Books published by Imprint Academic

The scientists, academics and practitioners writing this book are not 'against' complementary or alternative medicine (CAM), but they are very much 'for' evidence-based medicine and single standards. They aim to counter-balance the many uncritical books on CAM and to stimulate intelligent, well-informed public debate.

This special double issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing is comprised of a collection of papers devoted to the cybernetics and mathematics of Charles Sanders Peirce with a special focus on its synergies with George Spencer-Brown's thinking.

In December 2006, dons at Oxford University caused turmoil by rejecting a set of governance reforms that were championed by their own vice-chancellor. This book is a response to these events, addressed in large part to Oxford's funders - government and benefactors - and is useful reading for those with an interest in the future of this university.

Notwithstanding its provocative title, The Woman Racket is a serious scientific investigation into one of the key myths of our age - that women are oppressed by the 'patriarchal' traditions of Western societies.

Science as a Spiritual Practice is in three parts. In the first part the author argues that there are problems with materialism and that self-transformation could lead individual scientists to more comprehensive ways of understanding reality. In the second part he takes on the contentious notion of inner knowledge and shows how access to inner knowledge could be possible in some altered states of consciousness. The third part is an analysis of the philosophy of Franklin Wolff, who claimed that the transcendent states of consciousness which occurred for him resulted from his mathematical approach to spirituality.

What is it for you to be conscious? To be conscious now, for instance, of the room you are in? Theories on offer divide into just two categories, labelled by Ted Honderich as devout physicalism and spiritualism. The first reduces consciousness to no more than the physical, while the second takes it out of space and into mystery. But none of the proposed solutions has worked convincingly, and the reason, according to Honderich, lies in the persistent and resilient human belief that consciousness really is different. Hence his new theory of Radical Externalism, set out here and then criticised by eleven other leading philosophers, whose verdicts are in turn subjected to a full response by Honderich himself. Does the problem of consciousness survive this latest theory? Does the theory survive such sharp discussion? It is for the reader to judge, but one thing is certain ΓÇö it is time for a change.

The central concern of this book is us human beings. The authors' basic question is: 'How is it that we can live in mutual care, have ethical concerns, and at the same time deny all that through the rational justification of aggression?'

Developments in psychology mean that our view of persons is unlike the great teachers of the Axial Age -- the Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, etc. -- and therefore the God they made can no longer serve as ours. We have to make our own. So argues Ann Long in this fascinating exploration of personhood, religion and moral value.

This collection of original articles considers the perennial question 'What are persons?' It aims first of all to clarify the nature of the question and its relation to associated questions such as the nature of the human animal.

This is a careful examination of the historical formation of Britain and of key moments in its relations with the European powers. The author looks at the governing discourses of politicians, the mass media, and the British people. The rhetoric of sovereignty among political elites and the population at large is found to conceive of Britain''s engagement with Europe as a zero-sum game. A second theme is the power of geographical images ΓÇô island Britain ΓÇô in feeding the idea of the British nation as by nature separate and autonomous. It follows that the EU is seen as ''other'' and involvement in European decision-making tends to be viewed in terms of threat. This is naive, as nation- states are not autonomous, economically, militarily or politically. Only pooling sovereignty can maximize their national interests.

This book shows the importance of political ideas in policy-making and demonstrates the extent to which pragmatic considerations preclude the imposition of rigid ideological programmes.

Martin Bell, Ken Livingstone and Richard Taylor (the doctor who became an MP to save his local hospital) are the best known of a growing band of British politicians making their mark outside the traditional party system. Some (like Livingstone) have emerged from within the old political system that let them down, others (Bell, Taylor) have come into politics from outside in response to a crisis of some kind, often in defence of a perceived threat to their local town or district.Richard Berry traces this development by case studies and interviews to test the theory that these are not isolated cases, but part of a permanent trend in British politics,a shift away from the party system in favour of independent non-aligned representatives of the people.

For the conference and the special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies that lie behind this book, pairs of researchers were asked to tackle from different standpoints concepts of consciousness such as realism, representation, intentionality, information, control, memory and the self.

Dr Hay is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. A zoologist by profession, his research has been guided by the hypothesis that religious or spiritual awareness is biologically natural to the human species and has been selected for in evolution.

Charles Taylor is a philosopher concerned with morality and the nature of the identity of individuals and groups in the West. This book offers an evaluation of Taylor's conception of self, and its moral and political possibilities.

By the late 1980s half the nation's children were receiving 11 years of progressivist schooling that failed to give them even the elementary basis of education that was completed by the age of 7 in earlier days. This book explains the causes and provides the solution to this problem.

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.

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.