This book is an exploration of what it takes for an event to count as an action. I first became interested in this topic nearly a decade ago while working on a different topic. I kept coming across philosophers making claims about the nature of action that seemed false or at least dubious to me. As a consequence I turned to the philosophy of action directly, to get to the heart of the matter. I have wrestled with this territory ever since. I hope that, with this book, I have finally earned the intuitions that put me at odds with the philosophers I was originally reading. This book develops...

GHOST ARMIES presents Andrew Sneddon's poetic works FUKUOKA and THE WAIT-A-WHILE VINE in one volume. Sneddon's connected verses explore two defining episodes in Australia's history and provide emotional and cultural insights of both personal and universal import. "Fukuoka" relates the experiences of two Australian brothers, Alf and Wally, in a prisoner-of-war camp in Japan during the Second World War. The work contemplates life and death, brutality and kindness, beauty and horror, courage and cowardice. It reflects on suffering and the consequences of suffering. "The Wait-a-While Vine" is a...

This book is an exploration of what it takes for an event to count as an action. I first became interested in this topic nearly a decade ago while working on a different topic. I kept coming across philosophers making claims about the nature of action that seemed false or at least dubious to me. As a consequence I turned to the philosophy of action directly, to get to the heart of the matter. I have wrestled with this territory ever since. I hope that, with this book, I have finally earned the intuitions that put me at odds with the philosophers I was originally reading. This book develops...

This ground-breaking biography of Bishop Francis Hutchinson (1669-1739) provides a detailed and rare portrait of an early eighteenth century Irish bishop and witchcraft theorist. Drawing upon a wealth of printed primary source material, the book aims to increase our understanding of the eighteenth-century established clergy, both in England and Ireland. It illustrates how one of the main sceptical texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Historical essay concerning witchcraft (1718), was constructed and how it fitted into the wider intellectual and literary context of the time,...

This is the first academic overview of Irish witchcraft. Based on a wide range of sources, it is a highly original and innovative study of beneficial and harmful magic, from the later medieval period up until the twentieth century. It examines the dynamics of witchcraft belief and accusation in the early modern period, and offers new explanations for the lack of sustained witch-hunting in Ireland. It demonstrates that during the eighteenth century sections of the educated elite backed away from witchcraft belief for largely ideological reasons, while the witch figure remained a strong part of...