Writing Separately

This chapter presents the author’s dissenting and concurring opinions. Throughout his nearly two decades on the Bench, the author exercised restraint in writing dissenting or separate opinions. He wrote such opinions when he felt it worthwhile to explain his own positions on important judicial questions, particularly on aspects of fairness. The chapter studies some of these opinions. The decisions examined concern hate speech, persecution, the principle of legality, due process and acts or threats of violence. The other decisions covered in the chapter deal with the reversal of burden of proof, fair trial rights and liability via the doctrine of joint criminal enterprise (JCE).

Standard Examples

Standard examples in biological game theory are introduced. The degree of cooperation at evolutionary stability is analysed in models that deal with situations such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Tragedy of the Commons and the conflict of interest between parents over care of their common young. Several models of aggressive interactions are treated in this book. In this chapter the Hawk–Dove game, which is the simplest of these models, is analysed. Further models in the chapter deal with the situation in which individuals vary in their fighting ability and the situation in which information about the opponent is available before an individual decides whether to be aggressive. The problem of the allocation of resources to sons versus daughters has played a central role in biological game theory. This chapter introduces the basic theory, as well as a model in which the environmental temperature affects the development of the sexes differentially, so that at evolutionary stability the sex of offspring is determined by this temperature. Coordination games, alternative mating tactics, dispersal to avoid kin competition, and the idea that signals can evolve from cues are also introduced.

10. Administrative law: judicial review

The Q&A series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each chapter includes typical questions, diagram problem and essay answer plans, suggested answers, notes of caution, tips on obtaining extra marks, the key debates on each topic, and suggestions on further reading. This chapter is about judicial review. This is the means by which the citizen can use the courts to ensure that a public body obeys the law. The questions in the chapter deal with issues such as the erratic development of administrative law; the procedure to apply for judicial review; the right to apply (locus standi), procedural ultra vires; natural justice; and substantive ultra vires.

Duality of the Two-dimensional Ising Model

Chapter 4 begins by discussing the Peierls argument, which allows us to prove the existence of a phase transition in the two-dimensional Ising model. The remaining sections of the chapter deal with duality transformations (duality in square, hexagonal and triangular lattices) that link the low- and high-temperature phases of several statistical models. Particularly important is the proof of the so-called star-triangle identity. This identity will be crucial in the later discussion of the transfer matrix of the Ising model. Finally, it covers the aspect of duality in two dimensions. An appendix provides information about the Poisson sum formula.

Deal

The second chapter, “Deal,” examines Donald Trump’s unique manner of making deals, focusing ultimately on his efforts to broker a nuclear deal with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in the summer of 2018. For Trump, deal-making is always about wielding power in the ever-present moment, operating as the quintessential episodic man who pays no heed to long-term consequences. The chapter delineates five principles of Trumpian deal-making: (i) fill a need, (ii) bend the rules, (iii) put on a show, (iv) exert maximum pressure, and (v) always win. The chapter traces the origins of the first three principles back to the deal-making displayed by Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, when he immigrated to the United States, and by his father, Fred Trump, as a builder and real estate mogul in Queens during the middle years of the 20th century. The latter two principles derive from Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal, as well as his life.

Social Conditions of His Time

While Zhu Xi developed complex philosophical theories, his ultimate objective was the moral transformation of society. This chapter concerns his directives and exhortations to people in his jurisdiction, promulgated during his stints as a local official, as well as in his letters to disciples and friends addressing concrete issues in family relations, and in his funerary biographies (especially for women), where he exhibited considerable flexibility and accommodation to social custom. Zhu’s official directives include general admonishments to behave well and be diligent in agriculture, as well as specific warnings about officials cheating commoners, illegal family division, and unorthodox religious practices. Many of the texts in this chapter deal with family issues. Like his writings on society, Zhu’s writings on families were largely prescriptive: families needed to be properly “regulated” and interactions among family members guided by ritual.

Perturbation Theory

This chapter examines applications drawn from perturbation theory. The main topic in perturbation theory is the energy and spontaneous decay rate of the 21-cm hyperfine line in atomic hydrogen. Before there were electronic computers, people had quite an accurate theoretical understanding of the energy levels in helium and more complicated systems. The trick was (and is) to find approximation schemes that treat unimportant parts of a physical system in quite crude approximations while reducing the interesting parts to a problem simple enough that it is feasible to compute but yet detailed enough to yield accurate results. The approximation methods in the chapter deal with the effects of small changes in the Hamiltonian, resulting for example from the application of a static or time variable electric or magnetic field. This may cause small changes in energy levels, and it may induce transitions among eigenstates of the original Hamiltonian.

“An Angel of God Came Down from Heaven”

The documents in this chapter deal with the experience reported by Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris in June 1829. Both first-and secondhand accounts are included. The statement of Cowdery, Whitmer, and Harris, titled “The Testimony of Three Witnesses,” states that “we, through the grace of God have seen the plates which contain this record, and we also know they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us. And we declare with words of soberness than an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon.”

James and Wittgenstein

According to a common reading in the Wittgensteinian literature, William James’s writings, especially the psychological ones, were for the Viennese philosopher a paradigmatic example of conceptual confusion. This chapter argues against this reading, although without minimizing the criticism that Ludwig Wittgenstein leveled against James. More specifically, rather than ascertaining whether Wittgenstein was right or wrong about James, the aim is to figure out what picture of James Wittgenstein offers, and if and in what terms anything specifically Jamesian remains in Wittgenstein’s work. Since it was through the Varieties of Religious Experience that Wittgenstein first came into contact with James, religion is the starting point for this reflection. I will then focus on the pragmatic maxim and Wittgenstein’s comments about the pragmatist conception of truth. The three central sections of this chapter deal with psychology. I will then broaden the discussion to the theme of aspect-seeing, and finally, in the last section, examine Wittgenstein’s observations about the “good” in pragmatism in order to draw some concluding remarks.

10. Administrative law: Judicial review

The Q&A series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each chapter includes typical questions; diagram problem and essay answer plans, suggested answers, notes of caution, tips on obtaining extra marks, the key debates on each topic and suggestions on further reading. This chapter is about judicial review. This is the means by which the citizen can use the courts to ensure that a public body obeys the law. The questions in the chapter deal with issues such as the erratic development of administrative law; the procedure to apply for judicial review; the right to apply (locus standi), procedural |ultra vires; natural justice; and substantive ultra vires.