In reading all the theoretical contributions to this book, an essentially common idea of the social can be observed which is of fundamental importance for a new definition of artistic production: a process-related order of institutionalized actions, including the linguistic actions to which individuals are exposed. For here, in the repetition of such institutionalized acts, is where subjects first emerge at all. Objects, whether they be objects of everyday use or whole architectures, are like moulds which provide for the institutionalization (...) of actions. The artist emerges as a social figure, as the product of a society and the agent of political interests. From this point of view, the status of objects, the status of the “work” is not the expression of a circumscribed meaning, but the instrument of forming a subject. The opposition of theory and practice becomes obsolete. Subject and object are meaning written into actions. (shrink)

This review essay emphasizes the distinction between academic art history, based ultimately on the model of scientific research, and the sort that Roberto Calasso practices in his 2009 study Tiepolo in Pink. It is difficult to locate the book's genre, and the reviewer rejects identifying it as a biography (of the sort practiced by Irving Stone, Somerset Maugham, and Dimitri Merejkovski), since Calasso, like most other writers on Tiepolo, stresses how little we know about his personality, which was elusive, and (...) about his private life, which was undramatic. What chiefly interests both Calasso and the reviewer is whether Tiepolo, whose ceiling frescoes are without gravity—their “antigravity” draws the painted figures upward—is an artist without gravitas. The reviewer supports Calasso's argument that the thirty-two etchings comprising the Capricci and Scherzi make it absurd to consider Tiepolo artistically, intellectually, or morally frivolous. “Scientific” art historians have applied the category of “decoration” to these somber etchings, with their incomprehensible allegories, but Calasso, himself an artist (a novelist), approaches these pictures without scientific prejudice. The reviewer traces the dour attitude of mainstream art historians toward Tiepolo to his rivalry for commissions in the 1760s with Anton Raphael Mengs, a representative of the rising Enlightenment cult of virtue and the austere aesthetics of a rising neoclassicism. From that time on, art historians have treated Tiepolo's work as unhealthy, lightweight, and bizarre, but this review supports Calasso's claim that his work is actually sober and moving. The review concludes that there are artists whom the narrow sensibility of standard art historians will never be able to accommodate, Tiepolo being only one among several. (shrink)

A vital and timely reminder that modern life owes as much to outlandish thinking as to dominant ideologies What do the Nag Hammadi library, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, speculative feminist historiography, Marcus Garvey's finances, and maps drawn by asylum patients have in common? Jonathan P. Eburne explores this question as never before in Outsider Theory, a timely book about outlandish ideas. Eburne brings readers on an adventure in intellectual history that stresses the urgency of taking seriously--especially (...) in an era of fake news--ideas that might otherwise be discarded or regarded as errant, unfashionable, or even unreasonable. Examining the role of such thinking in contemporary intellectual history, Eburne challenges the categorical demarcation of good ideas from flawed, wild, or bad ones, addressing the surprising extent to which speculative inquiry extends beyond the work of professional intellectuals to include that of nonprofessionals as well, whether amateurs, unfashionable observers, or the clinically insane. Considering the work of a variety of such figures--from popular occult writers and gnostics to so-called outsider artists and pseudoscientists--Eburne argues that an understanding of its circulation and recirculation is indispensable to the history of ideas. He devotes close attention to ideas and texts usually omitted from or marginalized within orthodox histories of literary modernism, critical theory, and continental philosophy, yet which have long garnered the critical attention of specialists in religion, science studies, critical race theory, and the history of the occult. In doing so he not only sheds new light on a fascinating body of creative thought but also proposes new approaches for situating contemporary humanities scholarship within the history of ideas. However important it might be to protect ourselves from "bad" ideas, Outsider Theory shows how crucial it is for us to know how and why such ideas have left their impression on modern-day thinking and continue to shape its evolution. (shrink)

The history of philosophy is replete with attempts at invoking rationality as a means of directing and even subduing human desire and emotion. Understood as that which moves human beings to action, desire and emotion come to be associated with human freedom and rationality as a means of curbing that freedom. Plato, for instance, takes for granted a separation between thought and action that drives a wedge between our rational ability to exercise self-discipline and the free expression of desire and (...) emotion. Hobbes, on the other hand, replaces our internal ability for rational self-control with the external authority of the political State. So long as freedom and control are pitted against one another, human beings are incapable of attaining a symbiosis of these two elements of human action so essential to realizing true democracy. Unlike Plato, John Dewey sees in democracy the greatest potential for individual and social life. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the educational philosophy of Dewey, which culminates in an educational aesthetic, appeals to and makes the most of the symbiosis of freedom and self-control, emotion and reason. Dewey’s educational aesthetic not only offers an alternative to traditional methods of education, but also demonstrates how the goal of a democratic way of life is made feasible by means of intelligently guided self-discipline—a form of self-control guided by intelligence that is not a constraint upon freedom, but instead embodies greater opportunity for freedom. I trace the basis for this synthesis, in the social-political and pedagogical principles of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Both Locke and Rousseau offer educational theories that begin turning our attention toward the essential partnership required of rationality and emotion. Dewey's educational aesthetic is then considered as a response to alienating forms of education that continue to pit control and freedom against one another, and which thwart the intellectual and emotional development necessary for autonomy and democratic forms of social organization. (shrink)

Abhinavagupta is undoubtedly the most famous Kashmirian medieval intellectual: his decisive contributions to Indian aesthetics, Saiva theology, and metaphysics, and to the philosophy of the subtle and original Pratyabhijna system, are well known. Yet so far his works have often been studied without fully taking into account the specific historical, social, artistic, religious, and philosophical context in which they are embedded. The purpose of this book is to show that this intellectual background is no less exceptional than Abhinavagupta (...) himself. (Series: Leipzig Studies on the Culture and History of South and Central Asia / Leipziger Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte Sud- und Zentralasiens, Vol. 6) [Subject: History, Abhinavagupta, India Studies, Religious Studies]. (shrink)

This is the first biography of the last and greatest British idealist philosopher, R. G. Collingwood, a man who both thought and lived at full pitch. Best known today for his philosophies of history and art, Collingwood was also a historian, archaeologist, sailor, artist, and musician. A figure of enormous energy and ambition, he took as his subject nothing less than the whole of human endeavor, and he lived in the same way, seeking to experience the complete range of human (...) passion. In this vivid and swiftly paced narrative, Fred Inglis tells the dramatic story of a remarkable life, from Collingwood's happy Lakeland childhood to his successes at Oxford, his archaeological digs as a renowned authority on Roman Britain, his solo sailing adventures in the English Channel, his long struggle with illness, and his sometimes turbulent romantic life. In a manner unheard of today, Collingwood attempted to gather all aspects of human thought into a single theory of practical experience, and he wrote sweeping accounts of history, art, science, politics, metaphysics, and archaeology, as well as a highly regarded autobiography. Above all, he dedicated his life to arguing that history--not science--is the only source of moral and political wisdom and self-knowledge. Linking the intellectual and personal sides of Collingwood's life, and providing a rich history of his milieu, History Man also assesses Collingwood's influence on generations of scholars after his death and the renewed recognition of his importance and interest today. (shrink)

