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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history

Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought (Hardcover, New): Gregory Claeys Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought (Hardcover, New)
Gregory Claeys
R6,431 Discovery Miles 64 310 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Thought provides essential information on, and a critical interpretation of, nineteenth-century thought and nineteenth-century thinkers. The project takes as its temporal boundary the period 1789 to 1914. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Thought primarily covers social and political thinking, but key entries also survey science, religion, law, art, concepts of modernity, the body and health, and so on, and thereby take into account all of the key developments in the intellectual history of the period. The encyclopedia is alphabetically organized, and consists of: principal entries, divided into ideas (4000 words) and persons (2500 words) subsidiary entries of 1000 words, which are entirely biographical informational entries of 500 words, which are also biographical. Consultant Editors: Frederick Beiser, Indiana University, USA; Christopher Duggan, University of Reading, UK; Pamela Pilbeam, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; Chushichi Tsuzuk

Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Hardcover): Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Hardcover)
Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy
R3,991 Discovery Miles 39 910 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This volume explores how women in antiquity influenced cultural spheres usually thought of as male, such as politics, economics, science, law, and the arts.
The contributors look at examples from around the ancient world, asking how far traditional definitions of culture describe male spheres of activity, and examining to what extent these spheres were actually created and perpetuated by women. It is shown that women, through marriage and motherhood, tended to perpetuate traditional male values, yet also made significant contributions of their own.
Written by an international range of renowned academics, "Women's Influence on Classical Civilization" provides a valuable wider perspective on the roles and influence on women in the societies of the Greek and Roman worlds.

Revolt from the Heartland - The Struggle for an Authentic Conservatism (Paperback, New Ed): Joseph A. Scotchie Revolt from the Heartland - The Struggle for an Authentic Conservatism (Paperback, New Ed)
Joseph A. Scotchie
R1,368 Discovery Miles 13 680 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

"Joseph Scotchie wishes to tell the story of what he terms an "underfunded, mostly unknown movement" known as the "paleoconservative" or "Old Right" which, he argues, has "provided the intellectual firepower behind the troubled populism of the 1990's." And Scotchie is not afraid to ask hard questions." --"The Review of Politics"
"An essential and valuable contribution to American intellectual history in the last decade of the last century." -- "The American Conservative"
The dominant forces of American conservatism remain wedded, at all costs, to the Republican Party, but another movement, one with its roots in the pre-World War II era, has stepped forth to fill an intellectual vacuum on the right. This Old Right first rose in opposition to the New Deal, fighting both statism at home and the emergence of an American empire abroad. More recently this movement, sometimes called paleoconservatism, has provided the ideological backbone of modern populism and the opposition to globalization, with decisive effects on presidential politics. In "Revolt from the Heartland," Joseph Scotchie provides an intellectual history of the Old Right, treating its main figures and defining its conflict with the traditional left-right political mainstream.
As Scotchie's account makes clear, the Old Right and its descendents have articulated an arresting and powerful worldview. They include an array of learned and provocative writers, including M.E. Bradford, Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and Murray Rothbard, and more recently, Clyde Wilson, Thomas Fleming, Samuel Francis, and Chilton Williamson, Jr. Beginning with the movement's anti-Federalist forerunners, Scotchie traces its developments over two centuries of American history. In the realm of politics and economics, he examines the anti-imperialist stance against the Spanish-American War and the League of Nations, the split among conservatives on Cold War foreign policy, and the hostility to the socialist orientation of the New Deal. Identifying a number of social and cultural attitudes that define the Old Right, Scotchie finds the most important to be the importance of the classics, a recognition of regional cultures, the primacy of family over state, the moral case against immigration. In general, too, a Tenth Amendment approach to such recurring issues as education, abortion, and school prayer characterizes the group.
As Scotchie makes clear, the Old Right and its grass-roots supporters have, and continue to be, a powerful force in modern American politics in spite of a lack of institutional support and media recognition. "Revolt from the Heartland" is an important study of a persisting current in American political life.
Joseph Scotchie is the author of "Barbarians in the Saddle: An Intellectual Biography of Richard M. Weaver" and the editor of "The Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right" and "The Vision of Richard Weaver," all available from Transaction. He is also the author of a biography on the novelist Thomas Wolfe.
""Joe Scotchie's terrific new book solves a Great American Mystery. Why do our conservative intellectuals attack one another more viciously than they do liberals? Why does the splintered movement-Old Right, Neoconservative, New Right, and Beltway Right-behave like old communists who would rather purge each other than carry out the revolution? Why, if a member has some success, as when Pat Buchanan won in New Hampshire in 1996, do the rest attack him until they have assured his defeat? It's an incredible story and you have to read the book to find the answer""-William J. Quirk, Professor of Law, "University of South Carolina"
""As an immigrant, I have always regarded the American conserative movement as the flower of democracy, the real reason for the Free World's victory in the Cold War. But flowers do not grow to the sky and the historic conservative movement is clearly now dead. In this remarkable and erudite account, Joseph Scothie investigates the new shoots that are coming up, traces their roots, and analyzes their future-and America's.""
-Peter Brimelow, author of "Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster"
""With truly masterful precision, Joe Scotchie illuminates the myriad dissident strains of American Conservatism which knocked at the doors of power at the end of the Cold War before meeting a fateful rebuff. He tells the story of those distinctive Right wing intellectuals who said "no" to an imperial foreign policy, mass immigration, and a globalized economy. While this band lost the key internecine battles of the 1990s to Newt Gingrich the neoconvervatives, and the politics of Clinton-bashing, in Scotchie' eloquent account their struggle for a conservatism rooted a sense of measure and respect for the American past retains all its piquancy for the decade to come.""-Scott McConnell

Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory - Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism (Hardcover, annotated edition): Yuko... Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory - Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism (Hardcover, annotated edition)
Yuko Kikuchi
R4,458 Discovery Miles 44 580 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


Conceptualised in 1920s Japan by Yanagi Sôetsu, the Mingei movement has spread world wide since the 1950s, creating phenomena as diverse as Mingei museums, Mingei connoisseurs and collectors, Mingei shops and Mingei restaurants. The theory, at its core and its adaptation by Bernard Leach, has long been an influential 'Oriental' aesthetic for studio craft artists in the West. But why did Mingei become so particularly influential to a western audience? And could the 'Orientalness' perceived in Mingei theory be nothing more than a myth?

This richly illustrated work offers controversial new evidence through its cross-cultural examination of a wide range of materials in Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese, bringing about startling new conclusions concerning Japanese modernization and cultural authenticity. This new interpretation of the Mingei movement will appeal to scholars of Japanese art history as well as those with interests in cultural identity in non-Western cultures.

Archaeology and Modernity (Hardcover, New Ed): Julian Thomas Archaeology and Modernity (Hardcover, New Ed)
Julian Thomas
R3,997 Discovery Miles 39 970 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Archaeologists have long recognised that they study past worlds which may be quite unlike our own. But how are we to cope with the difference of the past if our own circumstances are unique within human history? What if archaeology itself depends on ways of thinking that are specific to the modern western world? This is the first book-length study to explore the relationship between archaeology and modern thought, showing how philosophical ideas that developed in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries still dominate our approach to the material remains of ancient societies. It discusses the modern emphasis on method rather than ethics or meaning, our understanding of change in history and nature, the role of the nation-state in forming our views of the past, and contemporary notions of human individuality, the mind, and materiality.

Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Paperback, New): Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Paperback, New)
Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy
R1,190 Discovery Miles 11 900 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This volume explores how women in antiquity influenced cultural spheres usually thought of as male, such as politics, economics, science, law, and the arts.
The contributors look at examples from around the ancient world, asking how far traditional definitions of culture describe male spheres of activity, and examining to what extent these spheres were actually created and perpetuated by women. It is shown that women, through marriage and motherhood, tended to perpetuate traditional male values, yet also made significant contributions of their own.
Written by an international range of renowned academics, "Women's Influence on Classical Civilization" provides a valuable wider perspective on the roles and influence on women in the societies of the Greek and Roman worlds.

