bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Natural General Intelligence
Authors: Summerfield Christopher
Published: January 2023

Since the time of Turing, computer scientists have dreamed of building artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a system that can think, learn, and act as humans do. Over recent years, the remarkable pace of progress in machine learning research has reawakened discussions about AGI. But what would a generally intelligent agent be able to do? What algorithms, architectures, or cognitive functions would it need? To answer these questions, we turn to the study of natural intelligence. Humans (and many other animals) have evolved precisely the sorts of generality of function that artificial intelligence (AI) researchers see as the defining hallmark of intelligence. The fields of cognitive science and neuroscience have provided us with a language for describing the ingredients of natural intelligence in terms of computational mechanisms and cognitive functions, and studied their implementation in neural circuits. The book describes the algorithms and architectures that are driving progress in AI research in this language, by comparing current AI systems and biological brains side by side. In doing so, it addresses deep conceptual issues concerning how perceptual, memory, and control systems work, and discusses the language in which we think and the structure of our knowledge. It also grapples with long-standing controversies about the nature of intelligence, and whether AI researchers should look to biology for inspiration. Ultimately, the book aims to provide a bridge between the theories of those who study biological brains and the practice of those who are seeking to build artificial brains.
The value of action
Authors: Summerfield Christopher
Published: January 2023

This chapter introduces reinforcement learning (RL). It begins by discussing what is unique about this framework, in which agents that use a control policy to take actions that affect the environment. The chapter introduces the concepts of the Markov decision process and the value function, and basic RL algorithms such as temporal difference learning, and how these relate to classical and operant conditioning in animals. It discusses the neural implementation of reward-guided learning in the basal ganglia and hippocampus. It considers the problem of exploring effectively, and how other intrinsic rewards, such as curiosity, empowerment, or agency, may be required to allow agents to learn intelligent behaviours. The chapter ends by discussing controversial claims about the primacy of RL as a framework for AI research.
The control of memory
Authors: Summerfield Christopher
Published: January 2023

This chapter considers how memory can be used to facilitate complex forms of control. It opens with simple ways in which memory can accelerate learning, such as eligibility traces. It goes on to discuss the distinction between familiarity and recollection, and the role of the medial temporal lobe in one-shot learning. It considers how a dual-process model of memory helps agents solve the problem of continual learning in a changing world. Subsequently, the chapter discusses recurrent memory architectures, and how they allow agents to maintain and gate information for control. It relates these systems to working memory systems in the primate prefrontal cortex. Finally, the chapter considers meta-learning and neural program induction as theories of how agents learn to execute simple mental programs.
Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity
Authors: Babor Thomas F. , Casswell Sally , Graham Kathryn , Huckle Taisia , Livingston Michael , Österberg Esa , Rehm Jürgen , Room Robin , Rossow Ingeborg , Sornpaisarn Bundit
Published: January 2023

This book is about alcohol policy: why it is needed, how it is made, and the impact it has on health and well-being. It is written for both policymakers and alcohol scientists, as well as the many other people interested in bridging the gap between research and policy. It begins with a global review of epidemiological evidence showing why alcohol is not an ordinary commodity, and it ends with the conclusion that alcohol policies implemented within a public health agenda are needed to reduce the enormous burden of harm it causes. The core of the book is a critical review of the cumulative scientific evidence in seven general areas of alcohol policy: pricing and taxation; regulating the physical availability of alcohol; modifying the environment in which drinking occurs; drink-driving countermeasures; marketing restrictions; primary prevention programmes in schools and other settings; and treatment and early intervention services. The final chapters discuss the current state of alcohol policy in different parts of the world, the detrimental role of the alcohol industry, and the need for both national and global alcohol policies that are evidence-based, effective, and coordinated. This book shows that opportunities for evidence-based alcohol policies that better serve the public good are clearer than ever before, as a result of accumulating knowledge on which strategies work best.
Restrictions on marketing
Authors: Babor Thomas F. , Casswell Sally , Graham Kathryn , Huckle Taisia , Livingston Michael , Österberg Esa , Rehm Jürgen , Room Robin , Rossow Ingeborg , Sornpaisarn Bundit
Published: January 2023

Extensive research shows support for the causal effects of exposure to, and engagement with, alcohol marketing on beliefs, norms, consumption, and hazardous drinking. This chapter critically reviews the literature and highlights the expanding role of digital marketing. Much research has focused on young people, but there is increasing concern over other vulnerable groups, given the unprecedented targeting of individuals and ‘lookalike’ audiences via algorithmic analysis of digital data. Most attempts to restrict marketing are partial, and therefore, the evaluation literature is limited. Vested interests have established voluntary codes, but evidence indicates they are ineffective. Conclusions regarding the likely effects of marketing bans are based on theoretical understanding and empirical evidence about the way in which marketing has its effects and its measured impacts. Conclusions are also informed by research on tobacco advertising where the impacts of restrictions are established and widely accepted.
Modifying the drinking context: reducing harm in the licensed drinking environment and other contexts
Authors: Babor Thomas F. , Casswell Sally , Graham Kathryn , Huckle Taisia , Livingston Michael , Österberg Esa , Rehm Jürgen , Room Robin , Rossow Ingeborg , Sornpaisarn Bundit
Published: January 2023

