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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history
The history of American universities is punctuated by shifts in the terms on which the mission of higher education is defined and debated. A dramatic moment with lasting effects came with the introduction of German-speaking exile intellectuals in the Hitler era. In Germany, the academic culture of the early twentieth century was torn by the struggle between Wissenschaft and Bildung, two symbolic German terms, whose lack of precise English equivalents is a sign of the different configuration in America. The studies in this book examine the achievements of numerous influential emigre intellectuals against the background of their mediation between the two cultural traditions in science and liberal studies. In showing the richness of reciprocal influences, the book challenges claims about the disruptive influence of exile culture on the American mind.
People power explores the history of the theory and practice of popular power. Western thinking about politics has two fundamental features: 1) popular power in practice is problematic and 2) nothing confers political legitimacy except popular sovereignty. This book explains how we got to our current default position, in which rule of, for and by the people is simultaneously a practical problem and a received truth of politics. The book asks readers to think about how appreciating that history shapes the way we think about the people's power in the present. Drawn from the disciplines of history and political theory, the contributors to this volume engage in a mutually informing conversation about popular power. They conclude that the problems that first gave rise to popular sovereignty remain simultaneously compelling, unresolved and worthy of further attention. -- .
Assessing the dawn of the Anthropocene era, a poet and philosopher asks: How do we live at the end of the world? The end of the Holocene era is marked not just by melting glaciers or epic droughts, but by the near universal disappearance of shared social enterprise: the ruling class builds walls and lunar shuttles, while the rest of us contend with the atrophy of institutional integrity and the utter abdication of providing even minimal shelter from looming disaster. The irony of the Anthropocene era is that, in a neoliberal culture of the self, it is forcing us to consider ourselves as a collective again. For those of us who are not wealthy enough to start a colony on Mars or isolate ourselves from the world, the Anthropocene ends the fantasy of sheer individualism and worldlessness once and for all. It introduces a profound sense of time and events after the so-called "end of history" and an entirely new approach to solidarity. How to Live at the End of the World is a hopeful exploration of how we might inherit the name "Anthropocene," renarrate it, and revise our way of life or thought in view of it. In his book on time, art, and politics in an era of escalating climate change, Holloway takes up difficult, unanswered questions in recent work by Donna Haraway, Kathryn Yusoff, Bruno Latour, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Isabelle Stengers, sketching a path toward a radical form of democracy—a zoocracy, or, a rule of all of the living.
The earliest scientific studies of Jewish messianism were conducted by the scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums school, particularly Heinrich Graetz, the first great Jewish historian of the Jews since Josephus. These researches were invaluable because they utilized primary sources in print and manuscript which had been previously unknown or used only in polemics. The Wissenschaft studies themselves, however, prove to be polemics as well on closer inspection. Among the goals of this group was to demonstrate that Judaism is a rational and logical faith whose legitimacy and historical progress deserve recognition by the nations of Europe. Mystical and messianic beliefs which might undermine this image were presented as aberrations or the result of corrosive foreign influences on the Jews. Gershom Scholem took upon himself the task of returning mysticism and messianism to their rightful central place in the panorama of Jewish thought. Jewish messianism was, for Scholem, a central theme in the philosophy and life of the Jews throughout their history, shaped anew by each generation to fit its specific hopes and needs. Scholem emphasized that this phenomenon was essentially independent of messianic or millenarian trends among other peoples. For example, in discussing messianism in the early modern era Scholem describes a trunk of influence on the Jewish psyche set off by the expulsion from Spain in 1492.
ORIGIN OF THE PROJECT In Spring of 1968 a research project concerning the scholastic philosophy in the Iberian Colonies of America was submitted to the Institute of Latin American Studies in the University of Texas by Dr. Ignacio Angelelli, of the Department of Philosophy of the same University. I should like to quote some relevant passages from the proposal by way of historical back ground. In the last decade, leading philosophical historiography has become more and more interested in the "minor" figures and the "traditional" schools which flourished between 1500 and 1800. Historians of philosophy are interested not only in men like Descartes and Kant, but also in the less brilliant and more "conservative" authors. It is also interesting to note in this regard that the late Professor P. Wilpert (Cologne), editor of the new edition of Ueberweg, intended to divide the section on the Neuzeit into two volumes, one for the major figures and the other for the exponents of the various forms of scholasticism of the period 1500-1800. One of these conservative philosophical movements is what has been called the seconda scolastica, which developed in Catholic countries and particularly in Spain and Portugal. Naturally, this "traditional" thought in Europe after 1500 was bound to have an impact on the Spanish and Portuguese Colonies. Indeed, the amount of scholastic philosophy taught in the American Colonies between 1530 and 1800 is impressive. This fact has not yet been acknowledged by international historiography."
