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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history
In Kant's Struggle for Autonomy: On the Structure of Practical Reason, Raef Zreik presents an original synoptic view of Kant's practical philosophy, uncovering the relatively hidden architectonics of Kant's system and critically engaging with its broad implications. He begins by investigating the implicit strategy that guides Kant in making the distinctions that establish the autonomous spheres: happiness, morality, justice, public order-legitimacy. The organizing principle of autonomy sets these spheres apart, assuming there is self-sufficiency for each sphere. Zreik then develops a critique of this strategy, showing its limits, its costs, and its inherent instability. He questions self-sufficiency and argues that autonomy is a matter of ongoing struggle between the forces of separation and unification. Zreik proceeds to suggest that we "read Kant backward," reading early Kant in light of late Kant. This reading reveals Kant's strategy of both taking things apart and putting them together, focusing on the joints, transitions, and metastructures of the system. The image emanating from this account of Kant's legal and moral philosophy is of an intimate yet tragic conflict within Kant's thought-one that leaves us to our own judgment as to where to draw the boundaries between spheres, opening the door for politicizing Kant's practical philosophy.
The Citizenship Experiment explores the fate of citizenship ideals in the Age of Revolutions. While in the early 1790s citizenship ideals in the Atlantic world converged, the twin shocks of the Haitian Revolution and the French Revolutionary Terror led the American, French, and Dutch publics to abandon the notion of a shared, Atlantic, revolutionary vision of citizenship. Instead, they forged conceptions of citizenship that were limited to national contexts, restricted categories of voters, and 'advanced' stages of civilization. Weaving together the convergence and divergence of an Atlantic revolutionary discourse, debates on citizenship, and the intellectual repercussions of the Terror and the Haitian Revolution, Koekkoek offers a fresh perspective on the revolutionary 1790s as a turning point in the history of citizenship.
This highly original contribution examines one of the most controversial concepts in the history of economics - the true meaning of the Law of Markets. This has been a contentious issue since the publication of Keynes's General Theory, but has also divided economists since it first emerged almost two centuries ago in the writings of James Mill. This book discusses the change in the understanding of the nature of the business cycle wrought by the General Theory whose major innovation in overturning Say's Law was to introduce demand deficiency into mainstream economic thought. The volume provides a robust and innovative exposition of the crucial point of division between classical and Keynesian economics, demonstrating that the role of demand deficiency was the fundamental issue at stake. Steven Kates first discusses Keynes's interpretation of Say's Law before documenting its development within classical theory. He then charts the development of post-General Theory interpretations of Say's Law, challenging Keynes's definition which was captured in the phrase 'supply creates its own demand'. The author also attempts to unravel the vast literature on the progress made by Keynes between his Treatise on Money published in 1930 and the General Theory, published six years later. He suggests that the crucial point in the origins of the General Theory was Keynes's discovery of Malthus's writings on Say's Law at the very depths of the Great Depression in 1932. This provocative book will be required reading for scholars and students interested in the history of economic thought, the history of macroeconomics and the Keynesian revolution.
What is the role of language in human cognition? Could we attain self-consciousness and construct our civilization without language? Such were the questions at the basis of eighteenth-century debates on the joint evolution of language, mind, and culture. Language and Enlightenment highlights the importance of language in the social theory, epistemology, and aesthetics of the Enlightenment. While focusing on the Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great, Avi Lifschitz situates the Berlin debates within a larger temporal and geographical framework. He argues that awareness of the historicity and linguistic rootedness of all forms of life was a mainstream Enlightenment notion rather than a feature of the so-called 'Counter-Enlightenment'. Enlightenment authors of different persuasions investigated whether speechless human beings could have developed their language and society on their own. Such inquiries usually pondered the difficult shift from natural signs like cries and gestures to the artificial, articulate words of human language. This transition from nature to artifice was mirrored in other domains of inquiry, such as the origins of social relations, inequality, the arts, and the sciences. By examining a wide variety of authors - Leibniz, Wolff, Condillac, Rousseau, Michaelis, and Herder, among others - Language and Enlightenment emphasises the open and malleable character of the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters. The language debates demonstrate that German theories of culture and language were not merely a rejection of French ideas. New notions of the genius of language and its role in cognition were constructed through a complex interaction with cross-European currents, especially via the prize contests at the Berlin Academy.