This chapter reviews interventions intended to reduce alcohol consumption and related problems by modifying the drinking context. These interventions can focus on drinkers themselves, the environments where drinking occurs, regulations and policing of drinking contexts, or the broader community. Interventions are directed toward commercial drinking venues (bars, pubs, clubs), as well as other drinking locations such as parties or sports venues. These interventions are popular because they can target specific problems and contexts and draw on multiple approaches simultaneously. However, their effectiveness varies according to the content of the intervention, how it is implemented, countervailing forces that can weaken impact, and the situational and broader cultural context. Although generally less effective than broader policy interventions, such as higher taxation, interventions to modify the drinking context are a useful element in the mix of strategies for preventing alcohol-related problems.
Alcohol policies: a consumer’s guide
Authors: Babor Thomas F. , Casswell Sally , Graham Kathryn , Huckle Taisia , Livingston Michael , Österberg Esa , Rehm Jürgen , Room Robin , Rossow Ingeborg , Sornpaisarn Bundit
Published: January 2023

The final chapter of the book presents a synthesis of existing knowledge about evidence-based strategies and interventions that can be translated into alcohol policy. The extensiveness of the options with evidence of effectiveness (53 out of 69 options evaluated) shows that the policy solutions developed to deal with alcohol are not only numerous, but also extraordinarily diverse, ranging from individual therapeutic services for persons with alcohol-related problems to population-level strategies designed to influence the affordability, availability, and allure of alcohol for the general consumer. The Best Practices, according to the authors’ consensus ratings, are restrictions on affordability, availability, and accessibility, as well as marketing controls and drink-driving deterrence measures. On the basis of the evidence arrayed in this book, extraordinary opportunities exist to strengthen the policy response to alcohol-related problems.
Culture as Collective Construction
Authors: Gilbert Margaret
Published: January 2023

A group’s culture includes its beliefs, preferences, rules, and conventions. What do these features of groups amount to? This chapter focuses on a group’s belief. It argues that, according to a central everyday conception, a group’s belief is not a matter of the personal beliefs of the group members. Rather, it is a matter of a joint commitment with a particular content. This is a joint commitment, roughly, to emulate a single possessor of the belief in question by virtue of their several actions and utterances. This means that each member has the standing to demand appropriate utterances and actions of the others and to rebuke them for failure so to speak and act. Clearly when group beliefs on this conception arise, they are highly consequential phenomena. The same goes for all aspects of a group’s culture that are constituted by a joint commitment including, the chapter argues, a group’s conventions. This account of social convention is contrasted with the philosopher David Lewis’s.
Collective Belief, Kuhn, and the String Theory Community
Authors: Gilbert Margaret
Published: January 2023

This chapter, co-authored with James Weatherall, brings Margaret Gilbert’s account of collective belief into conversation with some important observations on the practice and progress of science. Gilbert argued in earlier work that groups of scientists are likely to develop collective beliefs in her sense and that, by their nature, these beliefs will tend to act as a break on scientific progress, creating a barrier to the fair evaluation of new ideas and to salutary changes in those that prevail. This chapter connects these points to some of historian of science Thomas Kuhn’s observations on “normal science” in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and theoretical physicist Lee Smolin’s observations on the group of physicists working within the framework of string theory in his book The Trouble with Physics. That both sets of observations can be explained by reference to Gilbert’s account of collective belief supports her proposal that collective beliefs in her sense are consequential factors in the life of scientists.
Group Lies—And Some Related Matters
Authors: Gilbert Margaret
Published: January 2023

Can the author’s joint commitment account of collective belief allow for the possibility of group lies? Jennifer Lackey has alleged that it cannot, and that, therefore, the account must be rejected. This chapter first clarifies some aspects of the joint commitment account that Lackey’s discussion overlooks. These include the account’s subsumption of both basic and non-basic cases, and the fact that the primary audience for expressions of the collective belief is the parties to the belief as such. It then shows that the joint commitment account can account for group lies, and also for group BS, both of which Lackey claims are outside its scope. In concluding, it conjectures that Lackey’s real concerns with the joint commitment account lie elsewhere, and responds to these concerns.
How We Feel
Authors: Gilbert Margaret
Published: January 2023

