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An Analysis of Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom

An Analysis of Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom

Amartya Sen uses his 1999 work Development as Freedom to evaluate the processes and outcomes of economic development. Having come to the conclusion that development is best summed up as the expansion of freedom Sen examines traditional definitions and understandings of the term. He says people tend to think of freedoms as economic (the freedom to enter into market exchanges) or political (the freedom to vote and be an active citizen) and tries to understand why the definition has been so narrow hitherto. He concludes that an evaluation of true freedom must necessarily include the freedom to access social services such as healthcare sanitation and nutrition just as much as it must acknowledge economic and political freedoms. Evaluating the relevance of the current thinking behind development Sen concludes that the term ‘freedom’ cannot simply be about income. In many ways measuring income does not account for various “unfreedoms” (manmade or natural bars to wellbeing) that hinder development. Sen’s evaluation is all the more powerful for its clarity: The freedom-centered perspective has a generic similarity to the common concern with quality of life. | An Analysis of Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom

GBP 6.50
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Transformation of Economy as a Real Process An Insider's Perspective

Transformation of Economy as a Real Process An Insider's Perspective

First published in 1998 this volume is a contribution to the economic analysis of post-communist transformation in an evolutionary-institutionalist approach. The author shows convincingly the role of path dependency of the ways history matters for the success of otherwise sound policies and highlights structural hindrances to fast and successful transformation. Thence emerges the key concept of strain. The book addresses the question of how to create conditions for sustainable development in societies where these are lacking and stresses the importance of institutional change. It also emphasises the role of sound banking institutions and proper regulations the crucial issue of financial vulnerability and fragility the role of reputation means to fight non-payments limit to optimal policies etc. The author covers a broad international literature and relates it to his insights as a local observer which delivers an interesting reading. | Transformation of Economy as a Real Process An Insider's Perspective

GBP 4.99
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An Analysis of Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism

An Analysis of Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism

To the dismay of many commentators – who had hoped the world was evolving into a more tolerant and multicultural community of nations united under the umbrellas of supranational movements like the European Union – the nationalism that was such a potent force in the history of the 20th-century has made a comeback in recent years. Now more than ever it seems important to understand what it is how it works and why it is so attractive to so many people. A fine place to start any such exploration is with Ernest Gellner's seminal Nations and Nationalism a ground-breaking study that was the first to flesh out the counter-intuitive – but enormously influential – thesis that modern nationalism has little if anything in common with old-fashioned patriotism or loyalty to one's homeland. Gellner's intensely creative thesis is that the nationalism we know today is actually the product of the 19th-century industrial revolution which radically reshaped ancient communities encouraging emigration to cities at the same time as it improved literacy rates and introduced mass education. Gellner connected these three elements in an entirely new way contrasting developments to the structures of pre-industrial agrarian economies to show why the new nationalism could not have been born in such communities. He was also successful in generating a typology of nationalisms in an attempt to explain why some forms flourished while others fizzled out. His remarkable ability to produce novel explanations for existing evidence marks out Nations and Nationalism as one of the most radical stimulating – and enduringly influential – works of its day. | An Analysis of Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind

An Analysis of Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind

Gilbert Ryle’s 1949 The Concept of Mind is now famous above all as the origin of the phrase “the ghost in the machine” – a phrase Ryle used to attack the popular idea that our bodies and minds are separate. His own position was that mental acts are not at all distinct from bodily actions. Indeed they are the same thing merely described in different ways – and if one cuts through the confusing language of the old philosophical debates he suggests that becomes clear. While in many ways modern philosophers of mind have moved on from or discarded Ryle’s actual arguments The Concept of Mind remains a classic example of two central critical thinking skills: interpretation and reasoning. Ryle was what is known as an “ordinary language” philosopher – a school who considered many philosophical problems to exist purely because of philosophical language. He therefore considered his task as a philosopher to be one of cutting through confusing language and clarifying matters – exemplifying the critical thinking skill of interpretation at its best. Rather than adding to philosophical knowledge as such moreover he saw his role as one of mapping it – giving it what he called a “logical geography. ” As such The Concept of Mind is also all about reasoning: laying out organizing and systematizing clear arguments. | An Analysis of Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Ha-Joon Chang's Kicking Away the Ladder Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

