Book Description
Your Main Guide to the World of Middle-earth
·Middle-earth's mysteries revealed with labeled maps of all nine regions.
·Master the art of fellowship play so you can conquer the most dangerous foes!
·Complete guides to the Burglar, Captain, Champion, Guardian, Hunter, Lore-master, and Minstrel classes!
·Crafting charts for all 10 professions to help you become a master craftsman.
·Exclusive strategy from The Syndicate, one of the world's largest and oldest online gaming guilds!
·Basics, crafting, classes, maps
Customer Reviews:
Useful, but needs an update.......2007-07-25
It's always useful to have these Prima Guides for complicated games like LOTRO - the only shame is that I didn't get it until just around when the new expansion (Evendim) came out - I wish they would release a free supplement for people who have already bought the book.
Very Usefull.......2007-07-24
This book is a real time saver for LOTRO players. The maps are very usefull as are the descriptions of player classes, traits, deeds, etc. It gets the beginning player off to a fast start, and is still usefull at level 50.
The game has a well developed PvP, in Monster Play. Any review that says that LOTRO does not have PvP is suspect.
A Basic Helper only.......2007-07-16
This book is basic, as others have said. It's a good source for gamers just starting to play LOTRO, or entering regions for the first time.
I find it useful for the maps and craft and class quests. Sure there are online sites with more in-depth information and more detailed maps. Do a google search and make your pick. But unless you have a second computer or monitor (The game in full view is too awesome to shrink) next to you, the book maps are a decent reference, especially when first entering a region for the first time. The game map is empty, only showing where you are and some adjacent locations. The book gives you cities and landmarks.
As far as quest and boss locations, isn't that part of the discovery fun? Okay, okay, not always, and that's where online references can offer cheats to get past those sticky situations.
LOTR is an awesome game. Just starting the game? This book is very useful to you. Otherwise, as others have said, you may want to wait for a new edition. Of course by the time that happens will that be of any use to the veteran LOTRO user?
A Basic Reference Guide.......2007-06-30
There are no cheats, spoilers or walkthroughs in this guide. It is a basic reference guide with handy information on each class, the skills each class receives at each level and maps of the areas. It isn't great but I find it handy as a reference for my gameplay, unlike volume II, which is a complete waste of money.
Lacking.......2007-06-21
Overall, this book seems unfinished, as if it was rushed to release to coincide with the release of the game. Sports decent crafting and character guides for planning your professions and class, but the atlas section severely lacks. Many maps do not have any notations at all, or inadequate notations, which makes them next to useless when you are looking for a mob/mob boss, area, or point of interest. My advice: Wait for the 'revised and updated' edition.
Average customer rating:
- Workplace Communications
- It sucks
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Workplace Communications: The Basics
George J. Searles
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ASIN: 0321330684 |
Customer Reviews:
Workplace Communications.......2006-01-04
Having taught technical writing, workplace communications, and business English at three different institutions--community college, four-year institution, and private university--and possessing an earned doctorate with an English minor, I find Searle's textbook user friendly, relevant, and functionally practical for nontraditional students, particularly those seeking applied science associate degrees that are terminal. Each of the 10 chapters relate to written and spoken communicative tasks that are required on the job for most persons employed in skilled and paraprofessional positions. The format of the text is inviting and varied without being cluttered or obtrusive. Every community and technical college should consider this text for nontraditional "technical" or business writing courses.
It sucks.......2005-01-25
This is a terribly written and composed text. No school anywhere should use it.