The burden on intellectuals to define and account for their social role as well as their philosophical and historical position has never been so painfully borne as in the modern age. From the First World War to the advent of the Second, Europe saw its writers, artists and academics struggle to integrate their work, specifically the critique of a capitalist social order and its positivist ideology, and their own personal involvement in that society. The inter-war decades were ones of (...) experimentation and disappointment, the result of a quest for many gods, all inevitably destined to fail. In discussing one intellectual's journey to God, a search which pervaded every aspect of Simone Weil's work and life, we gain insight into the intellectual trap of absolutism to which this generation was particularly prone. (shrink)

When the modern artist is seen as moving about in a nebulous area between two opposing worlds, that of life or immediate experience and that of art or established truth, I think it is appropriate to discuss this activity in terms of metaphor. Indeed the present concern for metaphor in the academic and artistic communities is but one of many reflections of our sense that life is a process of the gradual attainment of knowledge through experience, whether sensuous (...) or intellectual. Like our artists, we strive to create a picture of our world, yet that picture is never complete; for we continually pass on to new experiences and new images of reality. Not only do we grow and change but our world seems to change with us. Although the truths revealed through our art are founded in our experience, they seem more permanent and public than the acts of discovery leading to them. A principle once established and integrated with a body of other established truths enters into recorded history perhaps to be revered, disputed, or reinterpreted, but nevertheless to remain. The individual experience or discovery, however, passes; with the individual, only the sense of the continuing search yields personal identity. In a changing world, metaphor renders the truth of experience as the truth of knowledge, for it is the means of passing from individual immediacy to an established public world; the new must be linked to the old, and the experience of any individual must be connected with that of his society. Excluding the possibility of the creation of entirely new worlds and the resultant transformation of all personal identities, acts of genius or dramatic breakthroughs in fields of study can affect our present world order only if they are joined to it by means of a powerful metaphor. Indeed establishing the metaphoric bridge itself may be considered the act of genius, and the entry into new areas of knowledge is its consequence. Richard Shiff is associate professor of art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His contributions to Critical Inquiry are "Seeing Cézanne" and, with Carl Pletsch, "History and Innovation". (shrink)

This epic piece of storytelling brings the world of fifteenth-century Italy to life as it traces Machiavelli's rise from young boy to controversial political thinker. The often-vilified Renaissance politico and author of The Prince comes to life as a diabolically clever, yet mild mannered and conscientious civil servant. Author Joseph Markulin presents Machiavelli's life as a true adventure story, replete with violence, treachery, heroism, betrayal, sex, bad popes, noble outlaws, deformed kings, menacing Turks, even more menacing Lutherans, (...) unscrupulous astrologers, untrustworthy dentists--and, of course, forbidden love. While sharing the stage with Florence's Medici family, the nefarious and perhaps incestuous Borgias, the artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and the doomed prophet Savonarola, Machiavelli is imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately abandoned. Nevertheless, he remains the sworn enemy of tyranny and a tireless champion of freedom and the republican form of government. Out of the cesspool that was Florentine Renaissance politics, only one name is still uttered today--that of Niccolo Machiavelli. This mesmerizing, vividly told story will show you why his fame endures. (shrink)

How are we to grasp the genealogy of the “public intellectual”? When, how, and at whose hands did this term first come into use, framing an ideal of democratic responsibility for those who devote their work life to fostering knowledge and criticism—an image usually raised as a reproach to academic insularity though also sometimes assailed for encouraging an evasion of scholarly rigor? At first blush, the phrase seems redundant: the emergence of “intellectual”simpliciteris usually linked to a particular (...) episode—the Dreyfusards’ defense of the French republic—that already implied a commitment by writers, thinkers, and artists to political or civic action. From that time and place, the term traveled quickly across borders and before long to the United States, occasioning controversies from the start over who represented the “intellectual” as a social type and who did not, what activities or purposes best defined the role, and whether that role deserved respect, derision, or reinvention. To be sure, the social, cultural, and political world of “modern” societies has always featured individuals noted for scholarly, creative, speculative, or critical work that resonates with literate audiences attuned to key issues of the moment—whether such people were known as ministers,philosophes, journalists, poets, men or women of letters, Transcendentalists, or even, in some eighteenth-and nineteenth-century usages, natural philosophers or scientists. Nonetheless, the emergence of the noun “intellectual” from the early twentieth century, and its widening use since the 1920s, spawned a persistent and self-conscious discourse concerning the character, value or virtue of such figures. A skeptic might conclude that the addition of the modifier “public” has perpetuated old, tangled debates about intellectuals as such, without bringing with it much greater clarity. Words nonetheless are signs of historical troubles and social discontents. Excavating the usages of “public intellectual” over time can highlight some of the dilemmas that have confronted writers, critics, citizens, and political actors, past and present. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and (...) Excess covers all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life. Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself. (shrink)

The still astonishing expansion of the American university since World War II has transformed the nation's intellectual and cultural life in myriad ways. Most intellectual historians familiar with this period would agree, I suppose, that among the conspicuous changes is the sheer increase in the size and diversity of intellectual and cultural activity taking place on campuses across the country. After all, we know that colleges and universities that employ us also provide full- and part-time academic (...) appointments to novelists, poets, playwrights, filmmakers, choreographers, composers, classical and jazz musicians, painters, photographers, and sculptors, even though most of them probably began their careers with little or no desire to join us in the halls of academe. This now widespread employment practice has decentralized the nation's literary and artistic talent. It also has made for a manifold increase in degree-granting programs in writing and the creative arts. One example will suffice here. When World War II ended, there were a small handful of university-based creative-writing programs. Over the course of the next thirty years, the number increased to fifty-two. By 1985, there were some 150 graduate degree programs offering an MA, MFA, or PhD. As of 2004, there were more than 350 creative-writing programs in the United States, all staffed by practicing writers and poets, many of whom now also hold advanced degrees in creative writing. (shrink)

