NICE TIGHT CLEAN TEXT. LIGHT SHELF WEAR TO COVER. NEVER READ

Collapse (v. II)

Robin MacKay

Urbanomic

Collapse (v. 3)

Concept Horror (Collapse: Philosophical Research and Development, Vol.4)

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Contributors: Carlo Rovelli, Julian Barbour, Conrad Shawcross, Robin Mackay, James Ladyman, Thomas Metzinger, Nigel Cooke, Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, Milan Cirkovic, Nick Bostrom, Keith Tyson, Martin Schönfeld, Immanuel Kant, Iain Hamilton Grant, Gabriel Catren, Alberto Gualandi, Paul Humphreys.  Ever since Nicolaus Copernicus unmoored the Earth from its anchorage at the centre of the Universe and set it hurtling around the Sun, science has progressively uncovered the lineaments of an objective reality to which human experience stands as only the most superficial and attenuated of abstractions. Collapse V: The Copernican Imperative brings together some of the most intellectually-challenging contemporary work devoted to exploring the philosophical implications of this ever-widening gulf between the real and the intuitable from a variety of overlapping and complementary standpoints. With articles by groundbreaking philosophers and scientists, in-depth interviews with prominent thinkers, and new work from contemporary artists, Collapse V addresses the issues of the 'deanthropomorphisation' of reality initiated by the Copernican Revolution, and the enduring chasm between the spontaneous image of reality bequeathed to us by evolution and that revealed by the sciences in the wake of Copernicus.

Collapse: v. 5: Philosophical Research and Development - The Copernican Imperative

VARIOUS

Contributors: Nicola Masciandaro, Iain Hamilton Grant, FWJ Schelling, Greg McInerny, Drew Purves, Rich Williams, Stephen Emmott, Timothy Morton, FIELDCLUB, Owen Hatherley, Eyal Weizman, Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain, Manabrata Guha, Reza Negarestani, Robin Mackay, Charles Avery, Gilles Grelet, Renée Green Following Collapse V's inquiry into the legacy of Copernicus' deposing of Earth from its central position in the cosmos, Collapse VI: Geo/philosophy poses the question: Is there nevertheless an enduring bond between philosophical thought and its terrestrial support, or conversely, is philosophy's task to escape the planetary horizon? Following early-modern geophilosophical experiments in utopia, geographies and cartographies real and imaginary have played a double role in philosophy, serving both as governing metaphor and as an ultimate grounding for philosophical thought. Collapse VI: Geo/philosophy begins with the provisional premise that the Earth does not square elements of thought but rather rounds them up into a continuous spatial and geographical horizon. Geophilosophy is thus not necessarily the philosophy of the earth as a round object of thought but rather the philosophy of all that can be rounded as an (or the) earth. But in that case, what is the connection between the empirical earth, the contingent material support of human thinking, and the abstract 'world' that is the condition for a 'whole' of thought? Urgent contemporary concerns introduce new dimensions to this problem: The complicity of Capitalism and Science concomitant with the nomadic remobilization of global Capital has caused mutations in the field of the territorial, shifting and scrambling the determinations that subtended modern conceptions of the nation-state and territorial formations. And scientific predictions presents us with the possibility of a planet contemplating itself without humans, or of an abyssal cosmos that abides without Earth - these are the vectors of relative and absolute deterritorialization which nourish the twenty-first century apocalyptic imagination. Obviously, no geophilosophy can remain oblivious to the unilateral nature of such un-earthing processes. Furthermore, the rise of so-called rogue states which sabotage their own territorial formation in order to militantly withstand the proliferation of global capitalism calls for an extensive renegotiation of geophilosophical concepts in regard to territorializing forces and the State. Can traditions of geophilosophical thought provide an analysis that escapes the often flawed, sentimental or cryptoreligious fashions in which popular discourse casts these catastrophic developments? Collapse VI brings together philosophers, theorists, eco-critics, leading scientific experts in climate change, and artists whose work interrogates the link between philosophical thought, geography and cartography, in order to create a portrait of the present state of 'planetary thought'.

