Recommendations based on "The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy"

The most popular occult work of the twentieth century--now in a hardbound edition that evokes the original volume, with a new introduction by scholar of mysticism Richard Smoley.For generations, readers have debated the origins and studied the knowledge of this mysterious exploration of Hermetic wisdom, attributed to "Three Initiates."Now in its second century, The Kybalion is restored to hardcover in a commemorative volume that evokes the appearance of the occult landmark's first edition.The new introduction by Richard Smoley, a celebrated scholar of mystical traditions, makes this a historical keepsake.

The Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) recorded his moral philosophy and reflections on life as a highly original kind of correspondence. Letters on Ethics includes vivid descriptions of town and country life in Nero’s Italy, discussions of poetry and oratory, and philosophical training for Seneca’s friend Lucilius. This volume, the first complete English translation in nearly a century, makes the Letters more accessible than ever before.Written as much for a general audience as for Lucilius, these engaging letters offer advice on how to deal with everything from nosy neighbors to sickness, pain, and death. Seneca uses the informal format of the letter to present the central ideas of Stoicism, for centuries the most influential philosophical system in the Mediterranean world. His lively and at times humorous expositions have made the Letters his most popular work and an enduring classic. Including an introduction and explanatory notes by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long, this authoritative edition will captivate a new generation of readers.

Universe of the MindA Semiotic Theory of CultureYuri M. LotmanIntroduction by Umberto EcoTranslated by Ann ShukmanA major book by one of the initiators of cultural studies."Universe of the Mind is an ambitious, complex, and wide-ranging book that semioticians, textual critics, and those interested in cultural studies will find stimulating and immensely suggestive." ―Journal of Communication"Soviet semiotics offers a distinctive, richly productive approach to literary and cultural studies and Universe of the Mind represents a summation of the intellectual career of the man who has done most to guarantee this." ―Slavic and East European JournalUniverse of the Mind addresses three main areas: meaning and text, culture, and history. The result is a full-scale attempt to demonstrate the workings of the semiotic space or intellectual world. Part One is concerned with the ways that texts generate meaning. Part Two addresses Lotman's central idea of the semiosphere―the domain in which all semiotic systems can function―presented through an analogy with the global biosphere. Part Three focuses on semiotics from the point of view of history.A seminal text in cultural semiotics, the book's ambitious scope also makes it applicable to disciplines outside semiotics. The book will be of great interest to those concerned with cultural studies, anthropology, Slavic studies, critical theory, philosophy, and historiography.Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman is the founder of the Moscow-Tartu School and the initiator of the discipline of cultural semiotics.

In this sequel to The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, the brilliantly original French thinker who died in 1984 gives an analysis of how the ancient Greeks perceived sexuality.Throughout The Use of Pleasure Foucault analyzes an irresistible array of ancient Greek texts on eroticism as he tries to answer basic questions: How in the West did sexual experience become a moral issue? And why were other appetites of the body, such as hunger, and collective concerns, such as civic duty, not subjected to the numberless rules and regulations and judgments that have defined, if not confined, sexual behavior?

Deirdre Bair has written about some of the most influential figures in 20th century culture - Samuel Beckett, Simone De Beauvoir and Anais Nin. Now she turns her expert eye to the one person whose teachings and writings are the most influential of all: psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. Jung was Freud's 'crown prince', hand picked by the founding father of psychoanalysis to become the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1910. Their professional relationship ended in 1914 when Jung could not accept Freud's emphasis on infantile sexuality. Jung abandoned Freud's theory to found his own system of Analytical psychology. As Freud's influence has waned over the years, Jung's ideas - the collective unconscious, the archetypal myths underpinning all societies, synchronocity, 'new age' spirituality and much more - have achieved an overwhelming ascendancy. Bair addresses the myths about Jung - accusations that he was an anti-Semite and a misogynist and that he falsified data - with evidence from his own writings and from those of his colleagues and former patients. The result is groundbreaking and accessible.

Sound coming from outside the field of vision, from somewhere beyond, holds a privileged place in the Western imagination. When separated from their source, sounds seem to manifest transcendent realms, divine powers, or supernatural forces. According to legend, the philosopher Pythagoras lectured to his disciples from behind a veil, and two thousand years later, in the age of absolute music, listeners were similarly fascinated with disembodied sounds, employing various techniques to isolate sounds from their sources. With recording and radio came spatial and temporal separation of sounds from sources, and new ways of composing music. Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice explores the phenomenon of acousmatic sound. An unusual and neglected word, "acousmatic" was first introduced into modern parlance in the mid-1960s by avant garde composer of musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer to describe the experience of hearing a sound without seeing its cause. Working through, and often against, Schaeffer's ideas, Brian Kane presents a powerful argument for the central yet overlooked role of acousmatic sound in music aesthetics, sound studies, literature, philosophy and the history of the senses. Kane investigates acousmatic sound from a number of methodological perspectives -- historical, cultural, philosophical and musical -- and provides a framework that makes sense of the many surprising and paradoxical ways that unseen sound has been understood. Finely detailed and thoroughly researched, Sound Unseen pursues unseen sounds through a stunning array of cases -- from Bayreuth to Kafka's "Burrow," Apollinaire to %Zi%zek, music and metaphysics to architecture and automata, and from Pythagoras to the present-to offer the definitive account of acousmatic sound in theory and practice. The first major study in English of Pierre Schaeffer's theory of "acousmatics," Sound Unseen is an essential text for scholars of philosophy of music, electronic music, sound studies, and the history of the senses.

