This book by an internationally reputed Indian scientist traces the developments of Science, Religion and Philosophy in human civilization through the ages. The common underlying bond-more specifically, a linkage of philosophy with both science and religion-has been examined incisively. All the three sub-areas of human culture have been presented from a holistic point of view, and at the same time, stressing some of their irreconcilable basic differences in scope and outlook. Meant primarily for general readers, the book achieves a fine (...) balance between basic comcepts, historical evolution and a critical unbiased analysis of rituals, dogmas, unresolved queries and it leads to an enlightened view of 'humanism', 'Nature', 'Unity of man', need for a new paradigm of social and political order transcending globalization and control of resources of weaker nations by supremacy in global power equation. The book reviews the wisdom of the ancient Hindus, Buddhism, Jainism and of the three semitic religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It presents a concise account of the Indian Vedas, Vedangan, Saddarsana, the two epics and the Bhagavadgita, of the philosophy and science of the Greeks, science and technology of ancient Egypt, Babylonia and China. A valuable special feature is a summary of the status of present-day science, starting with the classical phase, and ending with the developments in the last century comprising the Theory of Relativity, quantum physics, genetics, various aspects of human consciousness, modern astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology. Last but not least, the author critically reviews some of the presentday fashionable discourses on 'science as the best way to reach God' and leads the readers to an appraisal of the on-going researches on the unification of the four fundamental interactions of physical sciences. He ends with the inexorable conclusion that this unification, when fully achieved, would still not strictly identify the unique force as 'God as concieved in different religions. (shrink)

This brilliant and absorbing study examines the image of Judaism and the Jews in the work of two of the most influential modern philosophers, Hegel and Nietzsche. Hegel was a proponent of universal reason and Nietzsche was its opponent; Hegel was a Christian thinker and Nietzsche was a self-proclaimed "Antichrist"; Hegel strove to bring modernity to its climax, and Nietzsche wanted to divert the evolution of modernity into completely different paths. In view of these conflicting attitudes and philosophical projects, how (...) did each assess the historical role of the Jews and their place in the modern world? The mature Hegel partly overcame the fierce anti-Jewish attitude of his youth yet continued to see Judaism as the alienation of its own new principles. Post-Christian Judaism no longer had a real history, only a contingent protracted existence, and although modern Jews deserved civil rights, Hegel saw no place for them in modernity as Jews. Nietzsche, on the contrary, who grew to be a passionate anti-anti-Semite, admired Diaspora Jews for their power and depth and assigned them a role as Jews in curing Europe of the decadent Christian culture that their own ancestors, the second-temple Jewish "priests," had inflicted upon Europe by begetting Christianity. The ancient corrupters of Europe are thus to be its present redeemers. Through his masterly analysis of the writings of Hegel and Nietzsche, Yovel shows that anti-Jewish prejudice can exist alongside a philosophy of reason, while a philosophy of power must not necessarily be anti-Semitic. (shrink)

This paper presents Michael Polanyi’s escape from Berlin to Manchester as part of a major wave of intellectual migration at the time of Hitler’s rise in Germany in 1933. Many émigré scientists and social scientists from Hungary experienced forced and unexpected relocation twice in the interwar era: first in 1919-20, after the fall of the Bolshevik-type Hungarian Republic of Councils, and again after the Nazi takeover. Once in exile, they formed an unusually tight support group assisting each other by cohorting, (...) networking, and bonding. Their group included a host of major refugee scientists, scholars, visual artists, musicians, men of letters, and public figures. The rich Hungarian contribution to German and, later, U.S. culture and civilization was, to a very great extent, the result of anti-Semitic policies and practices in Hungary after 1920 and in Germany after 1933. (shrink)

Wittgenstein on the Human Spirit provides a new understanding of Wittgenstein’s discourse as an insightful philosophy of culture, pursued through self-reflection. It offers an edifying perspective on the conceptual underpinnings of culture as a shared expressive spiritual form of life. The ideas investigated in it are highly relevant for discussions in philosophy, aesthetics, anthropology, and cultural studies. The book embraces three studies: The Spirit of Jews, The Spirits of Culture and Civilization, and The Common Spirit of Human Beings. The first (...) discusses Wittgenstein's remarks about Jews, focusing on their place within his philosophical thinking, self-reflection, and European discourse about culture and Jews. It shows how overcoming the anti-Semitic attitude implicit in them set off the major change in his philosophy. The second discusses Wittgenstein’s reflections on the “deterioration of culture” in the modern period, showing how they are related to his remarks about following rules. The third discusses Wittgenstein’s insights regarding the symbolic nature of myth, magic and religion. It suggests that modern human beings and those of ancient cultures possess a common expressive spiritual nature. This enables us to understand expressive practices in other cultures without interpretation. Nonetheless religious belief during the modern period is problematic. (shrink)

