Contemporary health care often lacks generosity of spirit, even when treatment is most efficient. Too many patients are left unhappy with how they are treated, and too many medical professionals feel estranged from the calling that drew them to medicine. Arthur W. Frank tells the stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who are restoring generosity to medicine--generosity toward others and to themselves. The Renewal of Generosity evokes medicine as the face-to-face encounter that comes before and after diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, (...) and surgeries. Frank calls upon the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin to reflect on stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who transform demoralized medicine into caring relationships. He presents their stories as a source of consolation for both ill and professional alike and as an impetus to changing medical systems. Frank shows how generosity is being renewed through dialogue that is more than the exchange of information. Dialogue is an ethic and an ideal for people on both sides of the medical encounter who want to offer more to those they meet and who want their own lives enriched in the process. The Renewal of Generosity views illness and medical work with grace and compassion, making an invaluable contribution to expanding our vision of suffering and healing. (shrink)

One of the most distinguished cultural and intellectual historians of our time, Frank Turner taught a landmark Yale University lecture course on European intellectual history that drew scores of students over many years. His lectures—lucid, accessible, beautifully written, and delivered with a notable lack of jargon—distilled modern European history from the Enlightenment to the dawn of the twentieth century and conveyed the turbulence of a rapidly changing era in European history through its ideas and leading figures. Richard A. Lofthouse, (...) one of Turner’s former students, has now edited the lectures into a single volume that outlines the thoughts of a great historian on the forging of modern European ideas. Moreover, it offers a fine example of how intellectual history should be taught: rooted firmly in historical and biographical evidence. (shrink)

Bradley succeeded in conceptualizing biological productivity in terms—monetary investment vs. profit—that could be applied to organisms as different in form and habitat as trees, grapevines, and crayfish.41 This form of measurement was not precise enough to have served as a basis for actual comparisons of production rate. His way of thinking, however, could have been applied with other terms of measurement once the usefulness of such measurements had been realized. The realization that production rate is an important factor is implicit (...) in his discussions, but for his purposes, yearly yields were generally sufficiently precise determinations.Although Bradley drew substantially upon the contributions of others, his writings represent a significant beginning for productivity ecology. All of the kinds of investigations that he reported could have been extended, rendered more precise, and formed the basis of ecological generalizations during the eighteenth century.There were, however, certain conceptual limitations imposed by a lack of relevant knowledge in physiology and in physical science. A good understanding of productivity ultimately depends upon an understanding of metabolism, which in turn depends upon an understanding of photosynthesis, respiration, biochemistry, and the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The essential knowledge of these subjects would not be available until decades after Bradley's time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Against Spinoza and Aristotle1 Frank J. Leavitt It is always good to try to make peace, to try to resolve differences between whatsomebelieveare conflictingpoints ofview. Nevertheless, sometimes the points ofview which are believed to be opposed to each other really do oppose one another and so the most ingenious attempts at reconciliation turn out to have been ill-conceived. Wim Klever has brought considerable scholarship to bear in (...) his attempt to show that Hume and Spinoza were not so far apart as we thought.2 It was an especially pleasant surprise to see the comparison of their views on personal identity,3 for example. And he has made a convincing case for doubt that Hume's "sharp anti-Spinözistic utterings"4 in Treatise 1.4.5 were really sincere. In my opinion, however, Klever has gone too farin trying to bring together what should have been left asunder. Some ofhis points ofthe purportedly common ground shared by Hume and Spinoza are based on what I believe to be a blatant misreading ofSpinoza. Other points show a failure to appreciate a fundamental disagreement between Hume and Spinoza on central issues in the old Aristotelian tradition. Hume and Spinoza, like other philosophersofthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, can be best understood when one is aware ofthe Aristotelian background against which they were writing and with which they expected their readers to be familiar. Hume shows familiarity with Aristotelianism in his discussion of the "antient philosophy" at Treatise 1.4.3 as well as in his various remarks about scholasticism.6Spinoza'srelationshipto ChristianAristotelianism has been discussed by Wolfson6 and by myself,7 among others. And his relationship to Maimonides, who was his link to Jewish Aristotelianism, has been discussed by Harvey.8 1 shall base my claim that Hume and Spinoza were much further apart than Klever makes them out to be upon an attempt to identify some scholastic and Aristotelian issues and doctrines with respect to which Hume and Spinoza took very different stands. The firstthing which I wanttodraw attention toisKlever'sreading ofthe scholia to 2 Ethics 40, which bears on medieval disputes over the nominalistic, conceptualistic and realistic approaches to Aristotle's treatment of the problem of the universels. Since Spinoza allows that universal notions "are notformed by all men in the same way,"9 Klever Volume XVII Number 2 203 FRANK J. LEAVITT makes him out to be holding the same position which Hume expresses when he adopts Berkeley's opinion that "all general ideas are nothing but particular ones, annexed to a certain term" (T 17). And Klever claims "Hume and Spinoza are both thorough nominalists."10 But Klever misses the point that Hume denies that there are, in addition to particular ideas, universal ones, that is, common notions, while Spinoza clearly admits, in the second scholium to 11 Ethics 40, the difference which Hume denies. According to Spinoza we have (1> confused representations of particular things, and (2) remembered ideas which are "similar to those through which we imagine things." These latter are ideas of the sort which Hume recognized. But in addition tothese two, which Spinoza calls "opinion" and "imagination," Spinoza claims that we have (3) "notions common to all men, and adequate ideas ofthe properties ofthings." These are notions of"those things which are common to all, and which are equallyin a part and in the whole [and which] cannotbe conceived exceptadequately"(2Ethics 38). These notions, which parallel Descartes' "clear and distinct ideas" are the general abstract ideas which Hume denies in Treatise 1.1.7. There Hume denies that ideas can be general "in their nature" but allows that they can be general "in their representation." To the extent to which Hume's position can be called "nominalism," the passages to which I have referred show that Spinoza, who basically accepted the Cartesian doctrine ofclear and distinct ideas, was not a nominalist. Aristotle drew a sharp distinction between imagination and thought in De anima 2.3. Descartes preserved the distinction between imagination and intellection at the beginningofthe fourth Meditation, among other places. The passage from the second scholium to 2 Ethics 40, which I have already cited adheres to this distinction, which was already... (shrink)