An Analysis of Ha-Joon Chang's Kicking Away the Ladder Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang used his 2003 work Kicking Away The Ladder to challenge the central orthodoxies of development economics using his creative thinking skills to shine new light on an old topic. Creative thinkers are often distinguished by their willingness to challenge received ideas and this is a central aspect of Chang’s work on development. Before Chang the received wisdom was that developing countries needed the same kinds of economic policies and institutions as developed countries in order to enjoy the same prosperity. But as Chang pointed out the historical evidence showed that First World economic success was in fact due to exactly the kinds of state intervention that modern development orthodoxy shuns. Western affluence is the product of precisely the kinds of state control – of protectionism and the setting of price tariffs – that developed countries have since denied the developing world in the name of economic freedom and ‘best practice. ’ By insisting that Third World nations should adopt these economic policies themselves argued Chang the West is actually stifling Third World economic prospects – kicking away the ladder. His carefully reasoned argument for a novel point of view was closely based on the critical thinking skill of producing novel explanations for existing evidence and led many to question development orthodoxies – sparking a rethink of modern development strategies for less-developed countries. | An Analysis of Ha-Joon Chang's Kicking Away the Ladder Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Soren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death

An Analysis of Soren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death

Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death is widely recognized as one of the most significant and influential works of Christian philosophy written in the nineteenth century. One of the cornerstones of Kierkegaard’s reputation as a writer and thinker the book is also a masterclass in the art of interpretation. In critical thinking interpretation is all about defining and clarifying terms – making sure that everyone is on the same page. But it can also be about redefining terms: showing old concepts in a new light by interpreting them in a certain way. This skill is at the heart of The Sickness unto Death. Kierkegaard’s book focuses on the meaning of “despair” – the sickness named in the title. For Kierkegaard the key problem of existence was an individual’s relationship with God and he defines true despair as equating to the idea of sin – something that separates people from God or from the idea of a higher standard beyond ourselves. Kierkegaard’s interpretative journey into the ideas of despair sin and death is a Christian exploration of the place of the individual in the world. But its interpretative skills inspired generations of philosophers of all stripes – including notorious atheists like Jean-Paul Sartre. | An Analysis of Soren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of David Graeber's Debt The First 5 000 Years

An Analysis of David Graeber's Debt The First 5 000 Years

Debt is one of the great subjects of our day and understanding the way that it not only fuels economic growth but can also be used as a means of generating profit and exerting control is central to grasping the way in which our society really works. David Graeber's contribution to this debate is to apply his anthropologists' training to the understanding of a phenomenon often considered purely from an economic point of view. In this respect the book can be considered a fine example of the critical thinking skill of problem-solving. Graeber's main aim is to undermine the dominant narrative which sees debt as the natural – and broadly healthy – outcome of the development of a modern economic system. He marshals evidence that supports alternative possibilities and suggests that the phenomenon of debt emerged not as a result of the introduction of money but at precisely the same time. This in turn allows Graeber to argue against the prevailing notion that economy and state are fundamentally separate entities. Rather he says the two were born together and have always been intertwined – with debt being a means of enforcing elite and state power. For Graeber this evaluation of the evidence points to a strong potential solution: there should be more readiness to write off debt and more public involvement in the debate over debt and its moral implications. | An Analysis of David Graeber's Debt The First 5 000 Years

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet

An Analysis of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet

In this book Sedgwick examines texts from Europe and America such as Wilde Nietzsche and Proust and considers the historical moment when sexual orientation came to be as important a signifier of personhood as gender had been for centuries. In doing this Sedgwick provides a history of sexuality that contends that the dualistic homo/heterosexual model is as much a basis for modern culture as it is an outcome of it. Thus Sedgwick laid the foundations of Queer Theory contributing to the contemporary debates regarding the relationship between desire and normative structures of power the question of empirical sexuality and the intricacies of the relationship between sexuality and gender. | An Analysis of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Homi K. Bhabha's The Location of Culture

