Bøger af Bart Nooteboom

How to escape from nihilistic despair: the loss of faith in absolutes of God, the True, the Good and the Beautiful, or in our ability to achieve them? Following Nietzsche, we might be glad to be rid of them, rejoicing in ongoing effort to learn and create, even if, or perhaps because, we never achieve perfection. In other words: imperfection on the move. How does imperfection on the move work? What does it mean for religion? For knowledge and truth, for ethics and morality? And for happiness, relationships, trust, and love? It is the purpose of this book to unravel all that. Happiness requires purpose, for a meaningful life, and pleasure. The only hereafter there is, is what one leaves behind at death. The purpose of life could be to make a contribution to what one leaves behind. There is enjoyment in developing and utilising one's talents for that purpose. In this, the self needs the other, and his/her opposition, in order to achieve the highest level of freedom, including freedom from one's own prejudice and myopia. April 2015 The photo on the front cover is of a scultpure entitled 'The pursuit', by Yinka Shonibare copyright c/o Pictoright, Amsterdam 2013

Bart Nooteboom read mathematics and economics, and had a promotion in econometrics. He read philosophy since he was thirteen, and started writing it when he retired. In this book he gives a survey of 'continental' philosophy, which is often contrasted with 'analytic' philosophy in the UK and US. Especially 20th century French philosophy created an upheaval, and evokes fundamental questions. This book sets out how a dynamic perspective, of existence as a process, can bring coherence. For that, it collects ideas from earlier publications, and gives a treatment of the dynamics of knowledge, language, ethics, existence and society. The book avoids jargon and complicated argument, gives illustrations, and is accessible to a wide intellectual audience.

Bringing together the ideas of many philosophers, among others Hegel, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Deleuze and Derrida, the book aims to give a coherent synthesis of ideas about change and aims to see how one can take a process view of various features of humanity, such as knowledge, relations between people, language and morality, and how, vice versa, that might contribute to process philosophy. Beginning with evolution and moving on to consider knowledge in its dynamic aspect of learning, the book takes a process view of the individual and society.Generalised Darwinism is discussed not only in terms of biology but also in economics, organisation, language and science in terms of interactors and replicators. The key processes of variety generation, selection and transmission are fundamentally different from those in biology. Therefore, a theory of knowledge and its change is presented that in some ways is similar to evolution but also different in important ways. This theory discusses neural Darwinism. It proposes how discovery might work, in a cycle of discovery, in an interchange of stability and change, and how differences in cognition work in the combination of different sources (cognitive distance). This theory is applied to knowledge, organisations and science. The discussion explains and applies the notions of entropy and organisational focus. Recognising that absolute, objective truth is problematic, it discusses the notion of warranted assertion. The notions of sense and reference are discussed in an explanation of meaning, and the notions of order and variety in terms of langue and parole, and the role of parole in poetry. The change of meaning is further developed in terms of the hermeneutic circle to deal with order and change of meaning. It uses the notion of a script and the hypothesis of an object bias.Ethics and morality are explored by how the individual constructs their identity and develops in their tension between authenticity and conformity in society. Aristotle's multiple causality of action is employed to discuss power and sources of dependence and ways to deal with them. Networks as a source of identity and the decentralisation of governance to communities are discussed along with the notion of restorative justice. The concluding chapter considers the historical development and the different forms of ethics and morality, in relation to institutions, and how in evolution an instinct for benevolence has developed and is related to the intrinsic next to extrinsic value of relationships.

In the past decades, research on strategic alliances -the class of interfirm arrangements to which long-term supply relationships belong mushroomed. On the contrary, because of all these studies we now have some knowledge about the reasons why firms enter in alliances and why some alliances are more successful than others.

Inter-Firm Alliances combines 'resource-based' views, transaction-cost analysis and institutional economics to develop an original and comprehensive theory of inter-firm alliances and a coherent method for managing them.

In the past decades, research on strategic alliances -the class of interfirm arrangements to which long-term supply relationships belong mushroomed. On the contrary, because of all these studies we now have some knowledge about the reasons why firms enter in alliances and why some alliances are more successful than others.

Emphasizing learning and innovation, this book offers an integrated account of the key issues in the design and management of inter-firm relations and networks. It brings together perspectives from economics, sociology and management to offer a new kind of book on this subject.