I attribute an 'intensional reading' of the second incompleteness theorem to its author, Kurt G del. My argument builds partially on an analysis of intensional and extensional conceptions of meta-mathematics and partially on the context in which G del drew two familiar inferences from his theorem. Those inferences, and in particular the way that they appear in G del's writing, are so dubious on the extensional conception that one must doubt that G del could have understood his theorem extensionally. However, (...) on the intensional conception, the inferences are straightforward. For that reason I conclude that G del had an intensional understanding of his theorem. Since this conclusion is in tension with the generally accepted view of G del's understanding of mathematical truth, I explain how to reconcile that view with the intensional reading of the theorem that I attribute to G del. The result is a more detailed account of G del's conception of meta-mathematics than is currently available. (shrink)

This engaging book examines the origins and first effects of the concept ‘legal semiotics’, focusing on the inventor of the term, Roberta Kevelson. It highlights the importance of her ideas and works which have contributed to legal theory, legal interpretation and philosophy of language. Kevelson’s work is particularly relevant today, in our world of global electronic communication networks which rely so much on language, signs, signals and shortcuts. Kevelson could not have foreseen the 21st century, yet the story of her (...) work and influence deserves more attention as it is key to our understanding of modern legal discourse and why law fascinates and is accepted in modern society. The authors draw on Kevelson’s hitherto unknown Office Papers and Notes, and a biographical examination points to key influences in her work such as the early feminist movements of the US East Coast, the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce and the semiotics of Thomas Sebeok. This forms the basis for a more encompassing research of Kevelson’s position, work and philosophical background, which the authors call for. A quick and enlightening read, this book interests a wide range of readers with an interest in legal history and the fields which Kevelson both drew on and influenced, including lawyers, students and scholars. (shrink)

