Taylor, Charles

Criminal Investigation, with Student Simulation CD

Average customer rating:

Useless!!!
Good info
criminal investigation book
Just the book I was looking for
The best in a long line of boring criminal justice books!!!

Criminal Investigation, with Student Simulation CD
Charles R Swanson , Neil C. Chamelin , Leonard Territo , and Robert W. Taylor
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0073212784

Book Description

An important contribution to the law enforcement field at every level

Criminal Investigation is recognized as the most accurate, comprehensive, and practical book in its field. This updated edition examines the latest investigative methods and technologies with new information on white-collar crime, drugs, terrorism, and homeland security.The simulation CD contains interactive modules covering the investigative process.

Customer Reviews:

Useless!!!.......2007-04-15

First and foremost, be aware if there is any reviews referring to "textbook", it's not for this "Cram 101 Textbook Outlines" which is supposed to be a textbook companion.

"Cram 101 Textbook Outlines" is useless!!! This is nothing but a bunch of glossary. And a half of the book is blank for writing notes. What a rip-off!!!
There's no outlines at all. No chapter summaries, no
explanation of concepts. Totally useless.

I have used "Collins College Outlines" series (I rate them 3 stars) and "Barron's Business Reviews" series (I rate them 5 stars).

Never buy any of "Cram 101 Textbook Outlines" series.

Technical notes: "Cram 101 Textbook Outlines" is POD (Print on demand). No wonder quality of printing is inferior (Looks like a xerox copy). And priced too high for this quality. For those who are not familiar with publishing industry--POD is used for ultra small quantity less than 100 copies. This is a telltale sign that book is not expected to sell minimum quantity (usually 3,000 copies) that commercial publisher is willing to commit to publish. Simply put, POD means inferrior and overpriced books. A work of amateur.

Good info.......2007-01-17

Bought for a promotion study, and helped very much.

Great book if you need it. Also look for the study guide!

criminal investigation book.......2006-02-23

This subject is very interesting and the book go along with it well. The book is very interesting and is not boring to read. It has a lot of detailed pictures and information that goes along with it. Plus the reading is enertaining.This overall is a very good book!

Just the book I was looking for.......2002-12-13

I bought this book because I'm interested in series on discovery such as: Forensic Detectives, Medical Detectives and The Fbi Files. This book describes everything(see table of contents) in detail, from the history of crime investigation till gunshots etc. After almost every subject, the book gives real life examples and pictures.

After reading reviews I bought it and I don't regret it. It's the most excellent book in the field and often used on universities. The book isn't cheap, but if you're really interested in these subjects it's certainly worth the price.

The best in a long line of boring criminal justice books!!!.......2000-08-10

This book is by far one of the best of the criminal justice books that I have ever read. If it wasn't required reading for my Criminal Investigations class, I just might have picked it up and read it on my own. This book is one of the most interesting and easy to read books that has ever been required reading. The photography in the text helps with the topics in the reading much more than in any other books I've read. Though a bit gruesome, the photos are of great quality and only help the book that much more.

Police Administration: Structures, Processes and Behavior (6th Edition)

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Police Administration: Structures, Processes and Behavior (6th Edition)
Charles R. Swanson , Leonard Territo , and Robert W. Taylor
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Prentice Hall's Test Prep Guide to accompany Police Administration: Structures, Processes, and Behavior (Prentice Hall Test Prep Series)
Criminal Investigation, with Student Simulation CD
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Community Policing: Partnerships for Problem Solving (with InfoTrac)

ASIN: 0131123114

Book Description

The best-selling, most comprehensive book available for police administration and management, Police Administration 6/e presents a carefully researched and vivid introduction to police organizations that focuses on the procedures, politics and human relations issues that law enforcement managers and administrators must understand in order to succeed. Representing the collective experience of the authors' decades of experience in law enforcement, training, and teaching, Police Administration 6/e is recognized by both the academic and law enforcement communities as the authoritative treatment of this important topic. Chapter topics include the evolution of American policing, community policing, organizational theory, concepts of police organizational design, leadership, organizational and interpersonal communication, human resource management, stress and police personnel, labor relations, legal aspects of police administration, planning and decision-making, financial management, and organizational change and the future. For law enforcement managers and administrators.

Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity

Average customer rating:

Great, BUT
A True Classic!
"immersion" course in the ideas
A Substantive Theory of the Good
From community to self- and the evolution of ethics...

Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
Charles Taylor
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0674824261

Book Description

In this extensive inquiry into the sources of modern selfhood, Charles Taylor demonstrates just how rich and precious those resources are. The modern turn to subjectivity, with its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, has led--it seems to many--to mere subjectivism at the mildest and to sheer nihilism at the worst. Many critics believe that the modern order has no moral backbone and has proved corrosive to all that might foster human good. Taylor rejects this view. He argues that, properly understood, our modern notion of the self provides a framework that more than compensates for the abandonment of substantive notions of rationality.

The major insight of Sources of the Self is that modern subjectivity, in all its epistemological, aesthetic, and political ramifications, has its roots in ideas of human good. After first arguing that contemporary philosophers have ignored how self and good connect, the author defines the modern identity by describing its genesis. His effort to uncover and map our moral sources leads to novel interpretations of most of the figures and movements in the modern tradition. Taylor shows that the modern turn inward is not disastrous but is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and reach the good. At the heart of this definition he finds what he calls the affirmation of ordinary life, a value which has decisively if not completely replaced an older conception of reason as connected to a hierarchy based on birth and wealth. In telling the story of a revolution whose proponents have been Augustine, Montaigne, Luther, and a host of others, Taylor's goal is in part to make sure we do not lose sight of their goal and endanger all that has been achieved. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defense of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics.

Customer Reviews:

Great, BUT .......2006-03-17

I read this very popular, yet scholarly, and extolled book when it first was published, and found it elegant, helpful, and problematic. The title is the subject of the book: What sources have gone into making of modern identity? Obviously philosophy and theology are the dominant contributors, with psychology pulling up the rear (which is as it should be, since the latter only came to be 150 years ago).

