by Tom Koch (1998)
"A twenty-first century science will not easily answer to an eighteenth century philosophy. Abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and organ transplantation all raise seemingly irresolvable issues. Koch offers new approaches - public and inclusive - that may resolve them. After explaining the limits of principled ethics, he offers new approaches and then uses them to examine two critical issues: how do we decide who will receive organ transplants and "the problem of Baby K," the care or non-care of "brain stem babies." This is a unique, innovative argument that challenges traditional bioethics' approach to complex problems."--BOOK JACKET.
Avital Ronell
"Addressed to those who are left stranded by speculative thinking and unhinged by cognitive discourse, The Test Drive, organized around Nietzsche's interpretation of physics, points to a toxic residue of uninterrogated policies associated with scientific probes that continue to underscore an experience of permanent dislocation, break-down, and disruption."--Jacket.
Ian Hodder
In 'Reading the Past', the authors argue that archaeologists must bring to bear a variety of perspectives in the task of constructing meaning from the past. This third edition includes new material on feminist archaeology, historical approaches such as cultural history, and theories of discourse and signs.
Phil Francis Carspecken
"What is the nature of meaningful action and its relationship to power, truth, desire, and the self? How are meaning and truth related to the phenomenological body? Where do postmodern insights coherently intersect with the perspective of critical theory, and where are postmodernists and criticalists in fundamental disagreement? Carspecken explores these and other questions within the four essays of this book. His investigations are timely and relevant to all who have an interest in the philosophy of critical theory, social theory, cultural studies, and methodologies for social research."--BOOK JACKET.
Gavin J. Fairbairn
Suicide is devastating. It is an assault on our ideas of what living is about. In Contemplating Suicide, Gavin Fairbairn takes a fresh look at suicidal self harm. His view is distinctive in emphasising the intentions that a person has in acting, rather than external facts. Fairbairn constructs a natural history of suicidal self harm and examines some of the ethical issues it raises. He sets his philosophical reflections against a background of experience in the caring professions and uses a storytelling approach in offering a critique of the current language of self harm. He offers cogent reasons for abandoning the mindless use of terms such as attempted suicide and parasuicide, and introduces a number of new terms including cosmic roulette, which he uses to describe a family of human acts in which people gamble with their lives. By elaborating a richer model of suicidal self harm than most philosophers and practitioners of caring professions currently inhabit, Fairbairn makes a significant contribution to the development of understanding in this area.