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The authors offer a multiplicative model that provides a comprehensive framework to place the main findings of the volume. The model is based on the standard ‘expected utility maximization’ model of the economists, which can be applied for understanding election outcomes. The idea is that the voter weights the utility of a given policy by the probability of its being implemented, sums this across the different policies, and then votes for whichever party gives the greatest expected utility. However, Heath, Jowell, and Curtice emphasize the fact that the rational choice model needs to be expanded to include some of the ‘non‐rational’ processes observed in their research such as the possibility that voters’ preferences may be shaped by the political parties and should not to be treated only as independent factors. The model should also be modified to take account of other sorts of processes such as social interaction, social conformity and what the authors have termed the ‘forked‐tail’ effect related to the generalization of the disillusionment from a specific party policy into a general disillusion with the party's competence.

This chapter discusses some aspects of Coleridge's published prose works written between 1815 and 1825, including The Statesman's Manual (1816), Biographia Literaria (1817), The Friend (1818), and Aids to Reflection (1825). It argues that while Coleridge remained trapped within Hume's ‘fork’ of anthropomorphism and agnosticism, and cannot be said to have discovered an original solution to the philosophical and religious questions he encountered, his writings on religion, and particularly his pained acknowledgement of uncertainty and doubt, were authentic responses to the profound intellectual problems he had inherited from his precursors.

This chapter provides an outline of the structure of Hume's epistemology, as presented in the first two sections of Part III of the first book of the Treatise. Whereas in the more familiar discussion in the Enquiry, Hume divides the epistemological terrain into two domains: ‘relations of ideas’, in which either intuitive or demonstrative knowledge is attainable; and ‘matters of fact’, in which it is not (often termed ‘Hume's Fork’), the present discussion focuses on the basically equivalent but more complex formulation in the Treatise in terms of two species of ‘philosophical relations’. The aim is to show how Hume's analysis is best seen as a modification of Locke's and is intimately connected with the perceptual model of cognition. In view of the latter, it is also argued that a priori knowledge for Hume is neither analytic nor synthetic in the Kantian sense.

This is by far the longest chapter of the book. It deals with the most important and mysterious natural modality: causation. It proceeds from the basic idea underlying all deterministic and probabilistic theories of causation that a cause raises the metaphysical or epistemic status of the effect given the obtaining circumstances. For direct causes the circumstances can be explained in a non-circular way. Thus, the basic idea immediately yields a precise explication of deterministic direct causes in ranking-theoretic terms. The explication is extended to direct causal dependence between variables and allows proving all basic principles such as the common cause principle and the causal Markov condition. Hence, causal theorizing in terms of Bayesian nets works here equally well. These definitions of causal relations are frame-relative, but they allow inferring what causation is in absolute terms. Moreover, a way is shown of how not to deny, but to accommodate so-called interactive forks, which prima facie violate the common cause principle. Finally, the analysis is extended to indirect causation by a detailed argument for the transitivity of causation, which, however, entails the transitivity of causal dependence between variables only under additional assumptions. All this is done with a continuous look at many examples and many other accounts of causation. An appendix briefly extends the analysis to causal explanation. And a final appendix argues that inference to the best explanation is basically the ranking analogue of Bayes’ theorem and, moreover, that there is no problem of the catch-all hypothesis within the ranking-theoretic framework.

The 1820s and 1830s were years of ferment and experiment in fiction in Ireland. Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna wrote religious novels while Harriet Martineau wrote improvement fiction. Lady Blessington specialized in the fashionable novel, but on two occasions mixed it with an Irish setting that drew respectively on the works of William Carleton and W. H. Maxwell. The latter was the originator of the military novel, which imagined a world where Irishmen from different backgrounds could operate together on the basis of at least a temporary equality. Military life was seen as a refuge not so much for the irresponsible male as for the bereft romantic male. In addition, it is within the darker context of military life that ‘rollicking’, the enacting of humorous Irish stereotypes, can been seen as a reasonable strategy designed to elude harsh treatment, rather than merely as a pandering to British views of the Irish.

This chapter deals with the moment of surrender between the Romans and their enemies in the last two centuries B.C. It raises the question of why and when they stopped fighting, and how surrender was brought about. Moreover, it will work out motivations, expectations, and emotions of the individual soldiers as well as of their commanders, which finally led to their giving in — or not giving in. Based on case studies like the famous ‘Mancinus affair’ not only the fates of defeated generals, towns or peoples are to be analysed but also Roman values and legal procedures, especially, the practice and consequences of deditio, an act of surrender, which in itself is unconditional.

This chapter discusses the application of forum-selection and multiple proceeding regulating norms to interactions between national and international courts. It begins with a review of forum selection agreements and other treaty clauses governing choice of forum (such as exclusive jurisdiction provisions). It concludes that in the absence of such specific norms forum shopping is generally permissible. The next part of the Chapter examines the application of the electa una via (fork in the road), lis alibi pendens, and res judicata rules to the parallel or consecutive invocation of multiple proceedings as reflected in the practice of NAFTA, ICSID, ITLOS, and other national and international courts. The chapter concludes that the conceptual difficulties identified in earlier chapters complicate any attempt to identify clear and consistent practice on the matter.

