This work seeks to explicate the ontological assumptions that underpin the development of Conservative Party welfare policy from 2005 to 2010. The assumptions will be discussed in four themes: structure/agency, social change, human nature and gender. The work shall begin by discussing the ontological assumptions of neoliberalism through the work of Hayek, Friedman, Mead and Murray, using exampl...

This paper starts by outlining relevant aspects of a view of how indexicals in general and demonstratives in particular work, after which it presents a version of Davidson’s (1979) Demonstrative Theory of quotation that I have argued for in previous work. On this form of the demonstrative view, the quoted material plays a role analogous to the demonstrated item in cases of “deferred ostension” ...

Political science, as a discipline, has been reluctant to adopt theories and methodologies developed in fields studying human behavior from an evolutionary standpoint. I ask whether evolutionary concepts are reconcilable with standard political-science theories and whether those concepts help solve puzzles to which these theories classically are applied. I find that evolutionary concepts readil...