bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Making Nietzsche’s Thought Groan
Authors: Bernasconi Robert
Published: November 2022

It is well-known that Michel Foucault in “Society Must Be Defended” developed a new and, in some serious respects, problematic account of the history of racisms. But his lasting achievement was the identification of what he called state racism, a racism rooted in what he called biopolitics. Less well-known is the fact that he not only succeeded in locating Nietzschean genealogy within his own account of genealogy, but, by connecting Henri de Boullainvilliers to Nietzsche, he was also able, almost unnoticeably, to locate Nietzsche within his history of racisms and for a brief moment call into question his own proximity to Nietzsche. In this way this chapter demonstrates that “Society Must Be Defended” offers a much richer account of genealogy and of racism than has previously been recognized.
Solutions Now
Authors: Perera Frederica
Published: November 2022

Chapter 7 follows the outline of the Drawdown Review (2021) to lay out available solutions to climate change and strategies to advance social and economic equity, providing many examples from the real-world application of these solutions. The chapter focuses on climate change mitigation but also discusses adaptation strategies. It describes the quick-win solutions such as an immediate halt to coal, oil, and gas production; rapid deployment of renewable energy; reduction of industrial waste; improved urban design; and halting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. It reviews solutions that make steady progress: infrastructure changes, shifts in agricultural practices, protection of natural carbon storage systems, and technological advances. It describes the needed social initiatives, cultural and policy shifts, and individual actions such as reducing food and energy waste, eating more plant-based foods, and citizen engagement. The chapter discusses the role of artists, government, and businesses; the rights of children; and the reciprocal relationship between climate solutions and social initiatives that ensure those rights.
Bunche Fever
Authors: Raustiala Kal
Published: November 2022

Chapter 12 explores Bunche’s post-Palestine fame and his role in American life; the rising Cold War and its implications for race relations; the Korean War; and Bunche’s use of his celebrity to push for equality at home and abroad.
The Congo and the Cold War
Authors: Raustiala Kal
Published: November 2022

Chapter 19 explores Lumumba’s assassination; the resulting firestorm in the UN over Congo; and the 1960 General Assembly meeting
Activity–Concentration Relationships
Authors: Brezonik Patrick L. , Arnold William A.
Published: November 2022

This chapter describes the relationships between thermodynamically ideal concentrations, called activities, and the standard ways we measure and report chemical concentrations. Activities and concentrations are related by activity coefficients, and relationships defining such coefficients are described for gases, liquids, ionic and nonionic solutes in water, and mixtures of solids (called solid solutions). Forms of the Debye-Hückel equation used to calculate ion activity coefficients as a function of ionic strength are developed and described, and the limiting conditions under which the equations apply are discussed. Advanced methods to determine ion activity coefficients at the high ionic strengths of seawater and brines are presented
Fundamentals of Organic Chemistry for Environmental Systems
Authors: Brezonik Patrick L. , Arnold William A.
Published: November 2022

The principles of organic chemistry needed to understand the behavior of organic contaminants in aquatic environments are presented in this chapter, starting with a description of the nature of chemical bonds in carbon compounds and a summary of the major categories of aliphatic and aromatic organic compounds. The common functional groups that affect the physical, chemical, and biological behavior of organic compounds are described. Rules are given for naming compounds based on their structural features, and ways of drawing structures of organic compounds are described. The nature and significance of stereoisomers and optical isomers are explained as background for describing the nature of biomolecules—the building blocks of organisms that control carbon cycling in aquatic environments. Situations where organic compounds are relevant to processes covered in Part III of the book are briefly described, along with important properties used to predict the behavior and environmental fate of organic compounds.
He Will Save You from the Deadly Pestilence
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: November 2022

Jews and Christians alike have made Psalm 91 one of the most commonly used and cited parts of the Bible. The psalm has shaped theories of politics and government, not to mention influencing medicine and mysticism. In different ages, the psalm has borne many different names: the Song of Evil Spirits, the Soldier’s Psalm, and, most concisely, the Protection Psalm. As the Song of Plagues, it has gained a whole new relevance in an age of global pandemic. In the New Testament, Satan himself quotes the psalm, and ever since, that text has both reflected and shaped changing concepts of evil and the demonic. It was and still is used for magical and superstitious purposes, including for exorcism and demon-fighting. As perils and threats have changed and evolved in various societies, so interpretations of Psalm 91 have developed to accommodate each new reality. A biography of Psalm 91 is also a history of critical themes in Western religion.
Hepatitis Viruses
Authors: Li Jie Jack
Published: November 2022

