What was the Scottish Enlightenment? Long since ignored or sidelined, it is now a controversial topic - damned by some as a conservative movement objectively allied to the enemies of enlightenment, placed centre stage by others as the archetype of what is meant by 'Enlightenment'. In this book leading experts reassess the issue by exploring both the eighteenth-century intellectual developments taking place within Scotland and the Scottish contribution to the Enlightenment as a whole. The Scottish experience during this period forms the underlying theme of early chapters, with contributors examining the central philosophy of the 'science of man', the reality of 'applied enlightenment' in Scotland, and the Presbyterian hostility to the spread of 'heretical' ideas. Moving beyond Scotland's borders, contributors in later chapters examine the wider recognition of Scotland's intellectual activity, both within Europe and across the Atlantic. Through a series of case studies authors assess the engagement of European intellectuals with Scottish thinkers, looking at the French interpretation of Adam Smith's notion of sympathy, divergent approaches to the writing of history in Scotland and Germany, and the variety of Neapolitan responses to Scottish thought; the final chapter analyses the links between the 'moderate Enlightenment' in Scotland and America. Through these innovative studies this book provides a rich and nuanced understanding of Enlightenment thought in Scotland and its impact in Europe and North America, highlighting the importance of placing the national context in a transnational perspective.

We all engage in the process of reasoning, but we don't always pay attention to whether we are doing it well. This book offers the opportunity to practise reasoning in a clear-headed and critical way, with the aims of developing an awareness of the importance of reasoning well and of improving the reader's skill in analyzing and evaluating arguments.

In this third edition, Anne Thomson has updated and revised the book to include fresh and topical examples which will guide students through the processes of critical reasoning in a clear and engaging way. In addition, two new chapters on evaluating the credibility of evidence and decision making and dilemmas will fully equip students to reason well. By the end of the book students should be able to:

• identify flaws in arguments
• analyze the reasoning in newspaper articles, books and speeches
• assess the credibilty of evidence and authorities
• make sound decisions and solve dilemmas
• approach any topic with the ability to reason and think critically.

Examining the development of a secular, purely material conception of human beings in the early Enlightenment, Bodies of Thought provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual culture of this period, and challenges certain influential interpretations of irreligious thought and the 'Radical Enlightenment'. Beginning with the debate on the soul in England, in which political and religious concerns were intertwined, and ending with the eruption of materialism onto the public stage in mid-eighteenth-century France, Ann Thomson looks at attempts to explain how the material brain thinks without the need for an immaterial and immortal soul. She shows how this current of thinking fed into the later eighteenth-century 'Natural History of Man', the earlier roots of which have been overlooked by many scholars. Although much attention has been paid to the atheistic French materialists, their link to the preceding period has been studied only partially, and the current interest in what is called the 'Radical Enlightenment' has served to obscure rather than enlighten this history. By bringing out the importance of both Protestant theological debates and medical thinking in England, and by following the different debates on the soul in Holland and France, this book shows that attempts to find a single coherent strand of radical irreligious thought running through the early Enlightenment, coming to fruition in the second half of the eighteenth century, ignore the multiple channels which composed Enlightenment thinking.

We all engage in the process of reasoning, but we don't always pay attention to whether we are doing it well. This book offers the opportunity to practise reasoning in a clear-headed and critical way, with the aims of developing an awareness of the importance of reasoning well and of improving the reader's skill in analyzing and evaluating arguments. In this third edition, Anne Thomson has updated and revised the book to include fresh and topical examples which will guide students through the processes of critical reasoning in a clear and engaging way. In addition, two new chapters on evaluating the credibility of evidence and decision making and dilemmas will fully equip students to reason well. By the end of the book students should be able to: identify flaws in arguments analyze the reasoning in newspaper articles, books and speeches assess the credibilty of evidence and authorities make sound decisions and solve dilemmas approach any topic with the ability to reason and think critically.

Critical Reasoning in Ethics is an accessible introduction that will enable students, through practical exercises, to develop their own skills in reasoning about ethical issues such as:
* analysing and evaluating arguments used in discussions of ethical issues
* analysing and evaluating ethical concepts, such as utilitarianism
* making decisions on ethical issues
* learning how to approach ethical issues in a fair minded way
Ethical issues discussed include the arguments about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, animal rights, the environment and war.
The book will be essential reading for philosophy, health, social work and nursing courses.

Critical Reasoning in Ethics is an accessible introduction that will enable students, through practical exercises, to develop their own skills in reasoning about ethical issues such as:
* analysing and evaluating arguments used in discussions of ethical issues
* analysing and evaluating ethical concepts, such as utilitarianism
* making decisions on ethical issues
* learning how to approach ethical issues in a fair minded way
Ethical issues discussed include the arguments about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, animal rights, the environment and war.
The book will be essential reading for philosophy, health, social work and nursing courses.

Cultural transfers between eighteenth-century France and Britain did much to shape the intellectual identity of each nation. But what were the main channels of communication? How did they function? What was their impact? In Cultural transfers: France and Britain in the long eighteenth century a team of specialists focuses on the networks and correspondences on which these exchanges were based, the concrete form they took and the material, political or ideological constraints which governed them. Particular attention is paid to the roles of: intermediaries such as diplomats, scientific institutions, or the Huguenot exiles who played a crucial part in disseminating English scientific, theological and political writings gazettes, learned periodicals, and government-sponsored journals where the French learned about British political debates and institutions translators, who could significantly alter texts in line with their own preconceptions and agendas or the expectations of their readers This multidisciplinary book moves beyond the classic concern with 'influences' of one author or culture on another. It presents a new understanding of the hidden international networks that sustained the Republic of Letters and of the synthesis that emerged through contacts and interaction between French and British culture.

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-51), author of Man a Machine (1747), was the most uncompromising of the materialists of the eighteenth century, and the provocative title of his work ensured it a succès de scandale in his own time. This fully annotated edition presents a new English translation of the text together with the most important of La Mettrie's other philosophical works, translated into English for the first time. Ann Thomson's introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism.

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-51), author of Man a Machine (1747), was the most uncompromising of the materialists of the eighteenth century, and the provocative title of his work ensured it a succès de scandale in his own time. This fully annotated edition presents a new English translation of the text together with the most important of La Mettrie's other philosophical works, translated into English for the first time. Ann Thomson's introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism.

Runner-up for the Vancity 2005 Book Prize
In 1970, the Abortion Caravan travelled from Vancouver to Ottawa to demand legalization of "A Women's Right to Choose.' Nearly 500 women from across Canada joined them in dramatic actions on Mother's Day weekend - causing the House of Commons to abruptly adjourn in the midst of debate. However, the abortion law remained in the Criminal Code for nearly two more decades. BC feminists returned home and fought for repeal of the law, and to defeat anti-abortion take-overs of public hospitals. It was illegal to perform abortions in free-standing clinics.
When Dr. Henry Morgentaler won his case before the Canadian Supreme Court in 1988, and abortion became fully legal, it took Vancouver feminists only months to open BC's first abortion clinic. 'Everywoman's Health Centre' has survived against the odds -blockades, break-ins, death threats, financial problems, and a relentless anti-abortion court case. The whole social and political structure of the province was put on tilt. The reactions of government, hospitals, doctors, community organizations, political parties, the labour movement, and above all, women, are the stuff of this book. Winning Choice on Abortion tells all the stories, from the personal to the political, from the'Abortion Caravan' through the first year of 'Everywoman's Health Centre.'