In his Analytical Philosophy of History A. C. Danto suggests that the main difference between an Ideal Chronicle (i.e. an account of events that is contemporaneous and exhaustive) and a History is that the Chronicle cannot by its nature treat adequately the significance of the events it describes. For, Danto claims, events derive significance from their relations with other events, including those that are future to themselves, and this latter type of significance cannot be described in a (...) Chronicle since it would involve knowledge of the future. In the following discussion it is suggested that the difference between Ideal Chronicles and Histories, if it exists, cannot be the one suggested by Danto. It is claimed that all significance-giving relations are fully described in a Chronicle and that it is only by the order of its material that it differs from a History. (shrink)

The very idea of narrative explanation invites two objections: a methodological objection, stating that narrative structure is too far from the form of a scientific explanation to count as an explanation, and a metaphysical objection, stating that narrative structure situates historical practice too close to the writing of fiction. Both of these objections, however, are illfounded. The methodological objection and the dispute regarding the status of historical explanation can be disposed of by revealing their motivating presupposition: the plausibility of an (...) exclusivist explication of explanation which appeals either to the unity-of-method thesis or some implicit notion of analytic equivalence, both problematic philosophical doctrines. The metaphysical objection fails with the rejection of the idea, in Mink's phrase, of an "untold story." The argument against history as an "untold story" develops from Danto's image of an Ideal Chronicler recording ideal events. A consequence of rejecting this view is that it no longer makes sense to speak of historical narratives as true or false. However, this failure engenders no special problem for assessing the objectivity or explanatory utility of narratives qua explanations. (shrink)

In a book that first appeared in 1965 entitled Analytical Philosophy of History, Arthur Danto argues that historical inquiry cannot be conceived as an attempt to reconstruct the past along the lines of an "ideal chronicler." The ideal chronicler "knows whatever happens the moment it happens, even in other minds. He is also to have the gift of instantaneous transcription: everything that happens across the whole forward rim of the Past is set down by him, as it happens (...) the way it happens." Historians cannot aspire to this ideal because they inevitably use what Danto calls "narrative sentences," that is, sentences that describe one event by referring to one or more later events. For example, "The Thirty Years War began in 1618" is a sentence typical of historical inquiry but unavailable to the chronicler because it goes beyond what could have been known at the time it occurred, that is, that the war was to last thirty years. Danto reasons that because of the indispensability of narrative sentences to historical understanding, we can never give a complete description of past events since this presupposes knowledge of all relevant later events. The consequence is that our descriptions of past events will inevitably change as history unfolds. This discovery is remarkable and incontrovertible: descriptions of past historical events will and must always be reconceived not just because of the unearthing of new documents or the changing interests of the historian but because of the peculiar narrative structure of historical understanding. (shrink)

Arthur Danto invokes his philosophy of history to authorize a reading of Nietzsche that his philosophy of history nevertheless undermines. Danto's Nietzsche was a system builder, for, “if only tacitly,” he submitted his thinking to the demands of the philosophical “discipline,” “where there is no such thing as an isolated solution to an isolated problem”. In his Analytical Philosophy of History, Danto invents a character he dubs “the Ideal Chronicler.” Danto's notion of a narrative sentence clarifies his idea that (...) historical understanding is retrospective; that it is a matter of assigning significance to earlier events in light of later ones – thus, a matter of placing earlier events within a story we wish to tell. Danto attributes the structural coherence of Nietzsche's writings both to historical understanding and to the systematizing tendencies of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Arthur C. Danto’s Analytical Philosophy of History has a Kantian ambition: to state the conditions that make historical knowledge possible and to show “the unhappy destiny” that attends attempts to extend modes of representation beyond these conditions. Even though Danto’s book fails to achieve this ambition, it succeeds in making a number of important—if neglected—suggestions in the course of its attempt. One concerns the significance of the progressive tense for our thinking about human agency. Another concerns the way agency can (...) impact negatively on the possibility of foreknowledge. (shrink)

Despite ideals of philosophical objectivity, who speaks is as important as what is said, and those who fall outside the Eurocentric male norm often are not heard or invited to participate in theorizing. New work chronicling and challenging the creation of white supremacist ideology in philosophy is needed greatly. In this important book, Another Mind-Body Problem: A History of Racial Non-Being, John Harfouch reveals the hermeneutical injustice that obscures how professional philosophers understand the mind-body problem today and how the terms (...) of that problem were created in the early modern period. Unlike the puzzle of causal relations between the mind and body canonized by white philosophers... (shrink)

Rosenberg was a chronicler and a good one, yet much of his inner dialogue was not with the present so much as the omnipresent artistic past. The central question, posed early in his life, concerned a man's individuality. Dostoyevsky had called it his "dearest" possession. At no time, even in his Marxist youth, did Rosenberg relinquish his vision of the individual as the central, most important player in any drama. Rosenberg was positively possessed with Dostoyevsky's doubts. One can hear the (...) rant of the man from the underground repeatedly in Rosenberg's written works—the stubborn hero who maintains the right even to be absurd and to "desire for himself what is positively harmful and stupid" if he claims it as a right. The right of the individual to live up to man's nature which, as Dostoyevsky said, "acts as one whole, with everything in it, conscious or unconscious" was Rosenberg's most consistent ideal. The individual he most admired, both in himself and in others, was the artist. But only in spite of everything. No one was more alert to the tartufferie that bedevils the world of the artist. Rosenberg craved sincerity with the same kind of passion for it he had found in Dostoyevsky. Art and artifact would not be a substitute for ethics and hard thought. Rosenberg's deepest conviction is revealed in his 1960 essay, "Literary Form and Social Hallucination," which begins with Dostoyevsky complaining about literature that does not lead to truth. Dore Ashton, professor of art history at The Cooper Union, is the author of numerous works, includingArt Before Columbus, Poets and the Past, A Reading Of Modern Art, and, most recently, A Fable of Modern Art. Her previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "No More than an Accident?" appeared in the Winter 1976 issue. (shrink)

A compelling investigation into one of the most coveted and cherished ideals, "Wisdom" also chronicles the efforts of modern science to penetrate the mysterious nature of this timeless virtue.

