1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780971803321

Autore

Malabou Catherine

Titolo

What should we do with our brain? [[electronic resource] /] / Catherine Malabou ; foreword by Marc Jeannerod ; translated by Sebastian Rand

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Fordham University Press, 2008

ISBN

0-8232-6060-7

1-282-69887-7

9786612698873

0-8232-2954-8

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (118 p.)

Collana

Perspectives in continental philosophy

Disciplina

128/.2

Soggetti

Philosophy of mind

Brain - Philosophy

Cognitive neuroscience - Philosophy

Adaptability (Psychology)

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Translated from the French.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-94).

Nota di contenuto

""Contents""; ""Translator�s Note""; ""Foreword""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""What Should We Do with Our Brain?""; ""Introduction""; ""Plasticity�s Fields of Action""; ""The Central Power in Crisis""; ""��You Are Your Synapses��""; ""Conclusion: Toward a Biological Alter-globalism""; ""Notes""

Sommario/riassunto

Recent neuroscience, in replacing the old model of the brain as a single centralized source of control, has emphasized ?plasticity,? the quality by which our brains develop and change throughout the course of our lives. Our brains exist as historical products, developing in interaction with themselves and with their surroundings.Hence there is a thin line between the organization of the nervous system and the political and social organization that both conditions and is conditioned by human experience. Looking carefully at contemporary neuroscience, it is hard not to notice that the new way of talking about the brain mirrors the management discourse of the neo-liberal capitalist world in which we now live, with its talk of decentralization, networks, and flexibility. Consciously or unconsciously, science cannot but echo the world in



which it takes place.In the neo-liberal world, ?plasticity? can be equated with ?flexibility??a term that has become a buzzword in economics and management theory. The plastic brain would thus represent just another style of power, which, although less centralized, is still a means of control. In this book, Catherine Malabou develops a second, more radical meaning for plasticity. Not only does plasticity allow our brains to adapt to existing circumstances, it opens a margin of freedom to intervene, to change those very circumstances. Such an understanding opens up a newly transformative aspect of the neurosciences.In insisting on this proximity between the neurosciences and the social sciences, Malabou applies to the brain Marx?s well-known phrase about history: people make their own brains, but they do not know it. This book is a summons to such knowledge.

2.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910789609403321

Autore

Weeks John <1941-, >

Titolo

Capital, exploitation and economic crisis / / John Weeks

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Routledge, , 2010

ISBN

1-136-80801-9

1-283-10376-1

9786613103765

1-136-80802-7

0-203-82839-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (209 p.)

Collana

Routledge frontiers of political economy ; ; 143

Disciplina

335.4/12

Soggetti

Capitalism

Marxian economics

Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009

Capital

Value

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.



Nota di contenuto

Cover; Capital, Exploitation and Economic Crisis; Copyright; Contents; Preface; Introduction; 1. Value as embodied labor; 2. Value as a social relation; 3. Exploitation and surplus value; 4. Circuit of capital; 5. Commodity money; 6. Capital and money; 7. Credit, crises and capital; 8. Competition among capitals; 9. Fixed capital and circulation; 10. Accumulation and crises; 11. First crisis of the twenty-first century; Notes; References; Index

Sommario/riassunto

In 2008 the capitalist world was swept by the severest crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mainstream economics neither anticipated nor could account for this disastrous financial crisis, which required massive state intervention throughout the capitalist world. Karl Marx did anticipate this type of financial collapse, arguing that it was derivative from the 'fetishism of commodities' inherent in the capitalist mode of production. This book substantiates the foregoing claim by a journey from Marx's analysis of commodities to the capitalist crisis of the twenty-first century.