The phenomenon of learning has always been of fundamental interest to psychologists. Although much of the research in this area approaches the process of learning as a consequence of direct experience, this volume is principally concerned with learning by example.A widening interest in modeling and vicarious processes of learning has been apparent in recent years. Psychological Modeling highlights the most important work done in the subject and offers an extensive review of the major theories of learning by modeling. In his introductory essay, the editor identifies the most important controversial issues in the field of observational learning and reviews a large body of research findings.Among the questions debated in this volume are: How do observers form an internal model of the outside world to guide their actions? What role does reinforcement play in observational learning? What is the relative effectiveness of models presented in live action, in pictorial presentations, or through verbal description? What is the scope of modeling influences? What factors determine whether people will learn what they have observed? What types of people are most susceptible to modeling influences, and what types of models are most influential in modifying the behavior of others?This volume deals with an important problem area in a lively fashion. Its special organization makes it a stimulating adjunct to all courses in psychology - undergraduate and graduate - in which psychological modeling is discussed. It also provides a readable introduction for educators and other professionals seeking reliable information on the state of knowledge in this area.Albert Bandura has been Professor of Psychology at Stanford University since 1953. In 1969-70 he was Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Professor Bandura served on the editorial boards of several professional journals including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology. He now serves on the editorial board of Applied Psychology as well as on the advisory board of European Journal of School Psychology. He is author or editor of over a dozen books. His articles appear in source books in many areas of the discipline of psychology, and he is a frequent contributor to academic and professional symposia and journals.

A comprehensive examination of "ruins" of the modern era in contemporary art and cultural theory.The "ruins" of the modern era are the landmarks of recent art's turn toward site and situation, history and memory. The abiding interest of artists in ruination and decay has led in particular to the concept of the modern ruin--an ambiguous site of artistic and architectural modernism, personal and collective memories, and the cultural afterlife of eras such as those of state communism and colonialism. Contemporary art's explorations of the ruin can evoke on the one hand diverse experiences of nostalgia and on the other a ceaselessly renewed encounter with catastrophes of the recent past and apprehensions of the future. For every relic of a harmonious era or utopian dream stands another recalling industrial decline, environmental disaster, and the depredations of war.This anthology provides a comprehensive survey of the contemporary ruin in cultural discourse, aesthetics, and artistic practice. It examines the development of ruin aesthetics from the early modern era to the present; the ruin as a privileged emblem of modernity's decline; the relic as a portal onto the political history of the recent past; the destruction and decline of cities and landscapes, with the emergence of "non-places" and "drosscape"; the symbolism of the entropic and decayed in critical environmentalism; and the confusing temporalities of the ruin in recent art--its involution of timescales and perspectives as it addresses not just the past but the future.

In recent years scholars have begun to acknowledge that the occult sciences were not marginal enterprises but an integral part of the worldview of many of our ancestors. Astrology was one of the many intellectual tools--along with what we consider to be the superior tools of social and political analysis--that Renaissance thinkers used to attack practical and intellectual problems. It was a coherent body of practices, strongly supported by social institutions. And alchemy was not viewed primarily as a spiritual pursuit, an idea popularized by nineteenth-century occultists, but as a part of natural philosophy. It was often compared to medicine. Many Renaissance writers suggested links between astrology and alchemy that went beyond the use of astrological charts to determine the best time to attempt alchemical operations. Secrets of Nature shows the many ways in which astrology (a form of divination) and alchemy (an artisanal pursuit concerned with the technologies of minerals and metals) diverge as well as intersect. Overall, it shows how an appreciation of the role of the occult opens up new ways of understanding the past. Topics include the career of Renaissance astrologer Girolamo Cardano and his work on medical astrology, the astrological thinking of Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, the history of the Rosicrucians and the influence of John Dee, the work of medical alchemist Simon Forman, and an extended critique of the existing historiography of alchemy.

Illustrated throughout with revealing images, this is the first and only work in which the world-famous Swiss psychologist explains to the layperson his enormously influential theory of symbolism as revealed in dreams.