In book twenty of the forty books which compose the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya' 'ulum al-din), Abu hamid al-Ghazali gives a full account of the customs and character of the Messenger of God, Muhammad. It is not a biography of Muhammad (peace and blessing of God be upon him) but a roadmap for those who want to strengthen their faith, increase their knowledge, and deepen their understanding of the second part of the testimony of faith, namely the (...) first pillar of Islam. The author details the Messenger's noble nature and his miracles, while removing doubts regarding his message. He deals with the issue of the imitation of Muhammad (peace and blessing of God be upon him) noting that the ultimate source of knowledge is revelation from God which comes to us through the Messenger. This volume lays clear that the aim of the imam in this Series is to call for a return to the Sunna and the imitation of the Messenger in all aspects of life. (shrink)

A friend of mine recently lent me a little book entitled What a Young Wife Ought to Know, by Mrs. Emma F. Angell Drake, M.D., of Denver, Colorado. It was published in 1902 and is one of the Self and Sex series of “pure books on avoided subjects.” Its premise is that “Woman [is] fitted by the creator for wifehood and motherhood,” and it has chapters entitled “Home and Dress,” “Marital Relations,” “The Mother the Teacher,” and so on. My (...) friend had come across it in, of all places, the library of a mental hospital where his wife was being treated for postpartum depression. He stole it as a matter of principle. What a Young Wife Ought to Know has its late-medieval equivalent in a poem of around two hundred lines known as “What the Goodwife Taught Her Daughter,” which has been used quite often by medieval historians as evidence for aspects of female behavior in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There are problems with this, though, as a comparison with Mrs. Emma F. Angell Drake's book shows. Historians of the early twentieth century would not, I assume, use What a Young Wife Ought to Know as evidence of social practice; rather, its interest is ideological. The same is true of “What the Goodwife Taught Her Daughter”: it is a poem that speaks for the special interests that have shaped its form and content. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789Patrick HenryCitizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789, by Daniel Gordon; viii & 270 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $39.50.Under examination here is the early modern period in France from Louis XIV to the French Revolution when kings ruled absolutely and citizens were without sovereignty. Discarding the traditional image of the Enlightenment as the absolute (...) enemy of absolutism, Gordon, in this sense, follows Norbert Elias and Robert Darnton who treat the Enlightenment as part of an elitist and hierarchical establishment. More specifically, as his subtitle indicates, Gordon portrays the invention of a “nonpolitical polis” (p. 6), an ideological social space where, despite political inequality, citizens could practice social equality in a hierarchical régime. The rise of this “nondemocratic egalitarian ethos” (p. 7) brought with it a new cult of sociabilité, a term invented in the eighteenth century to describe the idealization of the private sphere and the practice of social equality.The first chapter, then, ties sociability not to democracy, as in the Habermasian model, but to the absolutism that stimulated it and coexisted with it. A series of five ideal types of sociability depict how men and women, members of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, came together—in commerce, public welfare, scientific academies, salons, cafés, public libraries, and various other social situations not protorevolutionary in character—to create a bond among equals [End Page 279] under the ancien régime. In this framework, progress and modernity are born during the absolute monarchy where sociability suggests conviviality rather than class warfare. Every major French novel of the eighteenth century supports Gordon’s refutation of De Toqueville’s surprising statement that “noblemen and bourgeois never met except by chance in private life “in prerevolutionary France” (p. 27).In chapters two and three, Gordon examines the nature of the rules of sociability found in courtesy literature and their functioning as the imagined basis of the newly invented idealized space called société. In addition to analyzing in great detail the nature and frequency of the vocabulary invented to define and describe sociabilité, Gordon discusses sociabilité in the context of natural law theory in Hobbes, Bossuet, and among others, Pufendorf, who wanted to refute Hobbes by showing that self-interest leads humans to establish stable social relations even before government orders them to do so. Holbach surfaces here too for having amalgamated the older language of politeness and the newer language of natural law. In Holbach, as in the Encyclopédie, sociability, based on egalitarian premises of natural law, is nonetheless fully compatible with the hierarchical regime. Among other things, this shows clearly that the philosophes never preached the French Revolution. Striving to eliminate the abuses of despotism and establish equality in private life was not tantamount to working for political equality and the abolition of all rank. In this same vein, Gordon paints the apolitical essence of the private sphere and, by a rigorous study of the seventeenth-century manuals of polite living, shows convincingly (this time against Elias who saw the court as a model of refined behavior) that the salon was indeed a world unto itself, independent of preexisting social hierarchies. Rejecting Paul Hazard’s conception of absolute rupture between seventeenth-century culture and eighteenth-century thought, Gordon destroys the facile dichotomy between seventeenth-century hierarchy and eighteenth-century equality and, once again, admirably depicts the compatibility of Enlightenment and absolutism.If chapters one to three underscore a certain continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, chapters four and five explain important changes. It is not, for example, the mere preservation of the idea of sociable communication but rather its new use that is germane in understanding the Enlightenment. Now “conversation” and “civility” no longer had meaning only for an urban elite but had in fact become ideals in all philosophical endeavors including the writing of universal history. Sociable communication had become the defining characteristic of modern nations. In the fourth chapter, by analyzing in detail the works of Jean-Baptiste Suard, Gordon demonstrates the meaning that the writing of universal history in Scotland acquired within the French... (shrink)

Being rude is often more gratifying and enjoyable than being polite. Likewise, rudeness can be a more accurate and powerful reflection of how I feel and think. This is especially true in a political environment that can make being polite seem foolish or naive. Civility and ordinary politeness are linked both to big values, such as respect and consideration, and to the fundamentally social nature of human beings. This book explores the powerful temptations to incivility and rudeness, but argues that (...) they should generally be resisted. Drawing on early Chinese philosophers who lived during great political turmoil but nonetheless sought to “mind their manners,” it articulates a way of thinking about politeness that is distinctively social. It takes as a given that we can feel profoundly alienated from others, and that other people can sometimes be truly terrible. Yet because we are social neglecting the social and political courtesies comes at great cost. The book considers not simply why civility and politeness are important, but how. It addresses how small insults can damage social relations, how separation of people into tribes undermines our better interests, and explores how bodily and facial expressions can influence how life with other people goes. It is especially geared toward anyone who feels the temptation of being rude and wishes it were easier to feel otherwise. It seeks to answer a question of great contemporary urgency: When so much of public and social life with others is painful and fractious, why should I be polite? (shrink)

This book focuses on the problem of religious diversity, civil dialogue, and religion education in public schools, exploring the ways in which atheists, secularists, fundamentalists, and mainstream religionists come together in the public sphere, examining how civil discourse about religion fit swithin the ideals of the American political and pedagogical systems and how religious studies education can help to foster civility and toleration.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Imagined Apotheoses: Drake, Harriot, and Ralegh in the AmericasWilliam M. HamlinPerhaps the two best known stories of Europeans being taken for gods by non-European peoples are those of Hernan Cortés in Mexico and Captain James Cook in Hawaii. Separated by two hundred sixty years, five thousand miles, and vast differences in cultural and linguistic context, these two incidents nonetheless share many traits in the conventional telling. Cortés and Cook (...) were both strong leaders, for instance, both capable of inspiring devotion among their subordinates. Both men became amateur ethnographers during their lengthy sojourns away from Europe, both sought to promote an image of respectful rather than rapacious foreign incursion, and both are said to have been taken for returning gods by the native peoples among whom they landed: Cortés for the Toltec culture-hero and demigod Quetzalcoatl, Cook for the Hawaiian deity Lono. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.“The Far Side” cartoon by Gary Larson. Courtesy of Chronicle Features, San Francisco.Recent scholarly studies and debates—among them the rather strident dispute between Gananath Obeyesekere and Marshall Sahlins over the alleged deification of Cook by eighteenth-century Hawaiians—have opened up these returning-god theories to skeptical critique and detailed justification; but such discussions have had little, if any, impact on popular imagination. 1 [End Page 405] Indeed, the idea that redoubtable European explorers can be (and often are) perceived as supernatural beings by non-European “primitives” has been uncritically perpetuated to this day by filmmakers, fantasists, writers of popular history, and purveyors of cultural literacy. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., for instance, informs our children that Caribbean islanders encountered by Columbus “asked if he had come from heaven”—the implication being, of course, that they took him for a god. 2 And in the recent film, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, we hear the indefatigable Admiral (played by Gerard Depardieu) claim that “on every island the natives welcome us with great generosity and trust.... Because of our appearance, we have been mistaken for gods, and are treated accordingly.” 3 Fortunately, we also have a “Far Side” parody of the cultural conceit on which such ideas in part rely, but the cartoon serves as well to demonstrate just how thoroughly the conceit has permeated our collective awareness (see figure 1). 4 Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.“It’s against my programming to impersonate a deity.” From The Return of the Jedi, dir. Richard Marquand, Lucasfilm, Ltd., 1983. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Lucasfilm, Ltd.Let me offer just one other example. Near the end of the popular 1983 film The Return of the Jedi, the forest-dwelling Ewoks begin to chant and salaam upon first glimpsing the golden robot C-3PO, who in turn tells his captured comrades, “I do believe they think I am some sort of god.” When Han Solo sarcastically asks the robot to use his “divine influence” to help extricate them from their predicament, C-3PO replies that such an action would be improper: “It’s against my programming to impersonate a deity.” Here we see, embedded within a film romance, both the classic trope of the apotheosized foreigner and the related motif of the foreigner’s reluctance to [End Page 406] play the god-role (see figure 2). It is worth noting, however, that while C-3PO may be unwilling to exploit the Ewoks’ misperception, Luke Skywalker is not; he uses the “Force” to convince the Ewoks of the robot’s magical prowess and, more to the point, to perpetuate their misapprehension. 5What I wish to suggest in this essay is that certain habitual Western assumptions or conceits regarding cross-cultural encounters—assumptions which have been usefully termed “myth models” inasmuch as they condition human perception and find frequent discursive expression—coexist easily but in fact disjunctively with certain other ideological structures in many early modern travel narratives and colonial accounts. Obeyesekere, in his provocative book on the supposed deification of Captain Cook in Hawaii, has linked such myth models to the conceptual structures of the longue durée as characterized by Fernand Braudel, and it is possible that they may also be... (shrink)

The book prescribes a way to educate ourselves and our young people how to disagree well and lays out a framework for flourishing together in society despite our radical differences.

