bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Context
Authors: Harrison Carol
Published: February 2006

This chapter considers the biographical, historical, and theological context of Augustine’s early works (386-96). It outlines the way in which these works have been read in scholarly debates over the last hundred years, demonstrating that they have generally been marginalised as the rather obsolete philosophical investigatons of a new, somewhat naïve, over-optimistic convert, still entrenched in the classical tradition of belief in human free will and perfectibility. These have generally been contrasted with the later, mature works of Augustine — the pessimistic theologian of the Fall, original sin, and human dependence upon divine grace. It considers Peter Brown’s analysis of the revolutionary transformation of the early into the later Augustine following his reading of Paul in the 390s, and sets out the argument of the book: that there is no discontinuity or revolutionary transformation of the early into the later Augustine, but rather a fundamental continuity between the two.
The Revolution of 386
Authors: Harrison Carol
Published: February 2006

This chapter argues that Augustine’s conversion in 386 is not a radically different conversion from the one he recounts in Confessiones 8: that if one is to speak of a ‘revolution’ in his thought, it is not to be found in his reading of Paul in the 390s, but in his reading of the ‘books of the Platonists’ in 386, and his discovery in them of a doctrine of God’s transcendence which freed him from the materialistic philosophies that had hitherto made it impossible for him to embrace the Christian faith to which he had always sought to be reconciled.
Paul
Authors: Harrison Carol
Published: February 2006

This chapter argues that Augustine’s attempts at interpreting Paul in the mid 390s, culminating in the Ad Simplicianum, must not be read as representing a dramatic break with earlier ideas of human autonomy and the ability of the will to freely choose the good without divine help, but as affirming what he had always held: fallen humanity’s complete and utter dependence upon God’s grace to know, will, and do the good. It demonstrates that his suggestion in the Propositiones — that the free choice of faith is to be counted as a merit which is rewarded by grace — is uncharacteristic of either his earlier or later thought. By considering other works written at the same time (such as the Enarrationes in Psalmos), it is shown that there is a fundamental continuity in his approach to these difficult questions from the very beginning.
Contexts
Authors: Predelli Stefano
Published: February 2006

This book discusses the views of meaning and truth implicit in the traditionalapproach to natural-language semantics. Its main thesis is that the philosophical presuppositions entailed by that approach have often been misunderstood even by its foremost defenders, and that such a misunderstanding has fuelled an unjustified but increasingly popular sceptical attitude. This conclusion is defended by focusing on the distinction between the essential philosophical traits of traditional natural-language semantics, and certain accidental features allegedly characteristic of some of its typical applications to the study of particular utterances. As a result, the book puts forth claims about the logical profile of indexical expressions, about the semantic behaviour of attitude reports, and about phenomena such as discourse about fiction, approximation, and contextual dependence. In its central chapters, it challenges the adequacy of a token-reflexive approach to indexicality, and questions the urgency of the so-called contextualist view of communication.
Chapter 1 Systems and their Inputs
Authors: Predelli Stefano
Published: February 2006

This chapter focuses on the general traits of the traditional approach to natural-language semantics, and on the views about meaning and truth it presupposes. It considers the nature and structure of the inputs adequate for semantic analysis, and it analyses their role within customary compositional systems. The questions of disambiguation, and the distinction between so-called pure indexicals and demonstratives are discussed.
Chapter 4 The Colour of the Leaves
Authors: Predelli Stefano
Published: February 2006

This chapter confronts the popular contextualist challenge to the traditional view of meaning and truth. Focusing on Charles Travis’ ‘painted leaves’ examples, it suggests that the contextualist criticism is grounded on confusions between the content and structure of natural-language semantics on the one hand, and its applications on the other. The final section focuses on underarticulationist views, and on their relationship with traditional natural language semantics.
The Easy Problem of Belief Reports
Authors: Predelli Stefano
Published: February 2006

