Have you ever found yourself re-reading the same sentence four or five times and thought 'I should get more sleep'? Are you clueless as to why one paragraph just seems to 'flow' while you simply can't recall the contents of another? Guess what: you are not alone. Even the best writers fail to grasp why their writing works. The Reader's Brain is the first science-based guide to writing, employing cutting-edge research on how our minds process written language, to ensure your writing can be read quickly, assimilated easily, and recalled precisely - exactly what we need to transform anyone into a highly effective writer. Using the 5Cs - clarity, continuity, coherence, concision, and cadence - this book combines irreverent humour with easy-to-follow principles that will make readers perceive your sentences, paragraphs, and documents to be clear, concise, and effective.
How did people of the medieval period explain physical phenomena, such as eclipses or the distribution of land and water on the globe? What creatures did they think they might encounter: angels, devils, witches, dogheaded people? This fascinating book explores the ways in which medieval people categorized the world, concentrating on the division between the natural and the supernatural and showing how the idea of the supernatural came to be invented in the Middle Ages. Robert Bartlett examines how theologians and others sought to draw lines between the natural, the miraculous, the marvelous and the monstrous, and the many conceptual problems they encountered as they did so. The final chapter explores the extraordinary thought-world of Roger Bacon as a case study exemplifying these issues. By recovering the mentalities of medieval writers and thinkers the book raises the critical question of how we deal with beliefs we no longer share.
The Upper Palaeolithic era of Europe has left an abundance of evidence for symbolic activities, such as direct representations of animals and other features of the natural world, personal adornments, and elaborate burials, as well as other vestiges that are more abstract and cryptic. These behaviours are also exhibited by populations throughout the world, from the prehistoric period through to the present day. How can we interpret these activities? What do they tell us about the beliefs and priorities of the people who carried them out? How do these behaviours relate to ideologies, cosmology, and understanding of the world? What can they tell us about the emergence of ritual and religious thought? And how do the activities of humans in prehistoric Europe compare with those of their predecessors there and elsewhere? In this volume, fifteen internationally renowned scholars contribute essays that explore the relationship between symbolism, spirituality, and humanity in the prehistoric so
How should we deal with societal ills such as crime, poverty, pollution, terrorism, and corruption? The Character of Harms argues that control or mitigation of 'bad' things involves distinctive patterns of thought and action which turn out to be broadly applicable across a range of human endeavors, and which need to be better understood. Malcolm Sparrow demonstrates that an explicit focus on the bads, rather than on the countervailing goods (safety, prosperity, environmental stewardship, etc.) can provide rich opportunities for surgically efficient and effective interventions - an operational approach which he terms 'the sabotage of harms'. The book explores the institutional arrangements and decision-frameworks necessary to support this emerging operational model. Written for reflective practitioners charged with risk-control responsibilities across the public, private, and non-governmental sectors, The Character of Harms makes a powerful case for a new approach to tackling the comple
Humans have long thought that planetary systems similar to our own should exist around stars other than the Sun, yet the search for planets outside our Solar System has had a dismal history of discoveries that could not be confirmed. However, this all changed in 1995, after which astonishing progress can be seen in this field; we now know of more than 200 extrasolar planets. These findings mark crucial milestones in the search for extraterrestrial life – arguably one of the most intriguing endeavors of modern science. These proceedings from the 2005 Space Telescope Science Institute Symposium on Extrasolar Planets explore one of the hottest topics in astronomy. Discussions include the Kepler mission, observational constraints on dust disk lifetimes and the implications for planet formation, and gravitational instabilities in protoplanetary disks. With review papers written by world experts in their fields, this is an important resource on extrasolar planets.
