The letter from Georges Florovsky to Davis McCaughey is a reflection after reading the Report The Era of Atomic Power: Report of a Commission (1946). Florovsky gives his own arguments against the development of research concerning nuclear weapons and their use. These include: treating an attempt at a technical transformation of the world as a human claim to put oneself in God’s place, i.e., to be a God-man. Another group of indictments against the use of the atomic bomb concerned (...) ethical issues and human responsibility for the war. Florovsky’s letter is his contribution to the discussion on the threat posed by the atomic bomb. (shrink)

© The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] edited volume is based on the proceedings of an international workshop held in 2009 on the theme of ‘Material Evidence and Narrative Sources’ during the fourteenth annual gathering of the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, focused on ‘Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of Islamic Societies’. Fifteen articles seek to (...) integrate material and textual evidence for the medieval and modern Middle East, deliberately adhering to a trend of interdisciplinarity that began in the 1970s, exemplified in the approach of specific studies by Michael Cook, Leor Halevi, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar, and Jacob Lassner, as well as in the recent publications of the editors, D. J. Talmon-Geller’s Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids... (shrink)

In a precarious occupation, martial arts instructors must be inspiring and build a shared philosophy. Drawing on Taijiquan and Capoeira, which have their philosophical or epistemological roots in Asia and Africa, this article explores core concepts that feature in students’ enculturation. These concepts are grounded in epistemologies contrasting with Papineau’s work on popular and elite sport, Knowing the Score. More specifically, the philosophical approach used builds upon Papineau’s chapters on focus, cheating and racism, although these martial practices are not grounded (...) in the Judeo-Christian Western epistemologies underlying Papineau’s thinking. Indeed, one of the attractions for Western Capoeira and Taijiquan students is precisely their “strange” or exotic philosophical concepts driving specific pedagogical practices. Ethnographic fieldwork in Britain and written and oral accounts of embodied expertise are used to explore the practical uses of these non-Western epistemologies by teachers to build shared cultures for their students. Specifically, we examine the concepts of axé (life force) and malicia (artful trickery) in Capoeira, noting its contrast to Western ideas of energy and fair play. We then examine Taijiquan and the concepts of song (鬆 or “letting go”) and ting (听 or “focused listening”), considering the movement skill of systematic relaxation and the focus on specific components of human anatomy and body technique among adults unlearning embodied tension built throughout their lives. We close with considerations for projects examining the diverse, alternative southern, non-Western, and potentially decolonial and subaltern epistemologies in such martial activities. (shrink)

The opening lines of Franz Delitzsch's Babel und Bibel offer an unusually frank confession of the personal and psychological motives that animated German orientalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For Delitzsch and countless others like him, orientalist scholarship provided an opportunity not just to expand their knowledge of the Near East and India, but also to explore the world of the Bible and, in doing so, effect a reckoning with the religious beliefs of their childhoods. In German (...) Orientalism in the Age of Empire, Suzanne Marchand opens up this scholarly world, exploring the criss-crossing forces and interests that shaped it, while effecting her own reckoning with orientalism as a historical and historiographical phenomenon. (shrink)

Some of the foremost living scholars in Islamic thought have come together to create a standard and definitive work on the subject of Islamic thought. Noted scholars from North America, Europe, and the Middle East offer new and generative interpretations of major themes in the field. They address perennial theological and philosophical questions: the nature of the God-head, the ultimate constitution of matter, the world's origin, causality, divine providence and the existence of evil, freedom and determinism, political wisdom, and (...) the reaches of human knowledge, The contributions include historical and analytical expositions of these issues in medieval Islam as well as discussions of individual thinkers, translations of Arabic texts with commentary, comparisons of Greek and Islamic thought, and bibliographical and textual sources. As a whole, these essays offer a wealth of philosophical, theological, bibliographical, philological, and historical information. Among the outstanding contributions are: an article by Charles Butterworth on Aristotle's rhetoric and how it was understood by al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes; Richard M. Frank's essay on the concepts of atoms and bodies, one of the most complex subjects in Islamic theology; and an article by Shams Inati on Ibn Sina and single expressions that discusses how language relates to mental processes and the unknown. Michael E. Marmura develops a new perspective on the subject of efficient causality, emphasizing the paradigmatic position of God's relationship to the world; Muhsin Mahdi analyzes a treatise of Averroes' that deals with the relationship between philosophy and law. (shrink)

In recent years an orthodox Marxist-Leninist ethics has been developing in the Soviet Union. It is metaphysically based, teleologically oriented, and objectivist in its claims. Soviet ethical writings encompass five different activities: description, interpretative classification, prescription, content-analysis, and refutation. Among the distinctive features of the new Soviet Moral Code are its requirement of devotion to the Communist cause, its exclusively social orientation, and its emphasis on work. Upon analysis it turns out to prescribe a completely externalized and provincial morality. A (...) comparison of Soviet ethics with recent ethical writings from other East-European countries, however, shows that Marxist ethics need not follow the Soviet pattern. (shrink)

Philosophical reflections on journeys and crossings, homes and habitats, have appeared in all major East Asian and Western philosophies. Landscape and travelling first emerged as a key issue in ancient Chinese philosophy, quickly becoming a core concern of Daoism and Confucianism. Yet despite the eminence of such reflections, Landscape and Travelling East and West: A Philosophical Journey is the first academic study to explore these philosophical themes in detail. Individual case studies from esteemed experts consider how philosophical thought (...) about places and journeys have inspired and shaped major intellectual and cultural traditions; how such notions concretely manifested themselves in Chinese art, particularly in the genres of landscape painting and garden architecture. The studies present a philosophical dialogue between Confucianism and Daoism on issues of social space and belonging and include discussion on travel and landscape in Buddhism as well as Japanese and Tibetan contexts. Approaching the topic from an inter-cultural perspectives, particularly East Asian philosophies, and using these to enrich contemporary reflections on space, the environment, and traversing, this unique collection adds an important voice to present philosophical, political, and cultural discourses. (shrink)

George Ohsawa's account of his 1955 visit to Dr. Albert Schweitzer's hospital in Africa and how he discovers a cure for deadly tropical ulcers followed by his teachings on the physical and mental aspects of disease, the traditional approach to healing versus the symptomatic medicine of today, and the priniciple of the unifying principle of yin and yang--the foundation of macrobiotics.

George Smith argues that modern humanity suffers from a late-stage, pre-fatal addiction to scientific-technological thinking. Like most pre-fatal addictions, this one will most likely result in one of three ways: misery, extinction, or human transformation. The question remains, wherein lies the third way? According to Smith, mankind's chronic and as yet undiagnosed sickness originates in early Western metaphysics and has long been thoroughly globalized. It explains unstoppable extractionism and its relentlessly increasing by-product, carbon dioxide. It also explains today's ever-increasing rate (...) of species extinction, and it explains the increasingly likely collapse of the biosphere. Citing climate change tolerance and denial as symptomatic of pre-fatal addiction, Smith turns his analysis to Heidegger's "question concerning technology" and shows that even Heidegger had become "hooked" on scientific-technological thinking. Surrendering to his disease, Heidegger "steps back" into "meditative thought." This in turn opens Heidegger to an East-West mode of scientific-poetic consciousness, the thinking of artist-philosophers such as Laozi, Hölderlin, and Rachel Carson. For Heidegger, this way of thinking lays the path to mankind's transformative emancipation from an otherwise inescapable catastrophe. The book will be of interest to scholars of the arts and culture, histories of consciousness, and climate studies. (shrink)

It appears likely that at its peak the classical economy was almost as large as that of Western Europe during the Industrial Revolution. The following review of the archeological and document evidence indicates that three events occurring in the first half of the first millennium BC trigger the emergence of a specialized and integrated classical economy after 500 BC: (i) growth in demand for silver as a medium of exchange in economies in the Near East; (ii) technical breakthroughs in (...) hull construction and sailing rig in merchant shipping of the late Bronze Age; (iii) perfection of ferrous metallurgy into the European hinterland. This last event raised agricultural productivity to a level capable of supporting the occupational specialization needed to sustain a vigorous trading economy. To these initial causes may be added the diffusion of alphabetic writing. While it did not create opportunities for long-distance trade, the diffusion of writing supplied the means of responding on a scale large enough economically to matter. (shrink)

