This book is an exhaustive compilation of articles written by leading cardiologists and medical researchers who study the diseases and functioning of the heart. The sheer size of the book (over 2600 pages) make it a challenge to read entirely, but the articles that can be read are worthwhile spending time on. The only minus to the book is that there are no articles on the mathematical or computational modeling of the heart. But for studies in anatomy and physiology of the heart, and treatment of heart disease, this book is excellent. One would expect a higher price for the book considering its size and the color plates it has enclosed, so even at $150.00 it is still really a bargain.

Nobody doubts the role that Frege played with philosophy of logic, math and language. However, so little is known about Husserl's role on it. Claire Ortiz Hill exposes the fact that Husserl was influenced by the mathematicians of his time. Husserl was the student and assistant of the great mathematician Karl Weiestrass, for 15 years he was the colleague and close friend of Georg Cantor, the creator of set theory. Then he spent 15 years in David Hilbert's circle in Goetingen. From 1878 to 1916, (from the ages of 19 to 57), Husserl was in contact with the greatest mathematicians of his time that neither Bertrand Russell nor Gottlob Frege, nor their followers, came much into contact.

Husserl also had a doctrine of sense and reference that is essentially platonic. He criticized severely psychologism in his "Prolegomena to Pure Logic" in his "Logical Investigations", and never stepped back from that position, contrary to what many husserlians believe. He formulated an epistemology of math and logic, in a platonist sense, a thing Frege nor any platonist ever made with much satisfaction.

Husserl provides his doctrine that states of affairs are the reference of assertive sentences, and the reference base is a situation of affairs. Using this philosophy, Guillermo Rosado Haddock proposes a platonist solution to the problem that has puzzled mathematicians and philosophers: the interderivability of seemingly unrelated statements in logic and mathematics. Rosado also brilliantly responds to of Benacerraf's, Quine's, Putnam's and Field's anti-platonist statements.

The book is concise, clear, and up to date. The best introduction to Husserl currently available.

I am surprised that there have been no reviews for this splendid book. Husserl's IDEAS is a significant book in the history of human thought and Western philosophy, any student of philosophy or psychology would do themselfs a favor by reading this very important book. It is not my intention to write a Cliff's notes review regarding the content of this book, but the modern reader will find that Husserl's ideas makes points that expand on Kant's CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. Ideas refers to transcendental phenomenonlgy, a school of thought that placeshuman experience into a realm of personal understanding attained through a series of conceptual reductions. A trained phenomenologist (sic.) should be able to reduce objects of experience to their fundamental concepts, then remove these concepts to understand the essential features of human experience. This "PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION" is applicable to all phenomena, and when applied properly this technique isolates human experience to certain core concepts that are universal to all phenomena irregardless of space and time. I believe that Husserl's Ideas is an invaluble contribution to modern psychology, and should be required reading for all students in a liberal arts program.

I got my copy in hardback from Edmund, himself, shortly before his death in November, 1996. Images from Within: The Photographs of Edmund Teske (Untitled, 22) is one of my most precious possessions. Edmund's images are alive with the forces of life and of God--they deal with both the male and the female that exists within each one of us, yet sexuality does not enter into them. Each image speaks for itself and for no other. It is possible to find oneself totally absorbed by each image every time the book is opened (and believe me, I open my copy frequently). Edmund's images speak for themselves -- each and every image is universal. His images look to eternity. This is one book that I will never tire of, it is not, I repeat, not your usual run-of-the-mill coffee table picture book. Edmund reaches out via his images and grabs you by the heart and soul. This is a photography book that is a "must have". I have one and am on the waiting list for at least one more copy that I can give to my dearest friend! (Let my children fight for my copy after I "croak"!!)

Dr. Blakmore's analysis of these political writings is very insightful. He uncovers the intertextual conflicts, in particular between Burke and Wollstonecraft, and provides an indepth literary analysis of both. His diction is sofisticated, yet approachable to an average student of 18th Cent. Literature. A must read for anyone interested in the political philosophy of the Age of Englightment.

This book is part of a series of translations by Edmund Jephcott that also includes Adorno's lectures on Kant and ethics. I have little German but it seems to me that Jephcott knows how to translate, by immersing himself not in static German Kultur (which would be a bad mistake with regards to Adorno, a victim of bad culture) but by immersing himself in the current events in which Adorno's lecture was contextualized.

Now, this book is not what we here in the States would consider an "introduction" to "sociology.". That's because almost anything "101" is both indoctrination and education.

American social research has defined itself in reaction to Adorno. While Adorno repeatedly asserted his support for quantitative methods, American social research is based on an exclusionary reversal of the European overemphasis on theory…in which (as Adorno points out in this book) data gathering and moron math replace theory.

In terms of the philosophy of science, Adorno's ontology of social research happens to be right. Physics, unlike sociology, can stand outside the object of research for the very good reason that in physics, the objects of interest are either very small or very far away.

Whereas the sociologist studies phenomena which are very large and in the same room.

A physicist could not study black holes while being sucked into a black hole. A social theorist has to do social research at all times while also being sucked into various social black holes…including Hitler's expulsion of Adorno's kreis in the 1930s. Furthermore, unlike the physicist's work the sociologist's work immediately and necessarily becomes part of the phenomena.