Archaeology and Modernity (Paperback, New): Julian Thomas Archaeology and Modernity (Paperback, New)
Julian Thomas
R1,199 Discovery Miles 11 990 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This is the first book-length study to explore the relationship between archaeology and modern thought, showing how philosophical ideas that developed in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries still dominate our approach to the material remains of ancient societies. It discusses the modern emphasis on method rather than ethics or meaning, our understanding of change in history and nature, the role of the nation-state in forming our views of the past, and contemporary notions of human individuality, the mind, and materiality. Julian Thomas also addresses the modern preoccupation with depth, which enables archaeology to be used as a metaphor in other disciplines. The book concludes by advocating a "counter-modern" archaeology that refuses to separate material evidence from political, moral, rhetorical, and aesthetic concerns, as well as meaning.

Rousseau: The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition): Jean Jacques Rousseau Rousseau: The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition)
Jean Jacques Rousseau; Edited by Victor Gourevitch
R732 Discovery Miles 7 320 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

A comprehensive and authoritative anthology of Rousseau's important early political writings in faithful English translations. This volume includes the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts and the Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men - the so-called First and Second Discourses - together with Rousseau's extensive Replies to critics of these Discourses; the Essay on the Origin of Languages; the Letter to Voltaire on Providence; as well as several minor but illuminating writings - the Discourse on Heroic Virtue and the essay Idea of the Method in the Composition of a Book. In these as well as in his later writings, Rousseau probes the very premises of modern thought. His influence was wide-reaching from the very first, and it has continued to grow since his death. The American and the French Revolutions were profoundly affected by his thought, as were Romanticism and Idealism. This new edition features up-to-date translations, an expanded introduction, and an extensive editorial apparatus designed to assist students at every level access these seminal texts.

Class Acts - Derrida on the Public Stage (Paperback): Michael Naas Class Acts - Derrida on the Public Stage (Paperback)
Michael Naas
R692 Discovery Miles 6 920 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Class Acts examines two often neglected aspects of Jacques Derrida's work as a philosopher, his public presentations at lectures and conferences and his teaching, along with the question of the "speech act" that links them. What, Michael Naas asks, is one doing when one speaks in public in these ways? The book follows Derrida's itinerary with regard to speech act theory across three public lectures, from 1971 to 1997, all given, for reasons the book seeks to explain, in Montreal. In these lectures, Derrida elaborated his critique of J. L. Austin and his own subsequent redefinition of speech act theory. The book then gives an overview of Derrida's teaching career and his famous "seminar" presentations, along with his own explicit reflections on pedagogy and educational institutions beginning in the mid-1970s. Naas then shows through a reading of three recently published seminars-on life death, theory and practice, and forgiveness-just how Derrida the teacher interrogated and deployed speech act theory in his seminars. Whether in a conference hall or a classroom, Naas demonstrates, Derrida was always interested in the way spoken or written words might do more than simply communicate some meaning or intent but might give rise to something like an event. Class Acts bears witness to the possibility of such events in Derrida's work as a pedagogue and a public intellectual.

Time and Idea - The Theory of History in Giambattista Vico (Paperback): A. Caponigri Time and Idea - The Theory of History in Giambattista Vico (Paperback)
A. Caponigri
R1,383 Discovery Miles 13 830 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Long a shadowy figure in the history of philosophy, it was only in the twentieth century that Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) achieved renown as a major and original thinker. There has been a steadily widening interest in this figure who, had he been known in his own day, might have altered the course of European thought. Much has been written in an attempt to clarify his historical stature, but in "Time and Idea" A. Robert Caponigri approaches Vico's thought in terms of its relevance to problems of modern philosophy. Viewing the essential problem of twentieth-century philosophy as the elimination of human subjectivity from nature, Caponigri shows how Vico offers us a principle for the vindication of our own spirituality through history.
In Caponigri's reading, Vico establishes an absolute dichotomy between nature and history. The latter is seen as the sum of the active, fully realized human spirit and thus the context for the true understanding of human nature. Although Vico's major work, "The New Science," incorporates vast amounts of concrete historical research and contruction, Caponigri's focus is on Vico's theoretical apparatus. Following an introductory biographical chapter, the author turns to Vico's theory of history, emphasizing its importance as a genuine philosophical undertaking rather than mere methodology. Caponigri shows how the speculative problem of history first presented itself to Vico in matters of jurisprudence and natural law from which he derived the concepts of time and idea as the terms in which the historical process of culture becomes comprehensible. He then introduces the human subject as the principle of the synthesis of time and idea, and discusses the Vichian concept of the "modification of the human mind," and his idea of "providence" as the rectifying principle of human history.
First published in 1953, "Time and Idea" remains an essential contribution to the ongoing dialog on Vico's work.

