This chapter explores multilingual communication, both in wider society and in educational contexts. It discusses the term ‘translanguaging’ in detail, providing and explaining useful definitions of the term. The chapter also identifies and unpacks key terminology that is often used within translanguaging theory and pedagogy. It then goes on to examine real examples from research on translanguaging, including in wider society, in the family and in the classroom. The chapter reveals that translanguaging is a natural part of who we are and what we do in our lives as bi/multilingual citizens. There is also time to explore the difference between translanguaging and terms such as ‘codeswitching’ and ‘using the L1’, explaining why we prefer to write and think about translanguaging. Finally, the chapter concludes with a historical discussion of how and why countries and education systems have tended to promote monolingual practices, particularly in classrooms, and the challenges that this presents for us as teachers interested in adopting more multilingual practices in our teaching.

This chapter concerns international organisations, from their inception to their rise. Regional organisations are described in Europe, Central and South America, Arabia, Africa and South East Asia. This is followed by an examination of some legal aspects of international organisations, such as their definition, and the question of legal personality. A discussion of the constituent instruments of such organisations is noted before the question of their powers is examined. The applicable law of such organisations is described, followed by an analysis of the responsibility of international organisations. The liability of member states of international organisations is considered, as is the accountability of the organisations. This is followed by a consideration of the privileges and immunities of international organisations. The chapter concludes with a look at the questions of withdrawal from such organisations, the dissolution of international organisations and the succession of international organisations.

The book’s Introduction begins by considering definitions of folk music, specifically that developed by the International Folk Music Council during the 1950s. I point out that Cecil Sharp’s work had a profound influence on this conception. The underlying logic behind such definitions is a habit of opposition in which folk music is situated as a paradigm of authenticity in contrast to something else tainted with commerce, frivolity, or bourgeois individualism. I show that folk music has most often been understood through a characteristic form of Marxist nostalgia surrounding older forms of culture opposed to modernity, capitalism, mass media, and the culture industry. The appeal of the folk, I suggest, has chiefly been as a vehicle of critique – a way of identifying alternative ways of being. As illustrations, I turn to Ananda Coomaraswamy’s anti-colonial vision of Indian nationalism as well as the recent ‘ShantyTok’ trend on TikTok. Ultimately, folk music and song are inextricable from the social communities they have brought to life.

In Parts of Animals II.10, Aristotle introduces an approach to studying the nonuniform parts of animals: “to speak about the human kind first” (656a10). This chapter asks why Aristotle adopts this strategy and how he goes about implementing it. I argue that he selects it because he holds that human bodies offer particularly clear illustrations of some of his scientific concepts, including the relationship between parts and the ends they are for the sake of. As a result, he thinks that beginning with the causal explanations of human parts helps us to develop such explanations for the parts of other animals, especially when it is difficult to do so.

Aristotle’s understanding of natural objects as matter-form compounds raises important questions about how this hylomorphic view applies to living beings. More specifically:

1. (1) Is the form of living compounds ‘pure,’ that is essentially independent of matter, or ‘true-gritty,’ that is, essentially matter-involving?

2. (2) In his standard view, the form is prior to matter and the compound. But how can the form of living compounds meet this priority requirement if it is ‘true-gritty’?

3. (3) If, by contrast, the form of living compounds is ‘pure,’ how can it be the principle of material and changeable living compounds?

I argue that in De Partibus Animalium (PA), too, forms of living compounds are ‘true-gritty.’ They are also, however, prior to living compounds and their matter. PA offers evidence for a distinction between the type of matter that is essential to form and that of living compounds, which is not essential to but posterior to the form.

