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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history
The 11th of November 1918, Polish Independence Day, is a curious
anniversary whose commemoration has been only intermittently
observed in the last century. In fact, the day -- and the several
symbols that rightly or wrongly have become associated with it --
has a rather convoluted history, filled with tradition and myth,
which deserves attention.
The main theme of this book is the methodological problem of rationality in economic thought. The author investigates the different interpretations of this problem advanced by major figures in the history of economic thought.The book examines the history and rationality of the 'theory of value' from Adam Smith to Alfred Marshall and attempts to understand these arguments and criticisms within a general methodological vein. It goes on to provide a complete historical account of the ideas and arguments on value propounded by Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Jevons, Walras and Marshall as well as by more recent scholars such as Sraffa and Debreu and interprets their methodological differences. The author proposes a novel 'pragmatic-pluralist' methodological interpretation which borrows and creatively synthesizes ideas from many sources, including Wittgenstein (language-games), Searle (performatives), Habermas (communicative reason), hermeneutics, Marx and the pragmatic tradition. Rationality in Economic Thought will be of interest to students and scholars of the history of economic thought, economic methodology and the philosophy of the social sciences.
The evolutionary approach to economics can be traced back as far as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the work of Darwin, Smith and Malthus. These ideas have gradually developed since that time through Marx, Veblen and Marshall, and have recently experienced considerable attention. This book considers the development of evolutionary economics and its place in economic thought today. The book begins with a concise history of evolutionary economics which develops to examine the variety of approaches within the subject. The discussion continues with a rigorous analysis of why, in contrast to popular belief, evolutionary economics is not alien to neoclassical economics, arguing that it may even be considered to complement neoclassical economics. Continuing along this theme the firm is discussed from an evolutionary and neoclassical standpoint. Leading on from this is a discussion of modern model building in evolutionary economics and its relationship with Schumpeter's developmental work. Model building is examined further in relation to endogenous technological change and economic growth, and the effect that technological change and innovation can have on the spatial distribution of new industry. This book will be of special interest to evolutionary and post Keynesian economists and those interested in technological change and innovation.
The organisation of higher education across the world is one of several factors that conspire to create the assumption that our own map of the intellectual disciplines is, broadly speaking, valid cross-culturally. Disciplines in the Making challenges this in relation to eight main areas of human endeavour, namely philosophy, mathematics, history, medicine, art, law, religion and science. Lloyd focuses on historical and cross-cultural data that throw light on the different ways in which these disciplines were constituted and defined in different periods and civilisations, especially in ancient Greece and China, and how the relationships between them were understood, particularly when one or other discipline claimed hegemonic status (as happened, at different times, with philosophy, history, religion and science). He also explores the role of elites, whether positive (when they foster the professionalisation of a discipline) or negative (when they restrict recruitment to the profession, when they insist on adherence to established norms, concepts and practices and thereby inhibit further innovation). The issues are relevant to current educational policy in relation to the ever-increasing specialisation we see, especially in the sciences, and to the difficulties encountered in making the most of the opportunities for inter- or trans-disciplinary research.
Moral paragon, public servant, founding father; scoundrel, opportunist, womanizing phony: There are many Benjamin Franklins. Now, as we celebrate the tercentenary of Franklin's birth, Jerry Weinberger reveals the Franklin behind the many masks and shows that the real Franklin was far more remarkable than anyone has yet discovered. Taking the Autobiography as the key to Franklin's thought, Weinberger argues that previous assessments have not yet probed to the bottom of Ben's famous irony and elusiveness. While others take the self-portrait as an elder statesman's relaxed and playful retrospection, Weinberger unveils it as the window to Franklin's deepest reflections on God, virtue, justice, equality, natural rights, love, the good life, the modern technological project, and the place and limits of reason in politics and human experience. Along the way, Weinberger explores Franklin's ribald humor, usually ignored or toned down by historians and critics, and shows it to be charming-and philosophic. Following Franklin's rhetorical twists and turns, Weinberger discovers a serious thinker who was profoundly critical of religion, moral virtue, and political ideals and whose grasp of human folly constrained his hopes for enlightenment and political reform. This close and amusing reading of Franklin portrays a scrupulous dialectical philosopher, humane and wise, but more provocative and disturbing than even the most hardboiled interpreters have taken Franklin to be--a freethinking critic of Enlightenment freethinking, who played his moral and theological cards very close to the vest. Written for general readers who want to delve more deeply into the mind of a great man and great American, Benjamin Franklin Unmasked shows us a massively powerful intellect lurking behind the leather-apron countenance. This lively, witty, and revelatory book is indispensable for those who want to meet the real Franklin.
