The book demonstrates that trust is an essential feature of both private and social lives. Most people are familiar with interpersonal trust because they trust their parents, relatives and friends. But a society also needs trust: trust in institutions (police, social services, politicians). The opposite of trust is distrust. Like trust it has serious consequences for the functioning of interpersonal and institutional relationships. In this Very Short Introduction (OUP 2012), Katherine Hawley investigates the role of trust and distrust, and their consequences, for interpersonal and institutional relationships. Trust provides reliability, predictability, cooperation and good will; distrust leads to insincerity, conspiracy, betrayal and incompetence. Hawley defends a commitment view of trust: when we trust people we rely on them to meet their commitments.
Trust is indispensable, yet it can be dangerous. Without trusting others, we cannot function in society, or even stay alive for very long, but being overly-trustful can be a bad strategy too. Trust is pragmatic, but it also has a moral dimension: trustworthiness is a virtue, and well-placed trust benefits us all.
In this Very Short Introduction, Katherine Hawley explores the key ideas about trust and distrust. Considerings questions such as 'Why do we value trust?' and Why do we want to be trusted rather than distrusted?', Hawley raises issues about the importance of trust in both the personal and…
Humour is an essential part of life. There may be no human society without jokes and laughter. Aristotle already observed that humans have a unique disposition to laugh. In this book philosopher N. Carroll discusses various attempts by philosophers and social scientists to explain why humans laugh: the superiority theory, the release theory and the incongruity theory. They each attempt to identify what it is in humour which moves us to laughter. The discussion is accompanied by numerous examples of jokes. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that humour is primarily a source of social information about the norms that govern the cultures we inhabit.
Humour has been discovered in every known human culture and thinkers have discussed it for over two thousand years. Humour can serve many functions; it can be used to relieve stress, to promote goodwill among strangers, to dissipate tension within a fractious group, to display intelligence, and some have even claimed that it improves health and fights sickness.
In this Very Short Introduction Noel Carroll examines the leading theories of humour including The Superiority Theory and The Incongruity Theory. He considers the relation of humour to emotion and cognition, and explores the value of humour, specifically in its social functions.…
The notion of ideology often has a negative connotation. An ideology is said to give its followers a distorted view of reality. But in this Very Short Introduction (OUP 2003) Michael Freeden, who is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University, explains that we embrace ideologies all our lives, even though we may not be aware of it. Ideologies map the political and social world and make sense of the world around us. They do not represent an objective view of reality. This is the job of science. Rather, ideologies are political devices whose function is to impose some form of structure or organisation on political and social events and thereby reduce their complexity.
Ideology is one of the most controversial terms in the political vocabulary, exciting both revulsion and inspiration. This book examines the reasons for those views, and explains why ideologies deserve respect as a major form of political thinking. It investigates the centrality of ideology both as a political phenomenon and as an organizing framework of political thought and action. It explores the changing understandings of ideology as a concept, and the arguments of the main ideologies. By employing the latest insights from a range of disciplines, the reader is introduced to the vitality and force of a crucial resource at…
Copernicus (1543) displaced humans from the physical centre of the universe because he made the earth a planet which orbited the sun. Darwin (1859) inserted humans into the organismic order of nature (1859), thereby depriving them of their place at the pinnacle of evolution. Freud saw his contribution as the completion of the Copernican revolution. According to Freud, both Copernicus and Darwin had dealt severe blows to the proud image of humanity as the centrepiece of the universe. Freud saw himself as completing the cycle of disparagement by destroying the belief that humans were ‘masters of rationality’ (1916). They were more driven by unconscious motivations than by enlightened, rational thought. My book spells out the philosophical consequences, which these three revolutions in thought brought about. It investigates how a scientific revolution should be characterised. It asks whether Freud's discoveries should count as a genuine scientific revolution. It discusses the methods, which the three thinkers employed, to make their discoveries. It considers the similarities and dissimilarities between the natural and the social sciences.
