Ishiguro’s protagonists are notable for their resolution. It is precisely this quality that leads characters such as Ono in An Artist of the Floating World, Stevens in Remains of the Day, Christopher Banks in When We Were Orphans, and Kathy H in Never Let Me Go to make life-defining but ethically dubious decisions. In this sense, irresolution can be seen, paradoxically and not unproblematically, as a key Ishigurian virtue. Indeed, irresolution inheres in Ishiguro’s novels in terms of narrative form as well as ethics and theme: rather than offering epiphany, consolation, redemption, or any final hermeneutic closure or disclosure, the novels are insistent, resolute in their tendency towards thematic, ethical, and structural irresolution. At the same time, however, the desire for resolution is shown to be an understandable one, and to underlie the characters’ efforts to make meaning from the worlds and situations in which they find themselves.

In Chapter 2, we outline the theoretical core of our inquiry. To fully understand the experience of political discussion, we must think more broadly about the full set of considerations that structure people’s decisions. We introduce the concept of the 4D Framework to the process of political discussion, articulating what happens at each of four stages preceding, during, and after the opportunity to discuss politics. The stages include Detection, Decision, Discussion, and Determination. Individuals make choices at each stage of the cycle as a result of their unique individual dispositions and the social context, both of which contribute to unique motivations. To rigorously examine the motivations behind political discussion preferences, we develop the AAA Typology, which characterizes motivations as accuracy, affiliation, and affirmation. We argue that in contrast to previous research emphasizing instrumental goals in political discussion (i.e. to learn more information, an accuracy goal), most individuals are driven to preserve their self-esteem (affirmation) and the social ties with their potential discussants (affiliation).

Chapter 8 considers Stage 4 of the feedback loop: Determination. We examine how individuals anticipate relationships changing after political conversations and how discussion behavior is correlated with social distancing and social polarization. We use nationally representative survey data to capture individuals’ reflections on their own social distancing behaviors as well as their projections of such behavior onto hypothetical characters in vignette experiments. We uncover that about a quarter of Americans have distanced themselves socially from a friend because of politics. Americans have done so in a variety of ways, including stopping all political discussion, forbidding their children from playing together, and severing all social ties completely. Vignette experiments revealed that individuals are more likely to avoid future political and social interactions with others who disagree with them. Using data from the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Elections Project, we find that strong partisans in the most like-minded discussion networks were more likely to be socially polarized, compared to strong partisans who were in disagreeable discussion networks.

Determination and redetermination are critical components of a unitization agreement. The negotiation and renegotiation of the share allocation system enable parties to update the agreement as new information or technology appears. Several accepted methods of redetermination have developed in the oil and gas context, but none currently exist for aquifers. Some examples do appear to approach direct and indirect methods of aquifer redetermination. Examples of direct methods would involve the proven availability of groundwater or available rights to storage within the aquifer. Examples of indirect methods include allocations determined by modeling of geologic conditions, pooled reductions in groundwater extraction, or refinements in a management plan that allocates extraction rates.

Chapter 2 explains the place of mathematics in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The Transcendental Aesthetic and the Axioms of intuition both make claims about mathematics that overlap and also appear inconsistent concerning the possibility and the applicability of mathematics. This has baffled prior commentators, leading them either to claim that Kant was inconsistent or to introduce distinctions to render him consistent. Two of those distinctions are between pure and applied mathematics and between general “topological” mathematics and a mathematics that includes a metric. Both these interpretations are supported by the fact that the Axioms of Intuition makes important claims about the applicability of mathematics, but the interpretations cannot be sustained. A consideration of the treatment of space and time in the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Axioms of Intuition faces parallel tensions. Examining the latter tensions points to a distinction between indeterminate space and time and determinate spaces and times as a solution, which also solves the tension concerning mathematics. This resolution allows us to see that the Axioms of Intuition concerns not just applied mathematics and not just the introduction of a metric, but all mathematics, topological or otherwise, and both pure and applied.

The chapter covers the period prior to the assassination of Elijah Lovejoy in 1838. It begins with a fugitive’s eye view of the journey through the North. It then discusses both the motivations that spurred enslaved men and women to make the journey in the first place and the enormous risks that they faced. The chapter then turns to Underground activists and the experiences that moved them to assist fugitives in defiance of slave catchers, the law, and often their own communities. The emergence of free black communities in the North and the arrival of escapees on the doorsteps of sympathetic whites sparked the creation of the first embryonic networks for the assistance of fugitives. Finally, the chapter surveys early fugitive slave rescues, including some that display geographically distinct reactions to the intrusion of slave catchers into Northern communities.