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 GOD SCIENCE AND REASONTHE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE EVOLUTION OF WESTERN CULTURE by By Wallace H. Provost Jr.The first law of thermodynamics states that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This implies that everything that is, everything that ever was, and everything that will ever be, was present at the birth of the universe albeit in a more elementary form. The second law of thermodynamics states that a closed system without the introduction of additional energy from outside will move toward greater entropy, defined as a measure of disorder. This implies that whatever exists will disintegrate without the introduction of outside energy. Everything that exists, everything that has ever existed and everything that ever will exist is compounded from that which has existed prior to it. This gives rise to the rule of evolution that states that a system far from equilibrium with an excess of energy will move toward the creation of greater varieties of increasing complexity. This is accomplished through the mechanism of complex hierarchical organization. Wallace will take you there and back, only to know this place for the very first time.
 GOD SCIENCE AND REASONTHE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE EVOLUTION OF WESTERN CULTURE by By Wallace H. Provost Jr.The first law of thermodynamics states that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This implies that everything that is, everything that ever was, and everything that will ever be, was present at the birth of the universe albeit in a more elementary form. The second law of thermodynamics states that a closed system without the introduction of additional energy from outside will move toward greater entropy, defined as a measure of disorder. This implies that whatever exists will disintegrate without the introduction of outside energy. Everything that exists, everything that has ever existed and everything that ever will exist is compounded from that which has existed prior to it. This gives rise to the rule of evolution that states that a system far from equilibrium with an excess of energy will move toward the creation of greater varieties of increasing complexity. This is accomplished through the mechanism of complex hierarchical organization. Come and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
 This class contains the rules of logic your essays will be judged on durring the homosocratic exercise.
 SCIENCE AS PARADIGMATIC COMPLEXITY by By Wallace H. Provost Jr.
 This course introduces the theory and the practice of engineering ethics using a multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural approach
 SCIENCE AS PARADIGMATIC COMPLEXITY by By Wallace H. Provost Jr.
 SCIENCE AS PARADIGMATIC COMPLEXITY by By Wallace H. Provost Jr.
 Philosophy 6 - Man, God, and Society in Western Literature
 Philosophy 25A - Ancient Philosophy
 The Ethics[Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata]byBenedict de Spinoza
Works by EuripidesThe free University Course is offered in Auto-Socratic method for independent studyof the classics. Including Alcestis Written 438 B.C.E Translated by Richard Aldington Andromache Written 428-24 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge The Bacchantes Written 410 B.C.E The Cyclops Written ca. 408 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Electra Written 420-410 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Hecuba Written 424 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Helen Written 412 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge The Heracleidae Written ca. 429 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Heracles Written 421-416 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Hippolytus Written 428 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Ion Written 414-412 B.C.E Translated by Robert Potter Iphigenia At Aulis Written 410 B.C.E Iphigenia in Tauris Written 414-412 B.C.E Translated by Robert Potter Medea Written 431 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Orestes Written 408 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge The Phoenissae Written 411-409 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge Rhesus Written 450 B.C.E The Suppliants Written 422 B.C.E Translated by E. P. Coleridge The Trojan Women Written 415 B.C.E Edit summary
 Origin of Species (6th ed.)by Charles Darwin
 The Descent of Manby Charles Darwin
Peter Abelard:
Historia Calamitatum The Story of My Misfortunes - translated by Henry Adams Bellows copyright 1922 [reissued by in New York by Macmillan, 1972, with no notification of copyright renewal] Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was one of the great intellectuals of the 12th century, with especial importance in the field of logic. His tendency to disputation is perhaps best demonstrated by his book Sic et Non, a list of 158 philosophical and theological questions about which there were divided opinions. This dialectical method of intellectual reflection -- also seen in Gratian's approach to canon law -- was to become an important feature of western education and distinguishes it sharply from other world cultures such as Islam and the Confucian world. Abelard's mistake was to leave the questions open for discussion and so he was repeatedly charged with heresy. For a long period all his works were included in the later Iindex of Forbidden Books. The text here gives a good account of Abelard's pugnaciousness. He is perhaps as famous today for his love affair with Heloise (1100/01-1163/4) and its disastrous consequences, which resulted in her giving birth to son (called Astrolabe), to Abelard's castration by Heloise's angry relatives, and to both their retreats to monastic life. Heloise was one of the most literate women of her time, and an able administrator: as a result her monastic career was notably successful. Abelard, a intellectual jouster throughout his life was notably less happy as a monk. He incurred the displeasure and enmity of abbots, bishops, his own monks, a number of Church councils and St. Bernard of Clairvaux . The last months of his life were spent under the protection of Peter the Venerable of Cluny, where he died. The tomb of Abelard and Heloise can now be visited in the Pére Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The Historia Calamitatum, although in the literary form of a letter, is a sort of autobiography, with distinct echoes of Augustine's Confessions. It is one of the most readable documents to survive from the period, and as well as presenting a remarkably frank self-portrait, is a valuable account of intellectual life in Paris before the formalization of the University, of the intellectual excitement of the period, of monastic life and of a love story that in some respects deserves its long reputation.
 MEDITATIONS By Marcus Aurelius MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS THE ROMAN EMPEROR
 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING By Francis Bacon THE FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON; OF THE PROFICIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, DIVINE AND HUMAN.
 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING By Francis Bacon THE FIRST BOOK OF FRANCIS BACON; OF THE PROFICIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, DIVINE AND HUMAN.
 COMMON SENSEby Thomas Paine
Critique of Pure Reason

