This book explores the question to what extent science is Western, whether in origin or by character. It aims to contribute to the debate regarding the relative status of local forms of knowledge (such as those found among indigenous peoples) and modern science. Advocates of local ways of knowing often contrast them with what they call Western science. Their opponents, on the other hand, insist that modern science is not merely Western, but universal. But there has been little discussion about what it would mean for science to be Western, let alone what evidence there is in support of the idea. The present book fills this gap, offering a middle path between what have become polarized views.

Is Science Western? is essential reading for scholars, researchers and advanced students of the philosophy of science and of epistemology. It is also ideal for scholars of indigenous knowledge within postcolonial studies.

In this edited volume, contributors explore the various threats-both security- and (dis)information-related-that are present within the European digital environment, along with the subsequent regulations imposed across the region in response to these threats.
Due to the fluctuating evolution of EU-wide and national regulatory approaches to the digital sphere and the differences in each approach, it is crucial to examine the current state of that regulation on both levels to better understand each approach and its consequences. Thus, contributors analyze these phenomena from both European and national perspectives to identify best and unsuccessful practices.

The volume is divided into four sections - first, it maps threats and trust around disinformation in the European digital environment. The second part goes on to identify examples of successful approaches to these threats and to combatting disinformation, while the third section focuses on regulations that have been put in place by specific countries or the EU as a whole. Finally, the fourth section of the book identifies current and ongoing challenges relating to disinformation in the European digital environment, providing practical suggestions and directions for future research in this area.

Media discourses play a powerful role in shaping public understanding of inequality-yet they often obscure, distort, or individualize its causes.
Critical Explorations of Media and Inequality examines how mainstream media systems reproduce and legitimize unequal social structures by marginalizing, sensationalizing, or blaming those most affected. Bringing together leading and emerging scholars, this edited collection explores the persistent gaps, tensions, and ideological forces at work in media representations of class, poverty, homelessness, welfare, and immigration across diverse global contexts. Organized around the themes of changing media work practices, authoritative voices, representations, and implications, the chapters interrogate how neoliberalism and shifting journalistic norms continue to shape-and limit-the public conversation on inequality. Through rich empirical analysis and interdisciplinary insight, this volume offers a timely intervention into the politics of media framing and the structural silences that sustain social injustice.

Western democracies are suffering from populism, verging on fascism, because of the erosion of truth. This book argues that truth can grow out of citizenship education in how science really works, allied with an explicit culture of truth among politicians.

While science operates outside the timescale of politics, it can serve as an object lesson for political decision-making under democracy. Using the examples of disease prevention and climate change, Harry Collins and Robert Evans show why citizens would be wise to trust the substantive findings of science as well as its moral culture. They also present demarcation criteria for distinguishing between real expertise and populist claims and also for distinguishing between real science and contenders for that title that do not deserve the moniker. For example, they argue that the discipline of economics, as currently constituted, does not deserve the title of science because it does not seek correspondence truth but instead works in a circular way within its own models without concern for how those models with their assumptions actually map onto reality.

The solution the authors propose - veritocracy, a democracy with truth at its heart - is incompatible with either left or right totalitarianism and with meaningless slogans. To establish veritocracies we must start with a new approach to science education.

An expansive treatise on the power relations that govern our movement

The Citizen and the Vagabond develops a theoretical approach to the study of mobility and its relationship to the production, maintenance, and transformation of social and cultural hierarchies. Expanding upon his foundational work on the subject, Tim Cresswell examines human movement from around the globe to better understand the various forms of inequality and injustice that shape our lives.

Establishing a framework for movement in terms of rhythm, speed, routes, and friction, Cresswell extends these themes to address the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, exploring what this turbulent period reveals to us about the politics of mobility. He demonstrates that while flexibility and ease of movement are typically considered markers of personal freedom, increased mobility brings with it new modes of control and surveillance. As he investigates the hierarchies and embodied experiences that emerge amid these tensions, Cresswell employs two figures: the citizen, whose mobility within and across borders is expected and accepted, and the vagabond, whose perpetual mobility is deemed suspect and in need of ordering.

