Chapter 1 is mainly devoted to articulating Wittgenstein’s normativism. This label reflects what I consider to be Wittgenstein’s fundamental insight: that mathematical sentences actually serve to formulate norms, or rules; furthermore, as rules, they lack truth-values. (However, in my reading, he also accepts that these sentences can make truth-apt assertions.) The chapter also sketches the two doctrines relevant to the subsequent discussion – platonism and conventionalism – and highlights the eliminativist aspect of normativism while emphasizing its therapeutic consequences: by eliminating problems, one achieves ‘peace of mind.’

Under the usual rules of US political parties, candidates are vetted by party insiders, and people who lose a presidential race don’t get a second shot. Trump defied this and many other historical traditions. Understanding this means understanding election narratives and beliefs about electability, and how those in the GOP today are different from what they were in the past and what the Democratic Party has. The chapter provides a book outline.

This chapter examines the Supreme Court’s state-sovereignty cases, particularly those involving sovereign immunity and the anti-commandeering doctrine. It argues that the Necessary and Proper Clause provides a textual basis for limiting Congress’s power to abrogate these state attributes. It critiques the Supreme Court’s modern federalism cases, like Printz v. United States, for relying on nontextual grounds, asserting that sovereign immunity and anti-commandeering principles derive from the Constitution’s structure and history, which view these as significant sovereign attributes the power to abrogate which cannot be delegated by implication. The chapter examines National League of Cities and its reversal in Garcia, highlighting tensions in applying federal laws to state functions. It argues that forcing states to enforce federal law or submit to citizen suits risks recreating the Articles of Confederation’s enforcement problems, potentially requiring the use of force against noncompliant states – a power the Framers rejected. Drawing on historical practices and the law of nations, the chapter posits that such powers require explicit constitutional authorization, reinforcing federalism’s vertical separation of powers and preserving state autonomy within the Constitution’s original design.

A natural starting point for the study of graphs with "random-like" properties is the notion of jumbled graphs, introduced by Thomason. We develop the properties of these pseudorandom graphs and study the related notion of quasirandom graphs and spectral properties of graphs, including (n, d, λ)-graphs, the expander mixing lemma, the Alon–Boppana Theorem, the Haemers–Hoffman–del Sarte bound, and the proof of the sensitivity conjecture.

This chapter offers a detailed reading of Sophocles’ Trachiniae. It begins by analysing the characters’ use of theological and philosophical discourse in the tragedy’s first half, paying close attention to its function and its relationship with its broader dramatic context. It then focuses on the scenic experiences and trajectories of the characters (in particular Deianeira), demonstrating that the play, through its presentation of the interplay between knowledge and ignorance and the experience of reversal, dramatises traditional Greek notions of vicissitude and short-sightedness. Finally, the chapter attempts to trace some of the broader patterns and forces underlying and shaping the play’s events, the means by which these patterns emerge and the characters’ efforts to understand them. It argues that the characters are all, in their own way, pitiful victims of a shifting world that cannot be bent to their will, and is governed by distant, uncaring gods.

This Chapter challenges the view that the Declaration is indifferent with respect to government structure. To the contrary – the Declaration has a lot to say about structure, if we only read the relevant part of the document. The charges against the King provide significant insights into governmental structure. By using each charge as a “negative example,” we can see how the Declaration envisions a properly structured government. At minimum, an adequate government must include these structural features: (1) a broad commitment to the rule of law and a recognition that no official is above the law; (2) representative legislatures, elected by and responsible to the people, who will have the power of consenting to taxation; (3) a military subordinate to civilian authorities; (4) limitations on an executive’s veto power; (5) an executive that is bound to follow the law; (6) executive officials accountable to the people; (7) a judiciary that is independent of the executive; and (8) an inviolable role for juries.

