bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mysticism, Methodology, and Epistemic Justice
Authors: Van Dyke Christina 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Modern philosophical conceptions of mysticism and mystical experience tend to be rooted in the early twentieth-century theories of William James and Evelyn Underhill, yet those theories are deeply suspicious of embodied experience. After laying out a contemporary definition of “mystical experience” that has inherited these suspicions, this chapter examines the nature and range of mystical experiences reported in the Rome-based Christian mystical and contemplative traditions of the thirteenth–fifteenth centuries, in which standard views of mystical experiences include embodied and affective experiences as well as experiences involving non-sensory, selfless union. The chapter explains how broadening contemporary philosophical conceptions of mysticism and mystical experience can help philosophers engage with scholars working on similar topics in other disciplines and concludes with an overview of the rest of the book.
Reason and Its Limits
Authors: Van Dyke Christina 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
There is a persisting perception that medieval mystical and contemplative projects are somehow ‘a-rational’ or even ‘anti-rational,’ and thus inherently opposed to the projects of medieval scholastic philosophy (in which faith seeks understanding). This chapter argues that this perception is misleading in at least two ways. First, even those contemplative texts which do ultimately advocate abandoning reason and knowledge (such as Marguerite Porete’s Mirror, Meister Eckhart’s Counsels, and the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing) affirm intellect’s importance for starting the contemplative journey and progressing to the point where reason can be transcended. Second, any number of contemplatives in the thirteenth–fifteenth centuries portray reason not as something to be overcome or relinquished but, rather, as one of the most important ways in which we resemble or ‘image’ God—and thus, view reason as a crucial point of connection between human beings and the divine.
Love and the Will
Authors: Van Dyke Christina 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, love and the will are increasingly portrayed as central to the contemplative life. This chapter address the will’s general role in human life with respect to the rational soul’s other relevant faculties (intellect, imagination, and sensation and sense appetite) and the specific role of will and love in the moral and spiritual life. The practice of imaginative meditation is widely recommended in this period, for it is seen as inspiring love, encouraging virtue, and increasing knowledge. Such meditation also serves as a bridge between our experience of the material world and experience of the immaterial God in higher levels of contemplation. The chapter concludes by explaining how the late medieval focus on imaginative meditation and love also creates space in which women, who are seen as better at loving and more closely connected with embodiment, can claim religious authority and be understood as contemplatives.
Immortality and the Afterlife
Authors: Van Dyke Christina 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Medieval scholastic and contemplative philosophy shares a common focus on our final or ultimate end. While scholastic texts tend to focus on metaphysical and mechanical issues (such as whether the soul can survive the death of the body or how the numerically same body can be resurrected), though, contemplative texts focus more on our experience of immortality. This chapter addresses contemplative expectations for immortality and the afterlife—which range from a selfless merging with the divine to union that preserves personal distinction—and constructs an ‘experiential continuum of immortality.’ In addition to providing a helpful framework for discussing mystical and contemplative views, this continuum also proves useful for better understanding scholastic accounts of immortality, as the chapter demonstrates using the cases of Robert Grosseteste’s and Thomas Aquinas’s views about the final end for human beings.
Confronting the Gulf between Law and Solidarity
Authors: Rosenfeld Michel 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter addresses the wide gap that separates abstract law launched from above—as a consistent systemic normative whole most famously developed in Kelsen’s positivist Kantian vision—from concrete, mainly affective, commitment to law-like behavior that springs from below within a given collectivity. On the side of abstract law, emphasis is on the demos and the universal; on that of solidarity and communal glue, support is drawn from the ethnos, the singular, and the plural. The mystery, however, is how there could be any connection between abstract law and concrete bonds of solidarity allowing those under the law in question to accept it as their own. Kelsen himself was puzzled regarding why citizens felt compelled to obey the law and was convinced that fear of sanctions did not supply an adequate answer. This led Kelsen to turn to Freud’s theories regarding group psychology in search for some amalgam between an unconscious drive towards group identity and solidarity and a logical acceptance of an orderly and unified polity’s need for adherence to a constitutional hierarchy. Only such a link could properly account for why those subjected to laws would internalize and validate them as their own. This chapter explores the plausible nexus between Kelsen and Freud further to determine whether, or how far, the conjunction of a formal constitutional order and of an unconscious group drive to law-like conduct may advance the quest for justice through the constitution.
Law Redux
Authors: Rosenfeld Michel 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter concentrates on those who, in contrast to Kelsen, envision law as ultimately largely absorbed into politics or economics. Schmitt and the Critical Legal Studies movement (CLS) envisage law as largely reducible to politics. Schmitt submits law to a political theology resting on the divide between friend and foe whereas CLS characterizes law as infinitely malleable and thus as amenable to serving the interests of the powerful. Politicized law serves some against others, and thus the constitution cannot genuinely advance the cause of justice. Subsuming law to economics, on the other hand, may be equally reductionist, but the consequences for justice appear at first to differ. Economics figures importantly in the pursuit of the material component of distributive justice. Posner argues that law should be geared to maximizing wealth consistent with a libertarian conception of distributive justice. Marx, on the other hand, posits both law and economics as exclusively serving the interests of capitalism while remaining notoriously ambiguous on the question of justice. The subordination of law to economics leads to opposite conclusions for Posner and for Marx. Accordingly, any resulting claim to justice would remain contested, thus failing from the standpoint of the plural. Accordingly, to be compatible with justice through the constitution, law must engage with the economy and the political without losing its distinct mediating potential.
Kantian Universalism Reframed for a Post-Totalitarian Age
Authors: Rosenfeld Michel 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter revisits the universalist philosophical tradition going back to Kant that provides a categorical justification for the normative order carved out by liberal constitutionalism. The key characteristic of that deontological tradition is that questions of justice can be kept separate from questions of the good, thus opening the way for achieving justice while encompassing a wide plurality of conceptions of the good. Rawls links the universal to the individual but largely removes the singular from the latter while virtually completely ignoring the plural. Nevertheless, Rawls provides a key baseline through his conception of “constitutional essentials” for purposes of seizing the potentials and limitations of the justice essentials. Habermas’ dialogical ethics and his postulation of consensus-based vindication of universalizable norms opens a path that seems initially more amenable to singularity and plurality. Like Rawls, however, Habermas ultimately underplays singularity and plurality. Nevertheless, Habermas’ dialogical approach endeavoring to reconcile Kant’s universalism and Rousseau’s republicanism proves useful in assessing the viability of claims relating linking unity to solidarity. Finally, Dworkin advances a position combining liberal constitutionalism with egalitarian justice and presents it as a universally valid one for present day constitutionalists. Dworkin’s position is of particular interest in as much as it intimates that his theoretical defense of liberal constitutionalism is the best defense against the dangers of illiberal constitutionalism. Dworkin ultimately falls short as he does not sufficiently account for the plural.
Tragic Deconstruction Set Against the Impenetrable Singular and Reconstruction as Spectacle and Administration
Authors: Rosenfeld Michel 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter provides a critical appraisal of the jurisprudential contributions attributable respectively to Derrida and to Agamben. Derrida and Agamben can be understood as culminating various theoretical strands that have dominated the field throughout the twentieth century. Derrida, who combines Kantian universalism with Nietzschean-Heideggerian belief in the irreducibility of the singular, can be regarded as the heir of CLS. His deconstructive method highlights the indissoluble necessity to pursue justice combined with its insurmountable impossibility. Derrida thus carves out a tragic path for jurisprudence which traps those subjected to law between an unyielding universal and an impenetrable singular while leaving out the plural. In contrast, Agamben elaborates a reconstruction that replaces tragedy with a combination between spectacle and acclamation, on the one hand, and administration, on the other. In important ways, a successor of Schmitt, because of his focus on oikonomia or administration, Agamben shares much in common with Luhmann’s systems-based positivism. If justice is central for Derrida, it greatly fades for Agamben. Agamben argues that the glory and acclaim that prevails in a polity where law is necessarily kept separate from administration derives from the mystery of the Christian Holy Trinity. In contemporary secular polities, the Christian form supposedly remains intact, but the content becomes completely open ended. Agamben does not accommodate the plural any better than Derrida. The pairing of Derrida and Agamben is instructive in terms of both the challenges posed by illiberalism and the current obstacles confronting justice through the constitution.