This chapter defends a simple-minded solution to the problems raised by occurrences of proper names within attitude reports, with particular attention to alleged failures of the substitutivity principle. It discusses the significance of these reports’ apparent contextual sensitivity, and argues that simple Millian views are not immediately at odds with competent speakers’ intuitions.
Prolegomena: The Fourth Lateran Council and its Tradition
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter introduces the doctrinal background to the controversy between Durandus of St Pourcain and his order, mainly those authors who contributed with the basic terminology and insights which informed later discussions on the Trinity in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. These contributions converged in one tradition, exemplified by the doctrinal programme put forward by the dogmatic definition of the Trinity at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. The contrast between Durandus’s position and the Dominican accepted view will often be read against the backdrop of this more or less unified doctrinal tradition.
2 Aquinas on the Trinity
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter offers an account of Aquinas’s teaching on relations in the context of Thomist general metaphysics and Trinitarian theology. Aquinas’s account will serve as the main sounding board for judging the different interpretations of Thomism throughout the discussion and, by the same token, the extent of Durandus’s dissent.
Varieties of Distinction
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the accounts which various scholastic theologians gave of a notion central to medieval discussions of the Trinity, that of ‘distinction’. The following theologians: Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, and Duns Scotus have been chosen not only for their general contribution to the development of Trinitarian theology, but also because their treatment of the issue established the main lines of argument running through and focusing the discussion between Durandus and Hervaeus. Some of the fundamental features in the contrasting positions of Durandus and Hervaeus appear foreshadowed in the earlier accounts, thus representing the main sources and theological allegiances of the two Dominicans.
5 The opinio singularis: The First Recension of Durandus of St Pourçain's Commentary on the Sentences
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter considers the first recension of Durandus’s commentary, conveying his initial teaching on the Trinity as it was first intended and before the conflict with his order.
Hervaeus's Quodlibetal Disputations
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter is devoted to Hervaeus Natalis’s quodlibetal disputations, thus introducing the quodlibetal exchange between Hervaeus and Durandus, sustained between the years 1308, roughly when Durandus’s early commentary was made public, and 1317, date of the second censure list. Hervaeus’s Quodlibets show how his interpretation of Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology was profoundly shaped by Scotist insights not necessarily concordant with Thomism, but which Hervaeus skillfully adapts to suit Thomist priorities.
Durandus's Response: The Paris Quodlibets
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter deals with Durandus’s Parisian Quodlibets from 1312. This work shows how Hervaeus’s recent criticisms of Durandus’s position forced Durandus to revise his view in order to soften the points of friction with the mainstream Dominican view. Ultimately, however, Durandus unconvincingly adapts the Thomist position to his own theological priorities.
The Censure
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter is occupied with an examination of the first Dominican censure against Durandus in 1314, which represents the climax of the conflict. The articles concerning Durandus’s Trinitarian theology show how Durandus’s thesis of a real distinction between the divine essence and relations was perceived as a natural consequence of his understanding of relations as modes of being. Durandus’s conclusions were censurable on the grounds that they were anti-Aristotelian and departed from Lateran theology.
The Aftermath of the Censure
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

This chapter presents the aftermath of the censure and the ‘forensic’ turn which the discussion took in the years immediately following. The chapter centres on Hervaeus’s tracts in response to Durandus’s attempts at defence following the censure. These tracts provide Hervaeus’s confident justification of the censure, and more significantly, his hard-line view on church authority in the context of professional theological debate.
10 The Corrective
Authors: Isabel Iribarren
Published: February 2006

This chapter introduces the apologetic Avignon Quodlibets, Durandus’s most conspicuous attempt at conciliation, followed by Hervaeus’s cold reception in the Correctiones. Hervaeus’s final tract also points the way to the ‘Thomist turn’ which the controversy later assumed, and which materialized in the second censure of 1317.
12 The Final Recension of Durandus's Commentary
Authors: Isabel Iribarren
Published: February 2006

This chapter concludes with the final recension of Durandus’s Sentences commentary, thus settling the record with Hervaeus and his order. By establishing a comparison between this work and the early commentary, this chapter assesses the effect of the previous years of controversy on the evolution of Durandus’s Trinitarian theology. Although profiting from years of critical exchange, Durandus’s mature position shows few signs of compromise. In general lines, Durandus holds steadfast to his initial insights.
Understanding Canton
Authors: Ho Virgil
Published: February 2006

This book critically examines six aspects of the popular culture of early and mid-Republican (1912-38) Canton: common perceptions of the city, popular attitudes towards the West, Cantonese opera, opium smoking, gambling, and prostitution. Misunderstandings and biased assumptions about these social phenomena as portrayed in much contemporary as well as present-day official or ‘socially conscientious’ literature are redressed. Contemporary folk materials reveal that the common people were much more pro-Western than xenophobic in attitude; the alleged social and political ‘calamities’ of gambling, opium consumption, and prostitution were more rhetorical than real; the socio-cultural status of the city has surpassed that of the countryside; and the commercialization and Westernization of Cantonese opera was much less straightforward or complete than its critics argued.
Early Philosophy
Authors: Beiser Frederick
Published: February 2006