People often talk as if groups have emotions of various sorts, as in “The team is so excited!” This chapter argues for a particular understanding of such statements. First, it disengages the question from assumptions about emotions that are derived from the individual as opposed to the collective case, including the assumption that having an emotion is in whole or in part to experience a particular feeling, such as a thrill of excitement. Then, starting with standard reactions people have in contexts where a given collective emotion is presumed to exist, it offers an account of collective emotions generally as constituted by joint commitments, and discusses their role in the life of groups and their connection with the emotions of individual group members.
Naïve ideals in cynical times
Authors: Boswell John
Published: January 2023

This chapter introduces the central puzzle underlying the book—the persistence of ‘magical thinking’ about better policymaking despite widespread cynicism among experts and practitioners in policy work about ideals like evidence-based policymaking, prevention, collaboration, transparency and citizen engagement. It links the book to key debates in the fields of public policy and administration on the viability and attractiveness of key aspirations to make policymaking more rational and/or more democratic. The chapter provides an overview of the argument, an outline of the chapter structure, and a brief account of the approach and orientation undertaken in the underpinning research.
The Regulators’ View
Authors: Pototschnig Alberto , Godfried Martin
Published: January 2023

Several European Member States have intervened or intend to intervene to promote resource adequacy in the electricity sector by introducing a capacity remuneration mechanism. This chapter presents how in theory energy-only markets could contribute to security of supply, but how in reality the conditions for this to happen rarely materialize. It also assesses the potential distortionary impact of these mechanisms on the functioning of the Internal Electricity Market by illustrating how they impact prices, cross-border trade, competition, welfare distribution, and investments in the short and long run, as well as how some of these effects spill across borders. It also points to the risks of improper designs of these mechanisms and it recommends how these risks can be addressed. Finally, the chapter discusses how the 2019 Clean Energy Package introduced more stringent conditions for Member States to establish capacity mechanisms.
Capacity Remuneration Mechanisms in the EU
Authors: Schittekatte Tim , Meeus Leonardo
Published: January 2023

This chapter discusses the implementation of capacity remuneration mechanisms (CRMs) in the European Union (EU). It first illustrates how the costs of CRMs in the EU are significantly lower than in the United States (US). Next, it discusses how the Clean Energy Package (CEP) intends to limit the future role of CRMs. Two steps are introduced to check if CRMs are really needed: a European resource adequacy assessment and a national implementation plan to improve current electricity market design. In case residual adequacy concerns persist, the CEP also includes provisions to guide the design of a CRM. Finally, the role of the consumer in securing resource adequacy in the future is discussed.
The EU Approach to Resource Adequacy
Authors: Beaude Francois
Published: January 2023

The chapter describes the framework and governance set up within the European Union to ensure resource adequacy. The chapter first defines the benchmark resource adequacy target, the reliability standard, as the optimal level of security of supply for society as a whole. It then describes in detail resource adequacy assessments, which forecast resource adequacy one to ten years ahead. Finally, the chapter describes the action that European countries may take when the forecast resource adequacy level does not fulfil the reliability standard, including decisions for and design of capacity mechanisms. In particular, the chapter describes how cross-border participation is set up for capacity mechanisms.
Different Approaches for Capacity Mechanisms in Europe
Authors: Roques Fabien , Verhaeghe Charles
Published: January 2023

A patchwork of approaches has been used for the design of capacity mechanisms among EU Member States, which could potentially have a negative impact on the integration of European energy markets. To shed light on this matter, the purpose of this chapter is threefold: providing a review of (1) the local drivers for the implementation of capacity mechanisms, (2) the current regulatory framework for the coordination of designs, and (3) proposing potential ways forward towards a more integrated approach. Our analysis shows that the drivers vary significantly between countries and that there is value in ensuring a more coordinated approach across EU countries to minimize potential distortions. We review the recent EU guidance regarding the design of capacity mechanisms. However, these developments remain insufficient to foster a strong coordination and we identify potential next steps for further coordination. We also argue that developing cross-border capacity trading in capacity mechanisms might force Member States to address some of the broader key issues of energy market integration and harmonization, but it will likely raise complicated governance challenges. Such enhanced coordination could indeed pave the way for the development of a more regional approach to ensure the security of EU electricity supply.
The Generation Mix, Price Caps, and Capacity Payments
Authors: Willems Bert
Published: January 2023

This chapter provides a simplified economic analysis of a capacity mechanism that is used to correct the investment incentives when wholesale prices are capped. The price cap reduces revenue for investors, which reduces their investments incentives. A capacity mechanism can restore those investment incentives. A graphical analysis of optimal generation portfolios, by means of load duration graphs and levelised cost functions shows that a price cap affects investments in peak-load technologies and leaves investments in other technologies unchanged. However, to correct for the price cap, the capacity mechanism must provide a subsidy for all technologies, from both peak to base load. Only providing a subsidy for peak load technology would distort the relative costs of the different technologies, and lead to an inefficient generation portfolio. The chapter continues with a discussion on the effects of intermittent generation and demand flexibility.
Belgium
Authors: Vandorpe Wouter
Published: January 2023