Book Description
Whether painting a mysterious bearded figure floating on aflat wash of blue or a winter landscape glimpsed through a thick web ofbranches, PETER DOIG harnesses the materiality of his medium to create whathe calls abstractions of memories', distilling recollected sensations intofrozen moments, like scenes in a series of mysterious narratives.InGasthof zur Muldentalsperre (2000-2) two costumed figures standguard at a low stone wall while behind them a reservoir reflects atwinkling starry sky.The young man bundled up against the cold inBlotter (1993) contemplates his reflection in a frozen pond, whilein Red Boat (Imaginary Boys) (2004) six men in white shirts navigateupstream through a dense tropical landscape.Doig's work has been exhibited at the world's top museums, including TheMuseum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and theNational Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and has been selected forcontemporary art's most important international exhibitions, such as theSITE Santa Fe Biennial (2006), the Tate Terminal (2003 and 2006) and theVenice Biennale (2003).Although his work has had an enormous impact oncontemporary painting, paving the way for a whole generation ofidiosyncratic figurative painters, his painted worlds are without parallel. Raised in Canada, based in London for two decades and now living inTrinidad, Doig has tallied a wide range of references, not only geographic(from French modernist architecture to the ski slopes of Quebec) but alsoartistic (from Ernst Kirchner to Philip Guston) and musical (from punk tocalypso).Peter Doig is part of Contemporary Artists, a series ofauthoritative and extensively illustrated studies of today's most importantartists.Each title offers a comprehensive survey of an individualartist's work and a range of art writing contributed by an internationalspectrum of authors, all leading figures in their fields, from art historyand criticism to philosophy, cultural theory and fiction.Each studyprovides incisive analysis and multiple perspectives on contemporary artand its inspiration.These are essential source books for everyoneconcerned with art today.
Customer Reviews:
A must have for an contemporary art student.......2007-03-25
Doig is really one of the best living artist, and this book really does him justice. The book includes older work as well as recent. Reproduction is excellent. I can not give a better recommendation.
Book Description
Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions?
In Freedom and Neurobiology, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness.
In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them.
Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis.
A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, Freedom and Neurobiology is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind.
Customer Reviews:
Musings on Free Will.......2007-05-13
These essays are a low-voltage rehash of ideas set out in Searle's earlier books, where his one-mind concept of consciousness is set out much more lucidly. His musings on Free Will lack focus and clarity and the author ends up without taking a clear position on a topic where his brilliant philosophical studies should have allowed him to enlighten his readers.
Superficial.......2007-03-08
You'd expect a book with this title to actually have some neurobiology in it, but you'd be disappointed. This slim volume consists of two diffuse philosophical essays, one about free will, and the other about political power. Both are simplistic, in my view, and don't bring any new ideas to the table. The essay on free will was the most interesting, but despite the book's title, the author doesn't bring in any neurobiology. Instead he basically says that neurobiology should be involved, and possibly quantum mechanical randomness, because that's the only nondeterministic mechanism he can think of that might be related to the nondeterminism of free will. That particular idea is explored much more deeply in Roger Penrose's book "The Emperor's New Mind," which despite its flaws, is a much deeper and more solid book.
Searle finally writes about man as "zoon politikon".......2006-12-24
This book is 3 chapters: an intro chapter, a chapter on free will & neurobiology, and a chapter on political power. The book was previously just two lectures Searle gave in 2001 at Sorbonne. Eventually, Searle's editor published these two lectures in France without Searle's involvement leading Searle to end a quaint story saying, "It is the first time in my life that I published a book I did not know that I had written" (pg. 2). Searle added the intro chapter for his edition. Although the first essay on free will is meager progress on what Searle says elsewhere (see Searle's Rationality in Action (Jean Nicod Lectures)), the 2nd chapter on political power is a promising addition to what Searle has already hinted at in The Construction of Social Reality and Mind, Language, and Society : Philosophy in the Real World (he admits this fact, see pg. 33).
SEARLE ON FREE WILL & NEUROBIOLOGY
Searle puts in the title "Reflections" because he admits to not giving answers, especially to the problem of free will. Instead Searle wants to muse: "I cannot give you a solution to the problem of free will, but I hope to be at least able to state the problem in a precise enough form so that we can see what possible solutions would look like (pg. 31).
Searle is frustrated by free will and neurobiology because free will seems to be a phenomenological experience that is irreducible to epiphenomena, yet how can we be free to will when conscious states are realized in neurological states which are "completely deterministic"? (pg. 38 see all 40). But the notion of the freedom of the will does not go away, according to Searle, "if you say to the waiter `Look, I am a determinist - che sará sará, I'll just wait and see what I order,' that refusal to exercise free will is only intelligible to you as one of your actions if you take it to be an exercise of your free will" (pg. 43).
