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Abstract This research aims to study the status of international treaties in the Palestinian constitutional system in light of the confusion regarding the relationship between local laws and international treaties as a result of the ambiguous interpretation of jurisprudence by the Palestinian Supreme Constitutional Court. This confusion led to the emergence of the combined theories of monism and dualism in determining the relationship between Palestinian legislation and international treaties ratified by the State of Palestine. This comes as a result of the failure of the Palestinian constitutional legislator to define the nature of this relationship and the place of ratified international treaties within the hierarchy of legislation. The researcher followed the descriptive and analytical approach to arrive at the results and recommendations. The author concludes that the theory of unilateralism is the theory that constitutes the true approach to ensuring the supremacy of international treaties over domestic law. This is because the amended Palestinian Basic Law of 2003 did not provide any mechanism to integrate rules derived from ratified international treaties into the domestic legal system. This research is significant in studying the status of international agreements by analyzing judicial jurisprudence without a constitutional text defining this status.

Which is prior, the whole or its parts? The holds that the whole is prior to its parts, and thus views the cosmos as fundamental, with metaphysical explanation dangling downward from the One. The holds that the parts are prior to their whole, and thus tends to consider particles fundamental, with metaphysical explanation snaking upward from the many. There seem to be physical and modal considerations that favor the monistic view. Physically, there is good evidence that the cosmos forms an and good reason to treat entangled systems as irreducible wholes. Modally, mereology allows for the possibility of , with no ultimate parts for the pluralist to invoke as the ground of being.

This essay addresses Cartesian duality and how its implicit dialectic might be repaired using physics and information theory. Our agenda is to describe a key distinction in the physical sciences that may provide a foundation for the distinction between mind and matter, and between sentient and intentional systems. From this perspective, it becomes tenable to talk about the physics of sentience and ‘forces’ that underwrite our beliefs (in the sense of probability distributions represented by our internal states), which may ground our mental states and consciousness. We will refer to this view as Markovian monism, which entails two claims: (1) fundamentally, there is only one type of thing and only one type of irreducible property (hence monism). (2) All systems possessing a Markov blanket have properties that are relevant for understanding the mind and consciousness: if such systems have mental properties, then they have them partly by virtue of possessing a Markov blanket (hence Markovian). Markovian monism rests upon the information geometry of random dynamic systems. In brief, the information geometry induced in any system—whose internal states can be distinguished from external states—must acquire a dual aspect. This dual aspect concerns the (intrinsic) information geometry of the probabilistic evolution of internal states and a separate (extrinsic) information geometry of probabilistic beliefs about external states that are parameterised by internal states. We call these intrinsic (i.e., mechanical, or state-based) and extrinsic (i.e., Markovian, or belief-based) information geometries, respectively. Although these mathematical notions may sound complicated, they are fairly straightforward to handle, and may offer a means through which to frame the origins of consciousness.

Grounding is often glossed as metaphysical causation, yet no current theory of grounding looks remotely like a plausible treatment of causation. I propose to take the analogy between grounding and causation seriously, by providing an account of grounding in the image of causation, on the template of structural equation models for causation.

Quantum mechanics seems to portray nature as nonseparable, in the sense that it allows spatiotemporally separated entities to have states that cannot be fully specified without reference to each other. This is often said to implicate some form of “holism.” We aim to clarify what this means, and why this seems plausible. Our core idea is that the best explanation for nonseparability is a “common ground” explanation (modeled after common cause explanations), which casts nonseparable entities in a holistic light, as scattered reflections of a more unified underlying reality.

The argument from internal relatedness was one of the major nineteenth century neo-Hegelian arguments for monism. This argument has been misunderstood, and may even be sound. The argument, as I reconstruct it, proceeds in two stages: first, it is argued that all things are internally related in ways that render them interdependent; second, the substantial unity of the whole universe is inferred from the interdependence of all of its parts. The guiding idea behind the argument is that failure of free recombination is the modal signature of an integrated monistic cosmos. Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another. For in a manner all things are implicated with one another …          (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, p. 43)

PurposeThis article is devoted to conditions and examples of how theories may be applied as methods in the fields of management research and organization studies.Design/methodology/approachAn introduction to minimum requirements for a successful refunctionalization of theory as method as well as to nine contributions to a special issue of the Journal of Organizational Change Management on “Theory as method” is provided.FindingsThe review of these nine cases suggests that the use of theories as methods is not necessarily harmful for the former, and particularly not for the more robust among them.Originality/valueThis article sheds new light on the value of theoretical monism or loyalty and calls for a reassessment of the relative value of expertise in a specific research field, method and or theory.

The goal of this essay is to put forward an original theory of artifact function, which takes on board the results of the debate on the notion of biological function and also accommodates the distinctive aspects of artifacts. More precisely, the paper develops and defends the Dual-Aspect Theory, which is a monist account according to which an artifact’s function depends on intentional and reproductive aspects. It is argued that this approach meets a set of theoretical and meta-theoretical desiderata and is superior to alternative views.

Recent advances in the cognitive, affective and social neurosciences have enabled these fields to study aspects of the mind that are central to psychoanalysis. These developments raise a number of possibilities for psychoanalysis. Can it engage the neurosciences in a productive and mutually enriching dialogue without compromising its own integrity and unique perspective? While many analysts welcome interdisciplinary exchanges with the neurosciences, termed neuropsychoanalysis, some have voiced concerns about their potentially deleterious effects on psychoanalytic theory and practice. In this paper we outline the development and aims of neuropsychoanalysis, and consider its reception in psychoanalysis and in the neurosciences. We then discuss some of the concerns raised within psychoanalysis, with particular emphasis on the epistemological foundations of neuropsychoanalysis. While this paper does not attempt to fully address the clinical applications of neuropsychoanalysis, we offer and discuss a brief case illustration in order to demonstrate that neuroscientific research findings can be used to enrich our models of the mind in ways that, in turn, may influence how analysts work with their patients. We will conclude that neuropsychoanalysis is grounded in the history of psychoanalysis, that it is part of the psychoanalytic worldview, and that it is necessary, albeit not sufficient, for the future viability of psychoanalysis.

Taking their motivation from the perceived failure of the reductive physicalist project concerning consciousness, panpsychists ascribe subjectivity to fundamental material entities in order to account for macro-consciousness. But there exists an unresolved tension within the mainstream panpsychist position, the seriousness of which has yet to be appreciated. I capture this tension as a dilemma, and offer advice to panpsychists on how to resolve it. The dilemma is as follows: Panpsychists take the micro-material realm to feature phenomenal properties, plus micro-subjects to whom these properties belong. However, it is impossible to explain the generation of a macro-subject (like one of us) in terms of the assembly of micro-subjects, for, as I show, subjects cannot combine. Therefore the panpsychist explanatory project is derailed by the insistence that the world's ultimate material constituents are subjects of experience. The panpsychist faces a choice of giving up her explanatory ambitions, or of giving up the claim that the ultimates are subjects. I argue that the latter option is preferable, leading to neutral monism, on which phenomenal qualities are irreducible but subjects are reducible. So panpsychists should be neutral monists.