Originally published in 1971, this volume examines the relationship between the history and sociology of education. History does not stand in isolation, but has much to draw from and contribute to, other disciplines. The methods and concepts of sociology, in particular, are exerting increasing influence on historical studies, especially the history of education. Since education is considered to be part of the social system, historians and sociologists have come to survey similar fields; yet each discipline appears to (...) have its own aims and methodology. (shrink)

Originally published in 1972, this book is concerned with education as part of a larger social history. Chapters include: The roots of Anglican supremacy in English education The Board schools of London The use of ecclesiastical records for the history of education Topographical resources: private and secondary education from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

There is a common tradition in European education going back to the Middle Ages which long played a part in providing the curriculum of schools which catered both for the wealthy and for able sons of less well-to-do families. Originally published in 1974, this volume examines the relationship between education and society in the different countries of Europe from which differences in tradition and practice emerge. The countries discussed include: France, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Poland and Sweden.

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works of (...) Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

Part of the educational system in England has been geared towards the preparation of particular professions, while the identity and status of members of some professions have depended significantly on the general education they have received. Originally published in 1973, this volume explores the interaction between education and the professions. It also looks at the education of the main professions in sixteenth century England and at how twentieth century university teaching is a key profession for the training of new recruits (...) to other professions. (shrink)

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

An Outline History of Chinese Philosophy has been jointly written and compiled by over 20 specialists and scholars from nine renowned universities in China, including Wuhan University and Sun Yat-sen University. It provides a concise introduction to the origin and development of Chinese philosophy from antiquity to 1949, the year the People's Republic of China was founded, expounding its status and features at different historical stages. It gives a historical and logical delineation of the development of Chinese philosophy by (...) highlighting its origin and development during the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the golden age of philosophical thought during the Warring States Period, and the strides made by the Chinese philosophical system from Qin-Han times to the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as new visions brought by social reforms since the mid-Ming Dynasty. This book presents readers with a detailed and accurate text, lucid discussions and simple explanations of complex ideas. It is not only a monograph with academic and textual value, but also a must-have for readers to better understand and study Chinese philosophy and culture. (shrink)

Andrew Cooper presents the first systematic study of Kant's account of natural history. Cooper contends that Kant made a decisive contribution to one of the most explosive and understudied revolutions in the history of science: the addition of time to the frame in which explanations are required, sought, and justified in natural science. Through addressing a wide range of Kant's works, Cooper challenges the claim that Kant's theory of science denies a developmental conception of nature and argues instead (...) that it establishes a method by which natural historians can genuinely dispute historical claims and potentially come to consensus. This method, Cooper argues, can be used to expose serious flaws in Kant's own historical reasoning, including the formation and defence of his racist views. The book will be valuable to philosophers seeking to discern both the power and limitations of Kant's theory of science, and to historians of science working on the fractured landscape of eighteenth-century Newtonianism. (shrink)

Kenneth Silver has recently argued that backwards causation is common in the context of social institutions. I consider this claim in detail and conclude that backwards causation is not the most plausible interpretation of what is going on in the cases Silver considers. Nonetheless, I show that these cases can teach us some interesting lessons about institutional facts. In particular, I argue that in order to avoid contradiction due to conflicting declarations in these cases, we must conclude that the properties (...) involved in institutional facts are relational properties. (shrink)

The conception of truth-making, albeit in a rudimentary form, could already be discerned in the writings of G. E. Moore and E. Husserl in the early 1900s. A few years later it was more extensively exploited by William James. It was Wittgenstein, however, who gave the concept a precise meaning. In 1913/1914 Wittgenstein advanced a theory of possible worlds, only one of which was real. Every proposition suggests a part of a possible world which does or does not correspond to (...) parts of the real world. In the first case the proposition is true, in the second case false. Moreover, the part of the real world makes the sentence true. This part is a truth-maker, and the sentence is a truth-bearer. Surprisingly enough, Wittgenstein’s concept of truth-making had its family resemblance with William James’s conception of truth. In 1915 Wittgenstein stopped using the concept of truth-making—it was also not men-tioned in the Tractatus. Unfortunately, Russell did not notice this and in 1918 he adopted the concept of truth-making. In the 1930s, it was used by some second generation analytic philosophers (Schlick, Stebbing, and Wisdom). However, it became rather popular among analytic philosophers only in the 1980s. (shrink)

