bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Country as Global Market
Authors: Padgett John F.
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that certain Dutch organizational innovations were all interlinked through their common genesis mechanism of “migration and homology.” Migration refers to two tidal waves of persecuted Calvinist merchants and artisans out of what is now Belgium into what is now the Netherlands, but within what was then the unitary region of the Spanish Netherlands. Homology refers to parallel organizational structures of nested councils in three institutional pillars: regents in federalist governments, consistories and synods in the Dutch Reformed Church, and boards of directors and shareholders in joint-stock companies and stock markets. Organizational innovations, shaped through civil, religious, and colonial wars, cascaded from domain to domain because they came to operate through the shared relational protocol of “lateral control” or public peer pressure.
Conflict Displacement and Dual Inclusion in the Construction of Germany
Authors: Obert Jonathan , Padgett John F.
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on the nineteenth-century formation of Germany. Organizational innovation was the assembly by Prussia of geographically disparate German principalities under the new constitutional umbrella of Reichstag, Bundesrat, and chancellery. Organizational catalysis was the emergence of political parties and interest groups—and underneath those, of German nationalism—to manage the constitutional core. The multiple-network invention was dual inclusion: namely, the stapling together of the deeply contradictory principles of democracy and autocracy through “Prussia is in Germany, and Germany is in Prussia.” This deep contradiction built into the heart of the German state generated a sequence of new political actors in German history.
An Open Elite
Authors: Powell Walter W. , Owen-Smith Jason
Published: November 2017

This chapter follows the trajectory of the life sciences into the present day, focusing on the larger question of industry or field evolution. In a field characterized by “gales of creative destruction,” the chapter considers how some types of organizations have managed to retain a position of centrality even as others exit and many newcomers arrive. It analyzes the emergence of a core group of organizations, diverse in form and function, which they label an “open elite.” The animating question is why this group of organizations, which constituted a structural backbone of the field, did not become ossified gatekeepers but remained active in expansive exploration. The answer is found in their multiconnectivity—the multiple, independent pathways that link research-focused organizations in a wide array of different activities.
Academic Laboratories and the Reproduction of Proprietary Science
Authors: Colyvas Jeannette A. , Maroulis Spiro
Published: November 2017

This chapter extends previous work analyzing the origins of academic entrepreneurship at Stanford with an agent-based model that simulates the rise and spread of patenting by research faculty, drawing on archival analysis of divergent approaches taken by different lab directors. In so doing, this chapter builds on the formal model of autocatalysis developed in Chapter 3, which enables this chapter to disentangle competing explanations. The results are quite surprising. Incentives or mimicry alone are less likely to account for academic embrace of patenting, whereas preemptive efforts to preserve scientific autonomy do play a large role. The pursuit of safeguards from commercial co-optation by other researchers has the transformative effect of making the emergence of proprietary science more likely.
Coda
Authors: Powell Walter W. , Padgett John F.
Published: November 2017

