This paper offers personal reflections on the fashioning of the history of science in Europe. It presents the history of science as a discipline emerging in the twentieth century from an intellectual and political context of great complexity, and concludes with a plea for tolerance and pluralism in historiographical methods and approaches.

The essay offers a decolonial reading of the thought of Ọ̀rúnmìlà, the ancient legendary Yorùbá African messenger and interpreter of the spiritual tradition of Ifá with the aim to address the problem of hegemonic languages (such as English and French) and epistemic bias that have affected the Yorùbá intellectual tradition. The essay argues that reflection on the deep history of Yorùbá and the applied philosophy of Ọ̀rúnmìlà can better clarify the problem of language and epistemic injustices that (...) European modernity has generated in modern Africa. The essay therefore explores what could be described as the interaction of nature-culture in the Yorùbá African intellectual tradition that continues to be silenced and distorted by imposed hegemonic languages and cultures. Through a new reading of the thought of Ọ̀rúnmìlà within the context of Ifá, the essay highlights how the problem of language and epistemic injustices disrupts the continuity of inherited African philosophical and historical traditions in modern times. Ultimately, such reading aims at revealing the contribution of the Yorùbá intellectual tradition to the global philosophical and historical discourse. (shrink)

Some central issues of fin-de-siècle Hungarian philosophy and intellectual tradition can be retrieved from the writings of József Eötvös and his mid-nineteenth century contemporaries. An ambiguous attitude towards metaphysics, emphasis on sociological issues as well as a regional perspective are apparent in his texts prior to the emergence of the great fin-de-siècle generation of Hungarian intellectuals. They survived the Habsburg Empire thanks to the post-Monarchical literary tradition and Péter Esterházy’s works; they provided an adequate vocabulary for the (...) Central European experience following the Soviet Era. (shrink)

Pfau argues that the loss of foundational concepts in classical and medieval Aristotelian philosophy caused a fateful separation between reason and will in European thought.

European Stories is the first book of its kind in any European language. Its authors explore the many different ways 'public intellectuals' have debated Europe - the EU and its periphery - within distinct epistemological, disciplinary, ideological and above all national traditions. The chapters focus on the post-1989 era but with a view to the long history of the 'European idea' and its variants across the continent. To what extent such ideas frame the attitude of European (...) publics is left open. But the authors assume that they matter to the European project as a whole. While the twelve national cases have been selected for the broad range they offer, from founding to non-EU member states, they are not exhaustive as the book is meant to encourage further research. The authors of these chapters are all themselves fully immersed in their respective public spheres although generally not strongly identified with one 'camp' or another. The expected readership is broad and interdisciplinary, ranging from political philosophy, to political science, international relations, history, sociology and the history of ideas. Beyond academia, European Stories is meant for all readers interested in the intellectual debates of our time. (shrink)

I am greatly indebted to the German Fulbright Commission, and its Director, Dr Ulrich Littmann, for their generous support from September 1988 until February 1989, during which time I completed this paper. My gratitude also extends to the Zentralinstitut für sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung of the Free University of West Berlin, and its Directors Dr Dietrich Herzog and Dr Hans-Dieter Klingemann, who supplied me with both comfortable working conditions and a stimulating intellectual atmosphere.

B a c k g r o u n d. This scientific investigation conducts a constructive-critical, comprehensive, and systematic analysis of the state, paradigms, and trends in the development of Ukrainian and European fundamental science. It highlights, at a synthetic level, the epistemological and social functions, historical mission, and vision of domestic science in shaping the traditions and values of European culture. The article draws attention to the significant contributions made by domestic scientists to the research of theoretical-methodological, (...) epistemological, and worldview foundations of Ukrainian fundamental science as an intellectual phenomenon. This topic is covered in extensive monographic works, articles, discourses, and scientific investigations by such scientists as B. Paton, A. Zahorodnii, A. Naumovets, D. Zerbino, O. Habovych, V. Kuznietsov, L. Kurylo, N. Semenova, S. Honcharenko, A. Pavko, Z. Partiko, A. Filipenko, and others. Valuable, little-studied, and debatable aspects of this issue have also been highlighted in the works of foreign scientists. Among them, the author of the article includes interdisciplinary publications by J. Barroso, J. Gorgon, V. Humboldt, K. Popper, and other Western thinkers and researchers. At the same time, there are practically no professional generalizing works in domestic socio-humanitarian thought that consider Ukrainian fundamental science from a comprehensive, synthetic perspective as a powerful intellectual factor in shaping the traditions and values of European culture. M e t h o d s. The article uses a set of methods (analysis, synthesis, inductive and deductive methods) as well as general scientific approaches such as dialectical, systematic, and interdisciplinary methods to study this socio-humanitarian problem. This has led to the revelation of the internal contradictory nature of trends in the development of fundamental science, the evaluation of Ukrainian science in the system of European values and culture. Meanwhile, the dialectical method provides the theoretical and methodological foundation for a deep, essential understanding of the intellectual potential of fundamental research. In contrast, the systematic approach used in the article is extrapolated to conduct a correct, comprehensive analysis of the integral components that determine the regularities and features of the development of domestic science in modern conditions. The interdisciplinary approach, creatively applied in the article, made it possible to combine achievements in the field of social humanities, which significantly determine the determinants of the methodological culture of scientific analysis, critical thinking in the process of producing and assimilating scientific knowledge. R e s u l t s. The article identifies the following trends in the development of Ukrainian fundamental science as an institutional factor in shaping the traditions and values of European culture: Powerful, systematic development of fundamental science is a necessary condition for improving the mechanisms of deepening European integration processes in Ukraine. Modern fundamental science is one of the components of the socio-cultural progress of humanity and defines such important characteristics as the differentiation and integration of science, computerization, and humanization of each of them. The historical experience of the development of European civilization shows that science, both in the past and in the present, has been and remains an important intellectual factor, a reliable rational foundation of strong states and nations. C o n c l u s i o n s. The conclusion establishes that the scientific potential of the state is an integral component of European culture and the intellect of the modern Ukrainian nation. It is important to consider that European values should have a profound and irreversible nature for domestic science rather than a temporary one. The preservation and modernization of national intellect, intellectual capital are essential conditions for its integration into the educational, scientific, and cultural space of Europe, and for the preservation and development of Ukraine as a modern, scientifically powerful democratic state with established civilizational traditions. The article emphasizes that the constant pursuit of intellectual and political freedom, patriotism, tireless industriousness, intelligence, education, creativity, intellect, healthy pragmatism, persistence, courage, ingenuity, and a sense of humor are precisely the universal, distinctly defined, characteristic traits of our compatriots that make them resilient and open up a unique intellectual space in Europe, a wonderful European world of existence. (shrink)