Preview: In various guises and cultures, the theme of elevating, ennobling love is a recurrent topos in the premodern erotic theory my book traces. Freed from Plato’s problematic dualistic denigration of the body as prison of the soul and from the modern aesthetic prejudice of disinterestedness, Ars Erotica recaptures the valuable core of ennobling desire by showing how a new somaesthetic approach to sex could channel the power of eros to cultivate qualities of courtesy, grace, skill, self-mastery, and sensitivity (...) to the feelings of others, thus evoking a richer, more positive vision of sex education than we have today. (shrink)

With Dostoyevsky's Idiot and Aquinas' Dumb Ox as guides, this book seeks to recover the elemental mystery of the natural law, a law revealed only in wonder. If ethics is to guide us along the way, it must recover its subordination; description must precede prescription. If ethics is to invite us along the way, it cannot lead, either as politburo, or even as public orthodoxy. It cannot be smugly symbolic but must be by way of signage, of directionality, of the (...) open realization that ethical meaning is en route, pointing the way because it is within the way, as only sign, not symbol, can point to the sacramental terminus. The courtesies of dogma and tradition are the road signs and guideposts along the longior via, not themselves the termini. We seek the dialogic heart of the natural law through two seemingly contradictory voices and approaches: St. Thomas Aquinas and his famous five ways, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's holy idiot, Prince Myshkin. It is precisely the apparent miscellany of these selected voices that provide us with a connatural invitation into the natural law as subordinated, as descriptive guide, not as prescriptive leader. -- back cover. (shrink)

In this bold book, Ann Hartle, one of the most important interpreters of sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, explores the modern notion of civility--the social bond that makes it possible for individuals to live in peace in the political and social structures of the Western world--and asks, why has it disappeared? Concerned with the deepening cultural divisions in our postmodern, post-Christian world, she traces their roots back to the Reformation and Montaigne's Essays. Montaigne's philosophical project of drawing on ancient (...) philosophy and Christianity to create a new social bond to reform the mores of his culture is perhaps the first act of self-conscious civility. After tracing Montaigne's thought, Hartle returns to our modern society and argues that this framing of civility is a human, philosophical invention and that civility fails precisely because it is a human, philosophical invention. She concludes with a defense of the central importance of sacred tradition for civility and the need to protect and maintain that social bond by supporting nonpoliticized, nonideological, free institutions, including and especially universities and churches. What Happened to Civility is written for readers concerned about the deterioration of civility in our public life and the defense of freedom of religion. The book will also interest philosophers who seek a deeper understanding of modernity and its meaning, political scientists interested in the meaning of liberalism and the causes of its failure, and scholars working on Montaigne's Essays"-- From back cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition ed. by Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia NassarAlison StoneKristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar, editors. Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 336. Hardback, $99.00."How plausible, [Dalia Nassar and I] kept asking, is it that women published philosophy in the early modern period and then simply ceased to think and publish (...) philosophy in the nineteenth century?" remarked Kristin Gjesdal recently (interview with Richard Marshall, 3:16am [blog], https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/gadamer-herder-and-the-womenphilosophers-of-the-long-nineteen-cent ury?c=end-times-series). Not plausible at all—yet this is what historians of women in philosophy often seem to have assumed, judging by the remarkably small amount of scholarship on nineteenth-century women philosophers compared with those of the early modern period or the twentieth century. Eileen O'Neill, for instance, claims that it was "not a particularly friendly century for women philosophers" (1). In fact, as Gjesdal and Nassar observe, women were "significant contributors" to the "thriving intellectual cultures in German-speaking countries" at this time (1). Gjesdal and Nassar contrast Germanic countries to France and Britain in this regard, yet I would add that nineteenth-century Britain too had a vibrant print and periodical culture that created openings for women philosophers such as Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, Frances Power Cobbe, and many others. The broader point remains: the nineteenth century has only seemed empty of women philosophers because we have not yet investigated the women thinkers of this period or challenged the canons and narratives from which they have been excluded.Recognizing German women philosophers is particularly important because the vast majority of scholarship on the nineteenth century focuses on the German tradition. Consequently, unless we recover the work of German-speaking women, we will never change the narrative about this period. This makes the present anthology invaluable for both teaching and research. Edited by Gjesdal and Nassar, it contains new translations, nearly all by Anna Ezekiel, of texts by historical German-speaking women philosophers.Regarding teaching, many courses on post-Kantian European philosophy include no women until Beauvoir or Arendt. Such courses typically cover Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger. The editors have clearly designed this volume to enable instructors easily to bring women into such courses, by providing extracts—of suitable lengths for teaching—from women affiliated respectively with German idealism and Romanticism (Germaine de Staël, Karoline von Günderrode, and Bettina von Arnim), Marxism (Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg), Nietzscheanism (Hedwig Dohm, Lou Salomé), and phenomenology (Edith Stein, Gerda Walther). Some of these women are already well-known as political activists, as with Luxemburg and Zetkin, or under the elastic heading of "writers," as with Staël and von Arnim. But this collection presents these women's writings in a new light, showcasing their philosophical side. After all, we have learned to read Marx and Nietzsche philosophically: why not extend the same courtesy to Staël or Luxemburg?For researchers, this collection will likewise be invaluable. Post-Kantian European philosophy has been slow to respond to the wider questioning and broadening of the traditional philosophical canon. It remains sadly common for narratives of nineteenth-century German philosophy to discuss men only—a position that this book makes untenable. [End Page 336] Hopefully it will galvanize philosophers to integrate these women into the historiography of the post-Kantian tradition at last.In the introduction, the editors helpfully contextualize the selected writings, arguing that these women's exclusion from academic institutions led them to philosophize in ways that spoke to general audiences, connected with lived experience, and addressed practical and political concerns. In short, these women did a type of philosophy that was not purified but socially engaged, and can be a model for us today. Thereafter the book consists of sections on nine women philosophers, ordered chronologically. Each section begins with an editorial introduction to the philosopher and her interests, ideas, writings, and interlocutors.The writings included from Staël—whose work spans the period from the French Revolution into Romanticism—are "On Women Writers" from... (shrink)

In The Philosophy of Manners Peter Johnson makes a compelling case for manners as a subject for investigation by modern moral philosophy. He examines manners as 'little virtues', explaining their distinctive conceptual characteristics and charting their intricate detail and relationships with each other. In demonstrating why manners are important to our mutual expectations, Johnson reveals a terrain which modern moral philosophy has left largely unmapped. Through a critical examination of the ethics of John Rawls and Alasdair MacIntyre, Johnson shows how (...) the nature of manners constitutes a philosophical problem both for liberalism and its critics. Taking the recent revival of virtue ethics as its broad starting point, The Philosophy of Manners discusses the 'little virtues' as they are treated in the Aristotelian and Kantian traditions of writing on ethics. Original features of the book include discussions of nameless virtues, the logical intricacy of the 'little virtues' which compose manners, and the nature of their orchestration by the more substantial virtues and moral concerns. The aim throughout is to give manners a philosophically defensible place in the moral life - a place which neither inflates nor understates their importance. --an examination of why manners are essential to moral literacy and an ethical society --the first work of its kind - no other ethical investigation concentrates on manners --relevant to the recent revival of interest in virtue ethics and any course in contemporary ethics --will provoke argument and disagreement. (shrink)

Katerina Kolozova is a Macedonian philosopher whose publications from last two decades aim to analyze various topics using François Laruelle’s “non-philosophy” or “non-standard philosophy.” Non-philosophy could be roughly described as radicalized deconstruction: Laruelle claims that not everything can be grasped by a philosophy: for Laruelle, “philosophy is too serious an affair to be left to the philosophers alone.”1 Non-philosophy opposes the “principle of sufficient philosophy” through which philosophy determines and decides what is real. According to Laruelle, the ultimate limit of (...) philosophical thought and its self-proclaimed sufficiency lies in its inherent tendency to close itself in a transcendental system of autofetishist conceptions, which presume that one can grasp the Real (“The Real is neither capable of being known or even ‘thought,’ but can be described in axioms. [...] Even ‘immanence’ only serves to name the Real which tolerates nothing but axiomatic descriptions or formulations.”) by a philosophical thought, or that the Real could be mediated only through human thought. Laruelle criticizes this tendency of philosophy, which is usually expressing itself through the structure of “philosophical Decision.” (“To philosophize is to decide Reality and the thoughts that result from this, i.e. to believe to be able to order them in the universal order of the Principle of Reason [Logos].”) Katerina Kolozova use Laruelle’s non-philosophy to explore more explicitly political topics. In the Cut Of Th e Real (2014), she criticized certain dogmatism of poststructuralist philosophy and feminist theory, namely their symptomatic rejection of the Real and the One. In Toward a Radical Metaphysics of Socialism (2015) and The Lived Revolution (2016) Kolozova presented a rereading of Marx, whose work she found relevant for the critique of speculative philosophical dimension of the capitalist economy, embodied in the 2008 global finance crisis, and in the latter book, she explored the possibility of a new political solidarity, based on “bodies in pain.” Kolozova doesn’t call to philosophically reconstruct Marx’s thought for the current situation, but she goes back to Marx with the help of Laruelle’s non-Marxism, contrary to the usual approach of Marxist philosophers, who often try to create certain philosophical system of Marx’s work. Together with Eileen A. Joy, Kolozova edited the anthology After the “Speculative Turn” (2016), which addressed recent realist and materialist tendencies in feminist philosophy. In her most recent book, Capitalism’s Holocaust of Animals (2019), Kolozova aimed to explore broader philosophical foundations of neoliberal capitalism, and its dealing with nonhuman animals and their suffering. According to Kolozova, “We have to start by coming to terms with what we did to the animals in the constitutive act of philosophy and via proxy to all those dehumanised that belong to the species of man ‘by courtesy’ only.” . (shrink)

