Tag: Agonistes

Free Download Descartes-Agonistes: Physico-mathematics, Method & Corpuscular-Mechanism 1618-33 By John Schuster (auth.)
2013 | 632 Pages | ISBN: 9400747454 | PDF | 7 MB
This book reconstructs key aspects of the early career of Descartes from 1618 to 1633; that is, up through the point of his composing his first system of natural philosophy, Le Monde, in 1629-33. It focuses upon the overlapping and intertwined development of Descartes’ projects in physico-mathematics, analytical mathematics, universal method, and, finally, systematic corpuscular-mechanical natural philosophy. The concern is not simply with the conceptual and technical aspects of these projects; but, with Descartes’ agendas within them and his construction and presentation of his intellectual identity in relation to them. Descartes’ technical projects, agendas and senses of identity shifted over time, entangled and displayed great successes and deep failures, as he morphed from a mathematically competent, Jesuit trained graduate in neo-Scholastic Aristotelianism to aspiring prophet of a systematised corpuscular-mechanism, passing through stages of being a committed physico-mathematicus, advocate of a putative ‘universal mathematics’, and projector of a grand methodological dream. In all three dimensions-projects, agendas and identity concerns-the young Descartes struggled and contended, with himself and with real or virtual peers and competitors, hence the title ‘Descartes-Agonistes’.

Free Download Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (Audiobook)
English | ASIN: B0CKGB6S4L | 2023 | 24 hours and 5 minutes | M4B@64 kbps | 709 MB
Author: Garry Wills
Narrator: Adam Barr
In this acclaimed biography that earned him a spot on Nixon’s infamous "enemies list," Garry Wills takes a thoughtful, in-depth, and often "very amusing" look at the thirty-seventh US president, and draws some surprising conclusions about a man whose name has become synonymous with scandal and the abuse of power. Arguing that Nixon was a reflection of the country that elected him, Wills examines not only the psychology of the man himself and his relationships with others-from his wife, Pat, to his vice-president, Spiro Agnew-but also the state of the nation at the time, mired in the Vietnam War and experiencing a cultural rift that pitted the young against the old. Putting his findings into moral, economic, intellectual, and political contexts, he ultimately "paints a broad and provocative landscape of the nation’s-and Nixon’s-travails" (The New York Times). Simultaneously compassionate and critical, and raising interesting perspectives on the shifting definitions of terms like "conservative" and "liberal" over recent decades, Nixon Agonistes is a brilliant and indispensable book from one of America’s most acclaimed historians.