Elements of Semiology

"In his Course in General Linguistics, first published in 1916, Saussure postulated the existence of a general science of signs, or Semiology, of which linguistics would form only one part. Semiology, therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification . . . The Elements here presented have as their sole aim the extraction from linguistics of analytical concepts which we think a priori to be sufficiently general to start semiological research on its way. In assembling them, it is not presupposed that they will remain intact during the course of research; nor that semiology will always be forced to follow the linguistic model closely. We are merely suggesting and elucidating a terminology in the hope that it may enable an initial (albeit provisional) order to be introduced into the heterogeneous mass of significant facts. In fact what we purport to do is furnish a principle of classification of the questions. These elements of semiology will therefore be grouped under four main headings borrowed from structural linguistics: I. Language and Speech; II. Signified and Signifier; III. Syntagm and System; IV. Denotation and Connotation."--Roland Barthes, from his Introduction

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Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age

Enlightenment's Wake stakes out the elements of John Gray's new position. He argues that all schools of contemporary political thought are variations on the Enlightenment Project--the Westernizing project of a universal civilization--and that this Enlightenment Project has proved self-undermining and is now exhausted. Fresh thought is needed on the dilemmas of the late modern age.

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Fictionalism in Metaphysics

Fictionalism is the view that a serious intellectual inquiry need not aim at truth. Since 1980, fictionalist accounts of science, mathematics, morality, and other domains of inquiry have been developed. In metaphysics fictionalism is now widely regarded as an option worthy of serious consideration. This volume represents a major benchmark in the debate: it brings together an impressive international team of contributors, whose essays (all but one of them appearing here for the first time) represent the state of the art in various areas of metaphysical controversy, relating to language, mathematics, modality, truth, belief, ontology, and morality.

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Time, Space, and Metaphysics

Time, Space, and Metaphysics engages with major philosophical questions concerning time and space, a framework for the investigation being provided by the debate between the absolutists and the relationists, so between Newton and Leibniz, and their followers. The investigation brings to the fore questions of the nature and reality of time and space, and leads on to more recent debates, such as those relating to anti-realism, time travel, temporal parts, geometry, convention, and the infinitude of time and space. These in turn raise more general issues, issues involving such concepts as those of identity, objectivity, causation, facts, and verifiability. Their examination falls within metaphysics, thought of as the investigation and analysis of fundamental philosophical concepts, but there is also metaphysics of a more contentious character, where the subject-matter is provided by propositions which transcend what can be known either through experience or by pure reasoning. In this connection, a central aim is to show how, without dismissing them as nonsensical, we may arrive at a fruitful interpretation of such propositions.

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The Philosophy of Time: Time Before Times (Routledge Studies in Twentieth Century Philosophy)

The question of the existence and the properties of time has been subject to debate for thousands of years. This considered and complete study offers a contrastive analysis of phenomenologies of time from the perspective of the problematics of the visibility of time. Is time perceptible only through the veil of change? Or is there a naked presence of "time itself"? Or has time always effaced itself?
McClure's new work also stages confrontations between phenomenology of time and analytical philosophy of time. By doing so he explores ancient issues from a fresh perspective, such as whether time passes, whether experimental time is "real time," and whether the very concept of time is contradictory.

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Socializing Metaphysics

Socializing Metaphysics supplies diverse answers to the basic questions of social metaphysics, from a broad array of voices. It will interest all philosophers and social scientists concerned with mind, action, or the foundations of social theory.

