This and the following four chapters address the systemic/structural theory of Kenneth N. Waltz. Despite extensive criticisms of its details, Waltz’s account of the nature of system, structures, and systemic/structural theory continues to predominate in contemporary IR. This chapter shows that, despite its systemic starting point, Waltzian structural theory is thoroughly analytic. Waltz replaced components arranged and operating as parts of a structured whole with a reified structure that exerts causal effects on units that interact with one another and with the structure. The resulting one-sided explanation of the actions of “units” by “the system” reduces systems to mere environments of autonomous actors (whose activities are not constituted, generated, or structured by being parts of a system but are simply constrained by external “system-level” forces).

This chapter develops models of what I call spatio-political structure, rooted in the differentiation of centers and peripheries. Distinguishing between a) the number of top-level political centers, b) the homogeneity or heterogeneity of centers, peripheries, and their relations, and c) the relative autonomy of centers and peripheries, I identify three principal types of political systems (both of which have “international” and “national” forms): systems of single-level governance (e.g., states systems); systems of single-center governance (e.g., empires); systems of multilevel multiactor governance (e.g., medieval Europe). In IR’s standard (Waltzian) structural framing, pre-defined units (individuals and states), on (three) pre-defined levels, combine into pre-defined types of (national and international) political systems. I instead treat as empirical questions the types of polities that exist within a space, their distribution and relations, and the resulting kinds of systems. The chapter concludes with a novel, heterarchic depiction of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Eurocentric international system.

The chapter outlines social media and qualitative research. It describes social media for data collection and different qualitative research approaches to data collection. The chapter describes social media as a phenomenon for research and outlines different levels of social media utilization: individual, work-practice and supra-organizational levels. Vignettes for the different levels are provided and the need for qualitative research concluded.

In Chapter 9 we present and defend a causal account of multilevel mechanistic explanation by examining various case studies from biology. We argue that two key consequences of Causal Mechanism are (1) that levels and mechanisms are distinct notions and (2) that levels of multilevel explanations are levels of composition. This view is in stark contrast to Craver’s account, according to which levels in multilevel explanations are levels of mechanisms and multilevel explanations are instances of constitutive explanations. A key claim of the chapter is that whatever contributes to the phenomenon is part of the same pathway; but causal pathways can contain entities from multiple levels of composition. In order to motivate and illustrate our view, we use various examples from biology and medicine. We criticise some common views associated with the picture of a hierarchy of mechanistic levels and argue that our view allows for causation at higher levels.

This chapter makes the argument that there are several levels of the constitution of experience indicated in Husserl's phenomenology, and that they are much more systematically in place in his work than might first appear. These levels begin from the ‘lowest’, hyletic level of raw sensory experience, move up through passive synthesis and the active constitution of objects, and then reach two final levels of intersubjectivity. After providing an overview of each of these levels, the chapter turns to an application of this understanding of phenomenological constitution to the experience of gender, and more specifically, to eating disorders. In doing so, it demonstrates that these levels of constitution can be applied to areas beyond phenomenology, and hopefully, that they can provide structures and terminology that assist in the explanation of many differing approaches to experience.

This commentary summarizes and critiques the main themes in Dr. Pine’s chapter, including how to approach psychiatry from a clinical neuroscientific perspective. The “two-system model” of LeDoux and Pine is the backdrop for Pine’s approach, a model that is also outlined and critiqued in this author’s main chapter in this volume. The two-system model rationalizes and facilitates a synergistic bottom-up more primitive “attentional” and top-down attentional “appraisal” methodology to clinical treatments of threat assessment and anxiety, the basic findings of which are also presented in this chapter. The activity of appraisal, however, clearly involves consciousness, which as Dr. Pine notes, is only in the early stages of being understood scientifically and even philosophically, though Pine notes that cognitive-behavioral therapy does involve consciousness. Some suggestions are offered concerning possibilities as well as difficulties of working with animal models to advance this aspect of Pine’s clinical neuroscientific approach.

When we talk of “levels,” these can variously be levels of abstraction, analysis, aggregation, and behavior, as well as description and explanation, and more. Several of these differing approaches to levels are defined and exemplified, and then explored in connection with fear and anxiety disorders. Here I focus on the provocative suggestion of LeDoux and Pine that a second level or perspective (in their “two-system model”) is also needed – one involving phenomenological consciousness of fear in humans. I also argue for a “thin attention” theory of consciousness, but one embedded in a variant of Dehaene’s Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) theory. In addition, I sketch an analysis of the “self,” relevant to the two-system model, which builds on the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) to be found in Section III of the DSM-5.

Two concepts figure prominently in Schaffner’s discussion of LeDoux’s account of fear and anxiety: level and self. With respect to level, I differentiate two conceptions of levels invoked in his account: levels of hypotheses (high-level and intermediate-level instantiations) and mechanistic levels involving components within mechanisms. Both are important for Schaffner’s purposes, but they operate differently and should be distinguished. Schaffner’s account of self focuses on personality, but I suggest that more relevant is how one represents oneself, including one’s personality. I develop Neisser’s account of five types of knowledge one might have about oneself and argue that Neisser’s conceptual self is of the most use in understanding LeDoux’s account of fear. I conclude by suggesting how the representation of oneself may be developed differently at different levels of theorizing about oneself.

This chapter explores some issues having to do with levels in psychiatry and elsewhere in science. I distinguish among several different notions of level and discuss why talk of levels is sometimes useful in science, although it can also be a source of considerable confusion. I defend the claim that it is legitimate to think in terms of causal relations between levels (including so-called downward causation from upper to lower levels) against several recent criticisms, providing scientific example of when this motion seems appropriate.