Secularism is usually thought to contain the project of self-deification, in which humans attack God’s authority in order to take his place, freed from all constraints. Julie E. Cooper overturns this conception through an incisive analysis of the early modern justifications for secular politics. While she agrees that secularism is a means of empowerment, she argues that we have misunderstood the sources of secular empowerment and the kinds of strength to which it aspires. Contemporary understandings of secularism, Cooper contends, have been shaped by a limited understanding of it as a shift from vulnerability to power. But the works of the foundational thinkers of secularism tell a different story. Analyzing the writings of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau at the moment of secularity’s inception, she shows that all three understood that acknowledging one’s limitations was a condition of successful self-rule. And while all three invited humans to collectively build and sustain a political world, their invitations did not amount to self-deification. Cooper establishes that secular politics as originally conceived does not require a choice between power and vulnerability. Rather, it challenges us—today as then—to reconcile them both as essential components of our humanity.

At the level of developing a progressive and critical theoretical understanding of unsustainability, it argues for the importance of integrating vulnerability, which has been largely neglected by both mainstream western political theory and analyses of the current global ecological crisis. It suggests that valuable insights into the causes of and alternatives to unsustainability can be found in a critical embracing of human vulnerability and dependency as both constitutive and ineliminable aspects of what it means to be human. Rather than seeing invulnerability as the appropriate response, the book defends resilience, and the ability to 'cope with' rather than 'solve' vulnerability, as more productive.

“A wide-ranging and deeply thoughtful meditation on the psychological sources of the danger to humanity created by the advent of weapons of mass destruction. It draws on a vast range of sources including psychology, anthropology, literature, philosophy, and religion, and is expressed with eloquence and grace.”—Dr. Jerome Frank, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins Medical School, author of Sanity and Survival “A remarkably thorough analysis of the proposition that is our beliefs, conscious and unconscious, which have made war inevitable–and that a change in those assumptions (including the unconscious ones) can free us from the scourge…This is a very hopeful book about a subject that leads many to despair…I believe it will be a most useful contribution to the dialogue about our national security dilemma.”—Willis Harman, President, Institute of Noetic Sciences, author ofAn Incomplete Guide to the Future

In an original approach to Foucault's philosophy, Christopher Falzon argues for a reading of Foucault as a philosopher of finite transcendence, and explores its implications for ethics. In order to distinguish Foucault's position, Falzon charts the historical trajectory of transcendence as a philosophical concept, starting with the radical notion of transcendence that was introduced by Plato, and which reappears in various forms in subsequent thinkers from the Stoics to Descartes, and from Kant to Sartre. He argues that Foucault's critique of the transcendent subject of humanism is a rejection not of transcendence per se but of radical transcendence in its distinctively modern form. As such, he shows how Foucault's conceptualisation of transcendence as finite enables a picture of the human being as neither fully determined nor a creature of infinite possibilities, but as both subject and object, affected by but also able to affect the world. With the notion of finite transcendence Falzon captures the essence of Foucault's unique philosophy and provides a new insight into his contribution to ethics. Demonstrating its contemporary relevance, Foucault and the History of Philosophical Transcendence further explores the potential application of Foucault's approach to the current ecological crisis.

Part of a series of textbooks which have been written to support A levels in psychology. The books use real life applications to help teach students what they need to know. Readers are encouraged to use aims, methods, results and conclusions of the key studies to support their own arguments.

This two-volume Encyclopdia - through multidisciplinary and international contributions and perspectives - organizes, defines and clarifies more than 300 death-related concepts.

NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • Stop working on yourself as an individual and start working on your relationship as a couple, with the help of the renowned family therapist and author of The New Rules of Marriage “This book is a road map for all of us who seek true intimacy.”—GWYNETH PALTROW, founder and CEO of goop ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal Not much is harder than figuring out how to love your partner in all their messy humanness—and there’s also not much that’s more important. At a time when toxic individualism is rending our society at every level, bestselling author and renowned marriage counselor Terrence Real sees how it poisons intimate relationships in his therapy practice, where he works with couples on the brink of disaster. The good news: Warmer, closer, more passionate relationships are possible if you have the right tools. In his transformative new book Us, Real brilliantly observes how our winner-takes-all culture infiltrates families with devastating results: repetitive fights that go nowhere, or a distant relationship in which partners end up living “alone together.” With deft insight, humor, and charm, Real guides you to transform your relationship into one that’s based on compassion, collaboration, and closeness. Us is a groundbreaking guide to a new science-backed skillset—one that will allow you to get past your knee-jerk reactions and tap into your wiser, more collaborative self. With a novelist’s flair, Real shares the stories of couples whose relationships have been saved by these skills and pans out to the culture that reinforces our dysfunction. If you and your partner are backed into separate corners of “you” and “me,” this book will show the way back to “us.” With Us, your true relationship can begin.

For all those immersed in the traditions of Christian contemplation there is new understanding derived from the study of Buddhist traditions and the classical schools of psychotherapy. While both Freud and Jung, each in their own way, describe for us a means to expand the boundaries of the personal self, Buddhism challenges the very existence of this self, suggesting that it is the belief in its concrete existence that is at root the cause of all suffering. How then may these two radically different views find a place of meeting? The process involves "emptying out" as expounded by the great Christian mystics--"St. John of the Cross, Eckhart, Julian of Norwich--"and in the process the individual may be helped to cope with the stresses and pitfalls of modern living--"neurotic anxiety, depression, and narcissism.

Biosocial criminology is an emerging perspective that highlights the interdependence between genetic and environmental factors in the etiology of antisocial behaviors. However, given that biosocial criminology has only recently gained traction among criminologists, there has not been any attempt to compile some of the "classic" articles on this topic. Beaver and Walsh's edited volume addresses this gap in the literature by identifying some of the most influential biosocial criminological articles and including them in a single resource. The articles covered in this volume examine the connection between genetics and crime, evolutionary psychology and crime, and neuroscience and crime. This volume will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the causes of crime from a biosocial criminological perspective.