This article revisits a famous staple of the Vergilian tradition, Servius's heavily contested scholion on the actress Volumnia Cytheris's theatrical rendition of Vergil's sixth Eclogue. By shifting the focus of inquiry from the strictly historical question ‘ did it happen?’ it cuts through, identifies and disentangles a nexus of prejudices which have led to the devaluing of Servius's information. The sidelining or dismissal of this piece of evidence, I argue, has more to teach us about our own culturally entrenched and (...) discipline-inherited assumptions than about what could have happened in late Republican Rome. Scrutiny of the evidence on the stage re-mediation of high poetry suggests it is entirely plausible that Cytheris would have performed a theatricalized version of Vergil's masterpiece. Indeed at the very heart of the story lies the convergence between élite poetry and the world of professional stage artists. Moreover, Cytheris's possible performance of a repertoire that coincides with the mythological core of pantomime dancing in its artistic maturity opens pivotal questions concerning what Plutarch aptly calls the “full association and mutual entanglement” between the arts of poetry and dance. Taking Servius seriously gives us the impetus to explore more decisively dimensions of Roman life that have been messily sidelined as a result of the systematic privileging of “texts” in our surveys of Roman intellectual landscapes over the centuries. Even if Servius's extract turned out to be no more than a “myth”, an “anecdote”, as such narratives go, this is an incredibly helpful one, provided we are willing to press it into the service of larger inquiries regarding the “circulation” of cultural energy between élite and popular culture. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir is a representative of one of the leading philosophical schools in the middle of the 20th century. The article presents Beauvoir’s artistic method, applied in her novel The Mandarins, and examines the theoretical and biographical sources of the novel. The author demonstrates the place that the novel has in the Beauvoir’s literary and philosophical heritage and reveals the genre features of the work, introducing some special terms such as engaged, modern or philosophical novel and testimonial autobiographical project. (...) The article also analyzes the novel’s literary form and the binary structure of the narrative. The study of the main characters, who are Henri Perron, Anne Dubreuilh and her husband Robert, allows to give a couple of narrative lines. First of them is the inner line that opens the reflective, contemplative and intimate life of one of the main characters – Anne. The second one is the outer line that means that the reader receives the information about characters from the Henry’s actions. Basing on this structure, we draw a conclusion about the modifications in the genre of existential novel in the postwar years. The new themes can be found in the literature. Authors introduce to readers the certain social reality through the inner life of some characters – intellectuals, novelists or philosophers. The thesis about the inner transformation of the genre is proved on Beauvoir’ and Jean-Paul Sartre’s works and on the prewar works of Sartre and Albert Camus. Beauvoir’s new literary methods and plots, which are the logical development of her work, made her novel one of the pioneers in the postwar literature. (shrink)

This volume of lectures on aesthetics, given by Adorno in the winter semester of 1958–9, formed the foundation for his later Aesthetic Theory, widely regarded as one of his greatest works. The lectures cover a wide range of topics, from an intense analysis of the work of Georg Lukács to a sustained reflection on the theory of aesthetic experience, from an examination of works by Plato, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Benjamin, to a discussion of the latest experiments of John (...) Cage, attesting to the virtuosity and breadth of Adorno's engagement. All the while, Adorno remains deeply connected to his surrounding context, offering us a window onto the artistic, intellectual and political confrontations that shaped life in post-war Germany. This volume will appeal to a broad range of students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone interested in the development of critical theory. (shrink)

Julius Evola was a renowned Dadaist artist, Idealist philosopher, critic of politics and Fascism, 'mystic, ' anti-modernist, and scholar of world religions. Evola was all of these things, but he saw each of them as no more than stops along the path to life's true goal: the realisation of oneself as a truly absolute and free individual living one's life in accordance with the eternal doctrines of the Primordial Tradition. Much more than an autobiography, The Cinnabar Path in (...) describing the course of Evola's life illuminates how the traditionally-oriented individual might avoid the many pitfalls awaiting him in the modern world. More a record of Evola's thought process than a recitation of biographical facts, one will here find the distilled essence of a lifetime spent in pursuit of wisdom, in what is surely one of his most important works. (shrink)

For Friedrich Hölderlin, the mediatory role of aesthetics was central to overcoming the challenges of modern life, in particular human beings’ antagonistic relationship to nature. This article claims that Hölderlin preserves and improves what is true in Kant’s conception of the beautiful: that the experience of beauty concerns recognizing our dependence on nature, and that this recognition resonates in the works of artistic geniality as well. The article furthermore argues that the twentieth-century philosopher Theodor W. Adorno’s interpretation of Hölderlin (...) sheds light on how Hölderlin’s late poetry constitutes a remembrance of nature that avoids fetishizing nature as an origin to which we should return, while still allowing for an acknowledgment of its priority. Hölderlin’s poetry, as a work of spirit or mind, is exemplary in its commemoration of the precondition for spirit’s achievements: finite, empirical life. In this way, the self-reflectivity of Hölderlin’s poems also constitute a corrective to subjectivist tendencies that still reverberate in post-Kantian idealism. (shrink)

The volume describes a virtual tour of the cities in which Franz Brentano and his pupils worked and lived, with a reconstruction of the intellectual climate of their time. After the Introduction, the intellectual life of Wurzburg, Munich, Vienna, Prag, Lvov, Warsaw, Cambridge, Florence and Milan is presented and analyzed. The papers collected in this volume propose several answers to the following question: to what do we refer when we speak of Central European philosophy?. Interpretations of Central (...) European philosophy have developed in at least two broad directions. An interpretation fashionable during the 1970s lumps specific philosophical achievements, especially those of Mach and Wittgenstein, characterized by research into and development of new languages, of new philosophical, scientific and artistic grammars. In this situation, literature was seen as the exploration of meanings moving towards frontiers in which reality and possibility, science and metaphor, meet and merge. On the other hands, the theme of a Central European philosophy, connected with but independent of literature, has recently been given more thorough development. The two outstanding figures to have emerged from this inquiry are those of Bernard Bolzano and Franz Brentano. With reference to Brentano in particular, it is almost as if the collapse of the Empire also erased awareness of the common origin of many diverse components of Central European philosophical and scientific thought. The Polish logical school, logical neopositivism, phenomenology, the Prague school of linguistics, analytic philosophy, Gestalt psychology, the Vienna economics school - as well as a number of individual thinkers - are all movements and groups connected in some manner with Brentano's work and teaching. Although in some respects these are movements still at the centre of interest, the overall effect, the pattern of their common and unifying aspects have been neglected if they have not entirely disappeared. It seems that the unity of this philosophical tradition was lost with the end of the geographical and political unity of the Danubian empire and with the events that accompanied its downfall. After 1918 the centres of that tradition - Vienna, Prague, Lvov, Graz - belonged to different states, and its rich network of exchanges, contacts and relationships was dismantled forever. However, there still remained something of its philosophical style in each individual school; traits which enable us to speak, as the Authors have done in this volume, of Central European philosophy.". (shrink)

