This chapter examines the evolution of scholarship devoted to medieval Arthurian literature, concentrating on that in Old French, with occasional reference to Arthuriana in other languages. It begins with the rise of Romance philology and the publication of the first scholarly editions in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and traces trends in Arthurian studies down to the present day. The development of Arthurian scholarship mirrors that in other disciplines. While certain major scholars can be seen to guide and influence particular types of study, others produce work ‘outside of the box’ which contributes to the basis on which modern scholarship builds. The chapter also underlines the danger of reinventing the wheel if earlier studies are not taken into account. The study of medieval Arthurian literature at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century is now seeking direction.

Any proper investigation of Machiavelli’s conceptualization of the state has to commence where his own investigation begins: with his definition of what states are. Accordingly, this chapter elucidates the particular theory of definition which informs Machiavelli’s theory of lo stato. Machiavelli is continually preoccupied with what we ‘call’ things – or how we ‘nominate’ them, as he sometimes puts it. These are matters of definition in a technical sense, pursued according to a set of argumentative procedures derived from the pages of the ancient Roman rhetorical theorists Cicero and Quintilian. This chapter reconstructs their theory of definition, showing how they classify things in rhetorical argument, before turning to illustrate the theory in action in Roman antiquity by examining how the concept of the civitas – the crucially important political noun used in classical Latin to denote ‘the city’, ‘city-state’, or ‘citizenry’ – is handled in the writings of Cicero, Seneca, and Augustine. The second section of the chapter analyses the reception of this theory and its application to the idea of the civitas in medieval and Renaissance political culture in order to explain how and why Machiavelli comes to rely upon it.

Robin Hogarth (*1942) has been a research professor at the Department of Economics and Business at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona since early 2000. He came to Barcelona as a visiting professor from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago (now the Booth School of Business), where he held various positions, most notably the director of the Center for Decision Research (1983–1993) and Wallace W. Booth Professor of Behavioral Science. From early on in his career, Hogarth has been concerned not only with economics but with crossing disciplinary boundaries to study human behavior, an approach that has characterized his research ever since. In 1972, he earned his PhD at Chicago under the supervision of the American psychologist Hillel J. Einhorn, placing his research focus on psychology and statistics. In his various positions at Chicago, he thereafter focused his research largely on studying processes and judgments behind human decision-making in microeconomics and business, laying the ground for a research program in what has been called Behavioral Decision Theory together with Einhorn, a program concerned with evaluating and developing ways for improving behavior but on the basis of empirically studying the mechanisms behind judgment and choice (e.g., Einhorn/Hogarth 1981).

This collection of manifestos and practitioner responses presents a compelling and multifaceted vision for the future of education. We hope that readers will engage critically with the ideas contained in them, adopting or adapting them to create their own visions for education, or rejecting them to clear new space for dialogue.

Our aim has been to present chapters that grapple with complex and interconnected issues, highlighting the need for a fundamental shift in how we educate children and young people in a world struggling with unprecedented social, political, environmental and technological change. What would it look like if you were to accept and explore the complexity of interconnected fields of learning? How might you exploit these interconnections to better prepare children for their future lives – both their challenges and their opportunities? We encourage educators to stop and reconsider what they do, and how and why they’re doing it.

The book concludes with a seemingly paradoxical set of beliefs about shared reading: on one hand, the belief that knowing what and how somebody reads grants privileged insight into that person’s inner self; and on the other hand, the view that the inescapably private aspect of reading means the attempt to share a book runs up against the separateness and unknowability of your fellow reader. The apparent lack of sharing in any scene of shared reading argues for a revised understanding of sympathy. This sympathy doesn’t claim to know or identify with another reader’s thoughts and feelings directly but rather embraces gaps in understanding for the recognition they provide of the indirect, imaginary, and interpretative basis of what we count as shared experience. Finally, these scenes offer a way of thinking about the relations between reader and text, and between one reader and another, that extends to current literary criticism.

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.

The Left has long critiqued charity’s role in the alleviation of poverty. In the immediate post-war years, the Labour Party’s position was strongly influenced by Harold Wilson who was closely associated with War on Want, the ‘labour movement’s charity’. As Prime Minister, he brought into office an attitude that saw the real solution to the relief of poverty abroad to be state planning and the massive coordination of all local and national efforts through international government. The Ministry for Overseas Development, launched in 1965, looked to the UN agencies, to technical assistance programmes, to the creation of an International Development Agency. Yet within a few years, the ministers recognised that the humanitarian charities had a positive role to play. The Labour Party embraced charity as an ‘alternative’ provider of aid, initiating the Joint Funding Scheme in 1975 in which official funds were channelled through the charities. The Labour government embraced charity as a partner in development, helping to rethink state and voluntary sector relations more generally, and well before more ideologically driven pressures were placed on the social democratic welfare state.

Shortly after Geoffrey of Monmouth completed Historia regum Britanniae, abbreviated adaptations began to appear in chronicles. Not many Continental chroniclers, outside of Brittany and Spain, considered it historically valid, but short accounts about Arthur appeared in Continental universal chronicles. In Britain, it was adapted into Anglo-Norman and English by Wace and Laʒamon, and abbreviated versions appeared as the introductory sections of chronicles that told of pre- and post-Conquest Britain. This context gave it historical authenticity. From the time of Edward I, Arthur began to be considered English rather than British since the part of Britain he lived in was Logres, which corresponded to England.  Arthur’s subjugation of Scotland in HRB appeared to justify English attempts to conquer Scotland and caused many Scottish chroniclers to develop their own version of the story in which the true heir to the throne was Arthur’s nephew, the Scot Modred.

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.

The argument which I have been advancing throughout this book is that we should properly regard Machiavelli as a philosopher of the state. Although I hope that the investigation has already brought to light sufficient evidence to sustain this case, I should like to close it by returning to summarize very briefly two main reasons why the body of thinking about lo stato which he progressively articulates from Il Principe to the Discorsi qualifies him as such.

The Bill of Rights applies to all law, and binds the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all organs of state.

This essay examines the relationship between sceptical attitudes and religious belief in David Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. Understanding Hume’s thoughts on scepticism is one of the most important – if not the most important – keys to unlocking his thoughts on the legitimacy of reasoning in mathematics, science and philosophy. Intense controversies swirl around his explicit arguments and analyses of sceptical themes in his A Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry concerning Human Understanding along with various essays. While some argue that Hume’s approach to scepticism changes in these various works, especially between the Treatise and Enquiry, this essay shows how examining Hume’s discussion in his Dialogues sheds light on his overall stance toward scepticism. And this understanding of his approach in turn opens up new ways of looking at how the various characters in the Dialogues can be read as advocating or illustrating Hume’s epistemological stance. Exploring these issues will also allow us to see how Hume anticipates certain aspects of contemporary debates about reasoning about the nature of logic in general and counterpossible reasoning more specifically.

This Introduction offers a brief review of the central arguments and issues that arise in Hume’s Dialogues. It considers why Hume used the dialogue format to present his views and it also considers how the content of the Dialogues relates to Hume’s other philosophical works and his historical context. It concludes with a brief summary of the various contributions and an account of the way that the collection is structured and organized.

Describes the major research project on stagflation led by Meade from 1978 to 1987 and his concurrent activities, especially his involvement with the new Social Democratic Party.