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Medfield - Current Events: Social Media and Online Culture
SOM Challenge 2: Have an outdoor reading session
SOM Challenge 2: Have an outdoor reading session
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"A galvanizing critique of the forces vying for our attention--and our personal information--that redefines what we think of as productivity, reconnects us with the environment, and reveals all that we've been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world. Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity ... doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance....
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First published in 1739 to an unenthusiastic British public, Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature" has since been referred to as one of the most significant books in the history of philosophy. Hume, a Scottish philosopher, claimed that he was attempting to discuss moral issues with a methodical reasoning, and proceeded to do so in this foundational text. Divided into three large sections, Hume begins his work with a discussion of human understanding,...
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Bertrand Russell was one of the greatest logicians since Aristotle, and one of the most important philosophers of the past two hundred years. The Problems of Philosophy, one of the most popular works in Russell's prolific collection of writings, has become core reading in philosophy. Clear and accessible, this little book is an intelligible and stimulating guide to those problems of philosophy which often mistakenly make the subject seem too lofty...
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Dedham's National Native American Heritage Month List
Dedham's Summer Reading Weeks Three & Four
Medfield Eco-Centric Book Club Picks
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Dedham's Summer Reading Weeks Three & Four
Medfield Eco-Centric Book Club Picks
More Lists...
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"As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise.""--
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Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it-or at least similar thoughts.
-So it is not a textbook.
-Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.
The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is mis-understood. The whole sense...
7) The analects
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Few individuals shaped their country's civilization more than Confucius (551-479 BCE). Compulsory reading in the late Imperial period for all who wished to enter the government or civil service, his sayings and those of his disciples formed the foundation of a distinct social, ethical, and intellectual system that is still admired in today's China. This new translation by a foremost scholar of classical Chinese includes an introduction, textual and...
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This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. These classic essays address concerns of religious faith from a philosophical perspective. "The Will to Believe" is a defense of the legitimacy of religious faith-though not as a defense of the validity of such faith. James responds to the often corrosive effect of rationality on religious faith by arguing that it is most rational to choose faith. He continues his...
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Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills three thousand years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws. It outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers. Some laws teach the need for prudence, the virtue of stealth, and many demand the total absence of mercy, but like it or not, all have applications...
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"What does it mean to be a good person? Aristotle's famous series of lectures on ethical topics ranges over fundamental questions about good and bad character; pleasure and self-control; moral wisdom and the foundations of right and wrong; friendship and love in all their forms - all set against a rich and humane conception of what makes for a flourishing life. Adam Beresford's freshly researched translation presents many of Aristotle's key terms...
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"A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution-from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state," political violence, and social inequality-and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike--either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told,...
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Milkweed Editions
Pub. Date
2013.
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English
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NYT - Paperback Nonfiction
Read a book by an author with Indigenous heritage (Adult)
SOM Challenge 3: Read a nature memoir or travelogue
Read a book by an author with Indigenous heritage (Adult)
SOM Challenge 3: Read a nature memoir or travelogue
Description
"An inspired weaving of indigenous knowledge, plant science, and personal narrative from a distinguished professor of science and a Native American whose previous book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders,...
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Library of liberal arts volume 86
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English
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Written in prison before his brutal execution in AD 524, Boethius's "The Consolation of Philosophy" is a conversation between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy, whose instruction restores him to health and brings him to enlightenment. Boethius was an eminent public figure who had risen to great political heights in the court of King Theodoric when he was implicated in conspiracy and condemned to death. Although a Christian, it was to...
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"What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should...
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Thomas Paine, a seminal figure in American History, was an Englishman by birth who immigrated to America in 1774, where he quickly took up the cause of the independence of the American colonies from England. His famous work "Common Sense", published in 1776, helped to gain public support for the American Revolution and established him as a central figure among the founding fathers. Later, while living in France during the French Revolution, Paine...
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First published in 1926, "The Story of Philosophy" is noted historian Will Durant's survey of Western philosophy. Having been described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy", the book begins with detailed descriptions of the philosophical ideas of the ancient Greeks, i.e. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The book then proceeds in chronicling the different philosophical doctrines of French Enlightenment, German Idealism, Pessimism,...
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A groundbreaking work that explores the fundamental relationship between education and democracy. In this influential book, Dewey presents his philosophy of education, emphasizing the importance of education in fostering democratic ideals and active participation in a democratic society. The book begins by highlighting the essential role of education in the development of individuals as active, engaged citizens. Dewey argues that education should...
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"The Varieties of Religious Experience" is William James's philosophical and psychological examination of the nature of religion in human civilization. Based on James's own Gifford Lectures given at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902, James argues that "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver'...
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In this work, the author has crafted both a work of history and a story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it. Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book...
20) What is art?
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English
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While Tolstoy may be best remembered as the talented Russian author of such monumentally great works as "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", he also wrote prolifically in essay format on various subjects. In this volume Tolstoy turns his attention to the study of aesthetics and art in all its forms. Based on fifteen years of research, "What is Art?" is Tolstoy's intellectual exposition into answering the titular question. Rich with criticism for his...
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