This essay provides a close study of the international horizons of Kallol, a Bengali literary journal, published in post-World War I Calcutta. It uncovers a historical pattern of Bengali intellectual life that marked the period from the 1870s to the 1920s, whereby an imperial imagination was transformed into an international one, as a generation of intellectuals born between 1885 and 1905 reinvented the political category of . Hermeneutics, as a philosophically informed study of how meaning is created through (...) conversation, and grounded in this essay in the thought of Hans Georg Gadamer, helps to reveal this pattern. While translocal vistas of intellectual life were always present in Bengali thought, the contours of those horizons changed drastically in the period under study. Bengali intellectual life, framed within a center (the foreign) and tik (international), as opposed to bilāt (England, or the West), to name the world abroad. The world outside empire increasingly became a resource and theme for artists and writers. Major changes in global geopolitical alignments and in the colonial politics of British India, and the relations between generations within Bengali bhadralok society, provide contexts for the rise of this international youth imagination. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Foundations For Flow:A Philosophical Model For Studio InstructionKrista RiggsThe need for a new approach to studio instruction becomes evident when the current state of the profession and the effects of typical teaching methods are considered. In a profession with relatively little demand for a large supply of candidates for professional employment, realistically very few undergraduate music performance majors will achieve success as either orchestral players or as soloists. Extreme (...) competitiveness and the political hierarchy common in a typical music studio setting can squelch creativity and hinder a student's possibility to attain optimal experience in performance. Such an environment can pose a threat to a student's self-image and motivation, possibly becoming detrimental to the success of the student in any chosen occupation, whether ultimately within music or outside the profession.1As Roland Persson notes, studio teachers are generally hired primarily for their performance accomplishments and place in the historic lineage of their instrument's pedagogy without much regard for previous training in educational theories.2 With a lack of training in instructional methods or developmental theories, college music teachers tend to conduct lessons in the manner in which they were taught. Thus, little attention may be paid to individual differences or developmental issues.3 Studio instruction has also traditionally been approached [End Page 175] in a maestro-like, authoritarian manner with one-directional commands given as law from master teacher to seemingly subordinate students. Such a manner of teaching may contradict the tendency of creative individuals to show more deviant traits of critical and independent thought, possibly hindering the student's potential for artistic growth.4Many music students tend to gain much of their concept of self-worth based on how they perceive their musical ability to be assessed by their studio instructor.5 A dependency for approval can lead to the pursuit of unachievable perfection that can be detrimental to the emotional development and self-confidence of the student.6 A common focus on a final product in instruction rather than on the creative process of personal and artistic growth can also contribute to the detrimental setting of unrealistic goals and resulting lack of self-esteem in the student. Evaluation of artistically, intellectually, and emotionally developing students against an unattainable perceived aesthetic ideal or in comparison to other students of differing strengths and levels of development can hinder motivation while increasing anxiety, extreme competition, and negative emotional response in the learning experience.7 In a more personalized curriculum that centers on individual strengths and weaknesses through a mentoring approach, each student may be guided to develop the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual faculties leading to optimal experience. From creative flow and the peak experiences of self-actualization comes intrinsic motivation for students to pursue creativity as a way of life, with further motivation to find moments for artistic expression and personal satisfaction in all aspects of their being.8A new model concerned with the development of the "whole" student as an individual can serve as a philosophical supplement to studio instructors who may not have received much training in developmental issues, educational theories, or related facets of the psychology of learning and performance. Although each aspect of the model can be considered separately, the potential of guiding a student toward the attainment of optimal experience is increased when all aspects are considered according to strengths and weaknesses present in the individual student. Incorporating the theories and ideas in studio instruction may help enhance a student's artistic and personal development while also strengthening a healthy mentoring relationship between teacher and student. While the model presents aspects of psychology alongside developmental and educational theories, the focus remains as a philosophical synthesis of diverse ideas into a unified system with flow at the center. Rather than aiming to deconstruct or refute opposing theories, the model synthesizes supporting ideas. As Estelle Jorgensen notes, the purpose of a synthesis-oriented or "synoptic" model is not so much to argue or refute contrasting views as it is to build upon the supporting theories and ideas of other writers. The "body of thought" serves an explanatory purpose [End Page 176] of the "clarification of terms and exposition... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay analyses the visual representation of melancholy and related themes in the work of American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916). Its particular focus is Home Scene (1870–1871), an intimate portrait of two of the artist’s sisters in the parlour of their family home in Philadelphia. Through a close examination of Home Scene in relation to later portraits by and of the artist, my analysis sheds new light on how and why Eakins reshaped ideations of melancholy based in European art (...) and intellectual history within the context of nineteenth century American culture. While representing both the appearance and effects of melancholy in Home Scene and many other of his portraits, Eakins also constructed aspects of his own artistic identity in accordance with this theme. Analysing the ideas and practices that impacted these processes, this study shows how the artist’s life-long fascination with the intertwined subjects of melancholy, mental illness, and the trope of the misunderstood artist-genius informed his personal and professional lives as it intersected with prominent discourses on women, gender, and medicine in post-Civil War America. (shrink)

Beauvoir maintains a unified "compromise theory" of aesthetics throughout her ethics, feminism, and fiction that portrays the conundrum that every artist faces -- an impasse that sets action against inaction, politics against culture. Beauvoir's theory of art in The Mandarins, aided by an analysis of women's oppression in The Second Sex, advocates art that keeps past events alive in the present and in so doing, changes even the tragic into the life affirming. Beauvoir lauds artists who, even in (...) the face of self-doubt, continue to engage in artistic endeavors in order to maintain an ethical relationship to the rest of humanity. (shrink)

Marjolaine Deschênes | : C’est surtout de Joan C. Tronto que les ambassadrices du care se réclament en France, davantage que de Carol Gilligan. Je montre ici qu’une certaine tendance du discours français sur le care peut être diagnostiquée comme le symptôme d’une culture désenchantée, dépouillant le monde non de ses dieux, mais de ses dimensions esthétique, artistique et imaginative. Le renversement que ce discours tend à opérer, de la figure morale de l’autonomie à celle de la vulnérabilité, illustrerait ce (...) « symptôme ». C’est plus précisément l’idée du care comme « maintien du monde » chez Tronto que je critique, puisque l’auteure exclut de ces activités les domaines esthétique, artistique et intellectuel. Je discute trois auteures ayant déjà critiqué cette notion de care, qui chacune font progresser mon propos vers ce que je considère être un oubli du monde « existentiellement » habitable chez la philosophe. Enfin je contribue à combler ce qui manque dans la théorie de Tronto, soit un horizon esthétique et une réflexion sur le langage qui s’encastre dans une herméneutique du soi. Je me penche alors sur un care qui consiste à veiller sur la « fragilité du langage politique » chez Paul Ricoeur. Je conclus que s’agissant de faire du care une valeur publique à la fois féministe et soucieuse non seulement de la vie, mais aussi du monde, les activités artistiques, intellectuelles et éducationnelles sont de loin les plus efficaces, contrairement à ce que Tronto semble penser. | : In France, the ambassadresses of care ethics mainly align themselves with Joan C. Tronto’s theory—rather more than with Carol Gilligan’s. Here I want to state that a certain tendency of French discourse of “care” might be diagnosed as a symptom of a disenchanted culture, since it strips the world of its aesthetic, artistic, and imaginative dimensions. I contend that we can find the best illustration of this symptom when that discourse tends to shift from the moral figure of autonomy to the moral figure of vulnerability. More precisely, I aim to challenge Tronto’s idea of “care” as a “maintaining of the world”, since she excludes from it the areas of aesthetics, the arts, and intellectual activities. I shall discuss three authors who have already criticized Tronto’s notion of “care”. Each of them presents an opportunity for me to refine my reflection on what I consider to be Tronto’s disregard for an existentially liveable world. Finally, I help to fill in what is lacking from Tronto’s theory —that is to say, an aesthetic horizon and a real reflection on language, a reflection framed by a hermeneutics of the self. To this end, I focus on a “care” consisting in keeping watch over the “political language’s fragility” in Paul Ricoeur. I conclude by stating that if we really want to make “care” a public value, this feminist value should be concerned not only with life, but also with world. Artistic, intellectual, and educational activities are by far the most efficient at making such a value public. (shrink)

What does it mean to"do theory" in America? In what ways has "French Theory" changed American intellectual and artistic life? How different is it from what French intellectuals themselves conceived, and what does all this tell us about American intellectual life? Is "French Theory" still a significant force in America, raising conceptual questions not easily answered? In this volume of new work--including the French writers Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, and Gilled Delezue, as well as (...) essays by Sylvere Lotringer and Sande Cohen, Mario Biagoli, Elie During, Chris Kraus, Alison Gingeras, and Kriss Ravetto, among others--French theorists assess the impact and reception of their work in America, and American-based critics account for their effects in different areas of cultural criticism and art over the last thirty years. (shrink)