This book presents a philosophical position examined philosophically. Although it does not go beyond the confines ofFicino's perspective and is governed by standards of historical accuracy, it makes explicit in its explanation ofFicino's text the enduring philosophical questions which are at issue there. True, the book examines in some detail Ficino's relation to his Platonic and Scholastic sources, and this is an issue of primary interest to those who study the history of culture or the his torical development of philosophy. However, in Ficino's thought, this issue is also a philosophical issue. Ficino chooses Platonism as his guide because this philosophy retains an explicit and essential orientation to religion. When he takes Platonism as the primary instance of philoso phy, he is taking a stand on the nature of philosophy itself. Philosophy necessarily points toward the divinity and hence is necessarily related to the veneration and worship of its object. Christian theology joins Platonic philosophy in this movement toward God, developing more completely the implications of its fundamental insights. And the 1 "splendor of Christian theology" is Thomas Aquinas. Therefore, to examine the relationship between Platonism and Thomism in Ficino's thought is to examine Ficino's position on the unity of philosophy and theology. Scholars writing about Ficino have pointed to three major influences on his thought. The influence of Plato and the neo-Platonists, of course, is readily recognized."
Only in fairly recent years has History and Philosophy of Science been recognized - though not always under that name - as a distinct field of scholarly endeavour. Previously, in the Australasian region as elsewhere, those few individuals working within this broad area of inquiry found their base, both intellectually and socially, where they could. In fact, the institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science began compara tively early in Australia. An initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appointments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the 1950s and '60s similar to that which took place in other parts of the world. Today there are major Departments at the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia, and in New Zealand. "Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science" aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for Australian and New Zealand scholars working in the general area of history, philosophy and social studies of science. Each volume will comprise a group of essays on a connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with special expertise in that particular area. The series should, however, prove of more than merely local interest. Papers will address general issues; parochial topics will be avoided."
thinking of the text from the Dies frae (S. Matthew, XXV, 40). It is also probable that this other Saint Francis, partly out of admiration for his illustrious compatriot of Assisi and partly from a compelling urge to be superlative in all things, chose the title in opposition to the Franciscans, the Fratres Minori, l who had previously adopted this style taken from Saint Matthew, XXIII, 8. The title "Minim" was confirmed in these words" . . . eosque Eremitos Ordinis Minimorum Fratrum Eremitarum F. Francesci de Paula in posterum nuncupari," taken from the Papal Bull, Meritis religiosae vitae, of 26 February, 1493. The earliest reference to the Order in France is in a fragment preserved in the Bibliotheque de l' Arsenal called, La regle et vie de Frere Franfois, pauvre et humble hermite de Paule, laquelle donne a tous ses 2 freres voulant entrer et vivre en son ordre. The dating of this manuscript should be accepted with considerable reserve; it bears a clearly legible "1474," although it seems most unlikely that any reference to an Order occurred before the Bull of 1493 or that any Rule appeared in French before the Founder's visit to Louis XI in 1483. 3 The fame of Francis and his reputation as a "guerisseur" had reached the French court where Louis XI was sick and dying; the King summoned him to the chateau of Le Plessis-Ies-Tours, but it required the intervention of the Pope to make the hermit undertake the journey.
There is no better way to understand a society's assessment of its own success or failure than an examination of its theories of education, because any attempt to improve national performance will be reflected in educational policy. This study is a comprehensive account of the evolution of American educational theory from the colonial period to the present. It includes a broad discussion of the foundations upon which early Americans built their educational policy, as well as influential factors unique to the American experience. From the Revolution to nineteenth century reform efforts to the turbulent twentieth century, educational theory has been adapted to suit the needs of an ever-changing, multicultural society. Throughout U.S. history key objectives have affected the character of education, particularly curriculum. One main thrust for reform has been the belief that equality in education serves the national interest. Examination of the historical attitudes toward the education of African Americans provides a valuable insight into this process. Today America is experiencing significant difficulties in making its educational system succeed, and the negative social effects of this deterioration are already apparent. The future success of educational theory lies in international cooperative efforts.
