Reasons and Causes

Reasons and Causes PDF

Author: A. Laitinen

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2013-07-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780230580640

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Are the reasons for which we act the causes of our actions? In the nine essays collected here (including a major historical overview by the editors), experts in the field re-evaluate the history and current state of the reasons/causes debate.

Explaining Behavior

Explaining Behavior PDF

Author: Fred Dretske

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1991-02-05

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 9780262540612

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Why do human beings move? In this lucid portrayal of human behavior, Fred Dretske provides an original account of the way reasons function in the causal explanation of behavior. Biological science investigates what makes our bodies move in the way they do. Psychology is interested in why persons—agents with reasons—move in the way they do. Dretske attempts to reconcile these different points of view by showing how reasons operate in a world of causes. He reveals in detail how the character of our inner states—what we believe, desire, and intend—determines what we do.

Reasons and Persons

Reasons and Persons PDF

Author: Derek Parfit

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 1986-01-23

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 0191622443

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This book challenges, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity. The author claims that we have a false view of our own nature; that it is often rational to act against our own best interests; that most of us have moral views that are directly self-defeating; and that, when we consider future generations the conclusions will often be disturbing. He concludes that moral non-religious moral philosophy is a young subject, with a promising but unpredictable future.

Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction

Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction PDF

Author: Rodolfo Saracci

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-02-25

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 0191609242

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What is epidemiology? What are the causes of a new disease? How can pandemics be prevented? Epidemiology is the study of the changing patterns of disease and its main aim is to improve the health of populations. It's a vital field, central to the health of society, to the identification of causes of disease, and to their management and prevention. Epidemiology has had an impact on many areas of medicine; from discovering the relationship between tobacco smoking and lung cancer, to the origin and spread of new epidemics. However, it is often poorly understood, largely due to misrepresentations in the media. In this Very Short Introduction Rodolfo Saracci dispels some of the myths surrounding the study of epidemiology. He provides a general explanation of the principles behind clinical trials, and explains the nature of basic statistics concerning disease. He also looks at the ethical and political issues related to obtaining and using information concerning patients, and trials involving placebos. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Aristotle's Four Causes

Aristotle's Four Causes PDF

Author: Boris Hennig

Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781433159299

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This book examines Aristotle's four causes (material, formal, efficient, and final), offering a systematic discussion of the relation between form and matter, causation, taxonomy, and teleology. The overall aim is to show that the four causes form a system, so that the form of a natural thing relates to its matter as the final cause of a natural process relates to its efficient cause. Aristotle's Four Causes reaches two novel and distinctive conclusions. The first is that the formal cause or essence of a natural thing is not a property of this thing but a generic natural thing. The second is that the final cause of a process is not its purpose but the course that processes of its kind typically take.

Reason in a Dark Time

Reason in a Dark Time PDF

Author: Dale Jamieson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-02-28

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0199337675

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From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change, Jamieson argues, reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. The climate change that is underway is remaking the world in such a way that familiar comforts, places, and ways of life will disappear in years or decades rather than centuries. Climate change also threatens our sense of meaning, since it is difficult to believe that our individual actions matter. The challenges that climate change presents go beyond the resources of common sense morality -- it can be hard to view such everyday acts as driving and flying as presenting moral problems. Yet there is much that we can do to slow climate change, to adapt to it and restore a sense of agency while living meaningful lives in a changing world.

Real Cause, Real Cure

Real Cause, Real Cure PDF

Author: Jacob Teitelbaum M.D.

Publisher: Rodale Books

Published: 2012-08-07

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1605292028

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An eye-opening guide that boils down common health problems to nine simple causes and offers the relief readers have been searching for. An expert in combining both traditional and alternative medicine, Dr. Teitelbaum explains that tackling nine wholly preventable causes is the key to long-term, real relief from nagging health concerns. Real Cause, Real Cure unearths the underlying causes of more than 50 health problems, steering readers toward cost-effective, safe, and easy remedies to combat woes ranging from acne and food allergies to diabetes and cancer. Readers will discover how getting a full night's rest can combat heart disease, diabetes, depression, heartburn, weight gain, and chronic pain; how adding exercise to one's daily routine not only prevents an expanding waistline, but also wards off Alzheimer's, fibromyalgia, insomnia, and stroke; and how drugs taken to improve our health are a major culprit in why we keep getting sick. This user-friendly guide takes the confusion out of personal health care so readers can enjoy a life free of needless prescriptions, doctors' offices, and irritating health issues.

Scientific and Religious Belief

Scientific and Religious Belief PDF

Author: Paul Weingartner

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-10-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789401043465

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This book provides new insights into the interrelation between scientific and religious belief. The chapters cover important features of belief in general and discuss distinctive properties between belief, knowledge and acceptance. These properties are considered in relation and comparison to religious belief. Among the contributions are topics such as: the change of scientific belief in relation to the change of our information. Is belief value-free? What are rational reasons (for the justification) of religious hypotheses? What are the important similarities and differences between scientific and religious belief? The different features and aspects are discussed in respect to the great religions of mankind. In addition to the research papers the book contains selections of the discussion which help to clarify interesting details. The book will be of interest to a vast readership among philosophers, theologians and people interested in philosophical questions concerning religion.

Communities in Action

Communities in Action PDF

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.