The twilight of the Liberal Social Contract? On the Reception of Rawlsian Political Liberalism

This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of public reason, or public justification-based 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and realist responses to it. Focusing on political liberalism’s critical reception illuminates an overarching question: was Rawls’s revival of a contractualist approach to liberal legitimacy a fruitful move for liberalism and/or the social contract tradition? The last section contains a largely negative answer to that question. Nonetheless the chapter's conclusion shows that the research programme of political liberalism provided and continues to provide illuminating insights into the limitations of liberal contractualism, especially under conditions of persistent and radical diversity. The programme is, however, less receptive to challenges to do with the relative decline of the power of modern states

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

Experimental designs for identifying causal mechanisms

Experimentation is a powerful methodology that enables scientists to establish causal claims empirically. However, one important criticism is that experiments merely provide a black box view of causality and fail to identify causal mechanisms. Specifically, critics argue that, although experiments can identify average causal effects, they cannot explain the process through which such effects come about. If true, this represents a serious limitation of experimentation, especially for social and medical science research that strives to identify causal mechanisms. We consider several experimental designs that help to identify average natural indirect effects. Some of these designs require the perfect manipulation of an intermediate variable, whereas others can be used even when only imperfect manipulation is possible. We use recent social science experiments to illustrate the key ideas that underlie each of the designs proposed.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant SES-0849715)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant SES-0918968

Establishing tephrostratigraphic frameworks to aid the study of abrupt climatic and glacial transitions: a case study of the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition in the British Isles (c. 16-8 ka BP)

Distally dispersed tephra layers have become an important tool in the investigation of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records across the globe. They offer possibilities for the synchronisation and improved chronological control in those records to which they can be traced and hence contribute to an improved understanding of the pattern and timing of environmental and archaeological change during periods of rapid climatic adjustment. However, their use as robust isochronous markers for synchronising records is frequently compromised by uncertainties relating to stratigraphical context, precise chronology and chemical composition. Here we collate and review the tephrostratigraphical information dating to the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT; c. 16-8 ka BP) in the British Isles based on published and unpublished records obtained from 54 sites. Based on details of their stratigraphic position, chronology and chemical composition, we propose that 26 individual eruption events may be represented in this collective record which spans the LGIT. The great majority of these eruptives can be traced in origin to Iceland, but we also report on the recent discoveries of ultra-distal tephra from the North American Cascades range, including for the first time the Mount St Helens J Tephra at a site in southern Ireland. These particular ultra-distal discoveries have resulted from a reinterpretation of older data, demonstrating the potential importance of ‘unknown’ analyses in older tephra datasets. The outcome of this review is a comprehensive but provisional tephrostratigraphic framework for the LGIT in the British Isles, which helps to focus future research on parts of the scheme that are in need of further development or testing. The results, therefore, make an important contribution to the wider European tephrostratigraphic framework, while adding new discoveries of transcontinental isochronous tephra markers

Philosophy of action

The philosophical study of human action begins with Plato and Aristotle. Their influence in late antiquity and the Middle Ages yielded sophisticated theories of action and motivation, notably in the works of Augustine and Aquinas.1 But the ideas that were dominant in 1945 have their roots in the early modern period, when advances in physics and mathematics reshaped philosophy

Association between age at disease onset of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis and clinical presentation and short-term outcomes

Objectives: ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) can affect all age groups. We aimed to show that differences in disease presentation and 6 month outcome between younger- A nd older-onset patients are still incompletely understood. Methods: We included patients enrolled in the Diagnostic and Classification Criteria for Primary Systemic Vasculitis (DCVAS) study between October 2010 and January 2017 with a diagnosis of AAV. We divided the population according to age at diagnosis: <65 years or ≥65 years. We adjusted associations for the type of AAV and the type of ANCA (anti-MPO, anti-PR3 or negative). Results: A total of 1338 patients with AAV were included: 66% had disease onset at <65 years of age [female 50%; mean age 48.4 years (s.d. 12.6)] and 34% had disease onset at ≥65 years [female 54%; mean age 73.6 years (s.d. 6)]. ANCA (MPO) positivity was more frequent in the older group (48% vs 27%; P = 0.001). Younger patients had higher rates of musculoskeletal, cutaneous and ENT manifestations compared with older patients. Systemic, neurologic,cardiovascular involvement and worsening renal function were more frequent in the older-onset group. Damage accrual, measured with the Vasculitis Damage Index (VDI), was significantly higher in older patients, 12% of whom had a 6 month VDI ≥5, compared with 7% of younger patients (P = 0.01). Older age was an independent risk factor for early death within 6 months from diagnosis [hazard ratio 2.06 (95% CI 1.07, 3.97); P = 0.03]. Conclusion: Within 6 months of diagnosis of AAV, patients >65 years of age display a different pattern of organ involvement and an increased risk of significant damage and mortality compared with younger patients