In a constitutional monarchy, the Sovereign acts according to constitutional rules, rather than arbitrarily. That is so even in a country such as Britain which has no codified constitution. Today the rules of constitutional monarchy whose purpose it is to preserve the political neutrality of the Sovereign, serve to protect her from political involvement. Her powers remain essentially residual - selection of a Prime Minister and refusal of a dissolution under very rare circumstances.The main influence of the Sovereign, however, comes (...) through her exercise of the three rights identified by Bagehot - the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to wam; and through her role as Head of the Commonwealth.The enormous popularity of the monarchy in Britain today arises because it has come to be divorced from partisan politics, and so can act as a focus of national unity. (shrink)

Jeffrey Goldsworthy's book, Parliamentary Sovereignty: Contemporary Debates, offers a modern defence of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. But it fails to offer a sufficiently clear interpretation of the statement that Parliament can do anything except limit its powers, a statement open to many different interpretations. In 1972, during the passage of the European Communities Bill, law officers declared that it was logically impossible for Parliament to abridge its sovereignty. In consequence of the European Communities Act 1972, the doctrine has undergone (...) a subtle alteration of meaning. The European Union Act 2011 also poses problems for Goldsworthy's position since it imposes a referendum requirement on any significant future transfer of power to the European Union. Such legislation cannot be understood in terms of the manner and form interpretation of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty; and the question of whether the courts can disapply legislation infringing human rights remains open. Questions of the sort, ‘Can Parliament do x?’, are better replaced by questions of the sort ‘What are the rules which regulate Parliament?’. Goldsworthy's work constitutes a brave attempt to rescue the essentially metaphysical doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Nevertheless, the doctrine seems to obscure rather than clarify constitutional issues. (shrink)

This book collects the work of leading scholars on Alain Badiou and G.W.F. Hegel, creating a dialogue between, and a critical appraisal of, these two central figures in European philosophy.

Avia Pasternak’s Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible States makes a case for concluding that ‘intentional citizens’ of states should be held liable, in the sense of being chargeable for remedial costs, when their state has caused wrongful damage to another state. In making this case, the book steers a course between purely ascriptive views that assign liability on the basis of membership alone, and intentionalist views that require a stronger connection with the fault. The exemptions from liability that the book acknowledges, however, (...) may raise questions about its overall case, by implicating more individualized ideas of intention. Even so, the argument may be read as a compelling forward-looking warning about the risks of citizenship. (shrink)

The principal findings of experimental economics are that impersonal exchange in markets converges in repeated interaction to the equilibrium states implied by economic theory, under information conditions far weaker than specified in the theory. In personal, social, and economic exchange, as studied in two-person games, cooperation exceeds the prediction of traditional game theory. This book relates these two findings to field studies and applications and integrates them with the main themes of the Scottish Enlightenment and with the thoughts of F. (...) A. Hayek. (shrink)

Cosmopolitan theory suggests that we should shift our moral attention from the local to the global. Richard Vernon argues, however, that if we adopt cosmopolitan beliefs about justice we must re-examine our beliefs about political obligation. Far from undermining the demands of citizenship, cosmopolitanism implies more demanding political obligations than theories of the state have traditionally recognized. Using examples including humanitarian intervention, international criminal law, and international political economy, Vernon suggests we have a responsibility not to enhance risks (...) facing other societies and to assist them when their own risk-taking has failed. The central arguments in Cosmopolitan Regard are that what we owe to other societies rests on the same basis as what we owe to our own, and that a theory of cosmopolitanism must connect the responsibilities of citizens beyond their own borders with their obligations to one another"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Group 3 as Sc–Y–La, rather than Sc–Y–Lu, dominates the literature. The history of this situation, including involvement by the IUPAC, is summarised. I step back from the minutiae of physical, chemical, and electronic properties and explore considerations of regularity and symmetry, natural kinds, and quantum mechanics, finding these to be inconclusive. Continuing the theme, a series of ten interlocking arguments, in the context of a chemistry-based periodic table, are presented in support of lanthanum in Group 3. In so doing, I (...) seek to demonstrate a new way of thinking about this matter. The last of my ten arguments is recast as a twenty-word categorical philosophical (viewpoint-based) statement. (shrink)

Mark Vernon links the resources of the philosophical tradition with numerous illustrations from modern culture to ask what friendship is and how it relates to sex, work, politics and spirituality. Unusually, he argues that Plato and Nietzsche, as much as Aristotle and Aelred, should be put center stage. Their penetrating and occasionally tough insights are invaluable if friendship is to be a full, not merely sentimental, way of life for today.

Environment and Philosophy provides an accessible introduction to the radical challenges that environmentalism pose to concepts that have become almost second nature in the modern world. Written in an accessible way for those without a background in philosophy, this text examines ways of thinking about ourselves, nature and our relationship with nature.