Economist Frank Knight drew a distinction between decisions under risk and decisions under uncertainty. Despite the significance of this distinction for decision theory, we argue that there has been inadequate attention to the difficulties involved in classifying decision situations into these categories. Using the risk assessment of carbon nanotubes as an example, we show that it is often unclear whether there is adequate information to classify a decision situation as being under risk as opposed to uncertainty. We conclude by (...) providing two suggestions for responding to these difficulties: treating decisions as real-world experiments; and promoting broadly based deliberation about quantitative information. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle’s members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna Circle’s leader Moritz Schlick admired and praised Nietzsche, rejecting what he saw as a misinterpretation of Nietzsche as a militarist or proto-fascist. Schlick, Frank, Neurath, and Carnap were (...) in different ways committed to the view that Nietzsche made a significant contribution to the overcoming of metaphysics. Some of these philosophers praised the intimate connection Nietzsche drew between his philosophical outlook and empirical studies in psychology and physiology. In his 1912 lectures on Nietzsche, Schlick maintained that Nietzsche overcame an initial Schopenhauerian metaphysical-artistic phase in his thinking, and subsequently remained a positivist until his last writings. Frank and Neurath made the weaker claim that Nietzsche contributed to the development of a positivistic or scientific conception of the world. Schlick and Frank took a further step in seeing the mature Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

In Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development, Frank C. Keil provides a coherent account of how concepts and word meanings develop in children, adding to our understanding of the representational nature of concepts and word meanings at all ages. Keil argues that it is impossible to adequately understand the nature of conceptual representation without also considering the issue of learning. Weaving together issues in cognitive development, philosophy, and cognitive psychology, he reconciles numerous theories, backed by empirical evidence from nominal kinds (...) studies, natural-kinds studies, and studies of fundamental categorical distinctions. He shows that all this evidence, when put together, leads to a better understanding of semantic and conceptual development. The book opens with an analysis of the problems of modeling qualitative changes in conceptual development, investigating how concepts of natural kinds, nominal kinds, and artifacts evolve. The studies on nominal kinds document a powerful and unambiguous developmental pattern indicating a shift from a reliance on global tabulations of characteristic features to what appears to be a small set of defining ones. The studies on natural kinds document an analogous shift toward a core theory instead of simple definition. Both sets of studies are strongly supported by cross cultural data. While these patterns seem to suggest that the young child organizes concepts according to characteristic features, Keil argues that there is a framework of conceptual categories and causal beliefs that enables even very young children to understand kinds at a deeper, theoretically guided, level. This account suggests a new way of understanding qualitative change and carries strong implications for how concepts are represented at any point in development. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

The central claim of this article is that narrative agency, which I will define as a subject’s capacity to make sense of herself as an ‘I’ over time and in relation to other ‘I’s, is a precondition for identity formation. I engage with two critiques of this claim: first, that narrative agency is limited by, rather than primary to, subordinating gender norms and, second, that a view of narrative agency as primary is committed to too ambitious a conception of the (...) communicability of narratives. I argue that the narrative model survives these two criticisms by emphasising its irreducibility, its inherent relationality and its generative potential. I then suggest some of the ways in which a concept of narrative agency might help feminist critical theory to posit mutual recognition and respect as productive criteria for progressive self and social transformation. (shrink)

This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times. The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras--figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and (...) Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book. Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society. The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual writings, in the context of the author's life and of the socio-economic, religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on innovative works, they highlight disjunctures as well as continuities in utopian thought from the Renaissance through the twentieth century. Witty and erudite, challenging in its interpretations and provocative in the questions it poses, the Manuels' anatomy of utopia is an adventure in ideas. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. Work on Stanley Cavell in contemporary political theory tends to foreground Cavell’s reading of Emersonian moral perfectionism, but this aspect of Cavell’s thought is often left out of feminist readings of his work. In this paper, I give an overview of Cavell’s importance to political theory, and I also trace two Cavellian-inspired feminisms: Sandra Laugier’s ordinary language inflected ethics of care and Toril Moi’s understanding of feminist theory as the close and careful reading (...) of examples. I argue that Cavellian-Emersonian moral perfectionism enhances these feminist readings of Cavell because it helps us explain certain practices in feminist activism, such as resisting conformity, acknowledging the limits of our understanding and being receptive to other members of our feminist community. (shrink)

