As ubiquitous and influential as gossip is, it has been surprisingly downplayed as a topic of philosophical, psychological, and sociological investigation and debate. In this book, twenty-two scholars from several disciplines turn a professional eye to that much-maligned yet heavily practiced form of conversation. They consider gossip and humor, logic, morality, privacy, legal and medical issues, feminism, history, rumor, and reputation. Provocative and varied, their essays suggest that gossip has unexpected virtues and pave the way for future debate on this omnipresent pastime.

An exploration of modernism and postmodernism in regard to knowledge: methods of inquiry, operations of the mind, the role of values, conceptions of self, and the problematic of reasonThis book explores issues of modernism and postmodernism in relation to knowledge: methods of inquiry, operations of the mind, the role of values, conceptions of self, and the problematic of reason.Among the distinguished contributors are Michael Arbib, Aaron Ben-Zeev, Helen Couclelis, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Jane Flax, George E. Marcus, Donald McCloskey, Donald Schon, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, and Charles Taylor.

As ubiquitous and influential as gossip is, it has been surprisingly downplayed as a topic of philosophical, psychological, and sociological investigation and debate. In this book, twenty-two scholars from several disciplines turn a professional eye to that much-maligned yet heavily practiced form of conversation. They consider gossip and humor, logic, morality, privacy, legal and medical issues, feminism, history, rumor, and reputation. Provocative and varied, their essays suggest that gossip has unexpected virtues and pave the way for future debate on this omnipresent pastime.

An exploration of modernism and postmodernism in regard to knowledge: methods of inquiry, operations of the mind, the role of values, conceptions of self, and the problematic of reasonThis book explores issues of modernism and postmodernism in relation to knowledge: methods of inquiry, operations of the mind, the role of values, conceptions of self, and the problematic of reason.Among the distinguished contributors are Michael Arbib, Aaron Ben-Zeev, Helen Couclelis, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Jane Flax, George E. Marcus, Donald McCloskey, Donald Schon, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, and Charles Taylor.