This chapter begins with the discovery of the hepatitis A (HAV) virus in the late 1970s, followed by the development of vaccines for HAV. The hepatitis B (HBV) virus was discovered by Barry Blumberg in the 1960s, starting with his first observation of the Australian antigens. Vaccines for HBV went through several methods, and the first HBV vaccine was developed using Blumberg’s antigen proposal. It was followed by the recombinant DNA technology. Antiviral treatment of HBV began with interferon, followed by nucleosides, and acyclic nucleotide phosphonates and their prodrugs. Discovery of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) was achieved using exclusively molecular biology technology, such as cloning. While vaccines for HCV have not been successful thus far, small-molecule antiviral drugs for treating HCV represent the pinnacle of modern drug discovery. They include HCV NS3/4A protease inhibitors, HCV NS5A replication complex inhibitors, and HCV NS5B polymerase inhibitors
Introduction: Empire of Faith
Authors: Voekel Pamela
Published: November 2022

At the heart of the Age of Revolution in Spanish America was a transatlantic Catholic civil war. Each side of this religious divide operated from within a self-conscious intercontinental network of like-minded Catholics. The traditional narrative of the transition from monarchy to independent republicanism as a process of secularization misses completely the warring factions in the Catholic Church who vied to define man’s relation to God and, therefore, the proper order of temporal authority. For its central protagonists, the era’s crisis of sovereignty provided a political stage for a religious struggle. The blood-soaked history that emerged both before and after independence is more legible in light of these sacred stakes. This theological and ecclesiastical rivalry fired imaginations in the Spanish-speaking Atlantic world. Its networks of ideas and actors undergirded the Age of Revolution and framed the lasting divisions that would define much of Latin America’s nineteenth century. The two sides defined themselves along a theological fault line centuries in the making. But the particular permutations of this division in colonial Latin America and then the independent nations of Mexico and Central America responded directly to the historical contingencies of this chaotic period. Alliances were scrambled and new ones made, unintended consequences of state policy begat novel horizons of ideology, and everywhere local interests intersected with transnational currents. The New World’s sacred vision of liberty is revealed in the enormous archive of reformist theology, republican advocacy, and official reports of often bloody confrontations that marked this religious civil war.
The Long Shadow
Authors: Voekel Pamela
Published: November 2022

The centrality of Reform Catholicism to Mexican liberalism of the mid-century is brought into high relief by the 1859 establishment of a schismatic Catholic Church under state protection—the opposite of state-driven secularization. Prominent liberals cast their newly created Constitutional Clergy as critical messengers of a simple, ethical piety that blossomed in the Christian fraternity and God-given sentiment required to bind the fractured nation together. In so doing, they echoed reformist advocates of constitutionally constituted church authority that we have seen in previous chapters.
Vestiges of a Philosophy
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This book is a highly original examination of the writings and practices of mystic and spiritualist Mina Bergson (1865–1925), in the light of her seemingly estranged brother, Henri Bergson’s (1859–1941) ultra-realist ideas in the philosophies of time and of mind (the past really survives in memory). Her proposal that “material science” was “spiritualizing itself” just as “occult science” was “materializing itself” converges with her brother’s attempt to overcome the duality of spirit and matter through a process metaphysics. Yet her approach comes from the tradition of Western esotericism rather than Western philosophy, a difference that will motivate an analysis of the ontology and methodology of the Bergson siblings. In doing so, it also engages with contemporary ideas in panpsychism, memory studies, the philosophy of time, as well as the relationship between spirit and matter within contemporary materialist thinking (Catherine Malabou, Karen Barad, and Jane Bennett). This study is then able to conceptualize for the first time the relations between a nonmechanistic view of matter as heterogeneous, nonlocal, and creative, and Mina Bergson’s mystical performances of a spiritualized materiality. In this process of cross-fertilization, a number of new concepts emerge involving the meta-spiritual, hetero-continuity, the supernormal, and the hyperbolic while also helping to side-step the duality of an immaterial or paranormal spiritualism on the one side and a reductive materialism on the other.
God-Optional Religion in Twentieth-Century America
Authors: May Isaac Barnes
Published: November 2022

This book is about the relationship between the American religious left and secularization. It explores how three liberal religions—liberal Quakers, Unitarians, and Reconstructionist Jews—attempted to preserve their traditions in the modern world by redefining what it meant to be religious. Between the 1920s and the 1960s, these groups underwent the most massive theological change imaginable, allowing their members to opt not to believe in a personal God. As the God of traditional theism did not seem to fit into a post-Darwinian framework, these traditions took the dramatic step of redefining that concept to make a “God” that did fit, and eventually they went even further by making belief in God a matter of purely personal preference. This book narrates how, over the course of the twentieth century, believing in God and being religious became increasingly disconnected. It documents the continuance of these religious communities even after the theological rationales that originally brought them together disappeared, their communal identities instead becoming focused on humanitarian service and political commitments, which began to replace a shared adherence to theism. The radical religious views of these small liberal denominations became influential among the wider society, and eventually became accepted in American popular culture and law.
The Boundary With Godless Religion
Authors: May Isaac Barnes
Published: November 2022