In conversation with the work of theorists such as Mimi Sheller, Zygmunt Bauman, Paul Virilio, Henri Lefebvre, Ivan Illich, and Anna Tsing, Cresswell reaches beyond geography to incorporate insights from the humanities and social sciences. An interdisciplinary intervention into the study of mobility and citizenship, The Citizen and the Vagabond provides a new set of coordinates from which to grasp the shifting dynamics of movement and power.

Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

This book analyzes how everyday storytelling operates as a subtle yet powerful mode of influence, shaping identity, belief systems, and leadership across diverse cultural contexts.
Bridging literary theory, cultural studies, and leadership practice, it offers an interdisciplinary examination of myths, fairy tales, parables, and trickster narratives to uncover the mechanisms through which stories embed and transmit power. With critical insight into the ideological and affective force of narrative, James E. Siburt reveals how even the most ordinary stories sustain social norms, seed collective values, and mirror the deep structures of human desire and meaning-making.

Chris Shilling and Philip A. Mellor argue that recent developments in social character are key to explaining the sectarian tribalism that has afflicted American and European societies in recent decades.
Building upon one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd, the authors explore the social and economic conditions that have resulted in a 'thinning' of empathy and mutual identification, the significance of inequalities and social movements in stimulating the emergence of identity-directedness, and the opportunity-directed exploitation of dynamic social change, risk and uncertainty. Reflecting on an era marked by intensifying conflict, Social Character, Tribalism and Society asks whether it is possible that a 'saving remnant' could emerge from the characterological struggle that is fraying the social fabric and threatening to destabilise social order.

What the popularity of the Fast and Furious film franchise says about Hollywood blockbusters and media production

Fast and Furious Franchising charts the transformation of Hollywood through the story of one of its most successful cinematic universes. Released in 2001, The Fast and the Furious became an unexpected hit, developing into a seven-billion-dollar media franchise with nine direct sequels (so far), one "sidequel," copious spin-offs, and licensing deals from board games to theme park rides.

Dan Hassler-Forest shows how Fast and Furious paved the way for a new form of serialized storytelling that balanced new distribution practices and expansion into international markets with a savvy awareness of representational politics. By following the series's development over the past twenty-five years, Fast and Furious Franchising reveals distinct phases that reflect larger media-industrial trends: the postclassical blockbuster era of the early 2000s; the emergence of the megafranchise between 2008 and 2014; the franchise's "imperial" era, from 2015 through 2019; and the postpandemic crisis era of media saturation and franchise fatigue.

While examining this rapidly changing media landscape, Hassler-Forest offers lively, insightful analyses of the films as they have embraced ever-more-ludicrous plots and unlikely character turns while always maintaining their signature faith in the power of family. As he illuminates the role of the Fast and Furious movies in the global entertainment industry, Hassler-Forest shows how the films' improbable success proves Dominic Toretto's adage that, whether "you win by an inch or a mile . . . winning's winning."

Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

The social dimension of human life shapes or constitutes what perception is for us, that is, how we perceptually relate to the world.


A Social Enactive Theory of Perception offers a unified study, in the enactivist tradition, of perception and its connection to sociality. Alejandro Arango looks for perception in the middle of everyday life and finds that perception is at home in perceptual practices, socially structured ways of relating to the perceptible world. These practices are attuned to different dimensions of human life, such as the cultural worlds of customs that play a role in our lives' unique character, aesthetic experience, interpersonal relations, and even social interactions that can be labeled welcoming and accepting, or racist and xenophobic. The book argues that although the perceiver is situated in relation to the world in many ways that influence perception, this does not entail a radical subjectivism. Rather, it shows that the world appears to perceivers in different ways or aspects since we relate differently to the same world The framework of perceptual practices can also be applied to our understanding of others, and the book argues that we understand others in part through perception. This framework allows us to understand others as bearers or social identities.

Bringing social philosophy together with philosophy of mind and taking the next step in enactivist philosophy, this theory accounts for the fundamental role of perception in the social aspect of everyday experience. With influences from Wittgensteinian pragmatism, phenomenology, and analytic philosophy of perception, as well as engagement with social psychology, social cognition studies, and work in neuroscience, the book synthesizes different layers at work in perception, paying important attention to the non-visual senses.