This chapter introduces Schiller’s historical context and philosophical development. While emphasizing the importance of Schiller’s early writings, it also argues that Schiller’s discovery of Kant in the 1780s marks a break with much of his earlier thinking. Metaphysical interpretations of Schiller’s thought have failed to recognize the purport of his conversion to Kant.
An Objective Aesthetic
Authors: Beiser Frederick
Published: February 2006

This chapter explains Schiller’s early attempt to develop an objective standard of criticism in the Kallias Briefe. Against many critics, it argues that this ambition was not misguided at all, but tries to surmount a serious weakness of Kant’s aesthetics. It explains the meaning of Schiller’s famous definition of beauty as freedom in appearance. Metaphysical interpretations of this definition are rejected.
The Troubles of Templeless Judah
Authors: Middlemas Jill
Published: February 2006

The Neo-Babylonian defeat of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 resulted in an era — commonly, though now anachronistically, known as the ‘exilic age’ — considered to be of fundamental significance in the historical, social, and theological development of ancient Israel. Although perceived by the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and modern scholarship as a foundational epoch, examinations of the exile tend to focus on the fraction of the community who experienced forced deportation after the collapse of Jerusalem, namely, those members of the community relocated to Babylonia. Since recent scholarship has raised awareness of renewal among the community left in Judah, the book reassesses the historical circumstances and the theological reflection made in the homeland. In drawing together recent analyses of the archaeological data and the strategies of governance adopted by the Neo-Babylonian empire, the evidence points to sufficient infrastructure in sixth-century Judah to allow for communal and religious life. The author then surveys the heterodox and Yahwistic worship practices thought to stem from this community. It is shown that interpreters have accepted perspectives of the religiosity of Templeless Judah generated by ideological stances in the ancient world and in modern scholarship. In order to gain access to the thought and distinguish themes from the people in the homeland, the author studies the book of Lamentations. Rather than formulating great theological constructs, the Judahites agonised over their troubles in prayer. In so doing, the laments attributable to Templeless Judah helpfully provide a means to ascertain other literature with a similar provenance.
Introduction
Authors: MIDDLEMAS JILL
Published: February 2006

A survey of research on the period more generally termed the ‘Exile’ reveals an important distinction between analyses of the literature of two of the communities that experienced the disaster that followed the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, namely, that in Judah and that deported to Babylonia. Analyses of literature from the exiles show greater awareness of the importance of context in the articulation of religious ideology. Since recent studies have provided greater details about the distinctive context of the community in Judah, it follows that an important step in moving research on the period of the exile into new directions should include new data that has come to light as well as the reassessment of religious literature from the people of the homeland in this period. It also requires that the terminology for the period under question be taken under consideration as greater concern to be inclusive of the variety of populations that experienced the disaster of 587. The term ‘Templeless period’ is suggested as a suitable alternative to the ‘exilic age’.
1 The Social and Historical Situation in Templeless Judah
Authors: MIDDLEMAS JILL
Published: February 2006

In this chapter, three sources of information — the historical presentation of the Hebrew Bible supplemented by ancient Near Eastern documentation where applicable, the evidence of the material culture available from excavations and surveys, and the impact of Babylonian rule on the region — are brought together to construct a holistic portrait of the situation in Templeless Judah. The chapter begins with a reconstruction of sixth-century Judah from the perspective of the biblical portrait, as it is important when examining this period to be aware of how the biblical writers understood the events of the sixth century and how they portrayed them. Other sources of information about the period such as those from the archaeological record and an understanding of the Babylonian empire are used to elucidate the historical details available from biblical and extra-biblical sources. Despite devastation and severe disruption, certain clues indicated the resumption of activity and the existence of a stable infrastructure within which cultic ritual continued.
3 Conceptions of Judah, II: Yahwistic Worship
Authors: MIDDLEMAS JILL
Published: February 2006

This chapter continues to explore worship in the homeland, but with particular attention to Yahwistic practice. It contains two foci: (1) what type of Yahwistic ritual continued in the homeland and where did it occur? and (2) a survey of the lament literature commonly associated with that setting. After closer study of the laments typically associated with Templeless Judah (Pss. 74, 79, 89, 102; Isa. 63:7-64:11) it is clear that a variety of influences disallow the attribution of liturgical poems to Judah without an understanding of what might be typical of Judahite thought. Moreover, the ascription of laments to worship at the temple represents another conception from outside the community in sixth-century Judah, in this instance, from modern scholarship.
‘We the States’: Why the Anti‐Federalists Won
Authors: Dehousse Renaud
Published: February 2006