This chapter explores efforts to create explicitly nontheistic Godless religions that, unlike God-optional religion, would exclude theists. The main figure in the chapter is Charles Francis Potter, a Unitarian and Universalist minister who eventually became a humanist. Potter was an important figure in the creation of an independent humanist movement separate from Unitarianism. The chapter also briefly examines the career of Sherwin Wine, who created Humanistic Judaism and the Humanist Society of Friends, a schismatic group from the Religious Society of Friends. The chapter argues that the division between Godless and God-optional groups was permeable and often illusive in practice.
Conclusion
Authors: May Isaac Barnes
Published: November 2022

The conclusion covers the narrative about God-optional religion from the late 1960s up through 2020. It also considers the impact of God-optional ideas on other religious communities beyond Quakerism, Reconstructionist Judaism, and Unitarianism. As God-optional ideas are now found among mainline Protestants, evangelicals, Reform Jews, Buddhists, and in a host of other groups, the conclusion argues that God-optional ideas have become relatively common in the United States. It further argues that God-optional beliefs may be as resistant to secularization as more theologically conservative religious beliefs are. Finally, the conclusion suggests that beliefs about God may be becoming more open and permissive in the United States.
Second Texts and Second Opinions
Authors: Zoloth Laurie
Published: November 2022

This is a book about writing and thinking about bioethics of a particular sort, a feminism of a particular sort, and a Jewish philosophy of a particular sort. It is about all of these things—feminist thought, Judaism, and the practice of bioethics—as I have written about them in a distinctive moment in the field and from the moral location from which I worked, which was as an academic in the disciplines of Jewish Studies and moral philosophy who also worked as a clinical ethicist in a large public hospital. These are cases of children and families facing illness and death within the clinical world, a world of scarcity, desperation, and grace; and the choices they make within that world. It explores the meaning of these choices and reflects on why the dilemmas are so important in our society. The book considers the moral gesture that is medicine and the role of the ethicist as she comes to learn her practice. This is a book about the memory and meaning, re-evaluated and considered in light of the traditional texts of Jewish thought.
How to Be Good
Authors: Zoloth Laurie
Published: November 2022

When teaching young pediatric residents, I reflect on the reason to be ethical and why it matters in medicine, and in so doing, I consider some of the texts about justice and debt in medicine and in Scriptures. We think about the case of Rosa who has recovered in part from her illness with terrible costs. She has had numerous amputations and we here consider how to think about her fate and future. The case is considered in light of texts of justice to the stranger, and as a sign about the limits of the debt that one incurs as a physician.
In Case
Authors: Zoloth Laurie
Published: November 2022

In this chapter, I think again about the role of grief in tragic pediatric cases and the idea of positional luck in bioethics. I question a text that considers how to mourn a stranger and raise the issue of clinical distance. In what way are we connected to the strangers we encounter as health care providers? Their grief is singular and life changing, while for us, it is one of a series of cases that are a daily part of our work. Why do I return to these cases for over 20 years to rethink the moral decisions we make, if not because of the impossibility of distance? We think about a case of near drowning and the parents’ decision to stop care and allow their child to die. We consider a Christian idea about death, and we raise the problem of guilt after accidents that happen to children when they are in the care of others.
Tutankhamun Superstar
Authors: Brier Bob
Published: November 2022

This chapter deals with what has been called “Tutmania”—the fascination with Tutankhamun and everything connected to him. It discusses the wide range of Tutankhamun memorabilia, from songs of the 1920s to King Tut Cologne, but it also discusses more serious matters such as how the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb helped usher in the era of the blockbuster exhibition, changing museum economics forever. It is because of the large traveling Tutankhamun exhibition that museums realized admissions and their gift shops could be a major source of revenue. The chapter also discusses the possibility that in the future Tutankhamun exhibitions may be of only replicas.
The Earliest Investigators
Authors: Goudie Andrew S. , Brunsden Denys
Published: November 2022

This chapter discusses the contribution of various scientists to the study of the geology and geomorphology of the World Heritage sites in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and sets this against the religious and social climate of the period. The site has been studied for more than 300 years, acquiring particular fame in the early part of the nineteenth century, a critical time for the development of many of the fundamental ideas of the Earth as well as for the development of interest in science in general, as witnessed by the establishment of the Royal Society of London. The chapter highlights the role of four main individuals: William Hobbs, John Woodward, Robert Hooke, and James Parkinson.
The Briar Patch
Authors: Glinsky Albert
Published: November 2022

