Browse Results

Select your format based upon: 1) how you want to read your book, and 2) compatibility with your reading tool. To learn more about using Bookshare with your device, visit the Help Center.

Here is an overview of the specialized formats that Bookshare offers its members with links that go to the Help Center for more information.

• Bookshare Web Reader - A customized reading tool for Bookshare members offering all the features of DAISY with a single click of the "Read Now" link.
• DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) - A digital book file format. DAISY books from Bookshare are DAISY 3.0 text files that work with just about every type of access technology that reads text. Books that contain images will have the download option of ‘DAISY Text with Images’.
• BRF (Braille Refreshable Format) - Digital Braille for use with refreshable Braille devices and Braille embossers.
• MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3) - Provides audio only with no text. These books are created with a text-to-speech engine and spoken by Kendra, a high quality synthetic voice from Ivona. Any device that supports MP3 playback is compatible.
• DAISY Audio - Similar to the DAISY option above; however, this option uses MP3 files created with our text-to-speech engine that utilizes Ivonas Kendra voice. This format will work with Daisy Audio compatible players such as Victor Reader Stream and Read2Go.
• EPUB - A standard e-book format that can be read on many tools, such as iBooks, Readium or others.
• Word - Accessible Word output, which can be unzipped and opened in any tool that allows .docx files

Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism (Routledge Critical Studies In Buddhism Ser. #Vol. 23)

Action Dharma charts the emergence of a new chapter in an ancient faith - the rise of social service and political activism in Buddhist Asia and the West. Fourteen new essays treat the historical origins, global range, teachings and practices, and leaders and organizations that make up the latest turning of the Dharma. Environmentalism and peace wa

Action, Decision, and Intention: Studies in the Foundation of Action Theory as an Approach to Understanding Rationality and Decision

Most of the papers in this collection are contributions to action theory intended to be of some relevance to one or another concern of decision theory, particularly to its application to concrete human behavior. Some of the papers touch only indirectly on problems of interest to decision theorists, but taken together they should be of use to both decision theorists and philosophers of action. Robert Audi's paper indicates how a number of questions in action theory might bear on problems in decision theory, and it suggests how some action-theoretic results may help in the construction or interpretation of theories of decision, both normative and empirical. Carl Ginet's essay lays foundations for the conception of action. His volitional framework roots actions internally and conceives them as irreducibly connected with intentionality. Hugh McCann's essay is also foundational, but stresses intention more than volition and lays some of the groundwork for assessing the rationality of intention and intentional action. In William Alston's paper, the notion of a plan as underlying (intentional) action is central, and we are given both a con­ ception of the structure of intentional action and a set of implicit goals and beliefs - those whose content is represented in the plan - which form an indispensable part of the basis on which the rationality of the action is to be judged.

Action, Contemplation, and Happiness: An Essay On Aristotle

This accessible and innovative essay on Aristotle, based on fresh translations of a wide selection of his writings, challenges received interpretations of his accounts of practical wisdom, action, and contemplation and of their places in the happiest human life.

Action, Contemplation, and Happiness: An Essay On Aristotle

This accessible and innovative essay on Aristotle, based on fresh translations of a wide selection of his writings, challenges received interpretations of his accounts of practical wisdom, action, and contemplation and of their places in the happiest human life.

Action and Responsibility (Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy #18)

This book is an exploration of what it takes for an event to count as an action. I first became interested in this topic nearly a decade ago while working on a different topic. I kept coming across philosophers making claims about the nature of action that seemed false or at least dubious to me. As a consequence I turned to the philosophy of action directly, to get to the heart of the matter. I have wrestled with this territory ever since. I hope that, with this book, I have finally earned the intuitions that put me at odds with the philosophers I was originally reading. This book develops ideas in Part Two of my doctoral dissertation, which I wrote at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. I loved being at Queen’s, for both professional and personal reasons. My thanks go to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for financial support as a doctoral candidate. Steve Leighton and Ronald de Sousa were readers for my dissertation. They provided some early and invaluable challenges to the ideas developed here. My deepest debt of gratitude is owed to David Bakhurst, my supervisor. I learned a lot from David; this book would not be the same without his help.

