A powerful exploration of diverse world views long ignored by the Western world that suggests possible solutions to the environmental and social problems that face us in the next millennium. Our civilization is in crisis. Overpopulation and overconsumption have jeopardized our survival and the great promises of technology have resulted in environmental disaster. This situation, says author John Broomfield, results from the serious error the Western world makes in equating one way of knowing with all ways of knowing--mistaking a thin slice of reality for the whole. Broomfield argues that the necessary wisdom to chart a new course is available to us from many sources: the sacred traditions of our ancestors; the spiritual traditions of other cultures; spirit in nature; feminine ways of being; contemporary movements for personal, social, and ecological transformation; and the very source of our current crisis, science itself. Other Ways of Knowing shows us the wisdom of other cultures who may hold the knowledge necessary to arrest our headlong race toward destruction. From the ancient Polynesian navigational technique of remote viewing to the formative causation theory of Rupert Sheldrake, Other Ways of Knowing examines perceptions and practices that challenge the narrow perspective of the Western world and provide answers to the complex questions that face us as we move into the next millennium.

Our environment and our civilization are in crisis. But the wisdom to chart a new course is available to us from unexpected sources, including the sacred traditions of our ancestors. From the Polynesian technique of remote viewing to the formative causation theory of Rupert Sheldrake, Other Ways of Knowing examines perceptions and practices that challenge the narrow perspective of the West.

This classic MUP text discusses the historical development of science, technology and medicine in Western Europe and North America from the Renaissance to the present. Combining theoretical discussion and empirical illustration, it redefines the geography of science, technology and medicine.

This broad collection of accessible essays helps readers develop a fuller appreciation of the nature of science and scientific knowledge in general. The focus throughout is on the relationships in science between fact and theory, about the nature of scientific theory, and about the kinds of claims on truth that science makes. Arranges essays according to three essential aspects of scientific practice: Method, theory, and discovery. For scientists looking to broaden their general knowledge of basic scientific theory.

Seven Ways of Knowing is an examination of what we mean when we say we know something, and the extent and sureness of this knowledge. It starts with an analysis of our perception of material objects, the role of evolution, and the nature of space and time. A non-mathematical description of relativity and quantum theory is given in the opening chapters (with a more technical treatment in two appendices). Abstract knowledge, knowledge derived from reading and the media (second hand knowledge), and how we know other persons are the subjects of the next three chapters. These are followed by a chapter on how objectively we can distinguish good and evil and then an appraisal of whether there can be a rational belief in any religion. The book ends with a theory of perception, which offers the possibility of a coherent understanding of all the topics: it is compulsive and entirely original.

This book grew out of a public lecture series, Alternative forms of knowledge construction in mathematics, conceived and organized by the first editor, and held annually at Portland State University from 2006. Starting from the position that mathematics is a human construction, implying that it cannot be separated from its historical, cultural, social, and political contexts, the purpose of these lectures was to provide a public intellectual space to interrogate conceptions of mathematics and mathematics education, particularly by looking at mathematical practices that are not considered relevant to mainstream mathematics education. One of the main thrusts was to contemplate the fundamental question of whose mathematics is to be valorized in a multicultural world, a world in which, as Paolo Freire said, “The intellectual activity of those without power is always characterized asnon-intellectual”. To date, nineteen scholars (including the second editor) have participated in the series. All of the lectures have been streamed for global dissemination at:http://www.media.pdx.edu/dlcmedia/events/AFK/. Most of the speakers contributed a chapter to this book, based either on their original talk or on a related topic. The book is divided into four sections dealing with: • Mathematics and the politics of knowledge • Ethnomathematics • Learning to see mathematically • Mathematics education for social justice.

This innovative study reveals the creative world of a Native community. Once seminomadic hunters and gatherers who traveled by horse wagon, canoe, and dog sled, the Dene Tha of northern Canada today live in government-built homes in the settlement of Chateh. Their lives are a distinct blend of old and new, in which traditional forms of social control, healing, and praying entwine with services supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a nursing station, and a Roman Catholic church. Many older cultural beliefs and practices remain: ghosts linger, reincarnating and sometimes causing deaths; past and future are interpreted through the Prophet Dance; ?animal helpers? become lifelong companions and sources of power; and personal visions and experiences are considered the roots of true knowledge. Why and how are such striking beliefs and practices still vital to the Dene Tha? Drawing on extensive fieldwork at Chateh, anthropologist Jean-Guy Goulet delineates the interconnections between the strands of meaning and experience with which the Dene Tha constitute and creatively engage their world. Goulet?s insights into the Dene Tha?s ways of knowing were gained through directly experiencing their lifeway rather than through formal instruction. This experiential perspective makes his study especially illuminating, providing an intimate glimpse of a remarkable and enduring Native community.