Bob opened Big Briar for business, but one-off projects were still his bread and butter. He restored Herb Deutsch’s original prototype so Herb could auction it off, but it had to be donated to the Henry Ford Museum. Bob made a small synth, the Spirit, for the Italian firm Crumar. His 1982 catalog offered prototypes of three Big Briar Controllers; his main project was the Multiply-Touch-Sensitive Keyboard for composer John Eaton, a project that ate up family properties and landed Bob in debt. Dave Luce and a partner bought Moog Music from Norlin and unveiled a synth prototype, the SL-8, with MIDI compatibility. But it was overshadowed by the Yamaha DX7 with advanced digital FM Synthesis technology, signaling the dominance of Japanese synths. With Big Briar insolvent, Bob accepted consulting work with Kurzweil Music Systems and was offered a full-time position with the Boston company. The Moogs prepared to move yet again.
The Desperate Voyager
Authors: Glinsky Albert
Published: November 2022

Moogmusic.com offered the classic Moog synths—Bob’s business seemed to be back. But the website was from an imposter, Don Martin. Bob had to get in line to apply for his own name again. To establish his authenticity, he launched the “Moog Signature Series” Etherwave theremins. Big Briar produced the Ethervox MIDI theremin, and the “moogerfooger” effects pedals. Analog synths were back in style thanks to retro groups like the Moog Cookbook with Brian Kehew and Roger Manning, but Bob struggled to deliver his new synth, the Voyager. On the side he designed the virtual synth for the Van Koevering Interactive Piano. Running out of money, his Polar Music Prize of $100,000 was a temporary buffer. Don Martin declared bankruptcy and Bob got his trademark back, but Big Briar was hemorrhaging money and the Voyager wasn’t ready. Stress led him to a men’s retreat, “Spirit in Flight,” and psychological therapy.
Patron Saint of Electrogeeks
Authors: Glinsky Albert
Published: November 2022

In early 2002, Big Briar officially became Moog Music, Inc. New engineer August Worley saw there was no money to produce the Voyager. Mike Adams, a local businessman, bought the company and streamlined production with Demand Flow Technology. With the Voyager’s release, Bob was on the cover of Keyboard magazine. The fiftieth anniversary of R. A. Moog saw Bob feted in Europe and Japan, and honored with production of a Bob Moog doll. Hans Fjellestad’s documentary film Moog gave Bob the floor to expound on creativity and the paranormal, and claim he took ideas “down from the network.” Bob was hailed in the New York Times as “the patron saint of electrogeeks” and honored at the first annual Moogfest in New York by musicians like Rick Wakeman. New products included the Etherwave Pro theremin and the Moog PianoBar. By late 2004, Adams told Bob that Moog Music was turning a profit.
The Politics of the Troops
Authors: Millar Katharine M.
Published: November 2022

This chapter examines the meaning that adheres to “the troops” as a distinct cultural figure of war. Against existing analyses, the chapter argues that the troops are not synonymous with, or reducible to, related cultural figures of war (e.g., the military, the soldier, and the veteran), thus establishing it as a novel category within discourse. In contrast to typical understandings of individualized, heroic masculinity, it argues that the troops are predominantly characterized by collectivity, passivity, and dependence. They are relationally feminized vis-à-vis supporters, the soldier, and even war. As a consequence, invocations of the troops shift the moral calculus of war from the ethics of killing distant, racialized Others abroad to the maintenance of appropriate civil-military relations—of appropriate martial loyalty—within the polity. Supporting the troops is not predominantly about war at all, but rather society’s relationship to itself.
Origins of the Fasces
Authors: Brennan T. Corey
Published: November 2022

Ancient tradition is unanimous that twelve attendants known as “lictors” each carried fasces, walking in procession before the old kings of Rome, to mark the king’s status as a holder of imperium (the full civil and military power) and with it, his capacity to inflict either corporal or capital punishment. Tradition also held that Rome of the kings had appropriated this institution from the Etruscans. The discovery in 1898 of a miniature fasces with double-headed axe in a mid-seventh century bce tomb at Vetulonia spectacularly confirmed the Romans’ basic understanding of the emblem’s origin. Yet ancient writers almost certainly undervalue the level of terror this severe Etruscan institution produced when imposed on a native Latin community at Rome. Indeed, it was so effective that when the Romans replaced their monarchy with a Republic headed by two annual consuls, traditionally dated to 509 bce, they claimed the fasces as their own. But 509 bce is noted as the occasion for a thorough revamping of the fasces, to assert tighter public control of the insignia. Henceforth, per this account, the two consuls had to take turns presenting the full regal kit to denote precedence, remove the axes from their bundles within the city, and dip the insignia in assemblies to show deference to the Roman citizenry, who now received the right of appeal against summary execution. These measures most certainly existed in the historical period, had an exceptionally long life, and set the tone for Rome’s political culture.
Roman Fasces in Action
Authors: Brennan T. Corey
Published: November 2022