Most of the rhetoric around the Convention on the Future of Europe and the EU Constitution was pure hype. The new treaty was an incremental adjustment to previous ones, not a major revolutionary change. Throughout the process, the member-states underscored their reluctance to delegate much further power to Brussels, and their enduring tendency to jockey for what they each perceived to be their national advantage.
Is the Council Becoming an Upper House?
Authors: Lewis Jeffrey
Published: February 2006

The EU’s Council of Ministers increasingly resembles an upper legislative house in a bicameral system more than any international organization. But the EU still gives far more power to territorially-based interests at the Council level than do federal systems in the US or Germany. The Council also blurs legislative and executive powers in a unique way, and this ambiguity is not getting any clearer — the Council increasingly exhibits some common legislative dynamics, but is also maintaining traditions as a consensus-oriented diplomatic body.
Financial Restructuring in the Age of the Euro: Still a Battle of Systems?
Authors: Story Jonathan
Published: February 2006

The battle of the systems within the EU is as lively as it ever was, if not livelier. Europe is not converging on a single capitalism, but the many national forms it takes are all subject to similar forces. There is convergence in the processes at work in the world and in Europe — the complex processes often summarized as ‘globalization’ — but there is continued divergence in national structures. Convergence with the USA is otherwise taking place for political reasons, since the euro is working as a neo-liberal engine.
Toward a European Social Policy—At Last?
Authors: Palier Bruno , Pochet Philippe
Published: February 2006

The achievements in European social policy are generally considered weak at best. The European Union’s apparent liberal and supply-side bias lends credence to the idea of a convergence towards the ‘hegemonic American model’. Yet employment policies and social protection policies have been formally included in European competencies under a specific procedure, the ‘Open Method of Coordination’. The unintended consequence of European economic and monetary integration is that different European organizations now compete for competence in the growing EU social field. This leads to considerable innovation in policy orientation and practices.
Drawing the EU's Borders: Immigration Policy
Authors: Guiraudon Virginie
Published: February 2006

The transfer of competence in areas considered emblematic of national sovereignty, like immigration and citizenship, should be a litmus test of the ‘polity’ ambitions of the EU. As of the early 1980s, national officials in charge of migration sought to avoid judicial constraints and conflicting bureaucratic views that that were experiencing at the national level. They consequently moved to relocate some of their decision-making to a secretive intergovernmental forum at the EU level. This chapter develops this analysis of motives for cooperation at the EU level in terms of political ‘venue shopping’.
Rights in the European Union: Convergent with the USA?
Authors: Shapiro Martin
Published: February 2006

The European Union structure of rights is now being built upon the preexisting rights practices of the member states, which in turn developed in part in the light of US experience. In Europe, like in the USA, constitutional judicial review has moved on to more and more rights announcing and protecting review by more and more courts over time. Still, European judicial action favoring rights developed by somewhat different routes and continues to exhibit certain features that reflect specifically European heritages and contrast with the US.
The European Union through an American Prism
Authors: Kersh Rogan , Morone James
Published: February 2006

The USA is deeply implicated in European dreams of a more perfect union. This chapter investigates three aspects of the European-American nexus. First, it focuses on the striking gap between politics and administration in contemporary Europe, and reflects on the implications for democracy. Second, it examines recent tensions between the USA and European governments, arguing that the source goes far deeper than the bare-knuckles diplomacy of the current Bush Administration. Finally, it examines the early history of US national unity as a model for European efforts.
Becoming Europeans?
Authors: Scully Roger
Published: February 2006

Contemporary political science assumes that ‘institutions matter’. But the governing institutions of the European Union are widely presumed to matter more than most. A commonplace assumption about the EU is that those working within European institutions are subject to a pervasive tendency to become socialised into progressively more pro-integration attitudes and behaviours. This assumption has been integral to many accounts of European integration, and is also central to how scholars study individual EU institutions. However, the theoretical and empirical adequacy of this assumption has never been properly investigated. This study examines this question in the context of an increasingly important EU institution, the European Parliament. The book integrates new theoretical arguments with a substantial amount of original empirical research. It develops a coherent understanding, based on simple rationalist principles, of when and why institutional socialisation is effective. This theoretical argument explains the main empirical findings of the book. Drawing on several sources of evidence on MEPs’ attitudes and behaviour, and deploying advanced empirical techniques, the empirical analysis shows the commonplace assumption about EU institutions to be false. European Parliamentarians do not become more pro-integration as they are socialised into the institution. The findings of the study generate some highly important conclusions. They indicate that institutional socialisation of political elites should be given a much more limited and conditional role in understanding European integration than it is accorded in many accounts. They suggest that MEPs remain largely national politicians in their attitudes, loyalties and much of their activities, and that traditional classifications of the European Parliament as a ‘supra-national’ institution are misleading. Finally, the study offers broader lessons about the circumstances in which institutions effectively socialise those working within them.
2 THE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT—EUROPE'S ELECTED PARLIAMENT
Authors: Scully Roger
Published: February 2006