Action and Interaction

Shaun Gallagher presents a ground-breaking interdisciplinary account of human action, bringing out its essentially social dimension. He explores and synthesizes the different approaches of action theory, social cognition, and critical social theory. He shows that in order to understand human agency and the aspects of mind that are associated with it, we need to grasp the crucial role of context or circumstance in action, and the normative constraints of social and cultural practices. He also investigates issues concerning social cognition and embodied intersubjective interaction, including direct social perception and the role of narrative and communicative practices from an interdisciplinary perspective. Gallagher thereby brings together embodied and enactive approaches to action for the first time in this book and, in developing an alternative to standard conceptions of understanding others, he bridges social cognition and critical social theory, drawing out the implications for recognition, autonomy, and justice.

Action and Interaction

Shaun Gallagher presents a ground-breaking interdisciplinary account of human action, bringing out its essentially social dimension. He explores and synthesizes the different approaches of action theory, social cognition, and critical social theory. He shows that in order to understand human agency and the aspects of mind that are associated with it, we need to grasp the crucial role of context or circumstance in action, and the normative constraints of social and cultural practices. He also investigates issues concerning social cognition and embodied intersubjective interaction, including direct social perception and the role of narrative and communicative practices from an interdisciplinary perspective. Gallagher thereby brings together embodied and enactive approaches to action for the first time in this book and, in developing an alternative to standard conceptions of understanding others, he bridges social cognition and critical social theory, drawing out the implications for recognition, autonomy, and justice.

Action and Existence: A Case For Agent Causation

Since the pioneering work of Donald Davidson on action, many philosophers have taken critical stances on his causal account. This book criticizes Davidson's event-causal view of action, and offers instead an agent causal view both to describe what an action is and to set a framework for how actions are explained.

Action and Ethics in Aristotle and Hegel: Escaping the Malign Influence of Kant (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy)

Pendlebury alleges that abstraction and rationalization have had a strong and malign influence on normative moral philosophy in the 20th century. Criticizing writers such as Hare, Rawls and Scanlon for pursuing a conception of moral philosophy that bears little resemblance to the way in which human beings actually think and conduct themselves, Pendlebury, instead, suggests a ’Virtue Ethics’ inspired by Hegel’s and Aristotle’s accounts of action as a corrective to this trend, showing that moral activity is historically and socially based and must address the formed character of individual agents. This trend, which began with the responses by Locke, Hume and Kant to Descartes’ Meditations, rendered moral philosophy individualistic and psychologistic in contrast to Aristotle and Hegel’s claim that man is essentially a social creature. Pendlebury argues that this should be the starting point of any account and understanding of morality which roots the concept of will in the practical activity involved in being a member of an ethical community rather than an abstract metaphysical entity that is supposedly in the possession of individuals. In providing a critique of modern moral philosophy from this perspective, Pendlebury’s line of enquiry lends much support to ’Virtue Ethics’ as exemplified in the work of Hursthouse and Slote, while taking a more combative approach with those with whom he disputes. In doing so he shows that serious considerations of continental philosophy highlights the richness of moral activity absent from ’analytical’ tradition which for so long has been bent on marginalizing it.

Action and Ethics in Aristotle and Hegel: Escaping the Malign Influence of Kant (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy)

Pendlebury alleges that abstraction and rationalization have had a strong and malign influence on normative moral philosophy in the 20th century. Criticizing writers such as Hare, Rawls and Scanlon for pursuing a conception of moral philosophy that bears little resemblance to the way in which human beings actually think and conduct themselves, Pendlebury, instead, suggests a ’Virtue Ethics’ inspired by Hegel’s and Aristotle’s accounts of action as a corrective to this trend, showing that moral activity is historically and socially based and must address the formed character of individual agents. This trend, which began with the responses by Locke, Hume and Kant to Descartes’ Meditations, rendered moral philosophy individualistic and psychologistic in contrast to Aristotle and Hegel’s claim that man is essentially a social creature. Pendlebury argues that this should be the starting point of any account and understanding of morality which roots the concept of will in the practical activity involved in being a member of an ethical community rather than an abstract metaphysical entity that is supposedly in the possession of individuals. In providing a critique of modern moral philosophy from this perspective, Pendlebury’s line of enquiry lends much support to ’Virtue Ethics’ as exemplified in the work of Hursthouse and Slote, while taking a more combative approach with those with whom he disputes. In doing so he shows that serious considerations of continental philosophy highlights the richness of moral activity absent from ’analytical’ tradition which for so long has been bent on marginalizing it.

