Author: Lancelot Whyte
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351478338
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
This searching examination of human development provides new perspectives on the moral, political, scientific, emotional, and intellectual divisions of our time. A physicist by profession, Whyte looked beyond the boundaries of specialization for creative ways to approach the basic problem facing modern Western civilization: Why are we so competent technically and yet unable to order our own affairs, socially and personally? He takes the reader with him on a journey that is nothing less than a new interpretation of the general development of human consciousness.Whyte's thesis is that the current stage of human development makes not only necessary, but inevitable, constructing a ""unitary method of thought"" to overcome the dualism of the modern Western mind. He argues that the deepest troubles of Western civilization are due, in large part, to excessive reliance on the ancient Greek postulates of permanence and invariance as an ordered form of thought resulting in an extreme, mechanistic anti-humanism. What culminated in two world wars, Whyte argued, is a European dissociation, or ""lesion."" This dissociation represents an achievement in terms of rational mastery of the natural and human worlds, unique social dynamism and differentiation, and the flowering of individuality. But the price was high: disordering of thought, emotion, and will; conflict between our deliberate and spontaneous, conscious, and unconscious energies; unstable polarization between a delusive unchanging ideal world and the reality of human transience and limitation. Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting rignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future.Lewis Mumford wrote of The Next Development of Mankind, ""The book has intense and immediate value both for the practical person and for the theoretic thinker."" Sixty years a
The Next Development of Mankind
Author: Lancelot Whyte
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351478338
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
This searching examination of human development provides new perspectives on the moral, political, scientific, emotional, and intellectual divisions of our time. A physicist by profession, Whyte looked beyond the boundaries of specialization for creative ways to approach the basic problem facing modern Western civilization: Why are we so competent technically and yet unable to order our own affairs, socially and personally? He takes the reader with him on a journey that is nothing less than a new interpretation of the general development of human consciousness.Whyte's thesis is that the current stage of human development makes not only necessary, but inevitable, constructing a ""unitary method of thought"" to overcome the dualism of the modern Western mind. He argues that the deepest troubles of Western civilization are due, in large part, to excessive reliance on the ancient Greek postulates of permanence and invariance as an ordered form of thought resulting in an extreme, mechanistic anti-humanism. What culminated in two world wars, Whyte argued, is a European dissociation, or ""lesion."" This dissociation represents an achievement in terms of rational mastery of the natural and human worlds, unique social dynamism and differentiation, and the flowering of individuality. But the price was high: disordering of thought, emotion, and will; conflict between our deliberate and spontaneous, conscious, and unconscious energies; unstable polarization between a delusive unchanging ideal world and the reality of human transience and limitation. Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting rignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future.Lewis Mumford wrote of The Next Development of Mankind, ""The book has intense and immediate value both for the practical person and for the theoretic thinker."" Sixty years a
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351478338
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
This searching examination of human development provides new perspectives on the moral, political, scientific, emotional, and intellectual divisions of our time. A physicist by profession, Whyte looked beyond the boundaries of specialization for creative ways to approach the basic problem facing modern Western civilization: Why are we so competent technically and yet unable to order our own affairs, socially and personally? He takes the reader with him on a journey that is nothing less than a new interpretation of the general development of human consciousness.Whyte's thesis is that the current stage of human development makes not only necessary, but inevitable, constructing a ""unitary method of thought"" to overcome the dualism of the modern Western mind. He argues that the deepest troubles of Western civilization are due, in large part, to excessive reliance on the ancient Greek postulates of permanence and invariance as an ordered form of thought resulting in an extreme, mechanistic anti-humanism. What culminated in two world wars, Whyte argued, is a European dissociation, or ""lesion."" This dissociation represents an achievement in terms of rational mastery of the natural and human worlds, unique social dynamism and differentiation, and the flowering of individuality. But the price was high: disordering of thought, emotion, and will; conflict between our deliberate and spontaneous, conscious, and unconscious energies; unstable polarization between a delusive unchanging ideal world and the reality of human transience and limitation. Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting rignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future.Lewis Mumford wrote of The Next Development of Mankind, ""The book has intense and immediate value both for the practical person and for the theoretic thinker."" Sixty years a
The Next Development in Man. (Second Printing.).
