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This paper, which was originally published in the journal Comparative Political Studies in 1999, is the second of two that elaborate a relatively general approach to judicial politics, which emphasizes the underlying social logics not just of law and courts but also of politics and government. The triad – two contracting parties and a dispute resolver – constitutes a primal social institution, a microcosm of governance, so in uncovering the institutional dynamics of the triad an essential logic of government itself is also uncovered; the objectives of this paper are to defend the validity of these contentions and to demonstrate their centrality to the discipline. After introducing the key concepts of dyad, triad, and normative structure, a model is presented of a particular mode of governance, i.e. the social mechanism by which the rules in place in any given community are adapted to the experiences and exigencies of those who live under them. The theory integrates, as interdependent factors, the evolution of strategic (utility-maximizing) behaviour and normative (cultural or rule-based) structure, and captures dynamics of change observable at both the micro level (the behaviour of individual actors), and the macro level (the institutional environment, or social structure, in which this behaviour takes place); the mechanisms of change that are endogenous to the model are specified, and the conditions under which these mechanisms would be expected to operate, and fail to operate, are identified. The model is then used to explain two hard cases of systemic change: the international trade regime, established by the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); and the French Fifth Republic, founded in 1958; the conclusion draws out some of the implications of the analysis for understanding of the complex relationship between strategic behaviour and social structure.

This chapter examines how initial interactions vary according to their gender composition; that is, whether the interaction involves two males, two females, or a male paired with a female. In general, the level of interactional involvement is greatest in the initial interactions of two females, intermediate in the male—female interactions, and least in male—male interactions. However, claims by previous writers that males are insensitive and unmotivated interaction partners are simply false, as the author's research findings show. And although certain misunderstandings probably do play a role in male—female interactions, hardly any gender differences are evident in these interactions, suggesting that previous claims regarding gender differences have been greatly exaggerated.

This chapter reviews the research history that led to the identification of the Big Five personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Following the lead of a previous study by David Funder and Carl Sneed, the effects of the Big Five personality traits in the initial interactions of male—male, male—female, and female—female dyads were examined. As expected, most of the effects found were for the traits of extraversion and agreeableness. Several serendipitous interaction effects were also found, however. These effects revealed that pairs of two extraverts or two introverts get along better than “mismatched” extravert—introvert pairs do. The results further revealed that dyads composed of two “disagreeable” individuals have particularly poor initial interactions.

A method is developed for analysing the determinants of network formation. The unit of analysis will be the dyad, a pair of households. Application of the method to data on a small Haya village in rural Tanzania showed that the formation of risk-sharing networks was influenced by kinship, geographical proximity, the number of common friends, clan membership, religious affiliation, and wealth.

This chapter analyzes Plotinus’ refutation of the Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s view of number in the Parmenides. By rejecting any quantitative value of number in the intelligible realm, Plotinus specifically focuses on Aristotle’s inability to understand the Monad and the Indefinite Dyad as the principles of creation and order of the intelligible. The chapter shows that Plotinus not only follows the steps of his Platonic and Neopythagorean predecessors in defence of Plato’s position, but cleverly uses Aristotle’s own ideas in arguing that number in the intelligible is activity and a property of primary substance (ousia). The result is an original and ontologically elaborate theory of substantial number which offers a new and more successful defence of Plato’s “true numbers” against Aristotle’s criticism and explains the relationship between substantial non-quantitative number and monadic quantitative number as that between intelligible paradigm and its material copy.

In this chapter, Dillon explores a number of questions regarding, firstly, the nature and structure of the Academy that Plato founded and bequeathed to his successors, and, secondly, the nature and doctrines he arrived at before his death. After examining the evidence, Dillon concludes that Plato purchased a private property, with its own garden, in the late 380s, located alongside a grove, or public park, which was outside the walls of Athens, and which was called the Academy after the hero for whom the park was named: Hekademos. Academic discussion in the last stage of Plato's career centres on the Theory of Forms as Form Numbers; in logic, the doctrine of diairesis or the logical divisions; and, in Ethics, the understanding of the virtues as means between extremes of ‘too much’ and ‘too little’; also important is the distinction made in the Laws between goods of the soul and external goods. Much of the physical or cosmological speculation of the Old Academy is focussed on the interpretation of the nest of problems presented by the Timaeus, which is not taken literally by Plato's successors; and on the attempt to reconcile this with Plato's oral teachings, i.e. the Unwritten doctrines.

