A Version of Reason


Book Description

The disappearance of Richey Edwards, troubled guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, is one of rock and roll's great unresolved mysteries. His Vauxhall Cavalier was found abandoned in a service station car park near the Severn Bridge, a notorious suicide spot, in February 1995, a fortnight after Edwards had last been seen. The location of the car and the tape left in the deck - Nirvana's album In Utero - tended to point to one conclusion. However, it almost seemed too obvious a statement, and in A VERSION OF REASON, Rob Jovanovic unravels the complicated life and final days of Richey Edwards. Piecing together testimony from those close to Edwards Jovanovic seeks to produce an authoritative account of the life and times of Richey Edwards.




Communicative Reason


Book Description

The book examines philosophical and sociological approaches within critical theory and more widely from the vantage point of communicative reason. It seeks to revitalize the sociological dimension of critical theory by advancing a critical sociology of reason. It does so fully in the knowledge that reason is a contentious concept in sociology and other disciplines. Nonetheless, building on Habermas’s original insight, it argues that an extensively modified version of communicative reason is indispensable. This modified approach will draw extensively from Peirce’s pragmatist semiotics and critical cognitive sociology. Such a focus has significant implications for meta-theoretical, theoretical-empirical, and methodological approaches in critical theory, critical sociology, and related disciplines. This book will be of interest to readers in the social sciences, humanities, and philosophy who value the importance of a social theory of a reasonable society for their disciplines and for increasingly essential interdisciplinary activities. The book will also appeal to many in critical theory and beyond who are interested in the cognitive foundations of normative orders, including unjust or pathological as well as actually or potentially just foundations. The book emphasizes both validity and critique within communicative reason and critical theory and accordingly presents a distinctive perspective on critical-reconstructive research.




Moral Reason


Book Description

What is it to have a reason to do something? is one sort of question; what is it we have reason to do? is another. These questions are often explored separately. But our answers to them may not be independent: what reasons are may have implications for what reasons there are. So the door is opened to a troubling tension—the account of what reasons are that is most plausible in its own right could entail a view of what we have reason to do that is independently implausible. In fact, it looks like this is the case. In the first half of Moral Reason, Julia Markovits develops and defends a version of a desire-based, internalist, account of what normative reasons are. But does that account entail that there are no moral reasons that apply to all of us, regardless of what we happen to desire? It may look obvious that it does—that a bullet must be bitten somewhere. If what we have reason to do depends on what we antecedently desire, corrected only for misinformation and procedural irrationalities, and if desires differ from person to person, there seems to be no basis for assuming that everyone has reason to be moral. But the bullet may yet be avoided. In the second half of the book, Markovits shows how we may do so, building on Kant's argument for his formula of humanity to provide an internalist defense of universal moral reasons. In doing so, she provides a more satisfying answer to the age-old question: why be moral?







Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity maps a central terrain of philosophy, and provides an authoritative guide to it. Few concepts have received as much attention in recent philosophy as the concept of a reason to do or believe something. And one of the most contested ideas in philosophy is normativity, the 'ought' in claims that we ought to do or believe something. This is the first volume to provide broad coverage of the study of reasons and normativity across multiple philosophical subfields. In addition to focusing on reasons in ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, action, and language, the Handbook explores philosophical work on the nature of normativity in general. Topics covered include: the unity of normativity; the fundamentality of reasons; attempts to explain reasons in other terms; the relation of motivational reasons to normative reasons; the internalist constraint; the logic and language of reasons and 'ought'; connections between reasons, intentions, choices, and actions; connections between reasons, reasoning, and rationality; connections between reasons, knowledge, understanding and evidence; reasons encountered in perception and testimony; moral principles, prudence and reasons; agent-relative reasons; epistemic challenges to our access to reasons; normativity in relation to meaning, concepts, and intentionality; instrumental reasons; pragmatic reasons for belief; aesthetic reasons; and reasons for emotions.




Power Tools


Book Description

(Power Tools). Illuminates the technical & creative aspects of loops, allowing you to master this limitless form. Covers: digital recording & sampling, creating your own loops, signal processing & routing, mixing like the pros, legal aspects of sampling, shortcuts and more, exploring applications of the most popular software tools. As a bonus, the included CD-ROM contains demo and lite software of the tools discussed, in both Mac OS and Windows versions, plus 250+ megabytes of license-and royalty-free loops and samples in a variety of styles.




Normative Reasons


Book Description

The first accessible, detailed overview of the debates about normative reasons, developing a new theory based on why-questions.




Reasons Why


Book Description

Reasons Why first argues that what philosophers are really after, or at least should be after, when they seek a theory of explanation, is a theory of answers to why-questions. It then advances a thesis about what form a theory of answers to why-questions should take: a theory of answers to why-questions should say what it takes for one fact to be a reason why another fact obtains. The book's main thesis, then, is a theory of reasons why. Every reason why some event happened is either a cause, or a ground, of that event. Challenging this thesis are many examples philosophers have thought they have found of "non-causal explanations." Reasons Why uses two ideas to show that these examples are not counterexamples to the theory it defends. First is the idea that not every part of a good response to a why-question is part of an answer to that why-question. Second is the idea that not every reason why something is a reason why an event happened is itself a reason why that event happened. In the book's final chapter its theory of reasons why is extended to cover teleological answers to why-questions, and answers to why-questions that give an agent's reason for acting.




Determined by Reasons


Book Description

This book offers a new account of what it is to act for a normative reason. The first part of the book introduces some popular ideas and problems concerning causal and dispositional approaches of acting for reasons. The author argues that the dispositional approach should take a certain form that unites epistemic, volitional, and executional dispositions in a complex normative competence. This "Normative Competence Account" allows for more and less reflective ways of acting for normative reasons. The second part of the book clarifies the relation between the normative reason that an agent acts for and his or her motivating reasons. The chapters in this part refute the widely held "identity view" that acting for a normative reason requires the normative reason to be identical with a motivating reason. The author describes how normative reasons are related to motivating reasons by a relation of correspondence, and proposes a new understanding of how normative reasons explain those actions that are performed for them. Determined by Reasons engages with current debates from a wide range of different philosophical areas, including action theory, metaethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and ontology, to develop a new account of normative reasons.




Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans


Book Description

Schools nationwide are transitioning to the Common Core--our advice to you: Don't go it alone! Our new book, Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources, K-5, shows you that teaching the Common Core State Standards in the elementary grades doesn't have to be intimidating! This easy-to-use guide provides model lesson plans for teaching the standards in reading, writing, speaking/listening, and language. Get engaging lesson plans that are grade-appropriate, easy to implement and include ready-to-use reproducible handouts, assessments, resources, and ideas to help you modify the lesson for both struggling and advanced learners. Our Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans are designed to fit seamlessly into your K-5 curriculum. You get practical tips for revamping your existing lessons to meet the standards. Students learn how to read informational texts, write opinion-based essays, and improve their speaking and listening skills. Grammar mini-lessons and foundational skills mini-lessons will help you teach language conventions, phonics, fluency, and more! We take the guesswork out of Common Core lesson plans with this practical, easy-to-use guide. All lesson plans are grade-appropriate, and every lesson plan includes... Common Core State Standards covered in the lesson Overview of objectives and focus of the lesson Background knowledge required and time required A detailed, step-by-step agenda for the lesson, plus a materials list Differentiation ideas to adapt the lesson for different kinds of learners Assessment ideas, including rubrics and scoring guides A place for your notes: what worked; what can improve Bonus! We show you how to extend the lessons into longer units to suit your particular grade's curriculum, and even help you create more of your own lessons!