While I agree with Taylor that philosophy, more than either theology or psychology, actually informs our sense of self, particularly the modern self, I'm not sure psychologists would agree. In today's marketplace of ideas, it's psychology that crowds bookstore shelves with a panoply of "self-help" books. Conversely, while the sense of self is implicit in earlier philosophy, not many modern philosophers address the matter at all. Ergo, the need for this book.

Taylor weaves his theory through the prism of philosophical history and the evolutionary unfolding of how the sense of the modern self has come into being. It's a compelling, perhaps unattractive, pinnacle to which we have come. The "modern" sense of self begins with the works of Rene Descartes (i.e., the thinking being), which may or may not have improved on Boethius's medieval ontology (i.e., the rational animal). Still, the sense of "self" is far more complex than either a rational animal or a thinking being alone would suggest. Perhaps either thesis is the starting point, and obviously necessary, but it's certainly not sufficient, to capture what we mean by "self" today.

To Taylor's credit, he begins to add other necessary features, and the features he adds aren't uncontroversial. Yes, phenomenology is a part of the structure; so too is language a key feature to the identity of the modern self; but where are the well-spring of the emotions? This particularly salient feature of emotions barely registers on Taylor's radar. And it's this deficit, the failure to bring our emotional features to bear, that makes this work such an enormous disappointment.

For the other facets, dimensions, and features, Taylor elegantly, eruditely, and heuristically surveys philosophical history and culls most of its ideas. But how could the emotions (e.g., love, hate, joy, grief, etc.) not figure into Taylor's conception of the "modern self." Even if Taylor relies primarily on philosophical perspectives, the philosophy of emotions is not a nil set. David Hume devoted Part II of his seminal "Treatise on Human Nature" to the passions; numerous contemporary philosophers have addressed focused on the emotions in the years immediately preceding the publication of this book. And even if Taylor had been deprived of the philosophical accounts, he certainly could not have been deprived of psychological accounts. So, the minimalist attention to this most salient of features is jarring.

Why such a fuss about this omission? Robert Solomon, whose works both precede and follow Taylor's book, insists that it is the emotions that make life itself meaningful and valuable: Not independent of the other salient features, but intrinsically integrated with them. The "passions" are what give life zest and interest and dynamic. When's the last time that looking at language's performatives brought "joy" to one? What happens when the self ratiocinates that makes it meaningful to us? Of course, the "eureka" of discovery, the pride of accomplishment, the joy of understanding, the hope of implementation, the desire to act, etc., are what make ratiocination interesting and valuable. Cogitation qua cogitation is significant, no doubt, but we cogitate in order to understand, and understand to implement, and implement to enjoy. Thus, pleasure is integral to the cogitation, for without it, it's simply cold, calculating, and indifferent ratiocination. Per Solomon, the passions (i.e., emotions) are what give life meaning.

If Solomon's thesis about emotions giving the self meaning is true, and it is, how could something so obvious and necessary have been overlooked in this magisterial tome? This singular omission marrs this otherwise fascinating and comprehensive history and analysis of what it means to have a "self." It's as if Taylor started to analyze the pictures on the wall, but ignored the elephant in the middle of the room. The emotions are what give life meaning, and any examination of "the self" that omits them may have given us the container, but has also forgotten to fill it.

Happily, despite this serious omission, Taylor provides a probing and detailed exegesis of the development and structure of the modern self. As long as one supplements this massive tome with other reading (e.g., Solomon's "The Passions," "Love," "The Philosophy of Erotic Love," etc., or Martha Nussbaum's "The Therapy of Desire," "Upheavals of Thought," etc., or Ronald de Souza's "The Rationality of Emotions"), Taylor's work provides the outline and identity of the other salient features, but having given us the wall, but missed the nucleus, of the cell, the work lacks life.

A True Classic!.......2005-03-29

Sources of the Self is an exceptional piece of scholarship. In SOS, Taylor engages in a course of philosophical anthropology to demonstrate that our understanding of the self as interior is by no means universal. For Taylor, understandings of the self are inextricably linked to our understandings of the good. Thus, self-understanding is directed by evolving conceptions of the source and location of the good. This idea has been lost, according to Taylor, because of the narrow conception of the good in our modern world and the naturalist suppression of moral ontology.

Taylor defends this argument in two ways. First, he provides a strong argument that the self exists within inescapable moral frameworks. "To know who you are" Taylor argues, "is to be oriented in moral space." These frameworks are composed of hierarchical moral distinctions (i.e., some things are viewed as better than, or more important than others -- for instance, in our time, the notion of respect for persons). Second, Taylor argues that previous goods have been victim to historical suppression.

The bulk of the text is aimed at re-articulating historically suppressed goods. This illustration provides a fascinating romp through the history of ideas from Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau and MANY others, as well an interesting pieces about cultural history (e.g., the Puritans, art theory, etc).

One caution -- this is NOT an easy read. The argument itself is in the first few chapters, the remander is illustration. But keep the argument in mind the whole way. You will have to work to get through it - but it is well worth it! You will never see the self the same way again.

"immersion" course in the ideas.......2005-02-15

Someone told philosophy is simply a specific genre of European literature; I would tend to agree if permitted to add that to validate itself as "philosophy" the opus has to include references to the previous philosophical works. Otherwise, however similar in vein and content, a book of philosophy it will not be.
According to that definition philosophers are writers doomed to retell stories heard from their predecessors; far is the day when the Allegory of the Cave will drop off that rambling and overburdened philosophical cart (driven by the Buridan donkey, no doubt) and be moved out of readers' sight.