Chapter 7 systematically re-examines Machiavelli’s beliefs about lo stato as they emerge in his early political writings and culminate in the first full statement of his theory in Il Principe. The architecture of that theory is clarified: it is an account of both free and unfree states, and it is shown to be articulated according to a theory of rhetorical definition which was instantly recognizable to his humanist contemporaries. The place of Machiavelli’s thinking about liberty and its absence in the princely state is then investigated, as is his account of state formation, which is demonstrably conducted in equally rhetorical terms, recurring not only to the concepts of form and material to describe how political bodies are artfully assembled and shaped, but also to rhetorical ideas about invention and disposition in Machiavelli’s view of the creative work involved in founding new states. The chapter identifies the evolving role of a theory of political obligation within Machiavelli’s account of the state, before culminating in an analysis of his understanding of Fortuna’s role in state matters and his rejection of the Senecan wisdom which elsewhere informed Renaissance thinking about the remedies for good and bad luck in human affairs.

In this chapter, I argue that the first book of the Parts of Animals (PA) expresses a form of realism about animal species. While the claim that Aristotle was a realist about species may seem obvious to those coming to the PA from the Metaphysics, the current view among specialists is that Aristotle’s zoology was not working with a concept of species. Some have even gone so far as to avoid translating eidos as “species” throughout his zoological writings. In contrast to this, I argue: first, that indivisible species constitute the ousiai of Aristotle’s zoology; and, second, that the aim of Aristotelian zoological division is to identify and organize the features specified in the definition of those species. The latter (epistemological) claim is explicit in the discussion of division in PA I 2–3, while the former (ontological) claim is advanced in PA I 4.

This chapter considers the place of the four books of the Parts of Animals (PA) within Aristotle’s envisaged sequence of biological writings. It argues that PA I belongs integrally with II–IV (rather than being a self-standing theoretical essay) and that the entire project of PA I–IV presupposes key theoretical and factual discoveries made in the Historia Animalium (HA), contra the ‘Balme hypothesis’ according to which HA postdates the explanatory treatises and represents a more advanced stage of inquiry. Finally, it shows that the mantra “being is prior to coming-to-be” (which governs the PA–GA axis) has important implications for our understanding of the explanations in PA II–IV. It concludes with some remarks on the overall structure of Aristotle’s biological corpus.

Islamic philosophers developed their theory of concepts within a broadly Aristotelian framework. From early on, however, they interpreted the Greek tradition in ways that lacked ancient precedents and gave rise to new sets of questions. This chapter begins by introducing the concept of concept developed in the classical period of Islamic philosophy, and then discusses the psychological question of how concepts are acquired. It then turns to the question of conceptual adequacy, and concludes with two challenges to the classical theory of real definition as the basis of adequate concepts. The focus is on Avicenna (d. 1037 CE), whose thought provided the starting point for much of the subsequent philosophy in the Islamic world, as well as the work of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210 CE) and Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191 CE), two of Avicenna’s most prominent critics in the philosophically vigorous twelfth century CE.

This chapter introduces the Greek concept of stasis, which is the term archaic and classical authors most frequently apply to episodes of regime-threatening political violence. It also reviews existing scholarship on the nature of stasis; describes the elements and dynamics that are typical of stasis; defines this commonly misunderstood term; and introduces a set of criteria designed to enable accurate diagnosis of as many staseis as possible, allow for consistent implementation in a broad range of historical and evidentiary contexts, map onto fifth- and fourth-century understandings of stasis as closely as possible, and ensure that, when departures from that emic understanding are necessary, they are implemented in a way that strengthens the validity of the results obtained in Chapters 2–12.

Chapter 2 maps the contours of this doctrine, indicating the sources of the questions on which the critique builds. This chapter purposefully identifies doctrinal understandings (inclusions, exclusions, preponderances and assumptions), as focussed on definitions, distinctions, interpretation, contexts and conditions. In so doing, it maps the grounds for my broader claims as well as identifying entry points for their critique in subsequent chapters.

Chapter 2 identifies various types of sound-related words in order to define the scope of onomatopoeia and the place of onomatopoeia in the system of language. It argues in favour of its ‘narrow’ definition by reserving this notion exclusively for direct sound imitation to distinguish onomatopoeia from signs based on cross-modal iconicity, from interjections, and from onomatopoeia-based derivatives and semantic shifts. This chapter also illustrates the different status and functions of onomatopoeic words in the sample languages.