Over a span of thirty years, twentieth-century French philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida held a conversation across texts. Sharing a Jewish heritage and a background in phenomenology, both came to situate their work at the margins of philosophy, articulating this placement through religion and literature. Chronicling the interactions between these thinkers, Sarah Hammerschlag argues that the stakes in their respective positions were more than philosophical. They were also political. Levinas's investments were born out in his writings on Judaism and (...) ultimately in an evolving conviction that the young state of Israel held the best possibility for achieving such an ideal. For Derrida, the Jewish question was literary. The stakes of Jewish survival could only be approached through reflections on modern literature's religious legacy, a line of thinking that provided him the means to reconceive democracy. Hammerschlag's reexamination of Derrida and Levinas's textual exchange not only produces a new account of this friendship but also has significant ramifications for debates within Continental philosophy, the study of religion, and political theology. (shrink)

Working from the concept of cosmopolitanism and incorporating textual evidence from philosophy, drama of the English Renaissance, seventeenth-century travel narratives, and eighteenth-century literature, The Cosmopolitan Evolution, explores the interactions between the European consciousness and the foreign. The book also chronicles the development of cosmopolitanism from a form of representative universalism, which seeks to enfold all humans under on ideal, towards complex universalism, which seeks to account for alternate and particular views.

Working from the concept of cosmopolitanism and incorporating textual evidence from philosophy, drama of the English Renaissance, seventeenth-century travel narratives, and eighteenth-century literature, The Cosmopolitan Evolution, explores the interactions between the European consciousness and the foreign. The book also chronicles the development of cosmopolitanism from a form of representative universalism, which seeks to enfold all humans under on ideal, towards complex universalism, which seeks to account for alternate and particular views.

The Disputation or Cathechesis of Tortosa with its sixty-nine sessions (February 7, 1413-November 12, 1413) was the longest of the Jewish Christian encounters in the Middle Age. Stirred by the Avignonesian Pope Benedict XIII, Geronimo de Sancta Fide, olim Yehoshua ha-Lorki, summoned a group of Catalan and Aragonese rabbis to inform them that the Messiah was already came. Not only the Papal notaries recorded the excruciating debates, but also two Hebrew sources: the anonymous and fragmentary letter published by Halberstam in (...) 1868 and the chapter 40 of the Shebet Yehuda. They encompass the first nine sessions carried out orally, before the Pope requested for written texts to be debated lately. Since these sources disagree on many details, this paper aims at examining them anew. That examination has shown that the anonymous account is more accurate than the fictional report of the Shebet Yehuda as far as the internal chronology of the sessions, the speeches of the Jewish delegates and their identities are concerned. The internal evidence leads us to subscribe with Riera i Sans in ascribing its authorship to Bonastruc Desmestre from Girona, who was at Tortosa on request of the Pope. He probably knew other Jewish chronicle and added some new materials from the Vikkuach Ramban, Salomon Ibn Verga, the author of Shebet Yehuda, built upon this chronicle and created a fictional account around Vidal Benveniste or the ‘ideal’ portrait of the Pope and added some materials from the Latin Protocols or from unknown Jewish sources. (shrink)

