's international financial system is largely analogous to the Bretton Woods System of the period 1958 to 1973. Then, as now, it has been argued, the United States ran balance of payment deficits, provided international reserves to other countries, and acted as export market of last resort for the rest of the world. Then, as now, the story continues, other countries were reluctant to revalue their currencies for fear of seeing their export-led growth slow and suffering capital losses on their foreign reserves. Eichengreen argues in response that the power of historical analogy lies not just in finding parallels but in highlighting differences, and he finds important differences in the structure of the world economy today. Such differences, he concludes, mean that the current constellation of exchange rates and payments imbalances is unlikely to last as long as the original Bretton Woods System.Two of the most salient differences are the twin deficits and low savings rate of the United States, which do not augur well for the sustainability of the country's international position. Such differences, he concludes, mean that the current constellation of exchange rates and payments imbalances is unlikely to last as long as the original Bretton Woods System. After identifying these differences, Eichengreen looks in detail at the Gold Pool, the mechanism through which European central banks sought to support the dollar in the 1960s. He shows that the Pool was fragile and short lived, which does not bode well for collective efforts on the part of Asian central banks to restrain reserve diversification and support the dollar today. He studies Japan's exit from its dollar peg in 1971, drawing lessons for China's transition to greater exchange rate flexibility. And he considers the history of reserve currency competition, asking if it has lessons for whether the dollar is destined to lose its standing as preeminent international currency to the euro or even the Chinese renminbi.
The process of European monetary unification (EMU) is approaching a critical juncture. At the beginning of 1998 the member states of the European Union will decide whether or not to go ahead with their monetary union and determine which countries qualify as members. There is a high likelihood that Stage III of the Maastricht process-monetary union itself-will commence on January 1, 1999, and that a single currency, to be known as the Euro, will replace the national currencies of the founding member states at the beginning of 2002. Even if it is delayed, Stage III is likely to go forward soon thereafter. Whether EMU is feasible and desirable is contested among economists and politicians alike. This book sheds light on the controversy by considering seven major aspects: (1) what the theory of optimum currency areas reveals about the EMU project, (2) how Europe compares with existing monetary unions such as the United States, (3) the crisis in the European monetary system and the feasibility of stabilizing exchange rates in the absence of monetary unification, (4) fiscal policy and EMU, (5) labor markets and EMU, (6) the connections between monetary and political union, and (7) EMU and the rest of the world.The author views EMU as neither a grand achievement nor a terrible blunder, but as a process. He argues that the effects of monetary unification will depend on how it is structured and governed, and how quickly Europe's markets adapt to a single currency. The process of monetary unification will not end in 1999 or 2002; rather, the structure and operation of Europe's monetary union will continue to evolve for years to come.
The new edition of a comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy, revised to reflect the end of the "miracle growth" period.This comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy by a noted expert on China's economic development offers a quality and breadth of coverage not found in any other English-language text. In The Chinese Economy, Barry Naughton provides both a broadly focused introduction to China's economy since 1949 and original insights based on his own extensive research. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect a decade of developments in China's economy, notably the end of the period of "miracle growth" and the multiple transitions it now confronts-demographic, technological, macroeconomic, and institutional. Coverage of macroeconomic and financial policy has been significantly expanded.After covering endowments, legacies, economic systems, and general issues of economic structure, labor, and living standards, the book examines specific economic sectors, including agriculture, industry, technology, and foreign trade and investment. It then treats financial, macroeconomic, and environmental issues. The book covers such topics as patterns of growth and development, including population growth and the one-child family policy; the rural and urban economies, including rural industrialization and urban technological development; incoming and outgoing foreign investment; and environmental quality and the sustainability of growth.The book will be an essential resource for students, teachers, scholars, business practitioners, and policymakers. It is suitable for classroom use for undergraduate or graduate courses.
A political science analysis of the feasibility and sustainability of carbon pricing, drawing from North American, European, and Asian case studies.Climate change, economists generally agree, is best addressed by putting a price on the carbon content of fossil fuels-by taxing carbon, by cap-and-trade systems, or other methods. But what about the politics of carbon pricing? Do political realities render carbon pricing impracticable? In this book, Barry Rabe offers the first major political science analysis of the feasibility and sustainability of carbon pricing, drawing upon a series of real-world attempts to price carbon over the last two decades in North America, Europe, and Asia.Rabe asks whether these policies have proven politically viable and, if adopted, whether they survive political shifts and managerial challenges over time. The entire policy life cycle is examined, from adoption through advanced implementation, on a range of pricing policies including not only carbon taxes and cap-and-trade but also such alternative methods as taxing fossil fuel extraction. These case studies, Rabe argues, show that despite the considerable political difficulties, carbon pricing can be both feasible and durable.