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Modernism and the Ordinary

Traditionally literary modernism has been seen as a movement marked by transcendent epiphanies, episodes of estrangement, and a privileging of the extraordinary. Yet modernist writings often take great pains to describe the material, seemingly insignificant details of daily life. Modernism and the Ordinary upends our perceived notions of the period's literature as it recognizes just how pivotal commonplace activities are to modernist aesthetics.
Through pointed readings of prose and poetry from both the U. S. and abroad, Liesl Olson highlights the variety of ways modernist writers represented the quotidian details of modern life, even during times of political crisis and war. Run of the mill experiences like walking to work, eating a sandwich, or mending a dress were often resistant to shock, and these daily actions presented a counter-force to the aesthetic of heightened affect with which modernism is often associated. In a series of persuasively argued chapters, we see how the ordinary operates in its many modernist manifestations: the minutiae of list-making and the decidedly unheroic qualities of Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses; Virginia Woolf's rendering of the ordinary as an affective experience in Mrs. Dalloway; the retreat into daily routine as a refuge from the tumult of World War II in Gertrude Stein's Mrs. Reynolds; Wallace Stevens's conception of the commonplace as rooted in pragmatist philosophy; and how Beckett and Proust are simultaneously compelled and repelled by the banalities of modern life. These works are read alongside the ideas of philosophers such as William James, Henri Bergson, and Henri Lefebvre to illustrate how these artists responded to the difficulty of representing the mundane without making it transcendent.
A trenchant, richly textured monograph, Modernism and the Ordinary reveals how the non-transformative power of everyday experiences-what Virginia Woolf called the "cotton wool of daily life"-exerts a profound influence on the epoch-defining art of some of the twentieth century's most celebrated writers.

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Fifty Major Political Thinkers 1st ed

Fifty Major Political Thinkers introduces the life and thought of major figures in Western political thought, from ancient Greece to the present day. The entries provide an accessible and clearly written introduction to the major ideas and schools of thought which have shaped contemporary politics, including figures such as: Aristotle, Machiavelli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx, Mohandas Ghandi, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas. Fully cross-referenced and including a glossary of theoretical terms, this wide ranging and accessible book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the evolution and history of contemporary political thought.

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Fifty Major Political Thinkers 2nd edition

Fifty Major Political Thinkers 2nd edition introduces the lives and ideas of some of the most influential figures in Western political thought, from ancient Greece to the present day. The entries provide a fascinating introduction to the major figures and schools of thought that have shaped contemporary politics, including:

• Aristotle
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Michel Foucault
• Mohandas Gandhi
• Jurgen Habermas
• Machiavelli
• Karl Marx
• Thomas Paine
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Mary Wollstonecraft

Fully cross-referenced and including a glossary of theoretical terms, this wide-ranging and accessible book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the evolution and history of contemporary political thought.

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The Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas: A Critical Introduction

Jürgen Habermas seeks to defend the Enlightenment and with it an "emphatical", "uncurtailed" conception of reason against the post-modern critique of reason on the one hand, and against so-called scientism (which would include critical rationalism and the greater part of analytical philosophy) on the other. His objection to the former is that it is self-contradictory and politically defeatist; his objection to the latter is that, thanks to a standard of rationality derived from the natural sciences or from Weber's concept of purposive rationality, it leaves normative questions to irrational decisions. Habermas wants to offer an alternative, trying to develop a theory of communicative action that can clarify the normative foundations of a critical theory of society as well as provide a fruitful theoretical framework for empirical social research.

This study is a comprehensive and detailed analysis and sustained critique of Habermas' philosophical system since his pragmatist turn in the seventies. It clearly and precisely depicts Habermas' long chain of arguments leading from an analysis of speech acts to a discourse theory of law and the democratic constitutional state. Along the way the study examines, among other things, Habermas' theory of communicative action, transcendental and universal pragmatics and the argument from "performative contradictions", discourse ethics, the consensus theory of truth, Habermas' ideas on developmental psychology, communicative pathologies and social evolution, his theory of social order, the analysis of the tensions between system and lifeworld, his theory of modernity, and his theory of deliberative democracy. For all Habermas students this study will prove indispensable.

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Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics

The politics of the Internet has entered the social science mainstream. Internet politics and policy are continually hitting the headlines; from debates about the medium’s impact on parties and election campaigns following the momentous US 2004 presidential contest to concerns over international security, privacy and surveillance post 9/11.

The Handbook of Internet Politics is concerned with theoretical and conceptual debates, political institutions and practices, and how the Internet creates new policy problems for liberal democratic and non liberal-democratic states, not to mention their roles in the global system. There has been a steady stream of high quality research literature in this field over the last five years and this Handbook calls upon contributions from some of the leading scholars in the field from the UK, Europe and US.