Collapse Volume VI: Geo/Philosophy

An assembly of perspectives on risk, contingency, and chance―at the gaming table, in the markets, and in life.
A transdisciplinary survey of practices that produce, analyse, and exploit risk and uncertainty, the eighth volume of Collapse uncovers the conceptual underpinnings of methods designed to extract value from contingency―at the gaming table, in the markets, and in life. The indictment of “casino capitalism” and the centrality of risk to contemporary society are traced back to a ubiquitous image of thought that originated in games of chance, but which is no longer adequate to address a world whose realities are now shaped by risk models and trading in speculative futures.
To challenge the “casino” model, this volume brings together philosophers who extend the thinking of contingency beyond statistical modelling, professional traders and gamblers whose lifelong experience has shaped their understanding of chance, researchers analysing the perception and treatment of risk and uncertainty in diverse arenas including derivatives trading, quantum physics, insurance, sonic experimentation, literature, futurology, mathematics, and machine gambling, and artists whose work addresses both the desire to confront chance and the need to tame it by bringing it to order.

Collapse, Volume 8: Casino Real (Urbanomic / Collapse)

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

The first published work to explore the new philosophy of speculative realism through a fresh reappropriation of the philosophical tradition and an openness to its outside. The first published work to explore the new philosophical field of speculative realism, the second volume of Collapse features a selection of speculative essays by some of the foremost young philosophers at work today, together with new work from artists and filmmakers, and searching interviews with leading scientists. Comprising subjects from probability theory to theology, from quantum theory to neuroscience, from astrophysics to necrology, it involves them in unforeseen and productive syntheses.Against the tide of institutional balkanisation and specialisation, this volume testifies to a defiant reanimation of the most radical philosophical problematics―the status of the scientific object, metaphysics and its “end,” the prospects for a revival of speculative realism, the possibility of phenomenology, transcendence and the divine, the nature of causation, the necessity of contingency―both through a fresh reappropriation of the philosophical tradition and through an openness to its outside. The breadth of philosophical thought in this volume is matched by the surprising and revealing thematic connections that emerge between the philosophers and scientists who have contributed.

Collapse, Volume 2: Speculative Realism (Urbanomic / Collapse)

History & Criticism

Investigations into the existential, aesthetic, theological, and political dimensions of horror, its peculiar affinity with philosophical thought, and what lies in wait for those who pursue rational thought beyond the bounds of the reasonable.The fourth volume of Collapse features a series of investigations by philosophers, writers and artists into Concept Horror. Contributors address the existential, aesthetic, theological and political dimensions of horror, interrogate its peculiar affinity with philosophical thought, and uncover the horrors that may lie in wait for those who pursue rational thought beyond the bounds of the reasonable.This unique volume continues Collapse's pursuit of indisciplinary miscegenation, the wide-ranging contributions interacting to produce common themes and suggestive connections. In the process a rich and compelling case emerges for the intimate bond between horror and philosophical thought.

Collapse: Concept-Horror (Urbanomic / Collapse)

Cookery has never been so high on the agenda of Western popular culture. And yet the endlessly-multiplying TV shows, the obsessive interest in the provenance of ingredients, and the celebration of 'radical' experiments in gastronomy, tell us little about the nature of the culinary. Is it possible to maintain that cookery has a philosophical pertinence without merely appending philosophy to our burgeoning gastroculture? How might the everyday sense of the culinary be expanded into a philosophy of 'culinary materialism' wherein synthesis, experimentation, and operations of mixing and blending take precedence over analysis, subtraction and axiomatisation? Drawing on resources ranging from anthropology to chemistry, from hermetic alchemy to contemporary mathematics, 'Collapse VII: Culinary Materialism' undertakes a trans-modal experiment in culinary thinking. A wide range of contributors including philosophers, chefs, artists, historians,and synaesthetes examine the cultural, industrial, physiological, alchemical and even cosmic dimensions of cookery, and propose new models of culinary thought for the future.

Collapse: Culinary Materialism (Urbanomic / Collapse)

An artist and a mathematician debate, find common ground, and jointly create an assemblage that is neither (or both) an artwork and a mathematical model. A week-long residency project brought together artist Conrad Shawcross and mathematician Matthew Watkins to reflect on the ways in which artists use (or misuse) scientific and mathematical concepts. Secrets of Creation documents this fascinating meeting of worlds, presenting both the week's discussions and debates, and the project upon which Shawcross and Watkins subsequently embarked. Navigating a route that tacked between formalism and natural language, experts and laymen, quantity and quality, poetics and mechanics, Shawcross and Watkins gradually forged a shared discourse in which the concerns of the artist and those of the mathematician could find a common ground. The project ended with their joint creation of an assemblage that was neither (or both) an artwork and a mathematical model.

Secrets of Creation (Urbanomic / Redactions)

Arts & Photography

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Urbanomic publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Urbanomic