Charles Darwin and the Church of William Wordsworth is a study of the cultural connections between two of the nineteenth century's most influential figures, Charles Darwin and William Wordsworth. When Darwin presented On the Origin of Species, his reading public's affective response to the natural world had already been profoundly influenced by William Wordsworth. Wordsworth presented nature as benign, harmonious, a source of moral inspiration and spiritual blessing, and a medium through which one might enter into communion with the Divine. Long after his death, he continued to be revered throughout the English-speaking world, not only as a great poet, but as a theologian with a broader following than any prelate and an appeal that transcended or ignored sectarian differences. For believers and sceptics alike, Wordsworth's poetry offered a readily accessible and intellectually respectable counterweight to Darwin's vision of a material universe evolving by fixed laws in which Divinity played no discernible role and where concepts like beauty and harmony were material conditions to be explained in scientific terms. Wordsworth's theology of nature became for many readers a more effective counterforce to Darwin's ideas than Biblical orthodoxy, but it also provided an enriching context for the reception of evolutionary theory, aiding theists in their effort to reach an accommodation with the new science. As the nineteenth century's two most prominent theoreticians of nature's life, Wordsworth and Darwin competed for attention among those seeking to understand humanity's relationship with the natural world, and their disciples engaged in a productive, mutually transformative dialogue in which the poet's cultural authority influenced the way Darwin was received, and Darwinian science adjusted interpretation and evaluation of the poetry. Charles Darwin and the Church of William Wordsworth explores the broad cultural relationship between Wordsworth, Darwin, and their disciples, contextualising them within wider discussions about the relationship between religion and science in the nineteenth century.
This book investigates different notions of communitarianism and citizenship, and their application within a number of fields, in particular education, politics and social welfare. Whilst there can be no doubt that most observers regard the responsible conduct of citizens as a goal worth pursuing, difficult problems lie with questions of how, and indeed whether, responsible citizenship can be achieved. This book looks beyond communitarian ideology to investigate more detailed discussion of citizenship in contemporary society.
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'This book is beautiful ... Julia Baird has been to the tough edges and gives us light. She writes like a dream.' MATT HAIG 'Utterly captivating and magical.' JULIA BRADBURY 'Luminous and deeply comforting' KATHERINE MAY Julia Baird's intimate study of phosphorescence is full of wisdom and joy; a roadmap for rediscovering our inner light after the darkest of times. We now know just how much we should treasure the times when we feel happy, content and at peace. When we feel this way we seek out life's experiences with a sense of optimism and hope. But how do we move forward with life now that everything has changed? Now that we appreciate just how fragile and fleeting these feelings can be? Is it possible to access a light - our own source of phosphorescence - that can sustain us in this brave new world? In this wise and inspiring book, bestselling author Julia Baird reflects on her encounters with phosphorescence, a luminescent phenomenon found in the nature, and how she was able to cultivate her own 'inner light' in the face of a life-threatening illness. When we spend time in nature, humble ourselves to the mystery of the world, and recognise the 'soothing power of the ordinary', we are able to discover hidden sources of strength and resilience. It is these experiences that sustain us, help us place one foot in front of the other and cultivate our own essential light which will light our path in good times and bad.
Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. The articles in OSEMP will be of importance to specialists within the discipline, but the editors also intend that they should appeal to a larger audience of philosophers, intellectual historians, and others who are interested in the development of modern thought.
This is a major new account of the work of one of France's most significant authors. Subjecting Duras's entire written oeuvre to an unprecedented level of close reading, it demonstrates the vital presence of ethical questions in her work, and develops an important new model of the relation between writing and our ethical life.