In Belgium, there are several issues related to the country’s medium and long-term security of electricity supply. First and foremost, the installed capacity will significantly decrease during the gradual nuclear phase-out planned for between 2022 and 2025. This will lead to a need for new capacity from the winter of 2025–2026 onwards. Only a fraction of this would be realized in the event that no additional market mechanism is activated as from 2025. This motivates Belgium—like several other Member States—to develop capacity mechanisms today. The chapter indicates the current and future capacity mechanisms in Belgium, with a legal focus on the recently adopted legislation on a Belgian capacity remuneration mechanism (CRM). The main conclusion is that enormous steps have been taken by the Belgian legislator to comfort the European Commission and to comply with the state aid rules, resulting in a positive state aid decision received on 27 August 2021.
France
Authors: Dezobry Guillaume
Published: January 2023

This chapter analyses the French capacity mechanism. Set up in 2017, the French capacity mechanism was initially designed to respond to a problem of security of supply linked to peak consumption. Market-based and decentralized, the choice of the design, unique in Europe, makes it one of the most complex to operate. This complexity has been further increased by the measures adopted to respond to the concerns of the European Commission and, in particular, the opening up to cross-border capacities and the long-term auctions. The French capacity mechanism is currently subject to significant reflection and should be simplified in the coming months. More fundamentally, the very nature of this mechanism, in a context of decarbonization, will be questioned.
Italy
Authors: Salerno Francesco Maria , Salis Francesco
Published: January 2023

This chapter focuses on the Italian electricity sector and the Italian capacity mechanism. In 2019, following the Commission authorization of Italy’s capacity mechanism, Italy amended the scheme by introducing more stringent CO2 emissions limits, consistently with the new requirements set out by the 2019 Electricity Regulation. The first tenders under the new scheme took place in November 2019 for delivery in 2022 and 2023. Traditional sources obtained most of the contracted capacity. In 2022, , the Italian TSO Terna held the tenders for delivery in 2024. In both tenders traditional sources have been awarded most of the contracted capacity. However, the latest tenders saw storage facilities winning for the first time a significant share of the tendered capacity.. Nevertheless, the tenders have been criticized by renewable generators. This chapter illustrates information on the market and the regulatory framework in Italy, describes the main features of the capacity mechanism and highlights key issues in the Italian electricity market design.
Norway
Authors: Wenger Cathrine Ramstad , Støle Frode , Naas-Bibow Jens
Published: January 2023

The Norway chapter gives a broad overview of market characteristics of the Norwegian electricity market and the legislation and government bodies which regulate the electricity sector. The chapter also deals with Nordic and European market integration, and explains why Norway has taken a different position from most other European countries with regard to capacity mechanisms. Norway remains faithful to the idea of the energy-only market, relying primarily on the market rather than on capacity mechanisms for ensuring security of supply. This is possible because of more than 1,000 hydropower reservoirs with a total capacity of 87 TWh, which ensure a unique flexibility in renewable electricity generation. In addition, interconnectors to neighbouring countries play an important role from a security of supply perspective.
Poland
Authors: Sadowska Małgorzata
Published: January 2023

This chapter concerns the introduction of a capacity mechanism in Poland, which constitutes one of the major reforms of the Polish electricity market in the recent years. The mechanism has been in operation since 2018, and five capacity auctions have already taken place for delivery years 2021 to 2025. While the mechanism does address the resource adequacy concerns, it is being criticized for not providing sufficient investment incentives for new capacity and maintaining the economically inefficient and old coal-fired units in operation, thus delaying much needed decarbonization of the Polish power system. This chapter provides a brief overview of the market characteristics, the regulatory framework, and explores the adequacy concerns underlying the introduction of the capacity mechanism.
United Kingdom
Authors: Willis Peter
Published: January 2023

This chapter focuses on the UK electricity sector and the GB capacity mechanism. The GB capacity mechanism has been in operation for some years, with the first auctions having taken place in December 2014, for delivery in 2018–2019. Although it suffered a one-year partial interruption following the annulment of the European Commission’s original state aid approval decision by the EU General Court in 2018, the mechanism is perceived as having been generally successful. Since its establishment, the mechanism has progressively been opened up for participation by interconnectors and demand response. However, some changes seem likely following a UK government consultation launched in July 2022.
Virtuous Circles of Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood
Authors: Stollenwerk Eric
Published: January 2023

