Most histories of psychology weave a story around the rise of objective methods of investigation and the decline of subjective introspection. This paper sidesteps such disciplinary stories by describing self-scrutiny as a practice that moved through a variety of cultural, social and technological contexts in early twentieth-century America. Edmund Jacobson's technique of 'progressive relaxation' is offered as a case in point. Jacobson, a Chicago clinician, developed this cure for nervousness out of his earlier research under E. B. Titchener, an experimental (...) psychologist at Cornell University. Like Titchener's method of 'experimental introspection ', progressive relaxation was a laboratory-based activity designed to transform the practitioner's sensibilities through the fastidious repetition of simple tasks. But while experimental psychologists ultimately rejected introspection as the core of their disciplinary project, the American public embraced progressive relaxation as a practical technique for mastering the new conditions of modernity. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillard's apparently diverse oeuvre reveals a persistent attempt to think about what he calls the “object” (“that's what I was obsessed with from the start” – 1993a, p. 24). His first book was entitled Le Système des objets (1968), and in it he outlined a theory of the “object system”. He defined this as the conjunction of the system of commodities and the system of signs: what others have analyzed as the ontological process of reification and alienation became according (...) to Baudrillard a general semiological process which marked the last phase of alienated society. His next book La Société de consommation (1970) provided a general account of the affluent society in which consumption, not production, is its dominant mechanism. But by La Gauche divine (1985) he thought that even a consumerism characterized by alienation and spectacular consumption had given way to a new glacial, non spectacular form dominated by information technology and fractal culture (1985, p. 144) in which the significance of the “object” had been radically transformed. Thus Baudrillard's writings seem to chart the evolution of modernity into postmo dernity, indeed he has been called “the author of postmodern culture and society” (Kroker and Cook 1988). Although he draws on sociology, his most important philosophical influence is Nietzsche. In 1987 he published a short intellectual autobiography, L'Autre par lui‐même, perhaps the best short introduction to his work to that date. He claims no longer to adopt the tragic vision entailed in the critique of modernity but rather a melancholy – “let us be stoics” – attitude (1988b, p. 101). (shrink)

New theories about the radical break with the traditions of modernism in literature, architecture, cinema, mass media, and consumer culture began emerging in the late 70s from writers as diverse as Baudrillard, Lyotard, Kroker, Jencks, and importantly Fredric Jameson who leads the effort to bring Marxist cultural critique forward into the postmodernism debate. This volume appraises Jameson's work and Marxism as a conceptual framework for theorizing postmodernism.

Modalni racionalizam je stanovište po kome se iz zamislivosti a priori može izvesti metafizička mogućnost. Jedan od najuticajnijih prigovora protiv ovog stanovišta je da postoje nužni aposteriorni iskazi, jer se čini da je zamislivo da su ovi iskazi lažni, ali da je to metafizički nemoguće. Dejvid Čalmers je, koristeći epistemičku verziju dvodimenzionalne semantike, pokazao da modalni racionalizam može da bude kompatibilan sa postojanjem nužnih aposteriornih iskaza. Takođe je ponudio relevantan smisao zamislivosti, koji se a priori može povezati sa relevantnim (...) smislom metafizičke mogućnosti. U ovom radu se ispituje Čalmersov argument i pokazuje da je prebacivanje tereta dokaza na stranu kritičara modalnog racionalizma njegova najznačajnija odlika. Argument na osnovu zamislivosti zombija je primer koji pokazuje da modalni racionalizam može da bude efikasan na polju metafizike (to jest, može da opovrgne minimalni fizikalizam) i bez epistemičke verzije dvodimenzionalne semantike. U ovom radu se, takođe, tvrdi da konstruisanje parodije na ovaj argument, sa ciljem da se teret dokaza vrati na stranu modalnih racionalista, može da nas navede da se opredelimo između dva smisla idealne pozitivne primarne zamislivosti. Parodija je ograničena na prihvatanje ”idealizovanog” smisla idealne pozitivne primarne zamislivosti, dok je argument na osnovu zamislivosti zombija moguće čitati i u ”ne-idealizovanom” smislu. To čini parodiju podložnom prigovorima koje argument na osnovu zamislivosti zombija može da izbegne. Na taj način, argument na osnovu zamislivosti zombija i modalni racionalizam ostaju sačuvani. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dmitry Khanin THE POSTMODERN POSTURE Postmodernists—the sectarians ofour day—proclaim that the old kingdom of historical narrative and historical subject has perished, and is now being replaced by a new one of ahistorical discourses and ahistorical characters. According to these prophets, "history" is anyway just changes in ways of talking about history. Anyone who does not agree with the ahistoricity of the postmodern world oudook may be accused—and tried on (...) the spot—of defending the cause of the totalitarian Reason against the most liberating movement of today. This postmodernist abuse of history is paradoxical, since the very notion of history coming to its end and giving way to the ahistorical kingdom of freedom and merry debauchery is itself a very old idea, even a mythological one. The description ofhistory as marching toward its own demise relies on a whole tradition which portrays history as a drama. Aristode's conception of tragedy as a sequence of actions culminating in a dénouement has no doubt shaped this view of historical process. Christian and other religious millenarians have announced the end of history already many times. Yet another notorious instance of such eschatological daydreaming is the futurology of Karl Marx, who envisaged the kingdom of communism as occupying this same ahistorical space. A rather obsolete idea, perhaps, but it seems still to attract postmodernists, though they give it a characteristic twist, since they sincerely believe theory, discourse, écriture (i.e., theoretico-symbolical activity) are much more important than any actual historical contentprocesses and events. One of the most notable spokesmen for this approach is Arthur Danto, who insists that world history evolved in a good Hegelian manner until the theorists came to understand that history depends on their Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 239-247 240Philosophy and Literature texts much more than theorists themselves depend on historical processes and events.1 Many theoreticians working in an otherwise Marxist tradition similarly are glad to assert with FredricJameson that we must say farewell to Marx's positivistic illusion that history is driven by laws disguised as economic forces.2 In the epoch of "late capitalism," says Jameson, consumption gains the upper hand over production and becomes the mainspring of history. Of course, in light of recent doings in Europe I am tempted to ask if we owe it to postmodernists—and their ahistorical, inconsistent, and generally confounding claims about history lying in ruins—that the Berlin Wall actually is in ruins and Vaclav Havel is president of Czechoslovakia. Even more daring theorists may now declare an era of "very late capitalism." Here it will not be merely the mass media that act transformatively on society (as McLuhan claimed), but rather consumer goods themselves, like state-of-the-art washing machines or French perfumes, which create a new aura of intellectual discourse. TL· Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and Hyper-AesÜietics, a book by two Canadian authors, Arthur Kroker and David Cook, promotes such a sea change in the theoretical landscape and along the way presents a joyous recapitulation ofthe latest fads in postmodern thinking. The new apostolic generation ofpostmodern critics seems to enjoy the beautiful new things that can be bought for bucks, worrying at the same time that bucks may be losing some of their purchasing power. Like Hari-Krishnas dancing in the street they luckily possess a sort of happy consciousness which also recalls their puritanical great grandfathers who regarded profligacy as the greatest sin and much preferred saving to spending. In what follows I want to draw a portrait of this new postmodern posture. A few main assumptions underlie Kroker's and Cook's wake for postmodernism, which, in its peculiar genre of philosophic obituary, epitomizes and thus prepares for future oblivion views which were exceedingly popular in the preceding decade. First of all, the authors adopt Baudrillard's equation of Marx and Nietzsche: "Marx and Nietzsche shared a deep and common affinity in meditating upon historical (Christian) and materialistic (capitalist) expressions ofthewill ofpower."3 From Baudrillard's perspective Marx appears as a pathetic romantic who tried to defend the "referential illusion" by renaturalizing concrete labor even though its entirely abstract character was brilliandy revealed in Das Kapital. Baudrillard... (shrink)

