Скачать книгу - The Paradoxes of Posterity



The impetus for literary creation has often been explained as an attempt to transcend the mortality of the human condition through a work addressed to future generations. Failing to obtain literal immortality, or to turn their hope towards the spiritual immortality promised by religious systems, literary creators seek a symbolic form of perpetuity granted to the intellectual side of their person in the memory of those not yet born while they write. In this book, Benjamin Hoffmann illuminates the paradoxes inherent in the search for symbolic immortality, arguing that the time has come to find a new answer to the perennial question: Why do people write? Exploring the fields of digital humanities and book history, Hoffmann describes posterity as a network of interconnected memories that constantly evolves by reserving a variable and continuously renegotiated place for works and authors of the past. In other words, the perpetual safeguarding of texts is delegated to a collectivity not only nonexistent at the moment when a writer addresses it, but whose nature is characterized by impermanence and instability. Focusing on key works by Denis Diderot, Étienne-Maurice Falconet, Giacomo Casanova, François-René de Chateaubriand, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Hoffmann considers the authors’ representations of posterity, the representation of authors by posterity, and how to register and preserve works in the network of memories. In doing so, Hoffmann reveals the three great paradoxes in the quest for symbolic immortality: the paradoxes of belief, of identity, and of mediation. Theoretically sophisticated and convincingly argued, this book contends that there is only one truly serious literary problem: the transmission of texts to posterity. It will appeal to specialists in literature, in particular eighteenth-century French literature, as well as scholars and students of philosophy and book history.


Mad about Physics. Braintwisters, Paradoxes, and Curiosities Mad about Physics. Braintwisters, Paradoxes, and Curiosities

Автор: Franklin Potter

Год издания: 

Why is there eight times more ice in Antarctica than in the Arctic? Why can you warm your hands by blowing gently, and cool your hands by blowing hard? Why would a pitcher scuff a baseball?Which weighs more-a pound of feathers or a pound of iron? Let science experts Christopher Jargodzki and Franklin Potter guide you through the curiosities of physics and you'll find the answers to these and hundreds of other quirky conundrums. You'll discover why sounds carry well over water (especially in the summer), how a mouse can be levitated in a magnetic field, why backspin is so important when shooting a basketball, and whether women are indeed as strong as men. With nearly 400 questions and answers on everything from race cars to jumping fleas to vanishing elephants, Mad about Physics presents a comprehensive collection of braintwisters and paradoxes that will challenge and entertain even the brainiest of science lovers. Whether you're a physicist by trade or just want to give your brain a power workout, this collection of intriguing and unusual physics challenges will send you on a highly entertaining ride that reveals the relevance of physics in our everyday lives.


Paradoxes Paradoxes

Автор: Roy Cook T.

Год издания: 

Paradoxes are arguments that lead from apparently true premises, via apparently uncontroversial reasoning, to a false or even contradictory conclusion. Paradoxes threaten our basic understanding of central concepts such as space, time, motion, infinity, truth, knowledge, and belief. In this volume Roy T Cook provides a sophisticated, yet accessible and entertaining, introduction to the study of paradoxes, one that includes a detailed examination of a wide variety of paradoxes. The book is organized around four important types of paradox: the semantic paradoxes involving truth, the set-theoretic paradoxes involving arbitrary collections of objects, the Soritical paradoxes involving vague concepts, and the epistemic paradoxes involving knowledge and belief. In each of these cases, Cook frames the discussion in terms of four different approaches one might take towards solving such paradoxes. Each chapter concludes with a number of exercises that illustrate the philosophical arguments and logical concepts involved in the paradoxes. Paradoxes is the ideal introduction to the topic and will be a valuable resource for scholars and students in a wide variety of disciplines who wish to understand the important role that paradoxes have played, and continue to play, in contemporary philosophy.


10 Moral Paradoxes 10 Moral Paradoxes

Автор: Группа авторов

Год издания: 

Presenting ten diverse and original moral paradoxes, this cutting edge work of philosophical ethics makes a focused, concrete case for the centrality of paradoxes within morality. Explores what these paradoxes can teach us about morality and the human condition Considers a broad range of subjects, from familiar topics to rarely posed questions, among them «Fortunate Misfortune», «Beneficial Retirement» and «Preferring Not To Have Been Born» Asks whether the existence of moral paradox is a good or a bad thing Presents analytic moral philosophy in a provocative, engaging and entertaining way; posing new questions, proposing possible solutions, and challenging the reader to wrestle with the paradoxes themselves


Quantum Paradoxes Quantum Paradoxes

Автор: Yakir Aharonov

Год издания: 

A Guide through the Mysteries of Quantum Physics! Yakir Aharonov is one of the pioneers in measuring theory, the nature of quantum correlations, superselection rules, and geometric phases and has been awarded numerous scientific honors. The author has contributed monumental concepts to theoretical physics, especially the Aharonov-Bohm effect and the Aharonov-Casher effect. Together with Daniel Rohrlich, Israel, he has written a pioneering work on the remaining mysteries of quantum mechanics. From the perspective of a preeminent researcher in the fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics, the text combines mathematical rigor with penetrating and concise language. More than 200 exercises introduce readers to the concepts and implications of quantum mechanics that have arisen from the experimental results of the recent two decades. With students as well as researchers in mind, the authors give an insight into that part of the field, which led Feynman to declare that «nobody understands quantum mechanics». * Free solutions manual available for lecturers at www.wiley-vch.de/supplements/


Paradoxes of Segregation Paradoxes of Segregation

Автор: Sonia Arbaci

Год издания: 

Through an international comparative research, this unique book examines ethnic residential segregation patterns in relation to the wider society and mechanisms of social division of space in Western European regions. Focuses on eight Southern European cities, develops new metaphors and furthers the theorisation/conceptualisation of segregation in Europe Re-centres the segregation debate on the causes of marginalisation and inequality, and the role of the state in these processes A pioneering analysis of which and how systemic mechanisms, contextual conditions, processes and changes drive patterns of ethnic segregation and forms of socio-ethnic differentiation Develops an innovative inter-disciplinary approach which explores ethnic patterns in relation to European welfare regimes, housing systems, immigration waves, and labour systems