Chapter 2 outlines the theoretical framework of the study. It starts by defining effective and legitimate governance as the key terms of the analysis and then introduces areas of limited statehood as the empirical subject of this book. This chapter also addresses why conditions of limited statehood challenge the likelihood of virtuous circles of governance to evolve. Five challenges are particularly important: limited state capacity, predatory state behaviour, the multitude of governance actors, the multiple sources of governance effectiveness and legitimacy, and the diversity of governance audiences. This chapter also explains why it is necessary to consider different governance actors and different governance categories when analysing virtuous circles of governance. Building on theories of political science and social psychology, Chapter 2 introduces a new theoretical model of virtuous circles of governance that shows how perceptions of governance and legitimacy interact. The key hypotheses follow from the theoretical model, which the empirical contributions of the book test systematically. These are the expectation confirmation hypothesis (H1a), the confirmation bias hypothesis (H1b), the output-based legitimacy hypothesis (H2), and the task complexity hypothesis (H3).
Lost Hopes and Broken Promises in Nigeria
Authors: Stollenwerk Eric
Published: January 2023

Chapter 4 focuses in on the (sub-)national level by considering virtuous circles of governance for the state in Nigeria. This part introduces Nigeria as an empirical case and shows how it reflects the five key challenges to virtuous circles of governance central to this book. This chapter uses Afrobarometer data from 2005–2013 for more than 5,000 Nigerians. Linking to Chapter 3, the focus is on state legitimacy and service perceptions in the security, public health, and basic subsistence sectors. For Nigeria, there is no empirical evidence of a virtuous circle of governance for the state. Regardless of the service category considered, service perceptions do not increase the state’s legitimacy, nor do higher levels of state legitimacy increase perceptions of service delivery. The findings underscore the results from Chapter 3 and stress that citizens in Nigeria do not attribute effective governance to the state. The state is not able to meet citizens’ expectations of effective service delivery, which prevents a virtuous circle of governance. However, arguments relating to procedural justice, corruption, and foreign aid find support for understanding state legitimacy and satisfaction with service delivery in Nigeria. These results emphasize the diverse sources for both legitimacy and governance effectiveness. Chapter 4 also suggests a highly relevant role for external and non-state actors and their contributions to effective and legitimate governance in Nigeria.
Archaeology of Jesus' Nazareth
Authors: Dark Ken
Published: January 2023

This is the first book on the archaeology of first-century Nazareth—Jesus’ home town in Galilee—written for a general audience by a mainstream professional archaeologist. Requiring no previous knowledge of biblical history or archaeology, it outlines the latest archaeological evidence, placing the Gospels’ account of Jesus’ youth in the Bible, and origins of Christian pilgrimage, in a new context. After discussing the archaeology and history of early first-century Nazareth (‘Jesus’ Nazareth’) overall, the book concentrates on the fascinating Sisters of Nazareth site in the centre of the present city. There, twenty-first-century archaeological research identified a Byzantine pilgrimage church, which is likely to be the Church of the Nutrition—dedicated to the upbringing of Christ—the most important previously ‘lost’ early Christian church in the Holy Land. A seventh-century pilgrim said that a vaulted area under the Church of the Nutrition contained the actual house where Jesus was brought up by Mary and Joseph. Intriguingly, below the Byzantine church at the Sisters of Nazareth site a vaulted area preserved what are probably the ruins of a first-century house. Even before the Byzantine church was built, a—probably fourth-century—cave-church was constructed next to the first-century ruins, suggesting that they were assigned Christian religious importance. The similarities with the pilgrim’s description raise the question of whether the Sisters of Nazareth house really could have been the childhood home of Jesus. This, historical existence for Jesus, and the implications of the archaeology of Nazareth for understanding the Gospels are discussed in the last chapter of the book.
Physical basis of metal plasticity
Authors: Anand Lallit , Kamrin Ken , Govindjee Sanjay
Published: January 2023

This chapter discusses the polycrystalline aggregate nature of metals and emphasizes that the major mechanism responsible for plastic strain in metallic materials is the motion of line defects—called dislocations—on crystallographic slip planes in crystallographic slip directions within the individual crystals of the aggregate. Schmid’s law, which states that it is necessary for the resolved shear stress on a slip system to reach a critical value for slip to occur, is introduced. The concepts of a glide force acting on a dislocation and the line tension of a dislocation are introduced, and used to discuss the common strengthening mechanisms for a crystal, namely intrinsic lattice resistance, solid solution strengthening, precipitation or dispersion (Orowan) strengthening, and strain-hardening. Yielding of polycrystals is also influenced by the presence of grain-boundaries, and the widely used Hall–Petch relation for the grain-size dependence of the yield strength in polycrystals is discussed.
Energy-based approach to fracture
Authors: Anand Lallit , Kamrin Ken , Govindjee Sanjay
Published: January 2023

