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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history
It is not always easy to maintain a proper balance between the delineation of cultural development within a given literary field and the claims of practical criticism. And yet if the history of ideas is to be more than a pastime for the student of literature, it must be rooted in the precise art of discrimination. The following chapters attempt to describe and evaluate a particular cultural development by relating the background of ideas to the literary achievement of three writers. It will be sufficient here to out line the nature of the problem, and the method and approach employed. The concept of cultural development implies a recognition of the con nections between ideology and aesthetics. There are at least two ways of exploring such connections. The one, pioneered by Basil Willey, seeks to situate the critical moments of our cultural development in the back ground of ideas, without which the contribution of a particular author cannot be justly evaluated. The danger of such an approach is that the task of discrimination comes to depend over-heavily on extra-literary criteria."
War is always defined in relation to something else: peace, society, civilization, friendship or love. What is the relationship between war and its "other"? Are they opposites or versions of one another? This book surveys four hundred years of thinking about the definition of war, from Hobbes and Clausewitz to Badiou and Zižek.
The appearance of religious toleration combined with the intensification of the search for theological truth led to a unique phenomenon in early modern Europe: Jewish Christians and Christian Jews. These essays will demonstrate that the cross-fertilization of these two religions, which for so long had a tradition of hostility towards each other, not only affected developments within the two groups but in many ways foreshadowed the emergence of the Enlightenment and the evolution of modern religious freedom.
Zionism, as it emerged in the late 19th century, called for a grand
effort to create an independent, self-governing Jewish nation. By
publicly raising the flag of autonomy, it was the Zionists,
ultimately, who accomplished this truly revolutionary change,
transforming the structure of Jewry, its condition among the
nations, and the play of conflicting religious and secular
beliefs.
Cultural Politics in the 1790s examines the relationship between sentimental literature, political activism and the public sphere at the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on critical theorists such as Habermas, Negt and Kluge, Marcuse and Foucault, it attempts to demonstrate how major literary and political figures of the 1790s can be read in terms of the broader dynamics of modernity. Reading a diverse range of political and literary material from the period, it examines how relationships between the aesthetic and the political, the private and the public, mark the emergence and consolidation of bourgeois behavioral norms and the simultaneous marginalization of potentially more radical forms of political and cultural production.
Reflecting critically on the discipline of African American studies is a complicated undertaking, and making sense of the black American experience requires situating it within the larger cultural, political-economic, and ideological dynamics that shape American life. Renewing Black Intellectual History moves away from privileging racial commonality as the fulcrum of inquiry and moves toward observing the quality of the accounts scholars have rendered of black American life.This book maps the changing conditions of black political practice and experience from Emancipation to Obama with excursions into the Jim Crow era, Black Power radicalism, and the Reagan revolt. Here are essays, classic and new, that define historically and conceptually discrete problems affecting black Americans as these problems have been shaped by both politics and scholarly fashion. A key goal of the book is to come to terms with the changing terrain of American life in view of major Civil Rights court decisions and legislation.
Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages investigates the common
medieval belief that magic could cause impotence, focusing
particularly on the period 1150-1450. The subject has never been
studied in detail before, but there is a surprisingly large amount
of information about it in four kinds of source: confessors'
manuals; medical compendia that discussed many illnesses;
commentaries on canon law; and theological commentaries on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard. Although most historians of medieval
culture focus on only one or two of these kinds of source, a
broader comparison reveals that medieval writers held surprisingly
diverse opinions about what magic was, how it worked, and whether
it was ever legitimate to use it.