This classic biography of Nietzsche, first published in the 1960s, was enthusiastically reviewed at the time. The biography is now reissued with its text updated in the light of recent research. Hollingdale's biography remains the single best account of the life and works for the student or non-specialist. The biography chronicles Nietzsche's intellectual evolution and discusses his friendship and breach with Wagner, his attitude towards Schopenhauer, and his indebtedness to Darwin and the Greeks. It follows the years of his maturity (...) and his mental collapse in 1889. The final part of the book considers the development of the Nietzsche legend during his years of madness. R. J. Hollingdale, one of the preeminent translators of Nietzsche, allows Nietzsche to speak for himself in a translation that transmits the vividness and virtuosity of Nietzsche's many styles. This is the ideal book for anyone interested in Nietzsche's life and work to learn why he is such a significant figure for the development of modern thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Environmental Virtue EthicsChristopher Freiman (bio)Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro. New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 240. ISBN 0-7425-3389-1 (hardback), $75.00; ISBN 0-7425-3390-5 (paperback) $28.95.For most of its life, environmental ethics has been the province of consequentialism and deontology. But a growing number of environmental ethicists have found these act-centered theories too thin and limited to attend to the complexity of (...) ecological problems. Some see virtue ethics as promising a richer and more muscular approach to environmental ethics. The new anthology Environmental Virtue Ethics delivers on this promise.The book, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, features fourteen selections—ten original contributions and four reprints of classic papers. The basic theme of environmental virtue ethics as a theory and Environmental Virtue Ethics as a volume is not that the environment is a bearer of rights or source of intrinsic value, but that an appreciation of nature is an ingredient in a happy and flourishing life. Virtue ethics considers character to be a central ethical concern and a critical part of living well. Rather than ask, as deontologists and utilitarians might, "What should I do?," virtue ethicists ask, "What should I be?"According to the first section of the book, environmental ethicists have implicitly been asking themselves this question for years. The first [End Page 133] two articles form a virtual genealogy of environmental virtue ethics, as Louke van Wensveen and Philip Cafaro examine virtue ethics' hidden role in the development of modern environmental ethics. Cafaro presents an account of historical exemplars of environmental virtue. Wensveen argues that the seeming poverty of "ecological virtue language" is partly due to environmental ethics' evolution within a specific cultural niche. Environmental ethics traditionally grappled with questions of practical political and legal import. As a result, the discipline adapted to the problems of rights and costs and benefits rather than character and human flourishing. Wensveen quips, "I imagine that appealing to a chemical company's love of nature in a court of law would be as effective as appealing to an ex-spouse's love of his or her children in a child custody case" (17). Nonetheless, Wensveen chronicles how virtue language has crept, largely unnoticed, into the environmental ethical dialogue.The second part focuses on the theoretical dimensions of environmental virtue ethics. The authors explore the ways in which virtue ethics can offer a fresh perspective on perennial environmental ethical questions. Thomas Hill's seminal "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments" is a welcome inclusion. Hill inspires the movement to environmental virtue theorizing when he advises us to ask not simply, "What interests or rights are at stake when one destroys the natural environment?" but also, "What sort of person would do such a thing?" Indeed, we might view this entire volume as an extended attempt to answer to Hill's question.The next part of the book investigates the problems of defining environmental virtue and distinguishing it from anthropocentric virtue. The fourth and final section applies environmental virtue theory to specific ecological problems. The two articles, written by Peter Wenz and Ronald Sandler, use the virtue ethical framework to interrogate the morality of consumerism and genetically modified crops, respectively. This final section helps to allay an enduring criticism of virtue ethics as a whole: that it cannot be applied to real world problems. Sandler's piece in particular profitably uses the tools of virtue ethics to critically reflect upon both the moral problems raised by genetically modified crops and their proposed resolutions.The role of enlightened self-interest in environmental ethics is a recurrent theme. Against a public dialogue that pits human interests and [End Page 134] ecological interests in conflict, this book is refreshing reminder that human flourishing and ecological flourishing are not enemies. Human interests, properly understood, are in harmony with the interests of the environment. We ought to view our relationship with nature as positive-sum.This positive-sum outlook permeates Philip Cafaro's piece, "Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy: An Exploration of Environmental Vice." Cafaro forcefully argues that the vices that hinder human flourishing also hinder... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Environmental Virtue EthicsChristopher Freiman (bio)Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro. New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 240. ISBN 0-7425-3389-1 (hardback), $75.00; ISBN 0-7425-3390-5 (paperback) $28.95.For most of its life, environmental ethics has been the province of consequentialism and deontology. But a growing number of environmental ethicists have found these act-centered theories too thin and limited to attend to the complexity of (...) ecological problems. Some see virtue ethics as promising a richer and more muscular approach to environmental ethics. The new anthology Environmental Virtue Ethics delivers on this promise.The book, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, features fourteen selections—ten original contributions and four reprints of classic papers. The basic theme of environmental virtue ethics as a theory and Environmental Virtue Ethics as a volume is not that the environment is a bearer of rights or source of intrinsic value, but that an appreciation of nature is an ingredient in a happy and flourishing life. Virtue ethics considers character to be a central ethical concern and a critical part of living well. Rather than ask, as deontologists and utilitarians might, "What should I do?," virtue ethicists ask, "What should I be?"According to the first section of the book, environmental ethicists have implicitly been asking themselves this question for years. The first [End Page 133] two articles form a virtual genealogy of environmental virtue ethics, as Louke van Wensveen and Philip Cafaro examine virtue ethics' hidden role in the development of modern environmental ethics. Cafaro presents an account of historical exemplars of environmental virtue. Wensveen argues that the seeming poverty of "ecological virtue language" is partly due to environmental ethics' evolution within a specific cultural niche. Environmental ethics traditionally grappled with questions of practical political and legal import. As a result, the discipline adapted to the problems of rights and costs and benefits rather than character and human flourishing. Wensveen quips, "I imagine that appealing to a chemical company's love of nature in a court of law would be as effective as appealing to an ex-spouse's love of his or her children in a child custody case" (17). Nonetheless, Wensveen chronicles how virtue language has crept, largely unnoticed, into the environmental ethical dialogue.The second part focuses on the theoretical dimensions of environmental virtue ethics. The authors explore the ways in which virtue ethics can offer a fresh perspective on perennial environmental ethical questions. Thomas Hill's seminal "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments" is a welcome inclusion. Hill inspires the movement to environmental virtue theorizing when he advises us to ask not simply, "What interests or rights are at stake when one destroys the natural environment?" but also, "What sort of person would do such a thing?" Indeed, we might view this entire volume as an extended attempt to answer to Hill's question.The next part of the book investigates the problems of defining environmental virtue and distinguishing it from anthropocentric virtue. The fourth and final section applies environmental virtue theory to specific ecological problems. The two articles, written by Peter Wenz and Ronald Sandler, use the virtue ethical framework to interrogate the morality of consumerism and genetically modified crops, respectively. This final section helps to allay an enduring criticism of virtue ethics as a whole: that it cannot be applied to real world problems. Sandler's piece in particular profitably uses the tools of virtue ethics to critically reflect upon both the moral problems raised by genetically modified crops and their proposed resolutions.The role of enlightened self-interest in environmental ethics is a recurrent theme. Against a public dialogue that pits human interests and [End Page 134] ecological interests in conflict, this book is refreshing reminder that human flourishing and ecological flourishing are not enemies. Human interests, properly understood, are in harmony with the interests of the environment. We ought to view our relationship with nature as positive-sum.This positive-sum outlook permeates Philip Cafaro's piece, "Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy: An Exploration of Environmental Vice." Cafaro forcefully argues that the vices that hinder human flourishing also hinder... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Visions of Damietta:St. Francis, Robert Grosseteste, and the Crusades, 1219–1253Rosamund M. Gammie (bio)A peculiar and under-explored event in Robert Grosseteste's (d. 1253) life is that of his supposed dream-vision in 1249, reported posthumously and in only one source, the Lanercost chronicle.1 The vision foreshadows the loss of Damietta in Egypt the following year, during the Seventh Crusade (1249–54) under the leadership of Louis IX. The parallels to St. (...) Francis's vision at Damietta in 1219 during the Fifth Crusade (1215–21) are immediately noticeable yet the vision has remained largely dismissed as an afterthought in the scholarship of Grosseteste. Considering that Grosseteste wrote, in 1236, what has been described by Michael Lower as "surely the best defence of the cross petition a crusader ever had," in addition to his association with the Franciscans and his relationship with Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III and nephew of celebrated crusader Richard I and a (if not the) principal leader of the Baron's Crusade, it is surprising that there is no fuller account of his support for the movement; rather there are piecemeal references to certain acts of interference such as that noted by Lower.2 This paper seeks to establish Grosseteste's position on the crusades, in light of a thoroughly Franciscan influence, beginning with Damietta. [End Page 141]Robert Grosseteste and the FranciscansMuch has been written about the relationship between Robert Grosseteste and the early Franciscan movement in England.3 As Giles Gasper writes in a recent study of Grosseteste and the Franciscan school at Oxford, "Robert Grosseteste is well-known for his support for the Franciscan order, and his warm relations with many brothers of the English province."4 James McEvoy concludes in his examination of Grosseteste's affinity with the nascent movement that "there can be no doubt that Grosseteste was well acquainted with the personality and ideals of St. Francis, the circumstance of the Franciscans' foundation, and the nature of their vocation."5 Grosseteste's Letters are full of admiration for the Franciscans and involvement in their affairs, so much so that a clear and uncompromisingly affectionate relationship can be traced during the bishop's lifetime. Indeed, Grosseteste, in Letter 41, ca. 13 March, 1236, declares to Elias of Cortona, third minister of the Franciscan Order, that "there are no assistants I know of … so effective as your friars."6 The Friars themselves reciprocated their love for Grosseteste; the same letter states, "your sons, the Friars Minor in England, out of kindness in a special way embrace me tightly with arms of love." A letter from 1238 (Letter 58) to Pope Gregory IX asks for help in preserving the reputation of the Brothers, who "illuminate our whole land with the brilliant light of their preaching and teaching" with the warning that "the glory of such an important religious order will vanish and the masses will be scandalized in them."7 [End Page 142]The Dominican Brother Hubert perhaps best expresses the affection between the religious orders and Grosseteste, writing the celebratory Life of Grosseteste shortly after the bishop's death in 1253.8 According to Brother Hubert, Grosseteste was the "father and guardian" of both orders, whose presence "pleased him, as did their / Arrival, their multitude, and frequent conversation," and that just "as a mother to her new-born, he fostered, loved / Protected, fed, and valued them."9 Gasper continues, "English Franciscan historiography leaves no doubt as to the high esteem in which the order held Grosseteste from the mid-13th century onwards, honored in particular for his teaching and learning."10 Chosen personally by Agnellus of Pisa to teach the first Franciscans at Oxford, his influence cannot be underestimated. Indeed, there were Franciscan (and Dominican) contributions to the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to canonize the bishop; a ten-lined letter from Nicholas, guardian of the Greyfriars at Lincoln, penned on 26 June, 1289, extolls the exemplary actions of the bishop.11The relationship between Grosseteste and this first generation of Franciscans was one of mutual respect and love. What is harder to trace is Grosseteste's appreciation of St. Francis himself. When Servus Gieben asks... (shrink)