Providing the first comprehensive overview of Internet politics, this will be a helpful companion to students and scholars of politics, international relations, communication studies and sociology.

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Ethics, Psyche and Social Responsibility (Corporate Social Responsibility Series)

This important volume considers the psychological aspects of organizational life, particularly in the context of firms' ethical behaviour and its implications for corporate social responsibility. The authors consider the effects of corporate activity and change on individuals, not just in their working lives, but also in their family and social lives.

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Cindy Adams: Bung Karno Penjambung Lidah Rakjat Indonesia

Sekitar tahun 60-an, Howard Jones, dubes AS untuk Indonesia saat itu mengajukan usul kepada Bung Karno untuk menuliskan biografinya. Maka akhirnya lahirlah buku biografi ini yang ditulis oleh wartawati AS, Cindy Adams. Buku ini merupakan terjemahan oleh Major Abdul Bar Salim dari buku "SUKARNO, AN AUTHOBIOGRAPHY AS TOLD TO CINDY ADAMS". Buku setebal 470 halaman ini diterbitkan oleh GUNUNG AGUNG. 

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Hackers & Painters Big Ideas from the Computer Age

"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences. "
--from Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham

We are living in the computer age, in a world increasingly designed and engineered by computer programmers and software designers, by people who call themselves hackers. Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?

Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.

Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls "an intellectual Wild West."

The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, Internet startups, and more.

And here's a taste of what you'll find in Hackers & Painters:

"In most fields the great work is done early on. The paintings made between 1430 and 1500 are still unsurpassed. Shakespeare appeared just as professional theater was being born, and pushed the medium so far that every playwright since has had to live in his shadow. Albrecht Durer did the same thing with engraving, and Jane Austen with the novel.

Over and over we see the same pattern. A new medium appears, and people are so excited about it that they explore most of its possibilities in the first couple generations. Hacking seems to be in this phase now.

Painting was not, in Leonardo's time, as cool as his work helped make it. How cool hacking turns out to be will depend on what we can do with this new medium."

Andy Hertzfeld, co-creator of the Macintosh computer, says about Hackers & Painters: "Paul Graham is a hacker, painter and a terrific writer. His lucid, humorous prose is brimming with contrarian insight and practical wisdom on writing great code at the intersection of art, science and commerce."

Paul Graham, designer of the new Arc language, was the creator of Yahoo Store, the first web-based application. In addition to his PhD in Computer Science from Harvard, Graham also studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

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Human Rights A Very Short Introduction

Today it is usually not long before a problem gets expressed as a human rights issue. An appeal to human rights in the face of injustice can be a heartfelt and morally justified demand for some, while for others it remains merely an empty slogan. Taking an international perspective and focusing on highly topical issues such as torture, arbitrary detention, privacy, health and discrimination, this Very Short Introduction will help readers to understand for themselves the controversies and complexities behind this vitally relevant issue. Looking at the philosophical justification for rights, the historical origins of human rights and how they are formed in law, Andrew Clapham explains what our human rights actually are, what they might be, and where the human rights movement is heading.

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Habermas: A Very Short Introduction

This book gives a clear and readable overview of the philosophical work of Jurgen Habermas, the most influential German philosopher alive today, who has commented widely on subjects such as Marxism, the importance and effectiveness of communication, the reunification of Germany, and the European Union. Gordon Finlayson provides readers with a clear and readable overview of Habermas's forbiddingly complex philosophy using concrete examples and accessible language. He then goes on to analyse both the theoretical underpinnings of Habermas's social theory, and its more concrete applications in the fields of ethics, politics, and law; and concludes with an examination how Habermas's social and political theory informs his writing on contemporary, political, and social problems.

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Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

One of the finest introductions to Existentialism, regardless of length

Most introductions to Existentialism make either of a couple of mistakes: they either focus on the style rather than the substance of the thinkers subsumed under the label or they focus on the mood evoked. Anyone who has read much about the philosophy knows that it is all too easy to degenerate into a meditation on the angst of human existence. By centering their discussions on moods and attitudes rather than concrete philosophical positions, Existentialism as it emerges from far too many introductions become anything and everything, yet nothing at all. Not so with Flynn.