Justice Essentials Minima and Comprehensive Pluralism’s Fixed-core Minimum Set Against its Plural Maximum
Authors: Rosenfeld Michel 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Comprehensive pluralism aims to maximize accommodation of plurality and given its dialectical approach, this depends on deployment of a set of fixed normative institutional prescriptions which aggregate as the minima of the justice essentials. Regarding justice itself, this minimum depends on the key distinction between factual disagreements and those about what distributive justice ought to be. For example, is a free-market economy or one replete with state intervention better suited to the advancement of pluralist maximization with respect to all three facets of constitutional justice? In this context, the pluralist does not seek to maximize plurality but to uncover the best available means to a set goal. In contrast, a normative disagreement between a Nozickian libertarian vision of justice and a radical egalitarian one calls for pluralist accommodation. Pluralistic minima also arise concerning identity and recognition oscillating between the poles of inward retreat and outward lurch. Minima regarding autonomy and solidarity assure a baseline of care and concern among “insiders” within a just constitutional order while refraining from demeaning the dignity of “outsiders” and figure as prerequisites to justice in recognition and in representation. Next, the chapter tackles the dialectical nexus between a minimum of fixed of core constitutional prescriptions and the maximization of plurality consistent with deployment of a pluralist conception of the justice essentials. Finally, the chapter tackles the series of challenges and pathologies that currently stand in the way of a straightforward comprehensively pluralist realization of the justice essentials.
Conclusion
Authors: Rosenfeld Michel 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
In spite of inevitable difficulties and of uncertainties about ultimate realization of the justice essentials, the book concludes that the comprehensive pluralist approach offers the best plausible means toward constitutional justice, and this both in terms of optimizing harmonization between ethnos and demos and of striking the right equilibrium between the universal, the singular, and the plural. Moreover, when evaluated under the criteria of comprehensive pluralism, neither populist nor illiberal appropriations or invocations of the framework of liberal constitutionalism appear to stand any chance of coming close to meeting any of the relevant minima that pave the way to the justice essentials.
Priors, regularisation, sparsity
Authors: Cocco Simona , Monasson Rémi , Zamponi Francesco 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Bayes’ formula includes the possibility to account for prior knowledge on the model parameters, irrespectively of the data. We may know that some parameters are positive, or small, or that most vanish, and using such information may enhance the performance of inference methods. We discuss in this chapter three classes of prior distributions, important from a practical or a conceptual point of view: (1) Lp-norm based priors, which prevent parameters to have large values or even push them to be equal to zero; (2) conjugated priors, which are mathematically elegant and whose effects can be understood in tweaking the statistics and the numbers of the data; (3) universal priors, which are invariant under a change of model definition, and whose study will force us to think about the properties of the distributions spanned by the models as their parameters vary.
Supervised learning: classification with neural networks
Authors: Cocco Simona , Monasson Rémi , Zamponi Francesco 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
So far we have discussed unsupervised learning, the inference of the underlying statistical structure (and adequate representations) of a set of data. Another fundamental field of application of machine learning is supervised learning, which is the task of learning an input-output relationship. Supervised learning assumes the existence of a function that associates a label, e.g. dog or cat, to each data point, e.g. an image. In practice, the machine tries to learn this function from a limited set of input-output examples. At the end of learning, one should be able to predict the right class for any input, not necessarily belonging to the data set: does this new image correspond to a dog or to a cat? In this chapter, we address two questions: How can supervised learning and classification be done in practice? How many data does one need to generalise, i.e. to avoid overfitting the examples? We will start by discussing perceptrons, also called support vector machines (SVM), which are neural networks with no hidden layer and have set the state of the art in classification for decades, and we will then turn to more complex neural networks.
Time series: from Markov models to hidden Markov models
Authors: Cocco Simona , Monasson Rémi , Zamponi Francesco 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
So far, we have considered inference problems in which time played no role. In many applications, however, data are time series produced by a dynamical process. How can we infer the underlying rules defining this process? We will address this question in two frameworks: a simple one, in which measurements give direct access to the dynamical sequence of the states visited by the system, and a more complex one, in which data provide indirect knowledge about the states. In the latter situation, we will study a powerful approach, called hidden Markov models, and will see how to efficiently answer several questions of interest, of increasing difficulty: how to compute the likelihood of a time series of observations? How to infer the corresponding ‘hidden’ states? How to infer the model parameters?
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Involvement with Internally Displaced Persons: Undermining International Refugee Law?
Authors: Ní Ghráinne Bríd 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter explores whether the in-state protection afforded by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to IDPs constitutes ‘protection of that country’ under the Refugee Convention and may thus be used by refugee-receiving states as a reason to deny refugee status. First, it explains the UNHCR’s role with IDPs as well as how international law and refugee law have evolved in response to the growing influence of non-state actors. It then uses both treaty interpretation and relevant domestic and international case law to determine whether protection offered by international organizations such as the UNHCR qualifies as ‘protection of that country’. The chapter argues that the UNHCR is not capable in law or in fact of providing ‘protection of that country’, and hence its activities with IDPs do not—at least in a legal sense—undermine its protection mandate towards refugees.