As its title indicates, this book is concerned with two different fields of philosophy, ethics and epistemology. The bulk of the argument is devoted to epistemological questions, as these arise within the context of morality. Hence, the conclusions I reach could probably best be described as prolegomena to the elaboration of a theory of ethics. I have plans, which I hope will be realized in the next few years, of elaborating such a theory. I started work on Moral Knowledge in (...) the summer of 1958 with the help of a University Faculty Fellowship, for which I am most grateful. of the research for the book, as well as a good bit of its writing, Much was done in two libraries, The University Library, Berkeley, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Members of the staffs of both libraries, by their courtesy and helpfulness, lightened immeasurably the task of my research. lowe a special debt of gratitude to four people-to Mr. (shrink)

Championing what it sees as a family of mischaracterized and undervalued actions and attitudes, this book proposes a new understanding of human behavior, one that encourages self-limitation and restraint.

When President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher adopted the neoliberal doctrine as the paradigm of economics, there was no evidence that the move would have been successful, but thirty years on, the recurrent crises that culminated in 2008 suggest a serious mis-match between expectations and outcomes: a re-examination of the paradigm is in order. This book focuses on Milton Friedman's formulation of the neoliberal doctrine, and analyses two aspects that were essential to turning it into a fully-fledged paradigm: the attribution (...) of scientific status to positive economics, which led to informing public policies on the requirements of the market; and the characterisation of economic freedom as capable of promoting political freedom, which led to identifying free market with democracy. The book exposes Friedman's methodological argument for attributing positive economics scientific status as a failure, and his characterisation of economic freedom as a delusion; it identifies in the emergence as the mainstream in economics of the neoclassical synthesis, which borrowed from Walras' the mathematical treatment of equilibrium but not the ethical and social framework in which it was inscribed, a development that facilitated the transition from the Keynesian to the neoliberal paradigm. Dr. Mosini shows that the gigantic bail-outs carried out courtesy of the public purse, which institutionalised the practice of collectivising losses while keeping profits private, were no accident, but the consequence of the rethinking of the function of lender of last resort according to Friedman's conception of rationality in relation to risk, combined with his interpretation of the 1930s recession. The book concludes that the neoliberal paradigm has served the interests of the economically powerful social strata it was designed to benefit extremely well, but that the deep, and deepening, injustice it has brought about calls for a complete rethinking of the paradigm of economics according to ethical principles respectful of human values. This book should be of interest to students and researchers of Political Economy, Economic Methodology, History of Economic Thought and Philosophy. (shrink)

: This paper deals with the subject of mushākala, ta'rīz, kināya and ijāz in terms of language andthe using of Qur’ān's verb and noun forms, human genre and adjective nouns in terms of style and someother related problems. The punishment or retribution from Allāh (Makr) as mushākala form, whichsometimes occurs at the level of a gradual diminution or collapse, is a punishment that gradually destroysthe sinner without his realizing it. However, it is possible to say that there is another dimension (...) inMüshākala, destiny, and the formula of the working mechanism of destiny. According to this formula, it isunderstood that whatever behavior a person exhibits, Allah responds with a similar behavior. Based onthis dimension of destiny, it is understood that in one aspect (with the exception of Allah's will), mandetermines his own destiny relatively, and that his destiny is shaped as a result of his own actions. Some(Ta’rīd) verses and expressions with indirect narrative content were misinterpreted by some peoplebecause they implied something too deep to understand by human beings and had a profundity ofmeanings as well as secret wisdom. The fact is that about the 6th verse of the chapter of al-Mâida: "O youwho have believed, when you rise to (perform) prayer, wash your faces and your fore arms to the elbowsand your heads too." Shiites misunderstand Ibn Abbas's statement pointed out as "I can find nothing butwiping the feet in Allah's book, but they did not accept anything but washing", and their anointing of theirfeet is due to such a misunderstanding. In the Qur’ān, indirect expression is used in places that mentionabout the adab of maram (private) affairs in marital relationships; and that which should not be saidopenly. With such a form of expression, the Qur’ān is descended upon human beings from Allah to beexpressed in indirect expressions in situations where it is not welcome to express clearly. In the same way,it can be said that when the Qur’ān mentions a negative situation, it refers to it with closed expressions,and It can also be said that it uses Kinâya as a politeness and courtesy style. However, in any case, thecustomary usage should not be ignored while giving meaning to the verse expressions with allusions. Inexpressions of the Qur’ān, ijāz is used extensively; It is possible to say that a large part of the ijāz is theeliminate of words in expressions. For this reason it should not be overlooked that in some verses thatare not understood, some part of it may be deleted for ijāz. In terms of the style of the Qur’ān in thearticle, there are important points in terms of rhetoric in the use of verb and noun form, which is one ofthe topics discussed. (shrink)

: This paper deals with the subject of mushākala, ta'rīz, kināya and ijāz in terms of language and the using of Qur’ān's verb and noun forms, human genre and adjective nouns in terms of style and some other related problems. The punishment or retribution from Allāh as mushākala form, which sometimes occurs at the level of a gradual diminution or collapse, is a punishment that gradually destroys the sinner without his realizing it. However, it is possible to say that there (...) is another dimension in Müshākala, destiny, and the formula of the working mechanism of destiny. According to this formula, it is understood that whatever behavior a person exhibits, Allah responds with a similar behavior. Based on this dimension of destiny, it is understood that in one aspect, man determines his own destiny relatively, and that his destiny is shaped as a result of his own actions. Some verses and expressions with indirect narrative content were misinterpreted by some people because they implied something too deep to understand by human beings and had a profundity of meanings as well as secret wisdom. The fact is that about the 6th verse of the chapter of al-Mâida: "O you who have believed, when you rise to prayer, wash your faces and your fore arms to the elbows and your heads too." Shiites misunderstand Ibn Abbas's statement pointed out as "I can find nothing but wiping the feet in Allah's book, but they did not accept anything but washing", and their anointing of their feet is due to such a misunderstanding. In the Qur’ān, indirect expression is used in places that mention about the adab of maram affairs in marital relationships; and that which should not be said openly. With such a form of expression, the Qur’ān is descended upon human beings from Allah to be expressed in indirect expressions in situations where it is not welcome to express clearly. In the same way, it can be said that when the Qur’ān mentions a negative situation, it refers to it with closed expressions, and It can also be said that it uses Kinâya as a politeness and courtesy style. However, in any case, the customary usage should not be ignored while giving meaning to the verse expressions with allusions. In expressions of the Qur’ān, ijāz is used extensively; It is possible to say that a large part of the ijāz is the eliminate of words in expressions. For this reason it should not be overlooked that in some verses that are not understood, some part of it may be deleted for ijāz. In terms of the style of the Qur’ān in the article, there are important points in terms of rhetoric in the use of verb and noun form, which is one of the topics discussed. (shrink)