For Rome’s magistrates, accompaniment by lictors with the fasces was the chief sign that one held the chief civil and military power (imperium), and the dismissal of those attendants formally signaled departure from office. That is true for the imperial era as well. In all eras, lictors with fasces functioned as the extension of the person of their superior. But the literary evidence suggests that they were notorious for engaging in gratuitous brutality on top of their fearsome official functions, which allowed them even to enter private residences. Class prejudice in the sources surely plays a role here: though slaves were excluded from serving in this role, freed slaves were not. If one were to take Christian polemicists at their word, it would seem that by later antiquity, lictors could be lumped together with torturers and executioners. What is secure is that display of the fasces—both authentic ones and ceremonial simulacra—continuously and forcefully reinforced power relations between higher and lower officials, magistrates and non-magistrates, nobles and non-nobles, citizens and non-citizens, and even heightened class consciousness and distinctions among women. (In the Republic, at least, lictors were forbidden to touch ones deemed respectable.)
Becoming a Chaplain
Authors: Cadge Wendy
Published: November 2022

This chapter asks how those working as chaplains in Boston came to the work. Almost all interviewees had some theological education, though the ways they came to the work and their specific details of their training varies. Most came through personal connections, commitments to social justice, or the simple need for a job. Some—because of their gender, family situations, or sense of vocation—did not fit into the jobs people with their credentials typically obtain, and chaplaincy positions were a good alternative. While the largest group work in healthcare, many also work in colleges and universities or community settings, with one-quarter working across multiple sectors. The stories chaplains tell in this chapter confirm the breadth of people in the field and challenge efforts to professionalize it in simplistic or universal ways. They also show how chaplains are connected with local religious organizations, less through institutional connections and more through personal relationships they have with the clergy who lead them.
The Higher Objectives of Islamic Theology
Authors: Abdelnour Mohammed Gamal
Published: November 2022

On the Higher Objectives of Islamic Theology introduces a whole new genre to the Islamic tradition, entitled Maqāṣid al-ʿAqīda. It challenges the common conception that while Christianity is more concerned with questions of orthodoxy, Islam is more concerned with matters of orthopraxy. The book contends that the Islamic tradition started initially with both: orthodoxy and orthopraxy (embodied in theology, Sufism, and law). However, by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s (d. 1111) time, greater interest in Islamic law developed such that the Islamic tradition has become predominantly law-based. This development was also accompanied by a sense of discouragement against theology in the minds of Muslims, assuming that theology often leads to acrimonious disputes and strife among its practitioners. Resultantly, the theological project in the Islamic tradition has largely become limited to definitions and deliberations about the nature and qualities of the transcendent God but barely developed a systematic discipline with defined boundaries and a clear theory of objectives. Hence, the scope of modern Islamic theology (al-Kalām al-Jadīd) is hardly delineated. Addressing this gap, the book aims to develop a genre of Maqāṣid al-ʿAqīda, grappling primarily with the following questions: How do we chart a guide to the process of founding such a genre? In what ways can the emerging Maqāṣid al-ʿAqīda benefit from the grown-up Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa (Higher Objectives of Islamic Law)? What are the ramifications of having an underdeveloped theology? In what ways can Maqāṣid al-ʿAqīda help limit the practice of takfīr (excommunication) and enhance the intra- and interfaith relations?
Institutional Facts
Authors: Marmor Andrei
Published: November 2022

The aim of Chapter 1 is to clarify some of the key concepts at the foundation of institutional reality, such as social facts, institutional facts, and social rules; and to introduce the main philosophical challenges that will be addressed in this work. The main argument of the chapter is that we cannot provide a metaphysical account of institutional facts without an account of the ontology of social rules, and we cannot provide an account of the latter without a metaphysics of collective attitudes. The chapter concludes with a detailed roadmap of the rest of the book, explaining how the general argument unfolds.
Constitution by Rules
Authors: Marmor Andrei
Published: November 2022

Institutional facts are partly constituted by social rules. The main purpose of this chapter is to unpack the relations of constitution between rules and practices. The argument is twofold: First, that the grounding relations between rules and practices is entirely a matter of function, and function, in this context, is a matter of continued practical use by a given population. Second, that the functional explanation offered here shows Searle’s famous distinction between constitutive and regulative rules to be spurious, there is no structural difference between the two kinds of rules. Finally, the chapter also shows that it takes more than rules to ground a social practice; the grounding relations here are only partial. A minimal level of agreement in judgments between the participants about the practice’s point or value is also practically necessary.
Artifacts and the Limits of Error
Authors: Marmor Andrei
Published: November 2022