When science competes with myriad influences in public policymaking, how can we ensure that it does so effectively? Policymakers, like most people today, have a world of information within easy reach, much of it wrong. How, amidst the chaos and misdirection of our day's information ecosystem, can science compete for the attention and trust of those who make public policy--especially at a time when issues like proliferating infectious diseases and climate change put a premium on accurate and relevant scientific information? What's needed, Barry Bozeman suggests in Science Competes, is a clearer understanding of how scientific information is conveyed, how it is understood and used, and where it fits in the wide array of information that might be of use to those who make and administer policy, laws, and regulations, as well as citizens who actively participate in public life. Acknowledging the importance of different sorts of information--historical, experiential, political, e.g.--to decision making, Bozeman focuses on enhancing, not maximizing, the effective use of science in public policy. This entails recognizing that valid and useful scientific information is not necessarily formal scientific knowledge, but often takes the form of science by-products such as raw or structured data, graphics, and conceptual models. Explaining how such information can be better distinguished from half-truths and pernicious falsehoods, Science Competes also raises the possibility that effective competition might require improvements in science institutions, norms, and ideas about acceptable behavior.
Bringing together neural, perceptual, and behavioral studies, The Merging of the Senses provides the first detailed review of how the brain assembles information from different sensory systems in order to produce a coherent view of the external world. Stein and Meredith marshall evidence from a broad array of species to show that interactions among senses are the most ancient scheme of sensory organization, an integrative system reflecting a general plan that supersedes structure and species. Most importantly, they explore what is known about the neural processes by which interactions among the senses take place at the level of the single cell.The authors draw on their own experiments to illustrate how sensory inputs converge (from visual, auditory, and somatosensory modalities, for instance) on individual neurons in different areas of the brain, how these neurons integrate their inputs, the principles by which this integration occurs, and what this may mean for perception and behavior. Neurons in the superior colliculus and cortex are emphasized as models of multiple sensory integrators.
In Power in the Balance: Presidents, Parties, and Legislatures in Peru and Beyond, Barry S. Levitt answers urgent questions about executive power in "new" democracies. He examines in rich detail the case of Peru, from President Alan García's first term (1985–1990), to the erosion of democracy under President Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000), through the interim government of Valentín Paniagua (2000–2001) and the remarkable, if rocky, renewal of democracy culminating in Alejandro Toledo's 2001–2006 presidency. This turbulent experience with democracy brings into clear focus the functioning of formal political institutions—constitutions and electoral laws, presidents and legislatures, political parties and leaders—while also exposing the informal side of Peru's national politics over the course of two decades. Levitt's study of politics in Peru also provides a test case for his regional analysis of cross-national differences and change over time in presidential power across eighteen Latin American countries. In Peru and throughout Latin America, Levitt shows, the rule of law itself and the organizational forms of political parties have a stronger impact on legislative-executive relations than do most of the institutional traits and constitutional powers that configure the formal "rules of the game" for high politics. His findings, and their implications for improving the quality of new democracies everywhere, will surprise promoters, practitioners, and scholars of democratic politics alike.
According to a fairly standard view, there are several reasons for denying that existence is a real property of individuals. One is that 'exists' cannot be predicated of individuals, and another is that first-level properties are parasitic on individuals for their actuality, which is something that existence could never be. A third is that existence adds nothing to individuals. Moreover, even if existence were to survive all three counter-indications, it would be merely the most vacuous of properties. The Fullness of Being, however, argues that this view of existence is seriously awry. In this brilliant book, Barry Miller argues that existence is not merely a real property of individuals, but by far the richest of their properties. The commonly accepted view of existence is testimony, contends Miller, to what happens when wrong questions are asked, false assumptions are made, and the possibility of a new paradigm for existence is dismissed without consideration. They bear witness to the substantial flaws underlying the familiar claim 'existence is not a predicate' and the Frege-Russell-Quine view not only of 'exists' as exclusively a second-level predicate, but of existence as no more than a Cambridge property of individuals. By way of contrast, The Fullness of Being is an account of what happens when different questions are asked, when false assumptions are eschewed, and when the possibility of a radically different paradigm for existence is actively explored rather than completely ignored. What began for Miller as an exercise in philosophical logic to determine whether 'exists' is predicable of individuals, ends in an argument with groundbreaking consequences for ontology.