A realist, particle-based view of quantum theory-where the wavefunction no longer plays a central role-offers a clear, commonsense alternative to dominant metaphysical views.

This book explores the metaphysics of quantum theory through a lens of scientific realism-the belief that successful scientific theories describe reality. It critically evaluates various interpretations, including structural realism, wave function realism, and the many-worlds view, highlighting their limitations. Valia Allori proposes a "spatiotemporal foundational ontology" approach, grounded in particles as fundamental entities evolving in three-dimensional space and time, following uniform, symmetric laws. This view is exemplified by Bohmian mechanics (pilot-wave theory), offering a constructive, commonsensical explanation of quantum phenomena. The wave function, in this framework, is not a physical object but plays a functional, law-like role in explaining interactions. Further, the book advances a radical thesis: fundamental particles lack intrinsic properties like mass or charge and are instead "bare" objects distinguished only by the laws governing them. This thesis allows a middle path between traditional object-based metaphysics and eliminative structuralism. Ultimately, the author argues that had physics developed more rationally, instead of following a historical path shaped by contingent choices, the pilot-wave theory might have been the dominant interpretation, minimizing the proliferation of speculative alternatives.

Drawing on 19 months of participant-observation and 20 in-depth interviews with players, Heather Shay demonstrates that gamers derive significant social and psychological benefits from table-top role-playing games - not least in that players often feel the hobby makes them better people.
Playing these games allow players to depict themselves as good, moral actors through their in-game actions as well as by making the game enjoyable for their fellow players in real life. Table-top role-playing games also serve a psychological function by allowing participants to take imaginary risks with their characters, which in turn make them feel more alive than their everyday experiences allow them to. As they pretend to be fictional characters in fictional worlds, players use these games to create identities that make their lives more meaningful.

For more information and to hear an interview with the author on the New Books Network, visit https://newbooksnetwork.com/identity-building-among-role-playing-gamers.

In a precarious world even our most basic assumptions are subject to challenge and change. Confronted by economic, environmental and existential crises, humanity is once again undergoing a profound reappraisal of its place and purpose. This book draws on the ideas of Michel Foucault to trace the evolving relationship between power, knowledge, and governance in the modern era, from the Age of Enlightenment to artificial intelligence.

As it explores the ideas, actors and events that have shaped our world, the volume chronicles the development of four overlapping periods of modern thought: atomistic, mechanistic, organic, and dataistic. Moving through the centuries - from early industrial capitalism to neoliberalism and the emergence of data-driven systems of thought and control - it charts the transformation of human assumptions, aspirations and the art of governance. As we enter into an uncertain future, the book identifies the rise of new technologies that conceive and conduct us in radical new ways. Establishing the parameters of a new episteme, these knowledges reveal new realities and raise the possibility of alternative forms of humanity.

As such, the book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the history of knowledge, social theory and the sociology of modernity.

This book introduces strategic communication students and professionals to essential topics and trends in corporate social advocacy (CSA). CSA refers to companies' actions that publicly declare their stances on controversial social issues. This book covers emerging CSA communication issues relevant in today's rapidly-changing world, including but not limited to theoretical frameworks, CSA messaging, internal communication, social media, crisis management, authenticity, social network, and ethics. Each chapter includes a relevant case study. This book will be an excellent resource for public relations and strategic communication students, faculty, researchers, educators, and practitioners interested in expanding their understanding and knowledge of organizations' CSA communication efforts.

Starting from the dominant perspective of historical sociology, this book looks into the future instead and asks vital questions about the futures we face at the societal and global levels. The authors project what we can expect relating to the future of human knowledge, ideas and expectations, prognostic and futurological conceptions, transformations reflected by social geography and demography, and disputes on environmental issues. It also looks at civilizational issues, religion, economic and political development, and changes in human settlements and lifestyles. Finally, it looks at important issues relating to planetary defence and space settlement in the not-so-distant future. The book offers readers an intellectual basis for understanding historical and contemporary processes at work in the world around us that are shaping the contours of what the world of the future will be built upon.