At this point Searle offers 2 hypotheses: (1) free will is an illusion and the deterministic physical laws which govern our neurons also govern consciousness i.e. epiphenomenalism; (2) "we have to suppose that the logical features of volitional consciousness of the entire system have effects on the elements on the system. This is true even though the system is composed entirely of the elements" (pg. 63). Thus, "the passage from one state to the next is explained by the rational thought processes of the initial state of neurons/consciousness. At any instant the total state of consciousness is fixed by the behavior of the neurons, but from on instant to the next the total state of the system is not causally sufficient to determine the next state. Free will, if it exists at all, is a phenomenon in time" (pg. 65). Searle's struggle to make free will somehow a feature (is "feature the right word, Searle sometimes says "realized" but we might want to ask for clarity) of neurophysiology has been on difficult grounds since at least Thomas Nagel wrote that we can know everything about a bat except what it is like to be a bat (see "What is it like to be a bat?" in Nagel's book Mortal Questions (Canto)). Searle wants "Hypothesis 2" to be correct but he concludes that it is currently "a mess" (pg. 77).
SEARLE ON DEONTIC POWER
Before this essay, Searle never had anything to say about politics (this is not completely true: see little-known book "The campus war; a sympathetic look at the university in agony). Searle says, "When I was an undergraduate, it was widely believed that political philosophy was dead" (pg. 13). However, after writing about institutional reality as collective intentionality in "The Construction of Social Reality" he decided that this chapter "Social Ontology and Political Power" would apply his linguistic account of institutional reality to the "special problem of political power" (pg. 33).
Searle begins by saying that "our tradition of political philosophy" has been "unsatisfying" because it doesn't ask the proper questions first: instead of "What is a just society" we should ask "What is a society in the first place?" (pg. 80) Searle describes a group of numbered and ordered propositions which develop through his essay; I will quote them here in truncated form (hopefully without losing meaningfulness).
(1) All political power is a matter of social functions, and for that reason all political power is deontic power (2) Because all political power is a matter of status functions, all political power, though exercised from above, comes from below (3) Even though the individual is the source of all political power, by his or her ability to engage in collective intentionality; all the same, the individual, typically, feels powerless (4) The system of political status functions works at least in part because recognized deontic powers provide desire-independent reasons for action (5) It is a consequence...that there is a distinction between political power and political leadership (6) Because political powers are matters of status functions they are, in large part, linguistically constituted (7) In order for a society to have a political reality it needs several other distinguishing features:...a distinction between the public and the private sphere with the political as part of the public sphere,...the existence of nonviolent group conflicts, and...group conflicts must be over social goods within a structure of deontology (8) A monopoly on armed violence is an essential presupposition of government.
Anyone serious about studying the extensions of Searle's thought must buy this book primarily for the brief essay on political philosophy. His essay on free will, Searle admits, is largely conceptually at an impasse.
Customer Reviews:
science intersecting with philosophy.......2007-06-01
Philosophy is one of the oldest intellectual pursuits. Yet it is only in very recent times that science is starting to provide an underpinning. The status of this is argued in this book. With some of the latest results and trends in neuroscience as the talking point.
The book is formatted with 2 scientists providing views on consciousness, as gleaned from experiments. While the contrary opinions are given by 2 philosophers. With the scientists then given space to issue a reply.
Whatever your own positions on all this, perhaps you can appreciate the excitement in the air. For the first time, philosophy has hard experimental observations to cogit over. And the problem of consciousness is surely one of the fundamental unknowns in science.
Book Description
In this major new work, John Searle launches a formidable attack on current orthodoxies in the philosophy of mind. More than anything else, he argues, it is the neglect of consciousness that results in so much barrenness and sterility in psychology, the philosophy of mind, and cognitive science: there can be no study of mind that leaves out consciousness. What is going on in the brain is neurophysiological processes and consciousness and nothing more - no rule following, no mental information processing or mental models, no language of thought, and no universal grammar. Mental events are themselves features of the brain, "like liquidity is a feature of water."
