This book is an eye-opening account of transnational advocacy, not by environmental and rights groups, but by conservative activists. Mobilizing around diverse issues, these networks challenge progressive foes across borders and within institutions. In these globalized battles, opponents struggle as much to advance their own causes as to destroy their rivals. Deploying exclusionary strategies, negative tactics and dissuasive ideas, they aim both to make and unmake policy. In this work, Clifford Bob chronicles combat over homosexuality and gun control in (...) the UN, the Americas, Europe and elsewhere. He investigates the 'Baptist-burqa' network of conservative believers attacking gay rights, and the global gun coalition blasting efforts to control firearms. Bob draws critical conclusions about norms, activists and institutions, and his broad findings extend beyond the culture wars. They will change how campaigners fight, scholars study policy wars, and all of us think about global politics. (shrink)

When culture makes itself at home in motion, where does an anthropologist stand? In a follow-up to The Predicament of Culture, one of the defining books for anthropology in the last decade, James Clifford takes the proper measure: a moving picture of a world that doesn't stand still, that reveals itself en route, in the airport lounge and the parking lot as much as in the marketplace and the museum. In this collage of essays, meditations, poems, and travel reports, (...) Clifford takes travel and its difficult companion, translation, as openings into a complex modernity. He contemplates a world ever more connected yet not homogeneous, a global history proceeding from the fraught legacies of exploration, colonization, capitalist expansion, immigration, labor mobility, and tourism. Ranging from Highland New Guinea to northern California, from Vancouver to London, he probes current approaches to the interpretation and display of non-Western arts and cultures. Wherever people and things cross paths and where institutional forces work to discipline unruly encounters, Clifford's concern is with struggles to displace stereotypes, to recognize divergent histories, to sustain "postcolonial" and "tribal" identities in contexts of domination and globalization. Travel, diaspora, border crossing, self-location, the making of homes away from home: these are transcultural predicaments for the late twentieth century. The map that might account for them, the history of an entangled modernity, emerges here as an unfinished series of paths and negotiations, leading in many directions while returning again and again to the struggles and arts of cultural encounter, the impossible, inescapable tasks of translation. (shrink)

As a virtue, loyalty has an ambiguous place in our thinking about moral judgments. We lauded the loyalty of firefighters who risked their lives to save others on 9/11 while condemning the loyalty of those who perpetrated the catastrophe. Responding to such uneasiness and confusion, Loyalty to Loyalty contributes to ongoing conversation about how we should respond to conflicts in loyalty in a pluralistic world. The lone philosopher to base an ethical theory on the virtue of loyalty is Josiah Royce. (...) Loyalty to Loyalty engages Royce's moral theory, revealing how loyalty, rather than being just one virtue among others, is central to living a genuinely moral and meaningful life. Mathew A. Foust shows how the theory of loyalty Royce advances can be brought to bear on issues such as the partiality/impartiality debate in ethical theory, the role of loyalty in liberatory struggle, and the ethics of whistleblowing and disaster response. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Clifford Geertz explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. ...

In this highly original work, Mathew A. Foust breaks new ground in comparative studies through his exploration of the connections between Confucianism and the American Transcendentalist and Pragmatist movements. In his examination of a broad range of philosophers, including Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Peirce, William James, and Josiah Royce, Foust traces direct lines of influence from early translations of Confucian texts and brings to light conceptual affinities that have been previously overlooked. Combining (...) resources from both traditions, Confucianism and American Philosophy offers fresh insights into contemporary problems and exemplifies the potential of cross-cultural dialogue in an increasingly pluralistic world. (shrink)

This collection contributes to current debates and explores new topics of engagement between Feminism and Confucius’s teachings, variously interpreted. Besides care ethics and role ethics, questions of gender oppression and education, it includes essays on epistemology and environmental ethics.

The British philosopher, Peter Strawson, has helped shape the development of philosophy for over fifty years. His work has radically altered the philosophical concept of analysis, returned metaphysics to centre stage in Anglo-American philosophy, and has transformed the framework for subsequent interpretations of Kantian philosophy. In this, the first, introduction to Strawson's ideas, Clifford Brown focuses on a selection of Strawson's most important texts and close and detailed examination of the arguments, and contributions to debates, which have done the (...) most to establish Strawson's formidable reputation. Each chapter provides clear exposition of a central work and explores the ways in which other philosophers have responded to Strawson's initiatives. Brown shows how Strawson's philosophical approach has been to seek better understanding of particular concepts or concept-groups and to draw out an awareness of parallels and connections among them that sheds new light over an apparently familiar landscape. The central thoughts in logic and language with which Strawson began his career are shown to have remained constant throughout while manifesting their applications across an even broader range of philosophical topics. (shrink)