The latest volume in the Cambridge Histories of Philosophy series, The Cambridge History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century brings together twenty-nine leading experts in the field and covers the years 1790-1870. Their twenty-seven chapters provide a comprehensive survey of the period, organizing the material topically. After a brief editor's introduction, it begins with three chapters surveying the background of nineteenth century philosophy: followed by two on logic and mathematics, two on nature and natural science, five on mind and (...) language, including psychology, the human sciences and aesthetics, four on ethics, three on religion, seven on society, including chapters on the French Revolution, the decline of natural right, political economy, and social discontent, and three on history, dealing with historical method, speculative theories of history and the history of philosophy. The essays are framed by an editor's introduction and a bibliography. (shrink)

The article examines Thomas Kuhn's work in the history of science with special attention to its relevance to subsequent developments in social epistemology. The article begins with a discussion of Kuhn's historical work, and the so-called historical turn in philosophy of science. It then examines Kuhn's views on textbook science, followed by an analysis of Kuhn's views on the relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of science. Then it discusses Kuhn's contributions to our understanding of (...) the social dimensions of scientific inquiry. Finally, it discusses his influence on the social epistemology of science and the sociology of science. (shrink)

This article argues for the recovery and re-incorporation of lost voices and debates into the history of political thought by focusing on the issue of sovereignty. It begins by examining why such a narrow understanding of the canon has come to dominate the sub-discipline and argues for critical approaches that treat the past as a “contested terrain” rather than an unfolding plot. It then turns to early twentieth-century Britain as an example of an era when thinkers who have been (...) largely forgotten by today’s political theorists argued loudly about the future of state sovereignty. It next focuses on a 1916 exchange of essays entitled “The Nature of the State in View of Its External Relations” by Delisle Burns, Bertrand Russell, and G.D.H. Cole, as an example of some of the most innovative and radical ideas to emerge from the period. The article concludes by arguing that re-engaging the work of these forgotten thinkers can broaden our conceptual horizons about sovereignty, speak to some of the most urgent issues of our time, and force open the concept of “the political” to radical reinterpretation. (shrink)

Although macroevolution has been the subject of sustained attention in the history and philosophy of science (HPS) community, only in recent years have science educators begun to more fully engage with the topic. This chapter first explores how science educators have conceptualized macroevolution and how their perspectives align with the views from HPS. Second, it illustrates how science educators’ limited engagement with HPS scholarship on macroevolution has influenced construct delineation, measurement instrument development, and educational arguments about which aspects of (...) macroevolution are most important for students to learn. Third, it discusses how scientific debates about the causal factors responsible for macroevolutionary patterns have been exploited by creationists and have impacted the teaching of evolution. Finally, it emphasizes that the rich perspectives that HPS has to offer on the important topic of macroevolution have yet to be integrated into science education scholarship. (shrink)

This new collection of essays by leading feminist critics highlights the fresh perspectives that feminism can offer to the discussion of past philosophers. Rather than defining itself through opposition to a "male" philosophical tradition, feminist philosophy emerges not only as an exciting new contribution to the history of philosophy, but also as a source of cultural self-understanding in the present.

However widely--and differently--Jacques Derrida may be viewed as a "foundational" French thinker, the most basic questions concerning his work still remain unanswered: Is Derrida a friend of reason, or philosophy, or rather the most radical of skeptics? Are language-related themes--writing, semiosis--his central concern, or does he really write about something else? And does his thought form a system of its own, or does it primarily consist of commentaries on individual texts? This book seeks to address these questions by returning to (...) what it claims is essential history: the development of Derrida's core thought through his engagement with Husserlian phenomenology. Joshua Kates recasts what has come to be known as the Derrida/Husserl debate, by approaching Derrida's thought historically, through its development. Based on this developmental work, Essential History culminates by offering discrete interpretations of Derrida's two book-length 1967 texts, interpretations that elucidate the until now largely opaque relation of Derrida's interest in language to his focus on philosophical concerns. A fundamental reinterpretation of Derrida's project and the works for which he is best known, Kates's study fashions a new manner of working with the French thinker that respects the radical singularity of his thought as well as the often different aims of those he reads. Such a view is in fact "essential" if Derrida studies are to remain a vital field of scholarly inquiry, and if the humanities, more generally, are to have access to a replenishing source of living theoretical concerns. (shrink)