The connections between “the Humboldtian tradition” and very important cultural layers of the European anti-Enlightenment movement can provide a powerful alternative to the mainstream in today’s social sciences. This tradition should be seen, though, in its concrete historicity and the political and theoretical blind spots which are part of this tradition ought to be carefully reconsidered. This anthropological tradition can be “unpacked” by bringing it closer to other theoretical trends which try to address modernity’s inconsistencies (...) and lack of unity - in order to deconstruct its national closure and its administrative and state oriented background. One of the geographical, historical and social areas where alternative modernities , and Humboldtian traditions seem to intersect each other is the East European peasantry. (shrink)

Erasmus' Adages, a vast collection of the proverbial wisdom of Greek and Roman antiquity, was published in 1508 and became one of the most influential works of the Renaissance. It also marked a turning point in the history of Western thinking about literary property. At once a singularly successful commercial product of the new printing industry and a repository of intellectual wealth, the Adages looks ahead to the development of copyright and back to an ancient philosophical tradition that (...) ideas should be universally shared in the spirit of friendship. In this elegant and tightly argued book, Kathy Eden focuses on both the commitment to friendship and common property that Erasmus shares with his favourite philosophers - Pythagoras, Plato, and Christ - and the early history of private property that gradually transforms European attitudes concerning the right to copy. In the process she accounts for the peculiar shape of Erasmus' collection of more than 3,000 proverbs and provides insightful readings of such ancient philosophical and religious thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Iamblichus, Tertullian, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein crossed the second Styx, from living memory to history, during the years since the present century began. He is recognized today as one of the most original and powerful thinkers of the twentieth century, and his work belongs to the body of literature philosophers will read and interpret afresh in each generation, for as long as the European intellectual tradition survives. He wrote nothing in political philosophy or jurisprudence, very little in ethics, and the only (...) sustained record of his philosophical ideas about religion and art consists in notes taken by students at his lectures. The Tractatus was published in 1921. In this book, Wittgenstein argues that the logical form of a proposition is utterly different from its superficial grammatical form. The greatest obstacles to understanding Wittgenstein's philosophy are not any inherent obscurity in his ideas, but the aphoristic style in which he wrote and the introverted character of his thought. (shrink)

SummaryThis review-essay discusses two recent books on the political vision of Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821) and Alexandre Stourdza (1791–1854) who defended two different types of conservatism in Western and Eastern Europe. A former advisor to Tsar Alexander I and later secretary of Jean Capodistrias, Stourdza stood for the principles of Eastern Christianity and emphasized their unique contribution to the development of the European spirit. Special attention is paid to the controversy triggered by the publication of Stourdza's Considéations sur la (...) doctrine et l'esprit de l'Eglise orthodoxe (1816) followed by Maistre's Du Pape (1819). The essay concludes with a few remarks on the importance of comparative political thought and cross-cultural analysis. (shrink)

These essays by eminent European intellectual and cultural historian Anson Rabinbach address the writings of key figures in twentieth-century German philosophy. Rabinbach explores their ideas in relation to the two world wars and the horrors facing Europe at that time. Analyzing the work of Benjamin and Bloch, he suggests their indebtedness to the traditions of Jewish messianism. In a discussion of Hugo Ball's little-known _Critique of the German Intelligentsia_, Rabinbach reveals the curious intellectual career of the Dadaist (...) and antiwar activist turned-nationalist and anti-Semite. His examination of Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism" and Jaspers's _The Question of German Guilt_ illuminates the complex and often obscure political referents of these texts. Turning to Horkheimer and Adorno's _Dialectic of Enlightenment_, Rabinbach offers an arresting new interpretation of this central text of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. Subtly and persuasively argued, his book will become an indispensable reference point for all concerned with twentieth-century German history and thought. (shrink)

The turn of the twentieth century witnessed the birth of two distinct philosophical schools in Europe: analytic philosophy and phenomenology. The history of 20th-century philosophy is often written as an account of the development of one or both of these schools, as well as their overt or covert mutual hostility. What is often left out of this history, however, is the relationship between the two European schools and a third significant philosophical event: the birth and development of pragmatism, the (...) indigenous philosophical movement of the United States. Through a careful analysis of seminal figures and central texts, this book explores the mutual intellectual influences, convergences, and differences between these three revolutionary philosophical traditions. The essays in this volume aim to show the central role that pragmatism played in the development of philosophical thought at the turn of the twentieth century, widen our understanding of a seminal point in the history of philosophy, and shed light on the ways in which these three schools of thought continue to shape the theoretical agenda of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The article explores common ground shared by Alexander Herzen's `Dilettantism in Science' (1843) and Mikhail Bakhtin's `Towards a Philosophy of the Act' (1919) in the context of the Russian intellectual tradition as a whole. The primary aim is to explore in many ways, perhaps, unlikely affinities between two very different writers in the early stage of their careers. The secondary aim is to explore identifiably `Russian' motifs which may be said to call into question conventional typologies of Russian (...) thought based on the progressive/conservative divide. (shrink)