Im Werk von Gilles Deleuze und Michel Foucault sind Körper und Körperlichkeit zentrale Aspekte, die in diesem Band erstmalig vergleichend in den Fokus gerückt werden. Die Beiträger_innen stellen die Entwürfe beider Denker zur Ästhetik und Ethik als Reflexionen der Beziehung zwischen Körper und Bild vor und betonen die Verkettungen von Körper, Macht und Ästhetik. Gleichzeitig werden spezifische Fragen der jüngeren Deleuze- und Foucault-Forschung angesprochen. Der interdisziplinäre Band bietet Wissenschaftler_innen aus Philosophie und Kunstgeschichte sowie den Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften einen thematischen Überblick (...) und weiterführende Lektüre. (shrink)

Excerpt from Kants Naturphilosophie als Grundlage Seines Systems Die vorliegende Arbeit uber die kantische Naturphilosophie war ursprunglich in Aussicht genommen als erstes Kapitel einer Darstellung der deutschen Naturphilosophie seit Kam. Der Grund, warum sie zu einem selbstandigen Werke angeschwollen ist, liegt darin, weil ich bei genauerem Studium des Philosophen fand, man habe das naturphilosophische Element in den Schriften Kants bisher bei weitem unterschatzt und insbesondere seinen Bemuhungen um eine dynamische Theorie der Materie lange nicht diejenige Bedeutung zugeschrieben, die ihnen sowohl (...) in Hinsicht auf die Richtung, welche die kantische Gedankenentwickelung genommen hat, wie fur die eigentumliche Ausbildung dieser Gedanken im Einzelnen thatsachlich beizumessen ist. Man hat den Philosophen nach seiner theoretischen Seite fast lediglich als den Begrunder der modernen Erkenntnistheorie gewurdigt und dabei ubersehen, wie seine ganze Erkenntnistheorie aus naturphilosophischen Erwagungen hervorgegangen und oft in den wichtigsten Punkten von ihnen bestimmt worden ist. Die vorliegende Arbeit schopft nun bei der Hochflut der philosophischen Litteratur, die sich mit Kant beschaftigt, ihre Daseinsberechtigung vor allem daraus, dafs sie die gesamte theoretische Philosophie Kants unter dem Gesichtspunkte der Naturphilosophie betrachtet. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

The common cause principle states that correlations have prior common causes which screen off those correlations. I argue that the common cause principle is false in many circumstances, some of which are very general. I then suggest that more restricted versions of the common cause principle might hold, and I prove such a restricted version.

In this book, Frank Griffel presents the most comprehensive examination to date of the life and thought of this important figure.

The New Comedy as an art form is descended both from the Old Comedy and from fifth-century Tragedy. It is a middle style of the sort that Diderot called le genre sérieux. On the one side it made an expurgation of the Old Comedy by dropping the gross elements of the primitive ritual έσεωςκμος which still survived in Aristophanes, the phallic dress, the ευρομός in language, and the reckless personal satire, while it kept and emphasized the final Gamos, or union (...) of lovers, and developed a more elaborate plot. On the other side it reformed Tragedy by getting rid of the supernatural stories and the stiff conventions. To quote some words of my own written in 1912, it ‘introduced all the simplifications and improvements which seem to a modern’—I meant a modern philistine—‘so obviously desirable. It developed an easy colloquial language, a flexible and unexacting metre. It left the Chorus quite outside the play, a kind of entr'acte, not worth writing down. It frankly abandoned religious ritual’—please observe that statement, which I now wish to correct—‘and heroic saga. It drew its material from the adventures and emotions of contemporary middle class life, and boldly invented its own plots.’ Menander in particular was considered in antiquity to have held a mirror up to life; a verse by Aristophanes of Byzantium asks. (shrink)

