The Mit Press: 939 books
Engaging Nature
Environmentalism and the Political Theory Canon
Language: English
Release Date: December 19, 2014
Essays that put noted political thinkers of the past—including Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Wollstonecraft, Marx, and Confucius—in dialogue with current environmental political theory.
Contemporary environmental political theory considers the implications of the environmental crisis for...
Žižek's Jokes
(Did you hear the one about Hegel and negation?)
Language: English
Release Date: February 21, 2014
Žižek as comedian: jokes in the service of philosophy.
“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”—Ludwig Wittgenstein
The good news is that this book offers an entertaining but enlightening compilation of Žižekisms. Unlike any other...
Empathy
From Bench to Bedside
Language: English
Release Date: December 9, 2011
Recent work on empathy theory, research, and applications, by scholars from disciplines ranging from neuroscience to psychoanalysis.
There are many reasons for scholars to investigate empathy. Empathy plays a crucial role in human social interaction at all stages of life; it is thought to help...
by David Skrbina
Language: English
Release Date: September 15, 2017
Language: English
Release Date: September 15, 2017
An updated edition of a comprehensive study of the theory that mind exists, in some form, in all living and nonliving things.
In Panpsychism in the West, the first comprehensive study of the subject, David Skrbina argues for the importance of panpsychism—the theory that mind exists, in some...
Disclosing the World
On the Phenomenology of Language
Language: English
Release Date: March 11, 2016
A phenomenological conception of language, drawing on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein, with implications for both the philosophy of language and current cognitive science.
In this book, Andrew Inkpin considers the disclosive function of language—what language does in revealing...
The Problem With Software
Why Smart Engineers Write Bad Code
Language: English
Release Date: September 28, 2018
An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software—and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know.
Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really...
The Global Biopolitics of the IUD
How Science Constructs Contraceptive Users and Women's Bodies
Language: English
Release Date: October 21, 2011
The biography of a multifaceted technological object, the IUD, illuminates how political contexts shaped contraceptive development, marketing, use, and users.
The intrauterine device (IUD) is used by 150 million women around the world. It is the second most prevalent method of female fertility...
Cryopolitics
Frozen Life in a Melting World
Language: English
Release Date: March 24, 2017
The social, political, and cultural consequences of attempts to cheat death by freezing life.
As the planet warms and the polar ice caps melt, naturally occurring cold is a resource of growing scarcity. At the same time, energy-intensive cooling technologies are widely used as a means of preservation....
Who's Asking?
Native Science, Western Science, and Science Education
Language: English
Release Date: January 3, 2014
Analysis and case studies show that including different orientations toward the natural world makes for more effective scientific practice and science education.
The answers to scientific questions depend on who's asking, because the questions asked and the answers sought reflect the cultural...
Multicellularity
Origins and Evolution
Language: English
Release Date: February 19, 2016
Scholars consider the origins and consequences of the evolution of multicellularity, addressing a range of organisms, experimental protocols, theoretical concepts, and philosophical issues.
The evolution of multicellularity raises questions regarding genomic and developmental commonalities...
Harvesting the Biosphere
What We Have Taken from Nature
Language: English
Release Date: December 21, 2012
An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production.
The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared....
by Andreas Schäfer, John B. Heywood, Henry D. Jacoby
Language: English
Release Date: April 17, 2009
Language: English
Release Date: April 17, 2009
A discussion of the opportunities and challenges involved mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from passenger travel.
In the nineteenth century, horse transportation consumed vast amounts of land for hay production, and the intense traffic and ankle-deep manure created miserable living conditions...
by Vaclav Smil, Kazuhiko Kobayashi
Language: English
Release Date: August 24, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: August 24, 2012
An examination of the transformation of the Japanese diet from subsistence to abundance and an assessment of the consequences for health, longevity, and the environment.
In a little more than a century, the Japanese diet has undergone a dramatic transformation. In 1900, a plant-based, near-subsistence...
Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change
Human Virtues of the Future
Language: English
Release Date: March 9, 2012
Predictions about global climate change have produced both stark scenarios of environmental catastrophe and purportedly pragmatic ideas about adaptation. This book takes a different perspective, exploring the idea that the challenge of adapting to global climate change is fundamentally an ethical...