The article examines the historical and cultural background for the blatantly anti-Jewish argumentation of the political agitator and writer William Marr in his programmatic pamphlet,,Der Judenspiegel". Attention will be paid in particular to the events and procedures within the contemporary Jewish community in Hamburg. The,,Judenspiegel" clearly exhibits the close relationship between the struggle for the equal civil rights of the German Jews and the development of the modern anti-Semitic ideology.

There is a question mark hanging over the two great markers of modern civilization in the so-called Judeo-Christian, or more accurately Semitic-western-modern tradition: monotheism is the first of these two great markers. The second is the Project, that is, the idea that real life is elsewhere, messianism. Life must be saved, healed. Based on this structural schizophrenia and this transcendent project can we talk about a humanism? Our western civilization has reached saturation point. This saturation is expressed in a (...) polytheism of values. We should no longer search for a distant utopia, but utopias in the gaps, existential ‘makeshift’ forms, close at hand, that promote something like the emotional, the domestic. It is more a question of re-emerging humanisms, pantheisms, polytheisms, something structurally plural. A re-orientalization as well, an alternative to the monovalency of western culture. (shrink)

Inquiries about existence in Mesopotamia started with the Sumerians. They set an example for the civilizations established in this geography and affected them deeply. According to Sumerian mythology, they are cosmic forces identified with fresh water, salt water and mist that are eternal. With the combination of these cosmic elements, the sky and the earth, which are symbolized by the gods, were formed. The whole they formed was separated from each other by Enlil, who was identified with air, and celestial (...) bodies were formed with the expansion of air. The Semites continued this understanding with its main lines. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation, the beginning of the cosmic process is based on the generational conflict between the gods and is explained with the sacrifice of Tiamat, one of the first cosmic forces. The Chief God Marduk shattered Tiamat and created the universe from her remains, and man from the remains of Kingsu. According to the Mesopotamian mythological tradition, gods were derived from the first cosmic elements, which were eternal, and then they created the universe and man from these cosmic remains. According to Egyptian mythology, the eternal is the ocean. The primary gods, who existed in the eternal ocean, created the universe and humans with their natural secretions. According to many mythological narratives, the dominant god has performed the act of creation by expressing his thoughts or the imagination of the heart. As in Mesopotamian mythology, gods and natural beings were identified with a symbolic language in Egyptian mythology. Greek mythological approaches are gathered in outlines in the works of Homer and Hesiod, who are considered to be the founders of religion. Homer stated that the eternal, the divine ocean, is the source of everything. According to Hesiod, in the beginning, chaos (emptiness) occurred, and then the universe, gods and human beings emerged from this chaos, respectively. These understandings of existence also contain a significant amount of philosophical content. There is a parallelism between the understanding of being in myths and those of philosophers. (shrink)

Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon trained at a medical school that did not evaluate its students? Would you want to fly in a plane designed by people convinced that the laws of physics are socially constructed? Would you want to be tried by a legal system indifferent to the distinction between fact and fiction? These questions may seem absurd, but there are theories being seriously advanced by radical multiculturalists that force us to ask such questions. (...) These scholars assert that such concepts as truth and merit are inextricably racist and sexist, that reason and objectivity are merely sophisticated masks for ideological bias, and that reality itself is nothing more than socially constructed mechanism for preserving the power of the ruling elite. In Beyond All Reason, liberal legal scholars Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry mount the first systematic critique of radical multiculturalism as a form of legal scholarship. Beginning with an incisive overview of the origins and basic tenets of radical multiculturalism, the authors critically examine the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado, and explore the alarming implications of their theories. Farber and Sherry push these theories to their logical conclusions and show that radical multiculturalism is destructive of the very goals it wishes to affirm. If, for example, the concept of advancement based on merit is fraudulent, as the multiculturalists claim, the disproportionate success of Jews and Asians in our culture becomes difficult to explain without opening the door to age-old anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes. If historical and scientific truths are entirely relative social constructs, then Holocaust denial becomes merely a matter of perspective, and Creationism has as much "validity" as evolution. The authors go on to show that rather than promoting more dialogue, the radical multiculturalist preferences for legal storytelling and identity politics over reasoned argument produces an insular set of positions that resist open debate. Indeed, radical multiculturalists cannot critically examine each others' ideas without incurring vehement accusations of racism and sexism, much less engage in fruitful discussion with a mainstream that does not share their assumptions. Here again, Farber and Sherry show that the end result of such thinking is not freedom but a kind of totalitarianism where dissent cannot be tolerated and only the naked will to power remains to settle differences. Sharply written and brilliantly argued, this book is itself a model of the kind of clarity, civility, and dispassionate critical thinking which the authors seek to preserve from the attacks of the radical multiculturalists. With far-reaching implications for such issues as government control of hate speech and pornography, affirmative action, legal reform, and the fate of all minorities, Beyond All Reason is a provocative contribution to one of the most important controversies of our time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.3 (2002) 483-500 [Access article in PDF] Greek Origins and Organic Metaphors: Ideals of Cultural Autonomy in Neohumanist Germany from Winckelmann to Curtius Brian Vick That the educated classes of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany were increasingly captivated by images of both nationality and Greek antiquity is a fact long noted and long puzzled over. This seemingly strange confluence of cultural tendencies does, (...) however, help explain why studying the drawn-out debates among German neohumanist scholars on the cultural origins of the Greeks ultimately offers a fresh perspective on certain problems of German national identity—in this case, on the ambivalent relationship to things foreign in that period of German history.Scholarly attention has recently been drawn to this question as part of the conflict over Martin Bernal's Black Athena, the first volume of which argued that nineteenth-century German classicists' denial of an Egyptian contribution to early Greek cultural development revealed their xenophobic tendencies. While Bernal pointed to racism as the prime motive for this repudiation of African and later of Semitic influence on the Greeks, he also invoked several of the other "-isms" that have proven so fruitful yet confusing for efforts to understand the intellectual and cultural climate of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Germany: romanticism, historicism, organicism, and of course neohumanism. 1 [End Page 483]The present essay is not intended to be another of the past decade's many responses to Bernal. Attention must be paid to that discussion, but it is important to recognize the extent to which this debate reflects a much broader disagreement about German attitudes in the romantic and nationalist eras. Some scholars portray the more cosmopolitan side of the romantic inheritance and stress its continued fascination with foreign literatures and cultures. Others, however, seem more like Bernal in citing the historicist turn to nature and nationality either to illustrate or to explain an alleged German xenophobia and hypersensitivity to issues of ethnic and cultural purity. 2It is to this wider question of the cultural legacy of German classicism and romanticism, historicism and organicism, that I would like to direct attention in this essay. Rather than invoking these "-isms" in an effort to explain the various positions taken in the debate about Greek origins, I hope to reverse the process and examine the relevant texts in an effort to clarify the broader implications of these issues of cultural purity and cultural borrowing, from the time of Winckelmann's first assertion of Greek originality through the rise of new kinds of nationalism and racism in the Wilhelmine era. 3 I shall show that belief in the importance of Greek civilization's Asian and even Egyptian cultural heritage remained strong for decades, even after Karl Otfried Müller's seemingly definitive rejection of such a connection in the 1820s. Moreover, most of the figures engaged on both sides of the debate made remarkably similar use of historicizing organic metaphors to help reconcile the twin values of national autonomy and cultural transmission, both so central to the self-conception and national identity of the German Bildungsbürgertum in this period. Continuity and connection with the environment, not purity and isolation from it, were the hallmarks of such organicist thinking across a wide spectrum of romantic, neohumanist, and idealist commentators. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the passing of romantic values, the transformation of historicism into historicist positivism, and the development of new meanings attached to images of biology and race, would this situation slowly begin to change. The Greeks, History, and Culture: Foundational Perspectives Many of the considerations central to discussions about the origins of the Greeks and about the role of cultural mixing generally can be seen in the debate's [End Page 484] two most important early statements, the denial of Egyptian influence by Johann Joachim Winckelmann in his History of Ancient Art of 1764 and the successive sharp critiques of this view by an otherwise admiring Johann Gottfried... (shrink)