When it was first published in France in 1961 as _Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la Folie à l'âge Classique_, few had heard of a thirty-four year old philosopher by the name of Michel Foucault. By the time an abridged English edition was published in 1967 as _Madness and Civilization_, Michel Foucault had shaken the intellectual world. This translation is the first English edition of the complete French texts of the first and second edition, including all prefaces and appendices, some (...) of them unavailable in the existing French edition. _History of Madness_ begins in the Middle Ages with vivid descriptions of the exclusion and confinement of lepers. Why, Foucault asks, when the leper houses were emptied at the end of the Middle Ages, were they turned into places of confinement for the mad? Why, within the space of several months in 1656, was one out of every hundred people in Paris confined? Shifting brilliantly from Descartes and early Enlightenment thought to the founding of the Hôpital Général in Paris and the work of early psychiatrists Philippe Pinel and Samuel Tuke, Foucault focuses throughout, not only on scientific and medical analyses of madness, but also on the philosophical and cultural values attached to the mad. He also urges us to recognize the creative and liberating forces that madness represents, brilliantly drawing on examples from Goya, Nietzsche, Van Gogh and Artaud. The _History of Madness_ is an inspiring and classic work that challenges us to understand madness, reason and power and the forces that shape them. (shrink)

The author analyses some problems discussed in the article of Vadim Mezhuev. He discusses the ways in which historians deal with their own scientific problems in the light of philosophical problems of sciences. According to Yu. Nikiforov, a philosopher can always talk about the future which is yet to come; a historian sees the future through the present of the processes which she describes. The author argues that a reconstruction of the past is always based on the knowledge of the (...) present. (shrink)

The prediction defended in this paper is that over the next fifty years we will see a return of the ancient tradition of “universal history”; but this will be a new form of universal history that is global in its practice and scientific in its spirit and methods. Until the end of the nineteenth century, universal history of some kind seems to have been present in most historiographical traditions. Then it vanished as historians became disillusioned with the (...) search for grand historical narratives and began to focus instead on getting the details right through document-based research. Today, however, there are many signs of a return to universal history. This has been made possible, at least in part, by the detailed empirical research undertaken in the last century in many different fields, and also by the creation of new methods of absolute dating that do not rely on the presence of written documents. The last part of the paper explores some of the possible consequences for historical scholarship of a return to a new, scientific form of universal history. These may include a closer integration of historical scholarship with the more historically oriented of the sciences, including cosmology, geology, and biology. Finally, the paper raises the possibility that universal history may eventually be taught in high schools, where it will provide a powerful new way of integrating knowledge from the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

Provides a brief account of trans philosophy organizing in the 2010s and argues for the importance of building spaces for trans philosophers.

Among his many accomplishments, Grosseteste is known for translating Greek philosophical, theological, and glossarial treatises into Latin, making them available for Latin readers. Three of these translations are nowadays studied for the Aristoteles Latinus project, which aims at making critical editions of all Greek-Latin medieval translations of Aristotle’s oeuvre. The goal of this contribution is to give an overview of the history of Robert Grosseteste’s translations of Aristotelian texts within the context of Aristoteles Latinus. The first part is devoted (...) to previous research on these translations and to a status quaestionis of current scholarship. The second part turns its focus to Grosseteste’s characteristic translation method. It offers new insights into the usual translation of certain smaller Greek words (such as particles and conjunctions) into Latin by Grosseteste, and what can set this translator apart from other medieval translators. (shrink)

Historical scholarship often relies on intermittent adjustments rather than radical innovation. Through a close reading of three different universal histories published between 1690 and 1760, this essay argues that the secularization of world history in the age of Enlightenment was an incomplete and often unintended process. Nonetheless, one of the most significant changes in this period was the centering of universal history in Europe, a process that accompanied the desacralization of the story of man. Once human progress was (...) embraced as a universal process, the story of the development of the arts and sciences gradually eclipsed the non-European cultures that had formerly played a central role in the Christian narrative of human history. (shrink)

The Genealogy takes a historical form. But does the history play an essential role in Nietzsche's critique of modern morality? In this essay, I argue that the answer is yes. The Genealogy employs history in order to show that acceptance of modern morality was causally responsible for producing a dramatic change in our affects, drives, and perceptions. This change led agents to perceive actual increases in power as reductions in power, and actual decreases in power as increases in (...) power. Moreover, it led agents to experience negative emotions when engaging in activities that constitute greater manifestations of power, and positive emotions when engaging in activities that reduce power. For these reasons, modern morality strongly disposes agents to reduce their own power. Given Nietzsche’s argument that power has a privileged normative status, these facts entail that we have a reason to reject modern morality. (shrink)

In the latest edition of their popular overview text, Erickson and Murphy continue to provide a comprehensive, affordable, and accessible introduction to anthropological theory from antiquity to the present.

