Book Description
Unmatched in breadth and depth, Philosophy of Science addresses the pivotal questions that have occupied philosophers and scientists in this century. Forty-six readings by leading thinkers such as Thomas S. Kuhn, Sir Karl Popper, and Philip Kitcher examine issues ranging from models of explanation to theoretic confirmation and prediction; from the significance of rationality, values, and objectivity to the arguments for and against scientific empiricism and realism, with two unique chapters on "Science and Pseudoscience" and "Laws of Nature."
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2007-02-20
Curd and Cover's "Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues" is both an anthology and an introduction to philosophy of science. It concentrates on the most central problems of philosophy of natural science, and does not cover philosophy of social science, or particular problems in philosophy of physics or philosophy of biology.
Among the topics covered are the nature of science, scientific explanation, induction, prediction, confirmation, reduction, objectivity, underdetermination, laws of nature and scientific realism and anti-realism. Most of the selections are excellent, including classical and contemporary readings. The majority of the book consists in the readings; however, the commentary by Curd and Cover is very extensive.
The book is organized clearly. Each section begins with a brief introduction by Curd and Cover; the readings follow this; and, finally, these are explained and summarized by Curd and Cover's commentary. A thorough and helpful glossary follows towards the end of the book.
This book is excellent, and I strongly recommend it, especially for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students in philosophy. However, I think that readers unfamiliar with analytic philosophy may find some of the readings and the commentary difficult; Chalmer's "What Is This Thing Called Science?" is a less daunting introduction.
An Exemplary Anthology.......2004-06-01
I hope I won't be suspected of overstating the virtues of this book when I say that this is the single finest philosophy anthology that I've ever encountered--and, believe me, I've seen my fair share of them. Curd and Cover deserve to be commended--and I hereby commend them--for their work in editing this volume. Not only have they made compiled a very useful anthology of approximately fifty selections in contemporary philosophy of science, but they've included a very significant amount of original editorial material. Indeed, I've never seen a philosophy anthology with editorial material anywhere near this extensive or helpful. Curd and Cover provide the reader with introductions to each section; detailed and thoughtful commentaries, many of which are forty to fifty pages long, on the readings at the end of each section; a twenty-page glossary of terms; and extensive bibliographies on each of the subjects covered. Roughly a third of this book, which is 1300+ pages long, has been written by the editors.
Because of the comprehensiveness of the commentaries that Curd and Cover have included on each section of readings, this volume, unlike many such anthologies, works very well as a stand-alone introduction to the field. For these commentaries provide the necessary background that the reader needs to fully appreciate the problems with which the authors of particular selections are struggling, the arguments they present in the selections, and the importance of the various selections in contemporary thinking about how best to solve the problems of the philosophy of science. In other words, the commentaries here do much of the work that a lecturer would do, and so reading these papers along with the commentaries is like going through an excellent and wide-ranging introductory course in the philosophy of science.
This anthology is intended to introduce the most general subjects in contemporary philosophy of science. Curd and Cover emphasize work in the philosophy of science that is of importance to anyone interested in the subject, and they have deliberately tried to avoid including readings that assume the reader is familiar with a great deal of contemporary science or its history. There are sections on each of the following topics: the demarcation problem (the problem of isolating what, if anything, is essential to, and distinctive of, scientific inquiry), values and objectivity in science, underdetermination and the Duhem-Quine thesis, induction and the nature of scientific evidence, explanation, laws of nature, intertheoretic reduction, and scientific realism. Most of these sections include four or five papers (the section on realism, which is by far the largest section, contains about twice as many). And this book includes work by many of the most important figures in these areas, including Kuhn, Popper, Hempel, Lakatos, Laudan, Kitcher, van Fraassen, et al.
And the reader should note that this anthology focuses only on work in the natural sciences. None of these selections discusses philosophical issues arising in the social sciences--though the topics covered are of sufficient generality that they should be of interest to people studying the social sciences as well. Furthermore, none of these selections are primarily about the philosophical issues arising in particular natural sciences. So don't come to this anthology looking for philosophy of biology or philosophy of physics.
