A brilliant analysis of the transition in world economics, finance, and power as the era of globalization ends and gives way to new power centers and institutions.The world is at a turning point similar to the fall of communism. Then, many focused on the collapse itself, and failed to see that a bigger trend, globalization, was about to take hold. The benefits of globalization--through the freer flow of money, people, ideas, and trade--have been many. But rather th...

A brilliant analysis of the transition in world economics, finance, and power as the era of globalization ends and gives way to new power centers and institutions.The world is at a turning point similar to the fall of communism. Then, many focused on the collapse itself, and failed to see that a bigger trend, globalization, was about to take hold. The benefits of globalization--through the freer flow of money, people, ideas, and trade--have been many. But rather th...

This is the first book-length study of the humanities and the Irish university. Ireland was a deeply religious country throughout the twentieth century but the colleges of its National University never established a religion or theology department. The official first language of Ireland is Irish but the vast majority of teaching in the arts and humanities is in English. These are two of the anomalies that long constrained humanities education in Ireland.This book charts a history o...

David Hume’s 1748 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a modern philosophical classic that helped reshape epistemology – the philosophy of knowledge. It is also a classic of the critical thinking skills of analysis and reasoning.Analysis is all about understanding how arguments work and fit together. Having strong analytical skills helps to break down arguments, pull out the evidence on which they rely, and understand the kinds of implicit assumptions and reasons on w...

The practice of fixed prosthodontics has undergone many changes in recent times with significant developments in dental materials and principles of adhesion. However, tooth preparation is still guided by the need to preserve tooth tissue, generate space for restorative material and reshape the tooth to a cylindrical form with a defined finish line. This book carries these principles as a common theme and delineates the stages of prosthesis construction.

In this provocative 1949 work, Ryle proposes that what we think of as the “mind” is little more than an illusion. René Descartes, one of the fathers of philosophy, imagined the mind and body as separate entities, a concept known as “mind-body dualism.” Ryle rejected this notion, arguing that mental processes cannot be isolated from the physical world and that our distinction between concepts pertaining to the mind and those pertaining to matter arises from a problematic use of language. Th...

More than two centuries after its initial publication in 1781, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason remains perhaps the most influential text in modern philosophy. Kant wanted metaphysicians to move away from their endless battles about whether or not human knowledge must conform to independently given objects. Instead, he argues that progress in philosophy is only possible by agreeing that objects conform to forms of human cognition, or awareness. ¶Much of the history of philosophy can be recou...

Excited by the scientific breakthroughs of the day, David Hume set out to construct a science of the mind. 1748’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is the result. ¶A work that had a huge influence on great thinkers, including Kant, An Enquiry is Hume’s examination of how we obtain information and form beliefs. He argues that we gain knowledge empirically, through our senses. But while these impressions are key to our beliefs about the world, Hume felt that we underestimate the impo...

This book examines how Irishness as national narrative is consistently understood ‘from a distance’. Irish Presidents, critics, and media initiatives focus on how Irishness is a global resource chiefly informed by the experiences of an Irish diaspora predominantly working in English, while also reminding Irish people ‘at home’ that Irish is the 'national tongue'. In returning to some of Ireland’s major expat writers and international diplomats, this book examines the economic reasons for t...

A sweeping account of three Gujarati Muslim trading communities, whose commercial success over nearly two centuries sheds new light on the history of capitalism, Islam, and empire in South Asia.During the nineteenth century, three Gujarati Muslim commercial castes—the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons—came to dominate Muslim business in South Asia. Although these communities constitute less than 1 percent of South Asia’s Muslim population, they are still disproportionatel...

The image of the university is tarnished: this book examines how recent philosophies of education, new readings of its economics, new technologies affecting research and access, and contemporary novelists' representations of university life all describe a global university that has given up on its promise of greater educational equality.

Gilbert Ryle’s 1949 The Concept of Mind is now famous above all as the origin of the phrase “the ghost in the machine” – a phrase Ryle used to attack the popular idea that our bodies and minds are separate. His own position was that mental acts are not at all distinct from bodily actions. Indeed, they are the same thing, merely described in different ways – and if one cuts through the confusing language of the old philosophical debates, he suggests, that becomes clear. While, in m...