In today's world the need for cultivating non-violence is becoming more pronounced. Gandhi extrapolated an ideal society based on truth and nonviolence. The Bombay Chronicle in its issue of 5th April, 1930, reported "...For the first time a nation is asked by its leader to win freedom by itself accepting all the suffering and sacrifice involved. Mahatma Gandhi's success does not, therefore, merely mean the freedom of India. It will also constitute the most important contribution that any country (...) yet made towards the elimination of force as an arbiter between one nation and another..." For him, two cardinal principles of life, non-violence and truth, were the essence of sociopolitical good. "Satyagraha" was Gandhi's gift to the world. The word was coined by him in South Africa. In the West it was known as passive resistance. Satyagraha signified pure soul-force. Truth or Love is the very substance of the soul. To quote Gandhi in this context: "Non-violence as supreme dharma is the proof of this power of Love. Nonviolence is a dormant state. In the working state, it is Love, ruled by Love, the world goes on.... we are alive solely because of Love....we are all ourselves the proof of this..." In a centrifugal world, Gandhi's views expressed on non-violence and love are guidance to the world today more than at any other time. (shrink)

In today's world the need for cultivating non-violence is becoming more pronounced. Gandhi extrapolated an ideal society based on truth and nonviolence. The Bombay Chronicle in its issue of 5th April, 1930, reported "...For the first time a nation is asked by its leader to win freedom by itself accepting all the suffering and sacrifice involved. Mahatma Gandhi's success does not, therefore, merely mean the freedom of India. It will also constitute the most important contribution that any country (...) yet made towards the elimination of force as an arbiter between one nation and another..." For him, two cardinal principles of life, non-violence and truth, were the essence of sociopolitical good. "Satyagraha" was Gandhi's gift to the world. The word was coined by him in South Africa. In the West it was known as passive resistance. Satyagraha signified pure soul-force. Truth or Love is the very substance of the soul. To quote Gandhi in this context: "Non-violence as supreme dharma is the proof of this power of Love. Nonviolence is a dormant state. In the working state, it is Love, ruled by Love, the world goes on.... we are alive solely because of Love....we are all ourselves the proof of this..." In a centrifugal world, Gandhi's views expressed on non-violence and love are guidance to the world today more than at any other time. (shrink)

In the 1920s, London was a city on the cusp of change. Just as dance halls and jazz-age decadence displaced wartime austerity, a new generation of artists and designers sought to enliven the city's architecture, erecting dazzling buildings in the emerging art deco style. In contrast with the aging Victorian structures that dotted the city, these bright and colorful buildings--from the Hoover factory to the Ideal House by Raymond Hood, who later designed New York's Rockefeller Center--communicated the city's aspirations (...) as a thriving, modern metropolis. In the decades since, London's art deco buildings have lost none of their appeal. Millions of visitors gaze up at the headquarters of the Daily Telegraph and the nearby Daily Express, take in the elegance of Eltham Palace, or sip a martini at the Savoy. The city's most popular art deco attraction, however, is the London Underground, which boasts a series of art deco and modernist stations, designed throughout the 1920s and '30s by noted architect Charles Holden. In Modernism London Style, architectural historian Christoph Rauhut, with the help of three hundred photographs by Niels Lehmann, captures the architectural art deco heritage of London in a thrilling photographic tour. A portrait of the city during the interwar years, it chronicles the creativity of the artists and designers of the period--and the currents in the city's culture that helped shape their work. Insightful essays and an introduction by architecture scholar Adam Caruso shed light on some of the key features that characterize art deco, from floral and animal motifs to Egyptian themes. For readers planning a trip to London and hoping to place these striking buildings, the book also includes a detailed register and maps. (shrink)

The article describes evolutionary process of the ideas about the state, which were formed by Ukrainian Orthodox intellectuals in the end of the XVI - the first half of the XVII century. Established, that on the development of these ideas had considerable influenced political circumstances of Ukrainian Cossack state in the second half of the XVII century. Varied Nation orientations available in Ukrainian political elite caused at that time the political split of Ukrainian society which reflected on the church life. (...) Some part of Church leaders tended to association with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the convergence with the Greek Catholic Church, the rest were supporters of political union with Moscow and rapprochement with Moscow Orthodoxy. However, both groups of Ukrainian Orthodox intellectuals defended the independence of the Kyiv Metropolis. Accordingly, representatives of both political orientations in church circles had their own opinion on the nature of the state, the governor responsibilities, composition of nation and its political rights, the relationship between the secular and ecclesiastical authority in the ideal state. Two outstanding representatives of these viewpoints were Sofonovych F. and I. Gisel. There are many ways where their views are identical, so: both agreed about the priority of ecclesiastical authority over secular, Kyiv's role as a center of Orthodox state, about the existence of a sovereign Ukrainian nation as an ethnic and religious communities. However, they also had fundamental differences: in F. Sofonovych's "Chronicle" sense of the state's existence and first responsibility of the governor was to ensure the public good, the conception of political nation extends to the whole society, the governor is the monarch in the European sense, who should be accountable to his lieges. Instead of that in I. Gisela's "Synopsis" meaning of the state was described in citizens' association in a single church, the governor is autocrat that answers only to the face of God, as the political nation was described only a minor group of nobility and its features were limited. In that way, we can assume that the concept of state, represented in work by Sofonovych F. indicates the beginning of the transition from early modern to modern Ukrainian nation and the continuation of the idea of Ukrainian sovereignty. Theory by Gisela I., whereas, the initial point of departure of Enlightenment concept of absolutism, which later was developed by Prokopovich F., and embodies the idea of an Orthodox empire which in the political sense coincides with the Russian Empire and in the spiritual one - is a continuation of Kievan Rus, where Kiev clergy plays a significant role. Both concepts were actively developing in future and had some mutual influence; also they greatly influenced the political life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DESIRE, EMULATION, AND ENVY IN THE PORTRAIT OFA LADY Lahoucine Ouzgane University ofAlberta Our heroine....wandered, as by the wrong side of the wall of a private garden, round the enclosed talents, accomplishments, aptitudes of Madame Merle. She found herself desiring to emulate them, and in twenty such ways, this lady presented herself as a model. "I should like awfullyto be50/" Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once....It took no great (...) time indeed for her to feel, as the phrase is, under an influence. (The Portrait ofa Lady 1 63) Isabel considered [Osmond] with interest. "You seem to me to be always envying some one. Yesterday it was the Pope; today it's poor Lord Warburton." "My envy's not dangerous....I don't want to destroy the people—1 only want to be them." (The Portrait 251) Henry James' The Portrait ofa Lady (1881) chronicles the stages through which Isabel Archer of Albany moves to become Mrs. Gilbert Osmond ofRome. Most critics agree that the transition in Isabel's life is due to her natural disposition and to the influence ofthe characters around her. But while the nature ofthis influence can be traced directly to Madame Merle's machinations, Isabel's character itselfhas elicited a great deal of analysis. L.C. Knights, for instance, finds "wilfulness as well as vulnerability in the attitudes [Isabel] brings to bear on experience" (12); TonyTannerconcludesthat "[her] theories and imagined versions ofreality Lahoucine Ouzgane115 are generated behind closed doors and closed windows" (76); Juliet McMaster perceives an element ofperversity in Isabel: "On the one hand, like atrue American, she is ardently engaged in life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness; but on the other she is morbidly attracted by their opposites, and devotes herself to death, and immobility, and suffering" (51); Leon Edel (1968) detects egotism in Isabel—but one "which is limited and damaging to the self (111)—unlike Osmond's, which is destructive of other people. Finally, in his essay "I Don't Like Isabel Archer," Marc Bousquet calls Isabel "selfish, naïve, ill-attuned to the feelings of others despite her education, an emblem ofcaprice and poorjudgment" (197). Since the essence ofthe romantic is desire, I suggest that in order to better understand the central event of The Portrait—Isabel's decision to marry Osmond, an action generally characterized as "perverse" or "morbid"—we see Isabel Archer as a subject of what René Girard calls "mimetic desire." According to Girard (1978), "The standard view [of imitation], derived from Plato's mimesis via Aristotle's Poetics, has always excluded one essential human behavior from the types subject to imitation—namely, desire and, more fundamentally still, appropriation" (vii). Central to Girard's thought is the theory of "mimetic" or "triangular desire," developed in his first book Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque (1961) and elaborated in his later works:1 a character desires an object, not for itself, but for the value lent to it by the desire ofanother. Don Quixote, for instance, believes that true chivalric existence can be experienced onlythrough acareful imitation ofAmadis ofGaul, who seems to him to personify ideal knightly behavior. Don Quixote's desires are thus "mediated": the subject pursues objects determinedforhim bythe mediator of desire. In this respect, the directions taken and influences exerted by snobbery, vanity, jealousy, emulation, envy, rivalry, resentment, hatred, renunciation, and sacrifice form the center of Girard's critical thinking. "This triangle of subject, object, and mediator," Bruce Bassoff notes, "is similar to Thorstein Veblen's model of 'conspicuous consumption,' where 'keeping up with the Joneses' means desiring what they possess regardless ofthe real value ofthe object" (126). For Girard, however, it is not merely a question ofdesiring what the Joneses possess, but ofdesiring what they themselves appear to be; Girard calls this desire "metaphysical" because it is aimed at the mediator's being. Veblen describes the phenomenon in its 'See especially the third part of Things Hidden since the Foundation ofthe World and chapters 3, 4, and 5 of The Girard Reader. 1 16 Desire, Emulation, andEnvy in "The Portrait ofa Lady " economic manifestations only, but through an extensive analysis ofmajor literary works by Cervantes, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, and Dostoyevsky, Girard unravels the... (shrink)

Abstract:This article analyzes contrasting descriptions and prescriptions for women’s friendships in six recent books in comparison with earlier Second Wave idealizations. “A History” of “the Social Sex,” “Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships,” and “In Solidarity: Friendship, Family, and Activism Beyond Gay and Straight” provide optimistic, progressive pictures in comparison with skepticism about “Postfeminist Sisterhood,” while a memoir chronicles a “Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend” and a self-help book tells us how to choose, lose, and keep up with (...) friends. (shrink)

The article sets out to explore the lessons that can be drawn from the selfless and integrity-driven leadership offered by some pioneer post-independent Kenyan leaders such as Karubiu wa Munyi. With more financial scandals increasing in the public domains, as in the case where over 15 mega corruption scandals remained unaccounted for, by 2018, the need to draw some lessons from the likes of wa Munyi becomes an important matter worth consideration in the 21st century. As we seek to demolish (...) both colonial mentality and neo-colonialism in the 21st century, there is a need to reconstruct the memories of some of our key actors in our African societies, as we seek to rebuild our respective contexts. Having lived under deadly and complicated theo-historical times, but eventually overcame hunger and famine, war, colonial bombs and general poverty, the article hypothesises, he stands out on a pedestal and remains a critical reflective case for masses of people who are walking through the valleys and shadows of death in Africa and beyond. In its methodology, the article develops mainly from the researchers’ interviews with wa Munyi who is eventually chronicled, as it seeks to ascertain whether there are lessons to draw from his ‘philanthropic’ and integrity-driven leadership. Was the virtue-driven leadership of Karubiu wa Munyi a by-product of Africa’s Ubuntu [caring for the other] cultural heritage and the evangelical Anglican Christianity that settled in his locality since 1912? And has the society lost its cultural morality and the virtue-leaning evangelical Christianity that was ushered in by the Church Mission Society at the beginning of the 20th century? In this article, Gitugi kia bururi [the critical cornerstone] – the casual description of wa Munyi – symbolises the ideal leaders who remain at peace with themselves and the general society even after retiring from active public duties; as their respective consciences are above board. Africa has to take lessons from such selfless leaders. The materials in this article are gathered through interviews with wa Munyi and other people who are connected to issues under consideration. A review of relevant literature has also been done.Contribution: The article adds to the growing knowledge by its originality; a phenomenon where a little-known civic leader is used as a lens through which we can understand the modern day Africa. Has the continent that sought independence from the colonialists who came after the Berlin Conference of 15 November 1884 to 26 February 1885 recolonising itself through neo-colonialism and corrupt practices of unimaginable proportions? The article is relevant to the HTS Journal and the world of scholarship as it shows God’s works in history, as it confirms that a people who walk through the desolate valleys and shadows of death, and are starring at the total annihilation, do also have a future. (shrink)

The doctrine of primary qualities is commonly explained as science's return to a former ideal of mathematical intelligibility and as a sacrifice of the notion that we can be certain about what we perceive. According to the standard chronicle modern scientific explanations appeal to geometrically intelligible, yet theoretically imperceptible, particles. This thesis gains plausibility only by suppressing the role of physiological optics in the development of modern science. Descartes presented an original and significant theory of scientific observation in (...) his Dioptrics; according to which, correct perceptual judgments can be made about the spatial qualities of any body, even about bodies so small as to be imperceptible under ordinary circumstances. This theory insured the perceptual accessibility of the spatial qualities of minute bodies but failed, as Locke discovered upon adding solidity to the list of primary qualities, to explain access to non-spatial qualities. As a result of the failure of Descartes' theory of perception to give an adequate account of scientific observation, Locke took the position that solidity or impenetrability cannot ordinarily be perceived, but rather that it can be and is regularly detected by experiment. This Lockean shift from direct perceivability of spatial qualities to the experimental detection of "new" primary qualities marks an important step in the methodological development of early modern science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Just Share: Justice and Fairness in Resource Allocation*Pat Milmoe Mccarrick (bio) and Martina Darragh (bio)Each of us has some basic sense of what the words “fair” or “just” or “fairness” or “justice” mean. Each of us probably also has an idea of what is “fair” in health care. The attempt by the state of Oregon in the mid-1980s to quantify this notion made a previously private exercise a (...) public one. This transition has been chronicled in the bioethics literature that focuses on resource allocation. These works examine both theories of justice and concepts of “health”; the fair distribution of health resources has been of continuing interest since the beginning of bioethics in the 1960s. Early writing on justice includes authors Tom L. Beauchamp, Robert H. Blank, James F. Childress, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Paul T. Menzel, Paul Ramsey, and Robert M. Veatch (VII).During the 1980s, bioethicists such as Daniel Callahan and Norman Daniels proposed thinking of health care decisions not as moments of personal crisis but as choices that span a lifetime, possibly involving tradeoffs in other areas of one’s life, e.g., education. The Oregon experience added another dimension to the discussion. The initial rank-ordering of health services by cost produced a skewed list—for example, surgery for life-threatening conditions ranked below minor, elective procedures. For the project to make sense, the ranking algorithm could not be based on cost alone, but rather on a combination of costs and benefits both to individuals and to the community—“concatenations of individual and group goods” (I, Jecker and Jonsen 1995). Various metaphors have been used in the literature to facilitate discussion of this shift from individual to individual/community trade-offs: medical services as a “commons” (I, Asch 1995, Jecker and Jonsen 1995, Michels 1994); resource allocation as a “lifeboat” (I, Campbell 1995; III, Kaveny 1994); medical care as “shares” in a community health (III, Nelson 1992, Ford and Kissick 1995; II, Anderson 1993); and rationing as traveling through the desert with one jug of water for two people (a story from the Halachah literature) (I, Zoloth-Dorfman 1995). [End Page 81]Such metaphors do not promote any one “theory of justice” but rather draw from the work of a number of bioethicists as well as from theological, sociological, economic, and business literature. The five major conceptions of justice that are referenced most frequently are: “(1) a libertarian conception, which takes liberty to be the ultimate political ideal; (2) a socialist conception, which takes equality to be the ultimate political ideal; (3) a welfare liberal conception, which takes contractual fairness or maximal utility to be the ultimate political ideal; (4) a communitarian conception, which takes the common good to be the ultimate political ideal; and (5) a feminist conception, which takes a gender-free society to be the ultimate political ideal” (I, Sterba 1995).The use of new metaphors also draws on expanded concepts of “health.” “As health care is currently practiced, the most powerful symbols for public and professional alike are those that promise the defeat of time” (I, Campbell 1995). When medical care is perceived as an unrelated series of individual cures, the fact that health care resources are finite cannot be addressed.Reflections concerning the difficulties in limiting the use of health care resources have an ancient lineage and reveal a tight bond with the obsession to postpone death at all costs. Plato in Book 3 of the Republic recognizes the quandary of infinite expectations and finite resources that characterizes the challenge of health care choices. (I, Engelhardt 1996)The proliferation of expensive medical technologies and the loss of autonomy by health care professionals further complicates perceptions of the crucial issues at hand. Some have said that Americans place too much emphasis on individualism to address these issues. Daniels et al. believe that this is too pessimistic a view and that the American commitment to protecting equal opportunity for all provides a firm basis for developing a public consensus on what is fair in health care (III, Daniels, Light, and Caplan 1996). Finally, several authors suggest that the nature of all four principles of medical ethics, not justice alone, must be... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Environmental Virtue EthicsChristopher Freiman (bio)Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro. New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 240. ISBN 0-7425-3389-1 (hardback), $75.00; ISBN 0-7425-3390-5 (paperback) $28.95.For most of its life, environmental ethics has been the province of consequentialism and deontology. But a growing number of environmental ethicists have found these act-centered theories too thin and limited to attend to the complexity of (...) ecological problems. Some see virtue ethics as promising a richer and more muscular approach to environmental ethics. The new anthology Environmental Virtue Ethics delivers on this promise.The book, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, features fourteen selections—ten original contributions and four reprints of classic papers. The basic theme of environmental virtue ethics as a theory and Environmental Virtue Ethics as a volume is not that the environment is a bearer of rights or source of intrinsic value, but that an appreciation of nature is an ingredient in a happy and flourishing life. Virtue ethics considers character to be a central ethical concern and a critical part of living well. Rather than ask, as deontologists and utilitarians might, "What should I do?," virtue ethicists ask, "What should I be?"According to the first section of the book, environmental ethicists have implicitly been asking themselves this question for years. The first [End Page 133] two articles form a virtual genealogy of environmental virtue ethics, as Louke van Wensveen and Philip Cafaro examine virtue ethics' hidden role in the development of modern environmental ethics. Cafaro presents an account of historical exemplars of environmental virtue. Wensveen argues that the seeming poverty of "ecological virtue language" is partly due to environmental ethics' evolution within a specific cultural niche. Environmental ethics traditionally grappled with questions of practical political and legal import. As a result, the discipline adapted to the problems of rights and costs and benefits rather than character and human flourishing. Wensveen quips, "I imagine that appealing to a chemical company's love of nature in a court of law would be as effective as appealing to an ex-spouse's love of his or her children in a child custody case" (17). Nonetheless, Wensveen chronicles how virtue language has crept, largely unnoticed, into the environmental ethical dialogue.The second part focuses on the theoretical dimensions of environmental virtue ethics. The authors explore the ways in which virtue ethics can offer a fresh perspective on perennial environmental ethical questions. Thomas Hill's seminal "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments" is a welcome inclusion. Hill inspires the movement to environmental virtue theorizing when he advises us to ask not simply, "What interests or rights are at stake when one destroys the natural environment?" but also, "What sort of person would do such a thing?" Indeed, we might view this entire volume as an extended attempt to answer to Hill's question.The next part of the book investigates the problems of defining environmental virtue and distinguishing it from anthropocentric virtue. The fourth and final section applies environmental virtue theory to specific ecological problems. The two articles, written by Peter Wenz and Ronald Sandler, use the virtue ethical framework to interrogate the morality of consumerism and genetically modified crops, respectively. This final section helps to allay an enduring criticism of virtue ethics as a whole: that it cannot be applied to real world problems. Sandler's piece in particular profitably uses the tools of virtue ethics to critically reflect upon both the moral problems raised by genetically modified crops and their proposed resolutions.The role of enlightened self-interest in environmental ethics is a recurrent theme. Against a public dialogue that pits human interests and [End Page 134] ecological interests in conflict, this book is refreshing reminder that human flourishing and ecological flourishing are not enemies. Human interests, properly understood, are in harmony with the interests of the environment. We ought to view our relationship with nature as positive-sum.This positive-sum outlook permeates Philip Cafaro's piece, "Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy: An Exploration of Environmental Vice." Cafaro forcefully argues that the vices that hinder human flourishing also hinder... (shrink)