VOllS n'avez donne aucune des explications metaphysiques qui otent au mystere de I'Eucharistie ses apparentes im- possibilites. Ce ne sont, il est vrai, que des hypotheses et c'est deja beaucoup que de concevoir un ensemble de rap- ports qui eclaircit certaines difficultes des choses sans etre contredit par aucune loi de la nature et du raisonnement. Lettre du P. Lacordaire II Auguste Nicolas, dans A. Nicolas, Etudes Philosophiques, t. I,P. V, de laseme edition (I847). Specimen Theologiae: les pages qui suivent ne sont guere qu'un echan- tillon, un essai, d'histoire de la theologie post-tridentine. La theologie moderne est ici saisie a son premier age, contemporaine de ces trois remises en cause fondamentales que sont la Reforme, Ie cartesianisme et la renaissance spirituelle du catholicisme. Trois tentatives de renou- veler la vision du monde re
View the Table of Contents "Brown argues convincingly that alien abduction stories speak to
several key issues in our culture, from environmentalism to
changing ideas about reproduction. Extending far beyond textual
readings, she instead tells the stories of individual people,
treating them with respect, but with a critical lens as well. Her
analysis of the role of 'experts' in alien abduction-their power
and the misuses of that power-is utterly compelling." aBrownas brilliant study is so much more than a book about alien
abduction--it is a flesh-and-blood inquiry into the nature of
belief in a technologically advanced society.a Since its emergence in the 1960s, belief in alien abduction has saturated popular culture, with the ubiquitous image of the almond-eyed alien appearing on everything from bumper stickers to bars of soap. Drawing on interviews with alleged abductees from the New York area, Bridget Brown suggests a new way for people to think about the alien phenomenon, one that is concerned not with establishing whether aliens actually exist, but with understanding what belief in aliens in America may tell us about our changing understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. They Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves looks at how the belief in abduction by extraterrestrials is constituted by and through popular discourse and the images provided by print, film, and television. Brown contends that the abduction phenomenon is symptomatic of a period during which people have come to feel increasingly divested of the ability to know whatis real or true about themselves and the world in which they live. The alien abduction phenomenon helps us think about how people who feel left out create their own stories and fashion truths that square with their own experience of the world.
In the early 1980s the late Charles B. Schmitt and I discussed the fact that so much new research and new interpretations were taking place concerning various areas of modem skepticism that we, as pioneers, ought to organize a conference where these new findings and outlooks could be presented and discussed. Charles and I had both visited the great library at Wolfenbiittel, and were most happy when the Herzog August Bibliothek agreed to host the first conference on the history of skepticism, in 1984 (published as Skepticism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. R. H. Popkin and Charles B. Schmitt Wiesbaden, 1987, Wolfenbiitteler For schungen, vol. 35]) Charles and I projected a series of later conferences, the first of which would deal with skepticism and irreligion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unfortunately, however, Charles died suddenly in 1986, while lecturing in Padua. Subsequent to his death Constance Blackwell, his companion of many years, established the Foundation for Intellectual History to support research and publica tion on topics in the history of ideas that continued Schmitt's interests. One of the first ventures was to arrange and fund the already planned conference on skepticism and irreligion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After many difficulties and problems, the conference was sponsored and funded by the Foundation for Intel lectual History, one of its first public activities. It was held at the lovely facilities of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Wassenaar in 1990."
"Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture" examines an important moment in the long history of the medical use and abuse of the human body. In early modern Protestant England, the fragmented corpse was processed, circulated, and ingested as a valuable drug in a medical economy underpinned by a brutal judicial system. In a meticulous engagement with an extensive range of medical, religious, and literary texts, Louise Noble shows how early modern writers became obsessed with medicinal cannibalism and its uncanny link to the contested Eucharist sacrament. In the process, Noble points out startling continuities between early modern and contemporary medical consumptions of the body.
Economic Theory and Policy in Context brings together a selection of R.D. Collison Black's essays on the relationships between economic theory and policy, viewed historically.Beginning with a series of essays concerned with economists and economic policy in nineteenth century Ireland, the volume continues with a section entitled 'In and Out of the Mainstream' featuring studies of the work of economists, both famous and obscure, which reflect their author's special interest in the relation between economics and biography. The final section on the economics of W.S. Jevons brings together papers which encouraged a revival of interest in that economist, including two which were previously unpublished. R.D. Collison Black is one of the very few economists who has used the tools of history to study the relationship of economic theory to policy in detail. Bringing together his most important work in one accessible volume, this collection of his essays will be welcomed by students and researchers in the history of economic thought.