Between the American Revolution and the Civil War many Americans professed to reject altogether the notion of adhering to tradition, perceiving it as a malign European influence. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, Americans had possibly become more tradition-minded than their European contemporaries. So argues Michael D. Clark in this incisive work of social and intellectual history. Challenging reigning assumptions, Clark maintains that in the period 1865 to 1942 Americans became more conscious of (...) tradition as a social force, viewed it more positively, and used it more eclectically and selectively for personal and social enrichment. Clark expands upon the existing body of scholarly work by clearly distinguishing tradition from other ways of relating to the past and by studying particular traditions that shaped American thought and culture. He gives primary attention to five individuals who represent the growing influence of tradition in this period: the popular philosopher and historian John Fiske, representing Anglo-American tradition; the Virginia historians Philip Bruce and Lyon G. Tyler, representing a southern variation on a national tradition; the country's leading neo-Gothic architect, Ralph Adams Cram, representing a surprisingly pervasive medieval tradition; and the sociologist Charles H. Cooley, representing views on immigrant traditions. Clark examines how the idea of tradition, initially associated with family home and local town, was carried outward to the larger sphere and applied to promote American expansionism -- territorially, economically, and demographically. Tradition was also used as a weapon by well-entrenched social groups in struggles over power and values. It offered a sense of stability in a time of unsettling technological and sociological change. Ironically, Clark shows, `traditionalists of this era helped to create a modern sensibility by opposing the Victorian linear sense of history and employing instead historical cycles and typology as ways to bridge past and present. The American Discovery of Tradition, 1865--1942 describes a period of time when the social and intellectual forces of tradition and modernity converged in the United States. America was both a nation looking back, now having a memory of its own past, and a nation looking forward to future progress. Clark's book reveals the shaping of the modern American self and its distinctive attitude -- both positive and negative -- toward tradition. (shrink)

As opposed to the intelligentsia, a historically specific group, and the professions, those who perform intellectual labor, the intellectual is here understood as the performance of a social role, one which involves the articulation of ideas communicated to a broad audience. This implies at least two distinct ways of speaking about and studying the intellectual. The first is to look at the way various social actors take on the task of articulating ideas in public discourses. The second (...) is to study how particular persons aspire to the intellectual, a role whose meaning they inherit as part of a tradition which must be interpreted and reinvented. Through an analysis of six assassinations, the article shows how intellectuals can act as carrier groups in what is called a cultural trauma, a public discourse in which the foundations of collective identity are brought up for reflection. The six assassinations are Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the United States, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands and Olof Palme and Anna Lindh in Sweden. The article concludes with reflections on the changing nature and position of the intellectual in contemporary society, especially in the light of the prevalence of the media and the new digital age. (shrink)

The article offers an overview and a critical assessment of the work of Zeev Sternhell, focussing on the questions of fascism and of the anti-Enlightenment tradition. It claims that the career of the Israeli historian revolves around the intuition of a history of European modernity marked by a central opposition: that between the Enlightenment and the anti-Enlightenment. I show how the idea is already present in his initial works, and argue that it produces a specific kind of (...) class='Hi'>intellectual history, concerned with the unity of traditions over large temporal horizons. I claim that it has the advantage of offering an historically grounded reading of fascism which nonetheless is capable to account for its emergence in apparently very dissimilar contexts. After having examined some of the shortcomings of this approach, I offer an historical explanation for the type of intellectual history practiced by Sternhell, arguing that it must be tied to his political activism in Israel. (shrink)

Arguably, the tradition of democratic republican theory which arose in the Dutch Republic in the years around 1660 in the writings of Johan and Pieter de la Court, Franciscus van den Enden and Spinoza played a decisively important role in the development of modern democratic political theory. The tradition did not end with Spinoza but continued to develop in the United Provinces and–in the work of Bernard Mandeville, who seemingly belongs more to the Dutch than the British republican (...) tradition–in London, down to the early 18th century. The failure in most histories of republicanism to appreciate how strikingly different intellectually, and as an ideology, the Dutch tradition was from the Anglo-American republican tradition, has had the effect of obscuring its central importance in the development of radical republicanism in mid- and late 18th-century France. (shrink)

For a long time, leading European thinkers have denied systematic, theoretical and rational nature of Chinese traditional thinking, unpretentiously reading it as banal moralizing, not supported by any proper philosophical discourse. However, the habitual socioethical label conceals a much deeper problematic of strategic thinking. At its center, there is the question of choosing all sorts of strategies: from everyday life to special technical ones, from personal existential choice to fateful state decisions. The concept of a winning strategy is emblematized (...) by the dramatic plot of a deadly risk but under certain conditions with guaranteed happy end. The strategy of harmony, which is miraculous in its effectiveness, is proposed as a exemplary strategy. It allows you to “step on the tiger’s tail” with impunity. From the point of view of strategic thinking, the criterion of cognitive value of reasoning is its effectiveness, and the most effective is unmistakable prediction, i.e. the ability to predict the outcome of future developments with the help of reasoning. In the ideal case, prognostic reasoning becomes not just plausible but 100% reliable that is an apodictic true inference. Therefore, the highest cognitive status in the Chinese intellectual tradition is endowed with guaranteed error-free prognostic reasoning. This type of reasoning, where the reliability of foresight is guaranteed by the implementation of a certain winning strategy, can be called the prognostic form of deduction. As a result, the dynamism of Chinese logic, which relies on a deliberate staging of the future, is strikingly different from the static nature of the classical image of logic, where logic is no more than a static guardian of correctness of reasoning. On the contrary, the Chinese concept of logic focuses on deriving consequences from strategic considerations regarding the future, actively and purposefully shaped by the subject who at the same time constructing both himself and the world around him. (shrink)