I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the philosophy of science, and it's ideal for classes introducing philosophy of science to advanced undergraduates and to graduate students.
Excellent introduction in the philosophy of science.......1999-07-02
Anyone who ever wondered about science in general, or what answers sciences can give us to questions we pose, and which not, if we should believe what science tells us or rather not, what it is that sets apart physics and astrologie, or if the picture that science gives us in its laws and theories reflects reality or is just an instrument for science, all those (and all those who would like to start pondering right now)can get a very profound introduction into those (and other) aspects of philosophical contemplation by reading this very well written and edited book. It consists of 9 chapters, each treating one subject by first giving a short introduction by the editors, then several papers by leading philosophers in the field, and then a very well written commentary on each of those papers, that retrace and explain the papers for easier digestion. My fullest recommendations for this book.
Book Description
For the past fifty years, science and technology—supported with billions of dollars from the U.S. government—have advanced at a rate that would once have seemed miraculous, while society's problems have grown more intractable, complex, and diverse. Yet scientists and politicians alike continue to prescribe more science and more technology to cure such afflictions as global climate change, natural resource depletion, overpopulation, inadequate health care, weapons proliferation, and economic inequality.
Daniel Sarewitz scrutinizes the fundamental myths that have guided the formulation of science policy for half a century—myths that serve the professional and political interests of the scientific community, but often fail to advance the interests of society as a whole. His analysis ultimately demonstrates that stronger linkages between progress in science and progress in society will require research agendas that emerge not from the intellectual momentum of science, but from the needs and goals of society.
Customer Reviews:
Best Starting Point for Skeptics.......2005-10-19
This is the best starting points for skeptics who wonder if science is all it is cracked up to be, or for cheerleaders of science too prone to claim science will solve all our problems.
It does not, however, provide a complete picture. Three other books are helpful:
Science, Money, and Politics by Daniel Greenberg is the best over-all review, has a strong ethical component, and shows how the competition for money, rather than scientific progress, is diverting scarce resources and frustrating needed advances.
The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney is the book that is the most compelling on the perversions of the extremist Republicans (I am a moderate Republican). Read this first or last, depending on your disposition.
Finally, Investing in Innovation, edited by Lewis Bramscomb and James Keller, brings together a range of views crossing the environment within which scientific research takes place, evaluationg specific programs and policy tools, and making recommendations (all of which have been ignored by the current Bush Administration).
I take three bottom lines from these four books together:
1) We are spending too much on military science & research.
2) Neither Congress nor the Executive have a serious strategy for prioritizing problems, finding private sector partners, and providing seed money for innovative solutions.
3) Both Congress and the Executive, as well as the public and the media, are incredibly ignorant about what science can and cannot do, and where all the money is going to generally poor effect.
4) This is all so important that Science, like Intelligence, needs its own Supreme Court. I am persuaded we need a new form of hybid public agency that is fully independent of the Executive, receiving a percentage of the total disposable budget (say 3%) and hence not subject to Congression pressures.
I want to stress that this book is an off-set, but should not be read alone. It raises some very important ethical and common sense political prioritization issues, but viewed alone, is too negative. If you buy only one book, buy Greenberg's.
Important book for democratizing science.......2004-07-10
The author states in the preface "I here baldly and unapologetically state that I recognize the scientific method to be a valid technique for approaching what I am pleased to term an objective understanding of the physical and natural world. 'This belief, however, offers no apriory comfort to anyone who would try to answer such questions as What types of scientific knowledge should society choose to pursue? How should such choices be made and by whom? How should society apply this knowledge, once gained? How can "progress" in science and technology be defined and measured in the context of broader social and political goals? And indeed, it is precisely these sorts of question that underlie and motivate this book".
Although I do not agree that there is such a thing as THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD (but a variety of scientific methods) and although I do not agree that specific kinds of methods garantees truth and objectivity, I understand the author's need to distinguish such narrow methodological issues from the broader issues concerning the relations between science and society. These last questions are important in democratic societies, why libraries, masse communication and other institutions, which are supposted to support democracy should make an effort to dissiminate this kind of literature.
