In this chapter we take the two concepts as developed in Chapter 5 and bring them together conceptually and with some regard for practice. We consider the potential of objectivity in argumentation along with the view from nowhere/somewhere. We more fully consider Amartya Sen’s work with respect to the Boeing 737 MAX. We explore the potential for seeing transpositional assessments as though they are paradigms that can be shifted (as suggested by Thomas Kuhn). We return to Michael Walzer’s concepts of thick and thin and consider the potential of moral minimums in the eventual context of justice (as projected by John Rawls).

How do children process language as they get older? Is there continuity in the functions assigned to specific structures? And what changes in their processing and their representations as they acquire more language? They appear to use bracketing (finding boundaries), reference (linking to meanings), and clustering (grouping units that belong together) as they analyze the speech stream and extract recurring units, word classes, and larger constructions. Comprehension precedes production. This allows children to monitor and repair production that doesn’t match the adult forms they have represented in memory. Children also track the frequency of types and tokens; they use types in setting up paradigms and identifying regular versus irregular forms. Amount of experience with language, (the diversity of settings) plus feedback and practice, also accounts for individual differences in the paths followed during acquisition. Ultimately, models of the process of acquisition need to incorporate all this to account for how acquisition takes place.

The nature of religions, why they cannot really be distinguished from culture and other ideological products, and what the political implications are, including regarding the “separation of church and State.”

Understanding the past requires understanding how it has been created. This is not simply about improving methodologies, but also the theoretical approaches employed and the broader socio-political framework within which they are applied. This chapter therefore delineates major developments in southern African archaeology from its nineteenth-century origins to the present, situating them with respect to the region’s wider history and the broader social and political context in which they emerged. It also considers how archaeological research was constrained by, but simultaneously challenged, structures of racial oppression during the twentieth century, differences in the experience of southern Africa’s states (including research disparities within and between them), some of the key paradigms within which archaeological research is currently conducted, and the problems encountered in making archaeology accessible to all sections of society. Another theme concerns the theoretical and methodological challenges that archaeologists face when invoking the ethnographies of southern Africa’s recent or contemporary inhabitants to help understand the past revealed by their research.

Engaging directly with the question whether Platonic Forms are concepts, David Sedley’s chapter ’Are Platonic Forms Concepts?’ takes its start from the Parmenides 132b–c, where Socrates and Parmenides briefly examine the hypothesis that Forms are ‘thoughts’ (noēmata). Sedley asks what ‘thoughts’ are in that context, and argues that they are not thought contents, but acts of thinking. The chapter offers an ambitious and comprehensive analysis of the classical theory of Forms as showcased in the Phaedo, Republic, Parmenides, and Timaeus, in terms that clarify why Plato was bound to reject the hypothesis considered in the Parmenides (132b–c), namely that Forms are thoughts.

The distinction between philosophical theology and philosophy of religion is examined in relation to the role of faith commitments in each, and the notion of doctrinal statements as ‘truth claims’ is examined in terms whether ‘natural theology’ can legitimately be pursued. It is argued that the praeambula fidei version of this pursuit is illegitimate, partly because of the way in which ‘design’ arguments have often been overturned and partly because of the kinds of theological considerations put forward by Thomas Torrance and Alister McGrath. The relevance of Thomas Kuhn’s understanding of the scientific enterprise is also noted, especially in relation to his notion of paradigms.

Despite being inundated with publications on the subject historians today feel less confident than ever that they truly understand the Reformation. The prevalence of national paradigms, such as ‘confessionalisation’ in German Reformation studies and ‘revisionism’ in English Reformation studies, encourages scholars to focus their attention on local circumstances and on specific individuals in those localities without due attention to the bigger picture. The sheer volume of case-studies being generated risks the loss of an overall perspective, and threatens to obscure the magnitude and significance of the Reformation as a European phenomenon of the first order. It is critically important to appreciate the continental scale of the Reformation because it reflected the scale and severity of the crisis of authority that beset the Catholic Church during the half-century or so following Fr Martin Luther’s announcement of the sola scriptura principle. That crisis cannot be explained by reference to local circumstances only. It went to the very heart of the institution, and it posed an existential threat to the Catholic Church. Reformation historians have yet to explain convincingly why Luther’s challenge resonated with such devastating effects across the continent. This collection of essays reflects the impact of the Reformation across Europe and offers explanations of its impact.