Artifacts are products of human agency. Though not necessarily institutional facts, artifacts are essential building blocks of our institutional reality. The main purpose of this chapter is to show that a proper metaphysical account of artifacts, in particular, of massive and intangible artifacts, is conducive to an understanding of institutional reality and social ontology, more generally. The second main purpose of the chapter is to show that there are certain types of comprehensive, group-wide, errors about aspects of artifacts that are not metaphysically possible. A population that creates and sustains an artifact has certain epistemic privileges about the content and/or function of the artifact in question, though not necessarily about other aspects of it. Since institutional facts are shown to depend on artifacts, the epistemic considerations that follow from the fact that an object is a product of human agency are wide and significant.
Power-Structuring Rules
Authors: Marmor Andrei
Published: November 2022

A remarkable aspect of our sociality is that humans managed to transform a great deal of brute power into an elaborate normative framework as well. This chapter is about the foundational role of normative powers, arguing that in every human society there are bound to be basic power-structuring rules, constituting foundational building blocks of significant aspects of our institutional reality, by grounding the existence of hierarchical social practices. Practices and institutions are hierarchical in virtue of the normative powers they exercise and deploy. Given the ubiquitous and recurrent practical need for some people to make decisions binding on others, hierarchical social practices are all around us, shaping very significant portions of our everyday lives.
Applied Corporate Risk and Liquidity Management
Authors: Lie Erik
Published: November 2022

A proper cash level facilitates value-enhancing investments and shields firms against financial distress. The book discusses how managers should use risk management and payouts, including dividends, stock repurchases, and debt payout, to attain a proper cash level. It does so by (i) establishing a strong theoretical foundation for the role of cash, (ii) deliberating practical considerations of risk management and payout policy, and (iii) demonstrating applied tools that assist managers in making good decisions. Monte Carlo simulations of future cash holdings are introduced early and serve as a common thread throughout the book. Illustrations are used heavily to explain concepts and help the reader retain the material.
Introduction
Authors: Goldman Loren
Published: November 2022

This chapter situates the book in light of recent discussions in politics and political theory about progress, despair, and temporal consciousness. It argues that the currently prevalent scholarly emphasis on pessimism and despair in thinkers like Wendy Brown, Joshua Dienstag, and Robyn Marasco, among others, neglects the indispensable, creative aspects of hope in politics. It gives the outlines of a definition of hope and presents a variety of approaches to the phenomenon drawn from philosophy, political theory, literary and cultural studies, religion, and anthropology. It lays out, furthermore, the reasons for taking Kant, Bloch, and the American pragmatists as central interlocutors for a discussion of modern political hope, and offers an overview of the book’s structure.
Kant, Practical Belief, and the Regulative Idea of Progress
Authors: Goldman Loren
Published: November 2022

This chapter reconstructs in detail Immanuel Kant’s theory of political hope, with emphasis on his writings on practical philosophy, history, anthropology, and politics. It offers a synoptic view of his critical system and foregrounds the role of progress as a postulate of practical reason, as well as Kant’s notion of practical belief. It argues for hope as a phenomenological stance appropriate and indeed necessary for political action, a view supported with reference to Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of the Power of Judgment; from the latter text it draws the idea that one must act in order to be permitted to hope. Finally, it interprets Kant’s less formal writings on practical matters against this background, and puts him in conversation with modern commentators on his work.
A reappraisal of progress in evolution
Authors: Boomsma Jacobus J.
Published: November 2022

Physics has its universal law of regress, the perpetual increase of disorder formalized by entropy, but biology lacks a generally accepted principle of progress even though it is obvious that life’s organizational complexity has progressed. The concept of evolutionary progress has been debated from before Darwin’s days, misused for political purposes, and remained controversial. As many have noted, lineages do not necessarily gain organizational complexity over time, but Ronald Fisher’s fundamental theorem established that progress should be real, albeit always relative, when we only consider adaptive evolutionary change shaped by natural selection. Progress is easier to grasp when focusing on the major transitions in evolution (MTEs), the unique “ratchet clicks” towards higher organizational complexity. The MTE concept is generally assumed to have arisen in the last decade of the 20th century, but goes back to William Morton Wheeler and, particularly, Julian Huxley in the first years of that century. I review these neglected insights to show that they were correctly and transparently argued, that they remained appreciated in their original form until the 1960s, and that they were, and remain, fully compatible with the neo-Darwinian perspective. In comparison, modern discussions of evolutionary progress and actual research on the MTEs have not been very productive. I follow Huxley and Bonner in considering the four canonical levels of nonhuman hierarchical organization and show how they define life’s domains of social evolution and the clicks of the MTE ratchet clicks between them. I then conjecture how these MTE origins can be explained by a single set of genetic information conditions, a basis from which I will develop the contours of a kin selection theory of organismality in the next two chapters.
The legal context
Authors: Braun Alexandra
Published: November 2022