As survivors of genocide, mnemonicide, colonization, and forced assimilation, American Indians face a unique set of rhetorical exigencies in US public culture. Decolonizing Native American Rhetoric brings together critical essays on the cultural and political rhetoric of American indigenous communities, including essays on the politics of public memory, culture and identity controversies, stereotypes and caricatures, mascotting, cinematic representations, and resistance movements and environmental justice. This volume brings together recognized scholars and emerging voices in a series of critical projects that question the intersections of civic identity, including how American indigenous rhetoric is complicated by or made more dynamic when refracted through the lens of gender, race, class, and national identity. The authors assembled in this project employ a variety of rhetorical methods, theories, and texts committed to the larger academic movement toward the decolonization of Western scholarship. This project illustrates the invaluable contributions of American Indian voices and perspectives to the study of rhetoric and political communication.
The evolution of science through the ages has often been marred by people's misconceptions. From pre-historic times, when myths played a major role in people's lives, to present-day debates concerning the environment, people have sought ways to explain the world around them and have often come up with incorrect answers. Science has grown through the correction of these misconceptions. This unique reference source can be used by students, teachers, and other interested researchers to explore this growth as it pertains to both the field of science and the process of scientific experimentation. Readers will discover how misunderstandings led to further experimentation and eventually to scientific facts. These "false paths" to scientific knowledge are not treated as deliberate misconduct, but rather as a lack of knowledge and a misunderstanding of the science and technology involved, both of which were sooner or later corrected by men and women of science. Krebs explores the conception and development of scientific thought in five different fields: Medicine and Health; Life Science; Chemistry and Physics; Astrology, Astronomy, and Cosmology; and Conservation, Ecology, and Environmentalism. Within each of these categories, he explores more specific areas, such as the circulatory system, geology, and inner planets. This arrangement provides easy access for the researcher interested in a particular area of science as well as those looking for general information, illuminating how our modern understanding of science is based on much of the developments in our ancient past.
The authors' novel approach to some interesting mathematical concepts - not normally taught in other courses - places them in a historical and philosophical setting. Although primarily intended for mathematics undergraduates, the book will also appeal to students in the sciences, humanities and education with a strong interest in this subject. The first part proceeds from about 1800 BC to 1800 AD, discussing, for example, the Renaissance method for solving cubic and quartic equations and providing rigorous elementary proof that certain geometrical problems posed by the ancient Greeks cannot be solved by ruler and compass alone. The second part presents some fundamental topics of interest from the past two centuries, including proof of G del's incompleteness theorem, together with a discussion of its implications.
This is a book about dreaming and knowing, and about thinking that one can ascertain the difference. It is a book about the Bernards of the world who would have us believe that there is a humanly uncreated world existing en Boi that freely dis closes its forever fixed ontology, even though they too must accept that -many of the worlds we make as we try to under stand ourselves are counterfeit. It is a book about the real estate of the human mind. The book is about Leibniz and Kant, and about methods of science. It is also about what is now called pseudo-science. It tries to show how Kant struggled to mark the limits of the humanly knowable, and how thi s strug gle involved him in trying to answer questions of importance then and now. Some are philosophers' questions: the epistemo logical status of mathematics, the role of space and time in knowing, the nature of the conceptual constraints on our ef forts to hypothesize the possible. Some are questions of per ennial human interest: Can spirits exist? How is the soul re lated to the body? How can we legitimately talk about God, if at all? Finally, Kant teaches that these are all questions bearing on our entitlements in claiming to know. Leibniz fashioned a way of talking about nature and super nature that I call the Double Government Methodology."
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - 1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us What strange, perplexing, questionable questions It is already a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this "Will to Truth" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of this Will - until at last we came to an absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before us - or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk.