Donald Trump in Historical Perspective: Dead Precedents is a collection of chapters that utilizes the thinking of historians, philosophers, and political scientists to explore historical parallels to the presidency of Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America. This collection provides an extensive analysis on the ways Trump's impulsiveness, breaking of norms, and disregard for longstanding democratic pieties, caused him to represent a definitive end to the "American century," an era when American self-confidence, steadiness, and leadership, even in the face of titanic challenges, were almost universally taken for granted. Yet this book also argues how in the longer sweep of history, Trump is a familiar figure in the turbulent life of democracies. These in-depth chapters reveal the ways Trump represents the anti-institutionalist, the populist demagogue, the would-be authoritarian who exploits electoral and political vulnerabilities to gain and hold power. Through these detailed evaluations, these chapters suggest that Trump is not radically unique, but that democracies have produced many previous versions of the Trump phenomenon. This book is essential reading for scholars and students in political science, political theory, history, and leadership. This book is also noteworthy for readers interested in key developments in contemporary American democracy. One of its greatest appeals is its extensive look into leadership on an international scale, from Donald Trump's global significance to various explorations of non-American leaders, and the comparisons that can be made.
Michelle Kosch's book traces a complex of issues surrounding moral agency - how is moral responsibility consistent with the possibility of theoretical explanation? is moral agency essentially rational agency? can autonomy be the foundation of ethics? - from Kant through Schelling to Kierkegaard. There are two complementary projects here. The first is to clarify the contours of German idealism as a philosophical movement by examining the motivations not only of its beginning, but also of its end. In tracing the motivations for the transition to mid-19th century post-idealism to Schelling's middle and late periods and, ultimately, back to a problem originally presented in Kant, it shows the causes of the demise of that movement to be the same as the causes of its rise. In the process it presents the most detailed discussion to date of the moral psychology and moral epistemology of Schelling's work after 1809. The second project - which is simply the first viewed from a different angle - is to trace the sources of Kierkegaard's theory of agency and his criticism of philosophical ethics to this same complex of issues in Kant and post-Kantian idealism. In the process, Kosch argues that Schelling's influence on Kierkegaard was greater than has been thought, and builds a new understanding of Kierkegaard's project in his pseudonymous works on the basis of this revised picture of their historical background. It is one that uncovers much of interest and relevance to contemporary debates.
The book examines tensions in classical political economy by describing and analysing changes in J.S. Mill's economic and religious thought late in life, and assesses the influence of Mill's disciplines on these shifts. Mill's followers, surprisingly, were divided into two opposing camps. Influenced by the `heterodox' group-opponents of Ricardian political economy - and by pressing political concerns, Mill modified his principles in ways he would not earlier have countenanced. This resulted in inconsistencies and evasions in his final essays, which greatly upset the 'orthodox' contingent.
Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best scholarly research in this flourishing field. The series covers all aspects of medieval philosophy, including the Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew traditions, and runs from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. It publishes new work by leading scholars in the field, and combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness. The papers will address a wide range of topics, from political philosophy to ethics, and logic to metaphysics. OSMP is an essential resource for anyone working in the area.
This study explores the flow of information within and among academic disciplines in the social sciences and humanities through analyses of the patterns of scholarly book reviewing. An elite sample of scholarly monographs published by university presses between 1971 and 1990 was used. Beginning with Derek de Solla Price, the measurement of communication within the disciplines of science has been ongoing. In the present book that field of inquiry is summarized and provides a basis for examining the flow of information in the social sciences and humanities.
