The Necessity Of Forgetting

Author : Scott A. Small
Publisher : Crown
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2021-07-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780593136195

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Forgetting by Scott A. Small Pdf

“Fascinating and useful . . . The distinguished memory researcher Scott A. Small explains why forgetfulness is not only normal but also beneficial.”—Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of The Code Breaker and Leonardo da Vinci Who wouldn’t want a better memory? Dr. Scott Small has dedicated his career to understanding why memory forsakes us. As director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University, he focuses largely on patients who experience pathological forgetting, and it is in contrast to their suffering that normal forgetting, which we experience every day, appears in sharp relief. Until recently, most everyone—memory scientists included—believed that forgetting served no purpose. But new research in psychology, neurobiology, medicine, and computer science tells a different story. Forgetting is not a failure of our minds. It’s not even a benign glitch. It is, in fact, good for us—and, alongside memory, it is a required function for our minds to work best. Forgetting benefits our cognitive and creative abilities, emotional well-being, and even our personal and societal health. As frustrating as a typical lapse can be, it’s precisely what opens up our minds to making better decisions, experiencing joy and relationships, and flourishing artistically. From studies of bonobos in the wild to visits with the iconic painter Jasper Johns and the renowned decision-making expert Daniel Kahneman, Small looks across disciplines to put new scientific findings into illuminating context while also revealing groundbreaking developments about Alzheimer’s disease. The next time you forget where you left your keys, remember that a little forgetting does a lot of good.

Author : Paul Ricoeur
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 662 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2009-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780226713465

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Memory, History, Forgetting by Paul Ricoeur Pdf

Why do major historical events such as the Holocaust occupy the forefront of the collective consciousness, while profound moments such as the Armenian genocide, the McCarthy era, and France's role in North Africa stand distantly behind? Is it possible that history "overly remembers" some events at the expense of others? A landmark work in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting examines this reciprocal relationship between remembering and forgetting, showing how it affects both the perception of historical experience and the production of historical narrative. Memory, History, Forgetting, like its title, is divided into three major sections. Ricoeur first takes a phenomenological approach to memory and mnemonical devices. The underlying question here is how a memory of present can be of something absent, the past. The second section addresses recent work by historians by reopening the question of the nature and truth of historical knowledge. Ricoeur explores whether historians, who can write a history of memory, can truly break with all dependence on memory, including memories that resist representation. The third and final section is a profound meditation on the necessity of forgetting as a condition for the possibility of remembering, and whether there can be something like happy forgetting in parallel to happy memory. Throughout the book there are careful and close readings of the texts of Aristotle and Plato, of Descartes and Kant, and of Halbwachs and Pierre Nora. A momentous achievement in the career of one of the most significant philosophers of our age, Memory, History, Forgetting provides the crucial link between Ricoeur's Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another and his recent reflections on ethics and the problems of responsibility and representation. “His success in revealing the internal relations between recalling and forgetting, and how this dynamic becomes problematic in light of events once present but now past, will inspire academic dialogue and response but also holds great appeal to educated general readers in search of both method for and insight from considering the ethical ramifications of modern events. . . . It is indeed a master work, not only in Ricoeur’s own vita but also in contemporary European philosophy.”—Library Journal “Ricoeur writes the best kind of philosophy—critical, economical, and clear.”— New York Times Book Review

Author : David Rieff
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 158 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2016-01-01
Category : Collective memory
ISBN : 9780300182798

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In Praise of Forgetting by David Rieff Pdf

A leading contrarian thinker explores the ethical paradox at the heart of history's wounds The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana's celebrated phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Today, the consensus that it is moral to remember, immoral to forget, is nearly absolute. And yet is this right? David Rieff, an independent writer who has reported on bloody conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia, insists that things are not so simple. He poses hard questions about whether remembrance ever truly has, or indeed ever could, "inoculate" the present against repeating the crimes of the past. He argues that rubbing raw historical wounds--whether self-inflicted or imposed by outside forces--neither remedies injustice nor confers reconciliation. If he is right, then historical memory is not a moral imperative but rather a moral option--sometimes called for, sometimes not. Collective remembrance can be toxic. Sometimes, Rieff concludes, it may be more moral to forget. Ranging widely across some of the defining conflicts of modern times--the Irish Troubles and the Easter Uprising of 1916, the white settlement of Australia, the American Civil War, the Balkan wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11--Rieff presents a pellucid examination of the uses and abuses of historical memory. His contentious, brilliant, and elegant essay is an indispensable work of moral philosophy.

Author : Harald Weinrich
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0801441935

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Lethe by Harald Weinrich Pdf

Harald Weinrich's epilogue considers forgetting in the present age of information overflow, particularly in the area of the natural sciences."--Jacket.

Author : Jennifer Cole
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Betsimisaraka (Malagasy people)
ISBN : UCAL:C3400754

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The Necessity of Forgetting by Jennifer Cole Pdf

Author : Tim Cook
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2020-09-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9780735238343

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The Fight for History by Tim Cook Pdf