J. R. and Philip Milton present the first critical edition of John Locke's Essay concerning Toleration and a number of other writings on law and politics composed between 1667 and 1683. Although Locke never published any of these works himself they are of very great interest for students of his intellectual development because they are markedly different from the early works he wrote while at Oxford and show him working out ideas that were to appear in his mature political writings, the Two Treatises of Government and the Epistola de Tolerantia. The Essay concerning Toleration was written in 1667, shortly after Locke had taken up residence in the household of his patron Lord Ashley, subsequently Earl of Shaftesbury. It has been in print since the nineteenth century, but this volume contains the first critical edition based on all the extant manuscripts; it also contains a detailed account of Locke's arguments and of the contemporary debates on comprehension and toleration. Also included are a number of shorter writings on church and state, including a short set of queries on Scottish church government (1668), Locke's notes on Samuel Parker (1669), and 'Excommunication' (1674). The other two main works contained in this volume are rather different in character . One is a short tract on jury selection which was written at the time of Shaftesbury's imprisonment in 1681. The other is 'A Letter from a Person of Quality', a political pamphlet written by or for Shaftesbury in 1675 as part of his campaign against the Earl of Danby. This was published anonymously and is of disputed authorship; it was first attributed to Locke in 1720 and since then has occupied an uncertain position in the Locke canon. This volume contains the first critical edition based on contemporary printed editions and manuscripts and it includes a detailed account of the Letter's composition, authorship, and subsequent history. This volume will be an invaluable resource for all historians of early modern philosophy, of legal, political, and religious thought, and of 17th century Britain.
This book presents a systemic analysis of Spinoza's philosophy and challenges the traditional views. It deals with Spinoza's concepts of substance, truth conditions, attributes, and the first, second, and supreme grades of knowledge. Based upon an analysis of the relevant details in all of Spinoza's philosophical works, the book reveals many important points, including the following: Spinoza's system is not, nor is meant to be, a foundational-deductive system but was meant to be a coherent system of a network model. Spinoza's reality is not made in the image of a mathematical model. Imaginatio, the first grade of knowledge, and ratio, the second grade, are parts or properties of the supreme grade of knowledge, scientia intuitiva, which is their essence. Finite beings, especially humans, are necessary and eternal (unless they are mistakenly perceived by imaginatio) whereas time, place, and death are simply "entities of imagination." The salvation, happiness, and blessedness that Spinoza's Ethics offers us, are active and depend only upon us. Concluding a careful examination and interpretation, the book suggests additional novel viewpoints in interpreting Spinoza's philosophical psychology and political philosophy.
This book provides insight into the lives and contributions of eigth master sociologists as perceived by their outstanding students. It provides perspectives on evolving cognitive traditions and the oral transmission of knowledge, the emergence of new ideas, the role of continuity and discontinuity in the developments of science, and the relations of these to social change.
Stereotypes continue to dominate contemporary Anglo-German relations. This volume brings together views from psychology, history, cultural theory, literature, pedagogy, but also business and management studies to elucidate the origins, forms, and possible strategies of dealing with cliches of "the British" and "the Germans". By assessing their impact on the personal sphere and that of communication, the media, business, and politics, they demonstrate how an awareness of stereotypes can be part of a realistic assertion of identity in a changing world.
Neither in English nor in French is there a published study of Napoleon Bonaparte's reestablishment in France of the Congregation of the Mis 1 sion, whose members are generally known in France as Lazarists. This study, Napoleon and the Lazarists, 1804-1809, examines the reestablish ment of the Congregation of the Mission in France and its subsequent relations with the Napoleonic Government. Because religion played an important role in the policies and plans of Napoleon, this study is set with in the framework of Napoleon's general religio-political policy. Since the Concordat of 1801 was the legal instrument by which the Catholic Church was reestablished in France and also a necessary preliminary to and a model for the reestablishment of the Lazarists, its negotiation is treated in detail. The examination of the reestablishment of the Congre gation of the Mission in France under Napoleon Bonaparte and its sub sequent history between 1804 and 1809 follows. It is a study in microcosm which reflects Napoleon's general religio-political policies. Who are the Lazarists? The name Lazarist originates from St. Lazare, the original Motherhouse in Paris of the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul. St. Vincent de Paul founded the Congregation of the Mission in 1625. With the cooperation of St. Louise de Marillac, he also founded the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity." |
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