bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On the Nature of Believing
Authors: Hunter David
Published: March 2022

This chapter argues that to believe something is to be in position to do, think, and feel things in light of a possibility whose obtaining would make one right. The position is that of an agent when it is up to her how to respond to the reasons she takes there to be. In developing this image, the chapter sketches accounts of agency, action, reasons, and possibility. This view of belief contrasts with standard ones on which believing is a capacity or a disposition. The chapter argues that believing does not make a difference to what a person can do, to the capacities or dispositions she has. Rather, it makes a difference to the reasons she for exercising the capacities and manifesting the dispositions she already has or will acquire. The chapter also argues that a person’s beliefs rationalize what she does, thinks, and feels without causing those actions, thoughts, or feelings. Belief states are not causes and belief properties are not causal qualities. In arguing for this, the chapter develops an analogy between believing and being in a spatial location. The chapter ends by extending the view to non-human believers and by explaining why the view is nonetheless naturalistic.
Believing without Representing
Authors: Hunter David
Published: March 2022

This book argues that believing is not a representational state. Chapter 3 argued that the objects of belief are not representations. This chapter argues that while a person is right or wrong in believing something, neither the belief properties they have nor the belief states they are in are true or false. In this sense, beliefs are not mental representations. They do not have representational content. To argue for this, the chapter returns to distinctions drawn in Chapter 2 between propositions, belief properties, and belief states. Propositions are by their very nature representational and so can be true or false. But, the chapter argues, neither belief properties nor belief states can. The idea that belief states are representations is encouraged by the ambiguity in “belief” between what a person believes and their believing it, and by the tendency to treat belief states as if they were entities of the right sort to have semantic properties. The idea that belief states are representational is presupposed by a variety of philosophical projects and claims. The chapter argues that these projects and claims will need to be rethought. It ends by briefly sketching how to extend these points about belief to the psychological state of desire.
Objectivity and Credal Illusions
Authors: Hunter David
Published: March 2022

This chapter returns to the puzzle cases discussed in Chapter 3 and shows how they reveal the objective limits of belief. These limits give rise to credal illusions, where a person thinks she believes something when, in fact, she does not. The chapter shows how certain of the familiar puzzle cases involve just such illusions, and considers what the cases reveal about the various grounds or sources of the limits to belief. It first considers credal illusions involving possibilities that are beyond our cognitive reach. It then looks at credal illusions involving future possibilities, illustrated by the so-called Sleeping Beauty puzzle, and then those involving mere possibilities. One point that will emerge is that credal limits are contingent: had things been different in various ways, a person could have believed things that she cannot now believe. But not every theorist agrees that belief is objective in this way, and the very idea of there being such limits is itself puzzling. This chapter argues that while the limits are puzzling, they are not a problem that an account of the nature of believing needs to solve. Rather, it argues, the risk of credal illusions is a price we pay for believing anything at all.
Disability-free Life Trends at Older Ages
Authors: Wolf Douglas A.
Published: March 2022

Longevity risk, which typically refers the problem of people outliving their assets, can be viewed as both an aggregate and an individual-level issue. A related issue is that of ‘active life,’ an individual-level phenomenon, or ‘active life expectancy’ (ALE), an aggregate phenomenon. During their lifetimes, members of a particular population may alternate between ‘active’ and ‘disabled’ status; the average amount of time spent in the ‘active’ state is, for the cohort, its ALE. ALE does not appear to have consequences for aggregate longevity risk, but it may have major implications at the individual level. A transition from active to disabled status may signal a shorter-than-expected remaining lifetime, with implications for the speed at which one should draw down one’s assets. Moreover, those with severe care needs but lacking access to family-provided care and long-term care insurance may find that they need to draw down their assets in order to achieve eligibility for Medicaid-funded care services. Indeed, Medicaid and family-provided elder care can be viewed as a particular form of ‘public-private partnership’ for sharing the risks of late-life care needs.
Working Longer Solves (Almost) Everything
Authors: Driver Tim , Henshon Amanda
Published: March 2022

Research on making it easier for people to work longer has tended to focus on economic security. This chapter links working longer to health and longevity. Purely age-based retirement policies have led to complications and unintended consequences including insufficient retirement resources, possible depletion of social security, and flawed perceptions of older workers. By working longer, older adults are better able to support themselves, remain healthier, and live longer. New data show that, when employed, older adults are as much as four times more socially engaged, offsetting deepening concerns worldwide about the adverse effects of loneliness, particularly on older populations. The very definition of retirement should be reconsidered in light of increasing data suggesting that traditional retirement can be detrimental to financial, mental, and physical health.
Aging in Place
Authors: Hodgson Nancy A.
Published: March 2022