Insightful and challenging work on science and policy.......1998-11-19
Not for the thin-skinned! This is a thoughtful and convincing set of arguments as to how and why the U.S. scientific research system often fails to serve the public interest. We'd all be better off if researchers and policy-makers absorbed the lessons in this work.
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The Just Meritocracy: IQ, Class Mobility, and American Social Policy
Paul Kamolnick
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0275979229 |
Book Description
Class mobility is significantly mediated by human intelligence, and intelligence itself is significantly heritable. Liberal democratic and libertarian conservative social policies require substantial revision in light of these findings. New forms of socioenvironmental and genomic intervention recommend themselves. The author provides a detailed investigation of the facts surrounding human mental ability, its measurement, inheritability, possible neurobiological underpinnings, and its role as a currency in human mate choice. He links human mental ability with educational attainment, occupational attainment, occupational prestige, and earned income. The ethical and policy implications are profound for both liberal democratic and libertarian social thought.
Book Description
Stressing the importance of understanding the grounds and the consequences of ethical or normative decision making, this collection of classic essays compiled by Pierce and VanDeVeer, examines disputes surrounding animals, ecosystems, the land, and their own proper place in the ongoing network of lives on this planet. A central question is "how can we live lives that are both personally satisfying but which are also ecologically sound and responsible?"
Book Description
Walzer examines five "regimes of toleration"-from multinational empires to immigrant societies-and describes the strengths and weaknesses of each regime, as well as the varying forms of toleration and exclusion each fosters. He shows how power, class, and gender interact with religion, race, and ethnicity in the different regimes and discusses how toleration works-and how it should work-in multicultural societies like the United States.
Customer Reviews:
A good description of toleration.......2000-05-08
This book's strength lies in its many examples and systematic structure. The topic is engaging, and it will keep you reading. The fact that it was begotten out of a lecture series helps to keep it brief and not overly wordy. Worth the read if you are interested in the relationship between different groups.
Average customer rating:
- Highly recommended!
- Are t-stars out tonite I don't know if it's cloudy or bright
- Sometimes you have to wonder about the Right
- Counteract the effects of Eco-Terrorists
- Good read for ostriches
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Hoodwinking the Nation
Julian Simon
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
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Similar Items:
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The Ultimate Resource 2
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The State of Humanity
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The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
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It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 years
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Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
ASIN: 1560004347 |
Book Description
Most people in the United States believe that our environment is getting dirtier, we are running out of natural resources, and population growth in the world is a burden and a threat. These beliefs, according to Simon, are entirely wrong. Why do the media report so much false bad news about the environment, resources, and population? And why do we believe it? Those are the questions distinguished scholar Julian L. Simon set out to answer in his book, Hoodwinking the Nation.
The opening chapter of this, the last book by Simon, discusses facts about population growth, natural resources, and the environment, and presents survey evidence of the public's view of these topics. The discrepancy between the facts and the public beliefs sets up the puzzle that the remaining chapters attempt to explain. Simon explores how and why false bad news is produced, citing government reports as often being the basis for environmental news scams and doomsday analyses. He examines the intellectual bases of concepts that lead to scares about resource depletion and population growth, and why biologists, in particular, tend to become overly alarmed about mythical environmental scares. Simon follows with an explanation of how the false bad news is disseminated. He notes that journalists know little about statistics and science and thus gather data in ways that lead to inaccurate conclusions, and politicians may misuse statistics in the service of their own policy and political goals. Simon contends that psychological and cultural mechanisms make people receptive to bad rather than good news and that most people have a too positive view of the past and a too negative view of the future.
The purpose of this book is not to preach but to examine. Most importantly, it aims to consider whether institutional structures can be changed in a way that would allow more sanctions against undesirable practices and unethical behavior. This volume will be valuable to political economists and sociologists, and the general reader concerned with environmental issues and their social impacts.
Customer Reviews:
Highly recommended!.......2004-05-26
In this fascinating book, American author and economist Julian L. Simon (1932-98) looks at a perplexing phenomenon - as things get demonstrably better, polls show that people perceive things to be getting markedly worse! Beginning with the "vanishing farmland" crisis, the Dr. Simon analyzes various environmental crises, and uses reliable statistics to show how the situations have been distorted by the press and various vested interests (usually environmental groups and U.S. governmental agencies). Indeed, all too often data which show improving situations are massaged so that they are actually presented as bad news. Along the way, the author spears many sacred cows, and shows how the public has been hoodwinked into fearing a future bright with potential.