Action and Appearance: Ethics and the Politics of Writing in Hannah Arendt

This collection of essays by established scholars explores the juncture of action and appearance in the political thought of Hannah Arendt.

Action and Appearance: Ethics and the Politics of Writing in Hannah Arendt

This collection of essays by established scholars explores the juncture of action and appearance in the political thought of Hannah Arendt.

Action: An Analysis of the Concept

During the past decade, there has been considerable interest among philosophers in providing a philosophically satisfactory and helpful ana­ lysis of a particular type of human behavior called action. As I see it, this interest is a renewal of the efforts of Aristotle, in Ethica Nicomachea, to provide an analysis of voluntary action. Because of this, and because Aristotle's distinctions regarding voluntriety are fundamentally correct, what follows is in some ways a discussion in praise of Aristotle. But I have also argued for an analysis of action which will go some way toward withstanding criticism which can be brought against Aristotle's work as well as criticism which can be brought against the more con­ temporary efforts of others in the same subject. In Chapter Two, I argue for four conditions which are, when met, jointly necessary and sufficient for a particular item of human behavior on a particular occasion to qualify as a human action. The analysis does not allow us to determine that a particular kind of behavior, such as killing, is always an action.

Action, Ability and Health: Essays in the Philosophy of Action and Welfare (International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine #1)

This book is a contribution to the general philosophy of action and the philosophy of welfare. The author makes separate analyses of concepts such as action, ability, interaction, action-explanation, happiness, health, illness and disability. At the same time he explores and substantiates the idea of a strong interdependence between the concept of action and some of the central concepts of welfare, in particular health and illness and related concepts.

Action (Central Problems of Philosophy)

The traditional focus of debate in philosophy of action has been the causal theory of action and metaphysical questions about the nature of actions as events. In this lucid and lively introduction to philosophy of action, Rowland Stout shows how these issues are subsidiary to more central ones that concern the freedom of the will, practical rationality and moral psychology. When seen in these terms, agency becomes one of the most exciting areas in philosophy and one of the most useful ways into the philosophy of mind. If one can understand what it is to be a free and rational agent, then one is some way to understanding what it is to be a conscious subject of experience. Although the book places the traditional Davidsonian agenda centre stage, it locates it historically by considering in particular Aristotle and Kant. It also takes the debate beyond Davidson by considering one of the most recent issues of interest in the philosophy of action, externalism. By focusing on the central issues of freedom and rationality as well as on the ontological structure of human action, Stout is able to offer readers a fresh and engaging treatment.

Action: New Perspectives On The Causal Theory Of Action (Central Problems of Philosophy #14)

The traditional focus of debate in philosophy of action has been the causal theory of action and metaphysical questions about the nature of actions as events. In this lucid and lively introduction to philosophy of action, Rowland Stout shows how these issues are subsidiary to more central ones that concern the freedom of the will, practical rationality and moral psychology. When seen in these terms, agency becomes one of the most exciting areas in philosophy and one of the most useful ways into the philosophy of mind. If one can understand what it is to be a free and rational agent, then one is some way to understanding what it is to be a conscious subject of experience. Although the book places the traditional Davidsonian agenda centre stage, it locates it historically by considering in particular Aristotle and Kant. It also takes the debate beyond Davidson by considering one of the most recent issues of interest in the philosophy of action, externalism. By focusing on the central issues of freedom and rationality as well as on the ontological structure of human action, Stout is able to offer readers a fresh and engaging treatment.