An Analysis of Homi K. Bhabha's The Location of Culture

Homi K. Bhabha’s 1994 The Location of Culture is one of the founding texts of the branch of literary theory called postcolonialism. While postcolonialism has many strands at its heart lies the question of interpreting and understanding encounters between the western colonial powers and the nations across the globe that they colonized. Colonization was not just an economic military or political process but one that radically affected culture and identity across the world. It is a field in which interpretation comes to the fore and much of its force depends on addressing the complex legacy of colonial encounters by careful sustained attention to the meaning of the traces that they left on colonized cultures. What Bhabha’s writing like so much postcolonial thought shows is that the arts of clarification and definition that underpin good interpretation are rarely the same as simplification. Indeed good interpretative clarification is often about pointing out and dividing the different kinds of complexity at play in a single process or term. For Bhabha the object is identity itself as expressed in the ideas colonial powers had about themselves. In his interpretation what at first seems to be the coherent set of ideas behind colonialism soon breaks down into a complex mass of shifting stances – yielding something much closer to postcolonial thought than a first glance at his sometimes dauntingly complex suggests. | An Analysis of Homi K. Bhabha's The Location of Culture

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

An Analysis of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

A flagbearer for the increasingly fashionable genre of transnational history Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands is first and foremost a stunning example of the critical thinking skill of evaluation. Snyder's linguistic precocity allows him to cite evidence in 10 languages putting fresh twists on the familiar story of World War II fighting on the Eastern Front from 1941-45. In doing so he works to humanize the estimated 14 million people who lost their lives as their lands were fought over repeatedly by the Nazis and their Soviet opponents. Snyder also works to link more closely the atrocities committed by Hitler and Stalin which he insists are far too often viewed in isolation. He focuses heavily on the adequacy and relevance of his evidence but he also uses the materials he has culled from so many different archives as fuel for an exemplary work of reasoning forcing readers to confront the grim realities that lie behind terms such as ‘cannibalism’ and ‘liquidation. ’ In consequence Bloodlands has emerged only a few years after its publication as one of the seminal works of its era one that is key to Holocaust studies genocide studies and area studies and to sociology as well as to history. A masterly work of literature as well as of history Bloodlands will continue to be read for decades. | An Analysis of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

Few historians can claim to have undertaken historical analysis on as grand a scale as Geoffrey Parker in his 2013 work Global Crisis: War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. It is a doorstop of a book that surveys the ‘general crisis of the 17th century ’ shows that it was experienced practically throughout the world and was not merely a European phenomenon and links it to the impact of climate change in the form of the advent of a cold period known as the ‘Little Ice Age. ’ Parker’s triumph is made possible by the deployment of formidable critical thinking skills – reasoning to construct an engaging overall argument from very disparate material and analysis to re-examine and understand the plethora of complex secondary sources on which his book is built. In critical thinking analysis is all about understanding the features and structures of argument: how given reasons lead to conclusions and what kinds of implicit reasons and assumptions are being used. Historical analysis applies the same skills to the fabric of history asking how given chains of events occur how different reasons and factors interact and so on. Parker though takes things further than most in his quest to understand the meaning of a century’s-worth of turbulence spread across the whole globe. Beginning by breaking down the evidence for significant climatic cooling in the 17th-century (due to decreased solar activity) he moves on to detailed study of the effects the cooling had on societies and regimes across the world. From this detailed spadework he constructs a persuasive argument that accounts for the different ways in which the effects of climate change played out across the century – an argument with profound implications for a future likely to see serious climate change of its own. | An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy How to Create Uncontested Market Space

An Analysis of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy How to Create Uncontested Market Space

In Blue Ocean Strategy W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne tackle the central problem facing all businesses: how to perform better than your competitors? Their solution involves taking a creative approach to the normal view of competition. In the normal framework competition is a zero-sum game: if there are two companies competing for the same market as one does better the other has to do worse. The authors’ creative leap is to suggest one can beat the competition by not competing. Companies should avoid confronting competitors in crowded marketplaces what they call “red oceans ” and instead seek out new markets or “blue oceans. ” Once the blue oceans have been identified companies can get down to the task of creating unique products which exploit that market. Chan and Mauborgne argue for example that a wine company might decide to start appealing to a group previously uninterested in wine. This would be a “blue ocean” market giving the winemaker a huge advantage which they could exploit by creating a wine that appealed to the tastes of a beer-drinking demographic. A classic of business writing Blue Ocean Strategy is creative thinking and problem solving at its best. | An Analysis of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy How to Create Uncontested Market Space