Religious Conversion and Identity - The Semiotic Analysis of Texts (Hardcover, New): Massimo Leone Religious Conversion and Identity - The Semiotic Analysis of Texts (Hardcover, New)
Massimo Leone
R3,998 Discovery Miles 39 980 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


The way in which people change and represent their spiritual evolution is often determined by recurrent language structures. Through the analysis of ancient and modern stories and their words and images, this book describes the nature of conversion through explorations of the encounter with the religious message, the discomfort of spiritual uncertainty, the loss of personal and social identity, the anxiety of destabilization, the reconstitution of the self and the discovery of a new language of the soul.

Romain Rolland and the Politics of the Intellectual Engagement (Paperback): David Fisher Romain Rolland and the Politics of the Intellectual Engagement (Paperback)
David Fisher
R1,409 Discovery Miles 14 090 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This intellectual portrait of Romain Rolland (1866-1944)--French novelist, musicologist, dramatist, and Nobel prizewinner in 1915--focuses on his experiments with political commitment against the backdrop of European history between the two world wars. Best known as a biographer of Beethoven and for his novel, Jean-Christophe, Rolland was one of those nonconforming writers who perceived a crisis of bourgeois society in Europe before the Great War, and who consciously worked to discredit and reshape that society in the interwar period. Analyzing Rolland's itinerary of engaged stands, David James Fisher clarifies aspects of European cultural history and helps decipher the ambiguities at the heart of all forms of intellectual engagement.

Moving from text to context, Fisher organizes the book around a series of debates--Rolland's public and private collisions over specific committed stands--introducing the reader to the polemical style of French intellectual discourse and offering insight into what it means to be a responsible intellectual. Fisher presents Rolland's private ruminations, extensive research, and reexamination of the function and style of the French man of letters. He observes that Rolland experimented with five styles of commitment: oceanic mysticism linked to progressive, democratic politics; free thinking linked to antiwar dissent; pacifism and, ultimately, Gandhism; antifacism linked to anti-imperialism, antiracism, and all-out political resistance to fascism; and, most controversially, fellow traveling as a form of socialist humanism and the positive side of antifascism. Fisher views Rolland's engagement historically and critically, showing that engaged intellectuals of that time were neither naive propagandists nor dupes of political parties.

David James Fisher makes a case for the committed writer and hopes to re-ignite the debate about commitment. For him, Romain Rolland sums up engagement in a striking, dialectical formula: "Pessimism of the Intelligence, Optimism of the Will." His story presents a powerful challenge to modern intellectuals.

The New Nationalism (Paperback): Louis Snyder The New Nationalism (Paperback)
Louis Snyder; Preface by John D Montgomery
R1,407 Discovery Miles 14 070 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Nationalism, the state of mind in which the individual's supreme loyalty is owed to the nation-state, remains the strongest of political emotions. As a historical phenomenon, it is always in flux, changing according to no preconceived pattern. In "The New Nationalism," Louis Snyder sees various forms of nationalism, and categorizes them as a force for unity; a force for the status quo; a force for independence; a force for fraternity; a force for colonial expansion; a force for aggression; a force for economic expansion; and a force for anti-colonialism.
In Snyder's opinion, nationalism should be differentiated from Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism," a phrase he borrowed from Herbert D. Croly's "The Promise of American Life." Croly warned that giving too much power to big industry and finance would lead to the degradation of the masses, and that state and federal intervention must be pursued on all economic fronts. Roosevelt expanded upon this concept, and saw the flourishing of democratic government as a means of reviving the old pioneer sense of individualism and opportunity. Snyder, in contrast, extends the work of the two major pioneers in the study of modern nationalism, Carlton J. H. Hayes and Hans Kohn, in exploring this most powerful sentiment of modern times, and showing how it relates to the political, economic, and psychological tendencies of historical development.
"The book is the mature fruit of much research and much thought. It] will be an indispensable guide not only for the student of contemporary history and international relations but also for the statesman who has to deal with these problems and to learn that they are of an importance far beyond all divisions of ideology or civilization."--Hans Kohn

Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Paperback, New): Edward Scheer Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Paperback, New)
Edward Scheer
R1,166 Discovery Miles 11 660 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


Addicted to drugs from an early age and incarcerated in mental asylums throughout his adult life, Antonin Artaud was nevertheless one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century. His writing influenced entire generations, from the French post-structuralists to the American beatniks. He was a key figure in the European cinema of the 1920s and '30s, and his drawings and sketches have been displayed in some of the major art galleries of the Western world. Possibly best known for his concept of a 'theatre of cruelty', his legacy has been to re-define the possibilities of live performance.
This resource collects for the first time some of the best criticism on his life and work from writers such as Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Maurice Blanchot, Herbert Blau, Leo Bersani and Susan Sontag.
Containing some of the most intellectually adventurous and emotionally passionate writings on Artaud, this book is essential reading for Artaud scholars working in arts disciplines including theatre, film, philosophy, literature and fine art.

Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Hardcover): Edward Scheer Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Hardcover)
Edward Scheer
R4,135 Discovery Miles 41 350 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


Contents:
Acknowledgements Note on the Text Introduction. On Antonin Artaud: A Beginner's Guide to Cruelty
Part 1. On Biography: Madness and Language I) André Breton, with André Parinaud from Conversations: the Autobiography of Surrealism ii) André Breton, 'Homage to Antonin Artaud' iii) Georges Bataille, from 'Surrealism from Day to Day' iv) Sylvère Lotringer, a selection from an interview with Jacques Latrémolière v) Gilles Deleuze, 'Thirteenth Series of the Schizophrenic and the Little Girl'
Part 2. Theatre: Acts and Representations i) Jacques Derrida, from 'The Theatre of Cruelty and The Closure of Representation' ii) Helga Finter, from 'Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre. The Legacy of the Theatre of Cruelty' iii) Jerzy Grotowski, 'He Wasn't Entirely Himself' iv) Jane Goodall, 'The Plague and its Powers in Artaudian Theatre' v) Herbert Blau, from 'The Dubious Spectacle of Collective Identity' vi) Susan Sontag, from 'Approaching Artaud' vii) Leo Bersani, 'Artaud, Defecation and Birth'
Part 3. On Writing and Fine Arts i) Maurice Blanchot, 'Artaud' ii) Julia Kristeva, from 'The Subject in Process' iii) Jacques Derrida, from 'Forcener le subjectile' ('To unsense the subjectile') iv) Umberto Artioli, from 'Production of Reality or Hunger for the Impossible?'
Part 4. Beyond Words: On Film and Radio I) Allen S. Weiss, 'K' ii) Denis Hollier, 'The Death of Paper, Part Two: Artaud's Sound System' iii) Mikhail Yampolsky, from 'Voice Devoured: Artaud and Borges on Dubbing' iv) Francis Vanoye 'Cinemas of Cruelty?' Bibliography Index

Reflections on a Politically Skeptical Era (Hardcover, New): Dennis Wrong Reflections on a Politically Skeptical Era (Hardcover, New)
Dennis Wrong
R2,650 Discovery Miles 26 500 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