Alexander Altmann's acclaimed, wide-ranging biography of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-96) was first published in 1973, but its stature as the definitive biography remains unquestioned. In fact, there has been no subsequent attempt at an intellectual biography of this towering and unusual figure: no other Jew so deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition was at the same time so much a part of the intellectual life of the German Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century. As such, (...) Moses Mendelssohn came to be recognized as the inaugurator of a new phase in Jewish history; all modern Jews today are in his debt. Altmann presents Moses Mendelssohn in strictly biographical terms. He does not attempt to assess his significance with the hindsight of historical perspective nor to trace his image in subsequent generations, but rather to observe his life from the period within which it was set. Altmann has written an absorbing and compelling narrative that makes a whole epoch come alive with great drama, for Mendelssohn's life was a kaleidoscope of the European intellectual scene, Jewish and non-Jewish. As both a prominent philosopher and a believing Jew, Mendelssohn became a spokesman for the Jews and Judaism; he was one of the rare figures who become the symbol of an era. Through Altmann's skilful use of hitherto unpublished archival material, the reader is introduced to the vast array of people-men of letters, artists, politicians, scientists, philosophers, and theologians-with whom Mendelssohn was in contact, and sometimes in conflict. What was Mendelssohn's Judaism like? To what extent did the disparate worlds of Judaism and modern Enlightenment jostle each other in his mind and to what degree could he harmonize them? These questions are not easily answered, and it is only in the aggregate of a multitude of accounts of experiences, reaction, and statements on his part that the answer is to be found. Alexander Altmann's analysis of this wealth of material is extraordinary in its discernment, subtlety, and clarity of expression. This masterly work will be of interest not only to those who are concerned with Jewish intellectual history but also to those interested in eighteenth-century cultural and social history, philosophy and theology, literary criticism, aesthetics, and the other areas of intellectual activity in ferment at that time. The general reader will also find much of contemporary relevance in Mendelssohn's life, not only because of his exemplary devotion to reason and tolerance, but also because of his lifelong struggle with the basic dilemma of the Jew in the modern world: the attraction of assimilation versus the singularity of Jewish life, and the preservation of Jewish identity versus integration in the wider society. (shrink)

Philosophical poetry has had a long and distinguished history in different cultural traditions. These traditions have always interacted to some extent, but today the barriers between them have largely broken down. Savitri, an epic in English by the early twentieth-century Indian philosopher and poet Sri Aurobindo, is a notable outcome of the confluence of Eastern and Western civilisations. Based on a creative reworking of a legend from the Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata, it incorporates in its neo-Vedantic vision aspects of the (...) worldviews represented by the great philosophical poems of ancient, medieval and modern Europe. As vast in scope as any of these works, Savitri took shape over much of the poet’s life in a way comparable to Goethe’s Faust. A study of the stages of its composition reveals much about the author’s artistic, intellectual and spiritual development and gives insight into the poem’s autobiographical dimension. (shrink)

The relationship between the family of Benedetto Croce and that of Anton Dohrn were always characterized by cordiality and mutual respect. Both houses were international meeting places of artists, intellectuals and scientists. The narrowest and most lasting relationship was that between the philosopher and Reinhard Dohrn, from 1909 to 1965 director of the Zoological Station, a long period, marked, among other things, by the two World Wars. Both events caused major problems in the life of the institution. Starting (...) in the twenties, their relationship continued until 1952, the year of Croce’s death. In the years immediately following World War I Croce strove, with his prestige and authority, to preserve the Zoological Station’s nature as a private entity, directed by Dohrn. As Minister of Education, on 30 September, 1920, he issued a decree-law which repealed that of 26 May, 1918, which had aimed at the ‘Italianisation’ of the Zoological Station. Croce instead transformed the Station into a “non-profit organization under the supervision of the Ministry of Education”. The new decree sparked a lively debate in the Parliament and in the press, between supporters and opponents of the measure. On 9 December, a major discussion took place in the Senate, published in the same year under the title On the Zoological Station in Naples. The discussion revolved around two fundamental political concepts: is it legitimate to take, for reasons of culture, civilization and the law of war, possession of the “the fruit of the talent of others”? is it legitimate “to replace with a state organization” what had been created as a private activity and was the result of the enthusiasm and interest of individuals? Croce’s victory, however, was not lasting. During the Fascist era, with the decree of 21 October 1923, the Zoological Station was again transformed into an Italian state body. (shrink)

The Sociology of Intellectual Life outlines a social theory of knowledge for the 21st century. Steve Fuller deals directly with a world in which it is no longer taken for granted that universities and academics are the best places and people to embody the life of the mind. While Fuller defends academic privilege, he takes very seriously the historic divergences between academics and intellectuals, attending especially to the different features of knowledge production that they value."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume of lectures on aesthetics, given by Adorno in the winter semester of 1958–9, formed the foundation for his later Aesthetic Theory, widely regarded as one of his greatest works. The lectures cover a wide range of topics, from an intense analysis of the work of Georg Lukács to a sustained reflection on the theory of aesthetic experience, from an examination of works by Plato, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Benjamin, to a discussion of the latest experiments of John (...) Cage, attesting to the virtuosity and breadth of Adorno's engagement. All the while, Adorno remains deeply connected to his surrounding context, offering us a window onto the artistic, intellectual and political confrontations that shaped life in post-war Germany. This volume will appeal to a broad range of students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone interested in the development of critical theory. (shrink)

In a vivid re-creation of late sixteenth-century Flemish intellectual life, Mark Morford explores the intertwined careers of one of the period's most influential thinkers and one of its most original artists: Justus Lipsius and Peter Paul Rubens. He investigates the scholarship of Lipsius (1547-1606), whose revival of Roman Stoicism guided his contemporaries during the revolt of the Netherlands from the rule of Spain and whose teaching prepared future leaders in church and state. Maintaining that Lipsius' thought reached (...) Peter Paul Rubens through his brother, Philip Rubens, Morford analyzes the artist's use of Stoic philosophical and political allegory, beginning with his painting The Four Philosophers. This book discusses the revival of Stoicism in northern Europe, focusing on Lipsius' editions of Tacitus and Seneca, his widely read handbooks on constancy and politics, and his interaction with leading scholars and public figures. As his letters reveal, Lipsius was inconsistent in his life and unsuccessful in reconciling Stoicism with Catholic doctrine; Rubens, although at first sympathetic to the doctrines of Lipsius, is shown to have later transcended their limitations. (shrink)