This concluding chapter reflects on the evolution of a funded project which would come to form the publication of this volume. In doing so, the chapter returns to the main themes and ideas drawn from the rest of the book in exploring further insights into the dynamics of multiple networks. The previous chapters have shown how behavior from one realm often spills over into another, sometimes with dramatic consequences. Exactly when such perturbations happen and with what consequences are a research agenda for the future. The chapter fleshes out this discussion with a clearer specification of different types of spillovers. The critical element is that parts of life from one domain find a commonality, utility, or simply a resonance in a different and unexpected domain.
Sen on Capability, Freedom, and Control
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter first describes the idea of “capability” by Amartya Sen. Capability is a form of freedom, the freedom, specifically, to choose a set of functionings. When the value of that freedom is measured in terms of the forms of well-being those sets of functionings constitute, then what Sen calls a person's “well-being freedom” is displayed. But well-being freedom is not freedom as such. It must be distinguished from “agency freedom,” which is a person's freedom to achieve whatever goals she has, including goals other than her own well-being. The chapter then takes up the connection or lack of it between freedom and control. It shows that Sen's argument for the existence of freedom without control is unsuccessful, and indicates the true shape of the important phenomenon that he has discerned.
Expensive Taste Rides Again
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter is a reply to “Equality and Capability,” in which Ronald Dworkin responded to some of the criticisms of his work that the Cohen made in “On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice.” It begins by distinguishing two broad criticisms of equality of welfare that Dworkin has developed, one surrounding the indeterminacy of the concept of welfare and one surrounding the problem of expensive taste. It then explains what the phrase “expensive taste” means within the present debate. The remainder of the chapter discusses brute taste, that is, taste that is not guided by judgment; refutes the principal argument that Dworkin deploys against compensation for expensive judgmental taste; explains why the dispute about expensive taste matters; and offers a fragment of a taxonomy that distinguishes contrasting degrees of control that people display over the acquisition and the persistence of their tastes.
Luck and Equality
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter defends Cohen's claim, in “Currency,” that “a large part of the fundamental egalitarian aim is to extinguish the effect of brute luck on distribution,” where brute luck consists of differences in fortune that are not a reflection of choice. “Brute luck” is to be contrasted with “option luck,” where the latter consists of differences in fortune that are the upshot of chosen gambles. Whereas Cohen had previously endorsed Dworkin's view that egalitarian justice does not call for the compensation of those whose misfortune is purely down to bad option luck.
Capitalism, Freedom, and the Proletariat
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that libertarians misuse the concept of freedom. That is not, as it stands, a comment on the attractiveness of the institutions they severally favor, but on the rhetoric they use to describe those institutions. If, however, they misdescribe those institutions, then a correct description of them might make them appear less attractive, and then the critique of the defensive rhetoric would indirectly be a critique of the institutions the rhetoric defends. The principal contention is that, while liberals and libertarians see the freedom which is intrinsic to capitalism, they overlook the unfreedom which necessarily accompanies capitalist freedom. To expose this failure of perception, the chapter begins by criticizing a description of the libertarian position provided by the libertarian philosopher Antony Flew in his Dictionary of Philosophy.
Mind the Gap
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers Thomas Nagel's approach to political philosophy and argues that his various statements about reasonable rejection generate an inconsistency at a politically sensitive point. Nagel is aware that his endorsement of rich people's opposition to radical redistribution “may seem to authorize pure selfishness,” but, he says, “that is too harsh a word for resistance to a radical drop in the standard of living of oneself and one's family.” That word might be too harsh, but Nagel's verdict that the rich need accept only a moderate (that is, nonradical) drop in their wealth is too soft. Officially, and, in Cohen's view, rightly, he depreciates the moral weight of the status quo, but the status quo seems, in the end, to preponderate in his judgment.
Back To Socialist Basics
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that to have money is (pro tanto) to have liberty. The richer you are, the more courses of action are open to you, which is to say that you are freer than you would otherwise be. Accordingly, whoever receives money as a result of redistribution thereby enjoys an enhancement of her liberty, albeit at the expense of the liberty of the person from whom it is taken, but with the net result for liberty as such entirely moot. Taxation restricts not liberty as such, but private property rights, both in external things and in one's own labor power. Whether or not such rights are deeply founded, it is ideological hocus-pocus to identify them with liberty as such, and it is entirely alien to traditional socialist belief so to construe them.
How To Do Political Philosophy
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that is impossible to explain to anybody how philosophy is to be done. The only way to teach people how to do it is by letting them watch, and listen, and imitate. The least charitable explanation of the self-same fact is that because those who have learned how to do philosophy struggled so hard to get where they are, they are selfishly reluctant to share some of the fruits of their struggle for free: they think that others, too, should suffer. There may be some truth in each explanation. But however all that may be, Cohen gives some tips about how to do philosophy. After giving these preliminary tips about how to do philosophy in general, he turns to some tips about political philosophy in particular.
Rescuing Justice from Constructivism and Equality from the Basic Structure Restriction
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter concatenates excerpts from Cohen's book Rescuing Justice and Equality. The first two parts correspond to the distinct rescues indicated by that book title. Part One pursues the rescue of justice from constructivism. It is about the identity of justice. Part Two pursues the rescue of equality from the basic structure restriction. It is about the scope of justice. The identity question is at issue in an argument presented against the Rawlsian identification of justice with the principles that constructivist selectors select. The scope question is at issue in an argument presented against the Rawlsian restriction of the application of principles of distributive justice to the basic structure of society. The two Rawlsian positions (on identity and on scope) here under criticism are mainly in a very brief Part Three, substantially independent of each other, and so, too, will be the arguments against them.
Love's Vision
Authors: Jollimore Troy
Published: November 2017