Qualitative reasoning about space and time - a reasoning at the human level - promises to become a fundamental aspect of future systems that will accompany us in daily activity. The aim of Spatial and Temporal Reasoning is to give a picture of current research in this area focusing on both representational and computational issues. The picture emphasizes some major lines of development in this multifaceted, constantly growing area. The material in the book also shows some common ground and a (...) novel combination of spatial and temporal aspects of qualitative reasoning. Part I presents the overall scene. The chapter by Laure Vieu is on the state of the art in spatial representation and reasoning, and that by Alfonso Gerevini gives a similar survey on research in temporal reasoning. The specific contributions to these areas are then grouped in the two main parts. In Part II, Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi examine the ontological status of spatial entities; Anthony Cohn, Brandon Bennett, John Gooday, and Nicholas Gotts present a detailed theory of reasoning with qualitative relations about regions; Andrew Frank discusses the spatial needs of geographical information systems; and Annette Herskovits focuses on the linguistic expression of spatial relations. In Part III, James Allen and George Ferguson describe an interval temporal logic for the representation of actions and events; Drew McDermott presents an efficient way of predicting the outcome of plan execution; and Erik Sandewall introduces a semantics based on transitions for assessing theories of action and change. In Part IV, Antony Galton's chapter stands clearly between the two areas of space and time and outlines the main coordinates of an integrated approach. (shrink)

Historicism -- Time -- Interpretation -- Representation -- Reference -- Truth -- Meaning -- Presence -- Experience (I) -- Experience (II) -- Subjectivity -- Politics.

El ensayo intenta conectar y defender el concepto de “verosímil” en la obra de Carlos Vaz Ferreira. Esto se justifica a través de la teoría del “Razonablismo” desarrollada en las obras de Lógica viva, Un paralogismo de actualidad y Conocimiento acción. Por tanto, con esto pretendemos una mejor comprensión de los conceptos de razón y acción.

Moral puzzles about actions which bring about very small or what are said to be imperceptible harms or benefits for each of a large number of people are well known. Less well known is an argument by Warren Quinn that standard theories of rationality can lead an agent to end up torturing himself or herself in a completely foreseeable way, and that this shows that standard theories of rationality need to be revised. We show where Quinn's argument goes wrong, and (...) apply this to the moral puzzles. (shrink)

Reflecting on his scientific career toward the end of his life, the French-educated medical researcher René Dubos presented his flowering as an ecological thinker as a story of linear progression—the inevitable product of the intellectual seeds planted in his youth. But how much store should we set by Dubos’s account of his ecological journey? Resisting retrospective biographical readings, this paper seeks to relate the development of Dubos’s ecological ideas to his experimental practices and his career as a laboratory researcher. In (...) particular, I focus on Dubos’s studies of tuberculosis at the Rockefeller Institute in the period 1944–1956—studies which began with an inquiry into the tubercle bacillus and the physiochemical determinants of virulence, but which soon encompassed a wider investigation of the influence of environmental forces and host–parasite interactions on susceptibility and resistance to infection in animal models. At the same time, through a close reading of Dubos’s scientific papers and correspondence, I show how he both drew on and distinguished his ecological ideas from those of other medical researchers such as Theobald Smith, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, and Frank Fenner. However, whereas Burnet and Fenner tended to view ecological interactions at the level of populations, Dubos focused on the interface of hosts and parasites in the physiological environments of individuals. The result was that although Dubos never fully engaged with the science of ecology, he was able to incorporate ecological ideas into his thought and practices, and relate them to his holistic views on health and the natural harmony of man and his environment. (shrink)

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is one of the terms that is used to refer to associatively induced changes in liking. Many controversies have arisen in the literature on EC. Do associatively induced changes in liking actually exist? Does EC depend on awareness of the fact that stimuli are associated? Is EC resistant to extinction? Does attention help or hinder EC? As an introduction to this special issue, we will discuss the extent to which the papers that are published in this issue (...) help to resolve some of the controversies that surround EC. We also speculate about possible boundary conditions of EC and attempt to reconcile conflicting results on the functional properties of EC. (shrink)

On October 14, 2003, the Supreme Court announced that it would not review a Ninth Circuit Appeals Court ruling that enjoined the federal government from punishing doctors who recommend medical use of marijuana to their patients. The Ninth Circuit case, Conan v.Walters, drew a fine line in distinguishing betweendispensing information and dispensing controlled substances, and held that [p]hysicians must be able to speak frankly and openly to patients under the First Amendments. Although unauthorized use and distribution of marijuana is prohibited, (...) the court found that a doctor s recommendation does not itself constitute illegal conduct that doctors should be free to recommend the use of medical marijuana if based on sincere medical judgment, without fear of retaliation by a government probe or prosecution. (shrink)