NATIONAL BESTSELLER FINALIST for the 2021 Ottawa Book Awards A masterful telling of the way World War Two has been remembered, forgotten, and remade by Canada over seventy-five years. The Second World War shaped modern Canada. It led to the country's emergence as a middle power on the world stage; the rise of the welfare state; industrialization, urbanization, and population growth. After the war, Canada increasingly turned toward the United States in matters of trade, security, and popular culture, which then sparked a desire to strengthen Canadian nationalism from the threat of American hegemony. The Fight for History examines how Canadians framed and reframed the war experience over time. Just as the importance of the battle of Vimy Ridge to Canadians rose, fell, and rose again over a 100-year period, the meaning of Canada's Second World War followed a similar pattern. But the Second World War's relevance to Canada led to conflict between veterans and others in society--more so than in the previous war--as well as a more rapid diminishment of its significance. By the end of the 20th century, Canada's experiences in the war were largely framed as a series of disasters. Canadians seemed to want to talk only of the defeats at Hong Kong and Dieppe or the racially driven policy of the forced relocation of Japanese-Canadians. In the history books and media, there was little discussion of Canada's crucial role in the Battle of the Atlantic, the success of its armies in Italy and other parts of Europe, or the massive contribution of war materials made on the home front. No other victorious nation underwent this bizarre reframing of the war, remaking victories into defeats. The Fight for History is about the efforts to restore a more balanced portrait of Canada's contribution in the global conflict. This is the story of how Canada has talked about the war in the past, how we tried to bury it, and how it was restored. This is the history of a constellation of changing ideas, with many historical twists and turns, and a series of fascinating actors and events.

Author : Caroline Adderson
Publisher : Biblioasis
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2015-07-20
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781771960229

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A History of Forgetting by Caroline Adderson Pdf

Malcolm, an aging hairdresser, is reclusive and bitter. Alison, a salon apprentice, is dismissed by Malcolm for her embarrassing innocence. When their colleague is murdered by neo-Nazis, however, the two embark on an unplanned pilgrimage to Auschwitz. A moving and sharp-edged novel by the award-winning author of Ellen in Pieces.

Author : Jörn Rüsen
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2006-08-30
Category : History
ISBN : 0857455559

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Meaning and Representation in History by Jörn Rüsen Pdf

History has always been more than just the past. It involves a relationship between past and present, perceived, on the one hand, as a temporal chain of events and, on the other, symbolically as an interpretation that gives meaning to these events through varying cultural orientations, charging it with norms and values, hopes and fears. And it is memory that links the present to the past and therefore has to be seen as the most fundamental procedure of the human mind that constitutes history: memory and historical thinking are the door of the human mind to experience. At the same time, it transforms the past into a meaningful and sense bearing part of the present and beyond. It is these complex interrelationships that are the focus of the contributors to this volume, among them such distinguished scholars as Paul Ricoeur, Johan Galtung, Eberhard Lämmert, and James E. Young. Full of profound insights into human society pat and present it is a book that not only historians but also philosophers and social scientists should engage with.

Author : Paul Connerton
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 159 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2009-07-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781139480192

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How Modernity Forgets by Paul Connerton Pdf

Why are we sometimes unable to remember events, places and objects? This concise overview explores the concept of 'forgetting', and how modern society affects our ability to remember things. It takes ideas from Francis Yates classic work, The Art of Memory, which viewed memory as being dependent on stability, and argues that today's world is full of change, making 'forgetting' characteristic of contemporary society. We live our lives at great speed; cities have become so enormous that they are unmemorable; consumerism has become disconnected from the labour process; urban architecture has a short life-span; and social relationships are less clearly defined - all of which has eroded the foundations on which we build and share our memories. Providing a profound insight into the effects of modern society, this book is a must-read for anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and philosophers, as well as anyone interested in social theory and the contemporary western world.

Author : Gabriel Josipovici
Publisher : Little Island Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : English fiction
ISBN : 1784108901

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Forgetting by Gabriel Josipovici Pdf

This personal book explores both the public and the private dimensions of forgetting and its scary Siamese twin, remembering. Forgetting takes in our modern fear of Alzheimer's and dementia; the abuse to which such slogans as 'Remember Auschwitz ' can be put; the human need to bury the dead and our modern inability to do so; tombstone inscriptions and war memorials today; and how poets and novelists help us understand these dilemmas. Gabriel Josipovici's novel The Cemetery in Barnes (2018) was shortlisted for the 2018 Goldsmiths Prize and longlisted for the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize.

Author : Milan Kundera
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2023-03-28
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780063290693

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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera Pdf

"An absolutely dazzling entertainment. . . . Arousing on every level—political, erotic, intellectual, and above all, humorous." —Newsweek "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." —New York Times Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

Author : Michael Pollan
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2002-05-28
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780375760396

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The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan Pdf

“Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?

Author : Stefan Herbrechter
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2021-12-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9789004502505

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Before Humanity by Stefan Herbrechter Pdf

The current crisis in thinking the “human” raises questions not only about who or what may come after the human, but also about what happened before. What dark secrets lie in our ancestral past that may be stopping us from becoming human “otherwise”?

Author : Kate Eichhorn
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2019-07-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780674239340

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The End of Forgetting by Kate Eichhorn Pdf

Thanks to Facebook and Instagram, our younger selves have been captured and preserved online. But what happens, Kate Eichhorn asks, when we can’t leave our most embarrassing moments behind? Rather than a childhood cut short by a loss of innocence, the real crisis of the digital age may be the specter of a childhood that can never be forgotten.

Author : Lewis Hyde
Publisher : Canongate Books
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2019-07-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781786897435

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A Primer for Forgetting by Lewis Hyde Pdf

We live in a culture that prizes memory – how much we can store, the quality of what’s preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear, but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and forgiveness? A Primer for Forgetting is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography and social criticism. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to the modern, weighing the potential boons forgetfulness might offer the present moment as a philosophical and political force. It also turns inward, using the author’s own life and memory as a canvas upon which to extol the virtues of a concept too long taken as an evil. Drawing material from Hesiod to Jorge Luis Borges to Elizabeth Bishop to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from myths and legends to very real and recent traumas both personal and historical, A Primer for Forgetting is a unique and remarkable synthesis that only Lewis Hyde could have produced.