McKenna’s critique (rather than criticisms) of idealized approaches to epistemology is an important contribution to the literature. In this brief discussion, I set out his main concerns about more idealized approaches, within and beyond social epistemology, before turning to some issues I think he neglects. I suggest that it’s important to pay attention to the prestige hierarchy in philosophy, and to how that hierarchy can serve ideological purposes. The greater prestige of more abstract approaches plays a role in determining what (...) issues and what voices we attend to. (shrink)

The head and the stomach January 1996 -- Borges in Sarajevo March 1996 -- Fin de siècle and new millenarium May 1996 -- Cold racism July 1996 -- The last enemy November 1996 -- The grounded plane January 1997 -- Dialectic in the dialectic August 1997 -- Voyage to the country of the last sociologists November 1997 -- Justice in the past April 1998 -- The crisis of art or a crisis of thought July 1998 -- Is cinema to blame (...) March 1999? -- The nameless war May 1999 -- One image right can sweep away another October 1999 -- The syllogism of corruption October 2000 -- Voici/voila : the destiny of images January 2001 -- From facts to interpretations : the new quarrel over the holocaust April 2001 -- From one torture to another June 2001 -- The filmmaker, the people and the government August 2001 -- Time, words, war November 2001 -- Philosophy in the bathroom January 2002 -- Prisoners of the infinite march 2002 -- From one month of May to another June 2002 -- Victor Hugo : the ambiguities of a bicentenary August 2002 -- The machine and the foetus January 2003 -- Death of the author or all too living artist April 2003 -- Logic of amnesia June 2003 -- The principle of insecurity September 2003 -- The new fictions of evil November 2003 -- Criminal democracy March 2004 -- The difficult heritage of Michel Foucault June 2004 -- The new reasons for the lie A\august 2004 -- Beyond art October 2004 -- The politics of images February 2005 -- Democracy and its doctors May 2005. (shrink)

The book Chronicle of Separation is an attempt to write on Derrida, to Derrida and from Derrida on the basis of a pathetic experience, which, in various ways, describes and enacts the pathetic experience of deconstruction itself. The book tackles the weight of emotions that is at the heart of deconstructive reading, treating deconstruction's weak, fragile and parasitic mode of thinking as a deconstruction of emotion, on emotion and as emotion. Chronicle of Separation examines these themes beginning with (...) a descriptive and an analytic reading of Derrida's Memoirs: For Paul de Man and The Post Card, as embodiments of deconstruction's melancholic friendship which inscribes its disillusioned love in what it calls the 'postal condition'. The book then moves on to a feminization of Derrida, experimenting in different modes of writing. It firstly discusses Fred Zinneman's film Julia about a mournful friendship between women. Then it performs a deconstructive meditation on the anorexic person suggesting that anorexia constitutes a paradoxical embodiment of deconstruction. The concluding chapter presents a complete incorporation of Derrida into a fictional text that re-writes the biblical Book of Ruth. (shrink)

Science is the study of our world, as it is in its messy reality. Nonetheless, science requires idealization to function—if we are to attempt to understand the world, we have to find ways to reduce its complexity. Idealization and the Aims of Science shows just how crucial idealization is to science and why it matters. Beginning with the acknowledgment of our status as limited human agents trying to make sense of an exceedingly complex world, Angela Potochnik moves on to explain (...) how science aims to depict and make use of causal patterns—a project that makes essential use of idealization. She offers case studies from a number of branches of science to demonstrate the ubiquity of idealization, shows how causal patterns are used to develop scientific explanations, and describes how the necessarily imperfect connection between science and truth leads to researchers’ values influencing their findings. The resulting book is a tour de force, a synthesis of the study of idealization that also offers countless new insights and avenues for future exploration. (shrink)

Robin McKenna argues that we need to make space for an approach to epistemology that avoids the idealizations typical of the field. He applies this approach to topics in applied and social epistemology, such as what to do about science denial, whether we should try to be intellectually autonomous, and what our obligations are to other inquirers.