ET Books

We are enveloped in this book by an Introduction and thirteen masterful essays, on and in the Heideggerian movement of enowning, a.k.a. the event of appropriation (Ereignis). I use the word "enveloped" with care, as this book is not a presentation that the reader can enact on her or his own as if it entails simply gathering the meanings of key terms and 'ideas.' This is so because the English rendering of Heidegger's key terms is itself an act of enowning that pulls in the reader to re-experience the space between these two great philosophical languages. I have never accepted the absurd claim that English is inferior to German in its philosophical power, scope, and richness. I would venture to say that translations of the terms and sentences of the astonishing text that is the subject of these essays, namely, "Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning," struggle to exhibit the power of English not only to faintly mimic Heidegger (an insulting idea of the Germanophiles), but to move into other and equally profound momenta of language that bring English to the test of its own resources.
The writers of the essays in the book all have a long-time deep familiarity with Heidegger's key work in the period of the so-called turning (late 1930s) where the Dasein-problematic of "Sein und Zeit" becomes internally transfigured into and with the gifting of time-space, which opens out the reticent ground (ab-grund) that in turn can judge and measure the ungrund of our technological culture.
Rarely does one find a gathering of secondary, yet primary, essays of such high caliber as in this anthology. The "Companion" probes into generic and 'structural' issues as well as into such themes as: the last god, the leap, be-ing (seyn or beyng), beings as a whole (the Greek conception in the first beginning), and things in being. The essays elucidate the tensions between the first ancient beginning and the other beginning that is yet and not yet enacted within the provenance of the first beginning.
For an absolute beginner in Heidegger studies, this is not the place to even attempt a movement of encounter, yet for the advanced novice, this book is accessible on different levels and in different ways. It has opened my eyes to new ways of re-enacting my previous readings of "Contributions to Philosophy," as well as deepening my relationship with one of my most insightful and overturning/re-tuning interlocutors. This anthology is indeed a rare treasure in a decidedly mediocre period in the history of foundational or grounding philosophical query. It is, dare I use the cliche, a must read/encounter.

When one thinks of the buyer of a book on "trick-plays", one conjures up the image of a player willing to use any devious means they can find to eke out an undeserved win. This is not the target audience of this book, nor is this, for the most part, the kind of instruction it seeks to provide. The majority of this book is an in-depth examination of almost-joseki; "these first moves are a common sequence, but then white plays X; how should black respond?" is the question repeated throughout the book. Since a thorough understanding of joseki includes knowing why not to deviate from it, and what to do when your opponent does, this book is as much a guide to understanding joseki than anything else.

Though amazon lists the book as having been written by Ishida Yoshio, the book is in fact comprised of four chapters written by four different authors. Fittingly, much of the book has an impish air to it; one can almost feel the smirk of one of the authors as he describes the imaginary dialogue between Dogaku Sensei ("Honinbo of the Alleyways") and Joe Patzer, a parody of just the kind of player one imagines would buy a book about trick plays. The book even includes a comical eight page cartoon, translated into English. Beneath it all, however, this is fundamentally a work book with the same reward as the rest: "if the reader masters the subject matter of this book, an incremental increase in strength can be expected" (Preface).

A lovely ramble with a fascinating old gentleman, quaint, charming, sunny and a true picture of one aspect of a bygone age and of the way our great-great grandfathers talked and lived. The fishing lore and natural history are hopelessly out of date but who cares? Has been in print for centuries and deservedly so.

This is best book in its field for conditional fees and other ways of funding contentious litigation. I use it extensively for the courses I deliver on CFAs as continuous professional development for new and experienced practitioners alike. I welcome the new edition whilst the curious history of these agreements continues to unfold with a "u" turn on regulation in this area for clear financial reasons.

Gordon Wignall's new third edition is timely and provides a highly detailed and practical coverage of CFAs, and the other options for litigation funding at a time of strict fiscal control of legal aid and a very uncertain future. The challenges for conditional fees rules, now revoked in the post 2000 Regulations era, are given practical guidance treatment here, and contemporary information on success fees and ATE insurance for all very well set out.

Key background information is given to build the picture of how a CFA case is run, and CFA practice in general. All conditional fee issues which arise are well covered here, including an appreciation of recent leading authorities, the guides to current funding and what is left of the regulatory frameworks as they now exist with the code of conduct for clients.

