Introduction

This chapter introduces the reader to the main purpose of the volume which is to provide a comprehensive survey of live debates about the philosophy of contract law and the role that they play in understanding fundamental contractual principles and the rules and doctrines that animate this area of law. Rather than summarise all of the contributions to the volume, the chapter picks out three recurrent themes: first, the growing trend toward pluralistic rather than monistic accounts of contract law, such as the dominant promise theory, which might suggest a renewed emphasis on explaining contract doctrine and a ‘political turn’ in the literature; second, the nature of the fundamental principle of freedom of contract and its limits located in purposes internal or external to contract; and, finally, how contract theory struggles with hard cases of rules and doctrines that seem to diverge from the requirements of interpersonal morality, such as the law on third parties and the handling of contractual debt claims. Bridging the gap between theory and practice here suggests links between the problem of hard cases, the trend toward pluralism, and the interaction between internal and external values to explain contract doctrine

Karl Pearson’s (1857-1936) Patterns of Publishing

Karl Pearson (1857-1936) was elected FRS in 1896 based on his contributions to applied mathematics. His contributions to biometry, eugenics, and other areas of applied statistics largely came later. This research note describes patterns in Pearson’s publishing behaviour: which venues did he choose for his work, how did these choices compare with choices made by peers of similar standing at the same institution. This note quantifies patterns in choice for publishing venues for Pearson both for his whole bibliography and for the subset of his bibliography associated with biometry and eugenics. This analysis indicates Pearson relied to a high degree on publishing through venues either solely or primarily under his own editorial control. That pattern of publishing is a significant outlier compared with our sample of peers of similar local standing in University of London. These results suggest the considerable potential for more detailed studies of publishing patterns by senior university researchers