Love often seems uncontrollable and irrational, but we just as frequently appear to have reasons for loving the people we do. This book offers a new way of understanding love that accommodates both of these facts, arguing that love is guided by reason even as it resists and sometimes eludes rationality. At the same time, the book reconsiders love's moral status, acknowledging its moral dangers while arguing that it is, at heart, a moral phenomenon—an emotion that demands empathy and calls us away from excessive self-concern. Love is revealed as neither wholly moral nor deeply immoral, neither purely rational nor profoundly irrational. Rather, as Diotima says in Plato's Symposium, love is “something in between.” The book makes its case by proposing a “vision” view of love, according to which loving is a way of seeing that involves bestowing charitable attention on a loved one. This view recognizes the truth in the cliché “love is blind,” but holds that love's blindness does not undermine the idea that love is guided by reason. Reasons play an important role in love even if they rest on facts that are not themselves rationally justifiable. Filled with illuminating examples from literature, this book is an original examination of a subject of vital philosophical and human concern.
Love’s Blindness (1): Love’s Closed Heart
Authors: Jollimore Troy
Published: November 2017

This chapter develops an account of the lover's psychology that is based on the central insight that loving a person is a way of seeing him and, at the same time, a way of seeing the world that puts the beloved at its center. This picture emphasizes what is referred to as the blindness of love. The statement that love is blind has become a cliché. But this cliché contains a high degree of philosophical insight. Love is largely a matter of paying close attention to a person, and paying attention to one element of the world always involves a comparative lack of attention with respect to other elements; focusing on one object means that other objects are not in focus. Just as a person at a loud party must make himself deaf to the many conversations that are going on in order to hear a single voice, a lover, in focusing his attention on his beloved, must turn away from a great deal else that is going on in the world.
Commitments, Values, and Frameworks
Authors: Jollimore Troy
Published: November 2017

This chapter builds on the previous one in continuing to explore the ways in which human agents respond to values. Here the focus is on the nature of the experience of value and in particular on the kind of “spontaneous” motivation that arises from the direct perception and experience of a value. One thing we might wonder about is how agents deal with fluctuations or lapses in such motivation with respect to the values they care about or are committed to. It has been suggested that love is best regarded not purely as a response to the beloved or solely as a commitment to him, but rather as a response—one that involves the bestowing of appreciative and generous attention—combined with a commitment to having that sort of response. The overall aim of this chapter is to understand the distinction between valuing and judging to be valuable. This distinction is necessary in order to understand the way in which love for persons, despite its apparently irrational elements, constitutes a type of reason-guided response to value.
Love and Morality
Authors: Jollimore Troy
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the relation between love's demands and those of morality in an attempt to clarify why love can be considered a moral phenomenon, despite its moral dangers and its potential to inspire evil. To love a person is to treat him as an end in himself and to fully recognize his existence as an individual. It is to take his needs and concerns as one's own, to regard him charitably and justly, and to place him at the center of one's life. All of this speaks to the fact that love is a deeply moral emotion. Yet this moral emotion can blind us to the needs of others, and the passion it inspires can cloud our judgment and provoke deeply immoral actions. The danger that love may inspire immorality may lead some to wish that love and its passions could be expunged from human nature. But even if this were possible, the costs of doing so might be greater than love's critics realize.
Pricing the Planet's Future
Authors: Gollier Christian
Published: November 2017

Our path of economic development has generated a growing list of environmental problems including the disposal of nuclear waste, exhaustion of natural resources, loss of biodiversity, climate change, and polluted land, air, and water. All these environmental problems raise the crucial challenge of determining what we should and should not do for future generations. It is also central to other policy debates, including, for example, the appropriate level of public debt, investment in public infrastructure, investment in education, and the level of funding for pension benefits and for research and development. Today, the judge, the citizen, the politician, and the entrepreneur are concerned with the sustainability of our development. The objective of this book is to provide a simple framework to organize the debate on what we should do for the future. A key element of analysis by economists is the discount rate—the minimum rate of return required from an investment project to make it desirable to implement. The book outlines the basic theory of the discount rate and the various arguments that favor using a smaller discount rate for more distant cash flows. With principles that can be applied to many policy areas, the book offers an ideal framework for dynamic problems and decision making.
Three Ways to Determine the Discount Rate
Authors: Gollier Christian
Published: November 2017

This chapter presents the simple two-period model that is used in classical economics textbooks to examine the problem of consumption, saving, and investment in a competitive economy. This model is a reminder of the key role of the interest rate for the determination of economic growth. Its equilibrium level balances the demand and the supply of liquidity, which are themselves characterized by time preferences and investment opportunities. From a simple arbitrage argument, any new investment opportunity in the economy should be evaluated by using the interest rate as the rate at which the future benefits of the project should be discounted.
Parametric Uncertainty and Fat Tails
Authors: Gollier Christian
Published: November 2017