From the standpoint of modern medicine, death is a failure—and one of the first things that we learn in the 2016 movie Doctor Strange is that Stephen Strange does not like to fail. Stephen Strange in many ways epitomizes the unflattering picture that the stereotypes paint of a spiritually desolate West. If the West is hyper‐rationalist and obsessed with subduing the forces of nature, the East of popular imagination is where one goes to gain the wisdom that begins with (...) surrendering control and accepting the limits of reason. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would say that the Hinterweltler's depiction of Dormammu and the nightmarish consequences of inviting him into this world reveal the hope for eternity to be grounded in a hatred of life. The sorcerer Kaecilius, rogue disciple and nemesis of the Ancient One, also aspires to “a world beyond time, beyond death”, where mortal beings can enjoy “eternal life as part of the one”. (shrink)

In the wider ecumenical movement, bearing witness to each other in true friendship is a creative gesture inspired by the Holy Spirit. It cuts across religious and denominational divides. The friendship between Gandhi and CF Andrews is invoked as an example of East and West bearing witness to each other. In ancient Asian religious context, mutual witnessing is extended to all sentient beings. From the Orthodox tradition three themes are highlighted as contributing to the Spirit-movement for mutual witness and (...) healing of divisions, namely, Theosis or divinization, the Perfecting work of the Holy Spirit and the Eighth Day. Humanity and the whole creation are involved in the process of divinization. Our mutual relationship is defined by this journey together. The Holy Spirit is continually renewing the creation which is pneumatodynamic, or energized by the Spirit from the beginning to the eschaton. Human beings as leaders and priests of creation are to respond to and cooperate in the perfecting work of the Spirit. The more we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit, the more united and reconciled in Christ we become. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:96 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the other hand, he tried like Ramsay to distinguish the "all being" of God from nature; he emphasized the doctrine of final causes and of God's "excellence" as man's chief end. It is possible that Edwards's enigmatic sermon on the Trinity may have been stimulated by Ramsay's speculation on this subject, though this is a mere guess. In any case, Ramsay must have made Edwards (...) aware of Berkeley, without converting him to the kind of pluralistic metaphysics which both Ramsay and Berkeley represent. Quite apart from the historical questions of influence and contacts among philosophers, Ramsay's work is a significant event in the history of ideas; it brings to direct collision the two extremes of the Enlightenment. It brings to life in the imagination of a reader today the basic philosophical issues of the eighteenth century and it makes them relevant to those aspects of the old problems that are central issues today. HERBERTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont, Cali/ornia THE ORIGINS OF MARXISM Interest in the philosophical origins of Marxism is currently so widespread as to constitute something of an intellectual phenomenon in its own right. That it denotes a shift of attention away from Marx's own emphasis on human prax~ as the cure for useless metaphysical agonies, the authors here under review would not deny. A tendency to see Marxism as an historicalphenomenon--thus applying to it the criterion of judgment inherent in Marx's own critique of his predecessors -is common to them all.Such an approach is proper to a postrevolutionary age, though this description may seem oddly chosen in view of the continuing turmoil that surrounds us. To describe the present age as postrevolutionary is after all to say no more than was implied by those nineteenth-century writers who looked back upon the French Revolution. If our situation today is similar, it does not follow that we are about to enter calmer waters, though for all one knows the East-West antagonism may gradually come to resemble the rather undramatic tension which characterized Anglo-French relations during the earlier part of the Victorian era. The Russian Revolution might then at last appear as a closed chapter, and Marx himself as its Rousseau: the philosopher of one particular historic upheaval whose consequences have now been absorbed. Such an attitude presupposes that one is not unduly concerned with the intellectual claims of Soviet Marxism but treats it as the ideology of a society which has not yet acquired a self-critical understanding of its own myths. This would be quite in tune with Marx's own approach, though hardly with the Leninist belief that the Russian Revolution represents the start of a new epoch: that of consciousness raised to the level of global reconstruction. For to say that the Bolsheviks, like the Jacobins before them, unwittingly prepared the way for a new exploitative society is to say that the enterprise was a failure. At the same time, recognition of this fact validates the Marxian insight into the peculiar NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 97 mechanism whereby history has hitherto managed to accomplish its real aims. Thus the critical, or "revisionist," Marxist is able to have it both ways. What prevents the writers under review from taking this easy way out is their concern with the philosophical origins of Marxism. If Marx had been content, like Weber and Pareto, to analyze the mechanism whereby society renews itself from time to time, his position would be unassailable, but by the same token he would simply be another scholar. The perennial interest of Marxism springs from that "union of theory and practice" of which Marx himself was the first and greatest exemplar. No one who has felt the spell of the Theses on Feuerbach or the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts can fail to inquire whether these writings may not outlast the dissolution of the scholastic system constructed by Engels and the epigoni. To say this is not to range oneself on the side of romanticism in its current quasi-anarchist form, which plainly corresponds to a loss of interest in politics. It is simply to acknowledge that thinking people will go on asking... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans H. Rudnick, (...) Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

The structure and organization of the Roman army is a complex subject for ancient historians. Of its multiple aspects, the schedule of the daily routine is one of the most interesting but, at the same time, is scarcely known. Of course, huge progress has been made with the publication of the daily rosters of one particular auxiliary unit in the East (cohors XX Palmyrenorum, at Dura, Syria), but the detail of the chronological organization of the unit's schedule is still (...) to be revealed. (shrink)

The move from the modern to the present requires a new paradigm for philosophical thought. The Eurocentric modern times were marked by individualism, objectivism, and a secularism. The encounter with the East now opens religious and interior horizons which for Huntington promised a clash of civilizations. The alternative for these global times is to broaden the philosophical paradigm by thinking now in terms of the whole, opening human subjectivity, and thereby enabling a hermeneutics of mutual understanding and cooperation for (...) a global community. (shrink)

Wang Yangming (1472-1529) and his School of Mind dominated the intellectual world of sixteenth-century Ming China (1368-1644), and his Confucian philosophy has since remained an essential component of East Asian philosophical discourse. Yet, the volume of publications on him in the Western-language literature has consistently paled in comparison to the volume of scholarship on classical Chinese philosophy, modern Chinese philosophy, Buddhism, and Daoism. Studying Wang Yangming: History of a Sinological Field explains the history of writing in the West about (...) the famed Ming dynasty scholar-official. From eighteenth-century French Jesuit books to English-language publications in 2020, this book provides a historical overview and summary of a literature published by scholars attempting to grapple with one of the most influential Confucians in the history of China, East Asia, and the world. (shrink)

The problematics of alienation have played a rather significant role in the discussions\nabout the sense and relevance of Marxism which have taken place in\nthe last twenty years. &dquo;Back to Marx&dquo; was at least one of the main slogans of\nthat ideological/intellectual movement, which evolved both in the East and\nWest from the mid-fifties and which is sometimes referred to as the trend of\n&dquo;humanist&dquo; Marxism. The idea of a &dquo;Marx-Renaissance&dquo; was undoubtedly\ndirected first of all against the completely petrified framework of institutionalized\nMarxism, turned (...) into a &dquo;religion of state&dquo; legitimating the domination\nof a bureaucratic apparatus over the population of East European societies.\nThe &dquo;rediscovery&dquo; and &dquo;rehabilitation&dquo; of the young Marx, the emphasis on\nthe continuity of his thought, meant not only a reintroduction of a number\nof categories, problems and ideas, which were thought fruitful in their critical\ninsight into contemporary conditions and which the impoverished and distorted\nversion of Marxism in official communist ideology (deliberately) failed\nto take into account: it also meant a global challenge to the appropriation of\nthe Marxian tradition by an apologetic ideology, which disguised its positivistic\ncontent through the form of an old-fashioned, dogmatic metaphysics; it\nwas an attempt to recover the critical/emancipatory meaning of this tradition\nwithin the realities of the twentieth century. It was in this context that the\nnotion of &dquo;alienation&dquo; again reappeared -- as a concept through which one\ncould articulate an attitude which was critical simultaneously of Western\ncapitalist and so-called &dquo;socialist&dquo; Eastern societies. Within the framework of\nEast European realities even the rather abstract character of this notion found\nin young Marx, was well suited to the theoretical vagueness and the practical\nlimitations of this new-found leftist criticism of home-societies. (shrink)

Contrary to many attempts to place Heidegger‘s thought back in the tradition of antihumanism, the author points out with particular reference to the Letter on Humanism that Heidegger, by passing through the classical concepts of humanism, hinted at a new and more profound understanding of humanism. In spite of having been subjected to a lot of critical questioning and criticism, the additional lure of Heidegger‘s thought-path – shown herein with reference to the indicated outstanding points – with its philosophical diction (...) lies in the fact that it opened the space for thought beyond the dichotomies of theory and practice, cognition and action, logic and ethics, thought and experience, which is becoming increasingly relevant for the present time, but which primarily because of the normatively induced and/or descriptively established thought style in most cases misses the dimension opened by Heidegger. The question still remains as to whether by way of Heidegger‘s thought‘s attempt one can arrive at a “conversation between worlds”, which is about the future of human encounter and consequently about the “interculturally anchored humanism”. Heidegger must have arrived at the boundaries of east-Asian thought, but he did not believe that a “fruitful interface” between west-European and Asian thought – one that would not entail only an understanding of “fundamental words” but primarily of “fundamental experiences” – was possible yet.Entgegen so manchem Versuch, Heideggers Denken in die Tradition eines Antihumanismus’ zurückzustellen, möchte ich unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seines Humanismusbriefes darlegen, dass Heidegger im Durchgang durch die klassischen Humanismuskonzepte ein neues und vertieftes Verständnis von „Humanismus“ entworfen hat. Der hier diesbezüglich an markanten Punkten nachgezeichnete Denkweg Heideggers besticht – trotz mancher kritischer Anfragen und Einwände – in seiner philosophischen Diktion nach wie vor auch dadurch, dass er einen Denkraum jenseits der Dichotomien von Theorie und Praxis, Erkennen und Handeln, Logik und Ethik, Denken und Erfahrung eröffnet hat, der heute zwar zunehmend wieder an Aktualität gewinnt, der aber aufgrund eines vornehmlich normativ induzierten und/oder deskriptiv angelegten Denkstils die von Heidegger eröffnete Dimension zumeist verfehlt. Gleichwohl bleibt kritisch zu fragen, ob man mit Heideggers Denkansatz bis zu einem „Gespräch zwischen den Welten“ gelangen kann, in dem es um die Zukunft menschlicher Begegnung, mithin einem „interkulturell verankerten Humanismus“ gehen wird. Gewiss ist Heidegger bis an die Grenzen etwa ostasiatischen Denkens gestoßen, allein eine auf Augenhöhe geführte „fruchtbare Auseinandersetzung“ zwischen westlich-europäischem und asiatischem Denken, wozu nicht nur das Erfassen der „Grundworte“, sondern dem voraus der Grunderfahrungen“ gehörte, schien ihm noch keine Möglichkeit zu sein.Nasuprot mnogim pokušajima da se Heideggerovo mišljenje vrati u tradiciju antihumanizma, želio bih u poglavitom osvrtu na njegovo Pismo o humanizmu izložiti da je Heidegger, prolazeći klasične koncepte humanizma, nabacio jedno novo i produbljenije razumijevanje humanizma. Heideggerov misaoni put, ovdje ocrtan u dotičnim markantnim točkama, – usprkos mnogim kritičkim propitivanjima i prigovorima – svojom filozofijskom dikcijom kao i uvijek zavodi također i time što je otvorio misaoni prostor s onu stranu dihotomija teorije i prakse, spoznaje i djelovanja, logike i etike, mišljenja i iskustva, koji danas istina rastuće dobiva na aktualnosti, ali zbog prvenstveno normativno inducirana i/ili deskriptivno postavljena stila mišljenja ponajčešće promašuje dimenziju koju je otvorio Heidegger. Pa ipak ostaje za pitati može li se s Heideggerovim misaonim pokušajem dospjeti do jednog “razgovora između svjetova”, u kojem se radi o budućnosti ljudskoga susreta, a time o “interkulturalno usidrenu humanizmu”. Zacijelo je Heidegger naišao na granice istočnoazijskoga mišljenja, no činilo mu se da još nije moguće “plodno sučeljavanje” između zapadno-europskog i azijskog mišljenja, kojemu ne bi pripadalo samo shvaćanje “temeljnih riječi, nego prije toga shvaćanje “temeljnih iskustava”. (shrink)