This chapter argues that throughout his prose works, Wilde demonstrates ambivalence regarding the significance of fashion in relation to flesh, and this chapter traces that ambivalence through texts including The Picture of Dorian Gray, De Profundis, and “The Birthday of the Infanta.” Treating ugliness and beauty, monstrosity and martyrdom, this chapter demonstrates Oscar Wilde’s continued fascination with beautiful flesh that is betrayed as such flesh decays, rots, and becomes loose and baggy, like an ill-fitting garment. Wilde writes against the backdrop of eugenicist discourse, which proves a foil to his aesthetic project while simultaneously animating his response to criminal charges against him for gross indecency. But Wilde also looks to an earlier precedent to work out questions of flesh and fashion, particularly that of baroque painting and sculpture by artists such as Guido Reni and Gianlorenzo Bernini in their representations of the flesh of martyrs. The world remains unsure whether Wilde was a monster or a martyr; this chapter shows that Wilde himself shared those concerns.

Parliament is the central institution of UK democracy. It is both a representative body, reflecting the diverse views of the nation, and its senior decision-making forum. In the years after the Brexit referendum, when both the public and the governing party were deeply divided, Parliament struggled to navigate these representative and decision-making roles. The arguments, both inside Parliament and about Parliament’s role, were frequently heated and controversial. Many Brexiteers had argued in favour of boosting Parliament’s sovereignty, and yet the institution emerged battered and bruised from the process – having been repeatedly maligned, shut down by a Prime Minister and reinstated by the Supreme Court, and described as ‘broken’ on the opening page of the 2019 Conservative manifesto. This chapter explores how such contradictions came about. It concludes that the blame laid at Parliament’s door by campaigners, journalists and politicians was often unfair, and damaging of public trust. The Brexit process left much rebuilding to be done.

Ten years on since the referendum, my feelings are bittersweet. We wrestled victory out of the jaws of defeat, but then promptly allowed it to be snatched back off us again. For a while it looked like we were heading for a true crisis of democracy, where the national institutions that campaigned against Brexit tried hard to reverse it, before another democratic event – the 2019 election – delivered a decisive second mandate for change. But, apart from those two electoral high points, many of the gains have been attritional and chipped away at over the years by the very system the supporters of Brexit wanted to change. There were times when it felt impossible, but in the end the UK did get a deal that resembled the outcome people voted for. But the change the country was yearning to see has only happened in parts, and while not all that change flows directly from the Brexit result, it comes from the same political undercurrent.

Understanding behavioural data within complex economic and business systems requires a shift from linear, equilibrium-oriented perspectives to frameworks that accommodate emergence, adaptation and interdependence. Complexity science offers a valuable lens through which the dynamics of modern economic behaviours can be analysed, particularly in an era characterised by interconnected supply chains, automated financial ecosystems and data-intensive marketplaces. This chapter explores how behavioural data can be harnessed to illuminate patterns of interaction within such systems, examining feedback loops, tipping points, network effects and the role of institutional context. Drawing on case studies from financial markets, organisational decision-making and global production networks, this chapter illustrates how Behavioural Data Science can capture the micro-motives and macro-behaviours that define complexity. The work also addresses methodological challenges – including multi-level inference, non-stationarity and limited observability – and outlines new directions in agent-based modelling, behavioural data fusion and computational experimentation. The discussion culminates in a reflection on ethical considerations and the role of behavioural data in governing complex systems, especially under uncertainty.

This chapter provides an overview of how Behavioural Data Science can be used to understand human decision-making. It describes the methods and models used to study decision-making, including surveys, experiments and observational studies. The chapter also discusses the different types of decision-making models, including normative, descriptive and prescriptive models, and highlights their strengths and limitations. The chapter then explores the applications of Behavioural Data Science in understanding decision-making in various contexts, such as consumer behaviour, finance and healthcare. The chapter emphasises the importance of understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive decision-making, such as cognitive biases and social influences. This chapter provides a concise but informative overview of how Behavioural Data Science can be applied to understand human decisions, choices and judgements. It highlights the importance of studying decision-making in various contexts and provides insights into the methods and models used in this field. This overview serves as a foundation for further exploration of the methods and techniques used in this rapidly evolving field. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the future of Behavioural Data Science and its potential for further advancements in the study of human behaviour.