Science and Homosexualities is the first anthology by historians of science to examine European and American scientific research on sexual orientation since the coining of the word "homosexual" almost 150 years ago. This collection is particularly timely given the enormous scientific and popular interest in biological studies of homosexuality, and the importance given such studies in current legal, legislative and cultural debates concerning gay civil rights. However, scientific and popular literature discussing the biology of sexual orientation have been short-sighted in (...) representing it as objective, new scientific work. This volume demonstrates that the quest for the biological "cause" of homosexuality and other sexualities is as old as the term itself. These essays explore the active role experimental subjects played in shaping scientific theories of homosexuality and cultural perceptions of sexuality and sexual identity. Finally this anthology studies the way in which this doctor-patient interaction shaped not only scientific theories of homosexuality, but also cultural perceptions and self-identities as well. Contributors include: Garland E. Allen, Erin G. Carlston, Julian Carter, Alice D. Dreger, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Margaret Gibson, Stephanie Kenen, Hubert Kennedy, Harry Oosterhuis, James Steakley, Richard Pillard, Jennifer Terry. (shrink)

Michel Foucault’s notion of “biopower” has been a highly fertile concept in recent theory, influencing thinkers worldwide across a variety of disciplines and concerns. In The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Foucault famously employed the term to describe “a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them.” With this volume, Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar bring together leading contemporary scholars to explore the (...) many theoretical possibilities that the concept of biopower has enabled while at the same time pinpointing their most important shared resonances. Situating biopower as a radical alternative to traditional conceptions of power—what Foucault called “sovereign power”—the contributors examine a host of matters centered on life, the body, and the subject as a living citizen. Altogether, they pay testament to the lasting relevance of biopower in some of our most important contemporary debates on issues ranging from health care rights to immigration laws, HIV prevention discourse, genomics medicine, and many other topics. (shrink)

Examines independent documentary film production in India within a political context.

This book takes us far beyond the usual focus of comparative law with analysis of a broad range of jurisdictions, including mixtures of common and civil law, and also those mixing Islamic and/or traditional legal systems with those derived from common and/or civil law traditions. The discussion is situated within the broader context of the continuing tides of globalization, the emergence of Islamic governments in some parts of the Middle East, the calls for a legal status for Islamic law in (...) some European countries, and the increasing focus on traditional and customary norms of governance in post-colonial contexts. (shrink)

In the fall of 1957 the University of California Press expanded Arnheim’s 1933 book _Film_ by four essays and brought that landmark work back into print as _Film as Art._ Now nearly fifty years after that re-edition, the book continues to occupy an important place in the literature of film. Arnheim’s method, provocative in this age of technological wizardry, was to focus on the way art in film was derived from that medium’s early limitations: no sound, no color, no three-dimensional (...) depth. (shrink)

An introduction to the philosophical implications of the recent surge of political and ethical interest in historical redress.

Professor Vernon L. Smith is a major creator of the new discipline of experimental economics. This collection of his papers from 1962 to 1990 surveys key developments in the field from early attempts to study economic behaviour in now classic double oral auction markets through recent studies of industrial organization and decision making. Topics covered include monopoly and oligopoly, supply and demand theory under posted pricing, uniform pricing, double continuous auction, and sealed bid-offer auctions; hypothetical valuation and market pricing; (...) asset price bubbles; predatory pricing; market contestability and natural monopoly; and the methodology of experimental economics. Taken together, the papers form a history of the study of economics under controlled conditions. (shrink)

In the original publication of the article, the author has identified four belated corrections which are listed below.

A new interpretation of human menstruation is presented, resulting from a cross‐disciplinary investigation of evolution, developmental biology, and physiology. A process evolutionarily associated with childbirth expresses itself as menstruation in women for whom frequent and continual failure to conceive has become the default situation. In humans and Old World primates, contractile uterine spiral arterioles evolved as the complement of the highly invasive hemochorionic placenta and is the selected phenotype. Placental progesterone withdrawal during the last stage of birth leads to arrested (...) blood flow through maternal spiral arterioles, allowing detachment of the deciduous placenta with minimal maternal hemorrhage. In nonpregnant females, progesterone withdrawal from a degenerating corpus luteum initiates menstruation and stops blood flow through uterine spiral arterioles. Both events share similar physiological mechanisms and sequences. This explanation may improve our understanding of a recurrent event experienced by half of the human population and for a quarter of their adult reproductive life. (shrink)

This volume, edited by a philosopher and an anthropologist, is a collection of essays on the philosophical implications of laboratory and field research. While neither the best nor the worst of the genre, it is a collection that offers a representative sample of traditional themes. As practicing scientists who view the implications of behavioural research from a somewhat different perspective we offer this critical review.

Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (1856-1935). She is known mostly for her supernatural fiction. She also wrote essays and poetry. She contributed to The Yellow Book and was a follower of Walter Pater. Her literary works explored the themes of haunting and possession. She was responsible for introducing the concept of empathy into the English language. Empathy was a key concept in Lee's psychological aesthetics which she developed on the basis of prior work (...) by Theodor Lipps. Her response to aesthetics interpreted art as a mental and corporeal experience. This was a significant contribution to the philosophy of art which has been largely neglected. Additionally she wrote, along with her friend and colleague Henry James, critically about the relationship between the writer and his/her audience pioneering the concept of criticism and expanding the idea of critical assessment among all the arts as relating to an audience's (or her personal) response. She was a strong proponent of the Aesthetic movement. Among her famous works are: A Phantom Lover (1890), Hauntings (1890) and Art and Life (1896). (shrink)

In this paper, through Hegel’s account of the predicative judgment in the Greater Logic, I develop an immanent, presuppositionless deduction ofgrammatical form from the very idea of language in general. In other words, I argue that Hegel’s account of the judgment can be read as a demonstrationof a truly universal (rather than empirically “common” or “general”) grammar through which any and all determinate thought must be expressed. In so doing, I seek to resolve the problem that linguistic contingency poses for (...) systematic philosophy by deducing a necessary linguistic form from a contingent linguistic content. (shrink)

A rich collection of critical essays, authored by philosophers and practicing artists, examining Deleuze and Guattari's engagement with a broad range of art forms.