Books In Brief Mapping Intellectual Building And The Construction Of Thought And Reason

IIIT Books-In-Brief Series is a valuable collection of the Institute’s key publications written in condensed form to give readers a core understanding of the main contents of the original. The subject of this work is thought, a distinguishing characteristic of human beings that the Creator has dignified humankind with. The book attempts to provide an in-depth conceptualizationof intellectual building. Man’s intellect is awoken by his/her surroundings, by his need to make sense of reality, his own existence, and a desire to know. How he articulates this reality to himself, interprets, and organises information as it presents itself to his conscience, makes decisions, takes action, and draws conclusions based on whatever framework he gives value to, whether spiritual or other, is the subject of this book. The work reflects on many interesting aspects of human inner communication, including the workings of logic, and in today’s information age, the control and manipulation of information by others for personal gain. What is meant by the concept of ‘thought’? What place does it hold, and in what relation does it stand to the concepts of knowledge, culture, philosophy, literature, and fiqh (deep understanding, jurisprudence)? These are some of the issues addressed.

The subject of this work is thought, a distinguishing characteristic of human beings that the Creator has dignified humankind with. The book attempts to provide an in-depth conceptualization of intellectual building. Man’s intellect is awoken by his/her surroundings, by his need to make sense of reality, his own existence, and a desire to know. How he articulates this reality to himself, interprets, and organizes information as it presents itself to his conscience, makes decisions, takes action, and draws conclusions based on whatever framework he gives value to, whether spiritual or other, is the subject of this book. The work reflects on many interesting aspects of human inner communication, including the workings of logic, and in today’s information age, the control and manipulation of information by others for personal gain. What is meant by the concept of ‘thought’? What place does it hold, and in what relation does it stand to the concepts of knowledge, culture, philosophy, literature, and fiqh (deep understanding, jurisprudence)? These are some of the issues addressed.

The subject of this work is thought, a distinguishing characteristic of human beings that the Creator has dignified humankind with. The book attempts to provide an in-depth conceptualization of intellectual building. Man’s intellect is awoken by his/her surroundings, by his need to make sense of reality, his own existence, and a desire to know. How he articulates this reality to himself, interprets, and organises information as it presents itself to his conscience, makes decisions, takes action, and draws conclusions based on whatever framework he gives value to, whether spiritual or other, is the subject of this book. The work reflects on many interesting aspects of human inner communication, including the workings of logic, and in today’s information age, the control and manipulation of information by others for personal gain. What is meant by the concept of ‘thought’? What place does it hold, and in what relation does it stand to the concepts of knowledge, culture, philosophy, literature, and fiqh (deep understanding, jurisprudence)? These are some of the issues addressed.

The question of what architecture is answered in this book with one sentence: Architecture is space created for human activities. The basic need to find food and water places these activities within a larger spatial field. Humans have learned and found ways to adjust to the various contextual difficulties that they faced as they roamed the earth. Thus rather than adapting, humans have always tried to change the context to their activities. Humanity has looked at the context not merely as a limitation, but rather as a spatial situation filled with opportunities that allows, through intellectual interaction, to change these limitations. Thus humanity has created within the world their own contextual bubble that firmly stands against the larger context it is set in. The key notion of the book is that architecture is space carved out of and against the context and that this process is deterministic.

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning brings together the contributions of many of the leading researchers in thinking and reasoning to create the most comprehensive overview of research on thinking and reasoning that has ever been available.

A reflection on the past and present of city life, and a bold proposal for its future “Constantly stimulating ideas from a veteran of urban thinking.”—Jonathan Meades, The Guardian In this sweeping work, the preeminent sociologist Richard Sennett traces the anguished relation between how cities are built and how people live in them, from ancient Athens to twenty-first-century Shanghai. He shows how Paris, Barcelona, and New York City assumed their modern forms; rethinks the reputations of Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, and others; and takes us on a tour of emblematic contemporary locations, from the backstreets of Medellín, Colombia, to Google headquarters in Manhattan. Through it all, Sennett laments that the “closed city”—segregated, regimented, and controlled—has spread from the Global North to the exploding urban centers of the Global South. He argues instead for a flexible and dynamic “open city,” one that provides a better quality of life, that can adapt to climate change and challenge economic stagnation and racial separation. With arguments that speak directly to our moment—a time when more humans live in urban spaces than ever before—Sennett forms a bold and original vision for the future of cities.