On the Future
Author: Martin Rees
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691231060
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
A provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science from world-renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes—good and bad—are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow. The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence—if pursued and applied wisely—could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. At the same time, further advances in space science will allow humans to explore the solar system and beyond with robots and AI. But there is no “Plan B” for Earth—no viable alternative within reach if we do not care for our home planet. Rich with fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology, this accessible book will captivate anyone who wants to understand the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691231060
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
A provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science from world-renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes—good and bad—are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow. The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence—if pursued and applied wisely—could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. At the same time, further advances in space science will allow humans to explore the solar system and beyond with robots and AI. But there is no “Plan B” for Earth—no viable alternative within reach if we do not care for our home planet. Rich with fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology, this accessible book will captivate anyone who wants to understand the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.
The Next Development in Mankind
Author: Lancelot Law Whyte
Publisher: Transaction Pub
ISBN: 9780765801623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting vignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: Transaction Pub
ISBN: 9780765801623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting vignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future."--BOOK JACKET.
Enemy of All Mankind
Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735211620
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
“Thoroughly engrossing . . . a spirited, suspenseful, economically told tale whose significance is manifest and whose pace never flags.” —The Wall Street Journal From The New York Times–bestselling author of The Ghost Map and Extra Life, the story of a pirate who changed the world Henry Every was the seventeenth century’s most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular—and wildly inaccurate—reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But Steven Johnson argues that Every’s most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a major shift in the global economy. Enemy of All Mankind focuses on one key event—the attack on an Indian treasure ship by Every and his crew—and its surprising repercussions across time and space. It’s the gripping tale of one of the most lucrative crimes in history, the first international manhunt, and the trial of the seventeenth century. Johnson uses the extraordinary story of Henry Every and his crimes to explore the emergence of the East India Company, the British Empire, and the modern global marketplace: a densely interconnected planet ruled by nations and corporations. How did this unlikely pirate and his notorious crime end up playing a key role in the birth of multinational capitalism? In the same mode as Johnson’s classic nonfiction historical thriller The Ghost Map, Enemy of All Mankind deftly traces the path from a single struck match to a global conflagration.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735211620
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
“Thoroughly engrossing . . . a spirited, suspenseful, economically told tale whose significance is manifest and whose pace never flags.” —The Wall Street Journal From The New York Times–bestselling author of The Ghost Map and Extra Life, the story of a pirate who changed the world Henry Every was the seventeenth century’s most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular—and wildly inaccurate—reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But Steven Johnson argues that Every’s most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a major shift in the global economy. Enemy of All Mankind focuses on one key event—the attack on an Indian treasure ship by Every and his crew—and its surprising repercussions across time and space. It’s the gripping tale of one of the most lucrative crimes in history, the first international manhunt, and the trial of the seventeenth century. Johnson uses the extraordinary story of Henry Every and his crimes to explore the emergence of the East India Company, the British Empire, and the modern global marketplace: a densely interconnected planet ruled by nations and corporations. How did this unlikely pirate and his notorious crime end up playing a key role in the birth of multinational capitalism? In the same mode as Johnson’s classic nonfiction historical thriller The Ghost Map, Enemy of All Mankind deftly traces the path from a single struck match to a global conflagration.
The Singularity Is Near
Author: Ray Kurzweil
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101218886
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 992
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil, hailed by Bill Gates as “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence,” presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.”—Los Angeles Times “Startling in scope and bravado.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An important book.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near presents a radical and optimistic view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101218886
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 992
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil, hailed by Bill Gates as “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence,” presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.”—Los Angeles Times “Startling in scope and bravado.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An important book.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near presents a radical and optimistic view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.
The Journal of Race Development
Mankind
Author: Pamela D. Toler
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN: 0762447176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
It takes more than 10 billion years to create just the right conditions on one planet for life to begin. It takes another three billion years of evolving life forms until it finally happens, a primate super species emerges: mankind. In conjunction with History Channel's hit television series by the same name, Mankind is a sweeping history of humans from the birth of the Earth and hunting antelope in Africa's Rift Valley to the present day with the completion of the Genome project and the birth of the seven billionth human. Like a Hollywood action movie, Mankind is a fast-moving, adventurous history of key events from each major historical epoch that directly affect us today such as the invention of iron, the beginning of Buddhism, the crucifixion of Jesus, the fall of Rome, the invention of the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, and the invention of the computer. With more than 300 color photographs and maps, Mankind is not only a visual overview of the broad story of civilization, but it also includes illustrated pop-out sidebars explaining distinctions between science and history, such as why there is 700 times more iron than bronze buried in the earth, why pepper is the only food we can taste with our skin, and how a wobble in the earth's axis helped bring down the Egyptian Empire. This is the most exciting and entertaining history of mankind ever produced.
