The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"--metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. In (...) this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language. (shrink)

Feyerabrend argues that intellectual progress relies on the creativity of the scientist, against the authority of science.

INTRODUCTION: REASON AND THE PASSIONS i. Philosophy? This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. ...

Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.

Obviously enough the tongue, the spelling, the typography, the verbosity of a description reflect no parallel features in the world. Coherence is a characteristic of descriptions, not of the world: the significant question is not whether the world is coherent, but whether our account of it is. And what we call the simplicity of the world is merely the simplicity we are able to achieve in describing it.

Required reading at more than 100 colleges and universities throughout North America.

In this book of essays, he argues that morality cannot be defined solely by rational and universal principles; instead, a major place must be found for changing and conflicting ideals, values peculiar to specific times and cultures.

Written by a nurse and a philosopher, Ethics in Nursing blends the concrete detail of recurring problems in nursing practice with the perspectives, methods, and resources of philosophical ethics. It stresses the aspects of the nurses role and relations with others -- physicians, patients, administrators, other nurses -- that give ethical problems in nursing their special focus. Among the issues addressed are deception, parentalism, confidentiality, conscientious refusal, nurse autonomy, compromise, and personal responsibility for institutional and public policy. The third edition (...) has been enlarged with new cases and case discussions related to AIDS and an additional chapter on the expanding scope of nursing ethics as it addresses issues related to scarce resources, cost containment, justice, and the possibilities of health care rationing. (shrink)

The decision to accept or to reject an empirical hypothesis concerning the risks and hazards of a pesticide requires assessing the cost's of error if the wrong decision is taken. The assessment of such costs involves scientists in problems which are closely related to those which policy‐makers face in deciding what to do in view of the information provided by scientists. These problems include the unforeseeable effects of agricultural technologies, the assessments of costs and benefits, and the choice of decision (...) rule to use in policy formation. I conclude that the combined impact of these problems motivates the use of prudentially weighted decision rules in forming policies which regulate the use of pesticides, and it motivates the development of bio‐environmental alternatives to chemically based pest control policies. (shrink)