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Elsevier

Books in Arts and humanities

Elsevier's Arts and Humanities titles encompass a rich spectrum of scholarship that explores human culture, history, philosophy, and creative expression. These works offer deep insights into language, literature, visual arts, and critical theory, supporting the academic community in understanding diverse perspectives and cultural legacies. Designed for scholars, educators, and students, this collection bridges classic studies with contemporary issues, fostering a deeper appreciation and knowledge of the human experience.

  • Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 2
    • Dov M. Gabbay + 1 more
    • English
    Starting at the very beginning with Aristotle's founding contributions, logic has been graced by several periods in which the subject has flourished, attaining standards of rigour and conceptual sophistication underpinning a large and deserved reputation as a leading expression of human intellectual effort. It is widely recognized that the period from the mid-19th century until the three-quarter mark of the century just past marked one of these golden ages, a period of explosive creativity and transforming insights. It has been said that ignorance of our history is a kind of amnesia, concerning which it is wise to note that amnesia is an illness. It would be a matter for regret, if we lost contact with another of logic's golden ages, one that greatly exceeds in reach that enjoyed by mathematical symbolic logic. This is the period between the 11th and 16th centuries, loosely conceived of as the Middle Ages. The logic of this period does not have the expressive virtues afforded by the symbolic resources of uninterpreted calculi, but mediaeval logic rivals in range, originality and intellectual robustness a good deal of the modern record. The range of logic in this period is striking, extending from investigation of quantifiers and logic consequence to inquiries into logical truth; from theories of reference to accounts of identity; from work on the modalities to the stirrings of the logic of relations, from theories of meaning to analyses of the paradoxes, and more. While the scope of mediaeval logic is impressive, of greater importance is that nearly all of it can be read by the modern logician with at least some prospect of profit. The last thing that mediaeval logic is, is a museum piece. Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic is an indispensable research tool for anyone interested in the development of logic, including researchers, graduate and senior undergraduate students in logic, history of logic, mathematics, history of mathematics, computer science and AI, linguistics, cognitive science, argumentation theory, philosophy, and the history of ideas.

  • The Analysis of Burned Human Remains

    • 1st Edition
    • Christopher W. Schmidt + 1 more
    • English
    This unique reference provides a primary source for osteologists and the medical/legal community for the understanding of burned bone remains in forensic or archaeological contexts. It describes in detail the changes in human bone and soft tissues as a body burns at both the chemical and gross levels and provides an overview of the current procedures in burned bone study. Case studies in forensic and archaeological settings aid those interested in the analysis of burned human bodies, from death scene investigators, to biological anthropologists looking at the recent or ancient dead.

  • Physics in the Arts

    • 1st Edition
    • Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert + 1 more
    • English
    Physics in the Arts is a concise, 288-page four-color entry in the Complementary Science Series, designed for science enthusiasts and liberal arts students requiring or desiring a well-developed discussion of physical phenomena, particularly with regard to sound and light. Topics discussed include the nature of sound and sound perception, and the fundamentals of harmony, musical photography, color perception, and color mixing. The materials are covered at a level appropriate for self-study or as a complementary textbook. A companion website for Instructors is available in Spring 2008.

  • Encyclopedia of Archaeology

    • 1st Edition
    • Deborah M. Pearsall
    • English
    Archaeology is a subject that fascinates us. From Egyptian tombs to a frozen Alpine wayfarer, from cities buried under volcanic ash to stone arrow heads turned up by the plow, archaeology is in the news and in our backyards. It is paradoxical that a subject that so easily captures the imagination is so difficult for the serious layman to access. Superficial media treatments and picture-book atlases and site guides on the one hand, jargon-heavy scholarly books and narrowly focused articles on the other-there are few ways to learn about the real world of archaeology outside the college classroom or the dig site. The Encyclopedia of Archaeology changes this, in making all aspects of archaeology accessible to a broad audience of the general scientific community, educators, students, and avocational archaeologists. Professional archaeologists and anthropologists will also find the encyclopedia a ready source of up-to-date information on specialities outside their own expertise. The Encyclopedia of Archaeology encompasses all aspects of archaeology, including the nature and diversity of archaeology as a scientific discipline, the practice of archaeology, archaeology in the everyday world, and the future of the discipline. Featured in the Encyclopedia of Archaeology are articles by leading authors that summarize archaeological knowledge at the beginning the 21st century, highlighting important sites and issues, and tracing the development of prehistoric cultures around the globe. No existing work provides the breadth and depth of coverage as the Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Also available online via ScienceDirect (2007) – featuring extensive browsing, searching, and internal cross-referencing between articles in the work, plus dynamic linking to journal articles and abstract databases, making navigation flexible and easy. For more information, pricing options and availability visit www.info.sciencedire...