Normal science is one of the core concepts in Kuhn’s philosophy, and its implications have been the target of both critical approaches and friendly attempts at analytic elucidation. This chapter aims to clarify the role of normal science in Kuhn’s philosophy, showing that some basic features of normal science, such as problem solving and the lack of criticism toward basic commitments, lead to a successful explanation of scientific progress. To do this, the chapter examines normal science, emphasizing the main features of the concept, the role it plays in the notion of science defended by Kuhn, and how it allows us to articulate the social and cognitive dimensions of scientific practice.

During his PhD and afterward, Kuhn was close to heated debates concerning the creation of the National Science Foundation. These debates were wide-ranging, touching upon topics such as the value of “basic science,” the obligations of scientific institutions, and the status of the social sciences. Kuhn was involved via his mentor, James Conant, who was one of the most prominent voices in these debates. In Kuhn’s later writings, he gestures toward this intellectual context as influential in the early days of composing The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This chapter takes a close look at Kuhn’s involvement and exposure to debates about science funding policy and their influence on the composition of Structure.

The influence of Kuhn’s Structure has been remarkably wide-ranging. The author was honored by the History of Science Society, the Philosophy of Science Association, and the Society for the Social Studies of Science, three very different academic societies. The chapter reviews the impact of Structure and the changing perceptions of its significance, one discipline at a time. It focuses on book reviews of Structure, some written soon after the book was first published, and others written as much as fifty years after its publication, in response to the publication of the fourth edition. It also discusses articles that reflect on the impact of the book and eulogies or appreciations of Kuhn marking his death in 1996.

Science always has occupied a special niche in society because of its perceived and proven truth value, which comes from its ostensibly unbiased, rigorous, accurate, precise, dispassionate, and metaphysical nature. After all, isn't science practiced in laboratories and universities quite apart from the "real world," the world of opinion, supposition, business, politics, and religion? But is it? As discussed in this chapter, the answer is "no," because science, in many senses, is a social endeavor, one subject to the vagaries of personal bias, the quest for recognition and funding, peer and social pressure, and tradition. Science may indeed be special relative to other endeavors, but this does not mean that its product – knowledge – should be accepted without question. Science can be wrong, but only temporarily, as it is a self-correcting enterprise that, in light of continual hypothesis testing, eventually fixes its own errors.

Chapter 7 is concerned with the global strategy and structure of economic theory. After arguing that Thomas Kuhns and Imre Lakatos notions of paradigms and research programs are in some ways misleading and not sufficiently detailed to be immediately applicable to economics, chapter 7 sketches the structure and strategy of economics as an inexact and separate science and comments on the role of abstract general equilibrium theories in this enterprise. Crucial to the global structure of economics is the conviction that economic outcomes depend mainly on a small set of causal factors that typically capture the most important features of economic outcomes. Economic theories are inexact, because other causal factors are left out, but at a high level of approximation, they are complete, and their scope includes the whole of economic phenomena.

The international law of the sea is one of the oldest branches of public international law. Thus, it must be examined from the perspective of the development of international law in general. Originally, the law of the sea consisted of a body of rules of customary law. Later on, these rules were progressively codified. The Third United Nations (UN) Conference on the Law of the Sea, which successfully adopted the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (the LOSC) in 1982, is of critical importance in the codification of the law. Furthermore, the international community and the situations that surround the oceans are constantly changing. Accordingly, it is also necessary to examine the evolutionary process of the law after the adoption of the LOSC. As a general introduction, this chapter will address the following issues in particular: (1) the principal functions of the law of the sea, (2) the sources of the law of the sea, (3) the principles governing the law of the sea (4) procedures of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (LOSC), (5) the principal features of the LOSC, and (6) the evolutionary process of the LOSC and the law of the sea.

Chapter 5 examines how considerations of coherence manifest in the use of analogical reasoning by investor-state tribunals. In particular, it demonstrates through concrete examples and case studies that the persuasiveness and correctness of an arbitral award based on analogical reasoning depends on the degree of its internal coherence. It is argued that coherence in an analogical inference manifests in two ways. Firstly, in a methodological sense, coherence manifests itself in the way the adjudicator frames the legal question at issue and in the degree to which the analogy, as drawn, satisfies the elements of similarity, structural parallels, and purposiveness. Secondly, in a substantive sense, coherence manifests itself in the normative contextualisation of the legal question and in the moral appeal of the proposed interpretation derived from the analogy.