Interpretive Political Science is the second of two volumes featuring a selection of key writings by R.A.W. Rhodes. Volume II looks forward and explores the 'interpretive turn' and its implications for the craft of political science, especially public administration, and draws together articles from 2005 onwards on the theme of 'the interpretive turn' in political science. Part I provides a summary statement of the interpretive approach, and Part II develops the theme of blurring genres and discusses a variety of research (...) methods common in the humanities, including: ethnographic fieldwork, life history, and focus groups. Part III demonstrates how the genres of thought and presentation found in the humanities can be used in political science. It presents four examples of such blurring 'at work' with studies of: applied anthropology and civil service reform; women's studies and government departments; and storytelling and local knowledge. The book concludes with a summary of what is edifying about an interpretive approach, and why this approach matters, and revisits some of the more common criticisms before indulging in plausible conjectures about the future of interpretivism. The author seeks new and interesting ways to explore governance, high politics, public policies, and the study of public administration in general. (shrink)

This book brings together essays on themes of human rights and legal history, reflecting the long and distinguished career as academic writer and human rights activist of Brian Simpson. Written by colleagues and friends in the United States and Britain, the essays are intended to reflect Simpson's own legal interests. The collection opens with biography of Simpson's academic life which notes his major contribution to legal thought, and closes with an account of his career in the United States and a (...) bibliography of his writings. As a tribute to Simpson's varied interests in the law, the collection is grouped around themes in human rights, legal philosophy, and legal history. The human rights papers are concerned with the history of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, and recent successes in which Brian Simpson played a part; the evolution of a transnational common law of human rights; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the interpretation of the provisions on identity in France and England; the suspension of human rights which would have occurred, had the emergency War Zone Courts scheme been brought into effect during wartime; historical resistance to colonial laws in Papua New Guinea; and the ratio decidendi of the story of the Prodigal Son. Historical themes are found in essays concerned with three nineteenth-century Lord Chancellors; in two essays relating to the fate of the civil jury on either side of the Atlantic which provide a fascinating comparison; in the 'battle of the books' which led to changes in eighteenth-century copyright law; and judicial rivalry between King's Bench and Common Pleas in the early modern period. (shrink)

Interpretive political science focuses on the meanings that shape actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so. This Handbook explores the implications of interpretive theory for the study of politics. It provides the first definitive survey of the field edited by two of its pioneers. This Handbook is an invaluable resource for students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of international relations, comparative politics, political sociology, political psychology and public administration.

The twenty volumes of the Robinet edition of the Oeuvres complètes de Malebranche contain a breadth, depth, and complexity of systemic metaphysical thinking that rivals that of any of the Modern philosophers. Yet there is no readily available translation in English of any of the works of Malebranche. This situation is a scandal of linguistic parochialism and textbook conservatism. Besides that, Malebranche is hard. Only four booklength studies have been attempted in English on the Malebranchean system in recent times: Ralph (...) Withington Church’s A Study in the Philosophy of Malebranche, Beatrice K. Rome’s The Philosophy of Malebranche, Craig Walton’s De la recherche de bien: A Study of Malebranche’s Science of Ethics, and now Daisie Radner’s historical/analytical study, Malebranche. In my estimation, this last is the best. Radner places Malebranche firmly in "The Cartesian Framework" and then provides comprehensive and concise expositions and interpretations in her six remaining chapters on the major Malebranchean themes: "Causality: The Doctrine of Occasionalism," "Vision in God," "Four Ways of Knowing," "Intelligible Extension," "The Polemic Concerning Ideas," "Will and Method." Her text is clean, and some of the arguments are elegantly expressed. Large amounts of Malebranchean metaphysics are distilled into detailed expositions compactly conveyed in a few pages. The substance of Malebranche’s critics and previous interpreters is chiseled down unmercifully, but is always fair. What remains is a solid, balanced précis of the essential content and structure of Malebranche’s highly original metaphysical system. (shrink)

A special issue on ‘Private Autonomy and Public Paternalism’ constitutes the first part of this issue. Guest-editors are Annette Dufner and Michael Kühler, both from the University of Munster, Germany. It is often assumed that personal autonomy is a ‘private’ matter in the sense that it is based primarily on a person’s subjective characteristics and capabilities. At the same time, the literature mainly deals with paternalism as a problem of the ‘public’ sphere, for example by focusing on the dangers that (...) threaten the autonomy of individuals as citizens, such as state paternalism. However, it is widely acknowledged nowadays that personal autonomy can only develop and flourish if conditions in the social and relational sphere are favourable, which means that personal autonomy is not so private after all. At the same time, it should be clear that paternalism not only relates to our behaviour in the public sphere, but also to how we behave in more private social spheres, like family, frien. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that self‐explanation is an effective metacognitive strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms? How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self‐explanation affect students' learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether self‐explanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing. In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during problem‐solving (...) practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better‐integrated visual and verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge. The research demonstrates that the benefits of self‐explanation can be achieved in a relatively simple computer‐based approach that scales well for classroom use. (shrink)

We generalize the nonlinear one-dimensional equation of a fluid layer for any depth and length as an infinite-order differential equation for the steady waves. This equation can be written as a q-differential one, with its general solution written as a power series expansion with coefficients satisfying a nonlinear recurrence relation. In the limit of long and shallow water (shallow channels) we reobtain the well-known KdV equation together with its single-soliton solution.

The literature fails to reflect general agreement over the nature of the services and procedures provided by bioethicists, and the training and core competencies this work requires. If bioethicists are to define their activities in a consistent way, it makes sense to look for common ground in shared communities of practice. We report results of a survey of the services and procedures among bioethicists affiliated with the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics (JCB). This is the largest group of (...) bioethicists working in healthcare organizations in Canada. The results suggest there are many common services and procedures of JCB bioethicists. This survey can serve as a baseline for further exploration of the work of JCB bioethicists. Common practices exist with respect to the domains of practice, individual reporting relationships, service availability within business hours and the education and training of the bioethicist. (shrink)

The volume presents essays on the philosophical explanation of the relationship between body and soul in antiquity from the Presocratics to Galen. The title of the volume alludes to a phrase found in Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, referring to aspects of living behaviour involving both body and soul, and is a commonplace in ancient philosophy, dealt with in very different ways by different authors.

Since the publication of Edmund Gettier's challenge to the traditional epistemological doctrine of knowledge as justified true belief, Roberts and Wood claim that epistemologists lapsed into despondency and are currently open to novel approaches. One such approach is virtue epistemology, which can be divided into virtues as proper functions or epistemic character traits. The authors propose a notion of regulative epistemology, as opposed to a strict analytic epistemology, based on intellectual virtues that function not as rules or even as skills (...) but as habits of the heart. To that end, they divide the task of clarifying and expounding their notion in the book's two parts.In the first part, Roberts and Wood examine various components that constitute their notion of regulative epistemology. The first are the epistemic goods or goals that drive the epistemic process. What is needed, claim Roberts and Wood, is an enriched notion of these goods rather than the restricted notion of justified true belief. Epistemic agents are more than calculating devices in that …. (shrink)