The Disney vacation is iconic in American culture. Advertising promises people that a trip to Disney will bring adventure, family togetherness, and even happiness itself. To understand why someone might see Disney as “the ultimate embodiment of consumer society,” the authors can start with Karl Marx. It might be helpful to temporarily forget everything one has heard about Marx, because what counts as “Marxism” in mainstream culture is often just a caricature of an interesting and wide‐ranging philosophy. From Herbert (...) Marcuse's perspective, people could say that the American culture industry tells them via media and advertising that they need to take their families to Disney so that they can be happy. Disney's emphasis on including everyone and experiencing things together as a family challenges the alienation in relationships people so often encounter. Disney can provide an opportunity for exploring their relationships outside of their everyday alienations. (shrink)

In this article, I will investigate Sartre's claims regarding need as an element of the human condition, and I will compare them to the analysis of need found in the works of Marx and of Herbert Marcuse. These comparisons will raise important questions, such as: given the cultural diversity of experiences of need, is Sartre justified in speaking of needs common to all humans? Are these human needs to be considered permanent fixtures, or do they change historically? And, how (...) might this affect their status as fundamental and truly human? Finally, is it even possible for us to recognize our real human needs, and to distinguish them from artificially created and alienated false "needs," while we exist in what Sartre identifies as the current state of subhumanity? (shrink)

In this article, I will investigate Sartre's claims regarding need as an element of the human condition, and I will compare them to the analysis of need found in the works of Marx and of Herbert Marcuse. These comparisons will raise important questions, such as: given the cultural diversity of experiences of need, is Sartre justified in speaking of needs common to all humans? Are these human needs to be considered permanent fixtures, or do they change historically? And, how (...) might this affect their status as fundamental and truly human? Finally, is it even possible for us to recognize our real human needs, and to distinguish them from artificially created and alienated false "needs," while we exist in what Sartre identifies as the current state of subhumanity? (shrink)

This book examines successive stages in the development of the thought of Sir Herbert Butterfield in relation to fundamental issues in the science of history. In a carefully nuanced way it lays bare the unspoken motivations and hidden tensions in Butterfield's debate with himself and with a host of contemporary historians in the period between 1924-79.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 64.4 (2003) 599-618 [Access article in PDF] The "Herbert Butterfield Problem" and its Resolution Keith C. Sewell Dordt College Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) 1 published The Whig Interpretation of History in 1931, a year after he became a Lecturer in the University of Cambridge. 2 He became Professor of Modern History in the university in 1944, the same year in (...) which he published The Englishman and His History. 3 This discussion addresses what J.G.A. Pocock referred to as das Herbert Butter-fieldproblem—that is, the problem of ascertaining the precise relationship between the arguments presented in these volumes. 4The Whig Interpretation of History of 1931 (hereafter, The Whig Interpretation) was a sustained critique of the motivation, methods and fallacious conclusions of the "Whig" practice of staging historiographical narratives anachronistically so as to produce a ratification of the present, or justification of a position currently espoused by the author. 5 The term "Whig," as Butterfield used it in 1931, referred to the nineteenth-century school of historiography that praised "progress," "protestantism," and "liberty" and that generally attributed the triumph of such principles to the beliefs and activities of generations of Whig politicians. 6 [End Page 599]The Whig Interpretation argued that the judgments concerning both progressive and reactionary individuals and movements in Whig historiography were anachronistic, in that they were based on general propositions held by the Whig historian in the present. To correct this error Butterfield argued that historiography should not be based upon any general propositions. Basing historiographical narratives on general propositions purporting to be of universal and unchanging validity was seen as inevitably placing them on an anachronistic basis. In The Whig Interpretation Butterfield required the historian to represent past "life itself " but to avoid doing so on the basis of a view or "interpretation" of past human experience and action. Historiographical narration should be free of any interpretative standpoint and equally open to any possible subsequent interpretation. For Butterfield "the historian carries us away from the world of general ideas. It is not for him to give a philosophical explanation of what happens in time and space"; "any history that he writes ought to be as capable of varied philosophical interpretation as life itself seems to be... the historian's explanation... is not a piece of general reasoning," and "if at any point we need further elucidation all that he can do is to take us into greater detail." 7 It seems appropriate to refer to this as Butterfield's "neutrality postulate." Butterfield subsequently used the term "technical history" to denote this methodological concept. 8As might be expected, such a neutrality postulate was replete with problems, however valid Butterfield's strictures towards Whig historiographical anachronism. How is the historian to abridge for the purposes of narration and explanation without interpreting? Butterfield argued that we are right to demand of the historian that "he shall not change the meaning and purport of the historical story in the mere act of abridging it." No theory should intrude. As the detailed complexity is abridged, there should be no loss of "the purport and tenor of the whole." 9 Abridgment was to be accomplished without interpretative perspective, even though sympathy and imagination are indispensable. 10 Such was Butterfield's prescribed antidote. Yet the exercise he recommended requires more than a specific statement of the concrete, the individual, and the particular. It also requires a general idea of the "meaning" of "the whole" that the historian is called upon not to distort. Indeed, Butterfield drew attention to the basis of his historical thinking when he asserted that while historical research does not provide proof of the existence of a providential order, it nevertheless provides evidence of how profound and mysterious are its workings. 11In The Whig Interpretation no attempt was made to reconcile the advocacy of a non-interpretative neutrality dealing exclusively with the individual, the [End Page 600] concrete and the particular, and Butterfield's actual belief in a providential order to which the historical process is subject. After 1931... (shrink)