Summary Under the Iberian Union, the Portuguese discourse on empire had been both relatively muted and intertwined with Spanish debates. The Braganza Restoration presented a radical break from this tradition. A new network of preachers, theologians and jurists from the four corners of the Portuguese empire made the case for the recovery of independence. Instead of buttressing a common moral universe and the old pan-Iberian network of higher learning, the new network focused its energies on the establishment of the (...) particularity of the Portuguese imperial and missionary enterprises. The contribution explores the importance of networks in establishing intellectual independence and the strategies employed by the partisans of the newly independent Portugal. It was no longer good enough for Portugal to be the other Iberian empire; her very raison d'être was now to become the only Iberian empire. (shrink)

The question of how intellectuals ought to relate to the ideological traditions of the political cultures of modern societies has been a recurrent theme of European social and political thought over the last two centuries. This chapter explores earlier traditions of European thinking, associated with the work of Karl Mannheim, Julien Benda, and Antonio Gramsci, which established the major lines of debate about the relationship of intellectuals to a sense of nationhood and the political traditions of the polities (...) they inhabited. These ideas form the backdrop to the analysis of the drift towards post-national thinking among important groups of intellectual practitioners in the UK towards the end of the twentieth century. Cosmopolitan thinking, the article suggests, has tended to obscure the ideological character of the main lines of political thinking associated with globalization, and ensured that progressive intellectuals tended to abandon the ‘national-popular’ to their counterparts on the political right, with fateful consequences. (shrink)

Kant typically is not identified with the tradition of virtue epistemology. Although he may not be a virtue epistemologist in a strict sense, I suggest that intellectual virtues and vices play a key role in his epistemology. Specifically, Kant identifies a serious intellectual vice that threatens to undermine reason, namely enthusiasm (Schwärmerei). Enthusiasts become so enamored with their own thinking that they refuse to subject reason to self-critique. The particular danger of enthusiasm is that reason colludes in (...) its own destruction: enthusiasm occurs when self-conceit and reason’s desire to transcend its boundaries mutually reinforce each other. I conclude by sketching an account of Kantian intellectual virtue that is consistent with Kantian moral virtue. (shrink)

SUMMARYThe present study paints the intellectual environment in which Ferdinand de Saussure developed his ideas about language and linguistics during the fin de siècle. It sketches his dissatisfaction with that environment to the extent that it touched on linguistics, and shows the new course he was trying to steer on the basis of ideas that seemed to open new and exciting perspectives, even though they were still vaguely defined. As Saussure himself was extremely reticent about his sources and (...) class='Hi'>intellectual pedigree, his stance in the lively European cultural context in which he lived can only be established through textual critique and conjecture. On this basis, it is concluded that Saussure, though relatively uninformed about its historical roots, essentially aimed at integrating the rationalist tradition current in the sciences in his day into a new, ‘scientific’ general theory of language. In this, he was heavily indebted to a few predecessors, such as the French philosopher-psychologist Victor Egger, and particularly to the French psychologist, historian and philosopher Hippolyte Taine, who was a major cultural influence in nineteenth-century France, though now largely forgotten. The present study thus supports Hans Aarsleff's analysis, where, for the first time, Taine's influence is emphasised, and rejects John Joseph's contention that Taine had no influence and that, instead, Saussure was influenced mainly by the romanticist Adolphe Pictet. Saussure abhorred Pictet's method of etymologising, which predated the Young Grammarian school, central to Saussure's linguistic education. The issue has implications for the positioning of Saussure in the history of linguistics. Is he part of the non-analytical, romanticist and experience-based European strand of thought that is found in art and postmodernist philosophy and is sometimes called structuralism, or is he a representative of the short-lived European branch of specifically linguistic structuralism, which was rationalist in outlook, more science-oriented and more formalist, but lost out to American structuralism? The latter seems to be the case, though phenomenology, postmodernism and art have lately claimed Saussure as an icon. (shrink)

Solidarity is presumed to underpin the redistributive health and welfare systems in modern democracies; however, it is often considered a Western—or more specifically, European—concept. While health and welfare systems have been transplanted successfully to many non-Western developed countries, whether the solidarity necessary for such systems exists or is intellectually available remains under debate. Using an East Asian country with the Confucian tradition as an illustrative case, I first argue that the Confucian tradition has special theoretical and sociological (...) importance for health and welfare solidarity. Then, through investigating the classic Confucian writings, I propose transformed interpretations of the essential concepts of Confucian thought, namely filial piety, benevolent governance and the mandate of heaven. With these interpretations, the differentiated family-based solidarity and the people-rooted thought in Confucianism could be reimagined to fit with the modern liberal-democratic political regime and welfare arrangements. I call this model Confucian welfarism, which I argue could form the intellectual origins of solidarity for people who believe in or have an affinity to Confucian ethos. (shrink)

The first thorough examination of C. Wright Mills's intellectual roots, this book also is the first to present Mills's full analysis in his unpublished as well as published writings of the work of his precursors, mentors, and critics. Mills' intellectual line of descent is traced from the American institutional economists, especially Thorstein Veblen and Clarence Ayres, and the American pragmatists, especially John Dewey and George H. Mead—an evolution influenced though not determined by ideas from Europe. Always the critic (...) and gadfly, Mills subjected all theories to his special brand of analysis and synthesis. For example, his books on U.S. social stratification are seen by Tilman as a trilogy updating Veblen with ideas from the pragmatists, spiced with a good bit of Max Weber but very little Man. Power, his other chief concern, also was subjected to his creative American eclecticism. As a lifelong seeker of knowledge, Mills studied the great European social thinkers—notably Marx, Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Weber, Mannheim, and Freud—until his untimely death. Explaining Mills's self-description as a "plain Marxist," Tilman writes that it "amounted to little more than a willingness to use Marx's values, vocabulary, and model when these seemed relevant and to ignore them when they did not." Regarding alleged affinities between Freud and Mills, Tilman argues these were "tenuous at best and, although the linkage with the neo-Freudians was stronger, Mills remained critical of Homey and Fromm because they had "not succeeded in entirely overcoming Freud's biological metaphysic." Although the American radical tradition is complex and varied, the heritage that most influenced Mills, Tilman contends, contains elements of evangelical Protestantism and of liberal pragmatism. "It was Charles Wright Mills more than any other thinker in recent years," he concludes, "who synthesized these strands of thought and then wove them into an authentic American radical theory.". (shrink)