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN: 0762447176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
It takes more than 10 billion years to create just the right conditions on one planet for life to begin. It takes another three billion years of evolving life forms until it finally happens, a primate super species emerges: mankind. In conjunction with History Channel's hit television series by the same name, Mankind is a sweeping history of humans from the birth of the Earth and hunting antelope in Africa's Rift Valley to the present day with the completion of the Genome project and the birth of the seven billionth human. Like a Hollywood action movie, Mankind is a fast-moving, adventurous history of key events from each major historical epoch that directly affect us today such as the invention of iron, the beginning of Buddhism, the crucifixion of Jesus, the fall of Rome, the invention of the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, and the invention of the computer. With more than 300 color photographs and maps, Mankind is not only a visual overview of the broad story of civilization, but it also includes illustrated pop-out sidebars explaining distinctions between science and history, such as why there is 700 times more iron than bronze buried in the earth, why pepper is the only food we can taste with our skin, and how a wobble in the earth's axis helped bring down the Egyptian Empire. This is the most exciting and entertaining history of mankind ever produced.
The Next Development in Mankind
Author: Lancelot Law Whyte
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781315133522
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
"This searching examination of human development provides new perspectives on the moral, political, scientific, emotional, and intellectual divisions of our time. A physicist by profession, Whyte looked beyond the boundaries of specialization for creative ways to approach the basic problem facing modern Western civilization: Why are we so competent technically and yet unable to order our own affairs, socially and personally? He takes the reader with him on a journey that is nothing less than a new interpretation of the general development of human consciousness.Whyte's thesis is that the current stage of human development makes not only necessary, but inevitable, constructing a ""unitary method of thought"" to overcome the dualism of the modern Western mind. He argues that the deepest troubles of Western civilization are due, in large part, to excessive reliance on the ancient Greek postulates of permanence and invariance as an ordered form of thought resulting in an extreme, mechanistic anti-humanism. What culminated in two world wars, Whyte argued, is a European dissociation, or ""lesion."" This dissociation represents an achievement in terms of rational mastery of the natural and human worlds, unique social dynamism and differentiation, and the flowering of individuality. But the price was high: disordering of thought, emotion, and will; conflict between our deliberate and spontaneous, conscious, and unconscious energies; unstable polarization between a delusive unchanging ideal world and the reality of human transience and limitation. Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting rignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future.Lewis Mumford wrote of The Next Development of Mankind, ""The book has intense and immediate value both for the practical person and for the theoretic thinker."" Sixty years a"--Provided by publisher.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781315133522
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
"This searching examination of human development provides new perspectives on the moral, political, scientific, emotional, and intellectual divisions of our time. A physicist by profession, Whyte looked beyond the boundaries of specialization for creative ways to approach the basic problem facing modern Western civilization: Why are we so competent technically and yet unable to order our own affairs, socially and personally? He takes the reader with him on a journey that is nothing less than a new interpretation of the general development of human consciousness.Whyte's thesis is that the current stage of human development makes not only necessary, but inevitable, constructing a ""unitary method of thought"" to overcome the dualism of the modern Western mind. He argues that the deepest troubles of Western civilization are due, in large part, to excessive reliance on the ancient Greek postulates of permanence and invariance as an ordered form of thought resulting in an extreme, mechanistic anti-humanism. What culminated in two world wars, Whyte argued, is a European dissociation, or ""lesion."" This dissociation represents an achievement in terms of rational mastery of the natural and human worlds, unique social dynamism and differentiation, and the flowering of individuality. But the price was high: disordering of thought, emotion, and will; conflict between our deliberate and spontaneous, conscious, and unconscious energies; unstable polarization between a delusive unchanging ideal world and the reality of human transience and limitation. Whyte chooses nine thinkers to illustrate this historical and evolutionary movement, including Heraclitus, Marx, and Freud, and the resulting rignettes are a synthesis of knowledge that suggest, as well, a reorientation of thought, feeling, and action for the future.Lewis Mumford wrote of The Next Development of Mankind, ""The book has intense and immediate value both for the practical person and for the theoretic thinker."" Sixty years a"--Provided by publisher.
The Dawn of Everything
Author: David Graeber
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721106
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721106
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations