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John Hartley opens his short history of cultural studies by evoking a sense of the contested nature of the field in the contemporary moment and the intense debates about its objects, scope, methods, and goals: “Even within intellectual communities and academic institutions, there is little agreement about what counts as cultural studies, either as a critical practice or an institutional apparatus. On the contrary, the field is riven by fundamental disagreements about what cultural studies is for, in whose interests it (...) is done, what theories, methods and objects of study are proper to it, and where to set its limits” (1). (shrink)
Theodor Adorno was one of the foremost radical thinkers of the Twentieth century. Critic of the Enlightenment, liberalism and modernity, he was the architect behind the famous Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and his work ranged over philosophy, social and cultural theory, art and music. In this lucid book, Espen Hammer critically considers and defends Adorno's most important contribution: his political thought and it contemporary relevance. Espen Hammer examines the background to Adorno's thought in the work of Kierkegaard, (...) Marx, Weber and Walter Benjamin and assesses Adorno's critique of Enlightenment and modernity in his famous work, Dialectic of Enlightenment. He then considers Adorno's critique of Kant and Hegel and considers Adorno's celebrated theory of negative dialectics. He defends Adorno's against Jurgen Habermas's criticism that Adorno's thought is irrational and subject-centred before considering how Adorno's theory of alterity is evident in the work of Derrida and Levinas. Adorno and the Political is an invigorating exploration of a key political thinker and is also a useful introduction to his thought as a whole. It will be of interest to those in philosophy, sociology and politics. (shrink)
To date, no satisfactory account of the connection between natural-scientific and historical explanation has been given, and philosophers seem to have largely given up on the problem. This paper is an attempt to resolve this old issue and to sort out and clarify some areas of historical explanation by developing and applying a method that will be called “pragmatic explication” involving the construction of definitions that are justified on pragmatic grounds. Explanations in general can be divided into “dynamic” and “static” (...) explanations, which are those that essentially require relations across time and those that do not, respectively. The problem of assimilating historical explanations concerns dynamic explanation, so a general analysis of dynamic explanation that captures both the structure of natural-scientific and historical explanation is offered. This is done in three stages: In the first stage, pragmatic explication is introduced and compared to other philosophical methods of explication. In the second stage pragmatic explication is used to tie together a series of definitions that are introduced in order to establish an account of explanation. This involves an investigation of the conditions that play the role in historiography that laws and statistical regularities play in the natural sciences. The essay argues that in the natural sciences, as well as in history, the model of explanation presented represents the aims and overarching structure of actual causal explanations offered in those disciplines. In the third stage the system arrived at in the preceding stage is filled in with conditions available to and relevant for historical inquiry. Further, the nature and treatment of causes in history and everyday life are explored and related to the system being proposed. This in turn makes room for a view connecting aspects of historical explanation and what we generally take to be causal relations. (shrink)
rgen Habermas' view that Adorno's thinking is characterized by a commitment to a philosophy of consciousness, and that therefore the only alternative to identitarian reason is to appeal to an intuitive competence operating beyond the range of conceptual thought, it is arged (1) that Adorno conceptualizes the modern epistemic subject (the subject of a philosophy of consciousness) as based on a reification, and (2) that he denies the possibility of a concept-transcendent (foundationalist) constraint on judgments. In seeking to demonstrate against (...) versions of subjective idealism and foundationalism how thought can be responsive to a non-identical (mind-independent) reality, Adorno defends an intersubjectivist and historicist view of knowledge according to which the operative and yet anamnetic aspiration of knowledge is to know reflectively the object as it is in itself. The conclusion is that although Adorno questions the modern (Kantian) stress on epistemic autonomy, he does not take leave of modernity in the sense ascribed to him by Habermas. Key Words: Adorno • epistemology • Habermas • idealism • modernity. (shrink)
This essay discusses the role of being and ontology in the work of Gilles Deleuze. Starting from an examination of Alain Badiou’s ontology and theory of the event, I discuss the possible opposition of being and the event in Deleuze’s work. Though famous for his discussions of the univocity of being, Deleuze does discuss the event as that which is not being. Deleuze’s theory of the event is similar to that of Badiou in that he considers the event to be (...) extra-ontological. The essay closes by considering the differences between Deleuze and Badiou on the subject of the event. (shrink)
A logical system is studied whose well-formed representations consist of diagrams rather than formulas. The system, due to Shin [2, 3], is shown to be complete by an argument concerning maximally consistent sets of diagrams. The argument is complicated by the lack of a straight forward counterpart of atomic formulas for diagrams, and by the lack of a counterpart of negation for most diagrams.
By comparing Adorno's conception of evil with those of Kant and Levinas, it is argued that the commitment to a notion of materialist transcendence, which Adorno introduces as a philosophical response to Auschwitz, is compatible with an equally strong commitment to philosophical modernity and autonomy. Whereas Kant's moral theology, on the one hand, proceeds in a too immanent fashion, and Levinas's heterology, on the other, in seeking to explode ontology, denies the conditions of thought's rational responsiveness, Adorno succeeds in combining (...) the quest for radical otherness with an idealist interpretation of modernity. Key Words: Adorno • Auschwitz • evil • Kant • Levinas • metaphysics • modernity • moral theology • transcendence. (shrink)
The evolution of Euler diagrams is examined from Euler's original system through the modifications made by Venn and Peirce. It is shown that these modifications were motivated by an attempt to increase the expressivity of the diagrams, but that a side effect of these modifications was a loss of the visual clarity of Euler's original system. Euler's original system is reconstructed from a modern, logical point of view. Formal semantics and rules of inference are provided for this reconstruction of Euler's (...) system, and basic logical properties are proved. (shrink)
This paper examines Charles Peirce's graphical notation for first-order logic with identity. The notation forms a part of his system of existential graphs, which Peirce considered to be his best work in logic. In this paper a Tarskian semantics is provided for the graphical system.
Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. The historicity of time; 2. Modern temporality; 3. Two responses to the time of modernity; 4. Hegel's temporalization of the absolute; 5. Schopenhauer and transcendence; 6. Time and myth in early Nietzsche; 7. Recurrence and authenticity: the later Nietzsche; 8. Heidegger on boredom and modernity; 9. A modernist critique of postmodern temporality; Conclusion.
The February 2004 release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is a major cultural event. Receiving a tremendous amount of advance publicity due to claims of its anti-Semitism and adulatory responses by conservative Christians who were the first to see it, the film achieved more buzz before its release than any recent film in our memory.1 Gibson himself helped orchestrate the publicity with selective showings of The Passion and strategic appearances on TV shows where he came off as (...) something of a Hollywood eccentric, albeit one who was only too happy to admit to his past sins and to claim that he had achieved “salvation” through his adherence to Christianity. His film, he insisted, would be testament to the truth of Christ and how Christ died so that sinners like Gibson could be saved and enjoy eternal life. (shrink)
Zusammenfassung Während âLogik der Forschung als Wissenschaftstheorie sich längst etabliert hat, steht eine ebenso notwendige âEthik der Forschung als Wissenschaftsmoral noch aus. Dazu liefert die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Francis Bacon wichtige Bausteine: Allgemeines Menschheitswohl als letztes Ziel aller Forschung; Betonung des unabhängigen Selbstdenkens; Forschertugenden wie Wahrhaftigkeit, Hoffnung, Demut, Menschenliebe; Anerkennung von sittlichen Grenzen des Wissens. Hingegen ist zugunsten einer engagierten Eigenverantwortlichkeit der Wissenschaftler vor Bacons Unterwürfigkeit gegenüber der Staatsgewalt zu warnen.
This paper is a logical study of valid uses of symmetry in deductive reasoning, of what underlying principles make some appeals to symmetry legitimate but others illegitimate. The issue is first motivated informally. A framework is then given covering a fairly broad range of symmetry arguments, and the formulation of symmetry provided is shown to be a valid principle of reasoning, as is a slightly stronger principle of reasoning, one that is shown to be in some sense as strong as (...) possible. The relationship between symmetry and isomorphism is discussed, and finally the framework is extended to a more general model-theoretic setting. (shrink)
This outstanding collection of specially commissioned chapters examines German idealism from several angles and assesses the renewed interest in the subject ...
The self evolved out of a sense of somatic motor orientation and body boundary awareness; and affective states as motivators furthered in conjunction with a sense of self evolutionary speciation. Affective states form to a greater extent than cognition the sense of experiential reality that is taken for granted. Neurophysiological and experiential culture-invariant evidence indicate the existence of eight (and possibly ten) basic affective states in mammals. These affective states have in humans found expression in mythic terms as well as (...) in the basic themes of world literature. According to classical Indian introspective analysis of aesthetics the basic emotions determine human activity and are the well- spring of literature and art, especially if the emotions become dis- sociated from a sense of egocentricity, i.e. if they become detached from a sense of self so that they no longer are in uenced by ex- istential fear. The comparatively close similarity between Indian aesthetics and the neurophysiology of the different affective states suggests the possibility that such aesthetic value judgments may be based on widespread evolutionary determinants. (shrink)
Several accounts of logical truth are compared and shown to define distinct concepts. Nevertheless, conditions are given under which they happen to declare exactly the same sentences logically true. These conditions involve the variety of objects in the domain, the richness of the language, and the logical resources available. It is argued that the class of sentences declared logically true by each of the accounts depends on particularities of the actual world.
This paper describes a way of creating and maintaining a `dynamic encyclopedia', i.e., an encyclopedia whose entries can be improved and updated on a continual basis without requiring the production of an entire new edition. Such an encyclopedia is therefore responsive to new developments and new research. We discuss our implementation of a dynamic encyclopedia and the problems that we had to solve along the way. We also discuss ways of automating the administration of the encyclopedia.