This chapter shows how the probability distribution for economic growth is subject to some parametric uncertainty. There is a limited data set for the dynamics of economic growth, and the absence of a sufficiently large data set to estimate the long-term growth process of the economy implies that its parameters are uncertain and subject to learning in the future. This problem is particularly crucial when its parameters are unstable, or when the dynamic process entails low-probability extreme events. Thus, the rarer the event, the less precise the estimate of its likelihood. This builds a bridge between the problem of parametric uncertainty, and the one of extreme events.
Alternative Decision Criteria
Authors: Gollier Christian
Published: November 2017

This chapter describes a sample of the alternative decision criteria that have features which are normatively attractive. A standard critique made to the discounted expected utility (DEU) model that has been used in this volume is that the concavity of the utility function expresses at the same time the aversion to inequalities and the aversion to risk. Moreover, it does not take into account the possibility of an aversion to ambiguity on probabilities, or the formation of consumption habits. Such issues imply that the DEU model is not very good for explaining, or predicting, actual behaviors under uncertainty. However, as this book aims for normative rather than positive arguments, this chapter focuses not on what people actually do, but instead on determining what they should do.
Global Conclusion
Authors: Gollier Christian
Published: November 2017

This concluding chapter summarizes the principles set forth in this volume. It argues that the discount rate is a key parameter in economics because it determines how our societies value their future. The chapter aims to use the discount rate in the net present value (NPV) decision rule: to find the discount rate which gives a positive NPV only for those projects that raise the sum of present and future generations’ felicity. In that light, this chapter briefly touches upon the basic principles of discounting, the discounting of safe real cash flows, the term structure of real discount rates, the evaluation of uncertain projects, and the adaptability of projects.
Finding Oneself in the Other
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This is the second of three volumes of posthumously collected writings of G. A. Cohen, who was one of the leading, and most progressive, figures in contemporary political philosophy. This volume brings together some of Cohen's most personal philosophical and nonphilosophical essays, many of them previously unpublished. Rich in first-person narration, insight, and humor, these pieces vividly demonstrate why Thomas Nagel described Cohen as a “wonderful raconteur.” The nonphilosophical highlight of the book is Cohen's remarkable account of his first trip to India, which includes unforgettable vignettes of encounters with strangers and reflections on poverty and begging. Other biographical pieces include his valedictory lecture at Oxford, in which he describes his philosophical development and offers his impressions of other philosophers, and “Isaiah's Marx, and Mine,” a tribute to his mentor Isaiah Berlin. Other essays address such topics as the truth in “small-c conservatism,” who can and can't condemn terrorists, and the essence of bullshit. A recurring theme is finding completion in relation to the world of other human beings. Engaging, perceptive, and empathetic, these writings reveal a more personal side of one of the most influential philosophers of our time.
Isaiah’s Marx, and Mine
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter compares and contrasts between the perspectives of the author (G. A. Cohen) and of his mentor, Isaiah Berlin, on the thought of Karl Marx. The discussion is intertwined with the author's personal experiences and impressions of Berlin, as well as the former's own struggles to better understand Marx. For the author, nothing was more fundamental to Marx's motivation than his perception of the misery which the capitalism of his day imposed upon the working class. In this way Cohen disagrees with Berlin's own view of the relationship in Marx's thought between the march of history and the cause of the proletariat.
Prague Preamble to “Why not Socialism?”
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter supplies an additional preamble to one of Cohen's lectures, “Why Not Socialism?” whenever it is delivered in Prague. This is because Czechoslovakia had undergone savage tyranny and monumental crimes in the name of socialism. And, what is worse, from the point of view of a socialist, the country suffered that fate partly as a result of an absolutely sincere attempt to create a genuinely socialist society. Here, the chapter discusses Cohen's own engagements with communism and socialism, especially during his childhood, and explores the reasons why the socialist experiment had failed so terribly in Czechoslovakia. Hence, this preamble is written in a spirit of “continued but chastened dedication” for the benefit of listeners who had had to endure the consequences of such a history.
A Black and White Issue
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses academic boycotts in the context of the 1985 ban of South Africa and Namibian participants from attending a World Archaeological Congress (WAC) gathering at Southampton. It argues that a policy of selective academic boycott expresses condemnation of the apartheid regime. For some people, however, the fact itself, together with the desirability of showing where we stand, of not condoning apartheid through silence, justifies a boycott policy. Here, the chapter emphasizes that the only responsible way to assess any policy towards South Africa is strategically: that is, with reference to the policy's probable impact on the struggle for liberation.
One Kind of Spirituality: Come Back, Feuerbach, All is Forgiven!
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter recounts the author's search for an interpretation of the language that he was disposed to use that treats his condition of gratitude and blessedness. Such a condition was prompted after Cohen's retiring from his Oxford professorship and All Souls College membership. Thus, this chapter seeks an interpretation of this condition that is neither as deity-affirming nor reductively as (at best) merely metaphorical. It then proceeds to give some personal examples of what one might call “spiritual” experiences, discussing such accounts as an encounter with the biblical Gospels, the aftermath of a medical procedure, and the author's encounters with poetry. The chapter concludes with a postscript detailing further insights on religion.
Introducing Black Holes: Event Horizons and Singularities
Authors: Bailyn Charles D.
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter provides a background of black holes. The term “black hole” is not defined in a technical way and is used in different contexts to mean different things. The phrase itself was popularized by the physicist John Archibald Wheeler to replace the cumbersome description “gravitationally completely collapsed object.” However, black holes are not just useful metaphors or remarkable constructs of theoretical physics; they actually exist. Over the past few decades, black holes have moved from theoretical exotica to a well-known and carefully studied class of astronomical objects. Extensive data archives reveal the properties of systems containing black holes, and many details of their behavior are known. In the current astronomical literature, the seemingly bizarre properties of black holes are now taken for granted and are used as a basis for understanding a wide variety of phenomena.
Do Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Exist?
Authors: Bailyn Charles D.
Published: November 2017