This essay challenges moral exemplarist interpretations of the Analects by focusing on exclusivist attitudes and actions exhibited by Confucius as he is portrayed in the Analects. Attention is drawn to what may be plausibly interpreted as culturalism and speciesism in the Analects. The case for culturalism in the Analects turns on a recurrent distinction therein between the Huá (Chinese) and Yí (non-Chinese; peoples outside of China proper), the latter commonly cast as barbarians—a term deployed similarly to yí being mán (rough; (...) reckless). The case for speciesism in the Analects turns on a number of passages of the Analects recommending a privileging of human interests over those of non-human animals. Acknowledgement of forms of Confucian exclusivism ought to provoke contemporary audiences to critically examine the text and to consider carefully that which ought to be regarded as exemplary and worthy of admiration and emulation in their own lives. (shrink)

The killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and others have instigated widespread debate concerning the ethics and politics of police behavior toward young black men in America. In this article, I show how Josiah Royce’s philosophy of loyalty provides a useful theoretical framework for diagnosing and working to overcome strained relations between police and black citizens in the United States. I begin by establishing the relevance of Royce’s thought to the realm of (...) police ethics. Then, I argue that Royce’s notion of loyalty to loyalty is a useful and powerful lens through which we can examine the practice of police discretion, particularly as it comes to bear on racial profiling and use of force. I conclude by offering what I regard as Roycean recommendations aimed at ameliorating the fractured relationship between police and blacks in America today. (shrink)

The volume begins by taking up a central theme noted by the late Allan Bloom—Rousseau's critique of the bourgeois as the dominant modern human type and as a being fundamentally in contradiction, caught between the sentiments of nature and ...

Three experts in media ethics reexamine ethical behaviour in news gathering and reporting. The book combines a wide range of real-life and hypothetical examples of ethical dilemmas in news reporting with a thoughtful critique of the underlying individualistic theories of mainstream media ethics.

Today's digital revolution is a worldwide phenomenon, with profound and often differential implications for communities around the world and their relationships to one another. This book presents a new, explicitly international theory of media ethics, incorporating non-Western perspectives and drawing deeply on both moral philosophy and the philosophy of technology. Clifford Christians develops an ethics grounded in three principles - truth, human dignity, and non-violence - and shows how these principles can be applied across a wide range of cases (...) and domains. The book is a guide for media professionals, scholars, and educators who are concerned with the global ramifications of new technologies and with creating a more just world. (shrink)

"Clifford was famous for his public lectures on physics and math and ethics because he explained complex things with easily understood, concrete examples. As you read through his clear, simple explanations of the true bases of number, algebra and geometry you will find yourself getting angry and saying "Why the hell wasn't I taught math this way?" and "Do math ed professors know so little mathematics that they have never heard of Clifford.?" Clifford was destined to be (...) England's Einstein until his untimely death at the age of 34, just 11 days before Einstein's birth. More than 30 years before the Special Theory of Relativity was proposed he had already concluded that the force of gravity was actually due to changes in the curvature of space. He gives explanatory examples in this book that middle school children can understand."--review on Amazon.com viewed July 6, 2020. (shrink)

Against the dominant trend in contemporary republicanism, which views Roman political theory as providing significant resources to contemporary emancipatory projects, this article reads the Roman legal and political theoretical tradition as revealing above all the capacity of Republican resources to be coopted in support of monarchic domination. It does so by tracing changes in doctrines of liberty, popular sovereignty, magistracy and majoritarianism from the period of the free Republic into the Principate and thence into the Justinianic codifications, as well as (...) their reception in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Italy. Along the way it urges a more nuanced view of the sources of the Republican tradition: an awareness both of when specific sources on Rome became available to late medieval and early modern thinkers and of the imperial origins of the major sources available before the sixteenth century. (shrink)

In now classic article, James Clifford offers a novel perspective on ethnographic texts. Inspired by literary studies he uses contemporary ethnographic works to question ethnography’s claims of scientific objectivity and a clear distinction between allegorical and factual. If ethnography aims to keep its contemporary relevance, it should specifically focus on allegory as an intrinsic quality of ethnographic texts This kind of analysis may assume that any ethnographic text accounts for facts and events but at the same time it tackles (...) the moral, ideological or even cosmological issues. According to Clifford, ethnography has been dominated by a “pastoral” allegorical register which allowed an ethnographer to occupy a privileged position to interpret other, non-writing cultures. Clifford notices that this register is loosing support in the modern world since the difference between illiterate and literate cultures is not relevant anymore. Ethnographic pastoral is now replaced with self-reflexive and dialogical forms of ethnographic writing, analyzed by Clifford by the example of Marjorie Shostak’s book Nisa: The Life and Words of a!Kung Woman. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have increasingly paid attention to the philosophy of Josiah Royce. Long lost in the shadow of fellow classical American figures, Royce’s philosophy has enjoyed a renascence, with a spate of publications in a variety of venues studying and applying his thought.1 Like his philosophical brethren, Royce wrote on a wide variety of subjects, his discussions underpinned by a smattering of influences. Much has been remarked of the various Western sources that made an impression on Royce’s thought, (...) but comparatively little has been said of his indebtedness to Eastern sources. Kurt Leidecker’s Josiah Royce and Indian Thought2 and Frank M... (shrink)

In a lively, intelligent synthesis of math, mysticism, and science fiction, Clifford Pickover explains the eternal magic of numbers.

