The Conclusion offers a brief recapitulation of the book’s main argument, highlighting its critical and reconstructive components. First, the criticism of the liberal reading that has come to dominate Hegelian scholarship is reiterated. The rational state envisioned in the Philosophy of Right, grounded in a dialectical synthesis of the particular and the universal dimensions of human freedom, is irreducible to the liberal state found today in most democratic nations. Second, the chapter insists on the need to move beyond Hegel’s own political and economic choices in order to bring out the true implications of his views. As argued throughout the book, only a fully democratic state, in which political and economic power are shared among all the citizens, can be deemed rational, in Hegelian terms. Finally, it is suggested that this alternative reading is not only more faithful to Hegel’s philosophical vision, but also more relevant for contemporary critical theory.

Partition brought with it severe challenges for the operation of railways in Ireland and in its aftermath the cross-border network declined. This chapter explores the challenges of running cross-border railways against a backdrop of the profound lack of cooperation between the administrations in Dublin and Belfast after partition. Even when both administrations grudgingly recognised that they had to cooperate to make even the Dublin/Belfast route viable, this effort towards partnership was stymied by the complicating factor of Belfast’s relations with London. The railways therefore provide a case study which highlights the challenges of sharing the Island of Ireland after partition, with consequences which run to the present.

Rationalist accounts of thought experiment in epistemology offer an alternative to the more predominantly empiricist approaches in philosophy of science. In this chapter, I will pose a Kantian critique of recent rationalist accounts of intellectual intuition. Some epistemologists have recently argued that intellectual intuitions can provide prima facie justification for judgments. In this chapter, I highlight some promising elements of recent rationalist accounts, especially the proposal that there can be nonsensory presentations analogous to empirical perceptions. If they are right, then thought experiments can provide new experiential content even without empirical confirmation. However, I also draw attention to Kant’s objections to the possibility of purely intellectual intuitions.

Chapter one is the introduction to the book. It outlines the main goals of the book, previous scholarship, and a new methodological framework for understanding violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It presents an overview of the sociological approaches to the people behind the Dead Sea Scrolls and scholarship on the meaning of violence.

We examine a monoidal structure on the category of polynomial functors, defined through the operation of substituting one polynomial into another. We explain how this composition product transforms polynomials into a richer algebraic structure, enabling the modeling of more complex interactions and processes. The chapter explores the properties of this monoidal structure, how it relates to existing constructions in category theory, and its implications for understanding time evolution and dynamical behavior. We also provide examples and visual representations to clarify how substitution works in practice.

4.1 [254] Julian has, therefore, denounced God’s glory and cried out most disgracefully against the doctrines of Moses, as though it was otherwise impossible for him to secure a winning verdict for the Greeks’ superstitions unless he vilified the teachings of Christians1 – a tactic in keeping with his deceptions and love of slander.2 And yet, surely it would have been necessary and better, at least in my view, if he supported their opinions with the facts themselves – assuming there is something true in them – and didn’t deck them out in the inventive bombast3 of certain persons,4 just like those women, for example, who are courtesans and suppose they can dispel the shame of their activity with seductive chit-chat and superficial make-up.5

Health insurance does not work well when individuals have more information about illness than the insurer. Two problems arise as a consequence of this information gap. Moral hazard, which arises when individuals know more about their current needs than the insurer, generates an overutilization of care services. Adverse selection, caused by insureds having more information about future risk than insurers, leads high-risk individuals to buy high coverage (at a high premium) and low-risk individuals to buy lower coverage than optimal. This chapter covers these market failures and presents some evidence and thoughts about policies that have been used to reduce their negative effect, such as cost-sharing for dealing with moral hazard, and mandates and cross-subsidies for buying high coverage. I end by arguing that dealing with selection should not be a top priority.

This chapter discusses insurance as a central player in the purchasing of health goods and services. It points out the flaws and quirks in the insurance market that lead to an absence of perfect competition and the potential for skewed bargaining power between providers and insurers. Managed care is then outlined as an attempt by insurance companies to curtail health spending through utilization controls and narrow networks. Additional tools such as paying for wellness programs, bundling payments for episodes of care, and cost-effectiveness measures are also discussed as possibilities to improve the efficiency of payouts by insurers. The chapter concludes by reminding us that insurance companies make more money the less they pay out and that making it more difficult for beneficiaries to access care will allow them to accomplish that.

The double-distortion argument holds that income taxation is more efficient than redistribution through changes in legal rules because a change in a legal rule distorts both the market to which the rule applies and, by altering incomes of market participants, the labor market as well. The argument succeeds only if it is possible to achieve the same distributive outcomes with the income tax as with changes to legal rules. This is not the case, however, because tax authorities cannot obtain information regarding the extent of the surplus available for redistribution without altering legal rules in individual markets and observing whether the effect is inframarginal (in which case there is surplus available for redistribution) or marginal (in which case there is not). This point is illustrated using the Ayres and Talley model of Coasean bargaining with divided entitlements.

1.1 [11] Those wise and sagacious experts in the sacred doctrines marvel at the beauty of the truth and highly regard the ability to understand “a parable and an obscure word, both the sayings of the wise and their obscure utterances.”1 For by thus focusing their exact and discerning mind on the God-breathed writings, they fill up their souls with the divine light, and by setting their ambition upon achieving an upright and most lawful way of life, [12] they may also become providers to others of the highest assistance.2 For it is written, “Son, if you should become wise for yourself, you will be wise also for your neighbor.”3

This chapter explains the idea of ‘beer law’ and discusses its place in law as a discipline. It also addresses matters such as the history of beer, beer styles, and the beer ingredients, including both conventional and less conventional ingredients. Further, it explains the brewing process, and discusses the difference between craft beer and mass market beer. It also deals with the important legal question of what we class as beer.