The study of the relationship between language and thought, and how this apparently differs between cultures and social groups, is a rapidly expanding area of enquiry. This book discusses the relationship between language and the mental organisation of knowledge, based on the results of a fieldwork project carried out in the Kingdom of Tonga in Polynesia. It challenges some existing assumptions in linguistics, cognitive anthropology and cognitive science and proposes a new foundational cultural model, 'radiality', to show how space, time and social relationships are expressed both linguistically and cognitively. A foundational cultural model is knowledge that is repeated in several domains and shared within a cultural homogeneous group. These knowledge structures are lenses through which we interpret the world and guide our behaviour. The book will be welcomed by researchers and students working within the fields of psycholinguistics, anthropological linguistics, cognitive anthropology
This short account of elementary particles written for the layman poses the questions: are quarks the fundamental building blocks of matter; what are they like; how many different kinds exist; and can they exist in the free state? What is the ultimate structure of matter? Is it made of atoms, small, simple, indivisible particles, or not? John Dalton's 'chemical atoms' turned out to be composite, composed of an electron cloud and a very small, very dense nucleus. This nucleus, in turn, was found to be composite, made up of protons and neutrons bound together by pions. All three of these (and many like particles) have now been found to be made of quarks. At first there were only three of these and they were thought to be long sought after fundamental building blocks. But now we know of at least 18 quarks, 18 anti-quarks and eight 'gluons' that hold the quarks together. The whole atomic idea is in doubt and the alternate possibility of a Universe that is one, whole and indivisible opens u
This book considers a variety of explanations of why political disagreement is so extensive and persistent. The author examines variants of the 'contestability' and 'imperfection' conceptions which have dominated political theory: the idea that political disagreement is so pervasive because of its value-ladenness; that key political concepts are essentially contested; that those who occupy very different political positions fail to understand each other. He argues that we need to develop a framework which borrows elements from both schools of thought, presupposing some form of moral cognitivism, while recognizing that many political disputes cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of every reasonable person. Within such a framework he shows how empirical models can be constructed which give an active role not only to the agent's reasons for his or her beliefs, but also to other psychological and sociological considerations.
This short account of elementary particles written for the layman poses the questions: are quarks the fundamental building blocks of matter; what are they like; how many different kinds exist; and can they exist in the free state? What is the ultimate structure of matter? Is it made of atoms, small, simple, indivisible particles, or not? John Dalton's 'chemical atoms' turned out to be composite, composed of an electron cloud and a very small, very dense nucleus. This nucleus, in turn, was found to be composite, made up of protons and neutrons bound together by pions. All three of these (and many like particles) have now been found to be made of quarks. At first there were only three of these and they were thought to be long sought after fundamental building blocks. But now we know of at least 18 quarks, 18 anti-quarks and eight 'gluons' that hold the quarks together. The whole atomic idea is in doubt and the alternate possibility of a Universe that is one, whole and indivisible opens u
We live in the grip of a great illusion about politics, Pierre Manent argues in A World beyond Politics? It's the illusion that we would be better off without politics--at least national politics, and
This thought-provoking book will ask what it is to be human, what to be animal, and what are the natures of the relationships between them. This is accomplished with philosophical and ethical discussions, scientific evidence and dynamic theoretical approaches. Attitudes to Animals will also encourage us to think not only of our relationships to non-human animals, but also of those to other, human, animals. This book provides a foundation that the reader can use to make ethical choices about animals. It will challenge readers to question their current views, attitudes and perspectives on animals, nature and development of the human-animal relationship. Human perspectives on the human-animal relationships reflect what we have learned, together with spoken and unspoken attitudes and assumptions, from our families, societies, media, education and employment.
What purpose, if any, do pets really serve? Are they simply an outlet for misplaced love? Or four-legged friends who help us to satisfy vital emotional needs? Whatever they are, when we elevate pets to the status of social companions, we undermine the distinction between human and non-human. In other words, pets force us to confront the moral contradictions inherent in our treatment of animals in general. Pursuing this idea to its logical conclusion, the author uncovers a fascinating and disturbing trail of myths, evasions and double standards which humans have used since earliest times to justify their subjugation of nature and other life forms. Through an exploration of the phenomenon of pet-keeping across history and between cultures, this thought-provoking study reassesses our relationships with animals and the natural world. This new edition of In the Company of Animals has been substantially revised and updated to take into account developments in research since the first editio
In the century following his execution for treason in 1683, Algernon Sidney became one of the most widely influential political writers - in both Europe and America - that England had ever produced. This is the first full-scale study of Sidney for more than a century, and the first ever study of his political thought. The book describes Sidney's republican political ideas and their later impact. It sets them in their ideological context, in relation both to their sources and to the ideas of contemporaries, including Milton, Harrington, Vane, and Locke. It then asks: how did this ideology develop, and why? The answer involves a series of investigations: of Sidney's family background; of the nature of his personal life and family relationships; and of his public political career. On this latter score we follow Sidney's progress from parliamentarian soldier in the English Civil War, to senior member and ambassador of the English Republic, to embittered exile after the Restoration in 1660.
