Leibnizs Metaphysics of Time and Space
Leibniz’s metaphysics of space and time stands at the centre of his philosophy and is one of the high-water marks in the history of the philosophy of science. In this work, Futch provides the first systematic and comprehensive examination of Leibniz’s thought on this subject. In addition to elucidating the nature of Leibniz’s relationalism, the book fills a lacuna in existing scholarship by examining his views on the topological structure of space and time, including the unity and unboundedness of space and time. It is shown that, like many of his more recent counterparts, Leibniz adopts a causal theory of time where temporal facts are grounded on causal facts, and that his approach to time represents a precursor to non-tensed theories of time.
Leibniz and the natural world : Activity, passivity and corporeal substances in Leibniz's Philosophy
In the present book, Pauline Phemister argues against traditional Anglo-American interpretations of Leibniz as an idealist who conceives ultimate reality as a plurality of mind-like immaterial beings and for whom physical bodies are ultimately unreal and our perceptions of them illusory. Re-reading the texts without the prior assumption of idealism allows the more material aspects of Leibniz's metaphysics to emerge. Leibniz is found to advance a synthesis of idealism and materialism. His ontology posits indivisible, living, animal-like corporeal substances as the real metaphysical constituents of the universe; his epistemology combines sense-experience and reason; and his ethics fuses confused perceptions and insensible appetites with distinct perceptions and rational choice. In the light of his sustained commitment to the reality of bodies, Phemister re-examines his dynamics, the doctrine of pre-established harmony and his views on freedom.
Leibniz and the English-Speaking World
These essays comprise a first attempt to assess overall the attention awarded to Leibniz’s philosophy in the English-speaking world in his own time and up to the present day. In addition to an introductory overview there are fourteen original and previously unpublished essays considering Leibniz’s connections with his English-speaking contemporaries and near contemporaries as well as the later reception of his thought in Anglo-American philosophy.
Leibniz : What Kind of Rationalist?
The chapters of the book are the result of intense discussion in the course of an international conference focused on the title question of this book, and were selected in view of their contribution to this topic. They are clustered in thematically organized parts. No effort has been made to hide the controversies underlying the different interpretations of Leibniz’s “rationalism” – in each particular domain and as a whole. On the contrary, the editor firmly believes that only through a variety of conflicting interpretive perspectives can the multi-faceted nature of an oeuvre of such a magnitude and variety as Leibniz’s be brought to light and understood as it deserves.
Legitimacy in International Law
In recent years the question of the legitimacy of international law has been discussed quite intensively. Such questions are, for example, whether international law lacks legitimacy in general; whether international law or a part of it has yielded to the facts of power; whether adherence to international legal commitments should be subordinated to self-defined national interests; whether international law or particular rules of it – such as the prohibition of the use of armed force – have lost their ability to induce compliance (compliance pull); and what is the relevance of non-enforcement or failure to obey for the legitimacy of that particular international norm? This book contains fresh perspectives on these questions, offered at an international and interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Law and International Law.
Lectures in Astrobiology ; Vol. II
Based on material delivered at several summer schools, this book is the first comprehensive textbook at the graduate level encompassing all aspects associated with the emerging field of astrobiology. Volume II gathers another set of extensive lectures covering topics so diverse as the formation and the distribution of elements in the Universe, the concept of habitability from both the planetologists' and the biologists' point of view and artificial life. The contributions are held together by the common goal to understand better the origin of life, its evolution and possible existence outside the Earth's realm.
Learning through Community : Exploring Participatory Practices
A collection of case studies that explore the learning that people do through community engagement. Developed within a network of Canadian researchers and their community partners, it explores learning that is organized by the learners themselves, collectively, rather than as individuals. Reflecting the contributors’ political priorities, the volume begins with groups that are highly marginalized in our society: immigrant women, sex trade workers, senior citizens, garment workers, women doing community economic development, and people who identify with disability and anti-poverty movements.
Learning Languages, Learning Life-skills : Autobiographical reflexive approach to teaching and learning a foreign language
Learning Languages, Learning Life Skills offers an autobiographical reflexive approach to foreign language education. The orientation of the book is practical, containing rich descriptions of language learning situations including authentic language use and student stories.
Learning in Modern International Society : On the Cognitive Problem Solving Abilities of Political Actors
Claudia Hofmann engages in a theoretical modelling of international learning processes and the substantiation of this model through three cases from international politics. She answers two questions: How may international actors learn as a collective? And how may the lessons learned influence actor behaviour and problem solving processes? As a foundation for answering these questions she examines the nature of actor behaviour within a social international system and integrates the diffusion of norms and values among macro-level actors.
Learning from clusters : A critical assessment from an economic-geographical perspective
Edited volumes run the danger of being a hotchpotch of contributions on a wide variety of topics. Here, we have explicitly focused on a central theme in contemporary economic geography and regional science, namely the relationship between learning, innovation and clustering. Internationally renowned scientists made both theoretical and empirical contributions to this volume. We think this book constitutes a broad palette of contemporary thinking and research on the relationship between spatial concentration and innovation and hope it will play a significant role in future debates on this issue.