This chapter establishes the context for the study. It first provides a historical overview of the development of the European Parliament, focussing particularly on the growth in the parliament’s powers. The discussion then moves on to examining the main features of the Parliament's internal organisation. The third section of the chapter draws on in-depth interviews conducted with a large number of MEPs, where politicians’ own views of the prevalence of socialisation effects within the EP were sought. While many believe that MEPs do become more European-minded in various senses, the final section of the chapter explains why one cannot rest content with this evidence. It argues that there is a need for further study both to consider the theoretical basis for any hypothesised socialisation effects, and to examine other empirical evidence to assess whether such effects are actually manifested.
4 UNDERSTANDING INSTITUTIONAL SOCIALIZATION
Authors: Scully Roger
Published: February 2006

This chapter seeks to develop a coherent explanation of the circumstances in which political actors operating within EU institutions might be subject to socialisation processes that shape their attitudes and behaviour in a more integrationist direction. Any such explanation, it is argued, must depend on two core elements: an understanding of the nature of the socialising experience to be undergone; and assumptions about the individuals who will undergo this experience. The chapter then goes on to discuss the likely implications of this framework for socialisation processes in the EP. The discussion shows that the extent to which MEPs become divorced from the national political scene has been substantially over-stated. It is argued that a rationalist understanding of MEPs’ core political goals — assumed to be policy, office and (re)-election — would predict that European Parliamentarians should prove relatively immune to any pressures to ‘go native’.
5 Investigating MEPs' Attitudes
Authors: Scully Roger
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines survey evidence regarding the potential impact of institutional socialisation processes in the European Parliament on MEPs’ attitudes. Parliamentarians’ opinions on a variety of matters related to the development of European integration are explored. A direct comparison of MEPs with members of national parliaments shows no substantial relationship between service in the EP and more ‘pro-European’ views. And a more detailed assessment, concentrating solely on EP members, finds that those who have been in the parliament for a greater length of time — and thus have had a greater exposure to the putative impact of institutional socialisation — are no more likely to claim a ‘European’ identity, or to favour the deepening of integration or the extension of the powers of the EP, than their less experienced colleagues.
Chapter 2 Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Where is Pension Policy Headed?
Authors: Klein James A.
Published: February 2006

In the future, the retirement paradigm will be reinvented because people and entities directly engaged in designing and sponsoring plans, as well as those benefiting from plans, will make countless decisions about their immediate and long-term needs. They will adjust retirement plan programs, and retirement practices themselves, to accommodate those needs. This chapter identifies four elements that may help in the development of a paradigm suitable for the next thirty years. These are the key role of trust in a regulatory scheme; the importance of balancing objectives in pension policy; the key importance of recognizing expectations; and the need for retirement policy champions.
Chapter 3 Reality Testing for Pension Reform
Authors: Perun Pamela , Steuerle C. Eugene
Published: February 2006

There are two very different types of proposals for private pension system change that have been put before Congress. The first type of change can be seen in the Pension Preservation and Savings Expansion Act (PPSEA), introduced in 2003 by Portman and Cardin. PPSEA is a ‘traditional’ type of pension reform, an omnibus bill that tinkers with almost every aspect of the private pension system to make incremental changes. The second type of proposal can be seen in the attempt of the Administration to effect radical change and simplification in the structure of the private pension system. The 2003 proposal, modified in budget submissions in 2004, contemplated a sweeping consolidation in the number and types of defined contribution (DC) plans. This chapter evaluates these two approaches to change; the first one for incremental change, and the second one involving greater structural reform; and then it considers an alternative.
Chapter 4 Older Workers: Employment and Retirement Trends
Authors: Purcell Patrick
Published: February 2006

This chapter begins by describing the aging of the US population and it summarizes historical data on older workers' labour force participation. It then considers information on older persons' employment and receipt of pension income, which are discussed in the context information on the proportion of workers who claim retired-worker benefits before the full retirement age (65 years and 4 months for people who reach age 65 in 2004). Recent proposals to promote phased retirement through amendments to sections of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) that govern the taxation of pension income are discussed.
Chapter 6 The Future of Pension Plan Design
Authors: McCarthy David
Published: February 2006

