There are two fundamentally different approaches to innovation: incremental and radical. In Economics as Anatomy, G.M. Peter Swann argues that economics as a discipline needs both perspectives in order to create the maximum beneficial effect for the economy. Chapters explore how and why mainstream economics is very good at incremental innovation but seems uncomfortable with radical innovation. Swann argues that economics should follow the example of many other disciplines, transitioning from one field to a range of semi-autonomous sub-disciplines. In this (...) book, he compares the missing link in empirical economics to being the economic equivalent of anatomy, the basis of medical discourse. Working as a sequel to Swann's Putting Econometrics in its Place, this book will be a vital resource to those who are discontent with the state of mainstream economics, especially those actively seeking to promote change in the discipline. Students wishing to see progress in the teaching of economics will also benefit from this timely book. (shrink)

The most searching elaboration of the detective image of the historian has come from the pen of R. G. Collingwood. His short detective story "Who Killed John Doe?" implied that, in spite of the often tentative nature of the question-answer process in a successful historical investigation, the pieces of the puzzle fit together and their coherence becomes self-evident. The predominance of physical evidence in Collingwood's detective story had its counterpart in his research on Hadrian's Wall. In examining the questions raised (...) by his investigations, and distinguishing between direct and circumstantial evidence, Collingwood was able to formulate a comprehensive theory concerning the date of the Wall's construction, the purpose of the Wall, the date of the related turf wall at Birdoswald, the chronological position of the fourteen forts along the Wall, and the role and date of the Vallum following the Walls' course. The pattern of research into the mysteries of Hadrian's Wall has hardly conformed to the linear, step-by-step schema of Collingwood's logic of question and answer. As with much detective work, it has embodied its share of informed guesswork, mistaken inference, false leads, and fortuitous revelations. (shrink)

Le XIVe siècle peut sans nul doute être considéré comme «l’âge d’or» de la mystique en Angleterre. Parmi les noms de R. Rolle, W. Hilton, J. de Norwich, l’auteur du Nuage d’Inconnaissance occupe une place importante, gardant un anonymat manifestement recherché. Il apparaît très vraisemblable que cet Anonyme ait longtemps et assidûment fréquenté les milieux cartusiens, s’il n’a pas été lui-même chartreux, avant peut-être de choisir une vie plus radicalement érémitique. Le but de son œuvre est l’union à Dieu par (...) le détachement absolu, union au Tout-Autre selon le mode apophatique légué par Denys le pseudo-Aréopagite dont il se réclame explicitement, et auquel il emprunte le titre de son principal ouvrage. Il revendique également l’influence de Grégoire de Nysse, de saint Augustin, de Richard de Saint-Victor dont il traduira en anglais le Benjamin minor, et laisse clairement entendre qu’il a lu Thomas d’Aquin, saint Bernard et Guillaume de Saint-Thierry. Mais il est une influence profonde et non avouée qu’il nous a semblé intéressant de dégager ici; il s’agit de celle du Miroir des Simples âmes anéanties de Marguerite Porete. (shrink)

What are we to make of statements that jaguars see themselves as humans, or of doubts about the boundary between dreams and waking? Jointly authored by an anthropologist and a philosopher, this book investigates some of the most puzzling ideas and practices reported in modern ethnography and ancient philosophy, concerning humans, animals, persons, spirits, agency, selfhood, consciousness, nature, life, death, disease and health. The study's twin aims are first to explore the possibility of achieving a better understanding of the materials (...) we discuss and then to see what lessons we can draw from them to challenge and revise our own fundamental assumptions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 149-151 [Access article in PDF] Reinhard Brandt. Kritischer Kommentar zu Kants Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798). Kant-Forschungen, Band 10. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1999. Pp. 543. Cloth, DM. The appearance of a commentary on Kant's Anthropology is very timely, indeed indispensable, given the advent of a new phase in Kant scholarship, attentive to the writings surrounding the main critical texts as (...) a way of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of his thought. This new approach has been partly precipitated by the 1997 release of Volume 25 of the Academy edition containing the student transcriptions of Kant's anthropology lectures spanning a period of twenty-four years. The Anthropology is especially important for understanding Kant's moral philosophy. From 1773 forward, Kant himself never taught morality without concurrently offering his course in anthropology. His own students were thus cognizant of Kant's conception of human nature. Yet during the last 200 years few have paid attention to what sort of being, in Kant's view, was called upon to fulfill the moral vocation. As Brandt points out, the Anthropology has previously provoked no notable study, no discussion among either advocates or detractors.The precise nature of the relation between the Anthropology and Kant's critical philosophy remains an open question. Brandt himself is skeptical about the importance of the Anthropology for moral philosophy. He argues against seeing an integrated relation between the Anthropology and the critical system. For Brandt, the two stand alongside each other. The pragmatic anthropology serves merely as an "encyclopedia of the Kantian philosophy on an empirical level," providing an empirical discussion of its problems (8). He also argues that the pragmatic anthropology is neither identical with the anthropology required as a discipline supplementary to pure moral philosophy (14) [End Page 149] nor with the transcendental anthropology providing the self-knowledge of understanding reason (17). The seeming hallmarks of Kant's thought, such as the triadic structure of cognition, feeling, and desire, are simply an omnipresent "psychological division of European cultural history" (99-100) and so unpersuasive as evidence for a systematic connection of the texts. Anthropology has no "idea of reason" as its "basis." It begins in empirical psychology (especially Baumgarten's) and in Kant's effort to separate it from this discipline as a distinct, "pragmatic discipline" with the goal of "facilitating the prudent action of future world citizens" (9, 11). Brandt's interpretation probably influences his selection of passages from the critical philosophy referenced in his Kommentar.The commentary sets Kant's Anthropology in the historical context of Western thought, identifying related passages in texts which Kant is known to have read, as well as materials unfamiliar to him, but still pertinent for a given theme. Over 400 primary sources (from Homer and the philosophers of antiquity, to such recent writers as Richard Rorty) are referenced, as well as over 300 authors in the secondary literature. The commentary is critical, including in its textual analysis differences between the 1798 and 1800 published editions of the Anthropology, and comparisons with the manuscript in Kant's own hand (now located in Rostock). Marginalia are noted, and in some cases passages struck from Kant's manuscript are reproduced in the Kommentar; one such particularly long passage pertains to Kant's discussion of sensibility as contrasted with the understanding (175-181). Parallel passages are identified in Kant's other writings, including his published works, Reflexionen, correspondence, and other lecture notes. These include references to the anthropology lecture notes compiled in Volume 25, thus making the commentary helpful for someone investigating shifts and developments in Kant's treatment of a given topic. The historical context is also quite helpful for understanding the very concepts of "anthropology" (49-63), "pragmatic" (53), and "application" (57). Brandt concludes that with regard to its sources, Kant's anthropology is a "literary anthropology" (85) and that its central thematic is "the human being as an acting being" (89).Brandt offers very interesting and helpful discussions of various topics, with helpful citations, which... (shrink)