As new ideas arose during the Enlightenment, many political thinkers published their own versions of popular early modern "absolutist" texts and transformed them into manuals of political resistance. As a result, these works never achieved a fixed and stable edition. Publishing The Prince illustrates how Abraham-Nicolas Amelot de La Houssaye created the most popular late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century version of Machiavelli's masterpiece. In the process of translating, Amelot also transformed the work, altering its form and meaning, and his ideas spread (...) through later editions. Revising the orthodox schema of the public sphere in which political authority shifted away from the crown with the rise of bourgeois civil society in the eighteenth century, Soll uses the example of Amelot to show for the first time how the public sphere in fact grew out of the learned and even royal libraries of erudite scholars and the bookshops of subversive, not-so-polite publicists of the republic of letters. Jacob Soll is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University. Cover art courtesy of Annenberg Rare Book Room and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania Jacket Design: Stephanie Milanowski "Jacob Soll traces the origins of Enlightenment criticism to the practices of learned humanists and hard-pressed literary entrepreneurs. This learned and lively book is also a tour de force of historical research and interpretation." ---Anthony Grafton, author of Cardano's Cosmos and Bring Out Your Dead "Brilliant. How the printed page changed political philosophy into investigative reporting, and reason of state into the unmasking of power." ---J. G. A. Pocock, author of The Machiavellian Moment "Soll's path-breaking study is a 'must read' for all those interested in the history of political thought and early modern intellectual history." ---Barbara Shapiro, University of California Berkeley "Soll has done [Amelot] and his context justice, writing as he does with a clear, singular, and welcome voice." ---Margaret C. Jacobs, American Historical Review. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recent Acquisitions, 2020–21Bridget Whittle and Kenneth BlackwellThe previous general update of acquisitions appeared in Russell in n.s. 39 (winter 2019): 188–90. The new listing covers items numbered 1,824 to 1,839, plus an addition to 840, with the latest items arriving in December 2021. Largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this update is smaller than usual as fewer items were received or available. Several items were received from other institutions (...) and through the generosity of researchers, to whom McMaster Library is very grateful. Internet prints are from the Hon. Russell Archivist. The following abbreviations are used: L(s). or l(s). = letter(s); X. = image copies of any kind.correspondenceArlott, John L. from BR, 1951, re “Rewards of Philosophy” (C48.06) and a cricket book for Conrad. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Bell, A. S. L. from BR, 1967. Re Alys Russell’s l. to Haldane. X. Courtesy of Nicholas Bell. rec. acq. 1,827.Cambridge Daily News L. from BR requesting they issue a public statement to clarify use of his title, 1945. Re B&R C45.07a. X. Courtesy of Dr. David Harley. rec. acq. 1,824.Cousins, Norman 2 ls. from BR, re quoting History of the World in Epitome and Manchester speech, 1960. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Davies, Mansel 19 documents including ls. to BR, from Edith Russell, drafts, and notes re the Bertrand Russell Peace Fund, 1963 and later; and Dora Russell, also cnd, 1958. rec. acq. 1,828.Dewey, John 3 ls., 1 pc to William Ernest Hocking, 1936–40. Re BR at ccny and Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836.Duman, R. Douglas L. from BR, 1963. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Furtado, Celso 2 ls. from BR re Goldwater, and American war crimes in Vietnam, 1964, 1967. X. Courtesy of Camilo Furado. rec. acq. 1,829.Greene, Graham L. from BR on a Vietnam statement, 1967. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Haldane, Richard Burdon (1st Viscount) L. from Alys Russell regarding BR’s imprisonment status, 3 Mar. 1918. X. rec. acq. 1,827.Hocking, William Ernest 2 ls. from BR, 1939–40. Re Wm. James Lectures at Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836. —. See also under Dewey, John.Jones, Lief (Lord Rhayader) L. from BR congratulating him on his election victory in North Westmoreland. 1904–05. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,831.Miller, Lawrence E. L. from BR enclosing signed photo (not present), 1963. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Modern Forum (Herman Lissauer) L. from BR declining another us lecture tour, 1954. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,831.Newnham College Report from BR to extend G. E. M. Anscombe’s scholarship. He comments on her 2 dissertations. X. Courtesy of Rachel Wiseman. Original at Newnham. rec. acq. 1,831.Post, Stanley Deverin L. from BR, 1962. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Frank L. to Bill/Bull, 1902. Promises to send him a copy of his speech. X. Internet print. Courtesy of Ruth Derham. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Patricia L. to Emrys Hughes, ed. of Forward, 1945. Re the war and peace settlement. X. Courtesy of National Library of Scotland. Added to rec. acq. 840.Ryckman, Mr. L. from BR, 1923. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Schrödinger, Erwin L. from BR. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec. acq. 1,830.Silberstein, Ludwick 3ls. from BR,2in 1918, third in 1941. Silberstein had translated Problems into Polish, 1913. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Silverstein, Louis L. from BR regarding nuclear weapons and the Kennedy administration, 1961. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Spencer, Herbert L. to Lady Amberley, 1869. Re Spencer’s visit to Rodborough. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,833.Stetler, Jr., Russell Dearnley 20 ls. from BR; 30 from R. Schoenman, C. Farley, P. Wood; 1963–65. On opposing the Vietnam War. X. Donation of Russ Stetler. rec. acq. 1,838.Thirring, Hans 11 ls. from BR, 1 to BR, 1952–62. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec... (shrink)

J. N. (Jitendra Nath) Mohanty (1928–2023). -/- Professor J. N. Mohanty has characterized his life and philosophy as being both “inside” and “outside” East and West, i.e., inside and outside traditions of India and those of the West, living in both India and United States: geographically, culturally, and philosophically; while also traveling the world: Melbourne to Moscow. Most of his academic time was spent teaching at the University of Oklahoma, The New School Graduate Faculty, and finally Temple University. Yet his (...) preeminent work in Husserlian phenomenology developed alongside his eminent work in Indian philosophy: describing his interests as “a fusion of disparate horizons.” -/- J. N. Mohanty was born September 26, 1928, in Cuttack (Odisha, East India). After graduating from high school, he went on to study both Indian and Western philosophy in Calcutta, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. There he read Whitehead and Kant’s First Critique; although he wanted to include mathematics in his curriculum, he was led instead to include Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. On the shelves of his teacher, Ras Vihar Das, he came upon a copy of the English translation (Ideas I, 1931) of Edmund Husserl’s classic Ideen I (1913), which presented Husserl’s ground-breaking conception of phenomenology. In 1952–1954 he left India for the first time, reaching Göttingen to study mathematics and philosophy, which earned him a doctorate in mathematics and “philosophy of mathematical sciences” (in his own words). In Göttingen, Mohanty found the powerful mathematical world that Husserl himself had earlier interacted with, where several Husserl students had formed the Göttingen school of phenomenology. During these years Mohanty studied primarily mathematics, alongside Kant and also Vedic Sanskrit. From his friend Günter Patzig, interpreter of Aristotle and Frege, Mohanty was drawn to Frege in relation to mathematical logic. He attended lectures of Heidegger, intrigued by his ontological thinking. Yet, despite the Husserlian legacy, Mohanty was completely self-taught in his studies of Husserl (as he has reported). With a doctorate in mathematics, and ideas from Kant and Frege in his philosophical background, Mohanty set about crafting his own conception of philosophy grounded in phenomenology, drawing on Husserl’s extensive work, critically sifting through Husserl’s texts and their emerging concepts of intentionality, meaning, subject, intersubjectivity, and world. In between he wrote his first book-length study: on phenomenological insights in Nicolai Hartmann and A. N. Whitehead (1958). -/- Over many decades Mohanty formulated and argued, in analytical detail, for a conception of phenomenology and its place in philosophy, later presented in a clear and concise book titled Transcendental Phenomenology: An Analytic Account (1989). Over these very decades the same scholar explored classical and recent Indian philosophy, thinking through kindred ideas of consciousness, self, and knowledge drawn from the Indian philosophical contexts. While writing on Nyāya theory of truth, he also pondered whether the world and finite individual are illusory or real, and whether Marx, Arendt, Gandhi (whom he heard speak in Calcutta), or Vinoba Bhave (with whom he marched across India for the land-grant movement) could best navigate post-Independent India’s social and svarāj or self-rule reforms. The two Mohantys, thinking through a vision of self and world, turned out to be “non-different” or “non-dual” as they each practiced critical phenomenology from both inside and outside the respective philosophical and cultural traditions. Numerous students, fellows, and colleagues or collaborators have benefited immensely from this infusion and unified approach to diversity in philosophical thought. In the 2000s, moving into retirement, Mohanty wrote two long books devoted to his understanding of Husserl and phenomenology and the calling of philosophy itself. This two-volume study shows Mohanty himself thinking through Husserl, critically, in The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Introduction (2008), and Edmund Husserl’s Freiburg Years: 1916–1938. As Mohanty worked on Husserl, he carefully indicated where he agreed and where he rejected or changed ideas, all part of his practice in phenomenology of “description and interpretation.” It was the same pattern he used in addressing the thought of Husserl vis-à-vis Kant or Frege or even Quine. -/- As Mohanty developed his understanding of phenomenology over the years, he wrote books on theory of meaning and the concept of intentionality, developing a model of ideal meaning and its foundation in intentionality, drawing on Husserl’s results. He followed these with the book Husserl and Frege (1982), linking the thought of those foundational figures for the “continental” and “analytic” traditions, respectively, in twentieth-century Western philosophy. Over his long career Mohanty addressed both traditions in his clear and accessible writing style. While developing his views on phenomenology, Mohanty regularly looked to “Husserl and his others,” evaluating views in Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and then Derrida and others in the wake of Husserl. With his background in Kant, Mohanty also looked toward Heidegger and Hegel in relation to Husserl’s later work in the Crisis (1935–38). Similarly, he looked to contemporary analytic philosophers, adjudicating his own, oft-wise Husserlian views in relation to Frege, Nagel, and others. Amid his active scholarly career, Mohanty co-founded the journal Husserl Studies, and was editorial advisor to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, Philosophy East & West, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Sophia, among others. -/- Yet all this while Mohanty was also thinking and writing about Indian philosophy and its relation to phenomenology. In his own retrospective, Indian philosophy is “the permanent background” of his Husserlian thinking, while Kant is the recurrent Western background of his Husserlian phenomenology. Mohanty’s form of “transcendental phenomenology” evolved, in his own perspective, against the background of his studies of Navya-Nyāya on logic and Vedānta on consciousness, in Indian philosophy, and against the background of Kant’s First Critique on the transcendental, in Western philosophy. Accordingly, Mohanty’s study of logical form and of the intentionality of consciousness seeks a fusion of East and West in the conception of transcendental phenomenology. (Cf. Mohanty’s apt response to critics in The Empirical and the Transcendental (2000).) Even in the context of North American Husserl scholarship, Mohanty has exercised an earnest fusion of East and West. For the so-called East Coast and West Coast interpretations of Husserl’s crucial notion of noema both find a sympathetic spirit in J. N. Mohanty’s careful and nuanced interpretation of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. With Mohanty the two faces of the noema are the logical (Fregean) and the phenomenal (Kantian), and these views of intentional structure join in consciousness—in a way resonant with Indian thought. -/- - David Woodruff Smith (UC Irvine) and Purushottama Bilimoria (SFSU, San Francisco; University of Melbourne) -/- For photo of Prof Mohanty visit APA online memorial_minutes2023 Courtesy of APA Memorial Minutes (& Proceedings) 2023 . (shrink)