Beginning with a spirited discussion of what's wrong with the philosophy of mind, Searle characterizes and refutes the philosophical tradition of materialism. But he does not embrace dualism. All these "isms" are mistaken, he insists. Once you start counting types of substance you are on the wrong track, whether you stop at one or two. In four chapters that constitute the heart of his argument, Searle elaborates a theory of consciousness and its relation to our overall scientific world view and to unconscious mental phenomena. He concludes with a criticism of cognitive science and a proposal for an approach to studying the mind that emphasizes the centrality of consciousness to any account of mental functioning.
In his characteristically direct style, punctuated with persuasive examples, Searle identifies the very terminology of the field as the main source of truth. He observes that it is a mistake to suppose that the ontology of the mental is objective and to suppose that the methodology of a science of the mind must concern itself only with objectively observable behavior; that it is also a mistake to suppose that we know of the existence of mental phenomena in others only by observing their behavior; that behavior or causal relations to behavior are not essential to the existence of mental phenomena; and that it is inconsistent with what we know about the universe and our place in it to suppose that everything is knowable by us.
John R. Searle is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent start point.......2007-09-23
I've found this book excellent as a start point for rethinking the way to study the brain and the mind. Searle states very clear the different aspects of his sketicism against the currently installed ideas and opens the path to a much more interesting way of thinking about the our brains and our mind.
I recommend reading this book in order to start studying the amazing and interesting world of the mind and it also allowed me to research other books related to areas covered by Searle and shed more light in a yet young science and philosophy of the brain and mind.
Excellent Highly-Accessible Polemic.......2005-06-07
What a wonderful book! I had tried to access philosophy of mind through David Chalmers and Roger Penrose to no avail. Talk about arcane and inane philosophy! Then, I decided I might try something "lighter." What a difference Searle's dense, but clear, ideas make! This book is a great place to begin (or end) one's enquiring into the philosophy of mind, and a treasure trove of so much that is intuitive. So much in the field of conscious is counterintuitive that it is refreshing to read someone who subscribes to one's intuitive beliefs.
First, like most philosophically-minded individuals, I like to think philosophy of the mind is not so arcane and inaccessible that we ordinary individuals can't get it, e.g., Penrose, Chalmers, et al. At least Searle treats the reader like educated adults without unnecessary obfuscation. Don't misunderstand me: This is dense reading, and hardly a sentence passes without something important being claimed. But, rather than being unintelligible, it is wholly intelligible. For example, Chalmers tries to explain supervenience over 40 pages, Searle explains in one paragraph. Not simple, but clear and unadulterated exposition.
Second, some other readers must have omitted the Preface and First Chapter. This book is intentionally polemical; Searle makes it clear from the outset. He adamantly opposes some of the philosophical and psychological paradigms currently in cognitive science, and he addresses those problems in the first few chapters (and throughout the book). He opposes dualism and materialism of all sorts and admits that he is a "naive naturalist," whatever that is. His arguments are often contentious, as he admits up front. But as tendentious as he is -- there's a lot riding on the premises and conclusions of others, so in the end he has to highly contentious. Fortunately, he's also persuasive.
Third, as a "naive materialist," Searle argues that the simultaneous firing of neurons and existent mental states (hence the phenomenon "consciousness" is irreducible to anything further) are causally interchangeable, because they are the same phenomenon. Ergo, consciousness is not epiphenomenally, nor occurrently, nor simultaneously, but epistemically, empirically, and ontologically foundational (each a different property of the same phenomenon). This is an important, and liberating, concept, forcefully argued throughout the book. What's inimical about all the other concepts Searle fights is their use of the homunuclus fallacy and their anthropomorphizing of physical processes.
Fourth, he make the claim for a number of other intuitive, contra counterintuitive, claims. For example, the "unconscious" just does not make any sense. It almost seems like a contradiction, and according to Searle it is. As Gertrude Stein once said, "There's no there, there." Again, I've always thought this to be linguistically intuitive, now he makes a broad-based argument against its existence even morphologically (and several more things like "universal grammar" "binary intelligence," etc.).
Finally, I believe this book is necessary reading by all interested in consciousness and the mind. Even if one doesn't agree with his arguments and their conclusions, it's highly important to know and understand them. And because Searle is so accessible, he's a refreshing, indeed cogent, alternative to some of the myopic, convoluted, and constipated thinking going on in the field.
Clearest monograph EVER!!!.......2004-05-27
Searle advocates Biological naturalism" as a valid theory, exposing the misdirectedness of the ever present mind-body problem as being entwined in the western philosophical tradition. Even though Cartesian Dualism has long been predominantly set aside, Searle argues, many of its concepts and vocabulary cloud current theorizing on the subject. Searle argues strongly for recognizing the Subjectivity of consciousness as a 1st-person ontology in itself, unexplainable by an objective epistemology, since its very nature is opposed to that method of investigation. By recognizing this Subjectivity as a property of the brain, and allowing that the mental and physical of the mind-body opposition need not be exclusive, Searle describes consciousness as a property of assemblies of neurons, in the sense that liquidity is a property of H2O moleculse. Unimaginable at the molecular level, but undeniable through a wider point point of view.
The clarity of Searles writing alone makes it worth the read, and his ideas address, if not solve, many of the most interesting topics in the philosophy of mind. Highly recommended to anyone interested in that field.
The study of the mind is the study of consciousness........2003-04-11
This book gives a good picture of the structure of the mind and of its irreducibility.
It explains clearly what's the stumbling block of all scientific and philosophical problems with consciousness: the fact that the mind is only a subjective first-person experience.
But the most interesting part, for me, was his convincing attack against cognitivismn (the theory that the brain is a computer and the mind a computer program).
Nevertheless, I found his book 'The Mystery of Consciousness' more interesting, more profound and more specific, because it laid bare the accuracies / errors of other author's who wrote about the same important items.
state of analytic philosophy of mind at the end of century.......2002-10-12
I sympathize with many of Searle's views about the inelliminability of the intentional character of consciousness, and the general misguidedness of philosophy of mind.. but I would ask: is this a big discovery? why read Searle rather than Husserl in the first place? Is his naturalism of any philosophical depth or interest? I would say no. I believe reading this book is a waste of time, as it was for me...
Book Description
One of the most important and influential philosophers of the last 30 years, John Searle has been concerned throughout his career with a single overarching question: how can we have a unified and theoretically satisfactory account of ourselves and of our relations to other people and to the natural world? In other words, how can we reconcile our common-sense conception of ourselves as conscious, free, mindful, rational agents in a world that we believe includes brute, unconscious, mindless, meaningless, mute physical particles in fields of force? The essays in this collection are related to this broad overarching issue that unites the diverse strands of Searle's work. As many as these essays have previously only been available in relatively obscure books and journals, this collection will be of particular interest to philosophers and those in psychology and linguistics. Since 1959, John R. Searle has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is now the Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language. His many books include Mind Language and Society, (Basic, 1998). The Construction of Social Reality, (Free Press, 1997), and Speech Acts, (Cambridge, 1969). His works have been translated in 21 languages. Seale has received many prizes, awards and honors, including the Fulbright Award (twice), the Guggenheim, and ACLS Fellowships.
Download Description
One of the most important and influential philosophers of the last 30 years, John Searle has been concerned throughout his career with a single overarching question: how can we have a unified and theoretically satisfactory account of ourselves and of our relations to other people and to the natural world? In other words, how can we reconcile our common-sense conception of ourselves as conscious, free, mindful, rational agents in a world that we believe includes brute, unconscious, mindless, meaningless, mute physical particles in fields of force? The essays in this collection are related to this broad overarching issue that unites the diverse strands of Searle's work. As many as these essays have previously only been available in relatively obscure books and journals, this collection will be of particular interest to philosophers and those in psychology and linguistics. Since 1959, John R. Searle has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is now the Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language. His many books include Mind Language and Society, (Basic, 1998). The Construction of Social Reality, (Free Press, 1997), and Speech Acts, (Cambridge, 1969). His works have been translated in 21 languages. Seale has received many prizes, awards and honors, including the Fulbright Award (twice), the Guggenheim, and ACLS Fellowships.