I must admit that I tripped across the book quite by accident, and I am quite happy that I did. Dr. Simon is a welcome ray of light on a subject kept dark and murky. If you want to get a view on how the public can be (and often is) misled on environmental issues, then you would do well to read this book. I highly recommend it!
Are t-stars out tonite I don't know if it's cloudy or bright.......2001-10-31
Simon does his usual thing in this book as he debunks the bunked-up balderdash of the blinkered. His "Ultimate Resource" book, his book on "the State of Humanity" and his posthumous offering, "It's Getting Better All the Time" with Stephan Moore, all converge with the theme of exposing the political agenda under which the progressive Left operates as they disguise their true motives while waving their banner of concern for the environment. The recent publication by Bjorn Lomborg, "the Skeptical Environmentalist", just adds more fuel to Simon's fire. Lomborg has impeccable Leftist credentials as a former member of Greenpeace who also works as a professor in the political science department of a Danish University. He's just that oddity of oddities, an honest Leftist intellectual.
Lomborg set out to prove Simon wrong, but found him to be...drumroll...., to in fact, be right. Lomborg's shock parallels Ron Radosh's experience in setting out to prove the Rosenbergs innocent, but in fact finding that they were guilty. Both men have received scorn at the hands of the Far Left. They are made to be an un-person in true Stalinist style as they suffer the dispersement of disinformation at the hands of their former comrades. The rabbit is out of the hat, as Simon has always known, it's a political agenda that fuels almost all the environmental scare tactics of the Left and in no way does their agenda resemble a search for the truth.
Simon and Lomborg both used statistics and science, freely available in the public domain, leading Lomborg to question why so many environmental myths are so truculently lodged in the minds of the public? Just as Simon talks about the need for a "Truth Lobby" Lomborg was amazed at the closed minded religiosity of his friends who refused to believe, nor had an interest in discussing, his research findings. It is this compartmentalized-brain-syndrome that has consigned Simon's works to the dustbins of bookstores who continue to extol the virtues of always wrong, but presumably well intentioned, environmentalists such as Paul Erhlich of Stanford.
If we are fortunate enough to have a collective national awakening it will probably be because Simon's work, like Bach's music, will have been discovered at some later date in a more rational time in some collectors trunk in an attic, deep in the heart of the land of the fruits and the nuts.
Sometimes you have to wonder about the Right.......2001-07-27
Even if publications like this are not written by millionaires, surely that's the audience they intend to reach. I can't blame the conservative public for wanting a rebuttal to assertions on issues such as environmentalism, civil liberties, racism, etc. that leftists might seem to have monopolized in the public consciousness. No position should go unchallenged as incontrovertible fact, especially not if the proof is so difficult to ascertain, as it is with global warming.
In reading books like this and Facts Not Fear: Teaching Children About the Environment, you get the feeling that conservative types see today's environmentalist establishment as some unpleasant amalgam of mamby-pamby peaceniks and humorless grown-up hall monitor killjoys who arbitrarily claimed authoritatively to know what is best for the planet. From the former's standpoint, all that was thought to be good and wholesome not so long ago (like red meat, driving, farming) has since been villified. What is a red-blooded American to do?
What makes books like these disappointing is the low road they seem to prefer. Not all environmentalists strive to kill the dreaded multinationals, spike trees and take away your driving privileges. Those that do tend to inflate figures and resort to scare tactics, but aren't likely to appeal to the better educated public. If it is necessary to inform the public that there is an alternate school of thought on ecology, the best way to present it is probably not to suggest that we are all living well, so let's just ignore the fact that 3 of the 10 most polluted locales in the world belong to the US. It seems that when the Right finally does get the microphone to present commentary on the state of the environment, instead of articulating, it chooses to play armpit noises. It might play to more of the audience, but only because it takes the seriousness out of an issue that the angry or insipid masses don't want to be bothered with. At least not until an environmental disaster hits them personally.