The article traces the development of Hungarian intellectual history of the early modern period from the emergence of the national romantic constructions of literary history to the recent turn towards contextualist and conceptual history. One of its main findings is the ideological importance of this period for the formation of the national canon, as it became a central point of reference for the emerging local methodological tradition of intellectual history, even if it was often compartamentalized under other (...) categories. From this perspective, the article puts particular emphasis on ideological constructions seeking to define the nation and depict the emergence of modern national identity. This finding also offers a vantage point for analyzing the interplay between literary history and the socio-culturally focused approaches, which can be considered the main framework for the developments of the last two decades, when these local historiographical traditions entered into an interesting dialogue with the Western European and American schools of intellectual history. Along these lines, while pointing out the discursive continuities with the previous paradigms, which are shaping even the contemporary historiographical production, the article also ponders the ways in which the inherited (post-)romantic constructions can be successfully challenged. (shrink)

Very little has been written in recent decades about the temporal nature of art. The two principal explanations provided by our Western cultural tradition are that art is timeless (`eternal') or that it belongs within the world of historical change. Neither account offers a plausible explanation of the world of art as we know it today, which contains large numbers of works which are self-evidently not timeless because they have been resurrected after long periods of oblivion with significances quite (...) different from those which they originally held, and which also seem to have escaped history because, though long-forgotten, they have `come alive' again for us today. In his two key works on the theory of art, "Les Voix du silence" and "La Métamorphose des dieux", André Malraux offers an entirely new account of the temporal nature of art based on the concept of metamorphosis. Unlike the traditional explanations, Malraux's account makes sense of the world of art as we now know it. He revolutionizes our understanding of the relationship between art and time. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to situate the expression of the secular culture of the Enlightenment in the Greek context into the broader intellectual and spiritual tradition defined by the Greek language. The analysis points at the breaks introduced into this tradition by the Enlightenment (in historical and geographical conceptions, in scientific and political thought and in the understanding of the classics) but it also argues that despite its novelty the Enlightenment shared a considerable heritage with the (...) broader Orthodox religious culture into which it was transmitted in Southeastern Europe. This point is illustrated by reference to biographical evidence, supplied by the life histories of three important exponents of the Enlightenment writing in Greek (E. Voulgaris, Iosipos Moisiodax and N. Doukas). The complex relation between the Enlightenment and earlier Greek intellectual traditions is underlined in conclusion. ☆ An earlier version of this paper was presented as the concluding lecture of the conference “The Greek world under Ottoman and Western domination, 15th–19th centuries”, held at the Onassis Cultural Centre in New York on 29 April 2006. The original version appeared in the proceedings of the conference, published under the same title in 2008. The version published here has been extensively revised, updated and expanded. In revising the earlier version I had the benefit of the comments and suggestions of Professor Ihor Sevchenko, to whom I am deeply grateful. I am also indebted to Richard Whatmore for his encouragement. (shrink)

Milestones was a manifesto of rightwing, anti-revolutionary liberalism, according to which the political events of 1905 should have officially concluded the intelligentsia’s battle against autocracy and inaugurated the intelligentsia’s cooperation with Russia’s “historical rulers” to turn the country into an economically and culturally strong “state of law.” All the Milestones ’ authors agreed that Russia’s intellectual history was not identical with the traditions of the radical intelligentsia, and that there was need for a new intellectual canon focused on (...) religious thought and efforts to define the Russian national identity. (shrink)

_Celebrating the fortieth anniversary of this seminal book, this new edition includes an illuminating foreword by Carlos Eire and Ronald K. Rittges_ The seeds of the swift and sweeping religious movement that reshaped European thought in the 1500s were sown in the late Middle Ages. In this book, Steven Ozment traces the growth and dissemination of dissenting intellectual trends through three centuries to their explosive burgeoning in the Reformations—both Protestant and Catholic—of the sixteenth century. He elucidates with great (...) clarity the complex philosophical and theological issues that inspired antagonistic schools, traditions, and movements from Aquinas to Calvin. This masterly synthesis of the intellectual and religious history of the period illuminates the impact of late medieval ideas on early modern society. With a new foreword by Carlos Eire and Ronald K. Rittgers, this modern classic is ripe for rediscovery by a new generation of students and scholars. (shrink)

Europe is in the midst of a double crisis: the rise of illiberal democracies and the reshaping of the so-called “world order.” Illiberal and autocratic regimes are on the rise and the “illiberal temptation” is present even in countries with strong democratic traditions, such as in Europe. The conflict between constitutional democracies and autocratic regimes is at the heart of the current struggle for a new international order. In this context, the confidence we have in our shared democratic and humanist (...) values is in crisis. Not only is there a debate about how these values should be interpreted—which is normal—it also seems that these values are no longer widely shared. Significant segments of the public no longer take democratic principles and the rule of law for granted. As a result, the use of violence is no longer taboo, not only in international relations but also within our own societies. This crisis is unfolding on a global scale, but it has implications for the European narrative, which is about both Europe’s post-nationalist, democratic identity, and Europe’s role in the world. In this article, I begin with some comments on this narrative, with an emphasis on the specificity of European cultural diversity. I then try to situate the role of intellectuals in this context. I examine (1) the task of interpreting the current historical situation, of raising collective awareness with regard to problems that require collective action (e.g. climate change, the reduction of gender and cultural discrimination, the prevention of armed conflicts, etc.); (2) the “universalization of tradition”, that is, the hermeneutic process by which a tradition (ethical, religious, political, etc.) reinterprets itself in such a way as to make it understandable and meaningful to other traditions; (3) the impact that the practice of dialogue, as understood in the human and social sciences, should have on actual political discussion; and (4) the role that the human and social sciences have in articulating, within a meaningful discourse, the demands for greater justice and for a meaningful existence that arise in the form of collective feelings, emotions, etc. (shrink)