As we navigate post-pandemic educational recovery and future-oriented design, the Handbook of Research in Online Learning: Insights and Advances emerges as a scholarly authority to illuminate existing questions and catalyze conversations on imperative transformations in education. Tailored for researchers, designers, educators, administrators, and stakeholders, this handbook delves into the nuanced landscape of online learning. Curated by leading experts, each chapter provides a deep exploration of critical online teaching and learning dimensions. Whether you're navigating the complexities of instructional design, exploring the (...) impact of digital learning on diverse student populations, or delving into the transformative potential of AI, each chapter illuminates critical aspects of online education. It merges current significant works with unpublished manuscripts, embodying the interdisciplinary essence of online learning research. Grounded in diverse theoretical frameworks and research methods, it offers theoretical insights and actionable guidance for cutting-edge educational methodologies. This handbook is not just a compendium; it's an indispensable guide for shaping the future of education. Contributors are: Michael Ahlf, Stephen Allen, Tonya Amankwatia, Fatih Ari, Ismahan Arslan-Ari, Michael K. Barbour, Gail Alleyne Bayne, Karen Bellnier, M. Aaron Bond, Victoria Brown, George Bradford, William Cain, Sumie Chan, Lauren Cifuentes, Laura DaVinci, Gina Deckard, Shernette Dunn, Anne Fensie, Holly Fiock, Sara Flowers, Carla Karen Fortune, Theodore Frick, Michael M. Grant, Alexis Guethler, Dan He, Atsusi "2c" Hirumi, Charles B. Hodges, Stephanie Hostetter, Michael Houdyshell, Fethi A. Inan, Frank Jamison, Amir Kalan, Meryl Krieger, Jessica Lantz, Mary Lefaiver, Juhong Christie Liu, Noble Lo, Barbara Lockee, Fatemeh Marzban, Trey Martindale, Sara McNeil, Laura McNeill, Stephanie Moore, Martha Lorena Obermeier, Larisa Olesova, Jennifer Jihae Park, Sanghoon Park, Yujin Park, AnthTony Pina, Drew Polly, Yingxiao Qian, Thomas Reeves, Christiane Reilly, Jennifer Richardson, Aubrey Rogowski, Leanne Rutherford, Kay Seo, Sanga Song, Edwin Teye Sosi, Stefan Stenbom, Sharon Stidham, David Tai, Hengtao Tang, Torrey Trust, Shannon Tucker, Denis Unal, Lucas Vasconcelos, Charles Xiaoxue Wang, Florence Williams, Ying Xie and Fan Xu. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 415-431 [Access article in PDF] The Humanities at Home with Themselves Mark Bauerlein The Crafty Reader, by Robert Scholes; 272 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, $24.95. WHEN I STARTED GRADUATE SCHOOL in English in the early Eight ies, a typical thing happened. Those few students with a background in philosophy drifted together, shared influences, and developed a hierarchy of critical works. A (...) few pushed analytic philosophy and pragmatism, but overall Continental theory took first place, especially Derrida. "Structure, Sign, and Play" and "White Mythology," de Man's "Rhetoric of Temporality," Shoshana Felman's "Turning the Screw of Interpretation," and other weighty essays had the status of cutting-edge wisdom, and the hostility deconstruction drew from traditionalists and Marxists in the department only sharpened our commitment. Having no other professional standing, we savored the stigma, the roguishness. It complemented our poverty, and eased our transition from hot-shot undergraduates to first-year, prequalifying Ph.D aspirants. In the evenings, after instructing freshmen in comma splices, we gathered to trade Nietszchean epigrams and mock professors who looked befuddled at the mention of a priori and aporia.Other students found us insufferable, and doubtless we were, but not in a partisan way. We panned each other just as hard as we did the uninformed. This was UCLA, not Yale or Johns Hopkins, and personalities mattered less than arguments. If in discussion I backed a point with [End Page 415] "As Derrida says...," someone always answered, "So what?" We frowned on arguments from authority. Popularizations such as Jonathan Culler's On Deconstruction earned our scorn. They were one step up from Cliff's Notes, packed with servile observations like "Jean Baudrillard wants to take us further, into a world where everything is so textualized that there is no space left for the real." We preferred to understand deconstruction through laborious readings of Being and Time and Beyond Good and Evil, not in watery effusions about textuality or the mechanical pairing of binary oppositions. The latter we placed among the scribes, those well-intentioned professionals canny enough to recognize the broad import of deconstruction, but not acute enough to discern the real meaning of différance or the radical disclosure of the ontic-ontological difference. The genius of philosophy, we thought, lay in plumbing the fundamental habits of cognition, like Hegel breaking down sense certainty and Heidegger questioning the determination of Being as substance. Exegesis of other texts was a lesser activity, though we acknowledged exceptions such as Starobinski's book on Rousseau and Kojève's lectures on The Phenomenology of Spirit.Lower in our rankings were the quasi-Leftist attacks just emerging, such as Frank Lentricchia's Criticism and Social Change, which cast theorists as mandarin functionaries treating interpretation as an apolitical game. They filled the page with spiteful terms like "the mask of pure reason" and righteous declarations like "it is wrong to claim that you are above politics," spurning argument for the rhetoric of the reformer. We diagnosed them as puny reactions to the Reagan Revolution, carried out on the irrelevant ground of literary theory. Philosophically, Lentricchia was a hack, and we rejected the imputation that theory nullified activism and justified the status quo. Not that we thought theory bred activism. We just considered them separate activities, and saw no determinate connection between hermeneutical stance and party affiliation. However, we accepted the elitist charge. How could ambitious academics avoid elitism? It wasn't hard for graduate students struggling on $900 a month to see that populist attitudes didn't suit the tenured Ivy Leaguer. Professors were paid by exclusive institutions to teach poetry, to write letters for the best and brightest, to run recondite journals and jet to prestigious symposia. We wanted to join them, but not with phony expressions of social injustice that targeted theory as the problem.Allied with the political attacks on theory, and esteemed even lower, were critiques of the humanities as a bastion of high culture. Polemics [End Page 416] such as Andrew Ross's No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture treated... (shrink)