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements is one of the most widely read works of social psychology written in the 20th-century. It exemplifies the powers of creative thinking and critical analysis at their best providing an insight into two crucial elements of critical thinking. Hoffer is likely to go down in history as one of America’s great creative thinkers – a writer not bound by standard frameworks of thinking or academic conventions willing to beat his own path in framing the best possible answers to the questions he investigated. An impoverished largely unschooled manual laborer who had survived the worst effects of the Great Depression in the United States Hoffer was a passionate autodidact whose philosophical and psychological education came from omnivorous reading. Working without the help of any mentors he forged the fearsomely creative and individual approach to problems demonstrated in The True Believer. The book which earned him his reputation examines the different phenomena of fanaticism – religious or political – and applies Hoffer’s analytical skills to reveal that deep down all ‘true believers’ display the same needs and tendencies whatever their final choice of belief. Incisive and persuasive it remains a classic. | An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of St. Augustine's Confessions

An Analysis of St. Augustine's Confessions

St. Augustine’s Confessions is one of the most important works in the history of literature and Christian thought. Written around 397 when Augustine was the Christian bishop of Hippo (in modern-day Algeria) the Confessions were designed both to spiritually educate those who already shared Augustine’s faith and to convert those who did not. Augustine did this through the original maneuver of writing what is now recognized as being the first Western autobiography – letting readers share in his own experiences of youth sin and eventual conversion. The Confessions are a perfect example of using reasoning to subtly bring readers around to a particular point of view – with Augustine inviting them to accompany him on his own spiritual journey towards God so they could make their own conversion. Carefully structured the Confessions run from describing the first 43 years of Augustine’s life in North Africa and Italy to discussing the nature of memory before moving on to analyzing the Bible itself. In order the sections form a carefully structured argument moving from the personal to the philosophical to the contemplative. In the hundreds of years since they were first published they have persuaded hundreds of thousands of readers to recognize towards the same God that Augustine himself worshipped. | An Analysis of St. Augustine's Confessions

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Theodore Levitt's Marketing Myopia

An Analysis of Theodore Levitt's Marketing Myopia

Theodore Levitt’s 1960 article “Marketing Myopia” is a business classic that earned its author the nickname “the father of modern marketing”. It is also a beautiful demonstration of the problem solving skills that are crucial in so many areas of life – in business and beyond. The problem facing Levitt was the same problem that has confronted business after business for hundreds of years: how best to deal with slowing growth and eventual decline. Levitt studied many business empires – the railroads for instance – that at a certain point simply shrivelled up and shrank to almost nothing. How he asked could businesses avoid such failures? His approach and his solution comprise a concise demonstration of high-level problem solving at its best. Good problem solvers first identify what the problem is then isolate the best methodology for solving it. And as Levitt showed a dose of creative thinking also helps. Levitt’s insight was that falling sales are all about marketing and marketing is about knowing your real business. The railroads misunderstood their real market: they weren’t selling rail they were selling transport. If they had understood that they could have successfully taken advantage of new growth areas – truck haulage for instance – rather than futilely scrabbling to sell rail to a saturated market. | An Analysis of Theodore Levitt's Marketing Myopia

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

An Analysis of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique is possibly the best-selling of all the titles analysed in the Macat library and arguably one of the most important. Yet it was the product of an apparently minor meaningless assignment. Undertaking to approach former classmates who had attended Smith College with her 10 years after their graduation the high-achieving Friedan was astonished to discover that the survey she had undertaken for a magazine feature revealed a high proportion of her contemporaries were suffering from a malaise she had thought was unique to her: profound dissatisfaction at the ‘ideal’ lives they had been living as wives mothers and homemakers. For Friedan this discovery stimulated a remarkable burst of creative thinking as she began to connect the elements of her own life together in new ways. The popular idea that men and women were equal but different – that men found their greatest fulfilment through work while women were most fulfilled in the home – stood revealed as a fallacy and the depression and even despair she and so many other women felt as a result was recast not as a failure to adapt to a role that was the truest expression of femininity but as the natural product of undertaking repetitive unfulfilling and unremunerated labor. Friedan's seminal expression of these new ideas redefined an issue central to many women's lives so successfully that it fuelled a movement – the ‘second wave’ feminism of the 1960s and 1970s that fundamentally challenged the legal and social framework underpinning an entire society. | An Analysis of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority An Experimental View

An Analysis of Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority An Experimental View