There has often been criticism of the use which was made by certain sociologists toward the beginning of the century (Lévy-Bruhl in particular) of the adjective “primitive” to characterize the level of culture of peoples whom we formerly called “savage.” The term “archaic” perhaps creates fewer difficulties, but its etymology nevertheless involves the inconvenience of intimating that the societies in question might be closer to the origins than ours. Certain anthropologists, attempting to find an objective criterion which would permit us (...) to draw a line of demarcation between the so-called primitives and ourselves, use the term “peoples without writing” to designate the former—that is, they refer to a technique. It is true that there might be good grounds for specifying this criterion. Indeed, graphic representation can consist of rudimentary signs such as one sees on the messagesticks of the Australians or in the sketched stories, such as those with which the North American Indian covered animal skins. We can speak of writing from the moment that definite characters of precise conventional meaning appear; but from the pictogram to the abstract sign there are still many transitions. For example, in the pre-Columbian epoch, the writing system of the Aztecs “constituted a compromise between the ideogram, phonetism, and simple drawing.” Egyptian hieroglyphics were not yet totally freed from their pictographic origins. In the evolution which led to our modern system, the first step was taken when syllabic representation was adopted. But writing ceased to be reserved for specialists and truly became a widespread institution when the alphabet was invented; and that discovery, made no doubt toward the year 1800 b.c. by the Semitic peoples, came more than three thousand years after the first step. In general, the term “peoples without writing” does not in itself specify that it must be understood as meaning “peoples without an alphabet”; thus there is some doubt about civilizations like that of the Aztecs, endowed with a rather elaborate pictographic system. There would be good reason, moreover, to ask ourselves if the technique of writing really constitutes a reliable criterion for establishing a distinction between societies which stagnate in archaism and those which open up to history. Certain writers, such as Marcel Griaule or M. Gurvitch, would be inclined to refute it and to seek other technical criteria, such as the use of machines or reference to creative characteristics. (shrink)

Summary Despite his repudiation of antisemitism, Renan influenced the development of antisemitic ideologies in both France and Germany. His typology of ?Semite? and ?Aryan? was adopted especially in Germany and and combined with biological concepts of race to become the foundation of the concepts of ?Semitism? and ?Antisemitism?. Renan, however, always insisted on a linguistic/cultural definition of race and regarded the biological conception, while it might have had some primitive reality, as outmoded and immoral in European civilization. After 1870 the (...) growth of German racial antisemitism led Renan to elaborate repeatedly on race as a civilisational phenomenon that in modern Europe should have lost its biological origins. His argument that modern Jews were integral members of the French ?nation? and ?civilization? was profoundly influential on the emergence of the theory of the modern ?nation? as the liberal state. Gobineau's theory of race also lent itself to exploitation by racial antisemites, though it was not overtly antisemitic. Unlike Renan, however, Gobineau in his later years inclined to a vague personal antisemitism. The main difference was one of temperament as well as devotion on Renan's part to a liberal idea of the nation, as opposed to Gobineau's aversion to liberalism and modern civilization. (shrink)

Since William Jones announced the kinship of Sanskrit and the European languages, a massive body of scholarship has illuminated the development of the so-called "Indo-European" language group. This new historical philology has enormous technical achievements to its credit. But almost from the start, it became entangled with prejudices and myths--with efforts to recreate not only the lost language, but also the lost--and superior--civilization of the Indo-European ancestors. This drive to determine the identity and nature of the first language of humanity (...) was deeply rooted in both near eastern and western traditions. The Bible described the perfect, transparent language of Adam and followed its degeneration, caused by human sin, into the multiple, opaque languages of later nations. The three sons of Noah became, for Jewish and early Christian writers, the founders of three distinct human groups. By the sixth and seventh centuries, historians began to magnify the deeds of certain later peoples, such as the Scythians and Goths, and to connect them with the biblical genealogy of languages and races. And in the Renaissance, speculative historical etymology took root and flourished, as national pride led European intellectuals to assert that their own modern languages--for example, Flemish--either could be identified with the original one or offered the closest surviving approximation to it. Japheth, Noah's favorite son and the forefather of the Europeans, emerged as the hero who had preserved the original language in its purity. A new history of the European languages developed, one which traced them back to the language of the barbarian Scythians and emphasized the connections between Persian and European languages. It came to seem implausible that the European languages derived from Hebrew. By the eighteenth century, in short, all the preconditions were present for a discovery that the ancestors of the Europeans, like the common ancestor of their languages, had been independent of Semitic influence. A modern scholarly thesis whose political and intellectual consequences are still working themselves out reveals the continuing impact of a millennial tradition of speculation about language and history. (shrink)