"The political and academic worlds are fractured by two competing discourses: the universalism of human rights and cultural relativism. This fracture is represented by the deep separation of cultural analysis and theories of international politics. Derek Robbins in a brilliant interrogation of European thinkers from Montesquieu to Pierre Bourdieu seeks to replace cultural relativism with cultural relationism as a step towards reconciling Enlightenment universalism and anthropological insistence on cultural difference. Inter alia he reflects on the tensions between political and (...) social science and takes up the challenge from Raymond Aron to construct a sociology of international relations. A dazzling achievement." - Bryan S. Turner, The Graduate Center, CUNY Through historical studies of some of the work of Montesquieu, Comte, Durkheim, Boas, Morgenthau, Aron and Bourdieu, Derek Robbins examines the changing and competing conceptualisations of the political and the social in the Western European intellectual tradition. He suggests that we are now experiencing a new ‘dissociation of sensibility’ in which political thought and its consequences in action have become divorced from social and cultural experience. Developing further the ideas of Bourdieu which he has presented in books and articles over the last twenty years, Robbins argues that we need to integrate the recognition of cultural difference with the practice of international politics by accepting that the ‘field’ of international political discourse is a social construct which is contingent on encounters between diverse cultures. ‘Everything is relative’ (Comte) and ‘everything is social’ (Bourdieu), not least international politics. (shrink)

The extension of intellectual property rights into the realm of biology has emerged as an increasing focus of controversy in relation to science,2 biodiversity,3 agriculture,4 health,5 development,6 human rights7 and trade.8 This paper presents the results of a review of international trends in activity for patent protection between 1990-2000 and provisional data to 2004 and 2005 from over 70 national patent offices, four regional patent offices and the World Intellectual Property Organisation using the European Patent Office esp@cenet (...) worldwide database.9 The review employed patent publication counts as an indicator of activity for traditional medicines, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and biotechnology. The research provides insights into the internationalisation of patent activity in multiple areas of biology. The review emphasises the need to combine the further development of quantitative methods with qualitative analysis of the implications of international patent activity in relation to biological and genetic material for science, society and policy. (shrink)

This dissertation analyzes the philosophical theories and politics of Kitaro Nishida , the founder of modern Japanese philosophy, and Tetsuro Watsuji , the second most famous philosopher in Japan. Both Nishida and Watsuji develop a "spatialized" conception of history to contrast with a temporal model which had the effect of situating Europe as the most advanced form of modern culture. According to their view, the representation of world history should take into account the contemporaneous developments of all cultures. ;Positioning themselves (...) as non-European thinkers but sharing in the modern European intellectual tradition, Nishida and Watsuji develop original philosophical positions in the language of Western philosophy. After the initial formulation of the theory of "pure experience" under the influence of William James, Nishida develops a metaphysical theory of "place," a dialectical system inspired by Hegel. Using Heideggerian phenomenology, Watsuji develops his own theories of "milieu" and "Being-between" . In an attempt to go beyond Eurocentrism, these theories sought to widen the context of Western philosophy from a non-Western point of view. ;However, in the 1940s when Japan became an imperialist state, Nishida and Watsuji used their philosophical theories to justify wartime political ideology. Their anti-Eurocentrism thus allied with Japanese nationalism. However, their philosophical theories could have been developed to critique nationalism rather than endorse it. Their error resulted from the persistent framework of "East vs. West" which essentialized Japan's identity vis-a-vis the West. (shrink)

Realists and supporters of ‘democratic underlabouring’ have recently challenged the traditional separation between political theory and practice. Although both attack Jürgen Habermas for being an idealist whose philosophy is too removed from politics, I argue that this interpretation is inaccurate. While Habermas’s social and political theory is indeed oriented to truth and understanding, he has sought realize his communicative conception of democracy by increasing the quality of political debate as a public intellectual. Building on his approach, I argue that (...) giving the theorist a direct role in public policy undermines theory as an enterprise oriented towards truth while overlooking the contingency, participatory nature and complicated internal logics of social and political practice. My basic thesis is that Habermas’s understanding of the relationship between theory and practice overcomes these difficulties by providing an account of theory that is independent but simultaneously also allows philosophers to participate in politics as public intellectuals. (shrink)