Edited with New Translation by Richard McKirahan With a New Preface by Malcolm Schofield This book is a revised and expanded version of A.H. Coxon's full critical edition of the extant remains of Parmenides of Elea—the fifth-century B.C. philosopher by many considered "one of the greatest and most astonishing thinkers of all times." Coxon's presentation of the complete ancient evidence for Parmenides and his comprehensive examination of the fragments, unsurpassed to this day, have proven invaluable to our understanding of the (...) Eleatic since the book's first publication in 1986. This edition, edited by Richard McKirahan and with a new preface by Malcolm Schofield, is released on the 100th anniversary of Coxon's birth. This new edition for the first time includes English translations of the testimonia and of any Ancient Greek throughout the book, as well as an English/Greek glossary by Richard McKirahan, and revisions by the late author himself. The text consists of Coxon's collations of the relevant folios of manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus, Proclus and Simplicius and includes all extant fragments, a commentary, the testimonia, a complete list of sources, linguistic parallels from both earlier and later authors, and the fullest critical apparatus that has appeared since Diels’ _Poetarum Philosophorum Fragmenta _. The collection of testimonia includes the philosophical discussions of Parmenides by Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, most of which had been omitted by Diels. The introduction discusses the history of the text, the language and form of the poem, Parmenides’ use and understanding of the verb ‘to be’, his place in the history of earlier and later philosophy and the biographical tradition. In the commentary Coxon deals in detail with both the language and the subject matter of the poem and pays full attention to Parmenides’ account of the physical world. The appendix relates later Eleatic arguments to those of Parmenides. (shrink)

Издание содержит: нравственность между эзотерикой и правом, геополитика нравственности, либерализованная Россия и либеральная эзотерика и др.

On philosophy; transcript of the 1978-1979 Śāradā-vyākhyāna-mālā lecture, under the auspices of Sri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.

Patrick Lancaster Gardiner is best known and most widely esteemed for his work on the nature of historical explanation. By addressing the problem of the limits of objectivity in relation to a variety of philosophical issues, he presciently identified the source of a number of philosophical disputes well before they had properly developed. This was certainly the case in Gardiner's treatment of historical explanation, and it is true also of his later treatment of the claims of the personal versus the (...) impersonal in ethical life. (shrink)

В книге на материале психолингвистических экспериментов рассматриваются этические взгляды современных русских и японцев, причем этика русских прослеживается в динамике: на рубежах начала 1990-х гг. и начала XXI века.

для научных работников, преподавателей, аспирантов, студентов юридических вузов и факультетов.

В книге рассматриваются проблемы, занимавшие умы ученых мыслителей и нашедшие свое выражение в различных вариантах философии истории. Для тех, кто хочет знать, что такое история, имеет ли она цель и смысл, и нужно ли ее изучать.