This chapter brings together the literature on pension compensation and optimal portfolio choice to seek solutions to the ‘pension design’ problem. It identifies the factors that must be taken into account when designing pension schemes. It then discusses life cycle models of employee preferences, presents a specific model of this type, and presents some results. It is shown that defined benefit (DB) pension arrangements magnify the risk exposure of an individual to salary risk, and both defined contribution (DC) and DB pension arrangement defer the pay of younger workers to later in their lives. In contrast, DB pensions may be a cost-effective method of compensation for older, less well-educated employees. Promising workers a stake in an underfunded pension plan is an expensive way to pay employees, particularly if the underfunding has no positive impact on effort. Giving workers 401(k) plans holding restricted company stock is also an expensive way to remunerate employees, because they are already heavily exposed to company risk.
Chapter 9 Educating Pension Plan Participants
Authors: Arnone William J.
Published: February 2006

This chapter argues that firms and plan sponsors have an obligation to provide financial education in conjunction with their retirement plans. A practical definition of employer-sponsored participant education is a program that helps employees develop skills to make informed decisions and take action to improve their financial well-being in retirement. This definition incorporates the following: helping individuals based on their status as employees of an organization; providing recipients with skill development, which may include either new competencies or the enhancement of existing competencies; enabling participants to make decisions about issues; providing a basis of accurate, unbiased information for such decisions; taking an action-oriented stance and thereby attempting to affect behaviour; and seeking the long-term result of improved financial well-being.
Chapter 13 The Future of Pensions in Canada
Authors: Pozzebon Silvana
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the resilience of the two key components of the Canadian retirement income system: the Old Age Security (OAS) program and the compulsory, pay-as-you-go earnings-related scheme. The public pension scheme has both an unfunded component and a funded element, the CPP Investment Fund. The latter was adopted as a measure to improve public pension retirement security. The public system also embodies a balance between poverty reduction (the OAS program) and retirement income support (Q/CPP). The private pension system is generally considered the funded component of Canada's retirement system. It has proved successful in providing income replacement, particularly for those with higher incomes, who receive lower replacement rates from the OAS program due to the progressive nature of the public pension system.
Chapter 15 Risk Management and Pension Plan Choice in Japan
Authors: Usuki Masaharu
Published: February 2006

This chapter assesses whether changes in benefit design were influenced by sponsors' desire to control financial risk. It considers several plan financial characteristics that affect risk tolerance and asset allocation decisions, such as the funding ratio, and determines whether these variables influence decisions regarding plan termination and put-back of the contracted-out portion of Employee Pension Funds (EPFs). In particular, the chapter examines the hypothesis that plan sponsors have altered the plan type they offer to control risks in pension management. It is shown that the pension plan's funding ratio, volatility of the plan sponsor's return on equity, and the size of the pension plan relative to the plan sponsor's total assets exert an influence on decisions to change pension plan types.
The Boundaries of Welfare
Authors: Ferrera Maurizio
Published: February 2006

To what extent and in what ways have European integration redrawn the boundaries of national welfare states? What are the effects of such redrawing? These questions are interesting and relevant because boundaries “count”: they are a pre-requisite for bonding individuals, groups, and territorial units, and for activating or strengthening their dispositions to share. Historically, welfare state formation can be read as a process of boundary-building — essentially through the establishment of compulsory public insurance schemes. European integration has prompted a reversal of this process: free movement and competition rules have in fact started to challenge the traditional bounding prerogatives of the nation-state in the social sphere. Today, the EU constrains not only the scope and content of bounding decisions (who is entitled to share what), but also the very “right to bound” in the first place. Such constraints have far reaching economic and financial implications. But their social and political implications may be even greater, given the importance of nation-based social sharing for material life chances, cultural identities and legitimation dynamics. As shown by the chapters in this book, reshuffling the “boundaries of welfare” can destabilise the basic architecture of Europe’s national societies and political systems. In order to counter this destabilisation, a carefully designed strategy of institutional reform is needed, capable of reconciling “solidarity” and “Europe” through stronger citizenship rights and more socially friendly regulatory instruments.
2 From Public Assistance to Social Protection: Welfare State-building in European Nations
Authors: Ferrara Maurizio
Published: February 2006

This chapter traces the historical origins and early developments of European welfare states up to the Second World War in terms of external and internal boundary building. It highlights the role of cleavage and centre periphery structures in moulding institutional choices, in particular, the choice between a universal and an occupational approach to social insurance — the former prevailing in the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic countries, and the latter prevailing in Continental and South European countries.
Existence (1987)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

