In this book Christopher Pines demonstrates that Karl Marx conceived of ideology as false consciousness. He shows how the different meanings of false consciousness found in the writings of Marx and Engels reflect the influence of the views of the Baconian-French Enlightenment and of Hegelian Feuerbachian philosophies. Pines argues that, for Marx, the diverse senses of false consciousness all generally denote a social consciousness that takes certain false things to be true regarding matters of significance to class-divided societies.

This book explores stage conjuring during its “golden age,” from about 1860 to 1910. This study provides close readings highlighting four paradigmatic illusions of the time that stand in for different kinds of illusions typical of stage magic in the “golden age” and analyses them within their cultural and media-historical context: “Pepper’s Ghost,” the archetypical mirror illusion; “The Vanishing Lady,” staging a teleportation in a time of a dizzying acceleration of transport; “the levitation,” simulating weightlessness with the help of an extended steel machinery; and “The Second Sight,” a mind-reading illusion using up-to-date communication technologies. These close readings are completed by writings focusing on visual media and expanding the scope backwards and forwards in time, roughly to 1800 and to 2000. This exploration will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies.

Is ideology just a political pejorative term to stigmatise those whose politics are allegedly driven by faith rather than by critical thinking? Can we actually claim that we are free from ideological inclinations? Is discourse just the means of expression of a particular ideology? In order to clarify some misunderstandings about these two key concepts in the fields of social and political philosophy, political theory and cultural theory, this book traces their origins, discusses the ways in which they have been appropriated by Marxist and post-Marxist theorists, and examines the conceptual differences and similarities between them.

World Glamour, the sum total of human ignorance, fear and greed, can dissipate through the clear, inclusive thinking of those in whom the soul (Christ) principle is awakening. Glamour results from a negative emotional focus. The dissipation of glamour depends on 'illumined thinking'.

Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, 9/e, thoroughly analyzes and compares political ideologies to help readers understand these ideologies as acutely as a political scientist does. Used alone or with its companion Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader, 9/e, this best-selling title promotes open-mindedness and develops critical thinking skills.

Philosophy involves a criticism of scientific knowledge, not from a point of view ultimately different from that of science, but from a point of view less concerned with details and more concerned with the h- mony of the body of special sciences. Here as elsewhere, while the older logic shut out possibilities and imprisoned imagination within the walls of the familiar, the newer logic shows rather what may happen, and refuses to decide as to what must happen. Bertrand Russell At any particular stage in the development of humanity knowledge comes up against limits set by the necessarily limited character of the experience available and the existing means of obtaining knowledge. But humanity advances by overcoming such limits. New experience throws down the limits of old experience; new techniques, new means of obtaining knowledge throw down the limits of old techniques and old means of obtaining knowledge. New limits then once again appear. But there is no more reason to suppose these new limits absolute and final than there was to suppose the old ones absolute and final.

The Theory of Categorial Conversion is advanced by Professor Kofi Kissi Dompere as mathematical-philosophical and game-theoretic foundations to solve the problem of socio-natural transformation as governed by some internal process in relation to Marx, Schumpeter and Nkrumah. Dompere' s methodology is based on the Africentric principles of opposites made up of actual-potential polarity, negative-positive duality with relational continuum and unity under cost-benefit rationality and Asantrofi-Anoma principle supported by fuzzy paradigm of thought. Socio-natural transformations are seen in terms of game theories in a fuzzy-stochastic space admitting of defective-deceptive information structures in quality-quantity space within the subjective-objective duality. The main premise of the monograph is that there exists a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for internal self-transformation. The necessary conditions are made up of categorial moments and categorial transfer functions forming the domain of control instrumentation in creating the sufficient conditions for categorial-conversion processes.Dompere presents an important methodological framework for the study and construction of the theories of socioeconomic development and political change, as well as info-dynamics connecting knowledge, sciences, innovation and engineering to the space of knowing, under qualitative-quantitative transformational dynamics with defective-deceptive information structures in the games for power and dominance by duals and poles in conflicts. The necessary conditions of socio-natural transformation are internally derived based on the relational structure of matter-energy-information activities within the dynamics of qualitative dispositions of dualities of actual-potential polarities. The theory consists of category formation showing ontological-epistemological categories, and categorial dynamics shows elemental conversions of categorial varieties in a continuum. The logical tools and the paradigm of thought for the theoretical development of Nkrumah's framework involve self-excitement, self-correction and self-control systems induced by internal contradictions. The set of necessary conditions constitutes the natural necessity that constrains cognitive freedom in socio-natural transformations. Had this conceptual system been familiar to economists and social scientists, the construct of the theories of socioeconomic development and transformations would have been increasingly successful.

Bold political elites and unique forms of social order brought the West to world dominance, but both are weakening dramatically in the contemporary period. The Endangered West makes the case for the continuation of Western power on as wide a global basis as is prudent. Is the survival of Western influence possible, or must we resign ourselves to its eventually being subordinated to more ruthless powers? Higley lays out the main policy lines that successful leadership will have to follow to preserve and strengthen Western societies. These include avoiding futile involvements in the internal problems of non-Western countries and preserving sufficient social order to permit public and private organizations to function. The West will also have to find a way to regularize treatment of the growing number of those who lack employment; invent new forms of useful work for Westerners to perform; inhibit large in-migrations, and discourage population growth. Above all, the West must address the threat of environmental disaster. There is no certain result in the struggle, but such measures will help to prevent a slide into despotism or a lapse into barbarism. Half the battle is to hold on to what the West has and, if possible, extend it. Progress will be made if elites and opinion leaders address societies' problems more competently. If the West's prestige is restored, world tensions may gradually subside, making meeting global problems more possible.

This book discusses Marx’s relations with Russia, which have always been ambivalent. In his youth, and indeed a good way into the 1860s, Marx might even be called a “Russophobe.” Around 1870, however, his views on Russia undergo a change; he becomes acquainted with a new kind of Russian radical and revolutionary movement and begins to study Russian. It becomes clear that Marx begins to feel that Russia is some kind of a “touchstone” for his theories. Offering a new and original interpretation of Marx’s theoretical development, Marx’s Russian Moment analyzes the following themes: Marx’s concept of ideology (as developed in the German Ideology) and its fortunes in Russia; Marx’s encounter with Bakunin and Russian nihilism; Marx’s and Engels’s studies of primitive societies; Engels’s views of the developmental perspectives of small Slavic nations; and Marx’s views on Finland, the Russian Grand Duchy. Considering these topics as “case studies,” Oittinen argues that Marx’s encounter with Russia substantially influenced Marx’s (and Engels’s) views not just on current political and economic matters but also on a philosophical and methodological level.