Disciplinary issues -- Field studies -- Appendix: Theory of law : legal ethnography, or, the theoretical fruits of the inquiries into folkways. /// Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1995 to 2008 /// DISCIPLINARY ISSUES -- LAW AS CULTURE? [2002] 9–14 // TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES [2002] 15–17 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES: ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTUALISATION [1997] 19–28: 1. Legal Culture in a Cultural-anthropological Approach 19 / 2. Legal Culture in a Sociological Approach 21 / 3. Timely Issues of (...) Central and Eastern Europe 24 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES? [2001] 29–48: 1. Legal Comparativism Challenged 29 / 2. Comparative Legal Cultures versus Comparative Law 34 / 3. Contrasting Fields 40 [a) The Historical Understanding of Socialist Law 42 / b) Convergence of Civil Law and Common Law 44] 4. Concluding Remarks 46 // THEATRUM LEGALE MUNDI: ON LEGAL SYSTEMS CLASSIFIED [2005] 49–75: 1. Preliminaries 49 / 2. Proposals 50 / 3. Impossible Taxonomy, or the Moment of Practicality in Legal Mapping 69 / 4. Diversity as a Fundamental Quality of Human Existence 74 // LEGAL TRADITIONS? IN SEARCH FOR FAMILIES AND CULTURES IN LAW [2004] 77–97: 1. Comparative Law and the Comparative Study of Legal Traditions 78 / 2. ‘System’, ‘Family’, ‘Culture’, and ‘Tradition’ in the Classification of Law 80 / 3. Different Traditions, Differing Ways of Thinking 85 / 4. Different Expectations, Differings Institutionalisations in Law 88 / 5. Different “Rationalities”, Differing “Logics” 92 / 6. Mentality in Foundation of the Law 94 / 7. Defining a Subject for Theoretical Research in Law 96 // SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY OF LAW? [1995] 99–102 --- FIELD STUDIES -- MEETING POINTS BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH–AMERICAN COMMON LAW AND CONTINENTAL-FRENCH CIVIL LAW: DEVELOPMENTS AND EXPERIENCE OF POSTMODERNITY IN CANADA [2002] 105–130: I. Canadian Law in General 105 / II. Canadian Legal Developments in Particular [1. The Transformation of the Role of Precedents 112 / 2. The Transformation of Law-application into a Collective, Multicultural and Multifactorial Search for a Solution 116 / 3. Practical Trends of Dissolving the Law’s Positivity 120 / 4. New Prerogatives Acquired by Courts 125 {a) Unfolding the Statutory Provisons in Principles 126 / b) Constitutionalisation of Issues 127 / c) The Supreme Court as the Nation’s Supreme Moral Authority 129}] // MAN ELEVATING HIMSELF? DILEMMAS OF RATIONALITY IN OUR AGE [2000] 131–163: I. Reason and its Adventures 1. Progress and Advance Questioned 131 / 2. The Human Search for Safety Objectified 133 / 3. Knowledge Separated from Wisdom 135 / 4. Pure Intellectuality thereby Born 137 / II. The Will-Element Formalised in Law 5. Mere Voluntas in the Foundation of Legal Positivism 141 / 6. Formalism with Operations Fragmented 145 / III. The State of America Exemplified 7. “Slouching into Gomorrah” 147 / IV. Consequences 8. Utopianism-cum-Voluntarism 154 / 9. With Logic in Posterior Control of Human Formulations Only 159 / V. Perspectives 10. And a Final Resolution Dreamed about 161 // RULE OF LAW? MANIA OF LAW? ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND ANARCHY IN AMERICA [2002] 165–180: {Transformation of American Law and Legal Mentality 165 / With Repercussions on the Underlying Ethos 168 / Legislation through Processualisation 170 / With Hyperrationalism Added 172 / Example: Finding Lost Property 172 / Practicalness Veiled by Verbal Magic 173 / Ending in Jurispathy 175 / Transubstantiating the Self-interest of the Legal Profession 178 / Post-modernity, Substituting for Primitiveness 178} // TRANSFERS OF LAW: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS [2003] 181–207: 1. Terms 182 / 2. Technicality 190 / 3. Contrasts in Transfers of Law 200 {Contrasts 200 / Criticisms 202 / Alternatives205} 4. Conclusions 206 // THE DANGERS FOR THE SELF OF BEING SELF-CENTRED: ON STANDARDS AND VALUES [2002] 209–212 --- APPENDIX -- THEORY OF LAW – LEGAL ETHNOGRAPHY, OR THE THEORETICAL FRUITS OF THE INQUIRIES INTO FOLKWAYS [2008] 213–234 1. Encounters 213 / 2. Disciplines 218 / 3. The Lawyerly Interest 223 / 4. Law and/or Laws 226 / 5. Conclusion 233 --- Index of Subjects 235 / Index of Normative Materials 242 / Index 244 . (shrink)

The beginning of the 20th century has witnessed a significant development that has renewed and stimulated the long passionate historical relationship between two great civilisations which are traditionally known as the West and the East. Following their ancestors who cultivated the quest for knowledge tradition, some Arab scholars have come to leading European countries to learn the latest advancement in knowledge. They did not expect they would be confronted with what seems to be the poor showing of their (...) scientific and cultural heritage according to the assessment that was carried out in the previous century by Western scholars and historians. The Western study of the Eastern heritage had such influence that it has generated new Arab intellectual elite which blames the past for the present difficulties. Following the discovery of major scientific Arabic works in the second half of the 20th century, some Arab scholars like Ibrahim Madkour realised that they had in fact just misunderstood their own tradition. What is the source of their misunderstanding? How did they become aware of it? And how can a better understanding of the past change present attitudes and guide future actions? By attempting to provide some answers to such questions, the aim of this paper is to shed light on what seems to be a turning point in modern Arabic intellectual history. (shrink)