This chapter addresses the existence of intermediate-mass black holes. There is powerful empirical evidence for two classes of black holes, namely, the stellar-mass black holes, with masses a few times that of the Sun, and the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. The considerable gap in mass between these two categories naturally prompts the question whether black holes might exist at other mass scales. In recent years, two lines of evidence have been presented in support of the idea that black holes with masses intermediate between stellar mass and supermassive might exist. Such sources are referred to as intermediate-mass black holes. In both cases the results are currently still ambiguous, and much debated.
Detecting Blackholes through Gravitational Waves
Authors: Bailyn Charles D.
Published: November 2017

This chapter looks at the detection of black holes through gravitational waves. While further improvements can be expected in the ability to detect and measure electromagnetic radiation, it is possible that the next great advances in observational astrophysics will come from the detection of other kinds of information altogether. Currently, there is a great excitement about the possibility of directly detecting an entirely new “celestial messenger,” namely, gravitational radiation. The existence of gravitational waves is a prediction of general relativity, and current technology is very close to being able to detect them directly. The strongest sources of gravitational radiation are expected to be merging black holes. Since such mergers are expected to occur, both between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes, the detection of gravitational radiation would provide a new way not only to explore gravitational physics but also to look for and to study celestial black holes.
Reconceiving Middle Eastern Manhood
Authors: Inhorn Marcia C.
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter talks about how infertility impedes reproduction among a disproportionate percentage of Middle Eastern men. This epidemic of male infertility—which many men attribute to their unrelenting life stresses, including war—has led to a recalibration of manhood. The notions of a “childless couple” or “child-free living” have yet to enter the cultural lexicon. This phenomenon of happily married but childless Middle Eastern couples is explored from Middle Eastern men's own perspectives. Many men do not want to be perceived as domineering patriarchs; they do not view fatherhood as the be-all and end-all of masculinity; they value conjugal intimacy and privacy, and they often adore their wives as friends and lovers, having learned sexuality together in the context of dual premarital virginity.
Consanguineous Connectivity
Authors: Inhorn Marcia C.
Published: November 2017

This chapter illustrates Abbas' story which speaks to the importance of family—not only Abbas' desire to create a family of his own but also the support he receives from his natal family members. Like many other young Middle Eastern men, Abbas chose to marry his female cousin Fatima out of love and affection, as well as family expectations. However, cousin marriage (known more formally as consanguineous marriage) may perpetuate life-threatening genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis, and may be the single-most important reason why male infertility rates across the region are so high. When impediments to childbearing occur, families are often called upon to assist reproduction through various kinds of material and emotional support.
Egg Donation and Emergence
Authors: Inhorn Marcia C.
Published: November 2017