For centuries readers have admired the writer who wields his pen like a sword - an Aristophanes, a Rabelais, a Montaigne, a Swift. Using ribaldry, satire and irony in varying proportions, such writers pierce the thick, comfortable hide of society and uncover, predictably, the corruption and hypocrisy that characterize the life of man in commercial society. Though a lesser talent than any of these literary giants, Bernard Mande ville is nevertheless a member of their class. The crucial year in the emergence of his reputation was 1723, the year in which he added his controversial Essay on Charity and Charity-Schools to his Fable of the Bees. From that point on he became one of the most reviled targets of the public guardians of morality and religion; for some he appeared to be truly the Devil incarnate, Mandevil, as Fielding and others spelled it. This reputation was attached to his name well into the nineteenth centu ry. In a diary entry for June 1812 Henry Crabb Robinson recorded the following conversation with the elderly Mrs. Buller: "She received me with a smile, and allowed me to touch her hand. 'What are you reading, Mr. Robinson?' she said. 'The wickedest cleverest book in the English language, if you chance to know it. ' - 'I have known the "Fable of the Bees" more than fifty years. ' She was right in her guess."
Scholars have given relatively little attention to sixteenth-century Portuguese humanism, although Portugal's vital influence on the humanistic thirst for learning has been readily acknowledged. Through her heroic explorations of distant lands and dangerous sea routes, Portugal infected many humanists with the excitement of discovery, none more than Damiao de Gois, Portuguese student of history. Gois, although generally little known, was - in his life and finally as a victim of the Inquisition in Portugal - thoroughly representative of the course of sixteenth-century Erasmian humanism in Portugal; in addition he deserves recognition in his own right as a contributor to modern historiography. Portugal's explorations and the atmosphere of passion for discovery that prevailed in Lisbon had as strong an influence on Gois during his early years as that of the school of Erasmus, the "prince of humanists" who was eventually to become his personal friend and guide. Gois's two great chronicles of the Portuguese kings John II and Ma nuel I culminated a life spent as diplomat, composer, art collector, articulate pleader for religious tolerance, and scrupulous student of history. A factual report of Gois's life - in the main outlines accurate but not complete - exists in Portuguese, and a short resume of his life has been published in English, but so far no full study has been available in any language."
Over three hundred years ago, the paramount modern Catholic exegete, Cornelius a Lapide, S.J., wrote that the 25th of March, 2000, was the most likely date for the world to end. Catholic Millenarianism does not let the day pass without comment. Catholic Millenarianism offers an authoritative overview of Catholic apocalyptic thought combined with detailed presentations by specialists on nine major Catholic authors, such as Savonarola, Luis de LeA3n, and AntA3nio Vieira. With its companion volumes, Catholic Millenarianism illustrates a hold apocalyptic concerns had on intellectual life, particularly between 1500 and 1900, rivaling and influencing rationalism and skepticism. Catholics do not ordinarily expect a messianic reign by earthly means. Catholic Millenarianism shows instead what is common to Catholic authors: their preoccupation with the relationship between linguistic prophecies and the events they foretell. This makes the perspectives offered as surprisingly diverse as their particular times, and the book itself interesting and worth repeated reading.
Until the nineteenth century Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553-1617) was among the most famous and most valued of historians. While his first fame was a succes de scandale - the History of His Time was placed on the Index in 160g - de Thou's work quickly found favor with the humanistically-educated learned class throughout Europe. The esteem in which the History was held transcended religious divisions. The historian received letters of praise from staunchly orthodox Spain and Portugal as well as from heretic England and Germany; through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries his History was read with enthusi asm by certain cardinals at the very curia which condemned it; and so staunch a champion of orthodoxy as Bishop Bossuet did not hesitate to appeal to "such a great author" for support in his own historical works. ! To the philosophe of the Enlightenment de Thou's impartiality in de scribing the impassioned times through which he lived and the exact yet eloquent style with which he wrote the History of His Time were familiar touchstones. Voltaire appealed to the "truthful and eloquent de Thou" again and again in his works,2 William Pitt rose in the House of Commons to quote the words of the "great historian of France" during the early years of the French Revolution,3 Lessing 4 and Herder 5 praised him with poetic hyperbole, and Edward Gibbon re ferred to "the authority of my masters, the grave Thuanus and the philosophic Hume . . . .