This article reconstructs the forgotten friendship between Georges Bataille and the Russian émigré poet and philosopher Boris Poplavsky. Comparing their solar metaphysics, I focus on conceptions of friendship, sacrifice and depersonalisation. First, I retrace Bataille’s relationship to early Surrealis and Russian circles in interwar Paris, with a focus on his friendship with Irina Odoevtseva. I then offer a novel reading of Poplavsky’s poetry through the lens of Bataille’s philosophy, analysing a recurring motif that I call ‘dark solarity’. Uncovering a hidden (...) intertextual dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I argue for Poplavsky’s lasting impact on Bataille’s anti-Icarian sun cult. Finally, my paper demonstrates how Poplavsky’s writings on solar sacrifice, excess and friendship left marks on Bataille’s vision of a solar community, embodied in the secret society Acéphale. The dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I finally suggest, is a missing piece in the entangled history of Russian and French philosophy, as well as an original contribution to discourses on friendship in twentieth-century continental thought. (shrink)

This book deals with theoretical problems that arise at points of contact between the concerns of philosophers and historians about the practice of ...

This book is a treasure house of Italian philosophy. Narrating and explaining the history of Italian philosophers from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, the author identifies the specificity, peculiarity, originality, and novelty of Italian philosophical thought in the men and women of the Renaissance. The vast intellectual output of the Renaissance can be traced back to a single philosophical stream beginning in Florence and fed by numerous converging human factors. This work offers historians and philosophers a vast (...) survey and penetrating analysis of an intellectual tradition which has heretofore remained virtually unknown to the Anglophonic world of scholarship. (shrink)

This path-breaking book examines our attitudes to the senses from antiquity through to the present day.

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

This book is a groundbreaking history of balance, exploring how a new model of equilibrium emerged during the medieval period.

All speculations on «the meaning of history» are argued to exceed the epistemological capacities of historical science. Nevertheless, the author argues, such speculations are significant for a philosophy which treats historical development as a real phenomenon. For many philosophies of this sort, freedom of a human-being is the main goal of the historical process. The author notes that such «historical optimism» is in conflict historical practice. And he argues that it can be dangerous if transformed into a slogan.

I draw attention to one of the most important sources of Kuhn’s ideas in Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Contrary to the popular trend of focusing on external factors in explaining Kuhn’s views, factors related to his social milieu or personal experiences, I focus on the influence of the books and articles he was reading and thinking about in the history of science, specifically, sources in the history of chemistry. I argue that there is good reason to think that (...) the history of chemistry had a profound influence on Kuhn’s thinking, and what is remarkable is that this has eluded our attention for so long. I also argue that his interest in the history of chemistry was due to the influence of James B. Conant and Leonard Nash. (shrink)

Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935) served as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Erets Israel during the period of the British mandate. Rav Kook was a polymath, equally talented as a Talmudic legalist and rationalist philosopher, on the one hand, and as a mystic and poet, on the other. Today, we would say that he was both "left and right hemisphere." The present collection brings together in English translation Rav Kook's contributions to the field of Jewish history, though perhaps "historiosophy" (...) would be the better word. Rav Kook joins the ranks of those great Jewish thinkers who preceded him in interpretation of history: Maharal of Prague, Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and Zadok Hakohen of Lublin. If Rav Kook's philosophy were to be summed up in a single word, it would be: Kelaliyut or universality. Whereas most of us are held captive by individual events, Rav Kook has a great gift for the overview of history. He brings this gift to bear in his ability to provide perspective on the modern rebirth of Israel against the backdrop of mankind's ongoing spiritual evolution. In the latter regard, his vision has sometimes been compared to that of Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobido, or more recently Ken Wilber. Contained in this collection are Rav Kook's eulogy for Herzl and Rav Kook's remarks at the opening of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The essays are placed in historic context and provided with copious scholarly endnotes. (shrink)