This chapter presents Eyad's story about double forms of emergence—both technological and masculine. On the one hand, new forms of reproductive technology are continuously emerging, and once they reach the reproductive marketplace, they are being rapidly discussed, debated, and, in most cases, deployed in Middle Eastern IVF settings. Egg donation is a case in point: after entering Iran in 1999, it spread within a year to Lebanon, where Shia Muslim couples were the first to access this reproductive technology. The willingness of Middle Eastern husbands such as Eyad to accommodate egg donation is a powerful marker of their emerging masculinities. These men have effectively prioritized their wives' own motherhood desires and their conjugal happiness over religious orthodoxies and various practical obstacles and apprehensions.
The Closed Commercial State
Authors: Nakhimovsky Isaac
Published: November 2017

This book presents an important new account of Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Closed Commercial State, a major early nineteenth-century development of Rousseau and Kant's political thought. This book shows how Fichte reformulated Rousseau's constitutional politics and radicalized the economic implications of Kant's social contract theory with his defense of the right to work. The book argues that Fichte's sequel to Rousseau and Kant's writings on perpetual peace represents a pivotal moment in the intellectual history of the pacification of the West. Fichte claimed that Europe could not transform itself into a peaceful federation of constitutional republics unless economic life could be disentangled from the competitive dynamics of relations between states, and he asserted that this disentanglement required transitioning to a planned and largely self-sufficient national economy, made possible by a radical monetary policy. Fichte's ideas have resurfaced with nearly every crisis of globalization from the Napoleonic wars to the present, and his book remains a uniquely systematic and complete discussion of what John Maynard Keynes later termed “national self-sufficiency.” Fichte's provocative contribution to the social contract tradition reminds us, the book concludes, that the combination of a liberal theory of the state with an open economy and international system is a much more contingent and precarious outcome than many recent theorists have tended to assume.
Republicanization in Theory and Practice
Authors: Nakhimovsky Isaac
Published: November 2017