2 Peter of Aillyl wrote his Concepts and Insolubles, according to the best 3 estimate, in 1372. He was at that time only about twenty-two years old. He was born around 1350" in Compiegne in the De de France, although his 5 family name associates him with the village of Ailly in Picardy. In 1364 he entered the University of Paris as a 'bursar' (i. e., the recipient of a scholarship) at the College de Navarre. He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1367 and taught there until 1368, when he entered the Faculty of Theology. He became a Doctor of Theology in 1381. In the years that followed, Peter was very active in the 'conciliar' movement and in negotiations to bring about the end of the Great Schism of the West. He was elevated to the rank of Cardinal in 1411 by Pope John XXIII, the successor of Alexander V in the 'Pisa' line of Popes. He took an active part in the Council of Constance (1414-1418), which ended the Great Schism and elected Pope Martin V. Peter died on August 9, 1420. Most of the secondary literature on Peter of Ailly concerns his role in church politics, his writings on the Schism and on ecclesiastical reform, and various aspects of his theology. But Peter was active in a number of other areas as well. He wrote several works, for instance, on geography and astron 6 omy, including an Imago mundi read by Christopher Columbus."
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.
This study has grown out of an interest in French education and cul ture that dates from fondly remembered student days in France. Specifically, it is an attempt to explain the educational thought of Claude Fleury, a literate, responsible homme de leUres who analyzed the historical origins of public education as it existed in seventeenth-cen tury France and, on that basis, proposed what he considered to be a more generally useful program of studies. Generous space has been devoted to historical, social, and pedagogical background in an effort to place Fleury's thought in its proper cultural context; namely, that of the decline of the Classical Age and the dawn of the Age of Reason. This background material represents also an attempt to explain, at times in detail, the origin of Fleury's Traite du Choix et de la Methode des Etudes and his rise to scholarly and pedagogical prominence at court. It is possible that Fleury's thought, while of most immediate interest to students of seventeenth-century cultural history, will be of interest also to a more general audience. In particular, those charged with providing education that must respond to the ever increasing practical needs of society and at the same time give to contemporary man a of his cultural heritage may find in Fleury's thought some useful sense historical perspective. It is a pleasure to acknowledge that this study would not have been possible without the encouragement and guidance of Dr. William W."
The purpose of this book is to describe the Duke of Rohan's role as a political leader of the Huguenot party from 1621 to 1629 placing somewhat less emphasis on his military achievements. It makes no claim to biographical completeness. The narrative is based on con temporary books and pamphlets and on manuscripts in the Biblio theque nation ale, the British Museum, and the Public Record Office. Research was also done at the Newberry Library, the Library of Congress, and at the University of Wisconsin's Memorial Library, notably in its Montauban, Tank, and French Pamphlet collections. In the preparation of this book I have received advice and assistance from many people. Personal thanks are due to William P. Kaldis, Jack Ray Thomas, and Howard S. Miller for reading the manuscript and to my wife Anna for typing several drafts of it. Marguerite Chris tensen, reference librarian at the University of Wisconsin, helped me secure a number of rare volumes on interlibrary loan. I would also like to thank Cynthia Kaldis for translating a large number of diplo matic letters from Seventeenth century Latin."
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? These questions form the title of an 1897 painting by the French artist Paul Gauguin. He knew he was pushing the limits of human knowledge by asking them. He also knew they are not new questions. Our ancestors began to ask them on the African savannah. The Roman poet Lucretius posed them in his long poem On the Nature of Things, written just before the Christian era. He sought natural explanations for the behaviour of matter, without recourse to gods. But he also knew that the world we see is largely a creation of our mind. Since then, science has answered most of his 'how' questions, almost to the point of offering us a 'Theory of Everything'. But Gauguin's 'why' questions remain largely unanswered. They require a personal response from us, without which, as Lucretius intuited, nothing can be joyous or lovely. In The Stupendous Story of Us, we consider the narrative from all angles: our mastery of the realm of things, our exploration of our inner world, and our connectedness to each other. The pace is frantic because life is short, knowledge is infinite, and the challenges ahead are pressing.
The influence of millenarian thinking upon Cromwell's England is well-known. The cultural and intellectual conceptions of the role of millenarian ideas in the long' 18th century when, so the official' story goes, the religious sceptics and deists of Enlightened England effectively tarred such religious radicalism as enthusiasm' has been less well examined. This volume endeavors to revise this official' story and to trace the influence of millenarian ideas in the science, politics, and everyday life of England and America in the 17th and 18th centuries.
