Social Science

As a Man Thinketh is a literary work of James Allen, published in 1902. The title is influenced by a verse in the Bible from the book of Proverbs chapter 23 verse 7, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.”. This book is written in terms of responsibility assumption. The book opens with the statement: Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,/ And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes/ The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,/ Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:/— He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:/ Environment is but his looking-glass. Chapter 1 starts with the quote from Dhammapada where effect of karmas is explained. [Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_a_man_thinketh under the terms of the GNU-FDL] more...

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Beyond Good and Evil , subtitled "Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future", is a book by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1886. It takes up and expands on the ideas of his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra , replacing that work's sunny and life-affirming character with a highly critical, polemical approach. In Beyond Good and Evil , Nietzsche attacks past philosophers for their alleged lack of critical sense and their blind acceptance of Christian premises in their consideration of morality. The work moves into the realm "beyond good and evil" in the sense of leaving behind the traditional morality which Nietzsche subjects to a destructive critique in favour of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual. [Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil under the terms of the GNU-FDL] more...

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Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world. more...

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Bushido, meaning "Way of the Warrior", is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery and honour unto death. Born of two main influences, the violent existence of the Samurai was tempered by the wisdom and serenity of Confucianism and Buddhism. Bushido developed between the 9th to 12th centuries and numerous translated documents dating from the 12th to 16th centuries demonstrate its wide influence across the whole of Japan. According to the Japanese dictionary Shogakukan Kokugo Daijiten , "Bushido is defined as a unique philosophy ( ronri ) that spread through the warrior class from the Muromachi ( chusei ) period." Nitobe Inazo, in his book Bushido: The Soul of Japan , described it in this way. "...Bushido, then, is the code of moral principles which the samurai were required or instructed to observe... More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten... It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career.". Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, aspects of Bushido became formalized into Japanese Feudal Law. Translation of documents related to Bushido began in the 1970's with Dr. Carl Steenstrup who performed a lifetime of research into the ethical codes of famous Samurai clans including Hojo Soun and Imagawa Ryoshun. Steenstrup's 1977 dissertation at Harvard University was entitled "Hojo Shigetoki (1198–1261) and his Role in the History of Political and Ethical Ideas in Japan". Steenstrup holds two Phd's in Japanese History--one from Harvard in 1977 and another from The University of Copenhagen in 1979. According to the editors of Monumenta Nipponica, "Tens of thousands of documents survive from the medieval period... Only a few have been translated into English, or are likely ever to appear in translation." One of the oldest English-language ac more...

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What is fashion? What is fashionable? Who decides what's in and what's out? Why is it green one year and blue the next? Why is one little black dress worth five thousand dollars and another worth fifty? Is the catwalk really that catty? What makes a supermodel so super?. And a designer too hot to touch? Who is making money? Who owns whom? Who hates whom? And who's in each other's pockets? The answers are all to be found in Fashion Babylon. more...

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