Germany was famously a latecomer to colonialism, but it was a hybrid empire, centrally involved in all forms of imperial activity. Germans dominated the early Holy Roman Empire; Germany after 1870 was a Reich, or empire, not a state in the conventional sense; and Germany had a colonial empire between 1884 and 1918. Prussia played the role of continental imperialist in its geopolitics vis-à-vis Poland and the other states to its east. Finally, in its Weltpolitik – its global policies (...) centered on the navy – Germany was an informal global imperialist. Although these diverse scales and practices of empire usually occupied distinct regions in the imaginations of contemporaries, there was one representational space in which the nation-state was woven together with empire in all its different registers: the Berlin trade exhibition of 1896. Because this exhibition started as a local event focused on German industry, it has not attracted much attention among historians of colonial and world fairs. Over the course of its planning, however, the 1896 exhibition emerged as an encompassing display of the multifarious German empire in all its geopolitical aspects. The exhibition attracted the attention of contemporaries as diverse as Georg Simmel and Kaiser Wilhelm. In contrast to Simmel and later theorists, I argue that it represented the empire and the nation-state, and not simply the fragmenting and commodifying force of capitalism. In contrast to Timothy Mitchell, I argue that the exhibit did not communicate a generic imperial modernity, but made visible the unique multi-scaled political formation that was the German empire-state. (shrink)

When Christiaan Huygens prepared the 1686/1687 expedition to the Cape of Good Hope on which his pendulum clocks were to be tested for their usefulness in measuring longitude at sea, he also gave instructions to Thomas Helder to perform experiments with the seconds-pendulum. This was prompted by Jean Richer's 1672 finding that a seconds-pendulum is 1 1/4 lines shorter in Cayenne than in Paris. Unfortunately, Helder died on the voy¬age, and no data from the seconds-pendulum ever reached Huygens. He nevertheless (...) did receive data from his clocks on the return-voyage from the Cape of Good Hope to Texel. When he first calculated the ship's course according to these data, it appeared to have gone straight through Ireland. He then tried introducing a correction to the data, based on an idea he had previously entertained as a possible explanation of Richer's finding: he corrected the observed time to com¬pen¬sate for a reduction in the effect of gravity from the Poles to the Equator resulting purely from the Earth's rotation. His newly calculated course convinced him that this rotational effect is the sole source of any variations in gravity with latitude. This paper examines Huygens's correc¬tions to the data and his reasoning from the new course to the conclusion that nothing else causes a variation in gravity. In the process, we show that Huygens had cogent empirical reasons to reject Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravity, which predicted a some¬what larger variation in gravity. (shrink)

The present article constitutes an attempt to analyse the historical causes of the present crisis affecting the Arab world and the failure to build modern states in this region. It has to be noticed that from the three main ethnic groups constituting the pillars of the Middle East, i.e. the Persians, the Arabs and the Turks, the Arab failure and the generalization of violence in Arab societies and between Arab states is to be adequately analysed in order to be (...) able to contribute to peace, reform and a dignified life for Arab citizens. Different historical factors are identified in the article, some of them internal to Arab societies, but inextricably linked to massive foreign interferences in the region. The last of these interferences are linked to the instrumentalization of religion in the last period of the cold war in order to stop the extension of Soviet and communist influence in the Arab and Muslim world. Since then, this use of religion for political purpose in the conflicts about supremacy in the region has destroyed ethics and citizenship and given rise to generalized violence and acts of terrorism, in addition to other economic and social factors that are identified in the article. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 583-584.