Critique of Pure Reason

The Tao te Ching

The Tao te Ching

The Tao te Ching

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables

 Karl Marx and Friedrich EngelsThe Manifesto of the Communist Party
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
By Max Weber
Works by Aeschylus
 Before the palace of AGAMEMNON in Argos. In front of the palace there are statues of the gods, and altars prepared for sacrifice. It is night. On the roof of the palace can be discerned a WATCHMAN.
Works by Sophocles

 THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR by Thucydides 431 BC translated by Richard Crawley With Permission to CONNOP THIRLWALL Historian of Greece This Translation of the Work of His Great Predecessor is Respectfully Inscribed by -The Translator- CONTENTS BOOK I CHAPTER I The state of Greece from the earliest Times to the Commencement of the Peloponnesian War CHAPTER II Causes of the War - The Affair of Epidamnus - The Affair of Potidaea CHAPTER III Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Lacedaemon CHAPTER IV From the End of the Persian to the Beginning of the Peloponnesian War - The Progress from Supremacy to Empire CHAPTER V Second Congress at Lacedaemon - Preparations for War and Diplomatic Skirmishes - Cylon - Pausanias - Themistocles BOOK II CHAPTER VI Beginning of the Peloponnesian War - First Invasion of Attica - Funeral Oration of Pericles CHAPTER VII Second Year of the War - The Plague of Athens - Position and Policy of Pericles - Fall of Potidaea CHAPTER VIII Third Year of the War - Investment of Plataea - Naval Victories of Phormio - Thracian Irruption into Macedonia under Sitalces BOOK III CHAPTER IX Fourth and Fifth Years of the War - Revolt of Mitylene CHAPTER X Fifth Year of the War - Trial and Execution of the Plataeans - Corcyraean Revolution CHAPTER XI Sixth Year of the War - Campaigns of Demosthenes in Western Greece - Ruin of Ambracia BOOK IV CHAPTER XII Seventh Year of the War - Occupation of pylos - Surrender of the Spartan Army in Sphacteria CHAPTER XIII Seventh and Eighth Years of the War - End of Corcyraean Revolution - Peace of Gela - Capture of Nisaea CHAPTER XIV Eighth and Ninth Years of the War - Invasion of Boeotia - Fall of Amphipolis - Brilliant Successes of Brasidas BOOK V CHAPTER XV Tenth Year of the War - Death of Cleon and Brasidas - Peace of Nicias CHAPTER XVI Feeling against Sparta in Peloponnese - League of the Mantineans, Eleans, Argives, and Athenians - Battle of Mantinea and breaking up of the League CHAPTER XVII Sixteenth Year of the War - The Melian Conference - Fate of Melos BOOK VI CHAPTER XVIII Seventeenth Year of the War - The Sicilian Campaign - Affair of the Hermae - Departure of the Expedition CHAPTER XIX Seventeenth Year of the War - Parties at Syracuse - Story of Harmodius and Aristogiton - Disgrace of Alcibiades CHAPTER XX Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of the War - Inaction of the Athenian Army - Alcibiades at Sparta -Investment of Syracuse BOOK VII CHAPTER XXI Eighteenth and Nineteenth Years of the War - Arrival of Gylippus at Syracuse - Fortification of Decelea - Successes of the Syracusans CHAPTER XXII Nineteenth Year of the War - Arrival of Demosthenes - Defeat of the Athenians at Epipolae - Folly and Obstinacy of Nicias CHAPTER XXIII Nineteenth Year of the War - Battles in the Great Harbour - Retreat and Annihilation of the Athenian Army BOOK VIII CHAPTER XXIV Nineteenth and Twentieth Years of the War - Revolt of Ionia - Intervention of Persia - The War in Ionia CHAPTER XXV Twentieth and Twenty-first Years of the War - Intrigues of Alcibiades - Withdrawal of the Persian Subsidies - Oligarchical Coup d'Etat at Athens - Patriotism of the Army at Samos CHAPTER XXVI Twenty first Year of the War - Recall of Alcibiades to Samos - Revolt of Euboea and Downfall of the Four Hundred - Battle of Cynossema
CONTINGENCY AND COMPLEXITY IN THE SOCIAL THEORY OF NIKLAS LUHMANN
BY Wallace H. Provost Jr. Niklas Luhmann has provided a view of social theory from the perspective of contemporary systems theory which highlights a large number of social mechanisms that tend to be overlooked in the more traditional approaches. Using a complex hierarchical approach to social structure I demonstrate the kinds of social change which Luhmann brings out in a way that avoids his own functionalist teleology while at the same time emphasizes his unique description of the role of contingency in the evolution of social systems. Finally, from Lohmann's approach toward social theory I suggest a theory of developpment and change in social structures which is unique to the level of complexity where social activities are found. This theory depicts the emergence and development of a self-reflective contingent structure as a threshold condition which produces a set of properties not available to systems of lower complexity and which increases the variety available to the system through structural reformulation in the face of environmental change. I show this structure as an emergent property of the interactions of human beings with the capability of individual self-reflection. Individuals, unwittingly or not, who become become its architects and therefore ultimately responsible for its success or failue.
 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
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