The science of consciousness is a nascent and thriving field of research that is founded on identifying the minimally sufficient neural correlates of consciousness. However, I have argued that it is the neural constitution of consciousness that science seeks to understand and that there are no evident strategies for distinguishing the correlates and constitution of (phenomenal) consciousness. H...

We propose a schema that characterizes how parts constitute wholes at diverse levels of organization, ranging from the atomic to the biological to the social. This schema of tags, organizers, attachers, and communicators provides a unified understanding of the structure, function, and dynamics of organization in physics, biology, and the cognitive and social sciences. We use this schema to iden...

The essay argues that the content of constitutions should derive from its political functions: granting stability and legitimacy to government. There are three main candidates for inclusion in constitutions: regime arrangements, human rights, and general credo. All constitutions must include institutional arrangements. The level of detail and entrenchment may vary. There are important reasons f...

While constitutions regulate political authority within a state, there is much we do not know about the interaction between political conditions and constitutional texts. Much of the literature relies upon hand-coded databases of constitutional texts. However, this approach raises both methodological and theoretical concerns. Advances in natural language processing, particularly latent text ana...

BACKGROUND The theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) constitution involves genetic characteristics, psychological factors, organ functions, and many other aspects. Studies have shown that TCM constitution is associated with HLA polymorphisms and has a genetic basis. A large number of Chinese studies have suggested that the clinical evolution of breast cancer may differ among patients wit...

This paper proposes a normative theory of constitutional rules. The first-best cannot be achieved whenever constitutional rules cannot be made contingent on information about the costs and benefits of policy reforms. We characterize and welfare rank four classes of second best constitutions: constitutions that specify one rule for all types of decisions; constitutions that provide incentives fo...

One of the chief problems about discussing any aspect of Aristotle's political thought, but especially his thinking about constitutions, is the apparent disorder of the Politics. The relatively loose and dialectical nature of the argument is certainly responsible for some of its unevenness: the repetitions, the omissions of promised discussions of particular topics, and the sudden turns, perhap...

Many constitutions specify procedures that allow critical decisions to be made with a different rule than routine decisions. We propose a theory of constitutional rules that explains why. The theory is based on the assumption that the type of a decision can be observed, but not veri...ed. We characterize two classes of second-best constitutions, both with clear analogues in real world constitut...

We provide a dynamic theory of endogenous constitutions by relating the emergence of political institutions to different development patterns. These scenarios give rise to different constitutional designs depending on the relative power and interests of the different population groups during the transition. We focus in particular on efficiency and redistribution aspects the public sector. Const...