Declining public resources necessitates collaboration between public and private investors in order to meet the demands of an aging society to ‘age in place.’ Aging in place is a term that has emerged in the past 10 years to describe older people’s desire to stay in their own home and community. This chapter presents an overview of aging in place and the role of public-private partnerships in finding solutions. Examples illustrate the common elements of successful existing partnership models for future replication. Additional opportunities for innovation demonstrate that much more can be done to meet the needs of the aging population and honor their preference to age in place.
Public-Private Partnerships Extend Community-based Organization’s Longevity
Authors: Guishard Dozene , Dionne William J.
Published: March 2022

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are essential to the survival of mission-driven nonprofits, especially those in aging services. Aging service nonprofits receive less than two percent of all institutional philanthropic dollars, with a largest segment of their funding provided by government entities. Carter Burden Network (CBN) is an aging services nonprofit organization serving community-dwelling seniors in Manhattan, with a concentration of services in East Harlem, Roosevelt Island, and the Upper East Side. The New York City Department for the Aging (NYCDFTA) and other government sources provide 50 percent of CBN’s budget. The adage that ‘government cannot do it alone’ is exemplified through CBN’s history of developing new programs through private partnerships, and use of skills-based volunteerism to enhance services. PPPs have helped CBN strengthen its capacity to expand its service provision and areas. Equally important is CBN’s commitment to increase return on investment for PPPs by reducing food insecurity and malnutrition, hospitalization, and social isolation—all with a financial benefit to the broader society.
Building on Hope or Tackling Fear?
Authors: Comas-Herrera Adelina
Published: March 2022

In most countries, it is clear that the cost of care, treatment, and support of people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias will rise considerably in the next few decades. This chapter discusses dementia as an economic concern and looks at the policy questions addressed by the current literature on the costs of dementia. It then considers the policy responses to concerns about the growing cost of dementia, distinguishing between ‘hopeful’ policies that seek to reduce or contain the costs, and policies to address the capacity of the health, care, and social protection systems to respond to dementia care in a way consistent with public expectations. We conclude that the costs of dementia care do not necessarily equate to dementia care being unsustainable, but they do highlight the need for policy action. Additionally, it is relatively easier for policymakers to adopt ‘hopeful’ policies, such as investment in research to find a disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s or strategies for dementia risk reduction, than it is to tackle the more politically complex decisions needed to ensure that health, care, and social protection systems have the capacity to respond to the challenge of dementia.
New Financial Instruments for Managing Longevity Risk
Authors: Kiff John
Published: March 2022

Reduced returns and longevity risk are making it challenging for employers to offer defined benefit pensions. In countries with large defined benefit pension plan sectors, sponsors are transferring these obligations, and the associated investment and longevity risk, to life (re)insurers via buy-outs, buy-ins, and longevity swaps. Nevertheless, to date, there has been no successful longevity bond issuance, although there have been several false starts. This contrasts with the active market for catastrophe bonds that transfer risk associated with catastrophic events from (re)insurers to capital markets. This chapter reviews catastrophe bond and other insurance risk transfer market developments to identify the factors and design features that have resulted in success and failure. Conclusions are informed by an extensive literature review and quantitative survey, plus discussions with market participants including public policymakers. We conclude with suggestions for product design features and public policies that might kick-start vibrant longevity bond markets.
Property Tax Deferral
Authors: Munnell Alicia H. , Hou Wenliang , Walters Abigail N.
Published: March 2022

Many retirees will not have enough money from conventional retirement programs to maintain their standard of living once they stop working. To help support themselves, they will need to tap their home equity, the major asset for most middle-income older households. Yet tapping home equity is difficult: most people are reluctant to downsize and, even when they do, they rarely reduce their housing expenses. Reverse mortgages are an option, but most households are put off by the enormity of the decision, the complexity of the product, and the high up-front costs. A state-wide property tax deferral program overcomes the hurdles to accessing home equity. Property tax deferral does not provide access to as much home equity as a reverse mortgage, but the offsetting advantage is that some of the house value after the repayment of the loan and interest will be available for a bequest. At the household level, the proposed program is revenue neutral: all taxes owed by a participating household are paid back, with interest sufficient to cover borrowing costs and administrative expenses. But because loans are made well in advance of repayments, the sponsor of the plan must cover start-up costs. In Massachusetts, if the state government simply borrowed money to cover the annual outlays, the state’s ratio of debt to gross state product would rise from 14 percent to 15.1 percent. The alternative is to involve the private sector. This decision would raise the costs to homeowners, but it may nevertheless be necessary in order to get a broad-based program up and running.
The Market for Reverse Mortgages among Older Americans
Authors: Mayer Christopher , Moulton Stephanie
Published: March 2022