At the center of this important writer’s thought lies a paradox in his constant implicating of ethical norms in historical writing while simultaneously deriding all forms of moral judgment in history. This article investigates the relationship between Butterfield’s ethics and his religion in order to suggest ways of resolving the paradox. It focuses on his unconventional style of Augustinianism and the levels of historical analysis involved in what he called “technical history,” on the one hand, and his own search (...) for a history that went beyond it, on the other, during a century that threw up particular challenges in barbarous war and genocide. The project requires some consideration of Butterfield’s own substantive historical writing against the background of such events, but also silhouettes something more decisive: the degree to which he came to see the enterprise of historiographical analysis as itself ethical. What emerges from the argument is a framework within which Butterfield’s search for meaning in the past can be laid beside his hostility to moral judgments of past actors on the part of historians without the contradictions that are often assumed. A further implication of the study is that Butterfield was often his own worst enemy in conflating distinctions that he himself had made and blurring lines of argument that demanded sharp separation. (shrink)

Why is Butterfield's best-seller The Origins of Modern Science (1949) such a powerful big picture, nearly impossible to move away from? Considered in the context of his life, the contrast between his attacks on Whig history and the contents of his best-seller reveals that his big picture of science continues at the centre because of his spiritual beliefs and practices. Butterfield did not make explicit his Christian (Methodist) world view to his history of science readers, although one could (...) infer this from his point that Christianity and the Scientific Revolution were the most significant events in universal history, transcending cultural boundaries. As long as Christian beliefs and practices continue to be at the centre of Western Society, so will Butterfield's big picture be at the centre. Western society is a Christian civilization. For Butterfield, the meaning of history is Christianity and The Origins of Modern Science is very much a Christian statement of the evolution of knowledge acquisition in Western society. To de-centre The Origins would require first a de-centred view of Christianity. (shrink)

Sir Herbert Butterfield was one of the leading British historians of the twentieth century. A diplomatic historian by training, he branched out into a variety of fields including historiography, the history of science and international theory. The International Thought of Sir Herbert Butterfield brings together material from Butterfield's previously unpublished papers and a critical commentary from two leading Butterfield scholars: Sharp and Schweizer. They recover Butterfield's contribution to international thought, particularly his role as (...) a founding member of the British Committee on the theory of international politics (also known as the English School). (shrink)

(2012). The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield: History, Science and God. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 232-235. doi: 10.1080/02698595.2012.703485.

We discuss from a philosophical perspective the way in which the normal concept of time might be said to `emerge' in a quantum theory of gravity. After an introduction, we briefly discuss the notion of emergence, without regard to time. We then introduce the search for a quantum theory of gravity ; and review some general interpretative issues about space, time and matter. We then discuss the emergence of time in simple quantum geometrodynamics, and in the Euclidean approach. Section 6 (...) concludes. (shrink)

We have two aims. The main one is to expound the idea of renormalization in quantum field theory, with no technical prerequisites. Our motivation is that renormalization is undoubtedly one of the great ideas—and great successes--of twentieth-century physics. Also it has strongly influenced in diverse ways, how physicists conceive of physical theories. So it is of considerable philosophical interest. Second, we will briefly relate renormalization to Ernest Nagel's account of inter-theoretic relations, especially reduction. One theme will be a contrast between (...) two approaches to renormalization. The old approach, which prevailed from ca. 1945 to 1970, treated renormalizability as a necessary condition for being an acceptable quantum field theory. On this approach, it is a piece of great good fortune that high energy physicists can formulate renormalizable quantum field theories that are so empirically successful. But the new approach to renormalization explains why the phenomena we see, at the energies we can access in our particle accelerators, are described by a renormalizable quantum field theory. For whatever non-renormalizable interactions may occur at yet higher energies, they are insignificant at accessible energies. Thus the new approach explains why our best fundamental theories have a feature, viz. renormalizability, which the old approach treated as a selection principle for theories. That is worth saying since philosophers tend to think of scientific explanation as only explaining an individual event, or perhaps a single law, or at most deducing one theory as a special case of another. Here we see a framework in which there is a space of theories. And this framework is powerful enough to deduce that what seemed “manna from heaven” is to be expected: the good fortune is generic. We also maintain that universality, a concept stressed in renormalization theory, is essentially the familiar philosophical idea of multiple realizability; and that it causes no problems for reductions of a Nagelian kind. (shrink)