Oskar Lange was one of the few economists able to observe first hand the three major economic systems that have been the hallmark of the 20th century. He learned about the economic backwardness of peripheral capitalism in pre-war Poland. Later he spent more than twelve years in the bastion of modern capitalism, the United States. After returning to Poland in 1948 he linked his fate to the creation and then reform of the Communist system.This important collection of Professor Lange's work, prepared by his disciple and close friend Tadeusz Kowalik, presents his most important work on the economic theory of socialism, economic planning, Marxism and 'bourgeois' economics. The volume makes an important contribution by improving access to the papers of an economist whose work was at the very heart of the intellectual conflict between socialism and capitalism in the late twentieth century.
The question of who 'we' are and what vision of humanity 'we'
assume in Western culture lies at the heart of hotly debated
questions on the role of religion in education, politics, and
culture in general. The need for recovering a greater purpose for
social practices is indicated, for example, by the rapidly
increasing number of publications on the demise of higher
education, lamenting the fragmentation of knowledge and university
culture's surrender to market-driven pragmatism. The West's
cultural rootlessness and lack of cultural identity are also
revealed by the failure of multiculturalism to integrate
religiously vibrant immigrant cultures. A main cause of the West's
cultural malaise is the long-standing separation of reason and
faith.
David Hume (1711-1776) is one of the greatest of philosophers. Today he probably ranks highest of all British philosophers in terms of influence and philosophical standing. His philosophical work ranges across morals, the mind, metaphysics, epistemology, religion, and aesthetics; he had broad interests not only in philosophy as it is now conceived but in history, politics, economics, religion, and the arts. He was a master of English prose. The Clarendon Hume Edition will include all of his works except his History of England and minor historical writings. It is the only thorough critical edition, and will provide a far more extensive scholarly treatment than any previous editions. This edition (which has been in preparation since the 1970s) offers authoritative annotation, bibliographical information, and indexes, and draws upon the major advances in textual scholarship that have been made since the publication of earlier editions-advances both in the understanding of editorial principle and practice and in knowledge of the history of Hume's own texts. In this volume, Tom Beauchamp presents two essays from Four Dissertations (1757), the last philosophical work written by Hume, which was subsequently revised by the philosopher in the remaining years of his life. Whilst the bulk of A Dissertation on the Passions was extracted from passages in A Treatise of Human Nature, The Natural History of Religion was an original work when published in 1757, as well as the only major work devoted exclusively to the subject of religion that Hume published in his lifetime. Together with Hume's earlier work on religious topics, this essay drew considerable philosophical commentary from his contemporaries. The last edition of the two works in this volume seen through the press by Hume himself appeared in 1772. It provides the copy-text for this critical edition. The Editor's primarily historical Introduction discusses the genesis, revision, and reception of these two dissertations, which went into ten editions at the author's hand. It will appeal to scholars across many disciplines. General Editors of the Clarendon Hume: Professors T. L. Beauchamp (Georgetown University, USA), D. F. Norton (McGill University, Canada), M. A. Stewart (University of Lancaster, England). The Edition comprises (or will comprise): Vols. 1 and 2: A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by D. F. Norton Vol. 3: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, edited by T. L. Beauchamp Vol. 4: An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, edited by T. L. Beauchamp Vol. 5: The Natural History of Religion and A Dissertation on the Passions, edited by T. L. Beauchamp Vols. 6 and 7: Essays, edited by T. L. Beauchamp and M. Box Vol. 8: Dialogues concerning Natural Religion and other posthumous publications, edited by M. A. Stewart
This volume focuses on the theme of the dual aspects of method in the development of economic thought. It contains new papers that address methodological issues, and others that deal with the evolution of analytic techniques and the social or personal milieux in which ideas emerged and the extent to which they became part of the body of literature we call political economy.