This chapter examines the usage of reverse mortgages among mortgage borrowers, as well as applicants rejected for new mortgage credit who are age 62+. We find that 17–27 percent of actual and rejected borrowers would have qualified for a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) reverse mortgage, or nine to 14 times the size of the actual HECM market. The existence of a large number of seniors with an existing mortgage or taking out a new mortgage with quite high loan to value ratios (LTVs) (57–65%, depending on the product) suggests that many seniors do, in fact, utilize home equity in order to fund their retirement. Yet they choose products that require monthly payments lasting decades into retirement and rising as a share of (declining) income as they age. We consider a number of possible explanations for why seniors in the US do not spend home equity and instead rely on loans with high repayments, including precautionary savings for health shocks, bequest motives, high costs of reverse mortgages, and the lack of brand name institutions in the reverse mortgage business.
Plutarch and Delphi
Authors: Stadter Philip
Published: March 2022

Chapter 2 looks at (a) Plutarch’s various roles at Delphi: as a member of the Amphictyonic council, a priest of Apollo, a citizen of Delphi, a wealthy provincial, and a Roman citizen (b) the presence of history at Delphi—especially the Roman presence—and Plutarch’s realization that Delphi’s continued prosperity was not guaranteed; (c) the divine enigmas of Delphi and Apollo’s presence, and (d) the influence of Delphi on Plutarch. It argues that Delphic art and architecture, far from being a mere tourist attraction, exercised a deep influence on Plutarch’s conception of history and the way he viewed political power, statesmanship, and the nature of heroism. It further suggests that the juxtaposition of Greek and Roman artefacts of successive periods and of statues of Greeks and of Roman generals and emperors offered Plutarch the incentive to consider larger historical and cultural issues and may have had a decisive impact his conception of the Parallel Lives.
Plutarch and the City of Rome in Plutarch’s Own Times
Authors: Desideri Paolo
Published: March 2022

Chapter 3 explores Plutarch’s eyewitness accounts of Rome. Acknowledging the difficulty of distinguishing the information based on autopsy from information that Plutarch drew from his literary sources, it discusses why certain inscriptions, statues, and buildings carry more weight as witnesses to first-hand observation than second-hand knowledge. The discussion centres on Plutarch’s aesthetic and ideological judgement on the altered marble columns of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, an inscription at the temple of Health, a Greek inscription on the bronze statue of Flamininus, the catalogue of the temples of Fortuna, and the references to incidents such as a dog show in the theatre of Marcellus or Arulenus Rusticus’ refusal to interrupt Plutarch’s lecture in order to read a message from Domitian. All these descriptions show the importance of autopsy, and of the emotions it elicited, for Plutarch’s vivid reconstructions of the settings of the Roman Lives.
ἄγειν πομπάς‎
Authors: Kavoulaki Athena
Published: March 2022

Chapter 7 takes as its starting point two important observations, namely that (a) Pericles’ building programme focused on the Acropolis, the sacred centre of Athens, and Eleusis, its most distinguished peripheral sanctuary; and (b) Plutarch presents the Eleusinian procession in the fifth century at two crucial points: at the rise of Athens’ power and at the beginning of its downfall, in the Themistocles and the Alcibiades respectively. The chapter demonstrates that, in addition to the opportunity for the display of civic identity, processions offered fertile ground for the promotion of individual political agendas and for the development of tensions between the interests of the polis and the individual. Such tensions are discernible in Plutarch’s vivid depictions of Alcibiades’ procession across the city to Eleusis 407 BCE and of Nicias’ earlier crossing of the Aegean to Delos in the Alcibiades and the Nicias respectively.
Alcibiades and the City
Authors: Duff Timothy E.
Published: March 2022

Chapter 8 examines how Plutarch constructs the relationship between Alcibiades and the city of Athens in the early part of the Life of Alcibiades (chs. 4–8). It argues that, through these apparently disconnected stories, Plutarch combines the portraits of Alcibiades in Thucydides, Plato, and Aristophanes with material from the orators and the anecdotal tradition both to bring out Alcibiades’ domineering behaviour (hybris) and luxurious self-indulgence (tryphe) and also, through a series of shifting focalizations and voices, to characterize the Athenians and the dynamics of their interaction with Alcibiades. Furthermore, even though these anecdotes concern Alcibiades’ ‘personal’ life, they have explanatory force on the political level: that is, they explore and explain the mechanisms by which Alcibiades became so politically dominant, and would later be rejected so decisively. This is a portrait, in other words, not only of the great individual but also of the city which produced him.
Athenian Civic Identities in Plutarch’s Portrayals of Phocion and Demetrius of Phalerum
Authors: Leão Delfim
Published: March 2022

