New Releases by Andrea White

Understanding Mental Causation proposes a new, non-relational theory of mental causation. Andrea White believes that contemporary philosophy of mind labours under a misapprehension of what mental causation is supposed to be. This volume explains where the leading theories go astray, and how the new theory proposed solves critical problems for philosophers of mind and action. Ordinary experience suggests that what we do with our bodies causally depends, somehow, on what is going on in our minds. However, the problem of how to understand the causal relationship between mind and body remains. Contemporary philosophy of mind is shaped by the question: how is it possible for the mental to causally interact with the physical? Mental causation is often presented as a cause-effect relation between mental and physical entities. This understanding of mental causation is widely endorsed because it seems like a straightforward explanation of what is going on when people act intentionally. Desires and beliefs are seen as causes of the actions they explain, entailing the existence of causal relations between mental items and physical events. White calls this the ''causalist'' view of intentional action. This view is not universally accepted. The ''non-causalist'' view denies that intentional action entails the existence of causal relations between mental items and physical events. However, non-causalists reach this conclusion by arguing that explanations of intentional actions which cite beliefs or desires are not usually causal explanations at all. White presents a theory of intentional action that falls between the ''causalist'' and ''non-causalist'' views. She rejects the idea that as-a-cause is how we should understand the place of mentality in intentional action. Concepts like belief, desire and intention do not refer to items which can stand in causal relations to actions or physical events. However, like causalists, she holds that explanations of intentional actions which cite the agent''s thoughts do give causal information. This intermediary view demands a new theory about the causation that is on display when human beings act intentionally, one that does not reduce mental causation to a relation between mental items and physical events. Orthodox theories of causation, inspired by David Hume, assume that causation is always a relation between events. Therefore, the causation demonstrated in intentional action must be a relation, because all causation is, and will count as mental causation if and only if at least one of the terms of that relation is a mental entity. White challenges this orthodoxy by presenting her own non-relational theory of causation. Denying causation is always a relation, she holds instead that causation is a general type of process in which substances engage and that exercising a causal power is to engage in a process. White shows how this novel theory can be used to provide a better understanding of intentional action and the mental causation associated with it. She suggests that to act intentionally is to engage in a process and, as such, to exercise a power - but a power of a special sort. The power to act intentionally is a power to structure one''s own activities so that they demonstrate a pattern - a pattern which is only revealed by attributing mental states to the agent. So, when an agent acts intentionally, they engage in the process of mental causation because the agent is manifesting a special power to organise their activities into a pattern that can be made sense of by appeal to mental concepts. Broadening our understanding of causation, and more specifically incorporating the concepts ''power'' and ''process'', opens up new ways of understanding intentional action and mental causation. In Understanding Mental Causation, White presents a compelling new account in this key area of philosophy of mind.

"Nothing my gorgeous Calamity Jen," he laughed, "it''s just that it seems you''ve managed to find yourself a bunch of misfits to play with who sound even nuttier than you!"Jen Harrington attends the first meeting of the Time 2 Trim slimming club looking for something to keep her on track after her...well...incident...and, much to her adoring husband''s amusement, soon finds solidarity and camaraderie in a quirky bunch of oddballs!They form a fast and tight bond that catapults them along a journey of chaos, laughter, self-discovery, encouragement and new found motivation. After being nudged into entering a local endurance competition, ''The Beckleton Beast'', our underdogs are determined not to be humiliated by Brandi and her evil Barbies and set about trying to train. If they can just manage to avoid suspicious policemen, murderous swans and of course the chippy...then maybe they stand a chance.But then, nothing ever goes quite to plan...

Zert Cage accepts a dare. The 13-year-old sneaks out of his house to engage in a Trash War with his friends. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. Except that it’s 2083, and the world is falling apart. The Nuclear Mistake has left the oceans dead and brown, and grime and pollution are the way of life for anyone not wealthy enough to live in the Up Cities, which float high above the surface of the earth. Those left behind in the Low Cities wear gas masks when they go outside to avoid the Superpox, a highly infectious and deadly disease with a vaccine that few can afford. When the Trash War goes all wrong—Zert encounters Superpox and also has a brush with the law—he must do something drastic to secure a vaccine and avoid a long stint in Teen Jail. Zert and his father get wind of a top secret project to save people from both the disease and the wasteland that the earth has become and agree to allow themselves to be shrunk to the size of their thumbs and transported to an as-yet-undisturbed national park. With signs of infection appearing on Zert’s arm, they act quickly, and overnight, they become outsiders in a community of minimized people who are trying to thrive in the wild using insects as food. Roach stew? Cricket farming? Predators bigger than he is? Zert must find a way to fit in with this new world if he’s going to survive. u200bSurviving Minimized is a thrill-ride of a young adult novel that will make you both laugh and think. This is the story of a flawed, but good-hearted kid who wants to do the right thing when everything around him has gone wrong.