Individuating action depends upon how people comprehend value judgements about the consequences of an action to distinguish-or not to distinguish-between them.

The question "what is action?" cannot be fully addressed until it is established whether two action descriptions-whether in law, business, insurance policies, or ordinary conversation-refer to the same or different actions. This book approaches the problem of action individuation by arguing for a variantist account, where the moral valence of the consequences of an action plays a foundational role in distinguishing between actions. Actions with bad consequences are associated with the originating act from which the action arises; actions with positive consequences are separate from their originating act. When we consider whether a bad or good consequence is identical to an originating action, the normative valence of the consequences of the action matter. Drawing from an empirical assessment that tests non-philosophers' intuitions about individuating actions, along with real-world examples, Joseph Ulatowski explores the practical and philosophical significance of how we distinguish between actions.

This book demonstrates how embracing and engaging with personal identity-both positively and negatively-has led gaming culture to evolve and fracture past the monolith of the stereotypical "gamer" image that exists within the popular imaginary.

Video game culture tends to be cloistered and closed off to those who don't appear to align with the assumed demographics of a "gamer", despite the reality that a large portion of game audiences fall outside of that category. Christine Tomlinson poses critical questions about the circumstances in which it is deemed acceptable to broach the topic of identity within gaming spaces, with an emphasis on players who have been marginalized in broader gaming culture, largely on the basis of gender and/or sexuality.

In light of this dichotomy, Tomlinson observes how these marginalized players have formed their own communities to produce new individual and shared gaming identities and cultures as acts of resistance and resilience through which they can reclaim a position in an often-hostile environment and a slowly-changing industry and content landscape. Ultimately, Tomlinson argues that while these alternative communities should not need to exist, they have paved the way for a fracturing of gaming culture that provides marginalized players with safe and productive outlets for discussion and community.

Possibilist knowledge is the kind of scientific knowledge about what makes something possible or impossible in a given context, given the satisfaction or absence of a necessary condition, and which is formed by possibilist laws and explanations.

Unlike knowledge of physical necessity, which states what must occur, or probabilistic knowledge, which indicates what is likely to occur, possibilist knowledge delineates the boundaries of what can and cannot happen. Possibilist laws are strict laws stating necessary conditions for events, and possibilist explanations show how apparently impossible or improbable phenomena could have occurred under specified conditions.

Building on new tools such as permissive and preventive conditions, this book rectifies longstanding problems in the philosophy of science, from the "how-possibly" explanations to mechanisms and negative causation, reconsidering the deductive-nomological model of explanation in a renewed light. Drawing examples from physics, biology, social sciences, psychology, and neuroscience, it demonstrates that possibilist reasoning is already pervasive, though unacknowledged, and essential for understanding multicausality and constraints in complex systems. In psychology, possibilist knowledge provides a methodological basis for unifying the discipline and reconciling scientific rigor with human freedom. More broadly, possibilism challenges the modern identification of science with determinism, showing that we can preserve exact science without assuming a deterministic universe. By offering a framework that compatibilizes scientific laws with the presumption of agency and responsibility, the book contributes to resolving one of the most enduring cultural conflicts: the tension between determinism, free will, and the authority of science.

The Olympic Games have evolved from a sporting event into a perceived catalyst for urban transformation, enabling host governments to pursue legacies that position cities as global hubs. Yet aligning the Games' demands with urban planning goals remains challenging. Mounting public scrutiny of rising costs and risks has reduced enthusiasm for hosting, prompting the International Olympic Committee to launch the Olympic Agenda 2020, aiming to enhance sustainability, credibility, and youth appeal.

This book critically examines the Agenda's urban measures, focusing on preparations for Paris 2024 and Milan-Cortina 2026, the first editions fully shaped by them. Findings expose persistent gaps between global ambitions and local outcomes, rooted in structural dynamics of both the Olympic model and host city systems. By proposing mitigation strategies, the book advances debates on mega-events, offering resilient approaches to better align Games planning with host cities' needs and strengthen urban sustainability for future editions.