Chapter 9 discusses the issue of civic identity in late fourth-century Athens, looking at the different trajectories of Phocion and Demetrius of Phalerum. Phocion is given the opportunity of a formal trial in the theatre where, however, the magistrates give access to everybody without distinction (men and women, slaves, foreigners, disenfranchised people) who decide on the death penalty, thus implementing the verdict Antipater had already dictated to the Athenians. Demetrius of Phalerum, on the other hand, fled Athens when Demetrius Poliorcetes took Athens by surprise, first to Thebes and then to Alexandria, where he wore the hat of the philosopher/scholar and probably exercised considerable influence over Ptolemy I Soter. It is argued that the fortunes of Phocion and Demetrius of Phalerum represent different concepts of citizenship that herald the changes brought about by the new political reality of the Hellenistic period.
Plutarch and Thebes
Authors: Marincola John
Published: March 2022

Chapter 10 examines Plutarch’s account of Theban fifth- and fourth-century history in the Moralia and a number of Lives, focussing on the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War and the Spartan hegemony, the Theban hegemony, the conflict with Macedon, and the destruction of Thebes in 335 BCE. It argues that Plutarch acknowledges Thebes’ Medism but, following Thucydides, attributes it to the city’s oligarchical regime at the time. He also acknowledges the hostility of Thebes towards Athens during the Peloponnesian War, but counterbalances it by highlighting the synergy of Thebes and Athens both for the liberation of Athens by Thrasybulus and for the expulsion of the Spartans from the Theban Cadmea. Plutarch has much to say about the architects of the Theban hegemony, Epaminondas and Pelopidas, whereas in his account of Thebes’ conflict with Macedon he links Thebes and Athens, thus showing his loyalty to Thebes and his admiration for Athens.
Plutarch’s Northern Greek Cities
Authors: Panagopoulou Katerina
Published: March 2022

Chapter 11 argues that Plutarch shows no interest in contemporary debates on Troy’s location and its relation to the city of Ilium but constructs his own, imaginary Troy, on the basis of his sources, above all Homer, in order to illustrate his subjects’ aspirations, characters, and emotions, while highlighting Homer’s tremendous and lasting significance. Plutarch’s take on Troy is explored on the basis of two examples, Plutarch’s descriptions of Alexander’s visit to Troy—which is contrasted with his silence concerning Caesar’s visit—and his masterly portrayal of Cato’s daughter Portia and her emotional response to a painting of Troy. Plutarch uses Alexander’s visit to Troy in order to invest the young Macedonian king with internal depth and to show Homer’s importance for the citizens of Ilium. The painting of Troy Portia sees in Elea is a catalyst of emotions and actions that are mediated by internal and external viewers/narrators and ultimately Plutarch’s readers.
Plutarch’s Troy
Authors: Mossman Judith
Published: March 2022

Chapter 12 argues that Plutarch shows no interest in contemporary debates on Troy’s location and its relation to the city of Ilium but constructs his own, imaginary Troy, on the basis of his sources, above all Homer, in order to illustrate his subjects’ aspirations, characters, and emotions, while highlighting Homer’s tremendous and lasting significance. Plutarch’s take on Troy is explored on the basis of two examples, Plutarch’s descriptions of Alexander’s visit to Troy—which is contrasted with his silence concerning Caesar’s visit—and his masterly portrayal of Cato’s daughter Portia and her emotional response to a painting of Troy. Plutarch uses Alexander’s visit to Troy in order to invest the young Macedonian king with internal depth and to show Homer’s importance for the citizens of Ilium. The painting of Troy Portia sees in Elea is a catalyst of emotions and actions that are mediated by internal and external viewers/narrators and ultimately Plutarch’s readers.
How to be a Mereological Anti-Realist
Authors: Brenner Andrew
Published: March 2022

Peter van Inwagen’s “special composition question” asks, more or less, “what must some objects be like in order for them to compose another object?” The chapter develops and defends (though falls short of fully endorsing) a theistic anti-realist response to the special composition question, according to which God decides when composition occurs. It is argued that this form of theistic mereological anti-realism is preferable to extant non-theistic variants of mereological anti-realism, and that theistic mereological anti-realism receives some motivation from several other sources (e.g., theistic mereological anti-realism provides some novel resources for responding to the problem of evil).
Creativity in Creation
Authors: Page Meghan D.
Published: March 2022

According to the world-actualization model (WAM), God creates by selecting and actualizing a possible world. This chapter argues that WAM is in tension with divine creativity. To flesh out the nature of creativity, three types of creative thought processes described by Margaret Boden are introduced. It is then argued that the God of WAM fails to exhibit any of them. Next, the chapter explores several ways one might try to ease the tension between divine creativity and the world-actualization model, including potential transformations of WAM itself, but none of these appear particularly satisfactory. The chapter concludes with three desiderata one ought to satisfy in creating a creative model of creation; a truly creative God must display originality, purpose, and world-specific intentions in the creation of the world.
God’s Perfect Will
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: March 2022