I. Hardly any other mythical creature has enjoyed the ubiquity of the clown: “There are few other myths such as this one about which it can be affirmed without any doubt that they involve the most ancient modes of human expression,” wrote Paul Radin in his famous essay on the figure of the clown among primitive American Indians. “There are few myths which have retained their original characters with so few changes.” The character of the Fool, the Jester, the Joker (...) appears in a clearly identifiable fashion in the most primitive as well as the most highly cultivated groups: among the Greeks as well as the Chinese; in Japanese civilization as well as the Semite world. The medieval juggler is the embodiment of this figure of many aspects who perdures in the theater, especially puppet theater, and in the guise of the circus clown. (shrink)

The viscerally Freudian elements of Adorno's use of the concept of mimesis interweave with readings of Kafka in which certain thoughts about childhood play an important role. The first section of this article links biological mimicry with critical theory and art: both mimic what they criticize, while also conserving a repressed and childlike mimetic relationship with otherness and sexual difference. Adorno criticizes both the civilized repression of the mimetic impulse and its subsequently distorted return, a dialectic neglected by direct appeals (...) to mimesis. Good art tries to extricate itself from these distortions. Conversely, the second section of this article explores Adorno's suggestion that fascistic psychology is a refuge for a twisted mimesis of mimesis, which gratifies the worst side of repressed nature while ideologically appealing to the best. Anti-Semitic humour shows how the fascist mimics his own aggressive fantasy of natural law, while secretly envying the closeness to nature he thinks he detects in other races. The final section uses Freud's theories on sympathetic and sadistic comedy to unpack Adorno's readings of Kafka and Mörike. Adorno's critical recuperation of mimetically childlike moments of ridiculousness in art clarifies his differentiation of the varieties of mimesis, as well as countering the gloomy stereotype of the humourless intellectual. But the black side of Adorno's use of laughter dialectically maintains his commitment to painfully remembering the victims of history. (shrink)

Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon trained at a medical school that did not evaluate its students? Would you want to fly in a plane designed by people convinced that the laws of physics are socially constructed? Would you want to be tried by a legal system indifferent to the distinction between fact and fiction? These questions may seem absurd, but these are theories being seriously advanced by radical multiculturalists that force us to ask them. These (...) scholars assert that such concepts as truth and merit are inextricably racist and sexist, that reason and objectivity are merely sophisticated masks for ideological bias, and that reality itself is nothing more than a socially constructed mechanism for preserving the power of the ruling elite. In Beyond All Reason, liberal legal scholars Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry mount the first systematic critique of radical multiculturalism as a form of legal scholarship. Beginning with an incisive overview of the origins and basic tenets of radical multiculturalism, the authors critically examine the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado, and explore the alarming implications of their theories. Farber and Sherry push these theories to their logical conclusions and show that radical multiculturalism is destructive of the very goals it wishes to affirm. If, for example, the concept of advancement based on merit is fraudulent, as the multiculturalists claim, the disproportionate success of Jews and Asians in our culture becomes difficult to explain without opening the door to age-old anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes. If historical and scientific truths are entirely relative social constructs, then Holocaust denial becomes merely a matter of perspective, and Creationism has as much "validity" as evolution. The authors go on to show that rather than promoting more dialogue, the radical multiculturalist preferences for legal storytelling and identity politics over reasoned argument produces an insular set of positions that resist open debate. Indeed, radical multiculturalists cannot critically examine each others' ideas without incurring vehement accusations of racism and sexism, much less engage in fruitful discussion with a mainstream that does not share their assumptions. Here again, Farber and Sherry show that the end result of such thinking is not freedom but a kind of totalitarianism where dissent cannot be tolerated and only the naked will to power remains to settle differences. Sharply written and brilliantly argued, this book is itself a model of the kind of clarity, civility, and dispassionate critical thinking which the authors seek to preserve from the attacks of the radical multiculturalists. With far-reaching implications for such issues as government control of hate speech and pornography, affirmative action, legal reform, and the fate of all minorities, Beyond All Reason is a provocative contribution to one of the most important controversies of our time. (shrink)

Writing in 1978, on the eve of Thatcherism’s political triumph, the cultural theorist Stuart Hall (Hall et al., 2013, p. 193) claimed Britain was experiencing a ‘crisis of hegemony’; a political, e...