This chapter introduces the concept of energy release rate for linear elastic fracture mechanics. The classical Griffith fracture criterion, which is formulated in terms of the energy release rate and a critical value of the energy release rate for crack extension, is introduced. The relationship between the energy release rate and the stress intensity factor in Mode I is presented.
Temperature dependence of linear viscoelastic response
Authors: Anand Lallit , Kamrin Ken , Govindjee Sanjay
Published: January 2023

This chapter considers the effects of temperature on the linear viscoelastic response of materials. Representative results from Dynamics Mechanical Analysis (DMA) experiments for measurement of the storage modulus, loss modulus, and tan δ as a function of temperature for amorphous and semi-crystalline polymers are discussed, and the glass transition temperature (Tg) and melt temperatures (Tm, for semi-crystalline polymers) are introduced. The effects of temperature on the stress-relaxation and creep-compliance functions are considered, and the concepts of time-temperature equivalence and shift factors for thermo-rheologically simple materials are introduced.
The Mysticism of Ordinary Life
Authors: Prevot Andrew
Published: January 2023

The Mysticism of Ordinary Life: Theology, Philosophy, and Feminism presents a new vision of Christian mystical theology. It offers critical interpretations of Catholic theologians, postmodern philosophers, and intersectional feminists who draw on mystical traditions to affirm ordinary life. It raises questions about normativity, gender, and race, while arguing that the everyday experience of the grace of divine union can be an empowering source of social transformation. It develops Christian teachings about the Word made flesh, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the Christian spiritual life, while exploring the mystical significance of philosophical discourses about immanence, alterity, inbetweenness, nothingness, and embodiment. Its discussion of Latino/a and Black sources in North America expands the Western mystical canon and opens new horizons for interdisciplinary dialogue. It challenges contemporary culture to recognize and draw inspiration from quotidian manifestations of the unknown God of incarnate love. It includes detailed studies of Grace Jantzen, Amy Hollywood, Catherine Keller, Karl Rahner, Adrienne von Speyr, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Michel Henry, Michel de Certeau, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Alice Walker, M. Shawn Copeland, and more.
Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)
Authors: Rudolph John L.
Published: January 2023

Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should) provides a historical overview of the reasons science has been included as a school subject in the United States and examines them in light of research on how people use science in their daily lives and future occupations. The book argues that all the various reasons can be broken down into two primary purposes: teaching science to prepare future scientific and technical workers and teaching science for general public understanding. Data on educational attainment and career outcomes show that only a small fraction of school students end up in technical occupations. Yet, schools routinely teach science for content mastery with the assumption that this will prepare students for technical careers. This suggests that the primary goal of science education should focus on public understanding instead. However, research from the fields of cognitive psychology, science education, and science communication reveals that the primary general-education goals of teaching science for everyday personal use, better thinking skills, or democratic decision-making (what are sometimes referred to as scientific-literacy skills) are poorly served by the prevailing content-mastery approach. The book suggests that, given the current social challenges society faces, science education should instead focus on building public trust in science. Such an approach would require a radical departure from both the traditional science teaching we have grown accustomed to and the current recommendations being made by policymakers.
Introduction
Authors: Rashkow Ezra
Published: January 2023

This brief introduction begins to set up a theoretical discussion of the concept or nature of endangerment. It first addresses how broadly the term endangerment can be and has been applied. Used as an adjective, literally anything can be called endangered. Drawing attention to the prevalence of endangerment discourse in our contemporary era, which has often been called the Anthropocene as well as the Sixth Extinction, the introduction then looks at the history of the usage of the concept of endangerment. It thus sets up a major argument of the book: namely that human communities, particularly groups we now refer to as indigenous communities, have long been labelled as endangered, far longer in fact than non-human animal species and other environmental phenomena have been. Furthermore, the introduction begins to address the long history of overlapping biological and cultural diversity endangerment discourses by opening up a discussion of contemporary biocultural diversity conservation discourses today.
Endangered Species & Societies in India
Authors: Rashkow Ezra
Published: January 2023

Chapter 2 begins to document how the Indian situation departs from, and complicates, the global narrative of interlinking biological and cultural endangerment. It addresses the problems of interwoven discourses of indigenous and environmental endangerment by focusing on two major Adivasi (‘tribal’) populations in India, the Bhils and the Gonds. It explicitly challenges the common perception of these people as forest communities who are disappearing along with their forests, as hunting societies that are becoming extinct along with hunted species, or as wild tribes that are disappearing along with the wilderness. It is often said that traditional ecological lifestyles and livelihoods are becoming endangered or even extinct, and the comparison is frequently made with disappearing wildlife. Yet the parallel between endangered wildlife and human ways of life is as problematic as it is explanative. Both the Bhils and Gonds, with their massive combined populations totalling some 30 million, are not so much ‘tribes’ as large-scale umbrella identities, each with a wide variety of cultural ecologies and livelihood strategies. To generalize that they were all historically forest-dwelling communities that lost their forests would simply be inaccurate. Despite the complicated nature of Adivasi identity, global indigenous stereotypes of ‘the ecological Indian’ and ‘the vanishing Indian’ are still often mapped onto the Adivasi situation. Why it is assumed that the end of forest dwelling must also mean the end of Adivasi culture is the central consideration here.
Narmada Bachao, Manav Bachao
Authors: Rashkow Ezra
Published: January 2023