This chapter provides an overview of the legal framework within which both formal and informal testamentary promises currently operate across common and civil law jurisdictions. It shows that many legal systems are suspicious of them and tend to privilege the promisor’s position, and explores why that might be the case. It further shows that irrespective of whether or not a legal system admits the validity of formal testamentary promises, in both civil and common law traditions courts are usually confronted with informal testamentary promises. However, most legal systems lack a specific framework capable of capturing informal testamentary promises, which compels promisees to seek redress by resorting to various doctrines of private law, not all of which are open to all promisees or suited to the testamentary context. Thus, the chapter illustrates the complexities that distinguish testamentary arrangements and the difficulties promisees face when going to court. It further explores the difficulty courts face when deciding whether and how to protect the promisee’s interests, showing how their decisions have potential implications for other promisees, creditors and successors of the promisor, those with a moral claim against her estate, and third-party transferees.
Establishing detrimental reliance on the promise
Authors: Braun Alexandra
Published: November 2022

This chapter explores the extent to which the equitable doctrine of proprietary estoppel can protect the interests of promisees of testamentary promises in common law jurisdictions. It examines the scope of the doctrine, what requirements promisees must meet, how awards are being quantified, and evaluates the extent to which the doctrine is capable of protecting the promisee’s interests in an effective manner. It argues that while some aspects of the operation of the doctrine of proprietary estoppel are still uncertain, on the whole, the doctrine is sensitive to the context (including the particular relationship and the character of the parties, but also the value of intangible benefits) in which informal testamentary promises are expressed and able to protect the interests of a wide range of promisees. It further aims to show that while some scholars are critical of the development of the doctrine of proprietary estoppel, many of the objections raised are unfounded or can be overcome.
Establishing the value of the promisor’s enrichment in German and French law
Authors: Braun Alexandra
Published: November 2022

This chapter explores how enrichment law can come to the aid of a testamentary promisee in both German and French law and the extent to which it offers satisfactory protection to promisees. The chapter explores what requirements promisees must meet and how relief is quantified. It shows that although enrichment law can sometimes offer protection, its application and protection is generally limited. Due to the relevance of mutual benefits (e.g. in the form of free accommodation) in the context of both establishing the claim and quantifying the recoverable amount, and the availability of defences on the part of the promisor, it may be desirable for a promisee to seek out other forms of redress. In fact, with an enrichment claim there is usually a greater focus on financial aspects which makes it generally less suitable to the testamentary context. Also, the motives of the promisee and societal expectations can play a role when establishing whether there was a legal basis for the enrichment. This seems to be especially true of French law, where the potential practical and psychological hurdles involved when proving the promisor’s enrichment may arguably be even higher than, for instance, in German law.
Applying Systems Thinking to Health Workforce Development
Authors: Abu-Agla Ayat , Badr Elsheikh
Published: November 2022

The health workforce is the cornerstone for health systems and pivotal for healthcare and population health improvement. In many countries and internationally, the health workforce continues to present a challenge and a target area for interventions aimed at strengthening health systems and improving health. Following decades of neglect and vertical interventions, a systems-thinking approach has started to inform health workforce development in many settings, with more frameworks aligned with systems thinking emerging. Sudan, for example, introduced a significant health workforce transformation initiative in 2001. Adopting a systems-thinking approach, this initiative resulted in tangible achievements in promoting its health workforce. This chapter sets out to reflect on the Sudan’s experience in approaching health workforce development through a systems-thinking approach. Capitalizing on secondary sources and reflecting on our first-hand experience of work within the country’s Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), we describe and analyze the course of action taken among the Sudanese health workforce over the past two decades. Specifically, we employ the World Health Organization’s “working lifespan” framework to describe interventions related to health workforce development and the lessons emerging. In addition to reflecting on these achievements, we identify the remaining challenges, and present lessons learned for health workforce strengthening in Sudan and beyond.
Innovative Education Pathways for Refugees to Strengthen Health Systems
Authors: Velarde Minerva Rivas
Published: November 2022

The purpose of this chapter is to explore how technology-mediated interventions can enable refugee youth to contribute to health care delivery, from a systems approach perspective. Using the World Health Organization’s (WHO) health system building blocks this chapter will assesses the implementation of a blended program for capacity building on the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya. It will use four of the six building blocks of the WHO’s health system architecture to examine the interaction of human resources, technology, governance, and service. The findings include a qualitative account of the views of refugee youth and health services managers on entering the health workforce, using available technology tools to address training and education needs and governance, mobility, and migration. The conclusion will reflect on how person-centered health systems need to address the social and macro-structural constraints faced by refugees, as well as the human agency of people in this context, as these dynamics are shaping the profile of important aspects of the health workforce and consequently health service delivery in the region.
Systems Thinking for Pastoral Health
Authors: Kaba Mirgissa
Published: November 2022

