Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Causal Models ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
Shed Light

This introductory chapter sets out the aim of this book: to investigate the metaphysical assumptions that underlie a pattern of ‘reductive explanation’ whereby we attempt to explain or predict the behaviour of a complex system by studying the system’s parts in isolation. It is argued that the success of reductive explanation is evidence for the truth of these metaphysical assumptions, and it is suggested that the ontology assumed by reduction can be put to use to shed light on the metaphysics of powers, causation, causal models, laws, emergence, and even normative ethics. This task is taken up in the remainder of the book.

Introduction

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Sabl
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Political Disagreement ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Or History

This introductory chapter discusses how David Hume's political ideas shed light on a host of questions in political theory, political science, and practical politics that would otherwise seem intractable. Aspects of Hume's work that might seem either hard to understand or of questionable modern relevance when treated with the methods of philosophy or history both fall into place and prove their continuing importance when viewed through the lens of political theory. Political theorists can find in Hume an innovative, unfamiliar way of understanding and addressing political disagreement. Hume's “liberalism of enlargement” suggests that moral factions divide the members of polities; whereas political interests, suitably defined and creatively accommodated, unite them.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Elinor Mason
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Wrong Action

There is surely a connection between our deontic concepts, rightness and wrongness, and our responsibility related concepts, praise- and blameworthiness. However, it is not clear what the relationship is. The book aims to shed light on our concepts of rightness and wrongness, praise- and blameworthiness, and praise and blame. This introductory chapter describes the methodology: a sort of reflective equilibrium. Our responsibility practices serve to regulate and rationalize our interpersonal relationships, and we should aim for our concepts to work well in that framework. This is a project in normative responsibility theory: the primary aim is not to give an account of the conditions of agency, but to give an account of what sort of wrong action makes blame fitting.

Islamist Pluralism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avi Max Spiegel
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Shed Light

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. The book attempts to unlock the incipient industry of Islamism. This is, at its core, a work of political sociology, informed, most of all, by scholarship in social movement theory, comparative politics, and the sociology of religion. To make the material accessible to a wide variety of readers, the author has aimed to write in a lucid, narrative style. In his nearly four years in Morocco, he witnessed firsthand the development of political Islam in one place. But these experiences also shed light on what is happening in other parts of the Arab world.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Siff
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Hype ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Shed Light

This introductory chapter describes the media hype over LSD and related psychedelic drugs: a grand arrival to a 1950s cultural landscape that had been deliberately scrubbed of alluring descriptions of drug use; the the picturesque drug trips related in mainstream magazines and newspapers; sensational television specials and radio discussions; the contradictory reactions in mass media as the drugs accrued both casualties and countercultural cachet; and, finally, the loss of interest in psychedelic drugs by mainstream media outlets at the end of the 1960s. Ultimately, the book's goal is to not build a general theory but to shed light on a particular case through close examination of the media content and circumstances surrounding it.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Aleida Assmann
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Order ◽  
General Sense ◽  
The Past ◽  
End Point ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The Future ◽  
Shed Light

This introductory chapter describes a change in the modern temporal order. The first is a general sense that the future is no longer much of a motivator in the arenas of politics, society, and the environment. Indeed, expectations for the future have become extremely modest. Within a relatively short period of time, the future itself has lost the power to shed light on the present, since we can no longer assume that it functions as the end point of our desires, goals, or projections. We have learned from historians that the rise and fall of particular futures is in itself nothing new. However, it is the case not only that particular visions of the future have collapsed in contemporary times, but also that the very concept of the future itself is being called into question. Alongside the future's eclipse, the chapter contends that we are also witnessing another anomaly of our long-held temporal order: the unprecedented return of the past.

Moral Psychology, Neuroscience, and Non-Combatant Immunity

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 203-226
Author(s):  
Richard Price
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Normative Practice ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Some have argued for the relevance for normative ethics of empirical research in international relations on the origins and role of moral norms. Building on such arguments, the paper considers the relevance of contemporary research in moral psychology and neuroscience for the ethics of war. Research in those fields has implications for our understanding of the sources and nature of moral beliefs and judgement, and thus may shed light on efforts to morally bound violence. In this chapter I consider how such research helps us understand the norm of non-combatant immunity, and explore the implications for understanding the effectiveness of such norms and for normative practice.

Reality-Creating Technologies as a Global Phenomenon

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth C. C. Yang
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Augmented Reality ◽  
Mixed Reality ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Current State ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Impacts ◽  
Shed Light

Digital reality technologies have become a global phenomenon that attracts huge attention from researchers and practitioners around the world. ResearchandMarkets.com predicts that the global revenue for both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications will reach $94.4 billion by 2023. As an introductory chapter to the edited book volume on the global impacts of digital reality technologies, this chapter examines the current state of digital reality technologies around the world. Global, regional, and country statistics are presented to shed light on the diffusion of a variety of digital reality technologies such as augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality. Potential and existing digital realty technologies around the world will be examined in greater detail to provide readers with contextual information for the remaining chapters of the book.

Taking Apart the World

2019 ◽  
pp. 6-18
Author(s):  
Richard Corry
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
System P ◽  
Component Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
As If

This chapter develops a characterization of the kind of reductive explanation that is the topic of the book. In particular, the book is concerned with substantive causal reductions rather than Nagel-style theory reductions. The characterization of reductive explanation that is developed here is based on Marie Kaiser’s account of explanatory reduction in biology, and, like Kaiser’s account, it highlights the importance of the fact that reductive explanations treat component systems as if they were parts in isolation. That is, in a reductive explanation it is assumed that our knowledge of how an element behaves in isolation can be useful in understanding the role that part plays when it is part of a complex system.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Simonett
Keyword(s):  
World Music ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Elites ◽  
Identity Discourses ◽  
The Many ◽  
Cultural Agency ◽  
Shed Light

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the inner workings and cultural significance of the accordion. It then sets out the book's purpose, which is to reevaluate the accordion and the many musicultural traditions associated with this instrument. It considers the specific histories and cultural significance of a variety of accordion traditions to shed light onto the instrument's enigmatic popularity in the New World. Because power relations between the social elites and the working class—often immigrants or marginalized ethnic communities—have shaped the accordion's histories across the Americas, issues that emerge as pivotal include identity, discourses of inclusion/exclusion, marginality, and cultural agency; music's capability to engender community; sound aesthetics; and the accordion's place in mainstream and “world music.” An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

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