Acting to Manage Conflict and Bullying Through Evidence-Based Strategies

This book offers a complete and detailed account of the evolution of an internationally successful, evidence-based program that has been the result of almost two decades of action research into conflict and bullying. It addresses one of the most serious problems encountered in schools and work places worldwide: that of bullying and inter-personal conflict. The book presents a comprehensive account of the research, development and refinement of the DRACON Project and the Acting Against Bullying and Cooling Conflicts programs. The effective strategies that emerged from the extensive international research and practice use a combination of theories of conflict and bullying management with drama techniques and peer teaching which have been unique in their application. The book analyses their evolution into an effective program that has impacted positively on bullying and conflict in a number of settings. In the UK the program successfully addressed behavioural problems amongst girls in schools through the use of peer teaching in a drama setting. In Sweden the program assists nursing students, nurses and other health professionals to deal with conflict in the workplace. In Australia it has been applied in hundreds of schools to reduce bullying and assist newly arrived refugees to deal with cultural conflict and develop resilience and self- identity in their new country. This volume makes a major and authentic contribution to the international effort to find effective strategies and techniques to deal with interpersonal conflict and bullying across a range of contexts.

Acting Presidents: 100 Years of Plays about the Presidency (The Evolving American Presidency)

This book seeks to fill a major gap in the literature about fictional representations of presidents by studying more than 40 plays, written since 1900, which have had prominent productions on or off-Broadway or in another major city.

Acting Out and Sin: Psychoanalytic and Theological Perspectives (SpringerBriefs in Psychology)

This brief treatise explores the common threads to psychoanalytic thought and theological theory. It uses a psychoanalytic lens to examine Judeo/Christian concepts of individual will, consciousness and the unconscious, and the apparent confounding idea of sin. What is new is that the definition of sin is revealed as a psychoanalytic translation of acting-out. Focusing on the behavior of acting-out it illuminates ideas that are part of Western cultural tradition providing insights to those interested in the psychology, and its history and philosophy. As such, it is a highly relevant work for psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts, as well as for a comparative study of psychoanalytic and theological intersecting structures.

Acting on HIV: Using Drama To Create Possibilities For Change

Acting on HIV offers a sustained and relatively systematic inquiry into drama as an approach to discussion of HIV/AIDS and related attitudes and behaviors. A distinctive feature of the research that is presented in Acting on HIV is the emphasis on the potential for and value of using drama to promote vital social change in addition to individual behaviour change. It has a strong theoretical foundation and seeks to interrogate the ethical, theoretical and practical complexities of using drama to address issues HIV & AIDS. The research that is communicated through the book is original and timely and will make a significant, trans-disciplinary contribution to scholarly conversations about the role/s and significance of drama in addressing issues of HIV & AIDS. Acting on HIV will have appeal to scholars working within drama and performance studies and those involved in interdisciplinary work or working in the fields of social work, education, sociology, psychology, cultural and media studies, gender studies, criminology, and critical human and social sciences generally including studies of HIV, sexuality and public health among others. Furthermore, the book targets community practitioners, teachers and researchers interested in drama for social change; arts based research methods and drama in education.

Acting Liturgically: Philosophical Reflections on Religious Practice

Participation in religious liturgies and rituals is a pervasive and remarkably complex form of human activity. This book opens with a discussion of the nature of liturgical activity and then explores various dimensions of such activity. Over the past fifty years there has been a remarkable surge of interest, within the analytic tradition of philosophy, in philosophy of religion. Most of what has been written by participants in this movement deals with one or another aspect of religious belief. Yet for most adherents of most religions, participation in the liturgies and rituals of their religion is at least as important as what they believe. One of the aims of this book is to call the attention of philosophers of religion to the importance of religious practice and to demonstrate how rich a topic this is for philosophical reflection. Another aim is to show liturgical scholars who are not philosophers that a philosophical approach to liturgy casts an illuminating light on the topic that supplements their own approach. Insofar as philosophers have written about liturgy, they have focused most of their attention on its formative and expressive functions. This book focuses instead on understanding what liturgical agents actually do. It is what they do that functions formatively or expressively. What they do is basic.