Plato's nephew Speusippus was already over 60 when he assumed the headship of the Academy on his uncle's death, and his reign was short (347–339). Aristotle is our principle source for the Old Academy (i.e. prior to 322), which is problematic, as Aristotle tends to be rather tendentious in the way he treats his contemporaries; but apart from Aristotle's evidence, we have very little to go on regarding Speusippus’ philosophy, as only two of his works, On Pythagorean Numbers and the Letter to Philip survive. The most original and influential aspect of Speusippus’ thought is his discussion of the nature of the first principles, in particular, his development of Plato's notions of the One and the indefinite Dyad (which Speusippus called the ‘One and Multiplicity’), and his attempt to explain how the totality of being came to be from these principles. Speusippus was innovative in his understanding of Platonic cosmology, as presented in the Timaeus, although his innovations, e.g. the notion of World‐Soul, did not make their mark until the Neopythagoreanism of the first two centuries A.D. Speusippus’ ideas on happiness and pleasure were already criticized by Plato in the Philebus, but he may have influenced the stoics on this point; while Aristotle, despite his barbed comments, probably learnt a lot from Speusippus’ logic, which included work on genera and species, and on ambiguity as the source of Sophist fallacies.

Xenocrates, who had accompanied Plato on one of his visits to Sicily, became head of the Academy in 339 B.C. Xenocrates stays close to what he takes to be the cosmological doctrine of Plato's Timaeus; indeed Xenocrates’ doctrine may be seen as something of a retreat from Speusippus’ radical position, perhaps in response to Aristotle's criticisms. Dillon reconstructs Xenocrates's cosmological or metaphysical scheme as comprising a pair of first principles, the Monad, or Nous, and the Dyad, or the ‘Everflowing’, to which the Pythagorean tetraktys corresponds as the active counterpart; and a World‐Soul, which receives the forms from the Supreme God's mind, and projects them upon the physical plane. In Logic, Xenocrates remained faithful to Platonic logic, rejecting the Aristotelian categories, although he did argue that the species was prior to the genus; in Ethics, while keen to formalize Plato's teachings, Xenocrates ends up with a position very similar to Aristotle's, in that he emphasizes the needs of the body as well as those of the soul. Xenocrates had a dominant effect on the development of Platonism, because he systematized what he took to be Plato's philosophical system, thus laying the foundation for the ‘Platonic’ system of philosophy; it is Xenocrates’ definition of Form, for instance, which became the standard definition of a Platonic Form.

This chapter questions the assumption that buyers and sellers in dyadic exchanges arrive at the exchange fully configured. Instead, it suggests that market agents are shaped by the exchange process as much as they shape it. It reports on a study of a consumer electronics retailer in Sweden. It analyses the configuration of exchange and agencies based on a detailed empirical account, including observations from shopping online and the opening of a warehouse shop. Based on this account, the chapter argues that agents participating in exchange are heterogeneous entities; that exchange processes require the assembling and disassembling of agencies; that the buyer and seller are mutually configured; and that different modes of exchange require different buyer and seller configurations.

Christianity is formed around a very strange figure: that of a god who is also an embodied human and whose function is to save or redeem humankind. This chapter focuses on the particular version of that figure developed in Valentinian Christianity. As in other modes of thought labelled gnostic, this figure redeems by teaching rather than by sacrifice. The chapter argues that this teaching can only be accomplished in the flesh. In Valentinian thought, Christ is always in complex relation to Limit (Horos), by which creation happens. The chapter traces the idea of limit as creative from its Platonic origins in the One and Unlimited Dyad. Limit plays a key role by making things different from one another and by giving form. Limit is a function of the redeemer, who teaches through physical presence and through the senses. What is taught is an understanding of the matter of the world as an always-moving divine image. Valentinian cosmogony and theology are always in movement, rather than reaching a static end. One way of understanding this particular movement, which is highly arithmetic, is to think of continued delimitation as something like the generation of fractals in contemporary geometry.

This chapter explores a pattern of pairing and avoidance that Korowai enact across many different areas of life activity. It then looks at what can be called dyad-based forms of person reference, in which a kinship term is joined to a personal name. Interactional avoidance, like landownership and travel across ownership margins, is organized as a questioning exploration of how people stand to each other. Beyond underlining that pairing is a characteristic Korowai mode of relation making, it has attempted more specifically to make clear the kinds of relations, persons, and social worlds that are created through Korowai practices of pairing. In practices of pairing and avoidance, Korowai specifically focus on alterity as a core aspect of signifying acts. Dyad-based person reference forms, along with mother-in-law avoidance, signal people's histories of emerging from or being involved with others' bodies and bodily actions.