Seven Curricular Landscapes offers a holistic presentation and critique of what the author considers to be the seven major types of curricula. This book, which is suitable for both upper-division and graduate education courses, differs from previous holistic approaches in that it closely considers the holistic implications of postmodernism, adds new categories and terms to the holistic repertoire, includes the latest developments in transpersonal theory, examines the Existentialist curriculum as a spiritual phenomenon, and discusses the curricular implications of both Eastern (...) and Western spirituality. (shrink)

Clifford Geertz was perhaps the most influential anthropologist of our time, but his influence extended far beyond his field to encompass all facets of contemporary life. Nowhere were his gifts for directness, humor, and steady revelation more evident than in the pages of the New York Review of Books, where for nearly four decades he shared his acute vision of the world in all its peculiarity. This book brings together the finest of Geertz's review essays from the New York (...) Review along with a representative selection of later pieces written at the height of his powers, some that first appeared in periodicals such as Dissent, others never before published. This collection exemplifies Geertz's extraordinary range of concerns, beginning with his first essay for the Review in 1967, in which he reviews, with muffled hilarity, the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. This book includes Geertz's unflinching meditations on Western academia's encounters with the non-Western world, and on the shifting and clashing places of societies in the world generally. Geertz writes eloquently and arrestingly about such major figures as Gandhi, Foucault, and Genet, and on topics as varied as Islam, globalization, feminism, and the failings of nationalism. Life among the Anthros and Other Essays demonstrates Geertz's uncommon wisdom and consistently keen and hopeful humor, confirming his status as one of our most important and enduring public intellectuals. (shrink)

"Clifford was famous for his public lectures on physics and math and ethics because he explained complex things with easily understood, concrete examples. As you read through his clear, simple explanations of the true bases of number, algebra and geometry you will find yourself getting angry and saying "Why the hell wasn't I taught math this way?" and "Do math ed professors know so little mathematics that they have never heard of Clifford.?" Clifford was destined to be (...) England's Einstein until his untimely death at the age of 34, just 11 days before Einstein's birth. More than 30 years before the Special Theory of Relativity was proposed he had already concluded that the force of gravity was actually due to changes in the curvature of space. He gives explanatory examples in this book that middle school children can understand."--review on Amazon.com viewed July 6, 2020. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on W. K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief”. Published in Clifford, W.K. “L’ètica de la creença”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 129–150. // Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on William James’s “The Will to Believe”. Published in James, William. “La voluntat de creure”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 151–172. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “Introducció. El debat entre W. K. Clifford i (...) William James”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 123–127]. (shrink)

Inspired by the person and writings of C.S. Lewis, this book examines pertinent and pressing issues in living the Christian faith today. Experts in their fields share their insights and conclusions.

"Humanists and social scientists alike will profit from reflection on the efforts of the contributors to reimagine anthropology in terms, not only of methodology, but also of politics, ethics, and historical relevance. Every discipline in the human and social sciences could use such a book."--Hayden White, author of Metahistory.

The Predicament of Culture is a critical ethnography of the West in its changing relations with other societies. Analyzing cultural practices such as anthropology, travel writing, collecting, and museum displays of tribal art, James Clifford shows authoritative accounts of other ways of life to be contingent fictions, now actively contested in post-colonial contexts. His critique raises questions of global significance: Who has the authority to speak for any group’s identity and authenticity? What are the essential elements and boundaries of (...) a culture? How do self and “the other” clash in the encounters of ethnography, travel, and modern interethnic relations? In chapters devoted to the history of anthropology, Clifford discusses the work of Malinowski, Mead, Griaule, Lévi-Strauss, Turner, Geertz, and other influential scholars. He also explores the affinity of ethnography with avant-garde art and writing, recovering a subversive, self-reflexive cultural criticism. The surrealists’ encounters with Paris or New York, the work of Georges Bataille and Michel Leiris in the Collège de Sociologie, and the hybrid constructions of recent tribal artists offer provocative ethnographic examples that challenge familiar notions of difference and identity. In an emerging global modernity, the exotic is unexpectedly nearby, the familiar strangely distanced. (shrink)

The paper is one of the four central texts where Clifford Geertz summarized his ideas. Geertz suggests an understanding of art as a social phenomenon and gives a social anthropological account of aesthetic experience. In opposition to structuralism, which analyzes art as a closed sign system developing according to its inherent logic, and to radical functionalism, which attempts to study art as if its main function was to maintain established institutions of culture, Geertz proposes to view a work of (...) art as a symbolical expression of the significant experience of its creator. In this case the ability of aesthetic perception of the work of art is treated as the ability to recognize the symbols it contains — the ability that results from involvement in the relevant cultural practices. Author illustrates his argument by the examples from the studies of that time: studies of Abelam tribe of New Guinea, Yoruba people of Western Africa, Quattrocento Italia, and modern Morocco. (shrink)