Böcker utgivna av Imprint Academic

This is a revised and expanded version of the much praised short book Universities: The Recovery of An Idea.

Oakeshott''s memorable lectures on the history of political thought, delivered each year at the London School of Economics, will now be available in print for the first time as Volume II of his Selected Writings. Based on manuscripts in the LSE archive for 1966ΓÇô67, the last year of OakeshottΓÇÖs tenure as Professor of Political Science, these thirty lectures deal with Greek, Roman, mediaeval, and modern European political thought in a uniquely accessible manner. Scholars familiar with OakeshottΓÇÖs work will recognize his own ideas subtly blended with an exposition carefully crafted for an undergraduate audience; those discovering Oakeshott for the first time will find an account of the subject that remains illuminating and provocative.

This book looks at ways in which stories are presented and understood; and how story-tellers - and their listeners - may wittingly or unwittingly confuse fact with fiction. This book explores the parallels between four stories (the Trojan war, Moses, King Arthur, and Jesus), and the way their sources relate to their histories and contemporary relevance.

GAIA, named after the ancient Greek mother-goddess, is the notion that the Earth and the life on it form an active, self-maintaining whole. By its use of personification it attacks the view that the physical world is inert and lifeless. It has a scientific side, as shown by the new university departments of earth science which bring biology and geology together to study the continuity of the cycle. It also has a visionary or spiritual aspect. What the contributors to this book believe is needed is to bring these two angles together. With global warming now an accepted fact, the lessons of GAIA have never been more relevant and urgent.

This book features a cross-disciplinary dialogue among writers who are sympathetic to the humanist tradition and interested in developing a new humanist project through debate.

Law making is a primary function of government, and how well the three devolved UK legislatures exercise this function will be a crucial test of the whole devolution project. This book provides the first systematic study and authoritative data to start that assessment.

Offers a history of the monarchy of Belgium, a country artificially created in 1817.

The author passionately sets out his argument for radical decentralisation of power as the only answer to the current crises in politics, trade, ecology, and international affairs.

This book considers historical and current events from the standpoint of moral philosophy.

Machiavelli almost succeeded in removing morality from European politics and, indeed, since his day it has sometimes been assumed that morality and politics are separate. Ryder argues that the time has come for public policies to be seen to be based upon moral objectives.

Historians and sociologists chart the consequences of the expansion of knowledge; philosophers of science examine the causes. This book bridges the gap. The focus is on 'academisation'.

The middle class provides British society with its stability and strength. According to Deane's contentious thesis, our middle class has abstained from its responsibility to uphold societal values, and the enormously damaging collapse of our society's norms and standards is largely a result of that abdication.

This volume concentrates on the period from the beginning of the 18th century to the latter part of the 20th. It is impossible to depict a single school of philosophical theology in Scotland across three centuries, yet several strains have been identified.

Are choice and free will possible in a world governed by deterministic fundamental equations? What sense would determinism make if many events and processes in the world seemed to be governed by chance? These and many other questions emphasize the fact that chance and choice are two leading actors on stage whenever issues of determinism are under discussion. This volume collects essays by accomplished scientists and philosophers, addressing numerous facets of the concept of determinism. The contributions cover viewpoints from mathematics, physics, cognitive science and social science as well as various branches of philosophy. They offer valuable reading for everyone interested in the interdisciplinary relations between determinism, chance and free will. The desire to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on determinism, chance and free will was the initial impetus leading to an international workshop on determinism taking place at Ringberg Castle near Lake Tegernsee, south of Munich, in June 2001. Representatives from mathematics, physics, cognitive and social science, and various branches of philosophy convened to discuss numerous aspects of determinism from their disciplinary perspectives. This volume is based on elaborated and refereed manuscripts of their lectures.

This book examines the change management strategies and processes employed to ensure that the Labour Government's commitment to devolution became a reality in Wales.

Dedicated to the life and work of Thomas Sebeok, this is an issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".

A volume dedicated to the life and work of Francisco Varela, this is an issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".

Dedicated to the life and work of Heinz Von Foerster, this is a double issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".