The book is broken into six (necessarily) short chapters. The first five justify the cost of the book. The last one, on "Existentialism in the 21st Century," is an unhappy addendum. It seeks to hint at ways that Existential thought can engage some of the ongoing philosophical debates that continue into the 21st century. But the various ideas are simply dealt with too briefly and the possibilities of engagement are more gestured at than explained. The intentions were good, but there simply wasn't enough room to produce more than an outline of a chapter. But the first five chapters are all lucid and sharply focused. The first chapter deals with the central tenet of all thinkers who can be considered Existentialists (it is important to remember that most "Existentialists" did not so consider themselves), that philosophy is a practical discipline, dealing with actual lived life, not an inhuman scienticity far removed from concrete human concerns. The second deals with what it means to become an individual and how that is achieved. The third begins with Sartre's famous lecture on humanism and uses this as a springboard to talk of both theistic and atheistic forms of existential thought, but showing how both nonetheless place human beings at the center. The fourth chapter delves into the important ethical concept of authenticity. Finally, the fifth chapter deals with an aspect of Existentialism that many books on it neglect, the social philosophy promulgated by many of the movement's leading thinkers.

Not all those considered Existentialists receive equal attention in this intro. There is a great deal more about Kierkegaard and Sartre than any other thinkers, though there are significant discussions of a host of additional philosophers including Merleau-Ponty, Camus, Heidegger, Nietzsche, de Beauvoir, and Marcel. I have read fairly widely in all of those thinkers except Merleau-Ponty and can attest that his discussions of all these individuals are consistently accurate and fair. I admire how clearly he is able to get to the crux of their central ideas without distorting their thought. I'm especially conversant with Kierkegaard and while I often would have like to seen certain points expanded, I cannot say that he says anything misleading.

I recommend this as an introduction to Existentialism over all other such books with which I am familiar. Though still of value, some of the older intros by people like Walter Kaufman and William Barrett are definitely showing their age. They also suffer from the disadvantage of having been written while Existentialism was still in its hey day and they had less of a sense of what would be deemed of ongoing value in the movement. Flynn has the advantage of hindsight and knowledge of what parts retain interest. I have read several outstanding entries in this series by Oxford and feel that this is one of the best volumes yet.

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Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

Atheism is often considered to be a negative, dark, and pessimistic belief which is characterised by a rejection of values and purpose and a fierce opposition to religion. Atheism: A Very Short Introduction sets out to dispel the myths that surround atheism and show how a life without religious belief can be positive, meaningful, and moral. It also confronts the failure of officially atheist states in the Twentieth Century. The book presents an intellectual case for atheism that rests as much upon positive arguments for its truth as on negative arguments against religion.

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Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

The tradition of ancient philosophy is a long, rich and varied one, in which the notes of discussion and argument constantly resound. This book introduces ancient debates, engaging us with the ancient developments of their themes. Moving away from the presentation of ancient philosophy as a succession of great thinkers, the book gives readers a sense of the freshness and liveliness of ancient philosophy, and of its wide variety of themes and styles. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam. 

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The Sublime Object of Ideology

Slavoj Zizek, the maverick philosopher, author of over 30 books, acclaimed as the "Elvis of cultural theory", and today's most controversial public intellectual. His work traverses the fields of philosophy, psychoanalysis, theology, history and political theory, taking in film, popular culture, literature and jokes—all to provide acute analyses of the complexities of contemporary ideology as well as a serious and sophisticated philosophy. His recent films The Pervert's Guide to the Cinema and Zizek! reveal a theorist at the peak of his powers and a skilled communicator. Now Verso is making his classic titles, each of which stand as a core of his ever-expanding life's work, available as new editions. Each is beautifully re-packaged, including new introductions from Zizek himself. Simply put, they are the essential texts for understanding Zizek's thought and thus cornerstones of contemporary philosophy.

The Sublime Object of Ideology: Slavoj Zizek's first book is a provocative and original work looking at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. In a thrilling tour de force that made his name, he explores the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society.
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