Quine’s dictum that to be is to be a value of a variable is rejected on the grounds that variables range over nonexistents. Many things do not exist. This observation is consistent with actualism, the doctrine that everything there is exists. All things inevitably have properties. Existence and actuality are properties, Kant notwithstanding.
Nonexistence (1998)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

It is argued that reference to the nonexistent, and belief of nonexistent propositions, are commonplace. True, singular, negative existentials vary by the semantic nature of the subject term or the ontological status of its designatum. The most common true negative existentials involve names that designate nonexistent things-actual past things, actual future, merely possible, or impossible. Fiction is not a case in point; fictional characters are real. Error is merely accidental fiction.
Modal Logic Kalish-and-Montague Style (1994u)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

The natural-deduction deductive apparatus of Donald Kalish and Richard Montague from their textbook, Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning (second edition co-authored with Gary Mar) is extended to the most popular “normal” systems of modal propositional logic (T, B, S4, and S5) — the logic of what might have been — making significantly greater use of the Kalish-and-Montague deductive apparatus than had been utilized in the earlier attempts.
Impossible Worlds (1984)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

It is argued, against Randolph Carter, that if there are merely possible worlds, then indeed there are also impossible worlds. Worlds are things, but impossible worlds are not impossible things. A world, in the sense in which the actual world is only one among many, is a maximal scenario, a total way for things to be-all things. The actual world is the way things are. Merely possible worlds are ways things might have been but are not. Impossible worlds are ways things could not have been.
Identity Facts (2002)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

For any x there can be nothing y such that there is no fact that x = y and at the same time no fact that x ( y. For if there were, then y would differ from x in this respect: that there is no fact that x is it and no fact that x is not it. In this case there is a fact that x ( y. In short, identity is always determinate. This argument is defended at length against the most developed response to date, that of Terence Parsons. The proof is also contrasted with a similar proof due to Gareth Evans.
Wholes, Parts, and Numbers (1997)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

It would appear to be provable that there cannot be exactly exactly two and a half oranges on the table. For the orange-half on the table is itself not an orange. An orange is a whole orange (or nearly enough so), whereas an orange-half, whatever else it is, is not a whole orange (nor even nearly so). Thus, there are only two oranges on the table, together with a third thing that (despite its color, taste, etc.) is no orange. This paradoxical conclusion is rejected. Instead a non-classical understanding is adopted on which the numerical quantifier ‘there are exactly n’, surprisingly, creates a nonextensional context.
On Content (1992)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

It is argued that Frege might be properly interpreted as having employed a notion of logical content — more fine-grained than his notion of Bedeutung (extension) yet more course-grained than Sinn. Expressions have the same logical content, in this postulated translation for Frege’s ‘Erkenntniswerte’, if they are logically equivalent. Strictly synonymous expressions (those having the same sense) have the same logical content, but the converse is not generally true-else, for Frege, all mathematical truths would be the same “thought,” or proposition, e.g., that 2 is even and that eΠ = -1.
On Designating (2005)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

A new interpretation is proposed for the notorious “Gray’s Elegy” passage in Bertrand Russell’s ground-breaking essay, On Denoting. The passage is Russell’s central argument for the doctrine — surprising, yet crucial to Russell’s philosophical program — that definite descriptions are not singular terms. Two elements of Russell’s objection — the commitment to a hierarchy of indirect senses and the complaint that the hierarchy is a practical impossibility — have been rediscovered in more recent philosophy. Possible responses are: one on behalf of Fregean theory, another on behalf of Millianism.
The Very Possibility of Language (2001)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

Many philosophers have argued that a sentence like ‘Chris believes that the Earth is round’ actually mentions particular words rather than any proposition. Alonzo Church demonstrates that this is incorrect by translating both the original sentence and its proposed paraphrase into another language. Doing so illustrates that the original sentence and its proposed paraphrase contain different information. The latter, at most, merely describes what it is that Chris is supposed to believe — specifying it as the content, whatever that may turn out to be, of such-and-such words — whereas the former identifies what Chris is alleged to believe. Michael Dummett’s failure to appreciate this fundamental point leads to a dramatic collapse of his own theory, which has the preposterous consequence that language as we know it is altogether impossible.
Tense and Intension (2003)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