In his many best-selling books, Yi-Fu Tuan seizes big, metaphysical issues and considers them in uniquely accessible ways. _Human Goodness_ is evidence of this talent and is both as simple, and as epic, as it sounds. Genuinely good people and their actions, Tuan contends, are far from boring, naive, and trite; they are complex, varied, and enormously exciting. In a refreshing antidote to skeptical times, he writes of ordinary human courtesies, as simple as busing your dishes after eating, that (...) make society functional and livable. And he writes of extraordinary courage and inventiveness under the weight of adversity and evil. He considers the impact of communal goodness over time, and his sketches of six very different individuals—Confucius, Socrates, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, John Keats, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, and Simone Weil—confirm that there are human lives that can encourage and lead us to our better selves. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the Public Library Association. (shrink)

The present paper defends the thesis that Spenser's recovery of place, as enacted in 'The Faerie Queene,' Book VI, can be linked in a direct way to his use of a poetic phenomenology which informs and clarifies his work as an epic writer. Spenser's "Book of Courtesy" enacts a Neo-Platonic movement from the lower levels of temporal existence to an exalted vision of spiritual perfection. The paper explores this movement along phenomenological lines as a mysterious adventure that embraces self (...) and other, personality and community, aesthetics and ethics, in a sequence of images that opens up a new interpretation of imaginative fulfillment. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When an Arab Laughs in Toledo: Cervantes’s Interpellation of Early Modern Spanish OrientalismE. C. Graf (bio)My purpose has been to place in the plaza of our republic a game table which everyone can approach to entertain themselves without fear of being harmed by the rods; by which I mean without harm to spirit or body, because honest and agreeable exercises are always more likely to do good than harm.—Miguel (...) de Cervantes Saavedra, Prologue to Novelas ejemplares [my translation]We are engaged in a technical enterprise at the species scale.—Jacques Lacan, “L’agressivité en psychanalyse” [my translation]While I was all intent on watching him, he looked at me, and with his hands he spread his chest and said: “See how I split myself!”!—Dante Alighieri, Inferno 28.28–30 Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.Sandro Botticelli, The Virgin and Child (c. 1490). Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; ©1999 President and Fellows of Harvard College. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.Salvador Dalí, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening (1941). Courtesy of Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; ©1999 Artists' Rights Society (ARS), New York.For much of this century, Hispanists have labored in an effort to elevate Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (1605, 1615) to the coveted status of the “first modern novel.” Today this kind of criticism may strike our postmodern sensibilities as a rather traditional enterprise, the kind more interested in establishing an elite hierarchy of literary tastes than in saying anything new about an author or text. For many, the study of literature is still an aesthetic beauty pageant in which “great books” like Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1767) or Marie de la Vergne de La Fayette’s La princesse de Clèves (1678) are paraded across the stage in a contest to seduce the Western intelligentsia. 1 The postmodern student of literature may not have much concern for this age-old territorial contest, but she might be interested to learn that the fallout from Hispanism’s quest for the “first modern novel” has involved so much attention to, indeed complication of, Don Quixote, that the book now resembles more a postmodern text than an early modern one. At the turn of the century, we have been left with what Jorge Luis Borges would recognize as an “aleph”: an infinite ideological labyrinth that reflects and/or cannibalizes all forms, thereby escaping all attempts [End Page 68] to describe it. 2 Whatever we currently mean by “Cervantes” (an author, a collection of texts, an ideological construction, and so forth) carries with it an impressive range of critical responses. Cervantes has been labeled converso (Castro, Canavaggio), Christian humanist (Castro, Bataillon, Forcione, Herrero, Vilanova), disillusioned secularist (Lukács, Cascardi), precapitalist (Johnson), anti-essentialist (Wilson), anti-Eusebian (Presberg), Menippean (Bakhtin), feminist (El Saffar, Rabin, Cruz), sadist (Nabokov), ethnocentric imperialist (Mariscal), medieval (Gorfkle), homophobic (Martín), non-organicist Aristotelian (Read), and either discursively or actually homosexual (Combet, Rossi, Smith, Arrabal). This list is nowhere near complete, but the reader will grasp the robust effects of the plurality of perspectives on Cervantes.Each of these interpretations is valid to varying degrees within various contexts, but at present I am interested in reading Cervantes as the author of a multicultural manifesto on behalf of the Moriscos of Southern Spain. 3 Within the contexts of French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser and Palestinian postcolonial literary critic Edward Said, materialist, postcolonial, and multicultural critiques of various forms of power and their ideologies can be seen as the fundamental propositions of Cervantes’s Don Quixote. 4 Cervantes’s ultimate orientation may perhaps be inescapably Eurocentric, but his responses to the European experience of the rise and expansion of an ethnocentric militaristic nation state are relatively centrifugal when compared to the attitudes of many of his contemporaries.In surveying some of the antihegemonic details of Cervantes’s novel, I am also interested in dispelling the popular myth of Don Quixote. Especially in the English-speaking world, and particularly in the United States, Don Quixote remains captive to a... (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 141-144. This January, while preparing a new course, Robert Seydel was struck and killed by an unexpected heart attack. He was a critically under-appreciated artist and one of the most beloved and admired professors at Hampshire College. At the time of his passing, Seydel was on the brink of a major artistic and career milestone. His Book of Ruth was being prepared for publication by Siglio Press. His publisher describes the book as: “an alchemical assemblage that composes (...) the life of his alter ego, Ruth Greisman— spinster, Sunday painter, and friend to Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp. Through collages, drawings, and journal entries from Ruth’s imagined life, Seydel invokes her interior world in novelistic rhythms.” This convergence of his professional triumph with the tragedy of his death makes now a particularly appropriate time to think about Robert Seydel and his work. This feature contains a selection of excerpts from Book of Ruth (courtesy of Siglio Press) alongside a pair of texts remembering him and giving critical and biographical insights into his art and his person. These texts, from a former student and a colleague respectively, were originally prepared for Seydel's memorial at Hampshire College and have since been revised for publication in continent. For more information on Book of Ruth, please visit the book's page at the Siglio Press website. —Ben Segal draughty R. * Lauren van Haaften-Schick 2011 “The most apt way to order Smithson's library is with the conjunction 'and'; science and religion; modernism and mass culture; what is present and what is missing.” —Alexander Alberro, 248 Robert Seydel's classes on collage and collecting immersed his students in a curious world of cabinets, oddities, exhaustive archives and obscure histories, explored always with critical rigor and a sincere eye for wonder. His office was a compendium of the ancient, mythic, potential and unworldy, where seemingly unrelated references were endlessly pulled, piled and fused in an ecstatic dance of hyper-annotation. The small room and all its contents overflowed with notes tucked in every margin and corner. Books coated the walls like a switchboard, anxious and humming, waiting for infinite links to be activated. William Blake's books of Job and Urizen summoned Greek mythology and the animal as metaphor, leading to 19th century cryptozoology and the cave paintings at Lascaux, Gaston Bachelard's description of the bird in his garden and Robert Rauschenberg's Canyon . Tracking archetypes and following tangential threads, new revelations and ancient narratives were compiled and ordered to form a new text, a bibliography as assemblage, portrait and poem. Robert's library—one of his many collections—is a portrait, an “artifact, collage of time, a token and remnant” (Seydel, 2007) He is humming with it still. The imagination of this room—of Robert—breathes through the pages of Book of Ruth, as every decision and detail unfolds to a cosmos. Allegory, invention, personal and art histories are entangled and leveled, rendering lived, perceived and absorbed experiences indistinguishable. Anonymous scraps discovered on the street or studio floor, careful clippings and drawn figures are chosen and animated through serendipitous destruction and whimsical, delicate positioning. A precise vocabulary of characters and terms erupts and collapses as personas and passers-by wave and whisper, “Every figure reveals aspects of the total form, which is open and green” (Seydel, 2007). The initials R.S. repeat, a nod to Robert's true family tree and further complicating identification. Robt, Robert's sometimes alter-ego, appears in myriad forms as a trickster “half-wit,” mercurial and skittish, or soft and worn thin. Saul is a solemn tinkerer, parsing the world and sometimes blind. Ruth, the speaker of the book, records and translates all, her voice wavering between poetic verse and a cryptic half-speech as complex as it is sparse. The rhythm of frayed edges sets time - the weight of the world and the lightness of paper. Robert wrote of his process, “Material is essential; scuffings carry history, which wanders throughout” (Seydel, 2007). Collectors, assemblers, sway between careful movements of selection and placement as they pull from the found world, mediating calculated and unconscious association to form a lexicon of gestures, symbols and allusion, the “artifacts of a life... the refuse and rejecta of days” (Seydel, 2007). These assembled fragments shift and chatter, at home in their homelessness, actors performing in their own lives, populating an invented world of similar orphans. Such accumulated, severed parts carry the injury of their cutting and retain the evidence of their source, binding loss to creation in a symbiosis of trauma and repair. Mourning and remembrance are deeply embedded in the histories and