Biological control is the suppression of pest populations using predators, parasitoids and pathogens. Historically, biological control has largely been on a trial-and-error basis, and has failed more often than it has succeeded. However by developing theories based upon fundamental population principles and the biological characteristics of the pest and agent, we can gain a much better understanding of when and how to use biological control. This book gathers together recent theoretical developments and provides a balanced guide to the important issues that need to be considered in applying ecological theory to biological control. It will be a source of productive and stimulating thought for all those interested in pest management, theoretical ecology and population biology.
The author of Tristram Shandy made frequent use of literary fragments from other writers, as part of his own style. Laurence Sterne's quotations, plagiarisms and allusions were often employed in the service of the pleonasm, or 'performed pun'. Jonathan Lamb describes Sterne's operation of the pleonasm as his 'double principle'. He sees this style not as the key to some clever puzzle whose clues we go on solving in the hope of total disclosure of meaning (as some critics have claimed); rather the opposite, that it is a consoling reminder that neither we nor the text can ever be complete. Lamb severs Sterne from the Locke tradition and frees him from the 'influence' oriented studies which have aimed to authenticate him through his borrowings. This allows us to read him as a writer eagerly exploring the turns and paradoxes of associationist thought and adapting the rhetoric of the sublime to the stutterings of ordinary speech.
Matters of Opinion offers an interesting insight into 'public opinion' as reported in the media, asking where these opinions actually come from, and how they have their effects. Drawing on the analysis of conversations from focus groups, phone-ins and broadcast interviews with members of the public, Greg Myers argues that we must go back to these encounters, asking questions such as what members of the public thought they were being asked, who they were talking as, and whom they were talking to. He reveals that people don't carry a store of opinions, ready to tell strangers; they use opinions in order to get along with other people, and how they say things is as important as what they say. Engaging and informative, this book illuminates debates on research methods, the public sphere and deliberative democracy, on broadcast talk, and on what it means to participate in public life.
For hundreds of years, we thought we knew what happened during Jesus' last days. Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday are not only observed by Christians around the world, but are also recognized in calendars and by non-practitioners as commemorating the true timeline of events in the life of Christ. But apparent inconsistencies in the gospel accounts of Jesus' final week have puzzled Bible scholars for centuries. In The Mystery of the Last Supper, Colin Humphreys uses science to reveal the truth about Jesus' final days. Reconciling conflicting Gospel accounts and scientific evidence, Humphreys reveals the exact date of the Last Supper in a definitive new timeline of Holy Week.
In this book, Charles Larmore develops an account of morality, freedom, and reason that rejects the naturalistic metaphysics shaping much of modern thought. Reason, Larmore argues, is responsiveness to reasons, and reasons themselves are essentially normative in character, consisting in the way that physical and psychological facts - facts about the world of nature - count in favor of possibilities of thought and action that we can take up. Moral judgments are true or false in virtue of the moral reasons there are. We need therefore a more comprehensive metaphysics that recognizes a normative dimension to reality as well. Though taking its point of departure in the analysis of moral judgment, this book branches widely into related topics such as freedom and the causal order of the world, textual interpretation, the nature of the self, self-knowledge, and the concept of duties to ourselves.
In early modern England, boxes furnished minds as readily as they furnished rooms, shaping ideas about the challenges of interpretation, and negotiations of the book itself as text and material object. Engaging with recent work on material culture and the history of the book, Lucy Razzall weaves together close readings of texts and objects, from wills, plays, sermons and religious polemic, to chests, book-bindings, reliquaries and coffins. She demonstrates how the material and imaginative possibilities of the box were dynamically connected in post-Reformation England, structuring modes of thought. These early modern responses to materiality offer ways in which the discipline of book history might reframe its analysis of the material text. In tracing the early modern significance of the box as matter and metaphor, this book reveals the origins of some of the enduring habits of thought with which we still respond to people, texts and things.
Have you ever found yourself re-reading the same sentence four or five times and thought 'I should get more sleep'? Are you clueless as to why one paragraph just seems to 'flow' while you simply can't recall the contents of another? Guess what: you are not alone. Even the best writers fail to grasp why their writing works. The Reader's Brain is the first science-based guide to writing, employing cutting-edge research on how our minds process written language, to ensure your writing can be read quickly, assimilated easily, and recalled precisely - exactly what we need to transform anyone into a highly effective writer. Using the 5Cs - clarity, continuity, coherence, concision, and cadence - this book combines irreverent humour with easy-to-follow principles that will make readers perceive your sentences, paragraphs, and documents to be clear, concise, and effective.