Stanley Milgram is one of the most influential and widely-cited social psychologists of the twentieth century. Recognized as perhaps the most creative figure in his field he is famous for crafting social-psychological experiments with an almost artistic sense of creative imagination – casting new light on social phenomena in the process. His 1974 study Obedience to Authority exemplifies creative thinking at its most potent and controversial. Interested in the degree to which an “authority figure” could encourage people to commit acts against their sense of right and wrong Milgram tricked volunteers for a “learning experiment” into believing that they were inflicting painful electric shocks on a person in another room. Able to hear convincing sounds of pain and pleas to stop the volunteers were told by an authority figure – the “scientist” – that they should continue regardless. Contrary to his own predictions Milgram discovered that depending on the exact set up as many as 65% of people would continue right up to the point of “killing” the victim. The experiment showed he believed that ordinary people can and will do terrible things under the right circumstances simply through obedience. As infamous and controversial as it was creatively inspired the “Milgram experiment” shows just how radically creative thinking can shake our most fundamental assumptions. | An Analysis of Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority An Experimental View

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An Analysis of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

An Analysis of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

The end of the Cold War which occurred early in the 1990s brought joy and freedom to millions. But it posed a difficult question to the world's governments and to the academics who studied them: how would world order be remade in an age no longer dominated by the competing ideologies of capitalism and communism? Samuel P. Huntington was one of the many political scientists who responded to this challenge by conceiving works that attempted to predict the ways in which conflict might play out in the 21st century and in The Clash of Civilizations he suggested that a new kind of conflict one centred on cultural identity would become the new focus of international relations. Huntington's theories greeted with scepticism when his book first appeared in the 1990s acquired new resonance after 9/11. The Clash of Civilizations is now one of the most widely-set and read works of political theory in US universities; Huntington's theories have also had a measurable impact on American policy. In large part this is a product of his problem-solving skills. Clash is a monument to its author's ability to generate and evaluate alternative possibilities and to make sound decisions between them. Huntington's view that international politics after the Cold War would be neither peaceful nor liberal nor cooperative ran counter to the predictions of almost all of his peers yet his position – the product of an unusual ability to redefine an issue so as to see it in new ways – has been largely vindicated by events ever since. | An Analysis of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

An Analysis of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

One criticism of history is that historians all too often study it in isolation failing to take advantage of models and evidence from scholars in other disciplines. This is not a charge that can be laid at the door of Alfred Crosby. His book The Columbian Exchange not only incorporates the results of wide reading in the hard sciences anthropology and geography but also stands as one of the foundation stones of the study of environmental history. In this sense Crosby's defining work is undoubtedly a fine example of the critical thinking skill of creativity; it comes up with new connections that explain the European success in colonizing the New World more as the product of biological catastrophe (in the shape of the introduction of new diseases) than of the actions of men and posits that the most important consequences were not political – the establishment of new empires – but cultural and culinary; the population of China tripled for example as the result of the introduction of new world crops. Few new hypotheses have proved as stimulating or influential. | An Analysis of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Thomas Paine's Common Sense

An Analysis of Thomas Paine's Common Sense

Thomas Paine’s 1776 Common Sense has secured an unshakeable place as one of history’s most explosive and revolutionary books. A slim pamphlet published at the beginning of the American Revolution it was so widely read that it remains the all-time best selling book in US history. An impassioned argument for American independence and for democratic government Common Sense can claim to have helped change the face of the world more than almost any other book. But Paine’s pamphlet is also a masterclass in critical thinking demonstrating how the reasoned construction of arguments can be reinforced by literary skill and passion. Paine is perhaps more famous as a stylist than as a constructor of arguments but Common Sense marries the best elements of good reasoning to its polemic. Moving systematically from the origins of government through a criticism of monarchy and on to the possibilities for future democratic government in an independent America Paine neatly lays out a series of persuasive reasons to fight for independence and a new form of government. Indeed as the pamphlet’s title suggested to do so was nothing more than ‘common sense. ’ | An Analysis of Thomas Paine's Common Sense

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An Analysis of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

An Analysis of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions can be seen without exaggeration as a landmark text in intellectual history. In his analysis of shifts in scientific thinking Kuhn questioned the prevailing view that science was an unbroken progression towards the truth. Progress was actually made he argued via paradigm shifts meaning that evidence that existing scientific models are flawed slowly accumulates – in the face at first of opposition and doubt – until it finally results in a crisis that forces the development of a new model. This development in turn produces a period of rapid change – extraordinary science Kuhn terms it – before an eventual return to normal science begins the process whereby the whole cycle eventually repeats itself. This portrayal of science as the product of successive revolutions was the product of rigorous but imaginative critical thinking. It was at odds with science’s self-image as a set of disciplines that constantly evolve and progress via the process of building on existing knowledge. Kuhn’s highly creative re-imagining of that image has proved enduringly influential – and is the direct product of the author’s ability to produce a novel explanation for existing evidence and to redefine issues so as to see them in new ways. | An Analysis of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

