Abundant moments of indecision and delay shape George Eliot’s last novel Daniel Deronda (1876), which treats uncertainty as a recursive movement between interior and exterior, potentiality and activity. This chapter shows how Eliot explores action’s convoluted antecedents, drawing on intellectual trends in mid-century comparative method and physiological psychology, especially the latter’s portrait of embodied willing and pathologies of volition. These contexts frame a reading of the novel’s twin stances of practical experience and intellectual reflection: hesitation, the bewildering experience of having a “will which is and yet is not yet,” and its rational cousin, comparison, “our precious guide.” Formal fluctuations and portrayals of mental caprice would seem at cross-purposes with Eliot’s narrative control and moral coherence. Yet in discovering a “kinship” between certainty and doubt, she reinvigorates her novelistic ethics and recasts sympathy as guaranteed by “closer comparison between the knowledge which we call rational & the experience which we call emotional.” Her characters set store by irresolute stances of hesitation and comparison, and predictive affects like trust and hope.

After unpacking the sense in which Heidegger uses the term "contradiction," the chapter reviews his use of it in the strictly logical, “injunctive” sense as the “principle of non-contradiction” (PNC) and “law of thinking,” particularly as he wields it in the course of exposing what otherwise appear to be cases of vagueness or ambiguity. It then reviews his tendency in some contexts to align the PNC with a metaphysics that restricts being to being on hand (vorhanden) and the dilemma that this ontological interpretation presents, given his apparent adherence to the principle, even as he proposes a broader understanding of being. The chapter then suggests that his analysis of attunement in the 1929/30 lectures introduces a more expansive reading of the PNC and that this reading is corroborated by his existential interpretation of the principle in the Winter Semester of 1933/34. The interpretation is a ringing endorsement of the PNC and the sameness of reference it enjoins as a condition for being-with-one-another. The chapter concludes by probing the implications of this ontologically broader – or post-ontological – interpretation of the PNC for thinking and speaking of being itself, riddled with “nothingness” as it is.

Paul’s gospel of divine self-sacrifice, according to this chapter, is rejectable by humans. In fact, many people do reject it, for various reasons, even after careful reflection. Most scholarly attention to Paul on God focuses on his position on divine grace and promised triumph, in a way that neglects his position on divine frustration and failure in redemptive purpose. This chapter counters that neglect with a presentation of Paul’s case for human frustration of God and God’s redemptive aim. It identifies how this case bears on Paul’s understanding of the divine redemption of humans, and it observes how many commentators have missed the important role of human frustration of God in Paul’s theology. The chapter thus acknowledges a role for human power in redemption, according to Paul, as a response to the gospel of divine self-sacrifice. The result does not compromise, however, Paul’s understanding of redemption by divine grace through faith in God. The human power in question enables God to be blameless, by Paul’s lights, in the human frustration of the intended divine redemption for humans. The chapter identifies how divine election works in this context.

This chapter discusses response evaluation theories (RETs), which foreground a process of response evaluation. It zooms in on the goal-directed theory of Moors (2017a), which proposes a goal-directed cycle as the causal-mechanistic explanation of the phenomena called emotions. The cycle starts with the detection of a discrepancy between a stimulus and a first goal, which activates a second goal to reduce the discrepancy. This reduction can take the form of assimilation (of the stimulus to the goal via overt action), accommodation (of the goal to the stimulus by changing the first goal), and/or immunization (reinterpretion of the stimulus as less discrepant). Assimilation requires further selection of the action with the highest expected utility. This in turn activates a third goal to engage in the action, leading to overt somatic and motor responses and feelings. The goal-directed theory can account for continuity, a rich form of Intentionality, phenomenality, bodily aspects, heat, control precedence, and irrationality. This wide scope is combined with parsimony in that presumed emotions and non-emotional phenomena are explained by the same mechanism. The goal-directed theory does not deliver discrete emotions, but can nevertheless make sense of them. Empirical research that tests the goal-directed theory is discussed.

In Chapter 5 the definition of political institutions drives us to a discussion of the main ‘institutes’ that constitute them. Individual and atomistic political norms and rules are so many over space and time that a detailed discussion is impossible. While norms/rules identify micro political institutions, with the term ‘political institute’ I identify those clusters of norms-rules that preside over the solution to a functional political problem, namely: norms and rules of selection, responsibility, inclusion, representation, decision, competence, accountability, devolution and redress. In my view, these nine institutes cover and exhaust the field of political normativity. Each of them is discussed analytically and historically in the chapter.

In Chapter 2, we outline the theoretical core of our inquiry. To fully understand the experience of political discussion, we must think more broadly about the full set of considerations that structure people’s decisions. We introduce the concept of the 4D Framework to the process of political discussion, articulating what happens at each of four stages preceding, during, and after the opportunity to discuss politics. The stages include Detection, Decision, Discussion, and Determination. Individuals make choices at each stage of the cycle as a result of their unique individual dispositions and the social context, both of which contribute to unique motivations. To rigorously examine the motivations behind political discussion preferences, we develop the AAA Typology, which characterizes motivations as accuracy, affiliation, and affirmation. We argue that in contrast to previous research emphasizing instrumental goals in political discussion (i.e. to learn more information, an accuracy goal), most individuals are driven to preserve their self-esteem (affirmation) and the social ties with their potential discussants (affiliation).