Customer Reviews:
Not a fan, but still very good........2003-05-21
Yeah, so, I'm going to avoid the part where i think that a couple of important things in this book are stated too vaguely for a responsible philosopher, or where i mention that he seems to make one or two blatant errors of omission. I'm going to avoid these things for the dual reasons that a) they aren't really relevant to whether you should read this or not, and b) i allow for the possibility that i'm imagining these gaps because i haven't understood him, in which case i'm the stupid one. Given my presistent commitment to Legends of the Hidden Temple, that's a distinct possibility.
In spite of what i consider some overly-squooshy language in a handful of places, this is a great book. I'd read intentionality, but never speech acts, and this book seems to tie all of searle's ideas into one large discussion about speech, intention, consciousness, with a few of the expected cuts on AI. It's really put together very well, and the flow from discussions of consciousness to intention to speech acts makes each of the constituent pieces more poigniant. Searle very rarely drifts into blustering territory, writing clearly and concisely in most of the cases where i found a need for really detailed exposition. Good stuff.
So, like i say, 7 times out of 10, i find Searle less than compelling, but this is a really nice survey of a lot of his ideas, and worth a read either as an introduction to his thinking or as a piece that ties together a lot of his older ideas into one coherent package. He's an important guy with important ideas who has helped shape a lot of important discussions, agree or disagree, this book articulates these contributions well.
A Superb Collection of Articles..........2002-07-18
Searle has collected a large and important variety of articles in this text, which spans several years of thinking on issues such as: the nature of consciousness, free will, the mind-body problem, rationality, and collective action. Only one article on Kripke's meaning skepticism has been not previously published.
The vigor and force of questions that Searle queries regarding how it is possible to reconcile our intuitions about having a 'free will' in a world of physical laws and (all things being equal) deterministic principles is important and fundamental. I highly recommend this volume, which conveniently assembles previous articles, and it makes clear Searle's position on these problems. Indeed, it makes clear exactly how difficult and challenging philosophical problems and questions are--and why philosophers stay awake at nights thinking about them...and why no easy solution is forthcoming in philosophy or science...
The articles are written in Searle's usual style--with problem solving on his mind--clearly stating the problem to be addressed and evaluated--a model of philosophical prose...
And I might add...the cover photograph of Searle is splendid--him in a tweed coat...autumn leaves...just in case you've wondered what a suave academic is supposed to look like nowdays...
Book Description
John Searle’s Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a highly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind’s capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the ‘mind-body’ problem.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Modern Theory of Mind.......2001-07-11
P>In his usual manner, Searle tackles the problem of consciousness and how the mind works in this thorough examination of both classical and contemporary concerns. It's an exceedingly masterful task that is richly rewarding, if only slightly frustrating because of his poor syntactical structures.
Analytic philosophy is often difficult enough, and this book is of average difficulty, but when an author does not write clearly with near-run-on sentences, myandering and labyrinthine syntax, and in less than necessary obtuseness, it is a drawback. This is my only complaint.
Part of the problem is the author's, part reader's. Searle is going against the analytic grain by expositing a theory of mind that is at once novel and distinctive, clearing up confusions and ambiguities along the way. But these new ideas and the direction of fit they present are exciting and facinating, even if the presentation is less than perfect.
It's hard to imagine modern-day analytic philosophers going out on a limb with actual theory (they tend toward the criticism of others), so that it is refreshing that someone of Mr. Searle's reputation and caliber takes a stab at presenting a coherent theory of mind in new dress and ambiance: Naive realism.
This isn't the first book of Searle's I'd recommend. That honor goes to "Mind, Language, and Society," his short, but densely argued, and clearer exposition, of several ideas (some of which he adumbrates from this volume). If you like what you read in THAT book, this book will further delight you.
