Practical Form

Immanuel Kant's claim that the categorical imperative of morality is based in practical reason has long been a source of puzzlement and doubt, even for sympathetic interpreters. In The Form of Practical Knowledge, Stephen Engstrom provides an illuminating new interpretation of the categorical imperative, arguing that we have exaggerated and misconceived Kant's break with tradition. By developing an account of practical knowledge that situates Kant's ethics within his broader epistemology, Engstrom’s work deepens and reshapes our understanding of Kantian ethics.

A groundbreaking study of the development of form in eighteenth-century aesthetics In this original work, Abigail Zitin proposes a new history of the development of form as a concept in and for aesthetics. Her account substitutes women and artisans for the proverbial man of taste, asserting them as central figures in the rise of aesthetics as a field of philosophical inquiry in eighteenth-century Europe. She shows how the idea of formal abstraction so central to conceptions of beauty in this period emerges from the way practitioners think about craft and skill across the domestic, industrial, and so-called high arts. Zitin elegantly maps the complex connections among aesthetics, form, and formalism, drawing out the understated presence of practice in the writings of major eighteenth-century thinkers including Locke, Addison, Burke, and Kant. This new take on an old story ultimately challenges readers to reconsider form and why it matters.

Natural Pattern Forms A Practical Sourcebook for Landscape Design Richard L. Dubé Here for the first time is a practical guide to naturalistic landscape design. With the aid of easy-to-use templates, author Richard L. Dubé introduces you to 48 natural pattern forms, and shows you how to apply these natural solutions to everyday outdoor design problems. Imagine drawing from a palette as varied as an arcing river, receding hills—even clouds and frost. This book provides the inspiration you need to break away from staid design solutions and discover design solutions that are creative and natural. All 48 original templates include a sketch, a photo, and a discussion of the structure, aesthetic attributes, and underlying emotional tone of the pattern form. In addition, Mr. Dubé shows how each form can be reconfigured to meet the needs of specific spaces. Further, each template is cross-referenced to specific design applications, demonstrating practical ways to incorporate natural pattern forms in real designs. This book is a unique and invaluable visual resource for professionals and a creative guide for students who are learning to see the natural landscape in a new way. In addition to expanding any existing repertoire of design solutions, this important new resource: Looks at specific design problems. Offers a range of possible solutions for each problem. Explains how and where to look for natural patterns. Presents information in a clear and concise manner. Provides beautiful visual examples. Author Richard L. Dubé is uniquely qualified to create the first practical guide to naturalistic landscape design. A practicing landscape designer for 17 years, Mr. Dubé is a professional interpretive naturalist with extensive knowledge of Japanese landscape design and construction. In this book he draws upon his knowledge of the conscious use of natural pattern forms in the world-renowned gardens of Japan.

Allan Hedberg has been in private practice as a psychologist for over 30 years. In Forms for the Therapist, Dr. Hedberg has put together a one-stop source of every imaginable form for the early career therapist. The book is not geared exclusively to psychologists, but to all types of practitioners including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, marriage and family counselors, alcohol counselors, rehabilitation, recreational, occupational, physical, and speech therapists. The forms have been provided by experienced, seasoned professionals who have refined their content over the course of many years in practice.In addition to the forms themselves, practical guidelines on their use and helpful information on developing personalized forms is included. The book is written in a concise format and the forms are easy to duplicate or adapt for the busy professional. Forms are designed for early career therapists and obtained from experienced, seasoned therapists Includes all types of forms, including surveys, questionnaires, informal tests, informational ratings sheets, and "homework assignments" to be used between sessions Information is geared toward all types of practitioners, and forms are easily duplicated or adapted, saving professionals valuable time

Practical reasoning is not just a matter of determining how to get what you want, but of working out what to want in the first place. In Practical Induction Elijah Millgram argues that experience plays a central role in this process of deciding what is or is not important or worth pursuing. He takes aim at instrumentalism, a view predominant among philosophers today, which holds that the goals of practical reasoning are basic in the sense that they are given by desires that are not themselves the product of practical reasoning. The view Millgram defends is "practical induction," a method of reasoning from experience similar to theoretical induction. What are the practical observations that teach us what to want? Millgram suggests they are pleasant and unpleasant experiences on the basis of which we form practical judgments about particular cases. By generalizing from these judgments--that is, by practical induction--we rationally arrive at our views about what matters. Learning new priorities from experience is necessary if we are to function in a world of ever-changing circumstances. And we need to be able to learn both from our own and from others' experience. It is this, Millgram contends, that explains the cognitive importance of both our capacity for pain and pleasure and our capacity for love. Pleasure's role in cognition is not that of a goal but that of a guide. Love's role in cognition derives from its relation to our trusting the testimony of others about what does and does not matter and about what merits our desire. Itself a pleasure to read, this book is full of inventive arguments and conveys Millgram's bold thesis with elegance and force. It will alter the direction of current debates on practical reasoning.

Practical Sports Nutrition provides detailed, sport-specific advice that enables you to approach individual athletes and teams with an understanding of their sport and unique nutritional needs.

The human figure is a classic artistic subject - beautiful, inspiring, and challenging to draw. This sourcebook shows the many ways of seeing the figure and offers instruction, advice, and visual inspiration. Also included are tips and techniques on proportion and basic anatomy and the details of the human form. There is an invaluable photographic reference source for a variety of poses and features. This book will help you to shape your own approach and individual style, and allow you to better understand and portray the human body.

Learning musics organizing principles . . . Approaching the study of form as an exercise in perceiving the interaction of a number of discrete musical events, Spencer and Temkos book embodies much more than a search for visual clues. Students of form develop perceptual tools that allow them to proceed from the aural experience to an understanding of the arch-principles upon which music is organized. The authors hold that the organizing principles of a given piece of music may be gleaned from studying the internal attributes that give a section its specific identity, the functional relations between sections, and the ordering of those sections.

Hayden White borrows the title for The Practical Past from philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who used the term to describe the accessible material and literary-artistic artifacts that individuals and institutions draw on for guidance in quotidian affairs. The Practical Past, then, forms both a summa of White’s work to be drawn upon and a new direction in his thinking about the writing of history. White’s monumental Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973) challenged many of the commonplaces of professional historical writing and wider assumptions about the ontology of history itself. It formed the basis of his argument that we can never recover “what actually happened”in the past and cannot really access even material culture in context. Forty years on, White sees “professional history" as falling prey to narrow specialization, and he calls upon historians to take seriously the practical past of explicitly “artistic” works, such as novels and dramas, and literary theorists likewise to engage historians.