Levinas's idea of ethics as a relation of responsibility to the other person has become a highly influential and recognizable position across a wide range of academic and non-academic fields. Simon Critchley's aim in this book is to provide a less familiar, more troubling, and (hopefully) truer account of Levinas's work. A new dramatic method for reading Levinas is proposed, where the fundamental problem of his work is seen as the attempt to escape from the tragedy of Heidegger's philosophy and the way in which that philosophy shaped political events in the last century. Extensive and careful attention is paid to Levinas' fascinating but often overlooked work from the 1930s, where the proximity to Heidegger becomes clearer. Levinas's problem is very simple: how to escape from the tragic fatality of being as described by Heidegger. Levinas's later work is a series of attempts to answer that problem through claims about ethical selfhood and a series of phenomenological experiences, especially erotic relations and the relation to the child. These claims are analyzed in the book through close textual readings. Critchley reveals the problem with Levinas's answer to his own philosophical question and suggests a number of criticisms, particular concerning the question of gender. In the final, speculative part of the book, another answer to Levinas's problem is explored through a reading of the Song of Songs and the lens of mystical love.
This volume contains the Proceedings of the International Colloqui- um "Newton's Scientific and Philosophical Legacy", that was held at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) from June 9th to 12th 1987 to celebrate the Tercentenary of the publication of Newton's Philo- sophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1667). Although 1987 was a busy year for Newton scholars, we were happy that five of most prom- inent among them were able to come to Nijmegen and speak on the vari- ous aspects of Newton's thought. They are the Professors I. Bernard Cohen (Harvard), Gale Christianson (Indiana State), B. J. Dobbs (Northwestern), Richard H. Popkin (UCLA) and Mordechai Feingold (Boston University). No doubt, recent scholarship has put Newton's genius in a quite different perspective from the one that had come to make up what may be called Newtonian mythology. Although his achievements in the areas of mechanics, mathematics, and optics remain indisputed, Newton's scientific efforts were apparently entirely subordi- nate to his religious beliefs. This volume has been divided into four parts, preceded by a Pream- ble in which Prof. Christianson offers a vivid portrait of Newton as a per- son. The first part deals with the science of Newton as he himself under- stood that term. The second part considers the influence of Newton's work on later scientific developments. The third part deals primarily with the question of the methodological influence of Newton, and the last part with his more philosophical legacy. Two editorial remarks are due.
It seems quite natural to explain the activities of human and non-human animals by referring to their special faculties. Thus, we say that dogs can smell things in their environment because they have perceptual faculties, or that human beings can think because they have rational faculties. But what are faculties? In what sense are they responsible for a wide range of activities? How can they be individuated? How are they interrelated? And why are different types of faculties assigned to different types of living beings? The six chapters in this book discuss these questions, covering a wide period from Plato up to contemporary debates about faculties as modules of the mind. They show that faculties were referred to in different theoretical contexts, but analyzed in radically different ways. Some philosophers, especially Aristotelians, made them the cornerstone of their biological and psychological theories, taking them to be basic powers of living beings. Others took them to be inner causes that literally produce activities, while still others provided a purely functional explanation. The chapters focus on various models, taking into account Greek, Arabic, Latin, French, German and Anglo-American debates. They analyze the role assigned to faculties in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and epistemology, but also the attack that was often launched against the assumption that faculties are hidden yet real features of living beings. The short "Reflections" inserted between the chapters make clear that faculties were also widely discussed in literature, science and medicine.
Though with considerable delay, most of the writings of Polish logicians of the inter-war period are now available in English. This is not yet true of Polish philosophy. In the present volume English-speaking readers will fmd, for the first time, a sizeable collection of the articles of one of the most original and distinguished of Poland's philosophers of the present century, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890-1963). To be sure, Ajdukiewicz was a philosopher-logician from the beginning of his career. His first work of some importance, a monograph entitled From the Methodology of the Deductive Sciences (1921 post-dated; two abstracts published in 1919/20) exhibited two features which were to become charac teristic of the style of his later philosophy: On the one hand the monograph was the result of Ajdukiewicz's deep interest in the systems of modern logic, the foundations of mathematics, in the properties of deductive systems and their relevance to philosophy; on the other hand the monograph was an attempt at developing an 'understanding methodology' (in the sense of Gennan 'Verstehende Methodologie') of deductive sciences, i. e. a pragmatic study of axiomatic systems which would supplement purely formal investiga tions of those systems. The fonner made him a close ally oflogical empiricists; the latter was rooted in the henneneutic tradition of the second half of the 19th century (Dilthey) which spilled over into the 20th century (Spranger) and which was not cherished at all by logical empiricists."