Why would God create a world at all? Further, why would God create a world like this one? The Neoplatonic framework of classical philosophical theology answers that God’s willing is an affirmation of God’s own goodness, and God creates to show forth God’s glory. Mark Johnston has recently argued that, in addition to explaining why God would create at all, this framework gives extremely wide scope to divine freedom. Timothy O’Connor objects that divine freedom, on this view, cannot be so wide as Johnston supposes: the creation of a fundamentally unjust world, for instance, could not be a way of affirming the divine goodness. I argue that O’Connor does not go far enough. While the Neoplatonic framework helps to explain why God would create at all, it does nothing to secure God’s freedom to create less than the best.
God Does the Best
Authors: Rogers Katherin A.
Published: March 2022

Suppose God is perfectly good, perfectly rational, and perfectly free. Must He be able to do other than He does? Mark Johnston and Timothy O’Connor hold that God must have libertarian freedom. The challenge, then, is to defend divine goodness and rationality. But on the Neoplatonic view of divine freedom—God, existing independently, wills with aseity—divine goodness and rationality are not threatened. God knows and does the best. It begs the question to hold that God, being infinitely good, cannot add goodness to the world. The Neoplatonic claim is that a god who failed to create would not be infinitely good. The Neoplatonic view also supports the doctrine of divine simplicity. True, one must allow that ours is the best world. And one must address the “modal collapse.” But these projects are doable and worth the effort to preserve divine goodness, rationality, and simplicity.
The Contingency of Creation and Divine Choice
Authors: Amijee Fatema
Published: March 2022

According to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), every fact has an explanation for why it obtains. If the PSR is true, there must be a sufficient reason why God chose to create our world. But a sufficient reason for God’s choice plausibly necessitates that choice. It thus seems that God could not have done otherwise, and that our world exists necessarily. One therefore appears forced to pick between the PSR, and the contingency of creation and divine choice. This chapter argues that a third option remains open, and thus that it is possible to preserve the contingency of creation and divine choice even while endorsing the PSR. The solution depends on the coherence of a restricted modal realism. On this modal realism, there is more than one possible morally optimal created world, and for each such world there is an existing possibility in which God creates that world.
Managing the New World Order, 1926–30
Authors: French David
Published: March 2022

The benign international order that the British had helped to create by 1926 required careful management in the second half of the 1920s. Contrary to popular misconceptions Britain did not disarm after 1918. It did demobilize its wartime armed forces, but throughout the 1920s it maintained sufficient air, sea, and land power to give its diplomacy the credibility it needed. Consequently, policy-makers were confident that they could negotiate from strength and achieved most of what they wanted in those regions of the world, Western Europe, the Mediterranean and Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and its environs, and the western Pacific, which most mattered to them. They did this with Mussolini over the Red Sea littoral, and with the French over the future of Germany. They could wage a cold war against the Soviet Union, they could begin building a formidable fortress at Singapore to deter the Japanese, and they could project sufficient power along the coast of China to protect what they regarded as their vital interests. At the Coolidge Naval Conference they were strong enough to resist American pressure to hamstring their naval power, and at the London Naval Conference in 1930 they were clever enough to repeat what they had done at Washington in 1921–2, and make an international naval arms limitation agreement work for, rather than against, their security. By the end of the 1920s Britain was the most powerful of the great powers.
The World Crisis and the National Government, 1931–3
Authors: French David
Published: March 2022

The inability of British policy-makers in the 1930s to sustain the benign international system which contributed so much to the security of the British Empire in the 1920s was only partly because the powers challenging that system in the 1930s, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and imperial Japan, were much more powerful than those which challenged it in the 1920s, Weimar Germany, Soviet Russia, and Kemalist Turkey. But it is not the complete explanation. In the 1920s British policy-makers believed that they could construct a peaceful and stable world resting on two pillars: a carefully managed process of multilateral disarmament would leave Britain with sufficient hard power to maintain the security of their empire, while British, and international, prosperity would be built on the restoration of peace and stable international exchange rates. But between 1930 and 1933, at the very moment when policy-makers most needed to feel confident of their power, that confidence evaporated. The Great Depression threatened to undermine the economic basis of the post-war world order, and the failure of the World Disarmament Conference destroyed the belief that future peace could be ensured if sensible men of goodwill could be brought together to settle their differences by discussion and compromise. The emergence of Japan as a threat to stability in the Far East and the advent to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany compelled British policy-makers, for the first time since 1918, to contemplate the possibility that they might soon be involved in a great power war.
Conclusion
Authors: French David
Published: March 2022