Wicksteed's classic work, The Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution, has a central place within the development of marginal productivity theory. It claimed to explain all 'factor returns' on a unified basis and to show how 'marginal productivity factor pricing' just exhausted the total product. It is presented here with a long introduction by the editor, Ian Steedman, who provides both a careful analysis of the text and an assessment of Wicksteed's place within the development of modern economics. This important new edition will make The Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution accessible to a fresh generation of economists.
Lucretius' account of the origin of life, the origin of species, and human prehistory (first century BC) is the longest and most detailed account extant from the ancient world. It is a mechanistic theory that does away with the need for any divine design, and has been seen as a forerunner of Darwin's theory of evolution. This commentary seeks to locate Lucretius in both the ancient and modern contexts. The recent revival of creationism makes this study particularly relevant to contemporary debate, and indeed, many of the central questions posed by creationists are those Lucretius attempts to answer.
This carefully selected compilation of the significant writings of the great political philosophers, scientists, and thinkers has long been an invaluable guide to the general reader as well as to the serious student of history, political science, and government. Such essential forces as Revolution, Idealism, and Nationalism are examined in detail and expounded by their leading exponents. Professor Curtis has written running commentary that places the extracts and their authors in the sequence of modern history.
Frederick R. Bauer captures the essence of William James in "Science, God's Hard Gift." We have all heard the word "pragmatic." It entered our everyday vocabulary as a result of a series of lectures delivered by William James, the greatest of all great American thinkers. He gave those lectures in 1906, four years before his death at age sixty-eight, in 1910. In the first of those lectures, James described the type of person he wanted to reach, a person not unlike a large number of persons today: "He wants facts; he wants science," James said, "but he also wants a religion." James did not live to see the incredible new scientific discoveries of the 1900s. Those discoveries have led increasing numbers of experts to claim that modern science has made religion "obsolete." "Science, God's Hard Gift" celebrates this centenary of James's death by updating and expanding his ideas on pragmatism for those contemporaries who want facts and science, but also a religion.
Metaethics, understood as a distinct branch of ethics, is often
traced to G. E. Moore's 1903 classic, Principia Ethica. Whereas
normative ethics is concerned to answer first-order moral questions
about what is good and bad, right and wrong, metaethics is
concerned to answer second-order non-moral questions about the
semantics, metaphysics, and epistemology of moral thought and
discourse. Moore has continued to exert a powerful influence, and
the sixteen essays here (most of them specially written for the
volume) represent the most up-to-date work in metaethics after, and
in some cases directly inspired by, the work of Moore.