acts of such practices. Grievance, acceptance, and the fragility of life are conveyed in the 18th century allegorical arrangements of fetal specimens by Frederik Ruysch. A certain melancholy reverence colors Joseph Cornell's intimately tactile assemblages rendering the universe tangible in miniature, or made in devotion to unrequited loves. Preserved in stasis, these ghosts and idols are kept in a purgatory where fact and fiction, past and present are irrelevant distinctions. Catalogued and contained, the subject of loss is transferred to an artifact. Every thread, scrap and letter may be glued, gathered and placed in a museum, a tomb, a box, a page, ripe and open for possession. Holding on to grief and reveling in disrepair, we opt to be haunted. Forever unbalanced and in flux, the sublime of collage is its resolve to irresolution. For Robert, “Art, as creation and as sign of primary Imagination, is not objects but a state, a kind of fluid” (Seydel, 2007) Reflecting on his work, life, and death, I am drawn to my library and the myriad titles acquired through his inspiration. There is Daniel Spoerri's An Anecdoted Topography of Chance , Susan Stewart's On Longing , various Borges, Barthes, Perec, and especially Life: A User's Manual , which concludes that the perfect puzzle will have no solution. I think of the drawers of miscellaneous swallowed objects at the Mutter Museum, Ray Johnson coding the every day in riddles, Wallace Berman twisting tongues, and Susan Hiller laying every detail to bear. Collectors and makers working in endless cycles of observation, ingestion and display. Every gesture informs and is defined by others, every space is shaped by that which surrounds and fills it, the knot has an inner logic, the gigantic is not so different from the miniature, there is a world in every detail, and “All art is collage” (Seydel, 2011) These thoughts have molded my life, my art, and all the minutia that keep the two so profoundly intertwined; There is no difference between life and what we do with our time. “I write my life. I make me up.” What a gift to share this secret way of knowing the world, and to leave this knowledge for us to do with what we please. “Art begins in admiration” (Seydel, 2011) Lauren van Haaften-Schick is a curator, writer and artist based in New York. Upcoming curatorial projects include "Cancelled" at the Center for Book Arts, and "The Spirit of the Signal" at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York. Recent activities include the workshops "Market, Alternative" and "Alternative Art Economies" at Trade School and Momenta Art, and the e-flux Time/Store, New York. She is the founding director of two arts spaces in Northampton, MA and Philadelphia, PA. She received a BA in Art History and Studio Art from Hampshire college in 2006. Sura Levine on Robert Seydel If early on in his time at Hampshire College I was officially his “mentor,” Robert Seydel quickly became one of my great teachers. Over the years we talked about everything, from art, music, collage, and poetry, to campus politics, this latter far too often. It was always a sublime pleasure, if all too rarely done, to enter his apartment to look at his work in progress, to peruse his bookshelves where, inevitably, there were always new treats to examine. And, while he was working on his Book of Ruth , I was given the opportunity over the course of many meals at the Korean and other restaurants, to talk with him about image and poem ordering. To see how he thought through each comma, each juxtaposition across the gutters of the Book, was to watch a brilliant curator at work. Each day, I walk past his wonderful collaged portrait of Ruth, purchased, after much haggling, as a birthday present, a couple of years ago. And each day, I think how lucky I am to have known Robert as he produced this magnum opus. One of my greatest pleasures in 24 years at the College was to teach “The Collector” with Robert. One of my greatest regrets is that the magic we created together in the classroom will not, and cannot, be duplicated. Its various incarnations, its utter intelligence and magic, were all so deeply Robert’s. His was a mind that put poetry, philosophy, history of science, and history together with art, and art together with music. His intellect and eye were unparalleled. He introduced us to so many artists. He shared his fascination with the cabinets of curiosity of Aldrovandi, of Seba, and Peter the Great’s collection of fetal anomalies, as well as the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. Robert knew them all and so many more. He was a walking encyclopedia, his home a great archive. Arcane knowledge, perhaps, but oh so important for another of Robert’s heroes, the mid-20th century Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, whose name he invariably mispronounced as “Broadthayers.” In speaking his name, Robert would always look in my direction in a panic, and then he go on and maul it. I absolutely loved his various mispronunciations of French names and terms! “The Collector” was always filled with talented young artists, art historians, philosophers and writers who all came to understand the wondrous obsessions of the figure of the collector. Students in this course created dazzling projects each term. He always moved while looking and speaking. He read deeply, and commented on everyone’s work with wonderful generosity. Robert always found something to praise even in the least developed of projects. Robert inspired and mentored all of his students into making work that far exceeded their expectations—and ours. For those of you who were lucky enough to have been touched by or to have had an evaluation written by Robert, savor it, keep it, reread it, and share it. He loved working with you all; it is somehow fitting that he died while prepping yet another new course. Robert, it’s almost impossible to speak of you in the past tense, even though you left us a month ago. No doubt, if you knew about our gatherings and celebrations of you, you would be embarrassed that we are making a fuss over you; you always placed the focus on others rather than on yourself. This trait is exactly why so many people miss you now. We’re here to love you publicly as we all did privately for the eleven years you were among us. Robert, my very dear friend, you were an extraordinary artist—you were my brother of choice. My heart broke when yours did. I miss you profoundly. —Sura Levine, February 26, 2011 Sura Levine is a professor of art history at Hampshire College. Her field of specialty is 19th century Belgian and French art, particularly realism and impressionism. Having worked in museums for a number of years both prior to coming to the College, and, as guest curator and co-author of exhibition catalogues, she became particularly interested in the history of museum and trends in collecting. It was because of their shared interests that she and Robert Seydel developed their course, The Collector, which they co-taught for many years. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Images >> Quan Zhou Wu and Linaje’s GenealogyJulia Haeyoon Chang (bio) Click for larger view View full resolutionQuan Zhou WuENJOY (Linaje 2024)Art and design by Quan Zhou WuDigital infrastructure by Marco Fratini[End Page 5] Click for larger view View full resolutionQuan Zhou WuUNA DE ELLAS (Linaje 2024)Art and design by Quan ZhouWu Digital infrastructure by Marco Fratini[End Page 6] Click for larger view View full resolutionQuan Zhou WuMEMORIAS RETORCIDAS(Linaje (...) 2024)Art and design by Quan Zhou WuDigital infrastructure by Marco Fratini[End Page 30] Click for larger view View full resolutionQuan Zhou Wu,NEGATIVOS (Linaje 2024)Art and design by Quan Zhou WuDigital infrastructure by Marco Fratini[End Page 31] Click for larger view View full resolutionQuan Zhou WuELLAS Y YO (Linaje 2024)Art and design by Quan Zhou WuDigital infrastructure by Marco Fratini[End Page 49] Click for larger view View full resolutionQuan Zhou Wu,STATEMENT (Linaje 2024)Art and design by Quan Zhou WuDigital infrastructure by Marco Fratini[End Page 74] Click for larger view View full resolutionQuan Zhou WuLAS ARTISTAS QUE NO FUIMOS (Linaje 2024)Art and design by Quan Zhou WuDigital infrastructure by Marco Fratini[End Page 75]Quan Zhou Wu’s followers will surely be struck—as I was—by the multisensory digital exhibit “Linaje” (“Lineage”), which was published in 2024 and departs, perhaps unexpectedly, from the artist’s previous well-established oeuvre. Before delving into the work in question, it may be fruitful first to have a glimpse at the artist’s iconic aesthetic. In 2015, and at the age of twenty-seven, Wu, a self-taught artist, debuted her first graphic memoir, Gazpacho Agridulce. The book commences with her parents’ newfound life in Spain after leaving Qingtian, a province of Zhejiang, China, to run a restaurant in Algeciras, a municipality of Cadiz. The opening pages of Gazpacho pack a punch, depicting Wu’s dramatic and untimely birth in a taxicab en route to the hospital.Gazpacho’s publication initiated a crucial sea change in the predominantly white Spanish publishing world, which would soon after be rocked by a boom of racialized1 authors penning anti-racist memoirs and other works of non-fiction.2 Gazpacho would also eventually become the first of the author’s trilogy of graphic memoirs, which was completed by the sequels Andaluchinas por el mundo (2017) and the most recent La agridolce vita (2023).Wu’s narratives capture the familial, identarian, and social conflicts that erupt from cultural disloyalties and racism—direct consequences of migration. She and her sisters, for example, loathe their family’s rigid Chinese and Christian mores and long for the cultural markers of an ordinary Spanish childhood, structured of course by U.S. global consumer culture, e.g. Barbie, Pizza Hut, and McDonald’s.An illustrator, cartoonist, and podcaster, Wu’s talent as a storyteller lies in her complex use of humor. With great care for her subject and her reader, Wu deploys humor to tend to the uncouth, raw, and ugly parts of life. In so doing, the author invites us to laugh and ultimately reckon with our own discomfort as we with sit with the heaviness of racism, sexism, and post-migration melancholy—using humor as a salve.At her best, Wu serves irreverence, rawness, and wit. To be immersed in her books is to rub up against the rough-hewn emotions that bring her characters to life. The vibrancy of her palette and the whimsy of her pen strokes are inviting, animated, and deceptively light-hearted. In an instant, lines and pigment rearrange into abstractions dense with affect. Fiery hollowed eyes, a gaping mouth, and flushed skin burn through the frame—making the volcanic rage of a migrant mother immediately palpable. It’s so emotive, it practically singes your skin. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.Cover of Wu’s first graphic memoir Gazpacho agridulce: Una autobiografía china-andaluza[End Page 102] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.Excerpt from Gazpacho agridulce (courtesy of the artist)[End Page 103]While... (shrink)