"Martin should be commended for finding a niche in this vast literature and managing to say something original . . . His book is worth reading because it reminds us of an important aspect of Enlightenment thinking, one that questioned the freedom of the will." . H-France ." . . strongly recommended for specialists and advanced scholars of the period." . History: Review of New Books ." . . a valuable contribution to the institutional history of the Jacobin clubs." . Canadian Journal of History What view of man did the French Revolutionaries hold? Anyone who purports to be interested in the "Rights of Man" could be expected to see this question as crucial and yet, surprisingly, it is rarely raised. Through his work as a legal historian, Xavier Martin came to realize that there is no unified view of man and that, alongside the "official" revolutionary discourse, very divergent views can be traced in a variety of sources from the Enlightenment to the Napoleonic Code. Michelet's phrases, "Know men in order to act upon them" sums up the problem that Martin's study constantly seeks to elucidate and illustrate: it reveals the prevailing tendency to see men as passive, giving legislators and medical people alike free rein to manipulate them at will. His analysis impels the reader to revaluate the Enlightenment concept of humanism. By drawing on a variety of sources, the author shows how the anthropology of Enlightenment and revolutionary France often conflicts with concurrent discourses. Xavier Martin is a Historian of Law and Professor at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences at Angers University. He has published extensively on the ideology of the French Revolution and on the Code Civil of 1804.
Caribbean migration to Britain brought many new things - new musics, new foods, new styles. It brought new ways of thinking too. This innovative book explores the intellectual ideas which the West Indians brought with them to Britain. It shows that for more than a century West Indians living in Britain developed a dazzling intellectual critique of the codes of imperial Britain. live in 20th-century Britain, chapters discuss the influence of amongst others: C.L.R. James; Una Marson; George Lamming; Jean Rhys; Claude McKay and V.S. Naipaul. The contributors draw from many different disciplines to bring alive the thought and personalities of the figures they discuss, providing a dramatic picture of intellectual developments in Britain from which we can still learn much. An introduction argues that the recovery of this Caribbean past, on the home-territory of Britain itself, reveals much about the prospects of multiracial Britain. interested in relations between the Caribbean and Britain, imperial history, literature, cultural and black studies should find much of interest in this collection.
Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung. Von E. MACH Emer. Professor an der Unlversltlt Wlen. LEIPZIG Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth 1905. INTRODUCTION XIII On a number of occasions Mach expressed the sentiment, especially in his correspondence, that America was the land of intellectual freedom and opportunity, the coming frontier for a new radical empiricism that would help to wash metaphysics out of philosophy. In 1901 he sponsored the German edition of Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1881) 2 by J. B. Stallo, Cincinnati lawyer and philosopher. Mach warmly endorsed Stallo's book because his scientific aims so closely approximated his own, and because Stallo rejected the latent metaphysical elements and concealed ontological assumptions of the mechanical-atomistic inter pretation of the world. The second edition of Wiirmelehre was dedicated to Stallo in 1900. The fourth edition of Populiir-wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen (1910), containing seven new essays, was dedicated to Harvard Professor of physiology, philosophY, and psychology, William James. Mach had a strong intellectual affinity for James' pragmatism because, like himself, he recognized that James had come to radically empirical views from science. Both men took pure pre-conceptualized experience, from which the mental and physical predicates of experience are composed, to be neutral rather than real, unreal, objective or subjective."
Although the works of Francis Hutcheson are unfamiliar to most students of philosophy, it cannot be said that he has been entirely ignored. To be sure, most of the recent writers who deal with Hutcheson's philosophy do so in the course of writing about Hutcheson's famous contemporary, David Hume. This is true, for example, of Norman Kemp Smith, whose book entitled The Philosophy of David Hume 1 includes much detailed information concerning Hume's indebtedness to Hutcheson. But others have written about Hutcheson on his own account. William R. Scott's Francis Hutcheson,2 although mainly biographical and historical, is well worth reading. In his article "Some Reflections on Moral-Sense Theories in Ethics," 3 C. D. Broad presents a sustained analysis of the sort of theory held by Hutcheson. D. Daiches Raphael's The Moral Sense 4 is competent, interesting, and especially valuable in its treatment of epistemological issues surrounding the moral sense theory. William K. Frankena's article entitled "Hutcheson's Moral Sense Theory" Ji is search ing and profound. And, most recent of all, a book by William T. Black stone has appeared entitled Francis Hutcheson and Contemporary Ethi cal Theory. 6 One of the difficulties encountered in presenting a study of Hutcheson is that all of his books are extremely rare. Fortunately, L. A. Selby-Bigge'l) 1 Nonnan Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (London: Macmillan and Co. , Limited, 1949). Ii William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson (Cambridge, Eng. : Cambridge Uni venity Press, 1900).
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