This chapter reveals that Fichte's proposal for a planned economy was an application of widespread eighteenth-century thinking about the positive possibilities created by modern finance: in this view, the state's ability to control the monetary system created an unprecedented opportunity to bring about a moral transformation of economic relations. It held out the promise of restoring a greater measure of equality to the modern division of labor without requiring massive expropriations or reversing the centuries of growth and development that had been fueled by the expansion of trade. For many other eighteenth-century minds, however, giving a government control over the money supply was a recipe for a new form of complete despotism.
Hobbes
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that principal claims of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan are deliverances of a thought experiment in which we imagine away the existence of governmental authority and ask what the human condition would be like without it. It begins by expounding on the state of nature as a relational concept, noting that Hobbes' state of nature is a state of war. It then asks why the state of nature, the state of no governmental authority, is a state of war, and how the fact that the state of nature is a state of war justifies governmental authority. It also considers Hobbes' views on power and discusses three Hobbesian stories about how the state of war is generated based on what Hobbes himself calls “the three principal causes of quarrel”: competition, diffidence, and glory. The chapter concludes by analyzing how Hobbes justifies political obligation.
Hume’s Critique of Locke on Contract
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines David Hume's critique of social contract theory, and particularly John Locke's claim that legitimate government gains its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. It asserts that a grave weakness of Hume's critique is that he never once addresses the argument on which Locke bases his insistence that consent is a necessary and sufficient condition of governmental legitimacy. The premise of that argument is the principle of self-ownership, or, as Locke puts it, the fact that men are born free, equal, and independent. The chapter first considers Hume's criticism of the Lockean view that authority depends on consent before discussing his six objections that are targeted specifically against the notion that legitimate government rests on tacit consent. It also analyzes Locke's distinction between natural and artificial virtues as well as his views on the obligation of obedience vs. the obligation of promise keeping.
Kant’s Ethics
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines Immanuel Kant's ethics, and particularly his views on reason and faith. According to Thomas Aquinas, there were two avenues whereby men could come to possess knowledge: the way of reason and the way of faith, of faith in revelation. Unlike Aquinas, Kant entertains not two faculties, but a single faculty in two employments. The chapter considers Kant's motives, and what he advanced as justifications, for treating the sources of knowledge and of moral behavior not as two separate faculties, but as different employments of a single faculty, reason. It offers a general account of Kant's moral philosophy, and more specifically his account of reason and his argument that men are obliged to obey the moral law. It also suggests that the duality of obligation and motivation is present in Kant's ethics and compares Kant's ideas with those of Richard Peters regarding human behavior.
Nietzsche
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines Friedrich Nietzsche's moral philosophy, first by explaining what makes him different from most of the other moral philosophers such as David Hume, Thomas Hobbes, the Greeks, and Baruch Spinoza. It then considers Nietzsche's notion of good and evil by addressing three questions: How do we find out what sort of creatures men are? How do we decide what sort of creature man ought to be? Is it possible for man to transform himself into that sort of creature. It also discusses the problem faced by Nietzsche in his attempts to assess human nature, namely: what is to count as health in the spiritual dimension, when is a soul diseased, what is mens sana. Finally, it analyzes the main arguments put forward by Nietzsche in his two books Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals.
Review of Karl Marx, by Allen W. Wood
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter reviews Karl Marx, by Allen W. Wood. The book is divided into five parts: Alienation, Historical Materialism, Marxism and Morality, Philosophical Materialism, and The Dialectical Method. Wood begins by providing an account of the idea of self-realization: various failures to achieve self-realization generate correspondingly various alienations. He then joins those who seek to reinstate a toughly materialist reading of Marx's theory of history before addressing the relationship between two branches of Marxism, namely: its philosophical anthropology (or conception of human nature) and its theory of history. Wood also defends the thesis that Marx did not think capitalism was an unjust society.
Reason, Humanity, and the Moral Law
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter comments on Christine Korsgaard's views on reason, humanity, and moral law in the context of her ethics. In particular, it examines Korsgaard's response to the question inspired by Thomas Hobbes' second argument, the one about the sovereign: how can the subject be responsible to a law that it makes and can therefore unmake? Korsgaard's ethics descends from Immanuel Kant, but it contrasts in important ways with Kant's ethics. Korsgaard's subject is unequivocally the author of the law that binds it, for its law is the law of its practical identity, and the subject itself “constructs” that identity. In the case of the Kantian subject, we can say that it both is and is not the author of the law that binds it. The chapter considers Korsgaard's claim that morality is grounded in human nature, along with her position on the problem of normativity and on obligation.
Narrative and the Rationality of Mathematical Practice
Authors: Corfield David
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the rationality of mathematical practice in relation to narrative. It begins with a discussion of Alasdair MacIntyre's account of rational enquiry, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, and how this might translate to scientific and mathematical enquiry. It then considers the telos of mathematical enquiry, along with rival claims to truth as the aim of mathematics. The chapter argues that to be fully rational, mathematicians must embrace narrative as a basic tool for understanding the nature of their discipline and research. It also calls for the partial validity of a pre-Enlightenment epistemology of mathematics as a craft whose advance is made possible only through a certain discipleship.
A Streetcar Named (among Other Things) Proof
Authors: Doxiadis Apostolos
Published: November 2017

This chapter traces the origins of deductive mathematical proof in classical Greece by drawing on the tradition of Jean-Pierre Vernant and G. E. R. Lloyd. It first considers how certain rhetorical concepts, methods, and patterns were instrumental to mathematical proof before discussing various cognitive modes, or stations, in historical development. The streetcar-named-Desire metaphor is used to examine certain cognitive aspects of the narrative, along with the linearity and nonlinearity of the narrative surface. The chapter then explores the role of narrative and poetic storytelling in the process of demonstration in Greek forensic rhetoric, along with the use of chiasmus and ring-composition as cognitive tools. Finally, it shows how both the macrostructure and the microstructure of the first proofs in Greek deductive mathematics were affected by forensic rhetoric, as this was shaped under the influence of the cognitive mechanisms of narrativity and the forms of poetic storytelling.
Mathematics and Narrative: A Narratological Perspective
Authors: Margolin Uri
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the manifold relations between narrative and mathematics from the point of view of narratology. In particular, it considers some of the ways in which we can speak of mathematics in literature; for example, the portrayal in a literary narrative of the destiny of an actual or fictional mathematician as a function of his intellectual endeavors; or the use of mathematical notions (infinity, infinite regression, branching time) as the key thematic element or basic initial situation of a narrative. The chapter also discusses the structural similarities and differences between how mathematical texts and narratives treat the creation of imaginary worlds, as well as the criteria of truth, levels and hierarchies of representation involved in this process. Finally, it explores the logical requirements for computer simulations of future scenarios, along with the mathematical concepts, models, and methods used in theories of narrative.
Taming the Unknown
Authors: Katz Victor J. , Parshall Karen Hunger
Published: November 2017