GBP 6.50
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An Analysis of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics

An Analysis of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics

Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics is a dense masterpiece of sustained argumentative reasoning. It earned its place as one of the most important and influential books in Western philosophy by virtue of its uncompromisingly direct arguments about the nature of God the universe free will and human morals. Though it remains one of the densest and most challenging texts in the entire canon of Western philosophy Ethics is also famous for Spinoza’s unique approach to ordering and constructing its arguments. As its full title – Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order – suggests Spinoza decided to use the rigorous format of mathematical-style propositions to lay out his arguments just as the Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid had used geometrical propositions to lay out the basic rules of geometry. In choosing such a systematic method Spinoza’s masterwork shows the crucial aspects of good reasoning skills being employed at the highest level. The key use of reasoning is the production of an argument that is well-organised supports its conclusions and proceeds logically towards its end. Just as a mathematician might demonstrate a geometrical proof Spinoza sought to lay out a comprehensive philosophy for human existence – an attempt that has influenced generations of philosophers since. | An Analysis of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics

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An Analysis of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature Why Violence has Declined

An Analysis of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature Why Violence has Declined

Reasoning is the critical thinking skill concerned with the production of arguments: making them coherent consistent and well-supported; and responding to opposing positions where necessary. The Better Angels of Our Nature offers a step-by-step class in precisely these skills. Author Steven Pinker's central thesis is simple: mankind has become increasingly less violent over the centuries and will continue to do so. Pinker is aware though that many people instinctively believe the opposite and Better Angels is devoted to marshalling data to support and illustrate this central argument as well as a series of secondary arguments about how and why humanity has become less violent. Pinker's interpretative skills – understanding the meaning of the complex evidence from history – are also on display throughout as he tackles the ambiguities of his data the problems it presents and the viable inferences one can draw from it. | An Analysis of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature Why Violence has Declined

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An Analysis of Carole Hillenbrand's The Crusades Islamic Perspectives

An Analysis of Carole Hillenbrand's The Crusades Islamic Perspectives

For many centuries the history of the crusades as written by Western historians was based solidly on Western sources. Evidence from the Islamic societies that the crusaders attacked was used only sparingly – in part because it was hard for most westerners to read and in part because much of it was inaccessible even for historians who did speak Arabic. Carole Hillenbrand set out to re-evaluate the sources for the crusading period not only looking with fresh eyes at known accounts but also locating and utilizing new sources that had previously been overlooked. Her work involved her in conducting extensive evaluations of the new sources assessing their arguments their evidence and their reasoning in order to assess their value and (using the critical thinking skill of analysis a powerful method for understanding how arguments are built) to place them correctly in the context of crusade studies as a whole. The result is not only a history that is more balanced better argued and more adequate than most that have gone before it but also a work with relevance for today. At a time when crusading imagery and mentions of the current War on Terror as a ‘crusade’ help to fuel political narrative Hillenbrand's evaluative work acts as an important corrective to oversimplification and misrepresentation. | An Analysis of Carole Hillenbrand's The Crusades Islamic Perspectives

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An Analysis of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations

An Analysis of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations

Despite being written between 170 and 180 Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations often resonates with modern readers because of its remarkable resemblance to a self-help book. Written as a series of personal notes in the last decade of his reign as Roman emperor the meditations were never intended for circulation. But they remain today among the classics of stoic philosophy – and as exquisite examples of problem-solving. Meditations sees a great leader engaged in solving one of the central problems of all philosophy: how to live a good life. Marcus Aurelius is quick to ask questions and generate solutions all of which lead him to a greater understanding of what a good life really is. He makes the decision that philosophy is an important tool we can use every day to help us understand and deal with the world. The best way to get to the bottom of a problem he records is to analyze its different aspects with care – this will help to ‘dissolve’ the issue. To keep our minds well balanced it is vital to keep our desire for the material and the sensual in check to avoid falling prey to negative behaviors like jealousy quarrelling and indulgence. Philosophy the Meditations show can also help us to understand other people’s problems and difficulties – acting as a continual spur to the consideration and resolution of problems wherever they arise. | An Analysis of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations

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