The essays in this book criticise the new positivism in education policy, whereby education is systematically reduced to those things that can be measured by so-called ''objective'' tests. School curricula have been narrowed with an emphasis on measurable results in the 3 R''s and the ''qualityΓÇÖ of university departments is now assessed by managerial exercises based on commercial audit practice. As a result, the traditional notion of liberal arts education has been replaced by utilitarian productivity indices.

Philosophy can be very abstract and apparently remote from our everyday concerns. In this book Ralph Blumenau brings out for the non-specialist the bearing that thinkers of the past have on the way we live now, on the attitude we have towards our lives, towards each other and our society, towards God and towards the ethical problems that confront us. The focus of the book is those aspects of the history of ideas which have something to say to our present preoccupations. After expounding the ideas of a particular thinker there follows a discussion of the material and how it relates to issues that are still alive today (indented from the margin and set in a different typeface), based on the author''s classroom debates with his own students. Another feature of the book is the many footnotes which refer the reader back to earlier, and forward to later, pages of the book. They are intended to reinforce the idea that throughout the centuries philosophers have often grappled with the same problems, sometimes coming up with similar approaches and sometimes with radically different ones.

This book uncovers the philosophical foundations of a tradition of ethical socialism best represented in the work of R.H. Tawney, tracing its roots back to the work of T.H. Green. Green and his colleagues developed a philosophy that rejected the atomistic individualism and empiricist assumptions that underpinned classical liberalism and helped to found a new political ideology based around four notions: the common good; a positive view of freedom; equality of opportunity; and an expanded role for the state. The book shows how Tawney adopted the key features of the idealists'' philosophical settlement and used them to help shape his own notions of true freedom and equality, thereby establishing a tradition of thought which remains relevant in British politics today.

In this book Andrew Sullivan examines Oakeshott''s transition from his original emphasis on philosophy as providing what was ultimately satisfactory in experience to his later emphasis on practical life. This satisfaction is best achieved by a fusion of the modes of poetry and practice, leading the author to examine OakeshottΓÇÖs view of religious life as the consummation of practice in its most poetic incarnation. The book also examines how the conception of practice is applied in OakeshottΓÇÖs political writings, focusing on the notion of civil association.

In this new and entirely revised edition of his study of Green's theory of positive freedom, Ben Wempe argues that the far-reaching and beneficial influence of Green's political doctrine, on public policy as well as in the field of political theory, was founded on a misinterpretation of his philosophical stand.

Adams sets out a new reasoned argument, based on his experience as a cognitive psychologist and as a human being, to show why Socrates was right: the purpose of life is to recognize ourselves - in each other and in all things.

The book describes Sir Alfred Sherman's early relationship with Sir Keith Joseph and his own role in the formation of the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. Sherman examines the origins and development of 'Thatcherism', but concludes that the Conservative administrations of the 1980s were, for the most part, an 'interlude'.

''Plain'' persons tend to accept that free will exists and is inconsistent with determinism, but this commonsense position is widely debunked by professional philosophers and cognitive scientists. In this special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies David Hodgson defends a simple, robust account of the plain person''s position on free will, and intends it to support equally robust views of personal responsibility for conduct. In a lively debate his ideas are discussed and challenged by ten philosophers and scientists of varying opinions, including Robert Kane, Henry Stapp, and veteran philosopher of mind J.J.C. Smart, with a response by the principal author.

The State of the Nations 2001 is the ssecond publication of a major research programme into devolution in the United Kingdom, published on behalf of the Constitution Unit at University College London.

How does the conscious mind relate to the physical body? In The Emergence of Consciousness philosopher Robert Van Gulick gives a clear and masterly overview and comparison of the current 'emergent' and 'reductive' approaches. Other contributors discuss more detailed aspects of the subject.

Gregory Bateson's work continues to touch others in fields as diverse as communication, ecology, anthropology, philosophy, family therapy, education, and mental/spiritual health. The authors in this special issue of Cybernetics & Human Knowing celebrate the Bateson Centennial.