Whether this definition is true or not, Taylor in his book behaves exactly as described, repeating and condensing others' treatises and opinions. They are many in the long history of our civilization, so the author's tactic is to find connecting "narratives": here is the great "Inward Turn", from which premises of Romanticism easily follow, there came "veneration of the ordinary", which brought about the phenomenon of the modern novel.
It is precisely in this that both the greatest weakness of the oevre and its greatest utility lie: the book has collected innumerable praises from the horde of us, intellectual sloths, for in it we immediately spotted the opportunity to use the results of this marvellous compression, with the narratives as aids to jog our lazy memories, without reading the whole philosophical library of Taylor's sources shelf after shelf, and cover to cover.

The weakness of the approach could be in a certain arbitrariness of the found stories and connections. They make what was announced as "history of the central terms on which the modern man appreciates himself" seem too logical and inevitable. Those threads or constantly developing themes, when historical rather than invented, could be simultaneous, interweaving and interplaying - not consecutive and orderly.
In short, they are patterns half discerned and half imposed on history and philosophy by Taylor himself.

The second peculiarity of the book is the Taylor's style.
Once, they say, physisists came to a University bursar to ask for funds. The bursar studied their proposal for a long time, and then complained: "It's always like this with you, physisists. You always ask for huge sums to do your experiments. Mathematicians are so much better! All they use is paper, pencils and erasers." Then he thought a bit and added: "And philosophers are best of all. They do not even need erasers."
Taylor's style is unnecessarily dense and repetitive. I had an impression that he was more engrossed in wording than in laying out logically when writing. Very often, when the thread has been followed through to the very end, one realises, it could have been greatly reduced, and reduced to almost a platitude, I caught myself thinking at times: yes, "the original unity" of religious worldview was shattered and became multiple disciplines in modernity, emergence of protestant churches is habitually used to explain the Western individualism et cetera et cetera et cetera.
The "difficulty" of the book may be in the density of its style, and not always in the subject matter being discussed.

But still...
they say laziness is the King and true source of all Good in the world, so I cannot help but give the deserved 5 stars to this crash "immersion" course in the ideas of Western philosophy (in the guise of a treatise about Good, Ethics and sources of Modernity), nicely condensed and organized in a number of stories to follow for a curious reader but less than dedicated philosopher.
Digesting the Taylor's tome is the easiest way to read one book and then be able to convincingly claim to know many, many more.

A Substantive Theory of the Good.......2005-02-06

Taylor would like to revitalize the ancients' emphasis on what he calls a substantive theory of the good. This he contrasts with a procedural conception of ethics that he ties to certain elements of Modernism. In particular, Taylor takes on modern ethical systems for being too focused on obligation rather than what he terms the "hypergood."

It is not a simple call for revisiting classical philosophy. Taylor is doing more than trying to draw attention to what he sees as wrong turns and misguided focuses in modern ethical thinking. There is a constructive element to the work.

It is not an introductory piece and many would find the depth of references frustrating. For those who have not read many works to which he refers (e.g. Locke, Kant, Rawls, Habermas, Williams) or who cannot distinguish a Kantian from a utilitarian, etc. it might be a bit of a slog. For ethicists or anyone interested in philosophical issues of identity, self, or conceptions of the common good, it is clearly a very important work.

From community to self- and the evolution of ethics..........2004-11-09

Taylor is an important voice in today's philosophical community- one that refuses to give in to the excesses of either postmodern relativism or extreme conservatism. Instead, with "Sources of the Self", (expanding on "The Ethics of Authenticity"), he's written an important summary of the evolution of moral ideas from the ancient virtue-hierarchies of the Greeks, through the communitarian great chain of medieval philosophy, to the independent "I" of modernity. In doing so, he explains the strengths of modern ethics:

-the "hypergoods" of liberty, equality, and freedom of expression.

-the "sanctification" of ordinary life (esp. as it stems from the Protestant reformation)

-the pursuit of scientific inquiry and it's benefits to modern life.

He also, however, points out the problems that occur when modernity's "focus" on the self turns into the narcissistic "obsession" with self of the Romantics and postmodernists.

I highly recommend this book to philosophical liberals as one of the best defenses of modern liberalism in print, to scholars of philosophy as an important history of the evolution of the idea of the self, and to fans of the works of Jurgen Habermas and Ken Wilber, both of whom also deal extensively with issues tackled in this book.

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Making the case for Hegel

Hegel
Charles Taylor
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Cambridge Companion to Hegel (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)

ASIN: 0521291992

Book Description

This is a major and comprehensive study of the philosophy of Hegel, his place in the history of ideas, and his continuing relevance and importance. Professor Taylor relates Hegel to the earlier history of philosophy and, more particularly, to the central intellectual and spiritual issues of his own time. He engages with Hegel sympathetically, on Hegel's own terms and, as the subject demands, in detail. This important book is now reissued with a fresh new cover.

Customer Reviews:

Making the case for Hegel.......2004-04-17

Since I'm not half through, I wouldn't be reviewing this if anyone else had stepped up. I'm enjoying the book. Hegel's been a sore spot ever since the seminar on the "Phenomenology of Spirit" where I felt like a complete illiterate trying to read him (in translation no less).

Since Hegel's practically the definition of "pseudo-philosophy" in the English-speaking world, it's fascinating to read this treatment by a sensible English (?) philosopher. Taylor does a great job in the 1st chapter setting up Hegel's problematic, with a survey of German romanticism and its issues. Those issues are in large part still with us today, so that Hegel's working on problems that should be of interest to us.

But are those problems solvable? Can we take seriously someone who argues that "the rational is real, and the real is rational"? Taylor's carefully developing and qualifying Hegel's claims of universal rationality and trying to see his case for them.

Even if you hate Hegel, or think you do, the great anti-Hegelian Bertrand Russell said that the 1st step to evaluating a philosophy is to engage with it as sympathetically as possible (in a bit of a Hegelian moment himself as I recall: sympathy-antipathy-evaluation). This book may be your best shot in English.

Nietzsche argued that (1) the world is meaningless and "irrational," and that (2) humans cannot accept (1). If he's right, then something like Hegel's system may be the necessary consequence.