"I conceived the task of creating an up-to-date history of Greek color theory and practice, which is inextricably intertwined with the philosophy of the Four Elements, using all the scholarly resources of the twentieth century. On the other hand, I realized the necessity of preparing a separate treatise (which is The Inner Nature of Color) to relate the results of my research to the inexhaustibly fruitful spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner, so as to try to contribute to a new understanding (...) of the background out of which it arose. The fact that any intimate knowledge about the spirituality of the ancient world and, above all, its relation to the present has not only dropped out of the intellectual life of today, but in some quarters is actually impugned, seems reason enough to offer this study for whatever use anthroposophists or anyone else can make of it." --J. Leonard Benson In this fascinating work, J. Leonard Benson describes the spiritual and esoteric nature of color in relation to the four elements--fire, earth, air and water. Based on insights provided by Rudolf Steiner and a deep knowledge of classical cosmology and color theory, this book shows how an understanding of the inner nature of color leads to a completely different view of the world and evolution than is current in our present civilization--one completely at odds with the ruling neo-Darwinian paradigm. The Inner Nature of Color will be of interest to artists, art historians, spiritual seekers, and anyone who has ever been struck by the remarkable beauty of our colored world and wondered what it means. (shrink)

The function of Nietzsche in our present intellectual life is a salient example of the continued vitality of the nineteenth-century in the thought of today. In Germany, in France, in Italy, and in the United States new work of editing and commentary has made Nietzsche a current force. The monumental Colli-Montinari edition, which includes many of Nietzsche’s hitherto unpublished notebooks and drafts, is the most conspicuous evidence of this on the textual side. This edition will make available in (...) German, French, Italian, and Japanese versions a far more complete and accurate Nietzsche than we have had. Mention should also be made of the new English translations by Walter Kaufmann. These have made good versions of most of Nietzsche’s books available to those with no German, though the Kaufmann translations are far less complete than the Colli-Montinari edition. On the side of commentary, the bibliography of new work on Nietzsche is enormous. Two collective volumes may be mentioned. They indicate at least a sketch map of this rugged terrain: The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of Interpretation, edited and introduced by David D. Allison, and Nietzsche Aujourd’hui? The new work appropriates Nietzsche for present purposes. Ideas which may seem especially characteristic of the literature and philosophy of our own day are found to have been already worked out by Nietzsche in his own way. These would include linguistic, artistic, historical, social, and psychological concepts. Among these is Nietzsche’s systematic putting in question of the idea that the self is a substantial and integral entity. (shrink)

If we set aside personal edification, what reasons remain for a philosopher of science to study the intellectual biography of a famous (or infamous) scientist? This question raises familiar and perhaps tired arguments about the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science, but it is also practical: why take the time to digest almost 600 pages devoted to the controversial German zoologist Ernst Haeckel? A preliminary answer is the author. The historical investigations of Robert Richards have been (...) of ongoing interest to philosophers, whether it be evolutionary explanations of mind and behavior in the nineteenth century (Dennett 1989) or his contentious claims—reinvigorated in the present volume—about Darwin’s commitment to embryonic recapitulation (Lennox 1994). Richards has a knack for unearthing details germane to conceptual reflection, in no small part because of his own philosophical predilections (e.g., a selection model of scientific theory development). Here I entertain three more reasons to follow the injunction tolle lege: the prescient synthesis exemplified in Haeckel’s evolutionary theorizing, the impact of model organism choice, and the critical role of pictures in scientific reasoning accented by Haeckel’s artistic proclivities. (shrink)

From the earliest times, American ethics, the rules for the moral \& intellectual life of the West, used to be founded upon the two principles of self-reliance and good neighborliness. Here we consider the underlying functions of neural brain circuits, organic structures that have evolved adaptively by Darwinian rules subject to selection pressure. In the left brain resides our self-reliant private Ego, making plans, launching initiatives. Your public Ego dwells in the right brain, looking around, meeting with your (...) friendly neighbor. A main component is our bilateral interior cosmos, providing us with all the detailed information about our environment as well as the universe at large. (shrink)

In its original form, Nozick’s experience machine serves as a potent counterexample to a simplistic form of hedonism. The pleasurable life offered by the experience machine, its seems safe to say, lacks the requisite depth that many of us find necessary to lead a genuinely worthwhile life. Among other things, the experience machine offers no opportunities to establish meaningful relationships, or to engage in long-term artistic, intellectual, or political projects that survive one’s death. This intuitive objection finds (...) some support in recent research regarding the psychological effects of phenomena such as video games or social media use. After a brief discussion of these problems, I will consider a variation of the experience machine in which many of these deficits are remedied. In particular, I’ll explore the consequences of a creating a virtual world populated with strongly intelligent AIs with whom users could interact, and that could be engineered to survive the user’s death. The presence of these agents would allow for the cultivation of morally significant relationships, and the world’s long-term persistence would help ground possibilities for a meaningful, purposeful life in a way that Nozick’s original experience machine could not. While the creation of such a world is obviously beyond the scope of current technology, it represents a natural extension of the existing virtual worlds provided by current video games, and it provides a plausible “ideal case” toward which future virtual worlds will move. While this improved experience machine would seem to represent progress over Nozick’s original, I will argue that it raises a number of new problems stemming from the fact that that the world was created to provide a maximally satisfying and meaningful life for the intended user. This, in turn, raises problems analogous in some ways to the problem(s) of evil faced by theists. In particular, I will suggest that it is precisely those features that would make a world most attractive to potential users—the fact that the AIs are genuinely moral agents whose well-being the user can significantly impact—that render its creation morally problematic, since they require that the AIs inhabiting the world be subject to unnecessary suffering. I will survey the main lines of response to the traditional problem of evil, and will argue that they are irrelevant to this modified case. I will close by considering by consider what constraints on the future creation of virtual worlds, if any, might serve to allay the concerns identified in the previous discussion. I will argue that, insofar as the creation of such worlds would allow us to meet morally valuable purposes that could not be easily met otherwise, we would be unwise to prohibit it altogether. However, if our processes of creation are to be justified, they must take account of the interests of the moral agents that would come to exist as the result of our world creation. (shrink)

In 1956, as a young art critic, the Mexican philosopher Juliana González first encountered the paintings of the Spanish surrealist Remedios Varo at the artist’s breakthrough solo exhibition in Mexico City’s Galería Diana. González, greatly impressed, soon befriended the much older Varo and became a regular visitor to her studio, where they talked about her paintings and their shared intellectual interests in literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy, a conversation that ended with Varo’s untimely death in 1963 at age 54. A (...) few years later, González contributed this essay-homage to the 1966 catalog Remedios Varo. She opens with an evocation of Varo’s masterpiece, the triptych To the Tower, Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle and The Escape —a magnet for viewers at the recent “Surrealism Beyond Borders” exhibition in New York and London—and finds in it keys to the artist’s life and to her attempts through art “to flee this inexorable order toward another reality.” González’s close examination of the contradictions and ambiguities in Varo’s artistry, of “her wise, poetic humor,” and of her quest “to comprehend the universe” remains an essential read almost 60 years later. The catalog in which it first appeared is long out of print, and, to the best of my knowledge, González’s essay has never been republished in Spanish, making the text that follows as much an act of recovery as it is a translation. (shrink)