This paper expounds the modern theory of symplectic reduction in finite-dimensional Hamiltonian mechanics. This theory generalizes the well-known connection between continuous symmetries and conserved quantities, i.e. Noether's theorem. It also illustrates one of mechanics' grand themes: exploiting a symmetry so as to reduce the number of variables needed to treat a problem. The exposition emphasises how the theory provides insights about the rotation group and the rigid body. The theory's device of quotienting a state space also casts light on philosophical (...) issues about whether two apparently distinct but utterly indiscernible possibilities should be ruled to be one and the same. These issues are illustrated using ``relationist'' mechanics. (shrink)

These nine essays address fundamental questions about time in philosophy, physics, linguistics, and psychology. Are there facts about the future? Could we affect the past? In physics, general relativity and quantum theory give contradictory treatments of time. So in the current search for a theory of quantum gravity, which should give way: general relativity or quantum theory? In linguistics and psychology, how does our language represent time, and how do our minds keep track of it?

Abstract:This field survey focused on two constructs that have been developed to represent the ethical context in organizations: ethical climate and ethical culture. We first examined issues of convergence and divergence between these constructs through factor analysis and correlational analysis. Results suggested that the two constructs are measuring somewhat different, but strongly related dimensions of the ethical context. We then investigated the relationships between the emergent ethical context factors and an ethics-related attitude (organizational commitment) and behavior (observed unethical conduct) for (...) respondents who work in organizations with and without ethics codes. Regression results indicated that an ethical culture-based dimension was more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in code organizations while climate-based dimensions were more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in non-code organizations. Ethical culture and ethical climate-based factors influenced organizational commitment similarly in both types of organizations. Normative implications of the study are discussed, as are implications for future theorizing, research and management practice. (shrink)

The hundred years covered by this book, from the death of Hegel to the establishment of the Third Reich, is often regarded as the heyday of German philosophy, of metaphysics in the grand style and of what J. S. Mill characterised as 'the German or a priori view of human knowledge'. Yet apart from selective attention to individual figures, such as Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Husserl or Heidegger, little is known by English-speaking philosophers of most of the animating concerns and continuing traditions (...) of German philosophy of the time. This book sets out to present a detailed history of the period, adopting a thematic approach which emphasises the more distinctive German approach. It is hoped that the growing but piecemeal interest in German philosophy will be both stimulated and consolidated by this book, which should also interest individuals working in related areas such as the history of ideas, religious studies and the history of science. (shrink)

This volume consists of a collection of articles published by Spencer in leading Victorian periodicals, such as The Westminster Review, The Fortnightly Review and Mind. The wide range of subjects explored includes science, philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, psychology and politics.

We discuss scientific realism from the perspective of modern cosmology, especially primordial cosmology: i.e. the cosmological investigation of the very early universe. We first state our allegiance to scientific realism, and discuss what insights about it cosmology might yield, as against "just" supplying scientific claims that philosophers can then evaluate. In particular, we discuss: the idea of laws of cosmology, and limitations on ascertaining the global structure of spacetime. Then we review some of what is now known about the early (...) universe : meaning, roughly, from a thousandth of a second after the Big Bang onwards. The rest of the paper takes up two issues about primordial cosmology, i.e. the very early universe, where "very early" means, roughly, much earlier than one second after the Big Bang: say, less than 10^{-11} seconds. Both issues illustrate that familiar philosophical threat to scientific realism, the under-determination of theory by data---on a cosmic scale. The first issue concerns the difficulty of observationally probing the very early universe. More specifically, the difficulty is to ascertain details of the putative inflationary epoch. The second issue concerns difficulties about confirming a cosmological theory that postulates a multiverse, i.e. a set of domains each of whose inhabitants cannot directly observe, or otherwise causally interact with, other domains. This again concerns inflation, since many inflationary models postulate a multiverse. For all these issues, it will be clear that much remains unsettled, as regards both physics and philosophy. But we will maintain that these remaining controversies do not threaten scientific realism. (shrink)