Acting Liturgically: Philosophical Reflections on Religious Practice

Participation in religious liturgies and rituals is a pervasive and remarkably complex form of human activity. This book opens with a discussion of the nature of liturgical activity and then explores various dimensions of such activity. Over the past fifty years there has been a remarkable surge of interest, within the analytic tradition of philosophy, in philosophy of religion. Most of what has been written by participants in this movement deals with one or another aspect of religious belief. Yet for most adherents of most religions, participation in the liturgies and rituals of their religion is at least as important as what they believe. One of the aims of this book is to call the attention of philosophers of religion to the importance of religious practice and to demonstrate how rich a topic this is for philosophical reflection. Another aim is to show liturgical scholars who are not philosophers that a philosophical approach to liturgy casts an illuminating light on the topic that supplements their own approach. Insofar as philosophers have written about liturgy, they have focused most of their attention on its formative and expressive functions. This book focuses instead on understanding what liturgical agents actually do. It is what they do that functions formatively or expressively. What they do is basic.

Acting and Reflecting: The Interdisciplinary Turn in Philosophy (Synthese Library #211)

Act-Based Conceptions of Propositional Content: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives

The notion of a propositional content plays a central role in contemporary philosophy of language. Propositional content makes up both the meaning of sentences and the content of propositional attitudes such as belief. One particular view about propositional content has been dominant in analytic philosophy, namely the Fregean conception of propositions as abstract mind-independent objects that come with truth conditions. But propositions in this sense raise a range of issues, which have become a center of debate in current philosophy of language. In particular, how should propositions as abstract objects be understood and how can they represent things and be true or false? A number of philosophers in contemporary analytic philosophy as well as in early analytic philosophy and phenomenology have approached the notion of a propositional content in a different way, not by starting out with an abstract truth berarer, but by focusing on cognitive acts of agents, such as acts of judging. It is in terms of such acts that the notion of a propositional content, on their view, should be understood. The act-based perspective historically goes back to the work of Central European philosophers, in particular that of Husserl, Twardowski, Meinong, and Reinach. However, their work has been unduly neglected and is in fact largely inaccessible to contemporary analytic philosophers. The volume presents a central selection of work of these philosophers that bear on an act-based conception of philosophical content, some of which in new translations (one paper by Reinach), some of which published in English for the very first time (two papers by Twardowski). In addition, the volume presents new work by leading contemporary philosophers of language pursuing or discussing an act-based conception of propositional content. Moreover, the book contains a crosslinguistic study of nominalizations for actions and products, a distinction that plays a central role in the philosophy of language of Twardowski.

Act-Based Conceptions of Propositional Content: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives

The notion of a propositional content plays a central role in contemporary philosophy of language. Propositional content makes up both the meaning of sentences and the content of propositional attitudes such as belief. One particular view about propositional content has been dominant in analytic philosophy, namely the Fregean conception of propositions as abstract mind-independent objects that come with truth conditions. But propositions in this sense raise a range of issues, which have become a center of debate in current philosophy of language. In particular, how should propositions as abstract objects be understood and how can they represent things and be true or false? A number of philosophers in contemporary analytic philosophy as well as in early analytic philosophy and phenomenology have approached the notion of a propositional content in a different way, not by starting out with an abstract truth berarer, but by focusing on cognitive acts of agents, such as acts of judging. It is in terms of such acts that the notion of a propositional content, on their view, should be understood. The act-based perspective historically goes back to the work of Central European philosophers, in particular that of Husserl, Twardowski, Meinong, and Reinach. However, their work has been unduly neglected and is in fact largely inaccessible to contemporary analytic philosophers. The volume presents a central selection of work of these philosophers that bear on an act-based conception of philosophical content, some of which in new translations (one paper by Reinach), some of which published in English for the very first time (two papers by Twardowski). In addition, the volume presents new work by leading contemporary philosophers of language pursuing or discussing an act-based conception of propositional content. Moreover, the book contains a crosslinguistic study of nominalizations for actions and products, a distinction that plays a central role in the philosophy of language of Twardowski.