Learning and Teaching for the Twenty-first Century : Festschrift for Professor Phillip Hughes
This book stresses learning and teaching, rather than teaching and learning. The contention of the contributors is that the focus in all educational endeavours should not be primarily on teachers and teaching, but on learners; how to best facilitate learning, in the most effective, enjoyable, relevant and cost-effective ways for learners, whether they be children, youth or adults. The focus is therefore on how learning can be enhanced, through effective teaching; and how individuals can be best prepared to be excellent teachers.
Learners in a Changing Learning Landscape: Reflections from a Dialogue on New Roles and Expectations
Today's learners face constant change. Adaptive learner expertise is key to their survival on a learning journey that lasts a lifetime. This requires new thinking of all actors in the learning environment. The fundamental process through which this book was created is an extended in-depth dialogue among researchers, lifelong learners, educators, and thinkers.
Leadership and Business Ethics ; 1st ed.
Seeks to contribute to a more adequate coalescence of ethics and business with innovative models for such coalescence, for the mutual benefit of business ethicists, professors teaching in the undergraduate and MBA classroom, corporate executives, and businesspeople. While each of the contributions in this collection is distinct, each invites us to examine our own mind sets about corporate responsibility and the future of free enterprise as Western multinational corporations expand into a global economy. This collection of essays helps to refocus our conceptual work about commerce and business practices in this new century of global enterprise.
Laws of Nature
The book is concerned with the laws of nature and in particular with the laws of physics. The authors discuss three important questions: First, whether the observed regularities are based on strict "laws of nature" that hold rigorously and without any exception. Second, what we call a "law of nature" is studied by comparing this concept with invariance principles, causality principles, teleological principles and means of predicting future events. Finally, on the basis of these investigations the authors treat the ambitious and intricate third question, why the laws of nature hold. Are there rational reasons for this largely unexplained phenomenon? This book addresses students as well as researchers. It will be an excellent reference for those interested in the philosophical foundations of the natural sciences.
Law as Symbolic Form : Ernst Cassirer and the Anthropocentric View of Law
In this book we describe the rule of law as the reign of persuasion rather than the reign of force, and democracy as the reign by persuasion rather than the reign by force.
Law and Politics : A Dilemma for Contemporary Legal Theory
Politics and the political discourse occupy a central position in the modern legal theoretical discussion. The goal of this book is to reconstruct and to classify, according to ideal-typical models, the different positions taken by the major contemporary legal theories as to whether and how law relates to politics. In particular, attention is focused on Kelsen, Hart, Finnis, Critical Legal Studies, Law and Economics and legal realisms.
Law Against Unfair Competition : Towards a New Paradigm in Europe?
Annotation This book examines the present state of harmonization of unfair competition law in Europe. It discusses the particular approach to unfair competition law in the 10 new Member States and the possible impact on the future development of European unfair competition law. The book presents new insight in the importance of unfair competition law, especially in countries with a developing market economy.
Latinas/os in the United States : Changing the Face of América
This book also addresses important theoretical and methodological issues related to the study of Latinas/os and presents in-depth analyses (both quantitative and qualitative) of substantive issues relevant to this population, including migration, demographic patterns and processes, education, health, citizenship, political participation, religion, gender and sex roles, literary and cultural production, and the media. The authors seek to educate and increase awareness of the diversity that exists among the Latina/o population, and to carefully examine the social, economic, demographic, cultural, and political impacts and contributions that this growing population has had in the United States. The edited volume presents a holistic and multidisciplinary perspective of this group, and it critically documents how Latinas and Latinos have changed and will continue to change the face of América.
Large-Scale Cognitive Assessment : Analyzing PIAAC Data
Summarises existing analysing techniques using data from PIAAC, a study initiated by the OECD that assesses key cognitive and occupational skills of the adult population in more than 40 countries. The approximately 65 PIAAC datasets that has been published worldwide to date has been widely received and used by an interdisciplinary research community
Laplacian Eigenvectors of Graphs : Perron-Frobenius and Faber-Krahn Type Theorems
Eigenvectors of graph Laplacians have not, to date, been the subject of expository articles and thus they may seem a surprising topic for a book. The authors propose two motivations for this new LNM volume: (1) There are fascinating subtle differences between the properties of solutions of Schrödinger equations on manifolds on the one hand, and their discrete analogs on graphs. (2) "Geometric" properties of (cost) functions defined on the vertex sets of graphs are of practical interest for heuristic optimization algorithms. The observation that the cost functions of quite a few of the well-studied combinatorial optimization problems are eigenvectors of associated graph Laplacians has prompted the investigation of such eigenvectors.



