Modern Social Imaginaries (Public Planet)
Average customer rating:

Excellent dissection of the ideology of modernity

How we imagine who we are

Lucid Brilliance

Brilliant - though often confusing.

Concise, easy to understand and, most of all, insightful

Modern Social Imaginaries (Public Planet)
Charles Taylor , and Charles Taylor
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Ethics of Authenticity

Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity

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Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism

ASIN: 0822332930

Book Description

One of the most influential philosophers in the English-speaking world, Charles Taylor is internationally renowned for his contributions to political and moral theory, particularly to debates about identity formation, multiculturalism, secularism, and modernity. In Modern Social Imaginaries, Taylor continues his recent reflections on the theme of multiple modernities. To account for the differences among modernities, Taylor sets out his idea of the social imaginary, a broad understanding of the way a given people imagine their collective social life. Retelling the history of Western modernity, Taylor traces the development of a distinct social imaginary. Animated by the idea of a moral order based on the mutual benefit of equal participants, the Western social imaginary is characterized by three key cultural formsâthe economy, the public sphere, and self-governance. Taylor’s account of these cultural formations provides a fresh perspective on how to read the specifics of Western modernity: how we came to imagine society primarily as an economy for exchanging goods and services to promote mutual prosperity, how we began to imagine the public sphere as a metaphorical place for deliberation and discussion among strangers on issues of mutual concern, and how we invented the idea of a self-governing people capable of secular âfoundingâ acts without recourse to transcendent principles. Accessible in length and style, Modern Social Imaginaries offers a clear and concise framework for understanding the structure of modern life in the West and the different forms modernity has taken around the world.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent dissection of the ideology of modernity.......2006-05-16

This book is Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (not to be confused with the Liberian ex-dictator of the same name!) at his most concise and accessible. Here he uses his typical "history of ideas" approach to explaining the content of the modern way of seeing the world, one that so profoundly affects the West and its policies yet is so hard to describe.

Taylor's general philosophical project is to attack the idea of Western liberalism as being a "neutral" or "non-ideological" view of the world, and to downplay its role in the formation of modern man. Instead, he proposes a more communitarian view of liberalism, where liberalism is one comprehensive moral doctrine between others, but happens (for historical reasons) to be one that has been very succesful in shaping the mindset of Western man, rather more so than it has been succesful politically.

Taylor also rejects many of the ideas of liberalism itself, in particular the "rights-based" thinking and its concept of the individual's relation to his culture. The former is most clearly seen in his book "Sources of the Self", whereas the latter is most clearly expressed in this work. The modern social imaginary, i.e. the ways in which modern man is capable of seeing the world (which is not the same as the way he sees the world!) is explored from every possible cultural and philosophical angle.

On the whole, his communitarian philosophy tends to be conservative, but rather of the traditionalist conservative kind than of the religiously inspired reactionary kind one sees in the US so much (though Taylor is very catholic). His interests are clearly in defining what makes modernist culture a culture of its own and why it is a historically developed integral whole, not a content-neutral political system as many liberals seem to think it is. Because of this appeal to historicism, Taylor's work is also very useful and interesting for more radical progressives seeking to criticize the liberal's claims to neutrality and autonomy.

On the whole, this booklet (less than 200 pages of content) is an exciting and relatively legible summary of Taylor's views on Western society and where it came from. Recommended to everyone except those who have read Taylor's larger works (especially "Sources of the Self" and "Multiculturalism"), for whom it will perhaps not be as new as it was for me.

How we imagine who we are.......2006-03-24

Charles Taylor, along with Will Kymlicka, represents Canada's claim to be taken seriously as an intellectual superpower. In this small work, he has brought his immense intellect to bear on the question of how we imagine who we are as members of societies. For students of political theory this is a useful work.

Lucid Brilliance.......2006-01-01

Charles Taylor is one of the Western world's foremost intellectuals and theorists of what is broadly called "modernity" which begins somewhere around the 16th century and continues today, even as it is challenged by so-called "post-modernists". The current work puts the concept of modernity into a theoretical framework which Taylor terms the "social imaginary" (hence the title of the book).

The "social imaginary", broadly speaking, consists of images, stories and legends, is shared by large groups of people, and serves to make possible "common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy" (23). The particularities of the *modern* social imaginary is that "Modernity is secular ... in the fact that religion occupies a different place, compatible with the sense that all action takes place in profane time" (194). The modern social imaginary consists of the objectivity of the economic sphere, the public sphere (which is beyond the control of any particular political or religion interest group) vs. the private sphere (which is the sphere of the family and of religion), and the sovereignty of "the people".

What emerges, then, is a series of fairly thick discussions of political philosophy, economic theory and, yes, theology. Taylor ties modernity to Protestantism for in setting itself against the medieval/catholic worldview of sacred time (feast and fast days with their attendant saints, liturgical seasons) and the broadly accepted idea that the world was enchanted - miracles, angels, demons and saints were all a part of the medieval worldview - time itself became a profane realm such that it would eventually become eclipsed by nationalism with its own local feast days and national saints (patriots, so to speak). The disenchantment of the world, then, is the foundation of the modern social imaginary and all modernities are rooted in this disenchantment.

This disenchantment, however, is by no means the exorcising of the idea of a moral order. What the aforementioned disenchantment serves to do is to root the belief in a moral order in something other than a transcendent realm: nature. Nature, reason and science all serve to metaphysically ground a particular understanding of people - that they are fundamentally reasonable/rational - and, from this, that society must necessarily progress along natural, reasonable lines. This understanding of people makes people sovereign, so to speak, and eventually serves to ground what Taylor sees as the ultimate myth of modernity: the American myth of "We the people..." founding their own political *order*.

This is a brilliant work and, despite its highly theoretical orientation, should be picked up by all who are interested in discussions of moderity, religion, the public sphere, democracy, and the moral order. As an extended discussion of a central section of his Gifford Lectures of 1999, "Living in a Secular Age", it also serves as a tantalizing prelude to Taylor's next book.

