Knowledge by Narratives: On the Methodology of Stump’s Defence

Eleonore Stump claims in her book "Wandering in Darkness" that the problem of evil can be solved best by the help of narratives. This - so Stump - is due to the fact that narratives allow one to get a general view about relevant parts of the discussion of suffering. In this context she distinguishes the more detailed view of the discussion from a more general one by two different modes of cognition: the mode of gathering "knowledge that" and that one of gathering "knowledge how". Knowledge by narratives is a subcategory of the last-mentioned one. In the paper I argue for the thesis that this distinction is not really crucial for Stump's argumentation and that in fact only "knowledge that" is relevant for her proposed solution

Accurate measurement of gas volumes by liquid displacement

Mariotte bottle as liquid displacement device was used to measure gas volumes at flow rates that are far below threshold of wet test gas meters. Study of factors affecting amount of liquid displaced by gas flow was completed, and equations were derived which relate different variables

Reforming the international system of units: On our way to redefine the base units solely from fundamental constants and beyond

Our purpose is to offer a logical analysis of the system of units and to explore possible paths towards a consistent and unified system with an original perspective. The path taken here builds on the fact that, thanks to optical or matter-wave interferometry, any measurement can be reduced to a dimensionless phase measurement and we follow this simple guiding line. We finally show how one could progress even further on the path of a synthetic framework for fundamental metrology based upon pure geometry in five dimensions

Three questions about “informal regulation”

In the grand debates of international law, the jus ad bellum is often proclaimed dead, and just as often praised as the “cornerstone” of the contemporary legal order. Both perspectives tend to ignore that the jus ad bellum is not static, but a body of law that states adjust over time. In an important contribution, Monica Hakimi proposes to look at one particular aspect of such adjustment, a concept she frames as “informal regulation” through Security Council action. This essay engages with Hakimi's approach. It inquires whether this approach is as “informal” as Hakimi suggests, and asks whether “informal regulation”—rather than constituting a new category of state activities to study—is not already part of conventional approaches to the jus ad bellum. Proceeding from Hakimi's analysis, the comment assesses whether there is room for “informal regulation” beyond the Security Council

Vive la Différence? Structural Diversity as a Challenge for Metanormative Theories

Decision-making under normative uncertainty requires an agent to aggregate the assessments of options given by rival normative theories into a single assessment that tells her what to do in light of her uncertainty. But what if the assessments of rival theories differ not just in their content but in their structure -- e.g., some are merely ordinal while others are cardinal? This paper describes and evaluates three general approaches to this "problem of structural diversity": structural enrichment, structural depletion, and multi-stage aggregation. All three approaches have notable drawbacks, but I tentatively defend multi-stage aggregation as least bad of the three

State succession to investment treaties: mapping the issues

Following recent decisions in Sanum v Laos and World Wide Minerals v Kazakhstan, investment lawyers have begun to engage with the legal rules governing State succession to treaties. As State succession is one of the more technical and controversial areas of general international law, this engagement can present challenges; however, the issues are too important to be ignored. This article maps out the most pressing questions of State succession that investment lawyers have faced, or are likely to face in the future. It identifies the three most salient problems — viz the succession of new States to ICSID membership and to old BITs, and the impact of cession of territory on investment protection. With respect to each of these three problems, the article analyses the general regime of State succession and its application to the investment law context, highlighting uncertainties in the law and proposing ways of dealing with them