La 4e de couverture indique : "Dans cet ouvrage de référence consacré à une analyse approfondie du thème du consentement aux soins dans la pratique médicale, M.-F. Civil porte son regard de médecin et de philosophe sur les comportements de bon nombre de praticiens à l'heure actuelle plus ou moins soumis à la « mathématisation » de la médecine. Loin de se contenter d'un état des lieux complet de la question, il nous conduit pas à pas sur les chemins d'une (...) « éthique existentielle » tout à fait singulière, renvoyant à des situations pratiques de soins où délibérer avant d'agir et réfléchir à l'action déjà prise permet aux patients d'exprimer le sens donné à leur vécu dans le cadre de leur projet de vie immédiate ou future. Son approche très phénoménologique, aux côtés notamment de Heidegger et Husserl, ouvre la porte à un vaste chantier de réflexion pour tous ceux qui envisagent de se pencher sur la manière concrète d'être-au-monde en médecine comme souci pour soi et pour les autres. Ainsi ce livre interpelle les étudiants, les chercheurs, les professionnels de santé, mais également tous ceux qui ont été, ou seront, tôt ou tard, confrontés au problème du consentement.". (shrink)

The article consists of a re-examination of Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization in the light of continuing interest in that work. After a brief consideration of Marcuse’s attempt to use Freud to indict contemporary civilization, focusing on the concepts of surplus repression and guilt, the article turns to his utopian sketch of Eros as a culture builder and the reconciliation of reason and instinct. These themes, which form the focus of recent interest, are explored by examining Marcuse’s interpretation of Kant and (...) Schiller as well as Freud. In all cases Marcuse’s interpretation is shown to be flawed. The conclusion is that Marcuse’s attempt to indict established reason in the light of instinct and yet to hold out the prospect of a reconciliation of reason and instinct leads to an impoverished concept of both. (shrink)

Chinese environmentalists have called for an ecological civilization. To promote this, ecology is defended as the core science embodying process metaphysics, and it is argued that as such ecology can serve as the foundation of such a civilization. Integrating hierarchy theory and Peircian semiotics into this science, it is shown how “community” and “communities of communities,” in which communities are defined by their organization to promote the common good of their components, have to be recognized as central concepts not only (...) of ecology, but of life itself. This perspective is used to defend Lovelock’s “Gaia” hypothesis and the call of Prugh, Costanza, and Daly for strong democracy. An ethics and political philosophy is sketched based on “eco-poiesis” or “home-making,” which is equated with augmenting the life of communities, both human and non-human. (shrink)

This interview focuses on Arran Gare’s thinking about ecological civilization and its relationship to a new theoretical ecology, strong democracy and political philosophy based on “ecopoiesis” or “home-making.” Gare believes that it is possible to create a global ecological civilization that empowers people to augment their ecological communities. Complex transformations of the social and economic organization of societies and a radical upheaval of our conceptions of what it means to be human are required to bring about this change to a (...) new ecological (eco-human) culture. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to open a new horizon in the field of civilization studies by examining the concept of painless civilization from the perspective of the philosophy of biological evolution. Since the space is limited, the priority will be given to the clarification of an overall structure. Modern civilization has created systems that seek “comfort and pleasure” and eliminate “pain and suffering” and has spread them to every corner of our society. It is progressing like a great wave (...) in many developed countries. I have called a civilization advancing in this direction a “painless civilization.” At first glance, the elimination of pain and suffering seems like a good thing. Of course, it is considered good if unbearable suffering (such as the pain of terminal cancer) that we encounter in our lives can be avoided through technology. This is not the problem. The problem is that modern civilization is moving in a direction where various forms of suffering that we might experience in the future are going to be erased from our lives, one after another, through preventive technologies (preventive elimination of pain). ... (shrink)