Faith Ferguson had long denied her heritage, but recent events had made it clear that was no longer an option. Now, for the first time in a decade, she had agreed to visit the family''s ancestral home in the Scottish Shetland Islands. She had hoped that this trip would help her come to grips with the more metaphysical elements of her nature. Upon arrival, however, events unfold that make her journey less of a spiritual awakening, and more of a fight for survival.

The life of a playhouse built for a girl named Alice in 1893, and moved from house to house in Houston until it finally was moved to Sam Houston Park in 2010.

The wind and snow blow so hard, you can''t see your hand in front of your face. Your heating fuel is nearly gone, and so is your food. How do you survive? Five fourteen–year–olds face this desperate situation on a deadly journey in Antarctica. It is 2083. They are contes–tants on a reality TV show, Antarctic Survivor, which is set up to re–create Robert F. Scott''s 1912 doomed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. But in 2083 reality TV is not just an act. Contestants literally relive – or die during – the simulations of events. Robert Scott and his team were experienced explorers and scientists, but their attempt to reach the Pole proved fatal. What chance does the Antarctic Survivor team have? This action–packed, riveting adventure – full of fascinating direct quotes from Scott''s journals and other accounts of the expedition – is both a heart–wrenching drama from the past and a disquieting glimpse into the future. Ages 12+

In 2083, orphan Shama Katooee, who has just stolen an expensive pet bird, is mysteriously selected to attend the elite Chronos Academy to be trained in the practice of TimeWatch, although she has no idea how or why she has been given this honor.

After his mother finally convinces the principal of Greenfield Junior High to admit him, twelve-year-old Sam arrives for his first day of school, along with his imaginary friend Winston Churchill, who encourages him to persevere with his cerebral palsy.

A young girl''s birthday is usually full of surprises and joy, but for Katya Dubko, it is truly the end of the world as she knows it. Combining history and fantasy, this coming-of-age story follows the life of Katya, an 11-year old Ukrainian girl whose life is turned upside down after the Chernobyl disaster. Katya lives in a village near Chernobyl and her father works at the nuclear power station. Her family is steeped in Ukrainian folklore and Soviet patriotism and she believes that the station is a magical factory, full of angels who push buttons to create electricity. When Katya is sent into the forest to play while her family prepares for her birthday, she meets a mysterious, other-worldly boy named Sammy, who tells her about the meltdown at Chernobyl. Sammy helps reveal the truth not only about the station, but about blind Soviet patriotism as well, and Katya''s innocent world is destroyed. With Sammy''s help, she realises she is no longer a little girl in a fairy tale but has become the author of her own life.

Shooting It Straight from the Hip is a series of stories and lectures that guides young girls through the intricate times in their lives. It talks directly to them about struggle, being overlooked, searching for their true identity and having the power to change their lives around. It focuses on inner strength and self-worth as key characteristics for success. There is a whole world of young adults also sharing in the uncertainties, questions and adventures of this present day. Andreaas life is illustrated in the book as guidelines and reflections of the similarities that teenagers have faced or will face. The compilation for Shooting It Straight from the Hip is an expansion of her efforts to steer teens towards a promising future.

In the year 2083, five fourteen-year-olds who were deprived of the opportunity to continue school, reenact Scott''s 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole as contestants on a reality television show.

Nineteenth-century adventure fiction relating to the British empire usually served to promote, celebrate and justify the imperial project, asserting the essential and privileging difference between ''us'' and ''them'', colonizing and colonized. Andrea White''s study opens with an examination of popular exploration literature in relation to later adventure stories, showing how a shared view of the white man in the tropics authorized the European intrusion into other lands. She then sets the fiction of Joseph Conrad in this context, showing how Conrad in fact demythologized and disrupted the imperial subject constructed in earlier writing, by simultaneously - with the modernist''s double vision - admiring man''s capacity to dream but applauding the desire to condemn many of its consequences. She argues that the very complexity of Conrad''s work provided an alternative, and more critical, means of evaluating the experience of empire.