Academia probably won't have much use for Simon's work in this lifetime, but it doubtlessly has, and will have, an audience. If his purpose was just to preach to the choir, he succeeds, but it's not likely to reach beyond. It's disappointing, though, that this type of perspective represents so much money, yet all these resources cannot buy more informed, or at least persuasive authors.
Counteract the effects of Eco-Terrorists.......2001-06-24
It should be quite obvious to anyone with any real background in natural science, math, or perhaps just good old, non-hysterical common sense, that the earth isn't coming to an end. This book completely refutes the reasoning of the 1990s trend of screaming at "big business" for "destroying the planet". Face it folks, just 'cause Al Gore claims it's true, doesn't make it so. Global warming...Am I the only one who remembers the mid-1970s panic over "global cooling"? Back then, we were all going to die in a new ice age. People need to be scared about something new every 25 years or so. It seems to give them an excuse for their righteous rage, when all they really need is a couple of Prozac.
Good read for ostriches.......2001-01-23
If you want to believe that there are no serious environmental problems on this planet, this book is for you.
Book Description
Nel Noddings, one of the central figures in the contemporary discussion of ethics and moral education, argues that caring--a way of life learned at home--can be extended into a theory that guides social policy. Tackling issues such as capital punishment, drug treatment, homelessness, mental illness, and abortion, Noddings inverts traditional philosophical priorities to show how an ethic of care can have profound and compelling implications for social and political thought.
Instead of beginning with an ideal state and then describing a role for home and family, this book starts with an ideal home and asks how what is learned there may be extended to the larger social domain. Noddings examines the tension between freedom and equality that characterized liberal thought in the twentieth century and finds that--for all its strengths--liberalism is still inadequate as social policy. She suggests instead that an attitude of attentive love in the home induces a corresponding responsiveness that can serve as a foundation for social policy.
With her characteristic sensitivity to the individual and to the vulnerable in society, the author concludes that any corrective practice that does more harm than the behavior it is aimed at correcting should be abandoned. This suggests an end to the disastrous war on drugs. In addition, Noddings states that the caring professions that deal with the homeless should be guided by flexible policies that allow practitioners to respond adequately to the needs of very different clients. She recommends that the school curriculum should include serious preparation for home life as well as for professional and civic life.
Emphasizing the importance of improving life in everyday homes and the possible role social policy might play in this improvement, Starting at Home highlights the inextricable link between the development of care in individual lives and any discussion of moral life and social policy.
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Drugs & The Limits Of Liberalism
De Greiff
Manufacturer: CUP SERVICES
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ASIN: 0801435617 |
Book Description
Society's drug problem will persist, and debates over how to solve it will continue, getting nowhere, until we define our terms. This book is an effort to do just that--to parse the legal, moral, and philosophical underpinnings for any discussion of drug policy.
Does liberal political theory, with its commitment to individual freedom, offer any guidance in the matter of drugs, particularly regarding their legal status? Do the commitments that citizens of liberal democracies make--commitments to ideals such as rationality, equality, justice, and democratic forms of decision-making--have implications for drug policy? These are the questions addressed in this volume, which explores the possibilities and limitations of philosophical reflection on this pressing, practical social issue.
The authors, distinguished political and legal philosophers, search out the justification of policies that manage problems of drug consumption and social disintegration, but do so in keeping with the moral and political commitments of a liberal democratic society. Their subjects range from the rationality or irrationality of drug consumption to the scope of liberty; from the proper aims of legislation to the rhetoric of the war on drugs, particularly as deployed by former "Drug Czar" William Bennett.