Unless something to the contrary is explicitly said in a given subjunctive conditional, the closest antecedent worlds are ones that are exactly like the actual world until shortly before the time of the antecedent and then fork away from such likeness in some inconspicuous manner. The alternatives are: the closest world is unlike the actual world through all pre‐antecedent time; at the closest world, the antecedent comes to be true with a ‘bump’. This chapter discusses what goes on at a fork and the temporal locations of forks.

The primacy of causal laws in subjunctive conditionals is explained. Discussion of miracles at forks, and of counter‐legal conditionals: ones about what would have been the case if some actual causal law had been false. Subjunctives are ‘impossibility‐intolerant’; comparison of this with the zero intolerance of indicatives.

Steward's Fork was the initial name of Stuart Fork, a fork of the Trinity River that ends about five miles upstream of Trinity Lake and about two miles up from the Trinity Alps Resort. Like the many forks of a river, this book represents the steward's fork as different pathways toward sustainable future for these landscapes. It focuses on the Klamath Mountains and emphasizes that the stewardship of their ecosystems requires special attention. The book proposes the involvement of individuals and communities in the protection and management of natural resources, and the need to make intelligent decisions for the sustainable future of the Klamath Mountains.

The epilogue explores recent expressions of historical memory in Natchez. The efforts of the National Park Service, the Historic Natchez Foundation and the Natchez Courthouse Records Project have set in motion progressive changes hardly imaginable a few decades ago. These include a growing number of Pilgrimage home tours that acknowledge the contributions of enslaved laborers, funding to interpret the Forks of the Road slave market site, and the Natchez Trails project that depicts a more racially inclusive history throughout downtown streets and neighborhoods. But even as these developments signal important steps forward, some efforts falter amid contestation. For most of its lifespan, Natchez’s white victors wrote its history. Today that history is beginning to be re-imagined and rewritten by a small group of liberal whites and vocal black agents pushing for long overdue change. Hopefully, Natchez’s example will prompt other southern communities to examine, re-imagine and more accurately share their own local histories.

Chapter 1 begins by stressing the severity of climate change (CC) and showing how, contrary to popular belief, atomic energy is not a viable solution to CC. Many scientists and most market proponents agree that renewable energy and energy efficiencies are better options. The chapter also shows that government subsidies for oil and nuclear power are the result of flawed science, poor ethics, short-term thinking, and special-interest influence. The chapter has 7 sections, the first of which surveys four major components of the energy crisis. These are oil addiction, non-CC-related deaths from fossil-fuel pollution, nuclear-weapons proliferation, and catastrophic CC. The second section summarizes some of the powerful evidence for global CC. The third section uses historical, ahistorical, Rawlsian, and utilitarian ethical principles to show how developed nations, especially the US, are most responsible for human-caused CC. The fourth section shows why climate-change skeptics, such as “deniers” who doubt CC is real, and “delayers” who say that it should not yet be addressed, have no valid objections. Instead, they all err scientifically and ethically. The fifth section illustrates that all modern scientific methods—and scientific consensus since at least 1995—confirm the reality of global CC. Essentially all expert-scientific analyses published in refereed, scientific-professional journals confirm the reality of global CC. The sixth section of the chapter shows how fossil-fuel special interests have contributed to the continued CC debate largely by paying non-experts to deny or challenge CC. The seventh section of the chapter provides an outline of each chapter in the book, noting that this book makes use of both scientific and ethical analyses to show why nuclear proponents’ arguments err, why CC deniers are wrong, and how scientific-methodological understanding can advance sound energy policy—including conservation, renewable energy, and energy efficiencies.

This epilogue focuses on “Forked Deer.” It is one of very few fiddle tunes that now flourish in southern fiddle styles ranging from straightforward to quite fancy, and throughout the United States—in old-time fiddling in the Upper South, in exuberant West Virginia styles, and in the melodic improvisations of the modern contest fiddling originating in Texas. Both the title and the melody of “Forked Deer” enter the historical record in George P. Knauff's Virginia Reels. Like most southern fiddle tunes, however, “Forked Deer” did not make it into the nineteenth-century mainstream of instrumental anthologies. In fact, this tune found its way into just one publication later in that century. The chapter then considers the title “Forked Deer.” The multivalence of the title “Forked Deer” plus the particular retitling of the tune touch most of the normal categories for fiddle tune titles in the American South.

Since the early nineteenth-century, entrepreneurs have looked to Eastern Kentucky’s natural resources as a means to enrich themselves and their business partners. In their wake, they have often left an impoverished region that suffers from chronic unemployment, economic underdevelopment, and severe environmental damage. The story of the three forks of the Kentucky River demonstrates that the economic prosperity of the Commonwealth has historically been tied to its waterways. For Eastern Kentucky, this connection has not resulted in long-term prosperity, but rather brief moments of development tied to the water harvest bounty. For example, on the Kentucky River’s South Fork, Central Kentucky elites shipped salt for national pork preservation. The salt pork industry led to a brief prosperity in Clay County that ended with the rise of the Kanawha salt industry elsewhere in the country. In Lee County at the Kentucky River’s main course, lock and dam construction for transporting lumber and coal boosted the local economy significantly, but by the time the dams were finished, the Louisville and Atlantic Railroad had gained shipments previously reserved for waterways and modern barges had grown too large for the river.

Demea gets his chance to produce his a priori proof for God’s existence. It starts out looking like a cosmological argument and finishes as an ontological one. His argument is modeled on the version offered by Samuel Clarke in his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. Cleanthes, rejecting a priori arguments, is given criticisms drawn from Hume’s Enquiry.