ENLIGHTENMENT AND POLITICAL FICTION: -/- THE EVERYDAY INTELLECTUAL -/- (New York/London: Routledge, 2016). -/- Abstract -/- Advanced, theoretical ideas can be found in the most unlikely books. A handful of books—sometimes surprising ones—not only entertain the reader but also contribute to new ways of seeing the world. Indeed, some theorists explicitly cite literature. Adam Smith, for example, makes repeated references to Voltaire, and Marx later claims numerous literary sources, including Don Quixote. Why, though, should an historian of ideas direct (...) sustained scholarly attention to literature? And what, exactly, beyond high entertainment, should anyone not in literary studies expect when reading great fiction? -/- To address these questions, I examine the particular textures and peculiarities of thought in five famous works of fiction, written from 1600-1850. I have found a web of text-based, interrelated ideas that are attributed to the Enlightenment, and yet that existed considerably before the early-modern period, and, in many cases, that lasted well into our own time. Ideas ascribed to later thinkers—for example, John Locke, in the late seventeenth century, on private property—can be found in much earlier works of fiction. In this case, however, Locke himself acknowledged his debt to Cervantes, but this has been forgotten, as few modern readers read both the theory and the fiction of the past. The five works of fiction examined here, from five different languages, therefore, not only reflect European Enlightenment thinking, but in some cases they helped to create it. -/- Overall I argue that access to political and economic theory by way of fiction made it possible for any person, even someone beyond traditional scholarly circles, to become part of an ongoing, vital academic debate. Enlightenment and Political Fiction: The Everyday Intellectual is designed as an homage to E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1963) by telling the story of the making of the everyday intellectual. The stress here is on the abstract theory to be found in a few famous works of fiction, ideas presented in a format highly attractive to contemporary (and later) readers, yet also exhibited in a manner that showed respect for the intelligence of the average reader. Extrapolating from Thompson, I argue that it was not passive reception but active participation of readers—including those who listened to the book read out loud—that fostered Enlightenment from below. The decision to engage in this intellectual debate, grounded in ideas often first found in fiction, and much of it featuring less-than-gifted central characters, allowed everyday people—the vast majority of whom were wholly removed from both salons and universities—to participate in the questioning and eventually the decision-making of their own states. This led to greater political participation, which is often cited as one of the indicators of the shift to the modern age. -/- Looking at fiction alongside philosophy, political theory, and the history of economic thought enriches our notion of theorizing, and shifts our understanding about which texts should be addressed. Authors, in the midst of developing theories, take their source materials from ideas in their own cultures and then systematize particular concepts. In some cases, nascent political and economic ideas appear first in literature, as in Cervantes’s Don Quixote, and, in other cases, theorists deliberately used literature to propound their theories to a much wider audience, as in Voltaire’s Candide, which might be considered a novelization of moral theory. It is not that the former case—abstract ideas breaking through first in fiction—is the rule in this period, and the latter—theorists manipulating fiction for their own purposes—the exception, but rather that there is a dialectical relationship between fiction and theory in the long eighteenth century. -/- See: http://www.amazon.com/Enlightenment-Political-Fiction-Intellectual-Routledge/dp/1138954179 AND https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138954175. (shrink)

Understanding Chinese philosophy requires knowledge of the referential framework prevailing in Chinese intellectual traditions. But Chinese philosophical texts are frequently approached through the lens of Western paradigms. Analysing the most common misconceptions surrounding Western Sinology, Jana Rošker alerts us to unseen dangers and introduces us to a new more effective way of reading Chinese philosophy. Acknowledging that different cultures produce different reference points, Rošker explains what happens we use rational analysis, a major feature of the European intellectual (...) tradition, to read Chinese philosophy. We rely on impossible comparisons, arrive at prejudiced assumptions and fail to arrive at the truth, the consequence of applying a different methodology to the process of perceiving, understanding and interpreting reality. Instead of transferring concepts and categories from Western sinology onto socio-cultural Chinese contexts, Rošker constructs a new methodology of reading, understanding and interpreting Chinese philosophy. She opens our eyes to the basic problems of Western paradigms, encourages intercultural approaches and allows us to master a more autochthonous understanding of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

The reference of the postmodern task of thinking is Auschwitz, the abyss and discontinuity separating us from the world of our ancestors. As inhabitants of Planet Auschwitz our point of reference lacks all transcendental warrants; it is not a non-referable reference which constitutes the abyss we must enter, endure, and in which our intellectual and cultural tradition must be transformed. The private/public transformations which constitute the texts of this book attempt to depart from the dystopic individuality and public (...) life resulting from business-as-usual after Auschwitz. The three parts of the book are progressive reworkings of traditional metaphysics as adapted and modified by a modernism that refuses to grapple with its complicity. It is precisely that complicity which postmodern thinking takes up in its attempt to signify otherwise than the easy modernist translations and images of tradition. Thus it is a series of uneasy images imaging otherwise but never apart from modernity that take us away from complicity toward a transformed tradition. The uneasy images of this book are photogrammic combinations of photographs and texts, mutual supplements, pulling tradition through the Event against the persistent and murderous forces of contemporary idolatry and repression. (shrink)

The paper seeks to indicate ways in which the crude distinction between Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophy may have to be amended in light of recent developments in Eastern Europe. As is well known, the philosophy of science is to no small part a product of the universities of the Habsburg Empire (in Vienna, Prague, Lemberg/Lwow, etc.). Logic, too, has played a more significant role in Eastern Europe (not least in Poland) than in the philosophical cultures of Germany or France. For (...) these and other reasons, a shift in the center of gravity of Continental philosophy is currently being realized, as younger Eastern European philosophers in newly liberalized institutions begin to return to their roots in their native pre-Communist intellectual traditions. (shrink)

This paper considers the views of Alexander Dugin, a leading proponent of Eurasianism in contemporary Russia. The point of his teaching is the preservation of the traditional social/cultural make-up of each civilization. He also believes that the Russian Slavs together with the minorities of the Russian Federation constitute a quasi-unity of Eurasian civilization. He emphasizes that globalism, led by the USA, is a mortal threat to the cultural identity of Russia/Eurasia and all other civilizations. For this reason the USA and (...) Russia are locked in mortal conflict with one other. At the outset of his intellectual career, in post-Soviet Russia, Dugin believed that Putin would follow the Eurasian road. It would be wrong to see Dugin as an intellectual guru at the head of the post-Soviet elite. Still, his views are important, for they indicate the kinds of ideas that circulate in the minds of the Russian elite. (shrink)