Histories of communication are still relatively rare birds, but this one is distinctive on several grounds. The two authors are/were undisputed giants in the field. Ken Cmiel, the originator of the book, still unfinished when he suddenly died in 2006, was a cultural historian of communication; his best friend, John Peters, is one of the world leaders in the intellectual history of communication. In completing that unfinished manuscript, Peters has performed astonishing prestidigitation here in creating an effective hybrid: he retains (...) the core of Cmiel's account, while creating a unique book that, courtesy of Peters, brilliantly spins out the solid Cmielian core and its material traces into gorgeous reflections on aspects of how we make our way through a world of images and information. Promiscuous Knowledge constructs a cultural and intellectual history of information, images, and conceptions of knowledge since the 17th century, with an emphasis on the American context since the 19th century. Cmiel/Peters sketch the way in which various containers for information-knowledge, expertise, abridgment, books, digests, encyclopedias, museums, etc.-have variably organized gluts of information, and how these containers have eroded since the 1970s. A parallel throughline traces social attitudes and practices around images and key media for circulating and experiencing them. Cmiel envisioned the largest contour of the book as a contribution to the history of truth and truth-making. His protagonists are pictures and facts, images and information. They enact a process of gradual dismantling, erosion, or collapse of the mass culture system from last century into the present. Promiscuous knowledge has a new face, courtesy of the online universe full of filter bubbles, echo chambers, and fake news. Google offers a single portal to a churning mass of confusion; it lacks a principle of inclusion/inclusivity, it has no way of framing the whole. Peters has shaped what Cmiel started out with into a better Trump-era book than an Obama-era book. And he has retained its core: a brief history of how we left the world of fact for the world of information. (shrink)

Theories of Legal Relations is an astute examination of existing legal systems that explores the notion of legal relationships and frameworks, using various analytical approaches to legal theory including subjectivist, objectivist, psychological and empirical. Emmanuel Jeuland defends the logical anteriority of relationships in law and their universality (e.g. in the new Chinese Civil Code), addressing new issues such as the possibility of legal relationships with natural and artificial entities. He delves into the consequences of these potential relationships in terms of (...) theory of law, legal reasoning and theory of justice. Chapters discuss legal relationships within legal systems globally, including the intention to create a legal relationship in the UK, declaratory judgments in the US, relationship of courtesy in Germany, and the commercial relationship in France. Providing a well-rounded analytical investigation into legal relations involving relational autonomy, this timely book will be an ideal read for both legal and interdisciplinary scholars interested in legal philosophy, society and culture. Other academics concerned with relationships with natural or artificial entities will also find this book to be a stimulating read. (shrink)

Your artistry involves you intimately with the world around and beyond you. So your artistry involves profound but simple philosophical matters. As a human person, you are artful and philosophical, at the core of your being. Doorway to Artistry offers a playful, everyday philosophical approach necessary for life, integration, healing, and thriving in artistry. It reflects on the real and how we are involved with it, especially in our creative effort. In short, the real hospitably welcomes us, and in our (...) artistry we reciprocate in noble courtesy. Human persons were made for this communion with the real. Find in this book a hospitable welcome to belong at home beyond where you are. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.4 (2001) 54-82 [Access article in PDF] Seeing With The Body The Digital Image In Postphotography Mark B. N. Hansen In a well-known scene from the 1982 Ridley Scott film Bladerunner, Rick Deckard scans a photograph into a 3-D rendering machine and directs the machine to explore the space condensed in the two-dimensional photograph as if it were three-dimensional [see fig. 1]. Following Deckard's commands to zoom in (...) and to pan right and left within the image space, the machine unpacks the "real" three-dimensional world represented by the two-dimensional photograph [see figs. 2-3]. After catching a glimpse of his target—a fugitive replicant—reflected from a mirror within the space, Deckard instructs the machine to move around behind the object obstructing the two-dimensional photographic view of the replicant and to frame what it sees [see figs. 4-5]. Responding to the print command issued by Deckard, the machine dispenses a photograph of the replicant which is, quite literally, a close-up of an invisible—indeed nonexistent—part of the two-dimensional original [see fig. 6]. And yet, following the fantasy of this scene, this impossible photograph is—or would be—simply the image of one particular data point within the data set comprising this three-dimensional data space. As fascinating as it is puzzling, this scene of an impossible rendering—a rendering of two-dimensional data as a three-dimensional space—can be related to the crisis brought to photography by digitization in two ways. On the one hand, in line with the film's thematic questioning of photography as a reliable index of memory, this scene foregrounds the technical capacity of digital processing to manipulate photographs. In this way, it thematizes the threat posed by digital technologies to traditional indexical notions of photographic realism. On the other hand, in what has turned out to be a far more prophetic vein, the scene presents a radically new understanding of the photographic image as a three-dimensional "virtual" space. Such an understanding presupposes a vastly different material existence of the photographic image: instead of a physical inscription of light on sensitive paper, the photograph has become a data set that can be rendered in various ways and thus viewed from various perspectives.The first position corresponds to the arguments made by William Mitchell in his now classic book, The Reconfigured Eye. In a comprehensive analysis of the techniques and possibilities of digital imaging, Mitchell concentrates on demarcating the traditional photographic image from its digital doppelgänger. While the specter of manipulation has always haunted the photographic image, it remains the exception rather than the rule: "There is no doubt that extensive reworking of photographic images to produce seamless transformations and combinations is technically difficult, time-consuming, and outside the mainstream of photographic practice. When we look at photographs we presume, unless we have some clear indications to the contrary, that they have not been reworked" [Mitchell 7]. To buttress this claim, Mitchell sketches three criteria for evaluating traditional photographic images: (1) does the image follow the conventions of photography and seem internally coherent? (2) does the visual evidence it presents [End Page 54]Stills from Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Video. Rick Deckard navigates a two-dimensional image as a three-dimensional space." width="72" height="33" />Click for larger viewFigure 1Still from Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Video. Rick Deckard navigates a two-dimensional image as a three-dimensional space.Stills from Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Video. Rick Deckard navigates a two-dimensional image as a three-dimensional space." width="72" height="32" />Click for larger viewFigure 2Still from Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Video. Rick Deckard navigates a two-dimensional image as a three-dimensional space.Stills from Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Video. Rick Deckard navigates a two-dimensional image as a three-dimensional space." width="72" height="33" />Click... (shrink)

A Rabbinic anthology is a compendium of all those passages in the Talmudic and Midrashic literature that bear on the nature of God, the Law, virtue, prayer, faith, sin, charity, the Messiah, the Last Judgment. It also illuminates rabbinic attitudes toward family, asceticism, hospitality, courtesy, and peace. In short, it is an invaluable and nearly inexhaustible collection containing thousands of stories, parables, and statements of the rabbis. In addition, the editors offer incisive interpretations of the material, and the appendices (...) on rabbinic texts , the glossary, and the detailed indexes contribute to make this the indispensable book of rabbinic source materials for the student. (Back cover). (shrink)

The Mechanics of the Mind, in the words of its author, "is an attempt to interpret the phenomenon of mind in terms of the physiological processes of the nervous system and to explore the philosophical implications of a realistically conceived theory." The first four chapters of the book is little more than a survey of some neurophysiological, cognitive, psychosocial and clinical experimental data, the consideration of which presumably leads one to the conclusion that behavior is strictly neuronic. This extensive survey (...) of research data reads like a textbook in Introductory Psychology, for Lohr details experimental studies that are familiar to every college freshman. We hear once again of Kleitman’s sleep experiments, Harlow’s surrogate mothers, even Pavlov’s dogs. Yet, not only is this analysis boring, it is quite defective. Lohr relies solely on these classic experiments in order to argue his thesis; he seems largely to be ignorant of recent experimental research which directly affects his position. This fact is painfully evident both in his discussion of the Central Nervous System and in his treatment of clinical research. Concerning the CNS, Lohr does not take into account Moruzzi and Jouvet’s studies of the ARAS, the recent interest in the hippocampus and the work of Spencer, Thompson and Nielson on the neuronic basis of learning. Lohr’s clinical data are taken, almost exclusively, from the 1950 edition of Coleman’s textbook—an undergraduate primer in abnormal behavior. Yet, even if Lohr were conversant with recent physiological and clinical research it would be impossible to verify his conclusions independently since he provides not one footnote in 513 pages of technical discussion. There are occasional references to specific experiments but by author only; he does not offer dates or source of publication for any of the studies he cites. Moreover, Lohr provides no index and only a nominal bibliography whose omissions are more notable than its entries. These infractions of scholarly courtesy are, however, merely remote indications of the deeper difficulty. From his inadequate survey of experimental research Lohr concludes that an understanding of behavior as exclusively neuronic leads us back to "traditional values" once discarded by psychologists who thought their research explained away "innate tendencies." Lohr argues that "the institutions [i.e., social values] which have evolved do not reflect an artificial set of conditions imposed upon man." Rather, the shape of our nervous system forces upon us certain limits and therefore certain objective moral values. Physiological processes thus "determine" higher order behavior in that they provide an objective matrix from which certain kinds of behavior can be judged aberrant. Hence belief in God, and freedom of the will, insofar as these elements are entailed by objective moral standards, are respectable, even desirable, accoutrements of Lohr’s "mechanistic metaphysics." This reconstruction of morals on the basis of biology suggests a close parallel with certain 19th century evolutionist-philosophers, Spencer, Haeckel and Fiske being, perhaps, the most prominent of the school. These Victorian biologist-philosophers were much more certain of a direct link between neural processes and high-order behavior than their late 20th century counterparts, and they were much more liable to conflate possible social and cultural consequences of their work. Today, however, the type of connection between neural activity and higher order behavior is much less obvious due to more sophisticated research techniques and a more critical lay public. Lohr, as we have noted, does as little justice to these new techniques and trends as Spencer would have done. He completely ignores significant research and virtually all philosophical discussion concerning mind-brain identity. As a consequence, The Mechanics of the Mind fits the same genre as Spencer’s Synthetic Philosophy and Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe—neither good science nor good philosophy.—J. F. (shrink)