The book has 13 chapters and is divided into three parts: Part 1 covers underlying legal principles, Part 2 covers CFA Law and Practice, and Part 3 covers ATE Insurance and other forms of funding. The 18 appendices cover the important details of constructing, running and concluding conditional fee agreements without recourse to the internet.

Wignall rightly concludes in his preface that "a malevolent word about CFAs has now been uttered by every category of person who has had to have professional dealings with them". Yes! The sheer frustrations experienced by clients and the judiciary towards these agreements clearly comes through in this work and the authors and his team of experts are to be commended for pointing out and assessing all the pitfalls well.

Each time I present the CFA course I wonder what the future holds as the attendees raise their questions about the funding of cases and risk assessments. Wignall explains that other means of litigation funding will expand in future as the Civil Justice Council reviews various novel proposals for the future. We are still in the period where the original CFA mechanisms and constraints operate here in England and Wales although Wignall recognizes that "there will come a time...when such a detailed exegesis of the law relating to CFAs will not be necessary". It cannot come quick enough for some.

My feedback from those attending my courses will welcome this move as explained in the book, because many see the use of the internet and email as changing the face of the CPR, with client expectations changing by the development of cost capping and other mechanisms.

I hope the period of mayhem in the post regulation era ends soon rather than later as Gordon Wignall suggests- thank you for the excellent new edition.

This is an excellent introductory text on CPT. It includes information on not only electric cone but also piezocone penetration testing. It provides basic knowledge in all conventional areas of CPT testing and application and extensive references for those interested in obtaining additional information in a particular area.

The 1931 Blue Ribbon edition has 6 illus. and a frontispiece. Conrgorilla is the story of a two-year trip that he and Osa, his wife, took to Africa. They visted the pigmy villages of the Itura Forest deep in the Belgian Congo. They made the first sound pictures to come out of Central Africa. In the Alumbongo Mountains they discovered a new habitat of gorillas and encountered thousands of these great apes. After many trials, they even succeeded in capturing three alive. ( Early explorers had a different view of how to view and understand wildlife, but the Johnsons were pioneers in trying to spread an appreciation of exotic species through their photography.) The Johnsons were famous for their safaris to the South Seas, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, and Africa.

I have been going to meetings, workshops and seminars about consciousness since I was knee high to a puppy, and after a few years when it was a minority interest, it is very noticeable that consciousness is currently back in favor, with new books, journals and research appearing extremely rapidly.

The interdisciplinary conferences are always fun, though they tend to be populated by an extraordinary array of people, many of whom are convinced that they have The Answer, and nothing will ever dissuade them. I have met mystics, philosophers, psychologists, brain scientists and a lot of people who used to do physics. Several Nobel laureates have written books purporting to explain the connections between consciousness and their primary area of expertise.

Yet for all this activity, we are still left with the central problem that philosophers call `the hard problem:" if, as most materialists believe, the world is made entirely of physical matter, how can matter be conscious? How could three pounds of material inside the skull have experiences?

Most people who have done philosophy 101 will have learned that there are two main schools of thought about the "hard problem." The first says that the hard problem is easy: consciousness `emerges' from neural processes. This succeeds in replacing the question, "what is consciousness and how is it possible?" with a similar one: "what is emergence and how is that possible?" In effect "explaining" one mystery with another one.

Option two is to say that the hard problem is so hard that it is insoluble: consciousness must be some sort of illusion. Some serious writers, including the editor of a popular magazine on psychology, have claimed that all of human experience can be reduced to reflexes, and if we believe in consciousness, love and faith, these are all programs, because we are, in fact, not conscious at all. Though I know, like and respect many of them, they remind me of some of the members of the Flat Earth Society who continued their activities for almost twenty years after the moon landings. I remember hearing the announcement that the final thirteen members of the British branch of the society decided to call it a day.

There is a third alternative that proposes that the universe is not made only of matter, but that it also composed of another material, mind, perhaps, that is the home of consciousness. We then have another problem: if matter and mind are fundamentally different, how can they interact? How can one cause another to change? This is far form being an academic exercise: if you feel that you would really like some chocolate, how does that cause a change in your physiology and behavior? We all know that the desire can change your body and behavior, but how?

A fourth approach, the non-dual, says that everything is Mind and that matter is but one of its manifestations. This is a fundamental tenet of Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist traditions, and beloved in the New Age movement. There are, though, a number of technical snags with this very attractive idea.