The ways in which elements of British grand strategy interacted were complex but they were not unfathomable. The aim of every government was to ensure the security of Britain and its empire. The empire was a delicate construction and if it was to survive they had to do whatever they could to keep it at peace. Their preference, therefore, was always to settle international differences with potential challengers by negotiations. They might embark on a process of horse-trading to assuage the appetites of their rivals. They might attempt to coerce them into going down another path that was less menacing, or they might try to deter them from threatening what the British intended to preserve. In the 1920s they did all three with a remarkable degree of success. But they could not replicate that success in the 1930s, partly because the problems confronting them were more intractable, and partly because they deliberately chose not to repeat the tried, tested, and successful formulae of working with allies and negotiating from a position of strength that had served them well in the past. Britain stumbled unprepared into war in September 1939 and paid the price of that unpreparedness at Dunkirk in the summer of 1940.
The Living Death of Antiquity
Authors: Fitzgerald William
Published: March 2022

This book is about the idealization of an antiquity that exhibits, in the words of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, ‘a noble simplicity and quiet grandeur’. It discusses the aesthetics of this strain of neoclassicism as manifested in a range of work in different media and periods but focusing on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. John Flaxman’s engravings on the Iliad and the sculpture of Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen are analysed and illustrated, as are earlier and later manifestations of the same aesthetic in French Parnassian poetry, in Satie’s setting of Plato, and in the ancient collection of sympotic poetry known as the Anacreontea. Fitzgerald describes the potential challenge of a neoclassical aesthetics of simplicity and ‘whiteness’, and its tendencies to corruption. He characterizes the lingering presence of this version of antiquity as a ‘living death’.
The Iliad Back-Translated
Authors: Fitzgerald William
Published: March 2022

This chapter examines the continuities and discontinuities between a pre- and post-Winckelmannian classicism by comparing the outline engravings of the Iliad by John Flaxman (1793) to the translation by Alexander Pope (1715–20), from which Flaxman takes the mottoes for his plates. It begins with a discussion of the qualities attributed to Homer as the quintessentially classic author from the time of Pope to that of Flaxman and beyond. The problems of translating Homer are illuminated by the different approaches of the two media discussed in this chapter. The difference between Pope’s and Flaxman’s classical aesthetic is illustrated by Pope’s use of Latinate words and by Flaxman’s outline technique. There are close readings of passages from Pope and, at more length, of individual scenes and sequences of scenes from Flaxman’s Iliad, illustrating, among other things, his adaptation of Pope, and his feminization of the Iliad.
A World of Saviours
Authors: Jim Theodora Suk Fong
Published: March 2022

The chapter traces how the trans-divine epithet Soter spread from one god to another and across the Greek Mediterranean after its earliest attestations in the late Archaic period. While the application of different epithets to the same god has been the subject of various studies, the reverse process—the use of the same epithet for different divinities—remains largely unexplored. If, in theory, all the Greek gods had the power to ‘save’ in one way or another, why would some gods be more often called Soter, and others rarely or not at all? What can this uneven distribution tell us about the Greeks’ perception of their gods? Yet this chapter goes beyond theoretical analysis of the system of cult epithets to investigate broader issues of the multiplicity and unity of the divine: how the character of ‘saviour’ gods varied (if at all) over time and across different regions, the extent to which they were perceived in the same way by the Greeks, and how worshippers chose between different options available in Greek polytheism.
Between Men and Gods
Authors: Jim Theodora Suk Fong
Published: March 2022

In the Hellenistic period monarchs could receive isotheoi timai and the title of ‘saviour’. While ruler worship has been extensively studied by modern historians, the crossover between divine and royal epithets has received little attention as royal titles are usually subsumed within the phenomenon of ruler cults. Where they are tackled, Hellenistic kings tend to be studied in isolation from their divine counterparts and other (non-royal) human beings similarly called ‘saviours’. This chapter examines how the earliest cults of royal ‘saviours’ arose, the ways in which these kings were comparable to the traditional divine ‘saviours’, and how these ruler cults developed amid the cities’ changing relations with the kings thus honoured. Situating these monarchs in a long spectrum of human beings called ‘saviours’, this chapter investigates changes (if any) in the use of Soter over time, and the extent to which ruler cults developed at the expense of traditional piety.
The Forms of Romantic Progressivism
Authors: Canuel Mark
Published: March 2022

“Progress” structures an impressive range of eighteenth-century writing that influenced Romantic writers from Anna Letitia Barbauld and Mary Wollstonecraft to William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley. This chapter shows how a logic of progress shaped the history and philosophy of the eighteenth century, and influenced the way that writers imaged political institutions. Writers such as Voltaire and William Robertson likened politics to the progress of sciences or refinement of manners; Romantic writers examined this legacy with considerable skepticism. Using examples from the work of Joseph Priestley and Mary Wollstonecraft, this chapter shows how writers eagerly embraced an enlightened vocabulary of progress, and even “perfection.” But while they insisted that political progress depended on augmenting a “common good,” any notion of the common good simultaneously required vigorous internal contention and dissent.
Lyric Progressivism
Authors: Canuel Mark
Published: March 2022