Unless the title is a McLuhanesque play on words--which Finkelstein would never allow himself--the book is mistitled, for Finkelstein dwells almost exclusively on what he considers to be the nonsense of McLuhan. Writing with all the venom of an anti-smut campaigner whose moral principles are threatened because they are too weak and too inflexible, Finkelstein wages his polemics against McLuhan in an effort to discredit him and expose him as a false prophet. What nettles Finkelstein most is that McLuhan, a (...) professor--a guardian of truth and goodness--should be so irresponsible as to fail to denunciate T.V. commercials, Madison avenue mind-manipulators, T.V.'s causing the atrophy of the ability to read and think, and the other bogeymen of humanist dogma. How dare McLuhan, the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at a great University, challenge the foundations of the humanities themselves? Finkelstein is at least thorough in his refusal to come to grips with what is valid in McLuhan: he does us the service of pointing out the errors in McLuhan's reading of history, in his dictum that the medium is the message, in his suggestion that media are extensions of man, and in his advocacy of media involvement. The final and the least weak chapter draws a parallel between McLuhan and Marx, showing how McLuhanism can lead to a world totalitarian monolith. We should pay Finkelstein the courtesy, however, of pointing out that there is a sense in which his criticisms, if not always valid, are at least important to keep in mind while seeking to understand McLuhan without being seduced by him.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The concept of the imaginary is pervasive within contemporary thought, yet can be a baffling and often controversial term. In Imagination and the Imaginary , Kathleen Lennon explores the links between imagination - regarded as the faculty of creating images or forms - and the imaginary, which links such imagery with affect or emotion and captures the significance which the world carries for us. Beginning with an examination of contrasting theories of imagination proposed by Hume and Kant, Lennon argues that (...) the imaginary is not something in opposition to the real, but the very faculty through which the world is made real to us. She then turns to the vexed relationship between perception and imagination and, drawing on Kant, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, explores some fundamental questions, such as whether there is a distinction between the perceived and the imagined; the relationship between imagination and creativity; and the role of the body in perception and imagination. Invoking also Spinoza and Coleridge, Lennon argues that, far from being a realm of illusion, the imaginary world is our most direct mode of perception. She then explores the role the imaginary plays in the formation of the self and the social world. A unique feature of the volume is that it compares and contrasts a philosophical tradition of thinking about the imagination - running from Kant and Hume to Strawson and John McDowell - with the work of phenomenological, psychoanalytic, poststructuralist and feminist thinkers such as Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Lacan, Castoriadis, Irigaray, Gatens and Lloyd. This makes I magination and the Imaginary essential reading for students and scholars working in phenomenology, philosophy of perception, social theory, cultural studies and aesthetics. Cover Image: Bronze Bowl with Lace , Ursula Von Rydingsvard, 2014. Courtesy the artist, Galerie Lelong and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Photo Jonty Wilde. (shrink)

The rules -- Ten other civil things you can do -- A last word -- Key dates in the life of George Washington.

Vernon Sternberg of the S.I.U Press was responsible for bringing out the first edition of this collection of occasional pieces. In addition to the title piece, written in 1940, it includes other blank verses: “Machine Tools,” 1940; “The Historical Attempt by Man to Convert His Evolution from a Subjective to an Objective Process,” 1948; “Universal Requirements of a Dwelling Advantage,” 1917–62; “The Fuller Research Foundation,” 1946–51; A Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science,” 1956; and two prose essays with geometrical diagrams and tables, (...) “Introduction to Omnidirectional Halo,” 1959, and “omnidirectional Halo,” 1960. I once asked Fuller whether No More Secondhand God meant secondhand as in clothes or second hand as in watch? He seemed bemused by the question and answered with a casualness I found suspect—”Now that you mention it,” he said, “I suppose both.” Description by Ed Applewhite, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller. (shrink)

I trace the principles known as the indiscernibility of identicals, "Leibniz's Law", and the principle of substitutivity, beginning with Aristotle, through Leibniz, Frege, and Russell, and culminating in Quine. I argue that the indiscernibility of identicals is an ontological principle and the principle of substitutivity is a linguistic principle. I discuss the relations and conflations of the principles and various attempts to defend the principle of substitutivity from apparent counter-examples, focussing on Quine's attempt to use the principle as a criterion (...) for referential and non-referential occurrences of singular terms. I find Quine's acount ambivalent and counter-intuitive, yet I think his insight that pronouns or variables are paradigmatic of reference is significant. With that as a cue, I suggest an analysis of all singular terms into a counting device and an identifying component. I argue, finally, that the principle of substitutivity holds fundamentally for the counting element, and only "by courtesy" for unanalyzed singular terms. (shrink)

We live in a reactionary culture where divisive issues arise, people on either side throw stones, and everyone ends up more entrenched in their opinions than in reaching common ground--or even exhibiting common courtesy! If there ever was a time for Christians to understand and communicate God's truth about controversial and polarizing issues, it is now. Believers must develop convictions based on research, reason, and biblical truth--and be able (and willing) to communicate these convictions with a love and respect (...) that reflects God's own heart. In Culture Shock, bestselling author, pastor, and radio personality Chip Ingram shows readers how they can bring light rather than heat to the most controversial and divisive issues of our day. Covering topics such as right and wrong, sex, homosexuality, abortion, politics, and the environment, Culture Shock is every engaged believer's must-have guidebook to replacing reactionary hate with revolutionary love. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. La politesse n'est-elle qu'un ensemble d'usages contingents ou bien a-t-elle une signification propre? En quoi se distingue-t-elle des autres formes de sociabilité, a-t-elle une signification directe? Cette étude reprise dans une perspective philosophique révèle la nature paradoxale (...) de la politesse, à la fois langage créateur de sens et langage formel. « Copyright Electre » Pages de début Avant-propos Introduction - Délimitation et analyse du champ de recherche Chapitre I - Mesures d'ordre préalables Chapitre II - Les antécédents de la politesse Chapitre III - Les principales figures de la politesse Conclusion - L'unité du domaine de référence et, par suite, la nature de la politesse font problème Première partie - Le conflit des interprétations Quatre sortes de motifs Chapitre I - L'interprétation psychologique Chapitre II - La référence sociale Chapitre III - Une motivation ambiguë : la recherche de la distinction Chapitre IV - La problématique morale et religieuse Bilan - L'échec de la réflexion traditionnelle sur les fondements de la politesse Deuxième partie - Théorie de la politesse Introduction. Originalité, possibilité et vraisemblance du formalisme Chapitre I - Une messe en latin Chapitre II - Le modus operandi des pratiques de politesse Chapitre III - Fonction principale et sens fondamental des conduites de politesse Conclusion - Un art spécifique de la communication Chapitre IV - La politesse est une création culturelle Présentation Chapitre I - Le divers et son unité Chapitre II - Les degrés du formalisme : maximum, minimum et optimum Chapitre III - Ultimes questions sur la systématicité de la politesse Troisième partie - L'avenir de la politesse Chapitre I - Les constantes de la politesse Chapitre II - L'avenir incertain de la politesse Index des auteurs Pages defin. (shrink)

Why civility matters -- It starts with you!: developing self-awareness -- Do what you say and say what you mean: personal and professional integrity -- Good fences make great neighbors: building professional relationships -- Working in the salad bowl: the importance of teamwork -- Eliminate gossip and bullying: the bully-free workplace pledge -- You can't always get what you want: conflict resolution -- Taking it to the extreme: dealing with extreme incivility -- Paving the path to civility: the next step.

This is a 1992 study of writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mainly in France, but also in Britain and Russia. Its focus is on the establishing and questioning of rational, 'civilized' norms of 'politeness', which in the ancien régime meant not just polite manners, but a certain ideal of society and culture.

Que nous apprend la vie publique urbaine de notre culture morale et politique? Comment perçoit-on les autres, et comment définit-on, dans l'espace limité des rencontres auxquelles nous expose le côtoiement urbain le plus routinier, le périmètre de ce que l'on doit à autrui, ce que l'on peut en attendre, en craindre ou en exiger? Des métamorphoses de la mendicité à la politisation du phénomène de «harcèlement de rue», l'étude des «relations en public» chère au sociologue américain Erving Goffman est ici (...) prolongée, pour analyser la façon dont les formes ordinaires de la coexistence urbaine participent à la fabrique de nos cultures démocratiques. L'ethnographie de longue durée menée par Carole Gayet-Viaud montre, au fil des séquences d'enquête, mêlant observations des espaces publics urbains (rues, transports, jardins, terrasses de café, etc.) et entretiens relatifs à ces expériences, le travail normatif à l'œuvre dans ces échanges. La définition des choses dues entre inconnus, telles que la vie publique les donne à voir, dessine ainsi une civilité irréductible à un corpus de règles qu'il ne s'agirait que d'appliquer. C'est, bien plutôt, une activité permanente de réglage des conduites, qui inscrit, dans des pratiques d'apparence anodine, aux frontières des sphères morale et politique, une définition située des exigences de la vie commune, des égards qui articulent un sens du juste et du convenable, et tentent de les faire coïncider."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Discourse on the dignity of humanity by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a renaissance Italian prince known for his erudition and sensitivity.