So we clearly need to find some way to square the circle.

So this is the background to Galen Strawson's new book. It begins with a lead essay by Strawson, commentaries by 18 other philosophers, and then Strawson's extensive comments on the comments.

The book is a goldmine of valuable insights. Strawson is imaginative and the commentaries are insightful, informative and very well argued. Unlike many books on philosophy, it is fun to read.

There is no question that Strawson's fascinating model is at odds with most mainline thinking in science, psychology and philosophy.

Strawson's three main principles are first that the existence of consciousness is undeniable; second is the principle of monism: that everything that exists is made of the same material. Third is the notion that emergence is not possible: a mind could not spring out of the activity of material cells in the brain. He argues that although water can emerge form the combination of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, the same trick could not happen with consciousness. There is no way of organizing matter that is not conscious, so that it produces something that is.

This leads to a philosophical position that could have straight out of the mouth of an Advaita Vedantist at any time over the last thirteen centuries.

If everything is made of the same sort of stuff as tables and chairs, cats and dogs, and if at least some of the things made of that sort of stuff are conscious and if there is no emergence, it follows that the stuff that those tables and chairs and cats and dogs are made of, must itself be conscious. This is the central core of the "panpsychist" philosophy that views all matter as involving consciousness. Even an atom is sentient.

He goes on to say that there are no experiences without subjects of experience; if there is a pain, it must belong to and be experienced by someone. The trouble with that is the experience of meditators and mystics who report pure egoless experience.

I normally like books that give me answers. This one does not, but I have a strong intuition that the debates in this book are going to generate more and unexpected answers.

I am going to leave the last word to Galen Strawson,
"There is, I feel sure, a fundamental sense in which monism is true, a fundamental sense in which there is only one kind of stuff in the universe. Plainly, though, we don't fully understand the nature of this stuff, and I don't suppose we ever will - even if we can develop a way of apprehending things that transcends discursive forms of thought."

An excellent mental work out, so it is warmly recommended!

Très émouvant ce texte, peut-être le meilleur qui m'ait été donné à parcourir du philosophe romain. Comme l'explique bien sa postface, cette consolation offre au lecteur les paroles d'un homme, fragile et à nu, bien plus que celles d'un philosophe impassible et toujours fort, quel que soit ce que lui réserve la Fortune. Exilé, Sénèque désespère en Corse, loin de ses proches et de sa mère à qui il écrit un texte poignant. Belle prose, force des idées et des sentiments, construction impeccable. De loin, mon coup de coeur de l'année.

In 1997 the Asia Society organized and presented a large traveling exhibition that began in New York , traveled to Canada and then to Asia. The name of the exhibition, as the name of this book, was CONTEMPORARY ART IN ASIA: TRADITIONS/TENSIONS and we have a fine documentation of what must have been an extraordinary show in this sumptious, highly informed book/catalogue. The art displayed is from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The curatorial thread is one of demonstrating how contemporary work in these very different countries is loosely united in each artist's use of traditional imagery to address contemporary tensions - gender, sexual, political, national, religious, and philosophical. The book has beautifully concise and erudite essays by writers from each of the cultures and there has rarely been a selection of commentators so well selected. Then come the visuals and the treats in store for those who do not know Asian art are endless. Some of the artists are extremely well known: Cho Duck Hyun and Kim Ho-Suk from South Korea, ChatChai Puipia and Navin Rawanchikul from Thailand, Nalini Malani from India, etc. But the real pleasure of this book is in the discovery of many lesser know, immensely exciting artists whose works are so gripping that the images jump off the page. The color reproductions are superb and the design of the book is elegant. This leaves us with the hope that the Asia Society will soon again curate another exhibition of this magnitude. This book is more than a fine art monograph - it is a fine history and philosophy text, as well.

The organization of this book, chapters arranged by materials and technologies and projects described without established typological or functional pattern, focus on the work of Richter and Dahl-Rocha from the emphasis it is based on: the materiality of architecture and the nature of construction as the deep truth of built things. This topic is presented along a superb series of projects, cleearly conceived and cleanly developed, and with documents that include inciting conceptual sketches, precise photographies and revealing working drawings. The texts by Liernur and Gubler included in the book help to locate its content within the disciplinary generalities supporting it and the cultural specificities of this partnership. The brief project descriptions describe them with precission, without interfering with the documentation, but guiding the complete reading of the work.