It is known that the scale, size, form, and content of the world view is beyond calculation, expression and explanation, as it belongs to the world and to Man. Maybe it’s not even right to call it an event. The worldview combines the countless compatibility inherent in both the world and man, and at the same time, it distinguishes mother and child, as close as twins, native beings as far apart as heaven and earth. Worldview is a product of consciousness. (...) It is a system of relationships. An individual understands the world and the environment through worldview. On the other hand, a person is perceived according to his worldview. In the historical approach, the point of view is variable. Its objects are often outdated or rapidly updated. People are often judged according to the “oldness - newness” of their outlook. Since the worldview phenomenon is evaluated with different approaches (concepts of worldview) according to the requirements of the time, it is more deeply understood in relation to a person, especially a professional personality represented by full activity in a certain field. From this point of view, it is important to study the outlook of the genius scientist Lotfi A. Zadeh, who was born in Azerbaijan, benefit from the principles of history and modernity, outlook on life, and worldview. In the article “Worldview concept. History and modernity (in the context of Lotfi A. Zadeh’s world view)” we tried to analyze the world view of the genius scientist of Azerbaijani origin Lotfi A. Zadeh, who lived for 96 years, i.e. almost 1 century, and continued his scientific research. Thus, in the article, we determined the place of the concept of Worldview in History and Modern consciousness, and by comparing the scientifictheoretical aspects of this concept with Lotfi A. Zadeh’s worldview, we obtained new, relevant and important results. (shrink)

Mind and Rights combines historical, philosophical, and legal perspectives with research from psychology and the cognitive sciences to probe the justification of human rights in ethics, politics and law. Chapters critically examine the growth of the human rights culture, its roots in history and current human rights theories. They engage with the so-called cognitive revolution and investigate the relationship between human cognition and human rights to determine how insights gained from modern theories of the mind can deepen our understanding (...) of the foundations of human rights. Mind and Rights argues that the pursuit of the human rights idea, with its achievements and tragic failures, is key to understand what kind of beings humans are. Amidst ongoing debate on the universality and legitimacy of human rights, this book provides a uniquely comprehensive analysis of great practical and political importance for a culture of legal justice undergirded by rights. Matthias Mahlmann is University Professor, Chair of Philosophy and Theory of Law, Legal Sociology and International Public Law at the University of Zurich. (shrink)

Disgust (Ekel, dégoût) is a state of high alert. It acutely says "no" to a variety of phenomena that seemingly threaten the integrity of the self, if not its very existence. A counterpart to the feelings of appetite, desire, and love, it allows at the same time for an acting out of hidden impulses and libidinal drives. In Disgust, Winfried Menninghaus provides a comprehensive account of the significance of this forceful emotion in philosophy, aesthetics, literature, the arts, psychoanalysis, and theory (...) of culture from the eighteenth century to the present. Topics addressed include the role of disgust as both a cognitive and moral organon in Kant and Nietzsche; the history of the imagination of the rotting corpse; the counter-cathexis of the disgusting in Romantic poetics and its modernist appeal ever since; the affinities of disgust and laughter and the analogies of vomiting and writing; the foundation of Freudian psychoanalysis in a theory of disgusting pleasures and practices; the association of disgusting "otherness" with truth and the trans-symbolic "real" in Bataille, Sartre, and Kristeva; Kafka's self-representation as an "Angel" of disgusting smells and acts, concealed in a writerly stance of uncompromising "purity"; and recent debates on "Abject Art.". (shrink)

A good, single volume history of the philosophy of music would be nice to have, but I do not think that the book under review here is it. (Full disclosure: I am.

Kojin Karatani wrote the essays in _History and Repetition_ during a time of radical historical change, triggered by the collapse of the Cold War and the death of the Showa emperor in 1989. Reading Karl Marx in an original way, Karatani developed a theory of history based on the repetitive cycle of crises attending the expansion and transformation of capital. His work led to a rigorous analysis of political, economic, and literary forms of representation that recast historical events as (...) a series of repeated forms forged in the transitional moments of global capitalism. _History and Repetition_ cemented Karatani's reputation as one of Japan's premier thinkers, capable of traversing the fields of philosophy, political economy, history, and literature in his work. The first complete translation of _History and Repetition_ into English, undertaken with the cooperation of Karatani himself, this volume opens with his innovative reading of _The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte_, tracing Marx's early theoretical formulation of the state. Karatani follows with a study of violent crises as they recur after major transitions of power, developing his theory of historical repetition and introducing a groundbreaking interpretation of fascism (in both Europe and Japan) as the spectral return of the absolutist monarch in the midst of a crisis of representative democracy. For Karatani, fascism represents the most violent materialization of the repetitive mechanism of history. Yet he also seeks out singularities that operate outside the brutal inevitability of historical repetition, whether represented in literature or, more precisely, in the process of literature's demise. Closely reading the works of Oe Kenzaburo, Mishima Yukio, Nakagami Kenji, and Murakami Haruki, Karatani compares the recurrent and universal with the singular and unrepeatable, while advancing a compelling theory of the decline of modern literature. Merging theoretical arguments with a concrete analysis of cultural and intellectual history, Karatani's essays encapsulate a brilliant, multidisciplinary perspective on world history. (shrink)