It is strange to write for the pages of this journal a statement which will not come under the eye of its founding editor, Sheldon Sacks. For nearly five years everything that appeared in Critical Inquiry—articles, critical responses, editorial comments—was a matter of painstaking and passionate concern to Shelly Sacks. With a flow of questions and suggestions and a talent for unabashed cajolery, he generated articles and rejoinders to those articles. He worked tirelessly in editorial consultation and correspondence with contributors, (...) especially young writers, helping them to discover the best way of giving form to their ideas. Among the essays submitted to this journal he searched eagerly, even anxiously, for those which seemed, in his words, "right for C.I." What was right for C. I. was never, for Shelly Sacks, a cut-and-dried choice. In his own intellectual life, in his teaching and writing, he delighted in arguing important general questions: theories of representation in the arts, points of possible intersection between linguistic science and literary criticism, the interplay of social forces and cultural expressions. Not surprisingly, in reconnoitering for Critical Inquiry, he found special satisfaction in identifying writers who shared his passion for reexamining fundamental topics in the intellectual disciplines. If such writers made their case forcefully, so much the better: in choosing an essay for publication he assessed its capacity to stimulate interesting counterargument. At no time, however, did Shelly Sacks confuse his own beliefs with the nature of intellectual discourse. As an editor he was hospitable to writers whose premises he questioned and whose conclusions he deplored. Nor did Shelly attempt to achieve a spurious catholicity by following a quiet quota system designed to give each major line of interpretation—deconstructionist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, what have you—an occasional airing in Critical Inquiry. For Shelly each article stood on its own ground: if its author dealt responsibly and freshly with an interesting problem, that was enough. And, along with his commitment to theoretical inquiry, he responded warmly to the personal, the offbeat, the idiosyncratic. He regarded the feature Artists on Art, for example, as a central element in our design. As an editor Sheldon Sacks was above all a shaper. He labored to find and suggest connections in the phenomena of intellectual life. Even the construction of a table of contents for a typical Critical Inquiry issue became for him an opportunity to influence the reader's experience of what we offered. The eminence of an author or the allure of a title were put to one side as Shelly sought to orchestrate, through placement, a kind of intellectual counterpoint from one essay to another. Unheard melodies, doubtless, for many of us, but for Shelly real and sustaining. In this valedictory note we have spoken of Sheldon Sacks' editorial accomplishment—in our friendly view, a very distinguished one—rather than of the personal qualities which made working alongside him an exhilarating experience. We should report, however, that for more than half the life of this journal Shelly was ill and knew that the time available to him was likely to be relatively brief. Faced with this diminishing perspective, he did not—indeed it is more accurate to say he could not—moderate his involvement with the life of this journal. At his death, as at the launching of this enterprise, he held to the high ambition that Critical Inquiry encourage comeliness, vigor, and continuity in the discourse of our time. The appropriate "critical response" to this great loss is that Sheldon Sacks’ editorial colleagues, and our publisher, the University of Chicago Press, pledge whatever talents and energies we possess to the continuing life of the journal he imagined and brought into being. (shrink)

The nineteenth century English Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins struggled throughout his life with desolation over what he saw as a spiritually, intellectually and artistically unproductive life. During these periods, he experienced God’s absence in a particularly intense way. As he wrote in one sonnet, “my lament / Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent / To dearest him that lives alas! away.” What Hopkins faced was the existential problem of suffering and hiddenness, a problem widely recognized (...) by analytic philosophers to be left relatively untouched by conceptual explanations. In this essay, I argue that Hopkins’ poems themselves fill this gap left by conceptual approaches by articulating the existential crisis faced by those who feel the searing pain of suffering and the numbing, leaden echo of silence. His lyric speaks into existential suffering in ways akin to biblical laments and, as such, creates a space in which those who suffer can meet God, even if only to contend. Understood within Hopkins’ view of the incarnation and passion, these poems also suggest a way to identify with Christ in the experience of hiddenness, thereby making God present even in divine absence. (shrink)

This article explores the interrelation between the Dionysian artistic impulse, human nature, and Greek culture in the early works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). With a focus on the significance of the human-nature connection, it highlights the anthropological conception of ancient tragic thought and the recognition of the role of instincts in the production of tragic art. The Dionysian artistic impulse, linked by Nietzsche to the vital drive of creation and destruction, presents, in its celebration of the reconciliation between humans and (...) nature, existential aspects fundamental to humanity that have been neglected by Western tradition. In its artistic dimension, the Dionysian is also expressed as an instinct, fostering a bodily and spiritual connection through which the tragic artist becomes a work of art. In its vital dimension, the Dionysian promotes the dissolution of individual subjectivity, returning one to their primordial nature and reconnection with animality. The denial of these artistic elements by the Socratic spirit led to the forgetting of human nature itself, resulting in the distortion of artistic creation and consequently, the decline of tragedy. In this context, Socrates' proposition of renouncing instinctual nature in favor of intellectual life is contrasted by Nietzsche, who, through the tragic perspective, argues that humans do not transcend their animal nature but remain subject to it, connected to animality. Thus, Nietzsche positions himself in the anthropological debate in opposition to the philosophical tradition initiated by Socrates. (shrink)

Under the conditions of the revolution in science and technology, of tremendous social changes, of the tempestuous and significant growth in the prestige of scientific knowledge, and of the exacerbation of the ideological struggle, there has been an immeasurable broadening of the social tasks and spheres of operation of such social phenomena as scientific criticism and self-criticism. Study of social, theoretical, and psychological cross-sections of these phenomena is one of the necessary conditions for cultivating lofty civic qualities, a communist world-view, (...) and the moral and aesthetic improvement of the individual. Special attention is directed to the socializing function of criticism and self-criticism in the Program of the CPSU, the materials of the Twenty-fourth Congress of the CPSU, and the resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On Literary and Artistic Criticism" and "On the State of Criticism and Self-Criticism in the Tambov Regional Party Organization." Scientific criticism reveals the extent to which the results or processes of practical activity are in accord with communist ideals and to what degree the moral and aesthetic norms of individuals and collectives are an expression of proletarian and general human culture. This is a distinctive intellectual and theoretical form of solution of social contradictions. Criticism is organically interwoven into theoretical and practical human activity. It breaks down old and established social traditions and customary values and impels human thought to undertake scientific quests. It does not permit society to content itself merely with its past triumphs. Scientific criticism arouses and cultivates class consciousness and provides an evaluation of social phenomena from the standpoint of the progressive class. Under the conditions of developed socialist society, criticism and self-criticism become an active means for improving ideological, political, and educational work, the development of the toilers' creative capacities, and activation of the sociopolitical and intellectual life of society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 64.3 (2003) 489-510 [Access article in PDF] The Analysis of Culture Revisited:Pure Texts, Applied Texts, Literary Historicisms, Cultural Histories Warren Boutcher School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London Theory What is the relationship between study of canonical texts and broader social and cultural history? This question lies behind the contemporary academic issue of historicism and the public "culture wars" that (...) broke out in the late 1980s, but it was asked by Raymond Williams in the late 1950s and by German and French intellectuals of the 1930s. For the purposes of the present argument I shall distinguish between three broad phases in the responses of those who have taken the inquiry up most actively. Each phase began with what were perceived as crises or turning-points in the humanities corresponding to watersheds in wider history. The first and most profound began after the global crisis of 1929-33 and continued through the global wars that followed. A second began in the mid-1950s after McCarthyism, the consolidation of the Cold War and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. A third phase began in the mid-1970s, after the events of 1968 brought on the extended period of social unrest which found one important epicenter in the universities themselves and which broke out again in the more civilized form of the culture wars already mentioned.Most discussions of historicism do not engage directly with the practice of history. The second half of the paper will therefore ask what the theoretical account offered in the first half means for historical research that starts from past texts, and will include as one of its practical examples a case-study in the modern intellectual history offered in outline below. [End Page 489] Literary Histories of Ideas After the First World War an intellectual revolt took place against the isolation of aesthetic experience in the European tradition. It was led in England and America by teachers who wanted to establish that the general critical intelligence acquired in English literary studies could be applied in extra-literary fields from anthropology to social psychology. In England, English literature as a single discipline was to be the "liaison field of study"; in America it fell to pre-professional literary education in general. 1 The common project was to use refined literary experience of texts as the base from which to conduct value-laden, historically informed analysis of the contemporary problems of interwar European and American society, of western culture and civilization. 2 As consolidated in English intellectual culture between the pre-war and immediate post-war period this has been dubbed the moment of Scrutiny, the influential literary periodical headed by F. R. Leavis. In American intellectual culture it might well be dubbed the moment of Partisan Review, an equally influential periodical whose leading literary critic was Lionel Trilling. 3Leavis's at once dissident and élitist literary criticism concealed a sociology designed to salvage the humane culture of an earlier England from amidst the decay of mass civilization. 4 Trilling used European culture to critique what he perceived to be the superficiality of modern American civilization and literature. His criticism became the Ellis Island of intellectual life, the product of an immigrant culture desirous of assimilation by means of high culture to an American society whose better values were formed by the European canon. 5 For both, then, distinctive histories of society and social change, culture and cultural change were central to the enterprise of criticism. 6 Culture in their hands was a value-laden English or European way of life that shaped and was shaped by the highest artistic consciousness. As such, it carried a new awareness of alienation and repression in the midst of modern society or civilization. The aesthetic critical sense of a Leavis or a Trilling was now a sense of past and present cultural and social life. It competed successfully with claims to the [End Page 490] same ground made by what were seen as cruder sociological theories of... (shrink)