What is it to occupy a first-person stance? Is the first-personal idea one has of oneself in conflict with the idea of oneself as a physical being? How, if there is a conflict, is it to be resolved? The Self recommends a new way to approach those questions, finding inspiration in theories about consciousness and mind in first millennial India. These philosophers do not regard the first-person stance as in conflict with the natural-their idea of nature is not that of scientific naturalism, but rather a liberal naturalism non-exclusive of the normative. Jonardon Ganeri explores a wide range of ideas about the self: reflexive self-representation, mental files, and quasi-subject analyses of subjective consciousness; the theory of emergence as transformation; embodiment and the idea of a bodily self; the centrality of the emotions to the unity of self. Buddhism's claim that there is no self too readily assumes an account of what a self must be. Ganeri argues instead that the self is a negotiation between self-presentation and normative avowal, a transaction grounded in unconscious mind. Immersion, participation, and coordination are jointly constitutive of self, the first-person stance at once lived, engaged, and underwritten. And all is in harmony with the idea of the natural.
Graciela De Pierris presents a novel interpretation of the relationship between skepticism and naturalism in Hume's epistemology, and a new appraisal of Hume's place within early modern thought. Whereas a dominant trend in recent Hume scholarship maintains that there are no skeptical arguments concerning causation and induction in Book I, Part III of the Treatise, Graciela De Pierris presents a detailed reading of the skeptical argument she finds there and how this argument initiates a train of skeptical reasoning that begins in Part III and culminates in Part IV. This reasoning is framed by Hume's version of the modern theory of ideas developed by Descartes and Locke. The skeptical implications of this theory, however, do not arise, as in traditional interpretations of Hume's skepticism, from the 'veil of perception.' They arise from Hume's elaboration of a presentational-phenomenological model of ultimate evidence, according to which there is always a justificatory gap between what is or has been immediately presented to the mind and any ideas that go beyond it. This happens, paradigmatically, in the causal-inductive inference, and, as De Pierris argues, in demonstrative inference as well. Yet, in spite of his firm commitment to radical skepticism, Hume also accepts the naturalistic standpoint of science and common life, and he does so, on the novel interpretation presented here, because of an equally firm commitment to Newtonian science in general and the Newtonian inductive method in particular. Hume defends the Newtonian method (against the mechanical philosophy) while simultaneously rejecting all attempts (including those of the Newtonians) to find a place for the supernatural within our understanding of nature.
From the viewpoint of carrying out multi-disciplinary studies between economics and other social sciences, Pareto's theories are especially important as they are the core of contemporary orthodox economics. His sociology is constructed very differently from his economics. First the former deals with non-rational social behaviour of human beings, whilst the latter with rational behaviour; secondly, in the methodology the former is empirical and inductive, while the latter is logical and deductive. The present volume is a revamping of works by two authorities on Pareto. It combines Alfonso de Pietri-Tonelli's address to the Italian Association for Advancement of Science on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Pareto's death with selected chapters of Vilfredo Pareto, sa vie et son oeuvre, Payot, Paris, 1928 by G.H. Bousquet.
This is the first full study in English of the German historicist tradition. Frederick C. Beiser surveys the major German thinkers on history from the middle of the eighteenth century until the early twentieth century, providing an introduction to each thinker and the main issues in interpreting and appraising his thought. The volume offers new interpretations of well-known philosophers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Max Weber, and introduces others who are scarcely known at all, including J. A. Chladenius, Justus Moeser, Heinrich Rickert, and Emil Lask. Beyond an exploration of the historical and intellectual context of each thinker, Beiser illuminates the sources and reasons for the movement of German historicism-one of the great revolutions in modern Western thought, and the source of our historical understanding of the human world.