Brilliant - though often confusing........2005-03-29

In Modern Social Imaginaries, Charles Taylor does what he does best - trace the trajectories of certain ideas that we take as unquestionable truths. In this particular piece, he examines the "imaginaries" of the market economy, the public sphere, and the notion of self-governing people. He then provides a facinating examination of the French Revolution in contrast to the American Revolution to demonstrate how new imaginaries are built upon past imaginaries -- with stunningly different results.

I must say -- one thing that troubles me about Taylor is his writing style. He is often hard to follow. He has a habit of saying there are three points to x, but then not clearly stating what they are. Also, he often goes off on an example that is fascinating -- but it is difficult to know what his point is because he doesn't tie it back to his main argument clearly.

This said - I still think this is an amazing book. I would reccommend keeping his argument in mind as you read his examples because he is so interesting that it is tempting to get lost in them, and lose the argument in the process.

Concise, easy to understand and, most of all, insightful.......2004-06-10

This book seems an extension of Charles Taylor's Tanner Lecture delivered a decade ago on public sphere as a moral value imbedded in Western modernity. Now, he develops an interpretation on three modern imaginary (but real) spheres of market economy, public sphere, and self-governing people, regarding them as different instances in the construction of primary modern morality, 'mutual benefits.' I think this is an important step that seamlessly connects two different philosophy giants-Habermas and Foucault- as well as an original explication of Western modernity. Highly recommended those who interested in themes such as modernity in general, modern construction of market, and public sphere and public opinion.

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New and captivating ideas about our past
one of the major books of the eighties in France. Secularisa

The Disenchantment of the World
Marcel Gauchet
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Modern Social Imaginaries (Public Planet)
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ASIN: 0691029377

Book Description

Marcel Gauchet has launched one of the most ambitious and controversial works of speculative history recently to appear, based on the contention that Christianity is "the religion of the end of religion." In The Disenchantment of the World, Gauchet reinterprets the development of the modern west, with all its political and psychological complexities, in terms of mankind's changing relation to religion. He views Western history as a movement away from religious society, beginning with prophetic Judaism, gaining tremendous momentum in Christianity, and eventually leading to the rise of the political state. Gauchet's view that monotheistic religion itself was a form of social revolution is rich with implications for readers in fields across the humanities and social sciences.

Life in religious society, Gauchet reminds us, involves a very different way of being than we know in our secular age: we must imagine prehistoric times where ever-present gods controlled every aspect of daily reality, and where ancestor worship grounded life's meaning in a far-off past. As prophecy-oriented religions shaped the concept of a single omnipotent God, one removed from the world and yet potentially knowable through prayer and reflection, human beings became increasingly free. Gauchet's paradoxical argument is that the development of human political and psychological autonomy must be understood against the backdrop of this double movement in religious consciousness--the growth of divine power and its increasing distance from human activity.

In a fitting tribute to this passionate and brilliantly argued book, Charles Taylor offers an equally provocative foreword. Offering interpretations of key concepts proposed by Gauchet, Taylor also explores an important question: Does religion have a place in the future of Western society? The book does not close the door on religion but rather invites us to explore its socially constructive powers, which continue to shape Western politics and conceptions of the state.

Customer Reviews:

New and captivating ideas about our past.......2006-02-05

French thought, killed by Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and the Postmodern gang, appears resurrected by the likes of Gauchet. In physics the most deeply piercing ideas are the simplest, and in the form of seemingly unrelated phenomena - gravity seen as geometry for example. Gauchet's ideas are like this. "Disenchantment" is emphatically not a political history of religion alone, but much more - a perspective on the development of ideas, civilization and human thought.

Gauchet practices the tradition of substantive history Postmoderns "failed to extinguish". However, like lawyers and their guarded legalese, sociologists have their own vocabulary that could be rendered simple but isn't. In keeping with this tradition Gauchet includes every idea and caveat under the sun by a single period. Destined never to be a best seller, obtuse, bloated lines or paragraphs require multiple re-readings but efforts receive magnificent rewards for insights found nowhere else.

The State is the first religious revolution in history, claims Gauchet. Per Gauchet the original religion - before advent of the city - intended "to preserve their inviolable legacy, repeating their sacred teaching". But structurally the State comes with a hierarchy between people and their gods, some closer than others. "The gods withdraw and simultaneously the nonquestionable becomes questionable, affirmed by the hold humans have on the organization of their own world." "The imperial ambition to dominate the world comes with the [advent of] the State", bringing upheaval to man's unchanging position in the world. "The power of a few individuals to act in the name of the gods is the barely perceptible, yet irreversible step toward everyone having an influence on the god's decrees... The State ushers in an age of opposition between social structure and the essence of [religion]. Political domination, which decisively entangles the gods in history, will prove to be the invisible hoist lifting us out of the religious." Opportunities to depart from previous religious ways presented themselves. Unavoidable questions arose concerning our fate, the search was on, each for themselves, fractured compared to what began as unquestioned practice of one's place in the cosmos. As Gauchet notes with "disenchantment" (leading to our loss of roll in god's creation dictated by the social structure) humans become more autonomous but contradictions arise; the promise of eternal life, but also of life's renunciation (to inhance our image of the next); our promise justified by the god's will, separate from that god, but desirous of fusing with that god. Religion's decline is paid for by the difficulty of individuation. The greater our degree of individuation, the greater our problem of self, the greater interest in past eras when one need not deal with uncertainties this new way provided. What is now experienced as problematic, spiritual systems experienced as resolved.

The State's development, says Gauchet, is responsible for the so called Axial Age when all the world's religions from Near East to Far East sprang forth by concepts emergent from circumstances of the State. "Higher religions" of the Axial Age sought to unify their nature via supreme transcendent principles - a superior God, Order, Idea. Ideas beyond mere order in life and no longer as self-evident as simply taking one's place, repeating old rituals. One eventually must seek this higher reality via devotion / revelation (Near East) or understanding / enlightenment (Far East) - the conception moment of individuation.