With frequent longings for “immortality” in souls or aesthetic images, Romantic odes, sonnets, and nature lyrics often strike critics as resistant to the progressive logics of modernity. But I summon the examples of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Keats to show how lyric poetry promoted an ethos of progressivism in unexpected forms. In many of his poems from the 1790s, Coleridge deploys a resonant allegorical language that associates nature with advancing “truth” and “knowledge.” “Frost at Midnight,” however, declines to specify the end point of knowledge as anything more than the ability to “ask” about nature and its creator. Keats—while associating his work with the enlightened philosophes from Voltaire to Robertson—goes a step further than Coleridge in his response to this tradition, defining the politically charged telos of lyric enlightenment as an undirected and conspicuously unrefined reading practice. “The Ode on Melancholy” calls that practice “melancholy”: melancholy is nothing other than our collective ability to linger over evanescent objects, from the “morning rose” to an angry lover’s “peerless eyes.” Melancholy thus recommends lyric progress as an ecumenical form of literacy.
Skin conditions in young people
Authors: McPherson Tess
Published: March 2022

‘Skin Conditions in Young People’ provides information and evidence-based advice for teenagers and young adults, addressing the ways in which we can manage and live comfortably in our skin in the modern world. This book discusses the idea of ‘normal skin’, before then focusing on many of the common skin conditions that affect adolescents, such as acne, eczema, psoriasis, sweating, urticaria, and vitiligo. Given that having a skin problem like this can affect the way you feel and act, particularly when you are young, there are therefore sections that also discuss living with the uncertainty of a visible and symptomatic skin condition, providing practical advice as to how to manage. This advice—and the book overall—is written primarily for young people, but the information will be useful for anyone with a skin problem, as well as anyone—parents, teachers, and health-workers included—involved with teenagers or young adults.
Introduction
Authors: McPherson Tess
Published: March 2022

This section provides an introduction to the role of skin, in both our physical health and our emotional well-being. Developing a skin problem doesn’t really have much to do with doing things wrong or not doing things right. We all inherit different skin, and so we each have a different chance of developing alopecia, psoriasis, or any other skin condition. This book will teach responsibility and acceptance of one’s skin and its treatment. The aims of this book are outlined; to discourage anyone from blaming themselves for their skin condition, and instead teach them how to cope with the stresses and problems that a skin condition can bring.
Sweating
Authors: McPherson Tess
Published: March 2022

In this chapter, the importance of sweating as a bodily function is outlined, before an exploration of the conditions that result in too much or too little sweat being produced. It’s usually released in response to increasing temperatures, but there are also other triggers that can induce sweating. Certain nerves can cause sweat to be released when we get nervous or embarrassed, for example. Sweat, generated by eccrine glands, plays a role in both controlling our temperature and fighting off infection. Excessive sweating, however—known as hyperhidrosis—can be both unhelpful and distressing; an explanation of both the condition and its treatment, with creams and deodorants, tablets, injections, and even a technique called iontophoresis, are also provided in this chapter.
Skin and mental health
Authors: McPherson Tess
Published: March 2022

This section provides a definition for mental health, before then exploring how your skin and your mental health can impact on each other. One aspect of mental health that isn’t often talked about is the effect that it can have on your skin. It is well recognized that skin problems can affect a person emotionally, and may make certain mental health conditions more likely develop; what is less commonly known however, is that certain skin problems can appear as a result of mental health problems. Examples of these include compulsive hair pulling, self-harm, and a condition known as dermatitis artefacta, all of which are explored over the course of the chapter.
Averroes on Intellect
Authors: Ogden Stephen R.
Published: March 2022

This book on the Muslim philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) provides a detailed analysis of his (in)famous unicity thesis—the view that there is only one separate and eternal intellect for all human beings. It focuses directly on Averroes’ arguments, both from the text of Aristotle’s De Anima and, more importantly, his own philosophical arguments in the Long Commentary on the De Anima. Ogden defends Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle’s DA III.4–5 (using Greek, Arabic, Latin, and contemporary sources). Yet, the author insists that Averroes is not merely a “commentator” but also an incisive philosopher in his own right. Ogden thus reconstructs and analyzes Averroes’ two most significant independent philosophical arguments, the Determinate Particular Argument and the Unity Argument. Alternative ancient and medieval views are considered throughout, especially from two important foils before and after Averroes, namely Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) and Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’s most famous and penetrating arguments against the unicity thesis are also addressed. Finally, Ogden considers Averroes’ own objections to broader metaphysical views of the soul such as Avicenna’s and Aquinas’s, which agree with him on several key points (e.g., the immateriality of the intellect and the individuation of human souls by matter), while still diverging on the number and substantial nature of the intellect. The central aim of the book is to provide readers a single study of Averroes’ most pivotal arguments on intellect, consolidating and building on recent scholarship and offering a comprehensive case for his unicity thesis in the wider context of Aristotelian epistemology and metaphysics.
Averroes’ Determinate Particular Argument
Authors: Ogden Stephen R.
Published: March 2022