This book addresses the changing relationships among political participation, political representation, and popular mobilization in Spain from the 1766 protest in Madrid against the early Bourbon reforms until the citizen revolution of 1868 that first introduced universal suffrage and led to the ousting of the monarchy. Popular Participation and the Democratic Imagination in Spain shows that a notion of the "crowd" internally dividing the concept of "people" existed before the advent of Liberalism, allowing for the enduring subordination of popular participation to representation in politics. In its wider European and colonial American context, the study analyzes semantic changes in a range of cultural spheres, from parliamentary debate to historical narrative and aesthetics. It shows how Liberalism had trouble reproducing the legitimacy of limited suffrage and traces the evolution of an imagination on democracy that would allow for the reconfiguration of an all-encompassing image of the people eventually overcoming representative government. "Focused on the nation and identities, Spanish historiography had a pending debt with that other historical subject of modernity, the people. With this book, Pablo Sanchez Leon starts cancelling the debt with an innovative methodology combining conceptual history with social and political history. Brilliantly, this books also proposes a novel chronology for modern history and renewed categories of analysis. In many senses, this is an extraordinarily renovating senior work." -Jose Maria Portillo Valdes, University of the Basque Country, Spain "This book by Pablo Sanchez Leon is an original and detailed study of one of the essential components of modernity, the relation between the concepts of plebe and pueblo. The author shows that plebe and people were shaped in a process of mutual differentiation and how the enduring tension between them deeply marked out the evolution of Spanish politics from the end of the Old Regime and throughout the 19th century. As the author brilliantly argues, such tension is tightly imbricated with the enduring dilemma between representation and participation underlying modern political systems. Through a historical analysis of the influence of people and plebe over Spanish, the book makes clear the degree to which the power of language contributes to shape political actors and institutional frames." -Miguel Angel Cabrera - Professor, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain "Most accounts of Spain's transition to modern democracy begin with the popular uprising against the French invasion in 1808, the creation of a national parliament and the promulgation of an advanced Liberal constitution in 1812. Pablo Sanchez Leon begins the story half a century earlier in the mass street protests in Madrid and other cities in 1766 sparked by Charles III's sweeping reform programme. Sanchez Leon focuses unrepentantly on plebeian groups and crowd action - how they are described and conceived by contemporaries - as a key to understanding Spain's precocious and troubled passage from absolutism to the promulgation of universal male suffrage in September 1868. This audacious and highly original interpretation will surely strike a chord with students of modern Spain." -Guy Thomson, University of Warwick, UK "This is a book for exploring (from current needs) the history of political participation in Spanish society in order to rethink the very notion of modern citizenship." -Maria Sierra, University of Seville, Spain "Motivated by the current crisis in political representation in parliamentary democracies, this work by Pablo Sanchez Leon departs from the process of construction of modern citizenship. Representation, participation and mobilization are put into play as an interactive triad whose dynamics and changing conceptualization have the key to the social, political and cultural changes between the Old Regime and the early establishment of democracy in 1868. The "They do not represent us!" and other current claims for deliberative democracy provide the guiding thread for a demanding research on the tension between representation and participation shaping the period 1766-1868. The work reflects on the relevance of popular participation and, in presenting the modern history of Spain as singular and relevant on its own, provides an account of the building of modern citizenship. -Pablo Fernandez Albaladejo, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain This exciting book is both topical and historiographically valuable. It offers a fresh perspective on current debates about the limits of representation and the pros and cons of participation; it makes Spanish political culture in the age of revolutions accessible to anglophone readers, and it engagingly illustrates one way of doing the 'history of concepts'. Recommended on all three counts. Joanna Innes, Oxford University |
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