One of the most distinguished cultural and intellectual historians of our time, Frank Turner taught a landmark Yale University lecture course on European intellectual history that drew scores of students over many years. His lectures—lucid, accessible, beautifully written, and delivered with a notable lack of jargon—distilled modern European history from the Enlightenment to the dawn of the twentieth century and conveyed the turbulence of a rapidly changing era in European history through its ideas and leading figures. Richard A. Lofthouse, (...) one of Turner’s former students, has now edited the lectures into a single volume that outlines the thoughts of a great historian on the forging of modern European ideas. Moreover, it offers a fine example of how intellectual history should be taught: rooted firmly in historical and biographical evidence. (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 was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. 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. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Elijah Fenton’s Phaon to Sappho has so far never been in the focus of literary criticism. The article aims at a more detailed understanding of Fenton’s technique of literary reception by means of a close reading of both Phaon to Sappho and Fenton’s model, the Ovidian Epistula Sapphus. As will be seen, Fenton offers an unexpected perspective on the ancient myth through the eyes of ‘his’ Phaon: Phaon did not leave Sappho out of faithlessness but was completely unable to entertain (...) any feelings of true love, because he had been cursed by Venus for being unfaithful to his former girl-friend in Malea. Phaon merely enjoyed Sappho’s gift of song as a temporary remedy for the agony within his cursed mind, but had to leave her whenever she stopped singing. At this point Phaon is asking for Sappho’s intercession with Venus on his behalf. Although Fenton makes crucial changes to the plot, he does neither ‘deconstruct’ nor ‘correct’ the myth as such: instead, he meticulously retains all the major motifs developed in Ovid’s epistle and thus achieves a literary transformation of the myth, enabling the reader to regard either perspective on the two protagonists’ relationship as logically possible. (shrink)