"In bold and beautifully crafted close readings, Reid-Pharr
challenges many of the structuring absences that have shaped the
fields of African-American literary studies, queer studies, and
American Studies. His provocative arguments about sexuality, race,
and masculinity are unsettling, in the best sense of that
word." aProvocatively and often brilliantly, this book disturbs some of
our most fundamental thinking about the role of choice, literary
influence, collective identity, and the racial erotic in African
American letters. Reid-Pharr engages these questions--sometimes
with the subtler edge of his wit and other times with the sharpness
of cutting-edge theory--but always with an eye to re-orienting us
as readers toward what it means to inhabit, or refuse, the skin of
identity.a aA deeply local and deeply ethical book and Reid-Pharr is willing to risk the misunderstanding in order to insist on the importance of black political agency. There is a refreshing honesty in the way Reid-Pharr directs his comments toward readers.a--"GC Advocate" Richard Wright. Ralph Ellison. James Baldwin. Literary and cultural critic Robert Reid-Pharr asserts that these and other post-World War II intellectuals announced the very themes of race, gender, and sexuality with which so many contemporary critics are now engaged. While at its most elemental Once You Go Black is an homage to these thinkers, it is at the same time a reconsideration of black Americans as agents, and not simply products, of history. Reid-Pharr contends that our current notions of black American identity are notinevitable, nor have they simply been forced onto the black community. Instead, he argues, black American intellectuals have actively chosen the identity schemes that seem to us so natural today. Turning first to the late and relatively obscure novels of Wright, Ellison, and Baldwin, Reid-Pharr suggests that each of these authors rejects the idea of the black as innocent. Instead they insisted upon the responsibility of all citizens-even the most oppressed-within modern society. Reid-Pharr then examines a number of responses to this presumed erosion of black innocence, paying particular attention to articulations of black masculinity by Huey Newton, one of the two founders of the Black Panther Party, and Melvin Van Peebles, director of the classic film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song," Shuttling between queer theory, intellectual history, literary close readings, and autobiography, Once You Go Black is an impassioned, eloquent, and elegant call to bring the language of choice into the study of black American literature and culture. At the same time, it represents a hard-headed rejection of the presumed inevitability of what Reid-Pharr names racial desire in the production of either culture or cultural studies.
Volume XXI/2 of History of Universities contains the customary mix of learned articles, book reviews, conference reports, and bibliographical information, which makes this publication such an indispensable tool for the historian of higher education. Its contributions range widely geographically, chronologically, and in subject-matter. The volume is, as always, a lively combination of original research and invaluable reference material.
David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This second volume begins with their 'Historical Account' of the Treatise, an account that runs from the beginnings of the work to the period immediately following Hume's death in 1776, followed by an account of the Nortons' editorial procedures and policies and a record of the differences between the first-edition text of the Treatise and the critical text that follows. The volume continues with an extensive set of 'Editors' Annotations', intended to illuminate (though not intepret) Hume's texts; a four-part bibliography of materials cited in both volumes; and a comprehensive index.
David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This first volume contains the critical text of David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (1739/40), followed by the short Abstract (1740) in which Hume set out the key arguments of the larger work; the volume concludes with A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh (1745), Hume's defence of the Treatise when it was under attack from ministers seeking to prevent Hume's appointment as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
What is the role of language in human cognition? Could we attain
self-consciousness and construct our civilisation 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'.
James Connelly and Giuseppina D'Oro present a revised edition of R. G. Collingwood's classic work of 1933, supplementing the original text with important related writings from Collingwood's manuscripts which appear here for the first time. The editors also contribute a substantial new introduction, and the volume will be welcomed by all historians of twentieth-century philosophy.
This edition makes available an entirely new version of Hegel's
lectures on the development and scope of world history. Volume I
presents Hegel's surviving manuscripts of his introduction to the
lectures and the full transcription of the first series of lectures
(1822-23). These works treat the core of human history as the
inexorable advance towards the establishment of a political state
with just institutions-a state that consists of individuals with a
free and fully-developed self-consciousness. Hegel interweaves
major themes of spirit and culture-including social life, political
systems, commerce, art and architecture, religion, and
philosophy-with an historical account of peoples, dates, and
events. Following spirit's quest for self-realization, the lectures
presented here offer an imaginative voyage around the world, from
the paternalistic, static realm of China to the cultural traditions
of India; the vast but flawed political organization of the Persian
Empire to Egypt and then the Orient; and the birth of freedom in
the West to the Christian revelation of free political institutions
emerging in the medieval and modern Germanic world. |
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