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This chapter discusses “conceptual evolution” and the role of the environment in maintaining an invariant link between thought and the world. It shows how coordination breaks down when one moves into unaccustomed circumstances, and describes a general technique for decoupling thought from context by developing an increasingly articulated representation of the causal fabric in which phenomenal states are embedded. It then recommends a generalization of Perry's vocabulary of unarticulated constituents. Finally, the chapter brings the discussion back around and incorporates this into the general story of how the mind turns the fragile, fleeting links provided by experience into reliable, continuing connections that reach far into the spatial landscape and deeply into the circle of causes.

Large parts of the literature analyse monetary sovereignty as a static catalogue of state competences in monetary and financial matters. Approaching the concept of monetary sovereignty that way invites the undertaking of judgments over the degree to which a given state has preserved or lost its monetary sovereignty. The approach adopted in this chapter is different as it examines whether the concept of monetary sovereignty itself, as a dual concept that possesses not only positive but also increasingly important normative components, is subject to evolution. After a review of the conceptual foundations and underlying legal theories of money and monetary sovereignty, this opening chapter assesses the conceptual evolution of monetary sovereignty under the impact of contemporary constraints on its exercise. Finally, the chapter looks into the conceptual implications of the proposed new understanding of monetary sovereignty for the evaluation of the exercise of sovereign powers in the realm of money.

As explained in this general introduction, the analysis of the evolution of the concept of monetary sovereignty and its implications undertaken in this monograph accounts for the inherently dual nature of the concept of sovereignty which can be validly approached in two ways: directly, by focusing on the supreme authority of independent states and indirectly, by looking at the sovereign powers that originally all derive from the capacity of independent statehood. When approached as the supreme and irreducible authority of independent states, sovereignty is not a purely positive concept but is built on constantly evolving sovereign values. For the purpose of this monograph, the conceptual scope of monetary sovereignty is defined broadly as covering the right to create money; the right to conduct monetary and exchange rate policies; the right to decide upon the appropriate amount of current and capital account convertibility; and the organization of financial regulation and supervision.

A word’s meaning, according to the argument of Chapter 3, is constituted by certain presuppositions that it is common ground speakers associate with uses of the word. Presumably there can be changes in the things that constitute a word’s meaning from one time to another, without there being change of its meaning—without the word’s coming to have a meaning distinct from that it used to have. This chapter discusses a number of accounts of what might be necessary, sufficient, or necessary and sufficient for change of meaning, though it does not endorse a particular account. Much of the chapter discusses relations between changes in reference and truth conditions and change in meaning, as well as relations among referential indeterminacy, meaning change, and ‘what is said’ by a sentence.

This chapter describes the intense debate on the concept of security. The concept has been widened to include new types of threats, new referent objects and, in some cases, new rationales and normative content. Security studies have taken a constructivist turn. The chapter uses Michael Freeden’s framework for analysing political concepts. Political concepts are socially constructed, embedded in particular cultures and ideologies. As such, they change, but slowly. The chapter argues that the concept of security is not essentially contested, but its evolution is constrained by common usage. It has a minimal core on which all security schools of IR agree, explicitly or implicitly. From this minimal common ground different schools of thought have set about widening the meaning of the concept of security. The chapter argues that the concept of security retains in all its manifestations notions of existential threat, urgency and justification of exceptional measures.