Article 1D of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Internally Displaced Persons
Authors: Ní Ghráinne Bríd 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter examines whether protection activities on behalf of IDPs from UN organs or agencies other than UNHCR could trigger the application of Article 1D of the Refugee Convention, which would render the Refugee Convention inapplicable to those persons. It argues that Article 1D cannot be triggered by activities of organs or agencies of the UN apart from the UNHCR in the context of the cluster approach to IDP protection for two reasons. First, the historic context of the treaty leads to the conclusion that Article 1D is only applicable in the context of UNRWA protection or assistance to Palestinian refugees. Second, even when the historic context is disregarded, it is illogical to apply Article 1D in the context of inter-agency IDP protection activities as an IDP will generally not be outside their country of origin and thus the question of refugee status should not arise.
Conclusion
Authors: Ní Ghráinne Bríd 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
The final chapter draws together the arguments made in the substantive chapters to illustrate that the development of the IDP protection framework does not, as a matter of law, undermine refugee protection. The availability of protection within a country of origin cannot be a substitute for granting refugee status unless it constitutes effective protection from persecution and there is no danger of refoulement. The book concludes by identifying current and future challenges in the relationship between IDPs and refugees, by illustrating the overall impact and importance of the findings of the research, and by setting out questions for future research.
Hume’s Intellectual Development, 1711–1752
Authors: Stewart M. A. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Provides a careful itemization of the evidence upon which an account of Hume’s intellectual biography before and immediately after the Treatise has to be based, including a summary of what we know about his education at Edinburgh. Describes what is known about Hume’s reading and thinking as he planned and wrote his first book, and about his intellectual intentions in its aftermath. Stewart stresses the unsubstantiated nature of claims frequently made in the scholarly literature. Suggests that Hume began his philosophical life as a Stoic, possibly under the influence of Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks, and that the breakdown of 1730–1 was a product of the deleterious effects of the Stoic regimen, as well as being, possibly, the result of a crisis of faith. Constructs a comprehensive list of all the authors and texts that we have reason to think Hume interested himself in early on in his intellectual development, emphasizing the importance of French works.
The Kirk and the Infidel
Authors: Stewart M. A. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Shows how Hume’s failed attempt to be elected Edinburgh’s Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1745 brings into focus the intellectual tensions between him and his principal Scottish philosophical contemporaries including Hutcheson and his Edinburgh philosophical ally William Wishart. Begins with the political context, and the opportunity offered by the prospect of a vacant Edinburgh moral philosophy chair for a trial of strength between the political factions of the day. Shows in detail how William Wishart’s ‘Specimen of Principles’, summarized in the Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh, completely misrepresented Hume’s philosophy in general, and the character of his scepticism in particular. Argues Hume’s full reply was Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1748, and later re-titled An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
Two Species of Philosophy
Authors: Stewart M. A. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
In Part 1, discusses Hume’s use of the metaphors of the anatomist and painter, and explains the difference between his approach to moral philosophy and that of Hutcheson and other Scottish contemporaries. In Part 2, argues that Hume originally thought of the first Enquiry as a set of essays which presented the most important discoveries of the Treatise in an accessible way, and only later regarded it as a coherent replacement and substitute for the first book of the Treatise. In Part 3, rehearses Wishart’s attack on Hume’s philosophy and discusses how Hume met the specific charge of ‘Universal Scepticism’. Finally, argues that in Sections I and XI of the Enquiry Hume should be seen as going on the offensive against those who held him unfit to teach moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. In adopting the persona of an ancient Epicurean in Section XI, Hume offers a ‘moral defence’ of his own sceptical and rigorously empiricist species of philosophy.
The Dating of Hume’s Manuscripts
Authors: Stewart M. A. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
A study of the collection of manuscripts deposited in the National Library of Scotland by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1987, especially the undated ‘An Historical Essay on Chivalry and modern Honour’, the so-called ‘early memoranda’, and the Dialogues. Argues that the ‘Essay on Chivalry’ was probably written in 1731, and that the ‘memoranda’ are conterminous with the end of Hume’s work on the Treatise. Regarding the Dialogues, identifies the stages of the text’s composition, particularly Parts 3 and 12. Argues that the manuscript shows that Hume was at work on revisions in the late 1750s as well as in the 1760s, and that the amount of revision done in 1776 has been greatly exaggerated by other commentators.