Rules
A Short History of What We Live By
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Narrated by:
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Kitty Hendrix
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By:
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Lorraine Daston
About this listen
Rules order almost every aspect of our lives. They set our work hours, dictate how we drive and set the table, tell us whether to offer an extended hand or cheek in greeting, and organize the rites of life, from birth through death. We may chafe under the rules we have, and yearn for ones we don't, yet no culture could do without them. In Rules, historian Lorraine Daston traces their development in the Western tradition and shows how rules have evolved from ancient to modern times. Drawing on a rich trove of examples, including legal treatises, cookbooks, military manuals, traffic regulations, and game handbooks, Daston demonstrates that while the content of rules is dazzlingly diverse, the forms that they take are surprisingly few and long-lived.
Daston uncovers three enduring kinds of rules: the algorithms that calculate and measure, the laws that govern, and the models that teach. She illustrates how rules can change—how supple rules stiffen, or vice versa, and how once bothersome regulations become everyday norms. Rules have been devised for almost every imaginable activity and range from meticulous regulations to the laws of nature. Daston probes beneath this variety to investigate when rules work and when they don't, and why some philosophical problems about rules are as ancient as philosophy itself while others are as modern as calculating machines.
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Western civilization has given us modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of law, a sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts we take for granted.
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Fascinating and informative
- By Michael Kellogg on 09-29-05
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Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
- Thinkers of the New Left
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. Scruton delivers a critique of modern left-wing thinking.
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Deconstructing the New Left
- By Wayne on 01-17-20
By: Roger Scruton
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Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
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A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
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Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers
- The Ideas That Have Shaped Our World
- By: Philip Stokes
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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This engaging and accessible book invites the listener to explore the questions and arguments of philosophy through the work of 100 of the greatest thinkers within the Western intellectual tradition - covering philosophical, scientific, political, and religious thought over a period of 2500 years.
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Unpretentious, honest, with a big picture
- By Mike S. on 05-29-17
By: Philip Stokes
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The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire
- By: Richard Carrier
- Narrated by: Richard Carrier
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In this extensive sequel to Science Education in the Early Roman Empire, Dr. Richard Carrier explores the social history of scientists in the Roman era. Was science in decline or experiencing a revival under the Romans? What was an ancient scientist thought to be and do? Who were they, and who funded their research? And how did pagans differ from their Christian peers in their views toward science and scientists?
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This Book is a Bombshell
- By James on 06-15-18
By: Richard Carrier
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Culture and Imperialism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism, this book explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. This classic study, the direct successor to Said's main work, is read by Peter Ganim ( Orientalism).
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BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!
- By AnthonyStevens on 02-27-11
By: Edward Said
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The Enlightenment
- The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
- By: Ritchie Robertson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 40 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This magisterial history - sure to become the definitive work on the subject - recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.
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The quickest 40 hour audio book I’ve listen to
- By Joey Caster on 04-02-21
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On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
- By: Arthur Schopenhauer
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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There is a cause, or a reason, behind everything that happens. This is the fundamental view behind the classical proposition the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which, in 1813, Schopenhauer chose as his subject for further examination in his doctoral dissertation On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason....
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I’ve enjoyed this program
- By M.Biblioswine on 04-23-20
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The King of Infinite Space
- Euclid and His Elements
- By: David Berlinski
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 3 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Geometry defines the world around us, helping us make sense of everything from architecture to military science to fashion. And for over 2,000 years, geometry has been equated with Euclid's Elements, arguably the most influential book in the history of mathematics. In The King of Infinite Space, renowned mathematics writer David Berlinski provides a concise homage to this elusive mathematician and his staggering achievements.
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Funniest Highest and Fullest math overview
- By Francisco Garcia on 12-12-22
By: David Berlinski
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A Book Forged in Hell
- Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age
- By: Steven Nadler
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired.
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Well researched, comprehensive intro to Spinoza’s work.
- By Tom on 01-27-22
By: Steven Nadler
What listeners say about Rules
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ER
- 01-26-24
A sweeping history of the pervasiveness of rules in society.
A great listen for anyone interested in the history of ideas surrounding the use of rules in the guises of models, algorithms and laws. Good discussion of arguments for and against bending rules or abrogating them. The narration is sprightly and fully intelligible at 1.6 speed. A slight criticism: the narrator’s pronunciation of French terms is incorrect in a few cases.
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- Philo
- 01-08-23
I just can't get into it
I am the PERFECT audience for this book. I have been teaching law for 38 years. I have a boundless fascination for this topic I can only call rapturous, incandescent, almost giddy. And going in, I thought, great, tying laws to algorithms and so on.
Then I started listening. I can't deal with this framework. If you define enough things as a "rule," you end up defining nothing, and just muddying the waters. We already have different concepts for ideals, paradigms, models, cultural norms, customs, etc. Something has to be a boundary that sets apart a "rule," and right out of the gate, I find that boundary unsatisfactory here. I have seen other authors try to redefine something already well defined, such as shoehorning in new words for well-established concepts in statistics. An old term, I guess, is "reinventing the wheel." That is the feeling I get here, and it has a sufficient squirm factor to cause me to do something very unusual: abandon a book pretty early. I'm sure I'm missing some good insights, but I'm not willing to sit through this, to get there.
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