..". a welcome and scholarly contribution to Political Science reference collections and reading lists."--"The Bookwatch"
All of the essays included in the present volume were written between 1995 and 2001. This attests to the timeliness and relevance of Dennis H. Wrong's writings. He notes that the mid-twentieth-century disposition to believe that politics fundamentally consisted of clashes between totalistic worldviews, such as communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism, nationalism, internationalism, and a cluster of "isms," may have been historically transitional. But politics now appears more nuanced, if no less troubled, following the collapse of the Soviet bloc between 1989 and 1991. Multiculturalism and identity politics, as well as communitarianism flourished in the 1990s.
The volume is divided into five parts: "Capitalism--Inequalities and Alternatives," "Multiculturalism and Identity Politics," "Communitarianism," "Theory and Theorists," and "Autobiographical Reminiscences." This concluding part indicates how Wrong's work includes self-reflections as well as reflections--an examination of how figures such as C. Wright Mills and Raymond Aron, Amitai Etzioni, and Digby Baltzell, played a role in shaping his own thought, and how these changed over the course of the past century.
This is the third collection of the essays and articles of Dennis H. Wrong published by Transaction. As was the case with his earlier volumes, "Reflections on a Politically Skeptical Era" is characterized by a deep attention to the actual social history of our times, and how this plays out in academic pursuits--especially within sociology. Whether the works were published in academic journals or more popular media, they reflect a quality of literary manners that is rare among social science writings, but a reflection that never sacrifices a sense of principle and probity in the process.
Dennis H. Wrong is the author of several books, including two essay collections containing articles first published in cultural intellectual, political and scholarly journals in the United States, Canada, and Britain--several of which he has served as an editor or editor-in-chief. He has taught sociology at Princeton, Rutgers, Brown, the University of Toronto, the New School for Social Research Graduate Faculty, and for most of his career at New York University. He is currently retired and lives in Princeton.

Language, Desire and Theology - A Genealogy of the Will to Speak (Hardcover): Noelle Vahanian Language, Desire and Theology - A Genealogy of the Will to Speak (Hardcover)
Noelle Vahanian
R3,988 Discovery Miles 39 880 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


This interesting and provocative work develops a new theological approach to language in the light of contemporary critical theory.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203380797

A Philosophical History of Rights (Paperback, Revised Ed.): Gary Herbert A Philosophical History of Rights (Paperback, Revised Ed.)
Gary Herbert
R1,403 Discovery Miles 14 030 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Since the seventeenth century, concern in the Western world for the welfare of the individual has been articulated philosophically most often as a concern for his rights. The modern conception of individual rights resulted from abandonment of ancient, value-laced ideas of nature and their replacement by the modern, mathematically transparent idea of nature that has room only for individuals, often in conflict. In "A Philosophical History of Rights," Gary B. Herbert traces the historical evolution of the concept and the transformation of the problems through which the concept is defined. The volume examines the early history of rights as they existed in ancient Greece, and locates the first philosophical inquiry into the nature of rights in Platonic and Aristotelian accounts. He traces Roman jurisprudence to the advent of Christianity, to the divine right of kings. Herbert follows the historical evolution of modern subjective rights, the attempts by Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel to mediate rights, to make them sociable. He then turns to nineteenth-century condemnation of rights in the theories of the historical school of law, Benthamite utilitarianism, and Marxist socialism. Following World War II, a newly revived language of rights had to be constructed, to express universal moral outrage over what came to be called crimes against humanity. The contemporary Western concern for rights is today a concern for the individual and a recognition of the limits beyond which a society must not go in sacrificing the individual's welfare for its own conception of the common good. In his conclusion, Herbert addresses the postmodern critique of rights as a form of moral imperialism legitimizing relations of dominance and subjection. In addition to his historical analysis of the evolution of theories of rights, Herbert exposes the philosophical confusions that arise when we exchange one concept of rights for another and continue to cite historical antecedents for contemporary attitudes that are in fact their philosophical antithesis. "A Philosophical History of Rights" will be of interest to philosophers, historians, and political scientists.

The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun (Hardcover): Zaid Ahmad The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun (Hardcover)
Zaid Ahmad
R4,290 Discovery Miles 42 900 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


This is an analytical examination of Ibn Khaldun's epistemology, centred on Chapter Six of the Muqaddima. In this chapter, entitled The Book of Knowledge (Kitab al'Ilm), Ibn Khaldun sketched his general ideas about knowledge and science and its relationship with human social organisation and the establishment of a civilisation.

The Universe of Experience - A Worldview Beyond Science and Religion (Paperback, Revised ed.): Lancelot Whyte The Universe of Experience - A Worldview Beyond Science and Religion (Paperback, Revised ed.)
Lancelot Whyte
R1,430 Discovery Miles 14 300 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Modern experience forces philosophy and social thought to confront the basic problems of value. Is this life worth caring about? How can we find a way between the deceit of fanatical belief and despair? In the view of Lancelot Law Whyte, the essential challenge to mankind today is an underlying nihilism promoting violence and frustrating sane policies on major social issues. Avoiding the seductive trap of utopianism, Whyte approaches this challenge by defining the terms of a potentially worldwide consensus of heart, mind, and will.