Having set out Averroes’ textual arguments from Aristotle’s DA in Chapter 1, this chapter begins investigating Averroes’ independent philosophical arguments for the unicity thesis, focusing on the Determinate Particular Argument (DPA). The DPA argues that the material/possible intellect (MPI) is not a determinate particular. The chapter reveals several new aspects of the DPA, explaining its key premises and clarifying its primary conclusion––namely that the MPI is not a material determinate particular––in light of Averroes’ broader metaphysics. Against a consensus of scholars and despite some complex reasons to think Averroes himself regarded the DPA as a sufficient argument for the unicity thesis, the chapter contends that, in fact, the DPA is inadequate for Averroes’ full doctrine of intellect. Rather, the DPA establishes only a critical part of the unicity thesis, namely the intellect’s Nature (separate, immaterial), but not its Number (one for all).
Averroes Against Avicenna and Aquinas
Authors: Ogden Stephen R.
Published: March 2022

In light of the main arguments directly for and against the unicity thesis, this chapter considers a final line of objection from Averroes against Avicenna’s and Aquinas’s wider alternative metaphysical theories of intellect and soul. If all three thinkers are broadly hylomorphist, how can any form (like the human soul) be separable from its matter? Furthermore, if matter is the principle of individuation for human souls (as all three thinkers accept), how can multiple intellective souls exist individuated after death? The chapter explains how both Avicenna and Aquinas respond to these objections. In fact, Aquinas appeals explicitly to Avicenna, while attempting to resist the latter’s dualism. Nevertheless, this debate highlights a further potential strength of Averroes’ simpler hylomorphic account of human beings as regular generable and corruptible material substances.
Introduction to Environment and Environmental Law
Authors: Olawuyi Damilola S.
Published: March 2022

This chapter provides introductory context on the meaning, nature, and scope of environmental law in the Arab region. It explores the often-contested meanings of key concepts such as “environment,”, “environmental law,” and the influence of Islamic law in the development of environmental law in the Arab world. Care and stewardship for the environment—for present and future generations—appeared very early in the beliefs, culture, and civilization of the Arab states. Islamic principles emphasize that humans are mere beneficiaries and trustees (khalīfah) of the earth and not proprietors; and that humans have a solemn duty to keep, maintain, and preserve the natural environment, such that it does not disrupt or upset the equilibrium and interests (mīzān) of future generations. After discussing the influence of these Islamic tenets on the conceptualization of environment and environmental law in the region, this chapter traces the history and evolution of environmental law as a discipline in the region. The chapter also includes information on the scope and structure of the book, as well as the sources and research methods involved in putting the book together.
Administration of Environmental Law in Arab States
Authors: Olawuyi Damilola S.
Published: March 2022

The institutional structures for the administration and supervision of environmental law and policy are crucial to the attainment of the statutory objectives set out in environmental legislation and industry guidelines. This chapter examines the governance frameworks in place for overseeing, implementing, and enforcing environmental law and policy in Arab states. There are three dominant models of environmental regulation and supervision in the Arab region: ministerial-based regulation (i.e., placing regulatory supervision and decision-making under the purview of a government ministry, such as the Ministry of Environment); the agencification approach (i.e., establishing one or more agencies or administrative units within the government); and the hybrid approach (under which some Arab states have both a supervising environment ministry and a number of committees, departments, and agencies established across different levels of government with environmental protection functions and mandates). This chapter examines the key strengths and challenges to these and other environmental supervision arrangements across the Arab region. It also appraises the key roles of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, such as the United Nations Environment Program; United Nations Economic Commission for Western Asia; League of Arab States; Gulf Cooperation Council; Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment; Center for Environment and Development in the Arab Region and Europe; Arab Forum on Environment and Development; and Arab Network for Environment and Development, among others in shaping the development and application of environmental law in the Arab region.
Environmental Planning and Assessments
Authors: Olawuyi Damilola S.
Published: March 2022

This chapter examines the importance of environmental planning and assessment as an essential requirement for anticipating, mitigating, and addressing the adverse environmental impacts of development activities and projects. Virtually all development projects in Arab states are legally required to undergo some form of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in order to receive governmental approval or regulatory permit. While specific legal requirements, procedures, and processes for conducting EIAs vary across Arab states, a number of common and crosscutting principles and procedures for EIAs, as well as challenges to their effectiveness, are unpacked. Some of the challenges considered in Chapter Four, especially those relating to inadequate access to EIA information, inadequate stakeholder participation, and insufficient participation of women and youth in EIA processes have accentuated calls for human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) as a framework for implementing the environmental justice approach to regulation. While HRIAs are yet to find wide application in Arab states, this chapter discusses the guiding principles of HRIAs as a potential tool for addressing wider social concerns in project planning.