Environment And Inner World Of The Animals

The world's first book on Bio-Cybernetics.

Hatkoff takes the hard science and makes it accessible to the average reader with her one-of-a-kind treatment, gently making the case that farm animals are closer to us than we think and perhaps we should consider making some changes to improve their lives. A portion of the profits from the book will be donated to animal charities.

“Is the tick a machine or a machine operator? Is it a mere object or a subject?” With these questions, the pioneering biophilosopher Jakob von Uexküll embarks on a remarkable exploration of the unique social and physical environments that individual animal species, as well as individuals within species, build and inhabit. This concept of the umwelt has become enormously important within posthumanist philosophy, influencing such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari, and, most recently, Giorgio Agamben, who has called Uexküll “a high point of modern antihumanism.” A key document in the genealogy of posthumanist thought, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans advances Uexküll’s revolutionary belief that nonhuman perceptions must be accounted for in any biology worth its name; it also contains his arguments against natural selection as an adequate explanation for the present orientation of a species’ morphology and behavior. A Theory of Meaning extends his thinking on the umwelt, while also identifying an overarching and perceptible unity in nature. Those coming to Uexküll’s work for the first time will find that his concept of the umwelt holds new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the framework of biopolitics.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A “thrilling” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong “One of this year’s finest works of narrative nonfiction.”—Oprah Daily ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, People, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Publishers Weekly, BookPage ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Globe and Mail, The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses to encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”

From caged orangutans to roasted pig, from dog training to horse phobias, from communicating bees to ruminating cows, over the course of an introduction and four thematically organised chapters Derek Ryan explores how animals are encountered in theoretical discourse.

By addressing the Western understanding of the status and nature of animals and the relation of animals to the question of life, this book provides a discourse on animality through an interdisciplinary investigation into various areas of humanities. The nature of animals is explored by drawing on materials from literature, art, religion, philosophy, and political science, focusing on discussions of animality about the classical culture of ancient Greece, metaphysics and its application to debates on life, Martin Heidegger’s philosophical theories, and biopolitics. Although the distinctive difference between human beings from animals has long been emphasized, the author argues that they are inseparable from one another to achieve understanding. The interrogation of animality, therefore, provides a new perspective on the nature of human beings in this postmodern era. Academics in Western literature, literary theory, literary criticism and comparative literature will find this work an insightful addition to debates in their respective fields, whilst it will also help senior university students pursuing their studies.

From Susan Casey, the New York Times bestselling author of The Devil's Teeth and The Wave, a breathtaking look into the mysterious world of dolphins and their conflicted history with man. Since the dawn of recorded history, humans have felt a kinship with the sleek and beautiful dolphin, an animal whose playfulness, sociability and intelligence seems like an aquatic mirror of mankind. In recent decades, scientists have discovered dolphins recognize themselves in reflections, count, feel despondent, adorn themselves, rescue each other (and humans), deduce, infer, form cliques, throw tantrums, gossip and scheme. Several native peoples trace their lineage to dolphins. They are the stars of multi-million dollar aquatic theme parks, money which has fueled a sinister illicit trade as shown in the documentary Blackfish. The U.S. Navy has a secret program using dolphins as undersea soldiers. The theory that they are a superior, extraterrestial species is popular among the new age fringe. They are the victims of brutal slaughters as depicted in the documentary The Cove. To swim with a dolphin is a transporting experience, an encounter with a being seemingly so like us, yet so alien. No writer is better positioned to portray these magical creatures than Susan Casey, whose combination of personal reporting, intense scientific research, and evocative prose made The Wave and The Devil's Teeth contemporary classics of writing on the oceans. For two years Casey traveled the world, and has written a thrilling book about the other intelligent life on the planet.

Now in paperback! " . . an important addition to the translations of Heidegger's lecture-courses . . Heidegger's voice can be heard with few of the jolting Germanicisms with which so many translations of Heidegger's texts have been burdened. . . ." —International Philosophical Quarterly "The translators of these lectures have succeeded splendidly in giving readers an intimation of the tensely insistent tone of the original German. Heidegger's concern with a linguistic preconsciousness and with our entrancement before the enigma of existence remains intensely contemporary." —Choice "There is much that is new and valuable in this book, and McNeill and Walker's faithful translation makes it very accessible." —Review of Metaphysics "Whoever thought that Heidegger . . . has no surprises left in him had better read this volume. If its rhetoric is 'hard and heavy' its thought is even harder and essentially more daring than Heideggerians ever imagined Heidegger could be." —David Farrell Krell First published in German in 1938 as volume 29/30 of Heidegger's collected works, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics includes an extended treatment of the history of metaphysics and an elaboration of a philosophy of life and nature. Heidegger's concepts of organism, animal behavior, and environment are uniquely developed and defined with intensity. This work, the text of Martin Heidegger's lecture course of 1929/30, is crucial for an understanding of Heidegger's transition from the major work of his early years, Being and Time, to his later preoccupations with language, truth, and history. First published in German in 1983 as volume 29/30 of Heidegger's collected works, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics includes an extended treatment of the history of metaphysics and an elaboration of a philosophy of life and nature. Heidegger's concepts of organism, animal behavior, and environment are uniquely developed and defined with intensity.