What's so agreeable about Searle, if not his syntax, is his willingness to posit a coherent theory of mind in the traditional vein but in entirely new clothing. It's refreshing to see a modern philosopher actually doing philosophy, not critiquing the philosophy of others. Searle would probably have advanced his cause by having someone else tidy up his presentation, as this drawback reduces the splendor of the overall book.
Frames the large picture of the mind-body duality.......2000-11-04
The current philosophical debates about what is the mind and how can it translate intentions into body actions including language and action are summed up into a convincing, clear-headed, yet arrogant and extremely mis-guided approach to this philosophical question. Searle's logical formalism may "pull-the-wool" over many people's eyes, but his statements have garnered much negative criticism in the eyes of his peers.
Perhaps the best way to sum up his book is that he believes there is no difference between the mind and the body, and that the original question is flawed, yet at the same time, he establishes the existence of an intention, an entirely mental concept have physical equivalences. This is really an uninspired type of answer, and is largely considered a cop-out by most.
Book Description
Felt and felted accessories are hot! Teresa Searle shows how knitted and recycled knitted felt can be transformed into a wide range of unique accessories using simple decorative embroidery techniques and appliqu.
Customer Reviews:
Inspiring!.......2007-01-08
Hurrah, you don't have to knit in order to felt! If you enjoy crafting with recycled wool knitted items, you'll love this new book. The projects are simple and inspiring, colorful and joyful. It transcends ages, inspiring me at 38 and my son at 7. This would be an inexpensive hobby with some reasonable profit potential. Start-up costs are low to none. You need scissors, needle, threads, thimble and ratty old wool sweaters to recycle into wool felt (by washer.) Many of the designs require a sewing machine, though if you were familiar with embroidery, you could handstitch instead.
Book Description
As entertaining as it is illuminating, THE LITERARY ENEAGRAM offers a fresh version of the standard "Great Books" course, using characters from literature to show the inner dynamics of the nine Enneagram styles and their variations. This books is:
For Students of Literature: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM demonstrates offers an exciting new key to Western literature through clarifying the basic psychological patterns of characters in classic and contemporary novels, stories, and plays.
For Psychologists: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM demostrates simply and eloquently that the true basis of human psychological differences lies in inner experiences rather than outer behavior. Judith Searle's work validates the Enneagram as a universal template for human psychology by showing how characters created by authors unfamiliar with the Enneagram conform to the character arc the system predicts.
For Writers: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM offers screenwriters, fiction writers and playwrights a powerful tool for character development, a template for creating character grids, and a basis for devising character-driven plot twists that seem both inevitable and surprising.
For Actors: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM offers guidelines for creating characters that live and breathe on stage and screen as well as on the page. Performers who understand their own Enneagram style can make the "type casting" that is so prevalent in the entertainment industry work for them.
And For Readers of Fiction: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM offers a richer understanding of literary characters and valuable insights into ways their psychology relates to the reader's own personality patterns and relationships with others.
Customer Reviews:
Great Literature and Enneagram made Easy!.......2001-09-05
I have two bones to pick with most Enneagram books, training programs and articles, and it’s the same trouble I have with most poetry and fiction. The first bone is that they try to rouse me from my complacency chair by describing a type instead of showing them. I don’t budge, for the most part, because I don’t often care what others are said to be, when I have no context in which to put them.
They want to explore what is felt without letting me get involved. For instance, all Enneagram books say that a Seven will make boring things less boring, and Sevens have a propensity for multi-tasking. All panels of Sevens say the same and that Sevens don’t finish what they start. Yawn, this Seven, who finishes every single thing I start, says. Not one describes a scene of a garage lit by one light at pre-dawn with me doing the rumba as I trod the treadmill listening to a Gypsy Kings CD as I practice flamenco hand movements. So when I read Bridget Jones’s Diary describing my Seven personality in The Literary Enneagram I discover that perhaps my own relentless pursuit of activity is indeed a way to allay my anxieties. And my fear of missing out on things keeps me from fully enjoying the fun as I have it.