In this volume, Whyte addresses the problems of despair and fanatical religious or political reactions that arise from despair. He begins with the basic problem of nihilism, or the tendency toward pessimism and self/other destruction that faces us at this point in human development. Rejecting all forms of religious sectarianism as separating God from the individual and people from each other, he discerns, as well, a fundamental disunity and incompleteness among the sciences that render them incapable of supplying a guide to social order. Whyte sees the universe as an arena of conflict between tendencies toward order and disorder with the former dominating and containing the latter. In place of science and traditional religion, Whyte draws upon what he sees as the unconscious tradition, a genius of the community, shared in degrees by all its members, that points mankind toward a better way of living.

Whyte does not posit a state of perfection, nor does he suggest the end of human suffering. Instead he suggests that an integrated state of being, freed from the old mind-body dualism will be a new starting point in human evolution. Accessibly written andfirmly rooted in science, philosophy, and history, The Universe of Experience will be of interest to sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers.

The Unknown Max Weber (Paperback, New Ed): Paul Honigsheim The Unknown Max Weber (Paperback, New Ed)
Paul Honigsheim
R1,379 Discovery Miles 13 790 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Edited and introduced by Alan Sica. Paul Honigsheim is unique. One of the select few who regularly participated in the Weber-Kreis in Heidelberg during the 1910s, Honigsheim's special place within Weber's world adds a degree of credibility to his writings matched by few others. In the late 1940s Honigsheim published four essays from what might be called Weber's "lost decade," the period during which Weber established his reputation in Germany as the most versatile and brilliant of the younger social scientists. Together in one volume for the first time, these essays reveal portions of Weber's work previously unavailable in English. In the opening essay, "Max Weber as Rural Sociologist," Honigsheim treats Weber's essays on Russia, Poland, and other works in economic history. He offers a point of departure for those wishing to probe Weber's celebrated and misconstrued distaste for traditional Slavic social structure. In "Max Weber as Applied Anthropologist," Honigsheim examines Weber's commitment to the study of race, ethnicity, and nationalism as mediated by ethnic attachments, social policy formation, handicraft economies, and what he calls "Ethno-Politics." "Max Weber as Historian of Agriculture and Rural Life" is a masterpiece of exegesis and comparative inquiry. The final essay, "Max Weber: His Religious and Ethical Background and Development," acts as a minor corrective and addendum to Marianne Weber's biography. The book concludes with Honigsheim's reminiscences of the Weber circle. Interest in the work and person of Max Weber grows with each year. From his writings the reader may glean the finer shades and contours of thoughts that arise from private exchanges between Honigsheim and Max Weber. This volume will interest a broad spectrum of social scientists.

Medieval Worlds - A Sourcebook (Hardcover): Robert A. Anderson, Dominic Bellenger Medieval Worlds - A Sourcebook (Hardcover)
Robert A. Anderson, Dominic Bellenger
R4,164 Discovery Miles 41 640 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


Medieval Worlds is a comprehensive sourcebook for the study of western Europe from the 5th to the 15th century. The era was one of immense diversity and openness to new ideas and outreach in areas ranging from technology to natural philosophy.
The texts collected in this volume cover a wide range of documentation, including chronicles, legal and official state and church documents, biographies, poems and letters. Covering the whole of Europe, the range of texts offered illustrates the complexity as well as the unity of the medieval world. Subjects range from the diverse worlds of monasteries, the papacy, the crusades, women, to the roles of the town and the countryside.

Philosophy of History - A Guide for Students (Hardcover): M.C. Lemon Philosophy of History - A Guide for Students (Hardcover)
M.C. Lemon
R4,630 Discovery Miles 46 300 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


Philosophy of History is an essential introduction to a vast body of writing about history, from classical Greece and Rome to the contemporary world. M.C. Lemon maps out key debates and central concepts of philosophy of history, placing principal thinkers in the context of their times and schools of thought. Lemon explains the crucial differences between speculative philosophy as an enquiry into the content of history, and analytic philosophy of history as relating to the methods of history. The first two parts of the book trace each of these traditions, whereas the third part revisits both in the light of contemporary contributions to the discipline. This guide provides a comprehensive survey of historical thought since ancient times. Its clear terminology and lucid argument will make it an invaluable source for students and teachers alike.

