This book examines the U.S economy from 1967 to 2011 and utilizes a new method to predict the future of the economy as far ahead as 2030. Projections using estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Census are used to further project personal income, personal income annual change, and disposable personal income to 2030.

My poetized culture is one which has given up the attempt to unite one’s private ways of dealing with finitude and one’s sense of obligation to other human beings.Richard Rorty repudiated W. B. Yeats’s aspiration “to hold justice and reality in a single vision,” and he did so with relish.2 Thrilling though it is, Rorty would say, there is no need to weave into a single, coherent narrative our commitment to the end of cruelty (justice) and our idiosyncratic aesthetic tastes (...) (reality). We can affirm both principles individually—justice and reality—without concocting a “philosophy of life” (or finding a “philosophical slop-shop”3) that will draw straight lines from aesthetic obsession to justice work. Allowing .. (shrink)

What is the relationship between natural science, social science, and religion? The dominant paradigm in contemporary social science is scientism, the attempt to apply the methods of natural science to the study of society. However, scientism is problematic: it rests on a conception of natural science that cannot be sustained. Natural scientific understanding emerges from an instrumental and objectifying relation to the world; it is oriented toward control and manipulation of the physical world. Social‐scientific understanding, by contrast, must begin with (...) a practical and meaningful relation to the world: it is oriented toward the mediation of values and objective possibilities in the social world. Social science is therefore a form of practical reason based on objective claims. But while social‐scientific understanding starts with interpretation, its possibilities by no means end there. In particular, by developing abstract and objectified models of society as a system, social science opens existing social organization to critical reflection. Religion, by contrast, is a form of speculative reason about ultimate values, based on subjective claims of religious experience. Social science nevertheless shares with religion an orientation toward values and concern with the “good life.”. (shrink)

We present the first neurophysiological signatures showing distinctive effects of group social context and emotional arousal on cultural perceptions, such as the efficacy of religious rituals. Using a novel protocol, EEG data were simultaneously recorded from ethnic Chinese religious believers in group and individual settings as they rated the perceived efficacy of low, medium, and high arousal spirit-medium rituals presented as video clips. Neural oscillatory patterns were then analyzed for these perceptual judgements, categorized as low, medium, and high efficacy. The (...) results revealed distinct neural signatures and behavioral patterns between the experimental conditions. Arousal levels predicted ratings of ritual efficacy. Increased efficacy was marked by suppressed alpha and beta power, regardless of group or individual setting. In groups, efficacy ratings converged. Individual setting showed increased within-participant phase synchronization in alpha and beta bands, while group setting enhanced between-participant theta phase synchronization. This reflected group participants' orientation toward a common perspective and social coordination. These findings suggest that co-presence in groups leads to a social-tuning effect supported by between-participant theta phase synchrony. Together these neural synchrony patterns reveal how collective rituals have both individual and communal dimensions. The emotionality of spirit-medium rituals drives individual perceptions of efficacy, while co-presence in groups signals the significance of an event and socially tunes enhanced agreement in perceptual ratings. In other words, mass gatherings may foster social cohesion without necessarily requiring group-size scaling limitations of direct face-to-face interaction. This could have implications for the scaling computability of synchrony in large groups as well as for humanistic studies in areas such as symbolic interactionism. (shrink)

This book shows how time is a fundamental element in our perception of the arts and proposes an integrated framework within which to explore and appreciate the subtleties and complexities of this essential key to the reading and understanding of meaning in art. The book is a work of ideas, not abstract theory or pure art history. It offers wide-ranging insight into the aesthetics and philosophies of time across different art forms, cultures, and periods. Intended for both arts practitioners and (...) anyone wishing to extend their understanding of the creative process and its underlying principles, the book reveals the interplay of art and time from technical execution and formal invention to the spiritual and intuitive. It opens up fresh possibilities for artists to develop their work in new directions, and for the visitor to engage with artworks including architecture, drawing, sculpture, painting, and photography, in challenging and fulfilling new ways. (shrink)

Reviews the basic Catholic moral principles that apply to health care, then uses them to assess three major current trends in the health care industry.

Explore a truly astonishing range of interests, philosophies, religions, and cultures -- from alchemy to angels, Buddhism to Hinduism, myth to magic. The distinguished authors bring a wealth of knowledge, visionary thinking, and accessible writing to each intriguing subject in these lavishly illustrated, large-format paperback books.

Any author should be happy when commentators on a long book discuss it thoroughly, raise important issues, and show their sensitivity to its main themes. So I want to begin with thanks to Isaac Levi, Peter Machamer, Richard Miller and Dudley Shapere. This is not, of course, to register agreement with all their criticisms. Indeed, that would be impossible, for their perspectives are so varied as to resist integration into a consistent synthesis. Nevertheless, each of them poses problems that my (...) approach to the growth of scientific knowledge must address, and I believe that the combination of their essays greatly advances the discussion. (shrink)

The contemporary sociology of morality is a form of descriptive ethics that shrinks away from any sort of prescriptive ethics. Building on the moral philosophies of John Dewey, and also of Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Ricoeur, and in dialogue with recent work by Stefan Bargheer, this article proposes a more ambitious program of critical social ethics that connects concerns with character and the common good but tempers them with attention to alienation and oppression.

This volume presents the long-awaited edition of the Cave 4 manuscripts of Serekh Ha-Yahad or The Rule of the Community, in which the Essenes detailed the guidelines for membership in their community. Also known as the Manual of Discipline, a complete scroll was found in Cave 1 at Qumran and this edition illuminates the textual and redactional history of Dead Sea literature. The document is extremely important for understanding the nature, practice, and ideology of the Qumran covenanters.