The title of Chapter 5, ‘Narmada Bachao, Manav Bachao’, is taken from one of the main slogans of the Save the Narmada movement, and literally means ‘Save the Narmada, Save the Humans’. Drawing on oral history fieldwork conducted while living in a punarvasan or resettlement colony with Bhils displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River, as well as fieldwork conducted in displaced villages in the hills directly above the reservoir created by the dam, it asks whether people who lived through one of the most famous environmental battles in modern Indian history, and who suffered the loss of their ancestral homes in the river valley, see themselves as ‘endangered’. While Narmada Bachao Andolan activists often argued that Adivasi culture itself was being drowned out along with Adivasi lands and villages, the assessment was much more complex amongst displaced villagers themselves. Looking back on Bhil history, this chapter reflects on how the same general paradigm which sees the Bhils as threatened with extermination has been applied to these communities at least since the outset of the colonial encounter in the early nineteenth century.
Bhutan
Authors: Ura Karma
Published: January 2023

Castles were built using design principles that melded functional and aesthetic values. The walls of shrines in castles and houses were adorned with frescoes, but the very old ones were lost along with khars and dzongs which fell into ruins. Studies of frescoes show that both the composition of pigments and styles of paintings have changed. The style of iconography has been influenced by its primary purpose which is to support meditative visualization. But Buddhism has not been the only faith that shaped citizens. Different cosmological views and rites were sustained by pre-Buddhist faith. One example is the ancient festival celebrating fecundity and fertility associated with the progenitor god, Lha Ode Gungyel. Such unabashed yearly festivals have thrived because of the enormous space left to the customs and conventions of communities. The Legal Decree of 1729 also did that although it regulated government officials, monks, and the subjects, and made Buddhism the raison d’etre of the state. Its provisions include taxes, foreigners, and border security. As the relationship with Tibet improved, it deteriorated with the British, resulting in an armed conflict at the turn of 1864. Through all ups and downs of civilian life, the state monasteries maintained its routine and regularity. Among many of these is the daily honour accorded to the holy body of the founder of Bhutan, which has been a potent symbol of the nation. The volume comes to rest at the revered feet of Guru Padmasambhava analysing his wide-ranging legacy in Bhutan and beyond, and for times past and those still to come.
Structural and Substantive Concepts of Awareness
Authors: Silva Jr Paul
Published: January 2023

This chapter provides separate defences of the Generality of Awareness. One relies on lessons drawn from case-based intuitions about the separability of knowledge and factual awareness, while the other uses ‘factual awareness’ to stipulatively refer to a state of non-accidental true representation that is reached via a generalization from knowledge. This chapter explores the wide range of substantive views one could take about the nature of factual awareness and concludes with a defence of the idea that factual awareness cannot be identified with being in a position to know or being capable of knowing truths.
Desiderata for Theories of Awareness and Knowledge
Authors: Silva Jr Paul
Published: January 2023

This chapter defends a range of desiderata a theory of knowledge and factual awareness ought to satisfy. In addition to previously discussed desiderata, this chapter argues that a theory of knowledge should explain the way in which knowledge is a success from an agent’s ability and it should also explain why knowledge is absent in cases of environmental luck and lottery cases. Leading theories of knowledge that attempt to explain these last two insights face three challenges: they are non-normative theories of knowledge, they seem unable to resolve Kelp’s safety dilemma, and they fail to explain results from experimental philosophy. Two prominent normative theories of knowledge are discussed: Dretske’s view of knowledge as belief for conclusive reasons, and Schroeder’s view of knowledge as belief for sufficient reason. Each is shown to face its own problems.
Problems with Motive-based Scrutiny—and Some Judicial Solutions
Authors: Sadurski Wojciech
Published: January 2023