Metapolitics - From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler (Paperback, 2nd edition): Peter Viereck Metapolitics - From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler (Paperback, 2nd edition)
Peter Viereck
R1,633 Discovery Miles 16 330 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

More than half a century after the fall of the Third Reich, Nazism, its roots and its essential nature, remain a central and unresolved enigma of the twentieth century. During the period of Hitler's ascendancy, most attempts at explaining this unprecedented phenomenon were framed in "economic, " often Marxist, sociological terms and concepts. Peter Viereck's Metapolitics, initially published in 1941, broke with this convention by indicting Hitler in terms of the Judaic-Christian ethical tradition and locating certain elements of the Nazi worldview in German romantic poetry, music, and social thought. Newly expanded, Metapolitics remains a key work in the cultural interpretation of Nazism and totalitarianism and in the psychological interpretation of Hitler as a Wagnerite and failed artist.

The term "metapolitics, " a coinage from Richard Wagner's nationalist circle, signifies an ideology resulting from five distinct strands: romanticism (embodied chiefly in the Wagnerian ethos), the pseudo-science of race, Fuehrer worship, vague economic socialism, and the alleged supernatural and unconscious force of the Volk collectivity. Together, those elements engendered an emphasis on irrationalism and hysteria and belief in a special German mission to direct the course of the world's history.

Viereck analyzes nineteenth-century German thought's conflicting attitudes toward political procedures and social arrangements rooted in classical, rational, legalistic, and Christian traditions. This edition includes an appreciation by Thomas Mann and an exchange with Jacques Barzun debating Viereck's criticism of German romanticism. Viereck's essays on the case of Albert Speer, on Claus von Stauffenberg(the German officer who led the army conspiracy to assassinate Hitler), and on the poets Stefan George and Georg Heym appear here for the first time in book form.

The Arts in Mind - Pioneering Texts of a Coterie of British Men of Letters (Hardcover, Annotated edition): Ruth Hacohen The Arts in Mind - Pioneering Texts of a Coterie of British Men of Letters (Hardcover, Annotated edition)
Ruth Hacohen
R4,006 Discovery Miles 40 060 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Amajor shift in critical attitudes toward the arts took place in the eighteenth century. The fine arts were now looked upon as a group, divorced from the sciences and governed by their own rules. The century abounded with treatises that sought to establish the overriding principles that differentiate art from other walks of life as well as the principles that differentiate them from each other. This burst of scholarly activity resulted in the incorporation of aesthetics among the classic branches of philosophy, heralding the cognitive turn in epistemology. Among the writings that initiated this turn, none were more important than the British contribution. "The Arts in Mind" brings together an annotated selection of these key texts.

A companion volume to the editors' "Tuning the Mind," which analyzed this major shift in world view and its historical context, "The Arts in Mind" is the first representative sampling of what constitutes an important school of British thought. The texts are neither obscure nor forgotten, although most histories of eighteenth-century thought treat them in a partial or incomplete way. Here they are made available complete or through representative extracts together with an editor's introduction to each selection providing essential biographical and intellectual background. The treatises included are representative of the changed climate of opinion which entailed new issues such as those of perception, symbolic function, and the role of history and culture in shaping the world.

Contents include: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, "Characteristics"; Francis Hutcheson, "Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Harmony and Design"; Hildebrand Jacob, "Of the Sister Arts: An Essay"; James Harris, "On Music, Painting and Poetry"; Charles Avison, "An Essay on Musical Expression"; James Beattie, "Essay on Poetry and Music as They Affect the Mind"; Daniel Webb, "Observations on the Correspondence between Poetry and Music"; Thomas Twining, "On Poetry Considered as an Imitative Art," "On the Different Senses of the Word Imitative as Applied to Music by the Ancients and by the Moderns"; Adam Smith, "Of the Nature of that Imitation which Takes Place in What are Called the Imaginative Arts."

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