The aim of this article is to consider Hegel's unity, which is "the Unity of Identity and Difference" Or to examine and explain the "unity of seemingly contradictory features in a single coherent whole" in the light of the main problem of Hegel's philosophy, that is, the overcoming of divisions or dualities, as the solution of her philosophy. Unity (Einheit) is an important ideal, goal and end for Hegel's philosophical system. Hence, in his entire philosophical system and in different periods (...) of his intellectual life, the traces of the search for unity are always obvious, from the beautiful artistic unity in Greece to his desired unity, which is a rational, speculative, philosophical, absolute and Mediated unity. For him, the whole of philosophy is nothing but the study of the definition of unity and its realization in society. A unity that, instead of eliminating or absorbing another, tries to preserve and eliminate pluralities and differences by accepting and recognizing another in a single coherent whole. A unity in which differences and dualities do not disappear but are preserved as necessary and inevitable moments. Unity that is not the result of direct intuition but the product and result of passing through different stages and an intersubjective matter. For Hegel, it is not atomism and excessive individualism in the modern world that lead to rupture, not mere mystical and abstract unions that wipe out all differences, but the unity of the whole in which All distinctions are preserved. (shrink)

This book draws upon the work of Georg Simmel to explore the limits, tensions and dynamism of social life through a close analysis of the works produced in the final years of his life and reveals what they might still offer some 100 years later. Focusing on the relationships between worlds, lives and fragments in these works, David Beer opens up a conceptual toolkit for understanding life as both an individual experience and as a deeply social phenomenon. (...) Taking the reader through artistic and musical forms of inspiration, to the problems of culture and on to the conceptual understanding of lived experience, the book illuminates the richness of Simmel’s ideas and thinking. This sophisticated dialogue with Simmel’s lesser known later works will provide fresh insights for students and scholars of cultural and social theory and pave the way for a reinvigorated engagement with his ideas. (shrink)

In Intellectual Life in the Ḥijāz before Wahhabism, Naser Dumairieh argues that, as a result of changing global conditions facilitating the movement of scholars and texts, the seventeenth-century Ḥijāz was one of the most important intellectual centers of the Islamic world, acting as a hub between its different parts. Positioning Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī (d. 1101/1690) as representative of the intellectual activities of the pre-Wahhabism Ḥijāz, Dumairieh argues that his coherent philosophical system represents a synthesis of several major (...) post-classical traditions of Islamic thought, namely kalām and Akbarian appropriations of Avicennian metaphysics. Al-Kūrānī's work is the culmination of the philosophized Akbarian tradition; with his reconciliation of Ibn ʻArabī's ideas with Ashʻarī theology, Ibn ʻArabī's ideas became Islamic theology. (shrink)

Intellectual Life in the Ḥijāz before Wahhabism Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī’s (d. 1101/1690) Theology of Sufism aslı kitabın değerlendirmesi.

Hegel has had a remarkable, yet largely unremarked, role in Canada's intellectual development. In the last half of the twentieth-century, as Canada was coming to define itself in the wake of World War Two, some of Canada's most thoughtful scholars turned to the work of G.W.F. Hegel for insight. Hegel and Canada is a collection of essays that analyses the real, but under-recognized, role Hegel has played in the intellectual and political development of Canada. The volume focuses on (...) the generation of Canadian scholars who emerged after World War Two: James Doull, Emil Fackenheim, George Grant, Henry S. Harris, and Charles Taylor. These thinkers offer a uniquely Canadian view of Hegel's writings, and, correspondingly, of possible relations between situated community and rational law. Hegel provided a unique intellectual resource for thinking through the complex and opposing aspects that characterize Canada. The volume brings together key scholars from each of these five schools of Canadian Hegel studies and provides a richly nuanced account of the intellectually significant connection of Hegel and Canada. (shrink)

Writer, artist, filmmaker, provocateur, revolutionary, and impresario of the Situationist International, Guy Debord shunned the apparatus of publicity he dissected so brilliantly in his most influential work, _The Society of the Spectacle_. In this ambitious and innovative biography, Vincent Kaufmann places Debord's very hostility toward the inquisitive, biographical gaze at the center of an investigation into his subject's diverse output-from his earliest films to his landmark works of social theory and political provocation-and the poetic sensibility that informed both his work (...) and his life. Instead of providing a conventional day-to-day account of Debord's life, Kaufmann deftly locates his subject within the historical and intellectual context of the radical social, political, and artistic movements in which he participated. He traces Debord's development as an intellectual: his involvement with the lettrist movement in the early 1950s, his central role in the Situationist International from 1957 to 1971 and in the events of May 1968, and the productive and frequently misunderstood period between the dissolution of the situationists and his suicide, during which time Debord clarified the rules of his war against inauthenticity. As Kaufmann makes clear, for Debord political thought and action were inseparable from aesthetics and poetic expression. Whether envisioning the recovery of a lost, protocommunist age of authenticity and transparency in _The Society of the Spectacle_ or critically assessing the possibility of revolution against postmodern capitalism two decades later, Debord advocated and practiced an art of defiance, a concurrently martial and melancholic poetics. Avoiding the mythologies about Debord that both admirers and critics have cultivated, Kaufmann provides a groundbreaking and generous assessment of Debord and his uncompromising struggle against a corrupt civilization. (shrink)