What is algebra? For some, it is an abstract language of x's and y's. For mathematics majors and professional mathematicians, it is a world of axiomatically defined constructs like groups, rings, and fields. This book considers how these two seemingly different types of algebra evolved and how they relate. The book explores the history of algebra, from its roots in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, and India, through its development in the medieval Islamic world and medieval and early modern Europe, to its modern form in the early twentieth century. Defining algebra originally as a collection of techniques for determining unknowns, the book traces the development of these techniques from geometric beginnings in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and classical Greece. It shows how similar problems were tackled in Alexandrian Greece, in China, and in India, then looks at how medieval Islamic scholars shifted to an algorithmic stage, which was further developed by medieval and early modern European mathematicians. With the introduction of a flexible and operative symbolism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, algebra entered into a dynamic period characterized by the analytic geometry that could evaluate curves represented by equations in two variables, thereby solving problems in the physics of motion. This new symbolism freed mathematicians to study equations of degrees higher than two and three, ultimately leading to the present abstract era. The book follows algebra's remarkable growth through different epochs around the globe.
Prelude: What Is Algebra?
Authors: Katz Victor J. , Parshall Karen Hunger
Published: November 2017

This chapter explores the definitions of algebra and discusses the specific aims of this volume. Algebra, as this chapter shows, can mean different things for different people, and can be misunderstood as a result. Teachers can thus use the history of algebra either at the school or at the college level to increase students' overall understanding of the material. In addition, this chapter argues that symbolism is not necessary for algebra, although it has certainly come to characterize it—and, indeed, all of mathematics—over the past three centuries. The chapter also contends that, initially, algebra dealt with objects rather than relations and that the beginnings of algebra actually required physical interpretations.
Understanding the Properties of “Numbers”
Authors: Katz Victor J. , Parshall Karen Hunger
Published: November 2017

This chapter looks at how mathematicians sought to understand the properties of “numbers” and in doing so pave the way for modern algebra. As mathematicians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries struggled to understand what Fermat's alleged proof of his so-called “last theorem” might have been, they, as well as others motivated by issues other than Fermat's work, eventually came to extend the notion of “number.” And, they did this in much the same spirit that Évariste Galois had extended that of “domain of rationality” or field, that is, through the creation and analysis of whole new types of algebraic systems. This freedom to create and explore new systems—and new algebraic constructs like the determinants and matrices that were encountered in the previous chapter—became one of the hallmarks of the modern algebra that developed into the twentieth century.
Introduction
Authors: Waterhouse Benjamin C.
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter argues that the decline of liberal and progressive politics and the ascent of a business-oriented, neoliberal political culture did not emerge naturally from the exigencies of economic crisis or the inexorable logic of political traditions, but rather as the result of specific efforts by a diverse set of conservative activists. Although their organizational cohesion did not endure, organized American business leaders nonetheless established a vital legacy that continues to shape politics into the twenty-first century. Through their political mobilization, these workhorses of the industrial economy helped establish the political preconditions for the success of conservative politics, electorally and in policymaking. By successfully parlaying their economic clout into a broad-reaching movement, they cemented a conservative and market-oriented political vision whose legacy lingers today.
A New Life for Old Lobbies
Authors: Waterhouse Benjamin C.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses how the institutional developments at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce grew directly from the political and economic upheaval of the late 1960s and early 1970s and paved the way for effective pan-business lobbying in the years ahead. The tumultuous 1960s had altered the landscape of Congress and party politics, particularly through the rise of public interest liberalism and its demands for greater federal intervention with regard to employment equality, consumer and worker protection, and environmental stewardship. In this new political context, business leaders at the NAM and the Chamber refashioned their public image, refined their approaches to lobbying, and broadened their policy prescriptions.
Business, Labor, and the Politics of Inflation
Authors: Waterhouse Benjamin C.
Published: November 2017

This chapter traces the complex politics of inflation from the onset of wage-price controls in 1971 through the peak of America's inflationary experience during the Carter administration. During those years, the country's major business associations successfully mobilized a powerful lobbying operation by negotiating the new political terrain that inflation created. From the frustrating nadir, typified by the public spat between treasury secretary John Connally and Vice President Arch Booth, organized business leaders rebounded mightily, successfully engaging in both ideological debates and interest group politics to bolster their institutional unity and achieve clear policy victories. Historically, battles over price instability emerged along the class lines created by an industrial political economy—they pitted the interests of workers against those of employers, or labor against capital.