Under what conditions are people most likely to discuss politics? Our focus in Chapter 5 is on the moment of decision itself (Stage 2). We use three novel approaches to answer this question. The True Counterfactual Study asked participants to reflect upon and describe either political discussions in which they had recently engaged or political discussions in which they could have engaged, but chose to avoid. Comparing these descriptions revealed that avoided discussions had larger groups with more disagreement. We then used vignette experiments to manipulate various features of a conversation, finding that individuals were more likely to avoid a discussion if they were in the political minority, less knowledgeable than the others, or conversing with weak social ties. The Name Your Price studies asked people to report how much they would need to be paid to discuss various topics with different groups. Individuals demand more compensation to discuss both political and nonpolitical topics with those who disagree, especially when that disagreement is defined in terms of partisan identity.

Memory provides information for decision making and determines partly what animals can and cannot do. Here we categorize memory systems in animals in terms of their generality and their temporal characteristics, and we explore how evolution has tailored memory systems, considering both the benefits of having access to information and the costs of acquiring and remembering information. General associative memories are flexible and can last for years. In contrast, general short-term memories decay rapidly. We find no evidence of general memory systems used to store sequences of stimuli faithfully. Importantly, seeming limitations of general memory systems may be adaptive as they minimize storage and learning costs. In addition to general memory systems, animals have evolved specialized memories when they need more faithful or longer-lasting memories than afforded by general memory systems. We discuss the consequences of these findings for animal cognition research.

International organizations perform activities in areas in which states can no longer operate effectively in isolation, and in which there is a common interest in cooperation within a permanent international framework. This chapter will examine international organizations primarily from a legal perspective. The chapter aims to present a general overview of the law of international organizations. It discusses the legal status, privileges, and immunities of international organizations. The chapter further deals with membership issues, powers, and institutional structures. The chapter also looks at decisions of international organizations: the way in which they are taken and the different types of decisions. The chapter will briefly examine the finances of international organizations. There has been an exponential increase in activities of international organizations over the years. Not all of these activities have been successful, however, and there have been failures and wrongdoings. In recent years, a much-debated issue is the extent to which international organizations and/or their members may be held responsible for such failures and wrongdoings.

International organizations perform activities in areas in which states can no longer operate effectively in isolation, and in which there is a common interest in cooperation within a permanent international framework. This chapter will examine international organizations primarily from a legal perspective. The chapter aims to present a general overview of the law of international organizations. It discusses the legal status, privileges, and immunities of international organizations. The chapter further deals with membership issues, powers, and institutional structures. The chapter also looks at decisions of international organizations: the way in which they are taken and the different types of decisions. The chapter will briefly examine the finances of international organizations. There has been an exponential increase in activities of international organizations over the years. Not all of these activities have been successful, however, and there have been failures and wrongdoings. In recent years, a much-debated issue is the extent to which international organizations and/or their members may be held responsible for such failures and wrongdoings.

According to Aristotle there is an important distinction between human beings and the rest of nature: while all other creatures develop as they do ‘necessarily or for the most part’, the development of human beings depends on their own efforts. This applies not only to their acquisition of technical and intellectual accomplishments, but to their character as well. Emotions or affections (pathē) play an important role in that development; they have an interesting ‘passive-cum-active’ character. Although their experience is not determined by choice, it is due to understanding and evaluating the particular situation. Reasoning is therefore in a way involved in the formation of human affections by habituation. The process of habituation determines not only how human beings act, but also how they feel. The affective part of the soul, though it is non-rational, is capable of ‘listening’ to reason more or less well and thereby the person acquires good or bad dispositions to act. Thus, in a human being, affections can be reasonable or unreasonable: The distinctive reason-responsiveness of the affections helps to explain why, despite certain natural predispositions, successful human development cannot simply be attributed to nature.

focuses on economic decision making and the role that cultural-historical artefacts (such as religious beliefs) may play in this everyday aspect of life. It brings together anthropological approaches with studies of decision making in psychology and cognitive science. The main example is of decisions about risky, but potentially profitable, fishing trips made from Taiwan.

This chapter answers the question of how the World Economic Fourm (WEF) constructs authority for itself in the global arena by studying the form of political action that the WEF draws upon. We argue that it constructs authority beyond itself through turning some participants from its many events into a form of members, thus partially organizing its environment. Participants at WEF activities, as well as WEF staff, would call this order a ‘network’. We acknowledge the network aspects of this order, but argue that it is foremost based on organization; it is a decided order, based on decisions taken within the WEF. Empirically, the chapter builds on interview data within Geneva staff and participants at WEF activities.