Contributors William Connolly, Johns Hopkins University Pablo De Greiff, State University of New York, Buffalo Jon Elster, Columbia University Samuel Freeman, University of Pennsylvania Donald Moon, Wesleyan University Michael S. Moore, University of Virginia Thomas Pogge, Columbia University
Book Description
In Our Right to Drugs, Thomas Szasz shows that our present drug war started at the beginning of this century, when the American government first assumed the task of protecting people from patent medicines. By the end of World War I, however, the free market in drugs was but a dim memory, if that. Instead of dwelling on the familiar impracticality or unfairness of our drug laws, Szasz demonstrates the deleterious effects of prescription laws which place people under lifelong medical tutelage. The result is that most Americans today prefer a coercive and corrupt command drug economy to a free market in drugs. Throughout the book, Szasz stresses the consequences of the fateful transformation of the central aim of American drug prohibitions from protecting us from being fooled by "misbranded" drugs to protecting us from harming ourselves by self-medication--defined as "drug abuse." And he reminds us that the choice between self-control and state coercion applies to all areas of our lives, drugs being but one of the theaters in which this perennial play may be staged. A free society, Szasz emphasizes, cannot endure if its citizens reject the values of self-discipline and personal responsibility and if the state treats adults as if they were naughty children. In a no-holds-barred examination of the implementation of the War on Drugs, Szasz shows that under the guise of protecting the vulnerable members of our society--especially children, blacks, and the sick--our government has persecuted and injured them. Leading politicians persuade parents to denounce their children, and encourage children to betray their parents and friends--behavior that subverts family loyalties and destroys basic human decency. And instead of protecting blacks and Hispanics from dangerous drugs, this holy war has allowed us to persecute them, not as racists but as therapists--working selflessly to bring about a drug-free America. Last but not least, to millions of sick Americans, the War on Drugs has meant being deprived of the medicines they want-- because the drugs are illegal, unapproved here though approved abroad, or require a prescription a physician may be afraid to provide. The bizarre upshot of our drug policy is that many Americans now believe they have a right to die, which they will do anyway, while few believe they have a right to drugs, even though that does not mean they have to take any. Often jolting, always stimulating, Our Right to Drugs is likely to have the same explosive effect on our ideas about drugs and drug laws as, more than thirty years ago, The Myth of Mental Illness had on our ideas about insanity and psychiatry.
Customer Reviews:
A Supremely Courageous, Truthful, and Useful Book.......2002-04-07
This book is a supremely courageous and truthful book written by one of the great luminaries of the age(s).
This book "cuts to the chase" as regards fundamental constitutional issues raised by laws regulating
the procurement, possession, sale, and use of drugs.
The book's most striking charge (a correct one, at that!) is that a fundamental tyranny overtook this nation about
90 years ago when "Americans" lost their property rights over their own bodies--all in the name of governmentally-controlled "truth in advertising" for drug sales.
However, this "seemingly benign" governmental goal created untold danger for the very people it was meant to
protect. Szasz rightfully puts America's so-called "drug problem" in proper perspective by suggesting that the
admonition "buyer beware" should have sufficed--for drugs, as for almost everything else.
In the most general terms, this book demonstrates that there are no shortcuts to a thorough-going approach to American Liberty and Freedom. Dr. Szasz very clearly, and effectively, corrects those who claim that drug laws be summarily repealed for any reasons other than their moral unacceptability in a free state.
Making proper analogy to the wrongful justification of the slavery of blacks in America (owing to their mischaracterization as property), Szasz makes it clear that the infringement of property rights (both of your body, and substances you might possess) lies at the heart of America's despotic and tyrannical so-called "War on Drugs."
Although he does not (if memory serves me correctly) directly cite the 9th Amendment in defense of all those who would fight this indigenous, governmentally-sponsored terrorism, he could have:
"THE ENUMERATION OF CERTAIN RIGHTS, IN THE CONSTITUTION, SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE."
"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms, remedy is set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is nature's manure." Thomas Jefferson
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On Having the Freedom to Change Your Mind.......1999-10-31
When I got a copy of this book - having forgotten about Dr. Szasz's breadth of outlook and singular erudition - I thought I was going to read a nice little political tract condemning the current American Drug Prohibition. "Our Right to Drugs" is that, of course, but it is so much more - it is a call to intellectual and political arms.
The War on Drugs, as Dr. Szasz so carefully shows, is nothing less than a Jihad, a Holy War waged by the forces of reaction and restriction in our society against all those who think that there should be peaceful choice, or self-ownership, or genuine free thought. And like all Holy Wars, this one permits the worst atrocities to be visited on the unbelieving because they are not just wrong - they are evil.
Like many libertarians, Dr. Szasz has little use for compromise; in this case, by those who favor "decriminalization" or "medicalization" of psychoactive drugs. Such people, the author shows, will only end up replacing the current Ayatollahs (cops and ex-generals) with a new Inquisition lead by doctors and psychologists. In the world of physician-monitored drug usage, instead of being evil, anyone who wants to alter his or her own mood will be labeled as "sick" - and instead of being sent to jail, they will be forced into "treatment".
In trying to think of some literary comparison to "Our Right to Drugs", I can only think of Plato's records of certain iconoclastic dialogues about ancient Athenian closemindedness. Truely, Dr. Szasz is our Socrates.
Good philosophical arguments, but politically naive.......1999-07-01
Good arguments for drug legalization (and deregulation of prescription drugs), but a little outdated as far as some of his allusions and political terminology go, and not precise enough in his use of the term "legalizers".
He ignores the distinctions between "decriminalization" and "legalization", and lumps all "legalizers" into a single category, as not being "good enough". He does not seem to realize that there is a wide spectrum of beliefs on drugs, ranging from his position, to the position that all drugs should be banned everywhere.
He is uncompromising, and this is politically defeating. Nonetheless, his position is admirable, and his idea of drugs as a "right" similiar to all other "rights" bandied about in political discourse today, is a good one.
Nice philosophy, and one I wish more accepted it, but he's too radical for today's politicians, who are still in the dark ages of social medicine.
Fear of people committing suicide easily, is Szasz's main hypothesis for why we regulate prescription and illicit drugs the way we do in America today.
This book is good for convincing one that drugs should be legalized, but it is no help for accomplishing that feat politically.
Truly Excellent.......1999-06-30
This is a fine and brilliant book. Szasz manhandles any pretext for government intervention in medicine and the market for drugs. This is by far the best book on the subject.
Amazon.com
Two leading advocates of "conservative internationalism" in foreign policy assemble a like-minded group of deep thinkers in Present Dangers. According to the editors--Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and William Kristol of The Weekly Standard--America's most significant threats come from within, rather than without. They worry that "the United States, the world's dominant power on whom the maintenance of international peace and the support of liberal democratic principles depends, will shrink its responsibilities and--in a fit of absentmindedness, or parsimony, or indifference--allow the international order that it created and sustains to collapse." As might be expected, the Clinton administration comes in for a thrashing on these pages. Ross H. Munro, an expert on China, writes: "However history judges [President] Clinton, the assessment of how his administration dealt with a rising China is certain to be harsh." In a chapter on Russia, Peter W. Rodman slams the Clintonites for "sentimentality," an "absurd doctrinal fetish" with arms control, and "an unwillingness to assert major American strategic interests and impose a penalty for harm done to them, lest the poor Russians feel hurt." There are other essays, too: Richard N. Perle on Iraq, Elliott Abrams on the Middle East, and William J. Bennett on the importance of morality and character in foreign policy. Clear thinking and straightforward writing mark each chapter.
As a whole, Present Dangers is an excellent primer on how a Republican foreign policy might look in the early years of the 21st century. But to be sure, a Republican foreign policy would not inevitably look this way; in one of the book's best sections, James W. Caesar examines the realist and isolationist schools of conservative thought and contrasts them with the view expressed throughout Present Dangers. Yet this is a strong and convincing call for "a strong commitment to vigorous American global leadership, to American power, and to the advancement of American democratic and free-market principles abroad." --John J. Miller
Book Description
In this book Robert Kagan and William Kristol have compiled twelve provocative and sobering essays from intellectuals, historians and policy-makers that challenge America to take a hard look at the coming crises in our foreign policy. It makes a case for repairing our depleted military, for a crash program of missile defense, and for a complete rethinking of whom our possible adversaries and real strategic partners are.