This chapter suggests that the Orient/Occident dyad that Edward Said considered fundamental to European self-understanding was, if not absent, far less stable in this period than his argument would imply. Crucially for the understanding of the experience of Egypt of the occupation of France, some historians have seen in the Egyptian expedition less a capricious attempt to impose an established Western social model on the benighted East than a speculative “laboratory” for attempting many of the ideas of the Enlightenment outside of local European constraints. Egypt was one of the cradles of imperialism of Napoleon Bonaparte. Said's critique of Orientalism has encouraged historians to see from the very beginning of this intellectual project a European desire to use knowledge as a force for the subjugation of an “Orient” that it consistently depicted as passive and stagnant, in order to impose its dominating will.

This chapter presents two case studies that illustrate the powerful analytic potential of biographical methods and discursive psychology in exploring different accounts of care within the same relationship. It presents a summary and detailed illustration of the analytic venture by focusing on two care dyads (a mother/daughter and a husband/wife partnership). The variety of care and related repertoires are highlighted and discussed in detail alongside a section focusing on the functioning of family-history talk. The care relationships drawn on in the chapter illustrate the possibilities for exploring intergenerational and marital relationships where there are quite different relationship histories and expectations.

With historians’ recognition of the growth in influence of the mercantile class in the Ming dynasty it is common to identify the appearance of contrasting and competing forms of cultural power along literati (shi) and mercantile (shang) lines. Examining how ancient spatial distinctions came to be reproduced in late-imperial textual strategies I argue that nineteenth century literati commentaries on attractive Beijing actors (huapu) represents a form of writing aimed at distinguishing the literati as a cultural group over and against merchants. The same process is found to reflect a historical prioritization of literary (wen) over martial (wu) masculinity in a manner that textually and spatially emasculates mercantile men. When considered along wen-wu lines, actors available for dating (xianggong) turn out to be better readers of wen masculinity and more effective in embodying that ideal than merchant theatergoers.

Doctors view the best relationship with patients in highly personal and idealistic terms, admitting through discussion of their own experiences that sustained interpersonal relationships with many patients are difficult to establish. For doctors, interpersonal trust with their patients looms as the central feature of strong, effective relationships. The ability to relate to patients on deeper psychological and emotional levels was the key focus for them in their work. They also cited other roles, such as friend and expert advisor, as important in gaining patient trust. Doctors’ views and their best patient relationship experiences emphasized the benefits of dyadic care delivery, even as the notion of the relational dyad finds less support within health care, given over instead to higher volume, transactionally oriented care relationships between organizations and patients.

In close relationships, conflict occurs when the needs and desires of partners diverge and are thus incompatible. Because partners interact with each other regarding a number of issues important to their relationship over time, it is inevitable that conflict will occur to at least some degree in every relationship. The existence of conflict in relationships is not always detrimental to relationship satisfaction or stability, and if managed positively conflicts have the potential to actually enhance the well-being of the relationship. In this chapter we discuss conflict as it relates to positive psychology, integrating an interdependence theory perspective, and review research demonstrating how a more active approach to managing relationship conflict can lead to beneficial relationship maintenance and outcomes. The quality of relationships can be maintained over time, therefore, not because of the absence of interpersonal conflict, but by how intimates deal with conflict when it arises.

The aggregation and dispersal of people in a public space potentiate and may facilitate certain types of behaviour, deviant as well as conventional. Moreover, multiple factors potentiate aggregation and dispersal, including day of the week, weather, temperature, seasonality, hour of the day or night. Here, units of aggregation center on the number of parties in a unit: singletons (a single person, alone), dyads (two people, together), triads (three people), and triads-plus (more than three people together). Compared to other public locales, Washington Square Park has relatively few singletons, relatively many dyads, especially male-female dyads. Between the second half of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century, Washington Square Park moved from being a parochial to a public space—from a place where locals defended their own turf and excluded outsiders (especially African Americans) to a space where strangers of all kinds were welcome. The catchment area of the park is huge—most people who visit live in a different neighbourhood. The park’s neighbourhood is largely white and upper-middle-class; its visitors are vastly more diverse. All of these factors make for a place that accepts diversity and unconventionality.

John Bova and Paul M. Livingston’s “Univocity, Duality, and Ideal Genesis: Deleuze and Plato” elaborates an unorthodox yet powerful dualism in the writings of Plato. This dualism accounts for the structural origin of both supersensible ideas and the sensible particulars which participate in them. Further, this duality extends to the reflexive level of theory itself, recognizable in the incompatible metalogical demands for consistency and completeness. Bova and Livingston connect this formal dualism to Deleuze’s discussions of ideal genesis and the paradoxes of becoming. They show a presence of a proper “Platonism” of the Idea in Deleuze, and establish thereby the potential for a recuperation of Platonic dualism in the context of the Deleuzian univocity of being.