Gauchet notes monotheism first invented by Akhenaton was on track with what had been taking place in Mesopotamia via Assyria and Babylon as Assur and Marduk were ethical superiors to their pantheon, tending to simplify it. However, the critical difference of Israelite's god was not based on the old ancestral order but on a commitment to his saving intervention - as Israel did, after all, lay between the most powerful forces on earth, thus creating something new out of an extreme social need to dominate what dominated them. Once established by the prophets who sound a good deal like lobbyists, there developed clarity of Judaism's internal contradiction - a universal God exclusively for but one of his creations. At the height of human evisceration and unsettling of the Roman Empire - like Brooks Adams' 1896 illuminating "Law Of Civilization And Decay" - Christianity responds with its own conceptual twist. Jesus is of God, maintaining that link as before, but God is now for all people, not one group alone. "We are not dealing with a challenge to reason, but to the logic of a cultural system," writes Gauchet, and only contradiction could supply the required response, leading people not to a terrestrial promised land as Moses had, but removing them spiritually from it while remaining bodily engaged in the suffering of life. A creative solution to another contradiction in empire between its inherited religious order of the old ways still present and the actual system of domination.

According to Gauchet, this separation and eviction of God from nature transforms everything that humans had held against themselves to maintain permanent identity with the past into a reversal of unrestrained action against everything around them. The old way submerged human order in nature's order, feeling at one with nature, a co-belonging so strong any damage done required ritual compensation restoring the balance. Nature becomes opposed and possessed in a renunciation of this world in the name of the other. God, having been made external to the world, the world then became external to humans. As God was withdrawn, our perception of "the world changed from something unalterable to something to be constituted." A full turn about occurs, from domination of people to the domination of nature. (Hence our current worldwide environmental decline, the Far East only mimicking Western process without the belief system.) Though it could use more reference to historical evidence a remarkable book.

one of the major books of the eighties in France. Secularisa.......1999-01-07

This book was published already in 1985 in France and has had an significant influence in intellectual circles. The main argument of Gauchet is that secularisation of society (the word "désenchantement" directly refers to Max Weber's Entzauberaung) is both rooted in christianity and a process against christianity. The christian religion, by laying down the ground for it, made it possible for modern societies (say, after 1789 in France and continental Europe) to abandon heteronomia (government of the society and of the self by an external authority, beit God, tradition, etc...) and to swich to autonomia (in the kantian sense, this is the self government of the individual and of society). Gauchet recently (1998) published a short book on the same theme, La religion dans la démocratie (Ed. Gallimard).

Although I quote the theme of the book under "secularisation", Gauchet rejects this concept, precisely because it is too much influenced by the religious "Weltanschauung". He rather speaks of "la sortie de la religion" (the exit of religion). I would say that this book is the book of an anthropologist of Wertern societies rather than of an historian or a philosopher.

Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate (Special Report (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching))
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Remarkably thorough and extremely well done!

Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate (Special Report (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching))
Charles E. Glassick , Mary Taylor Huber , and Gene I. Maeroff
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate

Faculty Priorities Reconsidered: Rewarding Multiple Forms of Scholarship

Institutionalizing a Broader View of Scholarship Through Boyer's Four Domains, Volume 29, Number 2

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The Advancement of Learning: Building the Teaching Commons (JB-Carnegie Foundation for the Adavancement of Teaching)

ASIN: 0787910910

Book Description

Scholarship Assessed continues the exploration begun by Scholarship Reconsidered. It examines the changing nature of scholarship in today's colleges and universities and proposes new standards with a special emphasis on methods for assessment and documentation.

Begun under the oversight of Ernest L. Boyer, and based on the findings of the Carnegie Foundation's National Survey on the Reexamination of Faculty Roles and Rewards, Scholarship Assessed provides a base of information for and gives focus to the debate of institutional standards of rigor and quality.

Customer Reviews:

Remarkably thorough and extremely well done!.......1998-07-18

Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate

by Charles E. Glassick, Mary Taylor Huber, and Gene I. Maeroff

(San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1997)

In the Carnegie Foundation report, Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate, authors Charles E. Glassick, Mary Taylor Huber and Gene I. Maeroff create an even more inclusive vision of scholarship from the late Ernest L. Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, the Foundation's 1990 report. With the blessing of Boyer, The Carnegie Foundation's past president, these authors suggest standards and applications by which the entire range of an institution's scholastic endeavor (research, writing, teaching, etc.) can be documented and evaluated. The new report will greatly benefit institutions of higher education desiring to define and evaluate the academic performance of faculty.

The authors are impressively credentialed and each has been, or is currently, associated wit! ! h The Carnegie Foundation. Charles E. Glassick served as interim president of the Foundation between January 1996 and July 1997. Mary Taylor Huber is presently serving the Foundation as a senior scholar, and Gene I. Maeroff served the Foundation between 1986 and 1997. Presently Dr. Maeroff directs the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The report is remarkably thorough and extremely well done. In every respect it supports the paradigm Boyer proposes in his initial work. Therein is both its strength and weakness. One has only to read Boyer's work in order to predict the logic of the new report. This is not to question the merit of the new work, but rather to suggest that as much effort seems to have been spent in reconciling the two reports as in the stated purpose of formulating standards of assessing scholarship and evaluating the professoriate.

The report responds to what it considers to be a major societal transition! ! that requires higher education to keep pace and even facil! itate change. At stake, according to the authors, is "the capacity of higher education to meet its responsibilities for teaching, research, and service to society" (p. 5). The mission of higher education must be current, and the activities of faculty must relate "more directly to the realities of contemporary life" (p. 6). The authors link the evolution of higher education with historical precedents and key events from the educational philosophy of colonial days to its pragmatic role in the present. Within that philosophical shift, the priorities of faculty are established. While virtually all institutions continue to address education on the undergraduate level, some enjoy distinction in the areas of research, publishing, and service through the application of knowledge. The report observes that the performance of the professoriate is most often determined by the reward structure of their institution.