In Godel's proof, the statements that generate Godel's contradiction are outlier cases. In Heisenberg the self-reflexive phenomenon occurs only at the level of elementary particles.

In sociology and in anthropology, however, these phenomena happen all the time.

A true introduction to social theory would therefore foreground this ontological issue, but in fact, Sociology for Dummies 101 does not.

Instead, American sociology in reaction to Adorno proclaims the acceptance of "methodological individualism" as canonical for entry.

Methodological individualism is a metaphysic (which justifies itself as pragmatic) which declares that insofar as we're concerned, society can be reduced to individuals following goals. In this ontology talk about larger elementary structures such as "the proletariat" on the left or "the nation" on the right is relegated to "dogma." The reduction to absurdity is the gnomic utterance of the mad woman Margaret Thatcher: "there is no such thing as society."

It is indeed nonsense to speak of hypostatized entities such as "the proletariat" or "the nation" as if they could exist apart from the interests of their actual members. Part of the metaphysical puzzle of nuclear war was the insanity, on the part of Soviet leaders, in believing that by killing 90% of the proletariat they could ensure the victory of the proletariat: yet indirectly, the hypostatizing thought of Stalinism generates this insane ontology.

The reverse insanity is to even attempt to make sensible conclusions about society from a mass of data...and, as needed, confuse images of reality with elementary "facts." Its size is a practical problem which means that no justification is available from American pragmatism, the epistemology which underlies methodological individualism and this means that methodological individualism contradicts itself...it doesn't work.

But the real problem is Godelian/Heisenbergian as seen in the large American industry of SAT test preparation, resume writing, and corporate grab-ass. It is that methodological individualism scales up from individual observations that are gamed by ordinary slobs, who don't like to be treated as lab rats, and who in many cases are temporary, paid employees of firms, who allow themselves to be objectified for a fistful of dollars and free chow.

Adorno presents a foundational solution based on Kant.

Suppose, examining the simultaneous existence of individual choice and the emergence of larger structures including that structure visible (in an example of Adorno's) when one is unable to borrow money or get a job, we were to say that this analysis, which acknowledges the existence of BOTH individual choice AND larger structures, neither of which would exist without the other. [I have of course, just reinvented the intellectual foundations of European Social Democracy.]

This resembles Kant because this surrender was part of the Kantian method. In ontology it is the admission that while we cannot know the world as such in the way we demand, there is nonetheless a difference between dream and reality, a transcendental difference established by the benign circularity of an argument which shows that the existence of a distinction is presupposed as a condition of knowledge, and thus argument, itself.

In American-ese, I can well imagine Adorno saying "sure, my Frankfurt school is part of society and it plays the game. My guy Horkheimer concealed its Marxism when we were in California during the McCarthy era because we like to eat. But I deny that this falsifies our conclusions as self-interested. This is because individuals and their individual institutions NECESSARILY exist alone with ALL OTHER individuals and institutions as part of a society which WOULD NOT EXIST without at least two individuals talking to each other."

"You can't say that this cheerful admission of being part of society falsifies what we say. This is because the economics that results from individualist sociology proclaims self-interest as paramount. This places the apologists for methodological individualism and a dogma which dares not speak its name under the logically identical cloud of suspicion...which works both ways. Now get out of my office."

The most moving part of the book is the end, for Godde and Jephcott have preserved the audience's hissing when Adorno defends another academic's right to speak. He was probably hissed by clowns who are now senior executives at Deutsches Bank and Springer, who unlearned left politics but retained the ability to use methodological discourtesy (and left sexism) as a tactical tool and used it in the corporate climb.

Theodore Adorno (two years after these lectures) died from the stresses of 1968.

We the People, right? Well, it's not obvious anymore, looking around at the usurping of many of our rights. This book states the obvious in simple terms that we can all understand at today's hectic pace. A very good history lesson.

The Jubilee Guide to Rome focuses on the four great basilicas of Rome and how a visit to these churches can be an integral part of a Christian's preparation for the Jubilee Year. Through exquisite photography and descriptive text, the authors point out details that the untrained eye would miss during a visit to these churches. The section on St. Peter's Basilica is especially informative - it weaves the architectural and spiritual details together as one. I wish I had found this book before leading my first pilgrimage to Rome. It will be a regular part of our spiritual preparation from here on. (And the size is perfect to tuck in a purse, pocket, or fanny pack!)

Although critics continue to debate whether Jules Verne's work is "true" science fiction (SF), rather than scientific romance, Verne is widely credited as one of the founders of the genre and in the popular imagination, he and SF are seen as largely synonomous. Verne has received renewed attention since the publication in 1994 of his "Paris au Vingtieme Siecle", and this has highlighted his importance as a key commentator on the anguishes of modernity. Arthur B. Evans provides a detailed account of the relationship between Verne and the French literary canon, demonstrating the "now-ineluctable trend towards rehabilitation and literary canonization". Daniel Compere exmines narrative technique, versimilitude, defamiliarization, naturalization and dialogism in Verne's work, while Timothy Unwin develops the enquiry into the nature of the Vernian text in discussing the role of science and textual repetition. The interface between realism, utopianism and SF in a number of Verne's novels is investigated by Sarah Capitano.