Searle digs deepest to find the accurate Seven, getting me involved with perceptive and contextual introductions. The title of the book did intimidate me. I missed out on having great literature forced into my education, if you can call what I had an education. I have tried to make up for the gaps by trying to tackle Hardy, Shakespeare and D.H. Lawrence on my own so I won’t be such an .... I’m happy to report that after reading the first chapter, I understood Les Miserables without a hitch and even understood the inner critic of old Javert without referring to any Cliff Note.
The second bone I have with most fiction and poetry, Enneagram books is that there’s hardly any fun involved. No pizzazz, sensuality, hot fudge sundaes. Why do I have to know about all that pain? Some of it is okay, but hey! I just don’t buy into the approach that for full understanding to take place, I must suffer. So I’m happy that Searle includes fun and sexy examples of exploring the psyche.
As in “The Taming of the Shrew” where a Six, Kate is tamed by an Eight, Petruchio. Following the arrows of stress and comfort, Katharina was forced to let appearances (type three) be damned, be publically humiliated (a 6's worst fear) in order to merge (the nine position) with her husband and find peace for her troubled and belligerent station (six). Petruchio’s arc, i.e. transformation of character, is seen as his desires to get a rich wife (typical low-down eight behavior) uses an irritating know-it-all obnoxiousness (five stress point activated), but he gets his heart opened in the process, (the eight’s heart opens at the two) He actually falls in love with Katharina.
This may sound complicated, as I refer to Enneagram numbers the way an astrologer refers to asteroids and quincunxes. But reading the first chapter is to have the basics under one’s belt. There’s history reaching back to Pythagorus, description of the nine types, concepts of wings, the Hornevian Triads, Stress and Security Points, and much more.
The setting of literary examples is a concept someone had to develop, and I’m glad it was Judith Searle, because her compassion for people’s struggles is so wonderful. It could have easily been a book that showed characters’ hateful sides, which lends itself to richer adverbs and adjectives. Throughout the book, the reader is simply placed in a character’s world through their hearts and through their challenges.
Finding literary examples to describe one’s own type would be enough. But to proceed to the other types is to find gold. I had the enthralling discovery that Shakespeare is as accessible as Gary Larson’s “The Far Side.” But seriously, when we speak of Enneagram types in these dramatic ways, ways that reveal the inner dialogue, we speak of healing, cleaning up the past and loving those whom we once feared.
Authors who could have had no exposure to the Enneagram, “validate the system.” The intricacy of one personality type expressed in one great piece of literature would be coincidence, but Searle brings up dozens of books where the characters follow not only their own number’s path, but bring in the side number, expresses stress points and one of the three different subtypes. The Literary Enneagram is elegant in its delivery of humanity.
Searle does for the Enneagram what, dare I say, Dr. Frankenstein did for the monster. Not that animating dead body parts is my point - she just enlivens them. There is no end to studying Enneagram with this approach. To see the shadow monster in a character who has our Enneagram DNA is thorough and satisfying. To see Dr. Frankenstein’s bully (8) and know that his heart point is the Nurturer (2), then that scene where he nestles a kitten is not far-fetched.
We are allowed to enter the mystery of each point through the heart of the characters Searle selects. Freed from having to learn about the types by being told about them, we enter through their fears, self-esteem and anger. We’re talking lower chakras - the way we humans express ourselves in this lifetime on earth.
The set-ups are compassionate, as in democratic, “to suffer with” compassion. We enter through the heart of each literary stranger with empathy. We understand them, and in turn understand and love ourselves. As we develop Ennea-eyes, our awareness, perception and of the fragile and X-rayed character becomes closer. To read this book was to have my heart opened, broken and remain open still.
Books:
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Organized Family Historian: How to File, Manage, and Protect Your Genealogical Research and Heirlooms (National Genealogical Society Guides)
- The Origins of Totalitarianism
- The Power New Testament, Third Edition
- The Rollercoaster Years
- The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero
- The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- The Tragic and the Ecstatic: The Musical Revolution of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde
- The Ultimate Gift (The Ultimate Series #1)
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