The article is focused on the fundamental and at the same time extremely controversial issue of social philosophy — conceptualizing the notions «civilization” and “culture”, their inseparable (dialectical) unity and contradiction. The specificity, or novelty, of the author’s approach is considering the phenomena of civilization and culture in the ontological aspect through the Aristotelian concept of form as the ideal essence of things, as well as in applying methods of linguistic analysis (etymology of concepts). The result of the study is (...) identifying attributive, ontologically invariant features of any culture and civilization, as well as the ontological correlation of cultural and civilizational attributes. (shrink)

This book investigates modern global civilization, offering an alternative to post-colonial theories and the "multiple modernities" approach (as well as the civilizational theory linked to it). It argues that modernity has become a global civilization that is heterogeneous and intertwined with other civilizations, and also aims at a renewal of critical theory that is not US-centric and Eurocentric, focusing instead on China, South Asia (India) and Latin America (Brazil). Dealing with the themes of centre-periphery relations, complexity (including culture and religion), (...) democracy and emancipatory possibilities, this book is based on general theoretical ideas such as collective subjectivity, the interplay of memory and creativity, and the concept of "modernizing moves," so as to deal with historical contingency. (shrink)

I argue that, in one sense, collective wisdom can save civilization. But in a more important sense, collective wisdom should be understood as a form of civilization, as the result and expression of a moral civilizing-process that comes about through the creation and transmission of collective interpretations of human experience and human nature. Collective wisdom traditions function in this manner by providing an interpretation of what it means to be human and what thoughts, skills, and actions are required to live (...) a successful human life at the most general level of analysis. Collective wisdom can have a civilizing effect on individuals, and indirectly on societies, by providing a type of orienting framework for understanding the proper relationship between the self, others, and the world. Such traditions in effect provide a “blueprint” for the successful human life as such, by providing guidance on thought and action, on what is appropriate to think, feel, desire, and do in theoretical and practical contexts. A wise individual will be a 'civilized' individual in this moral sense, an individual who is properly habituated and educated so as to now reflectively endorse and desire thinking and acting in virtuous ways. However, this understanding of collective wisdom and civilization is in many ways today controversial and met with justified critiques and skeptical criticisms. To defend this way of approaching and answering our question against these critiques, I turn to ancient wisdom traditions from ancient India, China, and Greece as paradigms for understanding exactly how collective wisdom can achieve the end of civilizing humanity. Based on this analysis, I sketch the outlines of a revitalized ancient wisdom tradition able to civilize individuals today, but such a tradition must be updated to reflect the advancement of modern natural science and to meet the demands of living in our diverse, pluralistic, and globalized world. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to analyze and criticize, both positively and negatively. Whitehead's concept of progress. Whitehead's progressive cosmology is critically examined, as is the relationship between technology and moral progress. The fragility of progress is emphasized.

How did science come to have such a central place in Western culture? How did our ways of thinking, and our moral, political, and social values, come to be modelled around scientific values? Stephen Gaukroger traces the story of how these values developed, and how they influenced society and culture from the 19th to the mid-20th century.

This anthology is the most ambitious, comprehensive, and authoritative English-language sourcebook of Korean civilization ever assembled. Encompassing social intellectual, religious, and literary traditions from ancient times through World War II, this collection reveals the grand corpus of thought, beliefs, and customs unique to the Korean people. Volume I features three major periods of Korean history: the Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla (57 B.C.-935), Koryo (918-1392), and Early Choson (1392-1600). Each section begins with a broad historical introduction to provide context and (...) perspective, and contains representative writings from the era, with commentary, background, and analysis. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This paper examines Hanafi’s concept of Occidentalism in the epistemological approach. It aims to investigate the character, study source, research method,validity, and objectives of Occidentalism. The paper findings demonstrate that Occidentalism is a science which aims to dismantle the myth of Western superiority and, in turn, to build an equal civilization. The study root of Occidentalism is the formation, structure, and fate of the European consciousness. The formation comprises the exposed and unexposed sources of the European consciousness. The structure en (...) compasses the ideologies of nationalism, Zionism, Nazism, Facism, and racialism. Fate relies on the model of the relationship between the East and the West. Afterward, Hanafi employs two research methods: historical-dialectical and phenomenology. Lastly, science can be recognized as Occidentalism if it has a five fold standard: there is the dialectic of the East and the West, positioning European consciousness as the study object, self-liberation as the spirit to liberate the East from Western hegemony, dismantling the myth of cosmopolite culture, and the accomplishment of an equal civilization. (shrink)