A motive-based constitutional theory, which resonates with the ideal of public reason (PR), raises some difficulties for a judicial practice which must be dealt with for a theory to be convincing. This chapter uses, as a primary case study, a 1971 judgment of the US Supreme Court Palmer v. Thompson that illustrates the controversy regarding obstacles facing a judge when attempting to ascertain the true motives, or purposes, of a law under scrutiny. It is shown that the alleged evidentiary difficulty regarding legislative motives could be discerned ‘relatively easy’. On occasions, a court may even have direct insight into legislators’ motives as revealed through their own statements and affirmations. Often the evidence is only indirect but still very convincing, along the lines of ‘res ipsa loquitur’ (Canadian jurisprudence is used to illustrate this point). Often the argument about motives is based on a reasoning about the effects of the regulation under scrutiny: the two strands of reasoning (about motives and effects) should not be seen as mutually antithetical. Sometimes effects-based inquiry is seen as a prerequisite to a subsequent inquiry into motives, while another way of harmonizing motives and effects may be by seeing effects as indicators of most likely motives. It is also clear that judicial scrutiny of legislative purposes/motives is greatly facilitated—indeed, mandated—in those constitutional systems which openly embrace proportionality analysis as a canonical model for constitutional scrutiny, as illustrated in this chapter by top courts in South Africa and Israel, among others.
Freedom of Speech, Viewpoint Regulation, and Wrongful Legislative Motives
Authors: Sadurski Wojciech
Published: January 2023

This chapter traces the connections between some persuasive doctrines of freedom of expression/freedom of speech and makes more explicit the idea of ‘improper governmental motives’ which are thought to contaminate a speech regulation. The chapters begins with an analysis of the First Amendment law, as developed by the Supreme Court of the United States, the doctrine of which comprises a set of tools to flush out illicit motives and to invalidate legislative actions infected with such motives. It is shown, in particular, that the requirement that regulations be viewpoint neutral resonates with the fundamental principles of public reason (PR). The relationship between the harm of speech and the viewpoint represented by the speech under regulation is discussed, and then a distinction between regulations based on subject matter and those based on viewpoint is finetuned. It is also shown why this distinction is relevant to detecting and distinguishing between different putatively improper motivations of speech regulations, such as paternalism and intolerance. This analysis is offered by also using cases from Germany and New Zealand, in addition to the United States.
European Court of Human Rights in Pursuit of Public Reason?
Authors: Sadurski Wojciech
Published: January 2023

This chapter discusses the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which may serve as an exemplar of ‘supranational public reason’ (PR) in action. Some aspects of the Court’s arguments clearly presuppose the adoption of a public reason ideal as a yardstick for evaluating the consistency of laws with the Convention. The Court’s task in this respect has been greatly facilitated by a combination of, first, explicit catalogues of permissible legitimate aims that may justify restrictions on some rights, and second, a canonical proportionality analysis that assigns the assessment of legislative aims to a separate stage in argument. The Court has, however, almost always eschewed its authority to evaluate aims in this way. In particular, there are some problems with the use of the necessity criterion as a device for aims detection. These problems arise in particular when the Court accords a wide ‘margin of appreciation’ to a state under scrutiny, which corresponds to the lowering of the Court’s standard of scrutiny. Finally, there is the puzzling case of the ‘protection of morals’ as a legitimate ground for the restriction of rights, which has been interpreted by the Court in different ways, and occasionally in a way incompatible with the ideal of public reason.
English Humanism and the Reception of Virgil c. 1400-1550
Authors: Day Matthew
Published: January 2023

This monograph reassesses how the spread of Renaissance humanism in England impacted the reception of Virgil. It begins with the first signs of humanist influence in the fifteenth century, and ends at the height of the English Renaissance during the mid-Tudor period. This period witnessed the first extant English translations of Virgil’s Aeneid, by William Caxton (1490), Gavin Douglas (1513) and the Earl of Surrey (c. 1543). It also marked the first printings of Virgil’s works in England by Richard Pynson (c. 1515) and Wynkyn de Worde (1510s–1520s). Through a fine-grained analysis of surviving manuscripts and early printed editions, the monograph questions how and to what extent Renaissance humanism impacted readers’ and translators’ approaches to Virgil. Building on current scholarship in the fields of book history, classical reception, and translation studies, it draws attention to substantial continuities between the medieval and humanist reception of Virgil’s works. Humanist study of Virgil, and indeed of classical poetry more generally, continued to draw many of its aims, methods, and conventions from well-established medieval traditions of learning. In emphasizing the very gradual pace of humanist development and the continuous influence of medieval scholarship, the monograph comes to a more qualified view of how humanism did and (just as importantly) did not affect Virgilian reading and translation. While recognizing humanist innovations and discoveries, it gives due attention to the understudied, yet far more numerous examples of consistency and traditionalism.
Multilateral Development Banks in a Fast-Changing World
Authors: Humphrey Chris
Published: January 2023

This introductory chapter focuses on the unique organizational model of the multilateral development bank (MDB) and why its study is particularly relevant now as the international order reinvents itself after the end of the Cold War and Bretton Woods. After first defining what an MDB is compared to other, related types of organizations, the chapter proposes a framework for explaining many operational differences across MDBs based on the pressures they face as a result of their financial model (common to all MDBs) and the balance of power between non-borrowing and borrowing country members in MDB governance (different in each MDB). The later sections lay out how the book will proceed, including an overview of the chapters, data and interview sources, and topics the book does not address.