Chapter 6 focuses on the political structure of a rational state. In the Philosophy of Right, by handing the bulk of the state’s political power to unelected agents, Hegel is in effect compromising the reconciliation of particular and collective interests he regards as essential to a rational political order. However, his wariness of democracy is more than a mere relapse into some pre-modern, reactionary standpoint. This chapter argues that Hegel is right to denounce the atomism favoured by mass electoral systems, which tend to reduce the citizens’ political identity to that of individual voters, but that he is wrong to dismiss mass democracy altogether. His critique is overly severe because his conception of democracy presupposes the liberal logic of civil society, which he attempts to sublate in a strictly political manner. As this chapter seeks to show, the atomism he argues against is best avoided not by limiting democracy, but by extending it to the economic sphere. In a democracy that is both political and economic, individuals are no longer mere atoms, but part of collective social units organized around commonly held goals.

This chapter explores the impact of the 1707 Union between England and Scotland on the public law of both nations, specifically the extent to which the Acts of Union can be seen to have unified the public law of the newly created Kingdom of Great Britain by extending English law to Scotland. In so doing, this chapter presents a new and original hypothesis of the Acts of Union which provides a more coherent understanding of the post-Union constitution and the role of English and Scots public law therein. It shows that the Acts of Union, by necessary implication of the creation of Britain-wide institutions, unified public law throughout England and Scotland in relation to those institutions, thus creating a new but partial body of British common law. In other areas of public law, variation between England and Scotland remains possible.

Up to this point, Part II has considered Origen’s approach to particular Gospel passages without invoking parallel narratives from more than one Gospel. In the process, it has become clear that Origen’s view of the figurative nature of the Gospels does not originate merely in noticing discrepancies among the four received Gospels. Having established this more fundamental point, we may now attend to the occasions where his reading does proceed by way of comparative reading of parallel pericopes. The cluster of narratives surrounding Jesus’s ascent(s) to Jerusalem provides an especially textured model of Origen’s approach to Gospel difference. Here, Origen does not simply exhibit an inchoate awareness of the various critical difficulties that arise when one reads the four Gospels synoptically; he engages these challenges in great detail and develops a sophisticated account of the Gospels’ literary formation in light of them. Still, whatever differences or discord one discovers among the Gospels on the level of history, narrative, and even in their very ideas of Jesus, there remains, for Origen, a more fundamental agreement – a harmony of spirit – among the four Evangelists’ visions.

This book addresses two interrelated problems regarding the legal nature of international organizations in public international law. The first problem concerns whether and why these institutions can be thought of as legally distinct from their members. The second problem pertains to the content of international organizations’ legal personality, meaning their capacities, rights, and obligations, assuming that they are legally distinct from their members. To address these two problems, this book embarks on a philosophical investigation of the nature of corporate existence itself. It argues that we cannot adequately theorize the existence of any corporate entity, including international organizations, without first making up our minds as to how and why the existence of its members is possible to begin with. Thus, this book revisits deeply entrenched doctrinal assumptions about international organizations as well as their members, including, most prominently, states. Rather than dwell on how international organizations may compare to or differ from their members, this book draws emphasis on the fact that all these entities represent potentialities of communal planning and organization. The outcome is a legal theory of ‘institutional genealogy’. I coin this term to signify that both international organizations and their members ultimately rise from the same root: the capacity of an organized community of human beings to self-describe.

Kierkegaard’s book Repetition, along with his descriptions of the book in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, offer a more positive characterization of thought experiments than we find in earlier works. This chapter argues that imaginary construction has a positive aim of identifying underlying continuities. I identify some similarities between Ørsted’s pursuit of invariants and Kierkegaard’s. One new addition in Kierkegaard’s discussions is the role of exceptions. An exception is a case that falls outside a rule without breaking it. Exceptions can neither establish a rule nor refute its necessity, but they can turn attention to the principles and their limits as well as further determine their scope and content. A further similarity between Kierkegaard’s work and Ørsted’s is the fact that variation must be active and free.

This chapter explains why cognition (Erkenntnis) is its own kind of cognitive good, apart from questions of justification. I argue against reducing the work of thought experiments to their epistemological results, such as their potential to provide prima facie justification. As an apparatus for cognition, a thought experiment enacts the three core elements of Ørsted’s Kantian account: (1) it is a tool for variation; (2) it proceeds from concepts, and (3) its goal is the genuine activation or reactivation of mental processes. Cognition has two components: givenness and thought. I will show in this chapter how givenness and thought are both achieved through thought experiments.

Part II of this study finds itself advantaged by Origen’s presence near the epicenter of another epochal seism in the history of Gospel criticism: the controversy surrounding Gotthold E. Lessing’s editing and publication of “fragments” from Hermann S. Reimarus’s previously unpublished “Apology or Defense of the Rational Worshippers of God.” In the midst of publishing (and defending the publication of) the seminal sixth and seventh extracts, Lessing composed “On the proof of the spirit and of power” (1777) – an essay that has proved, in its own way, at least equally iconic for the emergence of modern historical consciousness.

We study the structure and utility of the category formed by small categories and retrofunctors. We analyze key properties of this category, such as limits, colimits, and factorizations, and explain how these structures support various forms of composition and interaction. The chapter delves into the cofree comonoid construction, exploring how it connects to familiar concepts in category theory, and extends our understanding of state-based systems. We also discuss applications of retrofunctors and demonstrate how they can be used to model complex processes in a structured way.

Britain and Ireland are nations of beer drinkers. Beer has been part of their national identity despite it being regarded both positively as a dietary staple or necessity and negatively as the root cause of drunkenness and debauchery. There are many cultural traditions associated with beer drinking in Britain and Ireland. Contrary to popular belief, British ales are not served warm. Another tradition is ‘buying a round’. Since British pubs are traditionally small and crowded, getting to the bar was difficult, so one group member would ‘buy a round’. The famous Guinness story has kept Ireland on the beer map of the world. The Irish government even had to change its harp symbol to face in the other direction because Sir Arthur Guinness had trademarked the Irish harp for the Guinness Brewery. Finally, the traditional pub provides a community hub where locals and visitors alike can catch up, debate the issues of the day, and enjoy the regular Sunday roast. Long may these traditions continue.

This chapter covers the economic theory and evidence about the impact of provider consolidations (mergers and acquisitions) in healthcare services. As expected, hospital combinations within local markets (horizontal) are associated with higher unit prices but no measurable improvement in metrics of quality or outcomes. Prices increase by about 15%. Currently 30%–40% of the US population lives in big cities with competitive hospital markets. However, an equal fraction lives in smaller cities that could support more competitive hospitals; public policy to encourage competition there would be appropriate. The chapter investigates economic theories of vertical integration across markets; results here are less robust. An example of enhanced market power through bundling is provided, but a health system’s ability to do so is limited by lower administrative cost to employers of dealing with a single insurer that covers sellers in such markets.

Chapter 3 explores the relationship between increased social tension and the emergence of nascent conflict and finds traces of this stage in the Damascus Document. This chapter continues to examine how the emergence of violence in New Religious Movements such as the People’s Temple or the Branch Davidians can serve as an analytical lens for understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls.