The Metaphysics of Insect Life, and Other Essays PDF Download

Author: David Spooner
Publisher: Hamilton Books:Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9781883255947
Category : Evolution (Biology) in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
Scholarly essays dealing with scientific and cultural theory in the post modernist world through the prism of music, literature and language with a focus on the natural world and its creative interpreters. Among the literary figures discussed are Apuleius, Shakespeare, Kafka, Muir, Jimenez, Machado, Vallejo and Chenier.

Author: Jean-Marc Drouin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231540728
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
The world of insects is at once beneath our feet and unfathomably alien. Small and innumerable, insects surround and disrupt us even as we scarcely pay them any mind. Insects confront us with the limits of what is imaginable, while at the same time being essential to the everyday functioning of all terrestrial ecosystems. In this book, the philosopher and historian of science Jean-Marc Drouin contends that insects pose a fundamental challenge to philosophy. Exploring the questions of what insects are and what scientific, aesthetic, ethical, and historical relationships they have with humanity, he argues that they force us to reconsider our ideas of the animal and the social. He traces the role that insects have played in language, mythology, literature, entomology, sociobiology, and taxonomy over the centuries. Drouin emphasizes the links between humanistic and scientific approaches—how we have projected human roles onto insects and seen ourselves in insect form. Caught between the animal and plant kingdoms, insects force us to confront and reevaluate our notions of gender, family, society, struggle, the division of labor, social organization, and individual and collective intelligence. A remarkably original and thought-provoking work, A Philosophy of the Insect is an important book for animal studies, environmental ethics, and the history and philosophy of science.

Author: David Spooner
Publisher: Hamilton Books:Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780761831754
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
In The Insect-Populated Mind, author David Spooner proposes a close connection between aspects of insect evolution and the human intellect. By examining seemingly disparate subjects, such as entomology, language, theory, genetics, astronomy, literature, and music, Spooner proves that synthesis is indeed possible. Once this fusion is achieved, the human species can be seen as connected not just to the great apes, but also via consciousness to metamorphic insects. While considering Richard Dawkins' and Susan Blackmore's expositions of memes, Spooner suggests that the concept of memes remains a peripheral understanding of religion and the arts. The book also presents arguments on the roots and nature of the mind in the work of Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker. Book jacket.

Author: David Spooner
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1493142208
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
This book reads the theory of evolution through the roots of words and the codes set up by relations between roots and key-words. Language was historically created in the course of the work dynamic. Today language has a double function. It not only supplies us with our everyday vocabulary and grammar. It also conceals a language within a language, offering clues as to what it means to be human. This book suggests that the evidence of this language within language shows that not only are we related to the great apes biologically as Darwin established, but that culturally we are related to the insects, and specifically to the metamorphic insects. It is this connection that is crucial And defining. Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder of the Theory of Evolution, sensed some spiritual and artistic range to human experience not explained by Darwin`s central theory. They Stared at the Sun shows how the structures in major artistic works fuse with the development of creatures that undergo radical metamorphosis. They also determine the unique place of humans in the quantum cosmos.

Author: David Spooner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761818786
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
This book is an extension of Dr. Spooner's previous work on the interplay of insect processes and human culture as discussed in The Metaphysics of Insect Life (ISP, 1995). It continues the application of the literary, philosophical, and scientific methods employed there to the main currents in the evolution of modern Hispanic literature.

Author: Hugh Raffles
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400096960
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book A stunningly original exploration of the ties that bind us to the beautiful, ancient, astoundingly accomplished, largely unknown, and unfathomably different species with whom we share the world. For as long as humans have existed, insects have been our constant companions. Yet we hardly know them, not even the ones we’re closest to: those that eat our food, share our beds, and live in our homes. Organizing his book alphabetically, Hugh Raffles weaves together brief vignettes, meditations, and extended essays, taking the reader on a mesmerizing exploration of history and science, anthropology and travel, economics, philosophy, and popular culture. Insectopedia shows us how insects have triggered our obsessions, stirred our passions, and beguiled our imaginations.

Author: Lafcadio Hearn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781783807406
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Insect Literature collects twenty essays and stories written by Hearn, mostly in Japan, a land where insects were as appreciated as in ancient Greece.

Author: San Francisco Free Public Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Classified catalogs (Dewey decimal)
Languages : en
Pages : 602

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 1364

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Author: Anca Gheaus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351055968
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 689

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Book Description
Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life, as a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are thus essential for any broader understanding of the human condition. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is an outstanding reference source for the key topics, problems and debates in this crucial and exciting field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into five parts: · Being a child · Childhood and moral status · Parents and children · Children in society · Children and the state. Questions covered include: What is a child? Is childhood a uniquely valuable state, and if so why? Can we generalize about the goods of childhood? What rights do children have, and are they different from adults’ rights? What (if anything) gives people a right to parent? What role, if any, ought biology to play in determining who has the right to parent a particular child? What kind of rights can parents legitimately exercise over their children? What roles do relationships with siblings and friends play in the shaping of childhoods? How should we think about sexuality and disability in childhood, and about racialised children? How should society manage the education of children? How are children’s lives affected by being taken into social care? The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of childhood, political philosophy and ethics as well as those in related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, social policy, law, social work, youth work, neuroscience and anthropology.