At the conclusion of the report, the questionnaire us! ! ed for the survey and the survey results are presented in table form. Responses are reported collectively and broken down per institutional classification. The results profile research, doctorate granting, comprehensive, and liberal arts institutions in an impressive manner. An institution should be able to compare its own policies with others, and, at the same time, determine progress in addressing critical issues in higher education. The survey is as much a report card on higher education as an effective tool for the construction of the report.

Scholarship Assessed discusses the strengths of Dr. Boyer's suggested definition of scholarship, specifically, "the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of integration, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of teaching" (p. 9). Thereafter, however, it begins to construct a timely system of evaluation intended to recognize, assess, and even link the contributions of the professoriate in its broadest sense! ! in a uniform and equitable manner. The results are both lo! gical and practical. It proposes six shared standards, comprising 1) clear goals, 2) adequate preparation, 3) appropriate methods, 4) significant results, 5) effective presentation, and 6) reflective critique. This methodology reflects the thinking of a broad range of higher education and para-educational systems. With little adaptation the standards can be applied to the evaluation of the professoriate.

The versatility of Boyer's system of standards is best demonstrated by its application to specific tasks such as teaching assessment. The system can potentially provide uniform evaluation of teaching performance when it is administered by administrators or students or by faculty during self-evaluation. Results might prove interesting when three vantage points are combined into a single profile. The system is a powerful diagnostic tool for identifying strengths and weaknesses in teaching. If applied in this way it can potentially influence faculty behavior and in a larger sen! ! se, provide focus for remedial attention.

Boyer's system might also be applied to learning assessment, providing certain adaptations are implemented. His fourth standard, "significant results," requires stronger definition. Specifically, it requires a clear means of learning measurement in conjunction with planned goals. His final two standards, "effective presentation" and "reflective critique," should be sufficiently defined to differentiate learning styles. An ultimate determination as to the system's suitability to assess learning would be its application to different learning theories.

Scholarship Assessed inseparably links itself to Dr. Boyer's initial report. While the first twenty-one pages of the work serve as interesting background, they are essentially unnecessary, other than to recognize the vision of a distinguished scholar. Initially, the tone of the report is reminiscent of a family mourning the loss of a loved one. Perhaps the ! ! report would have been even stronger and more credible if t! he authorship had extended beyond family members. The report could have very easily eliminated the tribute portion and stood on its own merit. Still, Scholarship Assessed is certainly worthy to be recognized as a stand-alone work. It will undoubtedly assume a place as a valuable resource of institutions of all classifications. It will almost certainly inspire further study for many years to come.

William G. Sunday

The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia
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Like the layout

Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia

Homeschoolers need this book

Pretty book, marginally acceptable science, appalling writing

The science spine for Well Trained Mind homeschoolers

The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia

Manufacturer: Kingfisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0753458861

Book Description

With today's emphasis on fast-moving technology, as well as increasing pressure to meet the testing standards of science and math in the classroom, the need to grasp key scientific principles has never been greater. The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia is the one reference that includes all of the information students need to know in today's fast-paced world. Clearly written and illustrated articles provide in-depth insight and concise authoritative information. An impressive reference section at the end of the book contains minibiographies of famous scientists, plus an illustrated time line of key inventions and discoveries. Arranged thematically into ten chapters, with reference summaries at the end of each chapter and a full index, the encyclopedia does more than merely provide facts about science and technologyit helps the reader think for him or herself, develop an enquiring mind, pose challenging questions, and explore new topics.

Customer Reviews:

Like the layout.......2007-05-14

I purchased this book because it is recommeneded in The Well Trained Mind. We will be using it in our home school next year. I love that it is laid out by subject area. It seems to be the perfect amount of information for elementary education. Lots of full color pictures and drawings.

Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia.......2006-06-28

The book has wonderful pictures and graphics. However - each subject is merely glanced over with little in depth coverage. It isn't very useful as a study resource unless you like to look at pictures.

Homeschoolers need this book.......2006-06-08

For homeschooling (and indeed for any child who loves to learn), there are two names to look out for: Kingfisher and Usborne. Like the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, the Science Encyclopedia forms a core study guide for homeschoolers. The book is divided into ten main sections, which gives you the option of concentrating on a broad topic, and picking out individual subjects within that topic. So there are 48 pages under 'Planet Earth' for example, and each subject is a manageable one or two pages long. That's perfect for the homeschooling family - the subjects are never too long to become tedious, but if your child wants to learn more, pick out another equally manageable subject and extend that day's science lesson a little.

I've always agreed with the adage 'a picture paints a thousand words', and the illustrations in this book are first class. Kingfisher has really invested money and effort into these pictures, and they bring to life subjects which might otherwise be difficult to grasp. Science can be difficult to teach at home, partly because it's difficult and expensive to buy apparatus, chemicals, etc. So illustrations are key to understanding what would happen if you did the experiment yourself. I'm not saying that this is a substitute for practical work, but it's the best you will get without getting hands-on.

If you DO have the equipment (and in some cases you don't need much - for resonance find a glass and a wet finger!) the pictures enhance the learning experience.

Like all encyclopedias of its type, realistically you should not expect to learn everything there is to know about the whole of science, but you really shouldn't be expecting that from a single volume. What you get here is the basic knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, and other branches of science. These are the key to an understanding of the way science works.

If you're using this book as part of the 'Well Trained Mind' homeschooling method (and if you haven't heard of it, look it up on Amazon), this will serve your children well. I've not looked at other methods, but I can't imagine that you would want to overlook the book whatever route you take.

Every 1 or 2-page subject should have your children (and you!) wanting to do further reading, which is what homeschooling is all about - giving them an appetite for learning.

I mentioned Usborne, and their Science Encyclopedia is also a quality publication, which has a 'see for yourself' section in each subject - usually a simple experiment to complement the topic. Ideally you'd use both books together (the Kingfisher is 100 pages longer and thus covers more areas), and you will by no means be disappointed with either.