It is demonstrated how to incorporate the traditional notion of a proposition as eternal and unvarying in truth value into a semantic theory like that of David Kaplan, by distinguishing among not three (as in Kaplan’s work), but four levels of semantic value: extension, content, content base, and meaning. Unlike the semantic content, the content base of a sentence may be temporally neutral, and may thus vary in truth-value with time. This semantic theory supports that generally unrecognized fact that the semantic content of a predicate, like ‘is reading’, is a temporally indexed attribute (reading at t, t a time), and hence changes as the predicate is evaluated with respect to different times.
On Meaning, Meaning, and Meaning
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

To understand how language works, one must first look to the cooperative functions that various language forms perform, understanding these on a biological model as what these forms accomplish that keeps them in circulation. Next, one should look at language mechanics, at how language forms perform their functions, and especially to the conditions in the world that are necessary to support their specific functions. These are, in part, truth conditions, which are determined by a kind of “meaning” called “semantic mapping functions” — “functions,” this time, in the mathematical sense. Last, the psychological mechanisms that are involved in implementing the functions of various language forms must be described. A proper understanding of these mechanisms eliminates the need to introduce anything akin to intensions or Fregean senses in the understanding of linguistic meaning.
The Son and the Daughter: On Sellars, Brandom, and Millikan
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

The positions of Brandom and Millikan are compared with respect to their common origins in the works of Wilfrid Sellars and Wittgenstein. Millikan takes more seriously the “picturing” themes from Sellars and Wittgenstein. Brandom follows Sellars more closely in deriving the normativity of language from social practice, although there are also hints of a possible derivation from evolutionary theory in Sellars. An important claim common to Brandom and Millikan is that there are no representations without function or “attitude”.
Cutting Philosophy of Language Down to Size
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

Two mistaken assumptions lay at the heart of the mid-century philosophy of language. First, unlike the act of knowing an empirical fact, the act of referentially meaning something, though perhaps not of actually referring to something, is completed within the mind itself. Second, a univocal term in a public language is associated with a psychological state common to all competent users. It is shown how to deny both assumptions by showing that the purpose of a thinker intending a certain referent is not a psychological purpose, but a biological purpose.
Semantics/Pragmatics: (Purposes and Cross-Purposes)
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

A new analysis of convention and of linguistic function yields a robust description, in naturalistic terms, of the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. For a number of different but instructive reasons, this distinction is intrinsically blurry, depending on statistics over individual psychological processing techniques. Implications for the theory of language interpretation are discussed, with the conclusion drawn that there are many ways of grasping the content that the specific speaker intends to convey without employing a theory of mind. A coordinate claim is that during normal conversation, it is not language that is most directly perceived by the hearer but rather the world that is most directly perceived through language.
Preliminary Study of Aristotle's Causes
Authors: Johnson Monte Ransome
Published: February 2006

Aristotle considers nature, art, spontaneity, luck, necessity, and intelligence to be causes, and they fit into the four kinds of cause that he distinguishes throughout works on natural philosophy. The four kinds of cause, e.g. matter, mover, form, end, are not themselves causes, but are classes of causes. The causes can be combined in various ways, and the same thing can be classified as several kinds of cause. Causes play a crucial role in scientific demonstration: the middle term in a syllogism of natural science. But only intrinsic (as opposed to incidental) causes can play this role, and so it is important to distinguish between things that happen to be predicated of a cause (such as paleness of a the sculptor), and things essential to a cause (such as the art of sculpture). Due attention to these distinctions can show how Aristotle thinks that various causes can be integrated (such as ends and movers) in a way that is still explanatory, and how causation does not violate temporal sequence, requiring “backwards causation”.
Teleology and Elements
Authors: Johnson Monte Ransome
Published: February 2006

Did Aristotle consider the properties of the elements to be teleologically explicable? According to some commentators, he did not, but considered these to operate according to material, moving, or mechanical causes. According to others, he did, and this is evidence of his commitment to an “overall” or “global” teleology. Both of the positions are wrong. Aristotle did consider each of the elements teleologically explicable, but he considered the beneficiaries of their properties and motions to be the elements themselves. This is relatively clear in the case of ether, the element that composes the heavenly bodies: it has a simple motion in a circle, which is a manifestation of the intelligence of the extra-terrestrial bodies. But the other elements are included in a cycle of transmutation that guarantees their perpetual existence. This is a benefit to them according to the axiom: it is better to exist than not exist. Thus, rainfall is a necessary and cyclical process (happening completely independently of the needs of living things), but it is also somehow benefits the elements that are transformed in the process, for in so doing they complete cycles that resemble or imitate the eternal cycles of the heavenly bodies.