The Delusions Of Certainty

Prizewinning novelist, feminist, and scholar Siri Hustvedt turns her brilliant and critical eye toward the metaphysical issues of neuropsychology in this lauded, standalone volume. Originally published in her collection A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, The Delusions of Certainty exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped - and often distorted and confused - contemporary thought in neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary psychology.

A compelling, radical, “richly explored” (The New York Times Book Review), and “insightful” (Vanity Fair) collection of essays on art, feminism, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy from prize-winning novelist Siri Hustvedt, the acclaimed author of The Blazing World and What I Loved. In a trilogy of works brought together in a single volume, Siri Hustvedt demonstrates the striking range and depth of her knowledge in both the humanities and the sciences. Armed with passionate curiosity, a sense of humor, and insights from many disciplines she repeatedly upends received ideas and cultural truisms. “A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women” (which provided the title of this book) examines particular artworks but also human perception itself, including the biases that influence how we judge art, literature, and the world. Picasso, de Kooning, Louise Bourgeois, Anselm Kiefer, Susan Sontag, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Karl Ove Knausgaard all come under Hustvedt’s intense scrutiny. “The Delusions of Certainty” exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped and often distorted and confused contemporary thought in neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary psychology. “What Are We? Lectures on the Human Condition” includes a powerful reading of Kierkegaard, a trenchant analysis of suicide, and penetrating reflections on the mysteries of hysteria, synesthesia, memory and space, and the philosophical dilemmas of fiction. A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women is an “erudite” (Booklist), “wide-ranging, irreverent, and absorbing meditation on thinking, knowing, and being” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Why do some companies prosper while others fail? Despite great amounts of research, many of the studies that claim to pin down the secret of success are based in pseudoscience. THE HALO EFFECT is the outcome of that pseudoscience, a myth that Philip Rosenzweig masterfully debunks in THE HALO EFFECT. THE HALO EFFECT highlights the tendency of experts to point to the high financial performance of a successful company and then spread its golden glow to all of the company's attributes - clear strategy, strong values, and brilliant leadership. But in fact, as Rosenzweig clearly illustrates, the experts are not just wrong, but deluded. Rosenzweig suggests a more accurate way to think about leading a company, a robust and clearheaded approach that can save any business from ultimate failure.

In this book, Hustvedt gives us nine essays on the significance of particular works of art, replete with original insights and a few startling discoveries. In her essay on Giorgione's The Tempest, a painting that has mystified art critics for hundreds of years, the author reinterprets the canvas as a work about art and voyeurism. While looking at The Third of May, she was astonished to discover that Goya had hidden his own self-portrait in a shadowy corner of his iconic masterwork. More than anything, the essays in this book display a true passion for art, from the still lifes of Jean-Baptiste Chardin and Giorgio Morandi to the contemporary works of Joan Mitchell and Gerhard Richter. Hustvedt captures perfectly the pleasure found in giving oneself up to the complexities and ambiguities of painting, discovering new subtleties and surprises the longer one takes the time to look.--Back cover.

Religious scholar Hart argues that contemporary antireligious polemics are based not only upon conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history and provides a powerful antidote to the New Atheists' misrepresentations of the Christian past.

How were the aims of philosophy and the responsibilities of philosophers conceived in ancient Greece and China? How were the learned elite recruited and controlled; how were their speculations and advice influenced by the different types of audiences they faced and the institutions in which they worked? How was a yearning for invulnerability reconciled with a sense of human frailty? In each chapter of this fascinating analysis ancient Greek and Chinese ideas and practices are used as a basis for critical reflections on the predicaments we continue to face today, with a particular focus on the key Greek ideas of the equal participation of all citizens in the political process, and on the key Chinese one of a dedication to the ideal of the welfare of all under heaven

2013 sees the centenary of Jaspers' foundation of psychopathology as a science with the publication of his magnum opus the Allgemeine Psychopathologie (General Psychopathology), Many of the issues concerning methodology and diagnosis are today the subject of much discussion and debate. This volume brings together leading psychiatrists and philosophers to discuss the impact of this volume, its relevance today, and the legacy it left.

“Gary Greenberg has become the Dante of our psychiatric age, and the DSM-5 is his Inferno.” —Errol Morris Since its debut in 1952, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has set down the “official” view on what constitutes mental illness. Homosexuality, for instance, was a mental illness until 1973. Each revision has created controversy, but the DSM-5 has taken fire for encouraging doctors to diagnose more illnesses—and to prescribe sometimes unnecessary or harmful medications. Respected author and practicing psychotherapist Gary Greenberg embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition, and returned with an unsettling tale. Exposing the deeply flawed process behind the DSM-5’s compilation, The Book of Woe reveals how the manual turns suffering into a commodity—and made the APA its own biggest beneficiary.

Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Fooled by Randomness is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb–veteran trader, renowned risk expert, polymathic scholar, erudite raconteur, and New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan–has written a modern classic that turns on its head what we believe about luck and skill. This book is about luck–or more precisely, about how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill–the world of trading–Fooled by Randomness provides captivating insight into one of the least understood factors in all our lives. Writing in an entertaining narrative style, the author tackles major intellectual issues related to the underestimation of the influence of happenstance on our lives. The book is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: the baseball legend Yogi Berra; the philosopher of knowledge Karl Popper; the ancient world’s wisest man, Solon; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Odysseus. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life but falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness. However, the most recognizable character of all remains unnamed–the lucky fool who happens to be in the right place at the right time–he embodies the “survival of the least fit.” Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru’s insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained by chance. Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? It may be impossible to guard ourselves against the vagaries of the goddess Fortuna, but after reading Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared. Named by Fortune One of the Smartest Books of All Time A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year