Customer Reviews:
The Neocon fantasy and delusion that has led us to this disaster.......2006-03-13
This otherwise awful book is important to read as an historical document so that we know how we got into the current mess in Iraq (and at home in America, with our mass deficit and debt). This book shows us the Neoconservative fantasy of creating a new century of pax Americana and benevolent imperialism, which was then put into operation after 9/11 and has since led us into the catastrophic disaster that is Iraq. Read this book and then never believe or listen to another word that these deluded Neocon ideologues say. Even Francis Fukuyama has now abandoned this crazed utopian fantasty. Read his new book after you've finished this piece of pure fiction
Regarding the "swine" you refer to..........2005-06-18
The last reviewer's idea that America should distance itself from "lesser cultures" is that of a person who clearly knows very little about American culture. Look, the book is crap in its ideology, but it's profound in its influence on the Bush administration's foreign policy. The wacko concept of global domination that is so prevalent in the mission of the "Project for a New American Century" makes about as much sense as the last reviewer would, were he foolishly given the opportunity to publish something beyond an Amazon.com review. However, you ought to read the book, and you really ought to think about it. Especially now, while the country is coming around to the idea that maybe, just maybe, interest in Iraqi and Irani regime change has been around far longer than W has been president. Anyway, I suggest you get out of your confused and dark little study, sir, and try to see the world around you before you die. If America is a precious jewel, you are actively tarnishing it.
Not worth buying or reading.......2004-01-17
While I disagree with much of the content of this book, that is not why you shouldn't buy this book. The reason not to buy is that this book is greatly out-dated. It was from before 9-11, and the neo-con perspective and focus on the world is now quite different.
Neoconserative fantasy foreign policy.......2003-03-02
The problem with neoconservative foreign policy is not that it is conservative and realistic but rather that it is liberal. The descriptions of problems here presented are real enough but the policies advocated in response are simply unrealistic precisely because they are imbued with a kind of moralizing and crusading liberalism that is not going to solve America's foreign policy problems but rather exacerbate them. Doubtless American intervention is required in many areas (and not in the form of social work as advocated by the UN and the Left), but proclaiming complex problems to be simple forces of good and evil that can be solved with the revolutionary and forceful imposition of democracy is classic Wilsonian liberal nonsense. It is simply a liberal-minded fantasy that you can import democracy and human rights to places that do not have the historical and institutional background to support it. It is true that a realisitic foreign policy that encourages intervention without the aid of some rhetorical flourishes of high-minded but naive and impractical principles will fail to be legitimized in the mind of the demos; however, to go so far as to actually implement these principles as policy is not only doomed to failure but will most certainly result in "blowback" against American interests. Much more prudence and the reassertion of realistic geopolitical strategies wrapped in the rhetoric of Wilsonian fantasy worlds is needed in place of the actual implementation of crusading liberal ideologies when it comes to foreign policy. We should expect much more especially from William Kristol, being the student of the great Machiavellian scholar Harvey Mansfield.
Absolutely a must-read: know your enemy!.......2003-02-14
This is undoubtedly one of the most important books on US foreign policy published in recent years and should be read by anyone who cares about the future of the United States and the rest of the world. This is the manifesto of "conservative internationalism" whose proponents, including many of the books authors, now infest the Bush administration and are his loudest ventriloquists. Here, then, is the current administration's strategic vision.
The basic argument is that the US needs to exercise world domination, here spun as "benevolent global hegemony" and that there are a number of external obstacles which stand in the way and must be dealt with. These are Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, the Middle East peace process and an independent Europe. In its clear and reasoned enunciation of strategy and future plans, it both rivals and surpasses the later chapters of Mein Kampf. Here is the game plan which must be read to understand where these people intend to take the world next.
If we ignore the desirability of this mission, its feasibility (the cost in money, lives and freedom) certainly merits discussion, but here the book is thin, relying on fairy story assumptions (budget surpluses!!!) and wishful thinking.
The one distasteful aspect of the book is the attempt to wrap the entire endeavour in the cloak of "American morality", understood as protecting citizen's liberties. This is breathtaking stuff from accomplices in the most extensive attempt to incinerate the Constitution in recent history.
Stripped of its ideological air cover and romantic fantasies, this is still an important, timely and lively document since this is the future course of foreign policy which the Bush administration plans to pursue.
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