  • Interpersonal Relations Across the Life Course

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 12
    • Timothy J Owens + 1 more
    • English
    This volume (number 12) is subtitled Interpersonal Relations across the Life Course. It is inspired by the increased awareness in recent years of the way in which structural and psychosocial dimensions of the life course shape interpersonal relations. Interest in this issue has included both the maintenance of long-term relationships that may span many phases of the life course and the development of relationships that are specific to particular phases. The volume is a combination of invited and author initiated papers--all anonymously peer reviewed--that seeks to present a cohesive source of information on the multiform nature and influences of interpersonal relations from a variety of perspectives, theoretical frames, and substantive areas. Contributions reflect:Macro-micro linkages and interpersonal relations, (i.e., age structures, social institutions, and race/ethnicity) Parenting across the life course Parent-adult child relations and transitionsTransitio... in non-kin relationshipsSocial relationships and well-being

  • General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues

    • 1st Edition
    • English
    Scientists use concepts and principles that are partly specific for their subject matter, but they also share part of them with colleagues working in different fields. Compare the biological notion of a 'natural kind' with the general notion of 'confirmation' of a hypothesis by certain evidence. Or compare the physical principle of the 'conservation of energy' and the general principle of 'the unity of science'. Scientists agree that all such notions and principles aren't as crystal clear as one might wish. An important task of the philosophy of the special sciences, such as philosophy of physics, of biology and of economics, to mention only a few of the many flourishing examples, is the clarification of such subject specific concepts and principles. Similarly, an important task of 'general' philosophy of science is the clarification of concepts like 'confirmation' and principles like 'the unity of science'. It is evident that clarfication of concepts and principles only makes sense if one tries to do justice, as much as possible, to the actual use of these notions by scientists, without however following this use slavishly. That is, occasionally a philosopher may have good reasons for suggesting to scientists that they should deviate from a standard use. Frequently, this amounts to a plea for differentiation in order to stop debates at cross-purposes due to the conflation of different meanings. While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals with focal issues of a general nature. After an editorial introduction about the dominant method of clarifying concepts and principles in philosophy of science, called explication, the first five chapters deal with the following subjects. Laws, theories, and research programs as units of empirical knowledge (Theo Kuipers), various past and contemporary perspectives on explanation (Stathis Psillos), the evaluation of theories in terms of their virtues (Ilkka Niiniluto), and the role of experiments in the natural sciences, notably physics and biology (Allan Franklin), and their role in the social sciences, notably economics (Wenceslao Gonzalez). In the subsequent three chapters there is even more attention to various positions and methods that philosophers of science and scientists may favor: ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions (James Ladyman), reduction, integration, and the unity of science as aims in the sciences and the humanities (William Bechtel and Andrew Hamilton), and logical, historical and computational approaches to the philosophy of science (Atocha Aliseda and Donald Gillies).The volume concludes with the much debated question of demarcating science from nonscience (Martin Mahner) and the rich European-American history of the philosophy of science in the 20th century (Friedrich Stadler).

  • Philosophy of Biology

    • 1st Edition
    • English
    Philosophy of Biology is a rapidly expanding field. It is concerned with explanatory concepts in evolution, genetics, and ecology. This collection of 25 essays by leading researchers provides an overview of the state of the field. These essays are wholly new; none of them could have been written even ten years ago. They demonstrate how philosophical analysis has been able to contribute to sometimes contested areas of scientific theory making.

  • Constructing Adulthood

    Agency and Subjectivity in Adolescence and Adulthood
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 11
    • Ross Macmillan
    • English
    Advances in Life Course Research publishes original theoretical analyses, integrative reviews, policy analyses and position papers, and theory-based empirical papers on issues involving all aspects of the human life course. Adopting a broad conception of the life course, it invites and welcomes contributions from all disciplines and fields of study interested in understanding, describing, and predicting the antecedents of and consequences for the course that human lives take from birth to death, within and across time and cultures, regardless of methodology, theoretical orientation, or disciplinary affiliation. Each volume is organized around a unifying theme.

  • Philosophy of Anthropology and Sociology

    A Volume in the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science Series
    • 1st Edition
    • English
    This volume concerns philosophical issues that arise from the practice of anthropology and sociology. The essays cover a wide range of issues, including traditional questions in the philosophy of social science as well as those specific to these disciplines. Authors attend to the historical development of the current debates and set the stage for future work.

  • Philosophy of Logic

    • 1st Edition
    • English
    The papers presented in this volume examine topics of central interest in contemporary philosophy of logic. They include reflections on the nature of logic and its relevance for philosophy today, and explore in depth developments in informal logic and the relation of informal to symbolic logic, mathematical metatheory and the limiting metatheorems, modal logic, many-valued logic, relevance and paraconsistent logic, free logics, extensional v. intensional logics, the logic of fiction, epistemic logic, formal logical and semantic paradoxes, the concept of truth, the formal theory of entailment, objectual and substitutional interpretation of the quantifiers, infinity and domain constraints, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem and Skolem paradox, vagueness, modal realism v. actualism, counterfactuals and the logic of causation, applications of logic and mathematics to the physical sciences, logically possible worlds and counterpart semantics, and the legacy of Hilbert’s program and logicism. The handbook is meant to be both a compendium of new work in symbolic logic and an authoritative resource for students and researchers, a book to be consulted for specific information about recent developments in logic and to be read with pleasure for its technical acumen and philosophical insights.

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