Ethiopia has invested heavily in strengthening its health system since 2003. As part of this effort, Ethiopia launched its flagship community Health Extension Program (HEP), which provides basic health and medical care close to the community, to increase access to and coverage of essential health services. HEP also resulted in massive increases in workforce training, increased financial and technical support, and improved governance and logistics to ensure access to health services. Nevertheless, not all geographical places and population groups benefited from this flagship program in the same way. Health programs among pastoral communities, for example, remain relatively weak, with a number of outstanding concerns. This chapter describes the contexts of pastoral communities and argues that the failure to apply systems-thinking approaches to understand how pastoral communities understand health—as an linkage between humans, animals, and climate—has had detrimental consequences for health service delivery among pastoral communities in Ethiopia. Suggestions for how to improve health interventions in line with the needs of pastoral communities are put forward.
Heraclitus on Measure and the Explicit Emergence of Rationality
Authors: Long A. A.
Published: November 2022

Prior to Heraclitus the term logos did not connote reason or rationality. This notion emerges in his aphoristic statements where he invokes such concepts as harmony, order, balanced mentality, proportion, and measure. By reference to Plato, we can see that both philosophers shared a systematic idea and ideal of rationality as typified by these values. Heraclitus intuited the unifying power of logos in the world’s physical processes, and he posited the human capacity to think and speak commensurately, hence according to reason. This chapter includes a survey of relevant earlier texts that illuminate his originality. His riddling statements, in their balanced structure, are a representation of the rationality he finds at work in the cosmos and in himself as the spokesman of its logos.
Parmenides on Thinking Being
Authors: Long A. A.
Published: November 2022

Rationality in action is the main subject of the discourse Parmenides presents as the revelation of his goddess. The being whose properties she deduces in his Way of Truth is not only what can and must be thought but is also identical to veridical thinking. The author calls this the ‘mind/being identity’ reading, and contrasts it with the more familiar interpretation according to which Parmenides’ being is mindless and simply the object of veridical thought. The reciprocal identity of thinking and being provides the basis (the only basis, given Parmenides’ strict monism) for integrating human inquiry and the human subject with the Way of Truth. This interpretation also situates Parmenides’ thought in the context of his immediate predecessors and successors. Rationality and selfhood come tightly together in this chapter.
Socrates’ Divine Sign
Authors: Long A. A.
Published: November 2022

Socrates was notorious during his lifetime for intermittently experiencing what he called his divine sign (daimonion). This chapter explores Socrates’ adherence to the admonitions of this daimonion, especially their compatibility with his commitment to live a self-examined life and to act only on the best of reasons. Rather than view the divine sign as falling outside rationality, as some scholars propose, Plutarch’s essay on the topic offers an attractive alternative interpretation. There it is conjectured that Socrates experienced an inaudible logos that struck him by its phenomenology as authoritative, thus certifying the link between divinity and rationality.
Witness Testimony and the Principle of Orality
Authors: Roberts Paul
Published: November 2022

This chapter introduces the major evidentiary topic of witness testimony through contextual consideration of the role of witnesses in the criminal trial. Oral witness testimony, delivered live and on oath and subjected to cross-examination in the presence of the jury, is the paradigmatic form of evidence in the common law procedural tradition. We may conceptualize a ‘principle of orality’. In modern criminal litigation, witness testimony is often supplemented or even eclipsed by documents or physical evidence (including forensic science), but remains integral to normative justifications of the orthodox trial model. Principled orality is related to open justice, trial by jury, effective fact-finding, and procedural due process. These traditional rationales have been exposed to two principal strands of critique. First, victims’ advocates have objected to the distressing and humiliating treatment of complainants and other witnesses in the courtroom. Secondly, an expanding corpus of behavioural science research has challenged the empirical basis for asserting (with Wigmore) that witnesses’ demeanour and their answers in cross-examination are reliable guides to truth-finding. Further appraisal of the principle of orality is deferred until detailed procedural rules for adducing, presenting, testing, and evaluating witness testimony have been explored and scrutinized. Doctrinal analysis commences in this chapter with the legal rules on competence; compellability; testimonial privileges; and public interest immunity (PII), including witness anonymity. This discussion implicates fundamental principles of access to information, open—or secret—trials, and ongoing procedural innovation (e.g. appointing special counsel to discharge designated functions).