I can't rate this book highly enough - as a general one-volume science book, it's hard to beat.

Pretty book, marginally acceptable science, appalling writing.......2005-09-10

This book only gets two stars because of the gorgeousness of the pictures. The actual science content is shoddy, and the writing is horrific. Don't be fooled: Kingfisher is owned by a public school curriculum company, and it shares all the same flaws that a text book has.

Bitterly disappointing.

The science spine for Well Trained Mind homeschoolers.......2004-08-20

This is our science centerpiece book for our homeschooled grammar stage kids. The plan is: we read a couple of pages appropriate to grade level (first is biol; second is earth sci/planetary sci; third is chemistry; fourth is physical science/computer science). The kids make a timeline of major events in science history (invention of microscope; "discovery" of gravity, etc.). We then head to the library for more books on the subject (ooh, dinosaur books...). Later, it's reports or dictation (again, based on grade level) and, after a couple of weeks, on to the next topic.
This is a great science book to use as the basis of your curriculum because it's all there in one book. Rather than purchasing a different curriculum (with worksheets, etc.) for each grade, this book is used for all four years. Greatly reduces your costs!
Good book, well put-together. See Well Trained Mind for more info on homeschooling your kid.

If you're not homeschooling, this book is a great way to cement the cracks in the education your kids may be receiving. Quite frankly, it's a great way to learn stuff YOU might have missed.

Images of the Journey in Dante's Divine Comedy

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Images of the Journey in Dante's Divine Comedy
Charles H. Taylor , and Patricia Finley
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300068344

Book Description

This magnificently illustrated book assembles more than 250 illustrations of Dante`s poem, created by fifteen known artists and some twenty anonymous illuminators to depict every aspect of the pilgrim`s journey to the depths of Hell, the mountain of Purgatory, and the heavenly spheres of Paradise.

Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited (Institute for Human Sciences Vienna Lecture Series)

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Varieties of Reading Experience
What the heck?
A reflection on religious belief and the state

Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited (Institute for Human Sciences Vienna Lecture Series)
Charles Taylor
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
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ASIN: 0674012534

Book Description

A hundred years after William James delivered the celebrated lectures that became The Varieties of Religious Experience, one of the foremost thinkers in the English-speaking world returns to the questions posed in James's masterpiece to clarify the circumstances and conditions of religion in our day. An elegant mix of the philosophy and sociology of religion, Charles Taylor's powerful book maintains a clear perspective on James's work in its historical and cultural contexts, while casting a new and revealing light upon the present.

Lucid, readable, and dense with ideas that promise to transform current debates about religion and secularism, Varieties of Religion Today is much more than a revisiting of James's classic. Rather, it places James's analysis of religious experience and the dilemmas of doubt and belief in an unfamiliar but illuminating context, namely the social horizon in which questions of religion come to be presented to individuals in the first place.

Taylor begins with questions about the way in which James conceives his subject, and shows how these questions arise out of different ways of understanding religion that confronted one another in James's time and continue to do so today. Evaluating James's treatment of the ethics of belief, he goes on to develop an innovative and provocative reading of the public and cultural conditions in which questions of belief or unbelief are perceived to be individual questions. What emerges is a remarkable and penetrating view of the relation between religion and social order and, ultimately, of what "religion" means.

Customer Reviews:

Varieties of Reading Experience.......2004-05-05

This book is a fascinating, thought-provoking meditation on religious issues related to William James' classic work. Taylor's take on religious developments in Western Europe/North America is fascinating and enlightening in several senses of the word. And while truly respectful of William James and his insights, Taylor is no cheerleader and convincingly discusses a number of James' key blind spots along with their probable sources. The book's brevity and readability belies the punch it packs.
The one glaring imperfection is the pedantic and pretentious refusal to translate French quotations, some of which seem like they're probably quite important. Too bad, I'll never know for sure.

What the heck?.......2002-09-20

Seeking enlightenment? Seek somewhere else? This "update" to the classic is a classic waste of time. Unlike the original, you will give it to your library to write it off on your taxes.

A reflection on religious belief and the state.......2002-06-29

This book is a collection of a series of lectures Charles Taylor gave reflecting on the legacy of William James. In thinking about James' work, Taylor reflects on the tensions between private religous experience and public religious expression; the problem of belief and unbelief; and the implications our religious beliefs have for our political organization. It is almost impossible to do justice to the richness of Taylor's thought in a short review.

Taylor's first task is to situate James within his own religious context. James inherited the strand of religious belief that was quintessentially Protestant -- with an emphasis on private feeling as against public expression. For James, the ultimate religious experience is private and fundamentally individual. This precludes James from fully grasping the types of religious expression that are more communally-based.

Taylor's second task is to reflect on James personal struggle with the question of belief and unbelief. In James' day a strong argument was being made that religious belief is intellectually dishonest. Taylor offers a good summary of James' defense of belief as a viable choice.

Finally, Taylor integrates James' thought with the question of how our religious belief interacts with our political structures. Taylor offers an invaluable historical narrative of the variety of relationships between religion and state that we have seen in the past. In doing so, he makes our current dilemmas much clearer. We are moving from a country that has a broad consensus in some sort of belief, but which allows individuals to join whatever church best gives expression to that experience, to a country in which there is no such broad consensus. If there is no shared understanding of the sacred, we are forced to ground our political structures in the purely human. It is not yet clear whether the new project will succeed, but in his reflections on the tensions between belief and unbelief and their relationship to our political organization, Taylor can only enhance our discussions as we move forward into this virgin territory.

Taylor's book does presume that the reader has a fairly sophisticated historical sense. And he often makes reference to the situation in France, which can be a bit opaque to those who lack a basic familiarity with French culture. Indeed, he often quotes from French writers without offering a translation. Still, the book offers valuable insights, even to those without the background to fully grasp everything he writes.

Philosophers:

Philosophers

Philosophers