The Contingent Nature of Life PDF Download

Author: Marcus Düwell
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 140206764X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
This volume explores the different dimensions of how the contingency of life, and especially human life, is relevant for ethical discussions and the normative frameworks in bioethics. It explores the relevance of the notion contingency, needs and desires for moral argumentation and bioethics. The volume discusses those notions in a philosophical perspective. Additionally, the volume is a contribution to a deeper reflection on basic philosophical assumptions of bioethics.

Author: Alastair Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198846215
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality.

Author: Dan DiPiero
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047290311X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Contingent Encounters offers a sustained comparative study of improvisation as it appears between music and everyday life. Drawing on work in musicology, cultural studies, and critical improvisation studies, as well as his own performing experience, Dan DiPiero argues that comparing improvisation across domains calls into question how improvisation is typically recognized. By comparing the music of Eric Dolphy, Norwegian free improvisers, Mr. K, and the Ingrid Laubrock/Kris Davis duo with improvised activities in everyday life (such as walking, baking, working, and listening), DiPiero concludes that improvisation appears as a function of any encounter between subjects, objects, and environments. Bringing contingency into conversation with the utopian strain of critical improvisation studies, DiPiero shows how particular social investments cause improvisation to be associated with relative freedom, risk-taking, and unpredictability in both scholarship and public discourse. Taking seriously the claim that improvisation is the same thing as living, Contingent Encounters overturns long-standing assumptions about the aesthetic and political implications of this notoriously slippery term.

Author: Susan Oyama
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262650632
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
The nature/nurture debate is not dead. Dichotomous views of development still underlie many fundamental debates in the biological and social sciences. Developmental systems theory (DST) offers a new conceptual framework with which to resolve such debates. DST views ontogeny as contingent cycles of interaction among a varied set of developmental resources, no one of which controls the process. These factors include DNA, cellular and organismic structure, and social and ecological interactions. DST has excited interest from a wide range of researchers, from molecular biologists to anthropologists, because of its ability to integrate evolutionary theory and other disciplines without falling into traditional oppositions.The book provides historical background to DST, recent theoretical findings on the mechanisms of heredity, applications of the DST framework to behavioral development, implications of DST for the philosophy of biology, and critical reactions to DST.

Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393245209
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
"[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

Author: Timothy O'Connor
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444350889
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion – from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book’s second part – the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete. A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician’s quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most general features of the world we inhabit Develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary Applies this framework to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism Defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument

Author: Bruce Gordon
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497644372
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 967

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Book Description
The intellectual and cultural battles now raging over theism and atheism, conservatism and secular progressivism, dualism and monism, realism and antirealism, and transcendent reality versus material reality extend even into the scientific disciplines. This stunning new volume captures this titanic clash of worldviews among those who have thought most deeply about the nature of science and of the universe itself. Unmatched in its breadth and scope, The Nature of Nature brings together some of the most influential scientists, scholars, and public intellectuals—including three Nobel laureates—across a wide spectrum of disciplines and schools of thought. Here they grapple with a perennial question that has been made all the more pressing by recent advances in the natural sciences: Is the fundamental explanatory principle of the universe, life, and self-conscious awareness to be found in inanimate matter or immaterial mind? The answers found in this book have profound implications for what it means to do science, what it means to be human, and what the future holds for all of us.

Author: Jack Digliani
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1450084443
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Reflections of a Police Psychologist is an account of the experiences, thoughts, and observations of a seasoned police veteran. It is written for police officers and those who would like a glimpse into the world of policing from the perspective of a former police officer and current police psychologist. Dr. Digliani discusses the major challenges facing those first entering police work. He addresses police field training and identifies the ten police field training pitfalls. The PATROL program, developed to assist new officers, is outlined. It involves an orientation and phase meetings between new officers and the staff psychologist to support them throughout field training. Dr. Digliani discusses how stress management becomes life management within the concepts of life-by-design and life-by-default. Inside the parameters of life management, a list of Some Things to Remember functions as an instrument for transactional change. The issues related to traumatic stress and exposure are discussed. The insights presented originate out of years of treating officers exposed to traumatic events. The role of police peer support teams is examined. Models for a peer support team policy and operational guidelines are presented. There is also information relating to the confidentiality of peer support interactions, a topic of current controversy. Traumatic incident debriefings and their applications in policing are elucidated, along with phase and freeze-frame models of debriefing. Included is a discussion of the current efficacy research pertinent to traumatic incident debriefings. Police family issues and the Foundation Building Blocks of Functional Relationships are outlined. Various family patterns of interaction are identified, including information for families of traumatized officers. There is a discussion of coping with death and loss, a critical area for police officers. An exposition of mental illness and interacting with the mentally ill from a police perspective is presented. Toward the end of the book, the retirement transition is discussed. In retirement or separation from service, officers return to the civilian world. Some experience difficulty with this transition. Issues to consider before retirement are presented. The final chapter includes the general reflections and policing history of Dr. Digliani. These reflections include the insights that come only with years of policing experience in several police assignments, including that of staff psychologist. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in law enforcement, policing, and police psychology.

Author: Ray S. Anderson
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 9780830815593
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Ray S. Anderson lays out a new and renewing theological foundation for engaging in Christian ministry. Illuminated by discussion and case studies, he shows how a biblically informed approach addresses real issues in Christ's power.

Author: Christopher Long
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000442802
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
This book investigates the way that the molecular sciences are shaping contemporary security practices in relation to the governance of biological threats. In response to biological threats, such as pandemics and bioterrorism, governments around the world have developed a range of new security technologies, called medical countermeasures, to protect their populations. This book argues that the molecular sciences’ influence has been so great that security practices have been molecularised. Focusing on the actions of international organisations and governments in the past two decades, this book identifies two contrasting conceptions of the nature or inherent workings of molecular life as driving this turn. On the one hand, political notions of insecurity have been shaped by the contingent or random nature of molecular life. On the other, the identification of molecular life’s constant biological dynamics supports and makes possible the development and stockpiling of effective medical countermeasures. This study is one of the few to take seriously the conceptual implications that the detailed empirical workings of biotechnology have on security practices today. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, bio-politics, life sciences, global governance, and International Relations in general.