As a contribution towards clearing the ground for a new phenomenological evaluation of the essence of science, in this paper I present a critique of Heidegger''s argument in Being and Time for the priority of Zuhandenheit to Vorhandenheit. I argue that Heidegger''s notion of presence-at-hand is incoherent, conflating Husserl and Descartes, and that this general analysis has serious phenomenological flaws. Contrary to Heidegger, I maintain that there is a form of exploratory, theoretical activity including causal inquiry which is prior to (...) the type of practical activity entailed by readiness-to-hand. Consideration of this exploratory activity points us in the direction of an alternate conception of the genesis and essence of theory. (shrink)
Twilight of the Idols. Nietzsche's own unabashed appraisal of the last work intended to serve as a short introduction to the whole of his philosophy, and the most synoptic of all his books, bristles with a register of vocabulary derived from physiology, pathology, symptomatalogy and medicine. This new translation is supplemented by an introduction and extensive notes, which provide close analysis of a highly condensed work.
This paper does not deal with the topic of ‘the generosity of artificial languages from an Asian or a comparative perspective’. Rather, it is concerned with a particular case taken from a development in the Western tradition, when in the wake of the rise of formal logic at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century people in philosophy and later in linguistics started to use formal languages in the study of the semantics of natural languages. (...) This undertaking rests on certain philosophical assumptions and instantiates a particular methodology, that we want to examine critically. However, that in itself is still too broad a topic for a single paper, so we will focus on a particular aspect, viz., the distinction between grammatical form and logical form and the crucial role it plays in how the relationship between natural languages and formal languages is understood in this tradition. We will uncover two basic assumptions that underlie the standard view on the distinction between grammatical form and logical form, and discuss how they have contributed to the shaping of a particular methodology and a particular view on the status of semantics as a discipline. But before we turn to the topic at hand, a few more words on the general nature of the investigation are in order. Its general aim is to find out how semantics constructs its object, i.e., we are interested in what semanticists view as the proper object of study, how they think this object can best be approached, and how they view the relations between their own undertaking and neighbouring disciplines that deal with related, or even the same kind of phenomena, such as cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, anthropology. The background assumption is that, much like in other disciplines, semantics, too, does not have its object of investigation cut out for itself by nature, but constructs it in a complex process that involves empirical elements (‘facts’ being already too dangerous a term), philosophical assumptions, and borrowings.... (shrink)
This paper does not deal with the topic of ‘the generosity of artificial languages from an Asian or a comparative perspective’. Rather, it is concerned with a particular case taken from a development in the Western tradition, when in the wake of the rise of formal logic at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century people in philosophy and later in linguistics started to use formal languages in the study of the semantics of natural languages. (...) This undertaking rests on certain philosophical assumptions and instantiates a particular methodology, that we want to examine critically. However, that in itself is still too broad a topic for a single paper, so we will focus on a particular aspect, viz., the distinction between grammatical form and logical form and the crucial role it plays in how the relationship between natural languages and formal languages is understood in this tradition. We will uncover two basic assumptions that underlie the standard view on the distinction between grammatical form and logical form, and discuss how they have contributed to the shaping of a particular methodology and a particular view on the status of semantics as a discipline. (shrink)
Range and Cotton (1995) showed that many of the articles reviewed in their study did not include a line specifying institutional review board-approved procurement of informed parental permission and child assent for child research. Range and Cotton stated that the absence of the line suggests a lack of sensitivity to permission/assent issues, implied that many authors of the articles did not obtain permission/assent, and said those who did but did not report it were camouflaging those who did not. In this (...) article, the logic of these points is refuted, the ethics of the Range and Cotton study are questioned, and its potential divisiveness is lamented. (shrink)
John Hartley opens his short history of cultural studies by evoking a sense of the contested nature of the field in the contemporary moment and the intense debates about its objects, scope, methods, and goals: “Even within intellectual communities and academic institutions, there is little agreement about what counts as cultural studies, either as a critical practice or an institutional apparatus. On the contrary, the field is riven by fundamental disagreements about what cultural studies is for, in whose interests it (...) is done, what theories, methods and objects of study are proper to it, and where to set its limits” (1). (shrink)
This paper defends moral realism against Sharon Street’s “Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value” (this journal, 2006). I argue by separation of cases: From the assumption that a certain normative claim is true, I argue that the first horn of the dilemma is tenable for realists. Then, from the assumption that the same normative claim is false, I argue that the second horn is tenable. Either way, then, the Darwinian dilemma does not add anything to realists’ epistemic worries.
This dissertation defends and develops the thesis that some instances, or tokens, of dispositional properties are pure. A pure disposition has no causal basis in any further properties beyond the disposition. A causal basis typically consists of some set of properties underlying a disposition that enables the disposition to manifest when stimulated in the appropriate circumstances. For example, a vase is fragile because it is disposed to break when a hammer or other suitable object strikes it, where the causal (...) basis for fragility is the underlying micro-structure of the vase. Moreover, micro-structural properties of the vase seem to anchor the continuous existence of the vase’s fragility when the vase is not actually breaking. In contrast to the neo-Humean metaphysical assumption that any disposition requires a causal basis in further properties, as in the example of fragility, the Pure Dispositions Thesis denies this. This dissertation achieves four goals. First, it defends the Pure Dispositions Thesis from notable objections: the Powers Regress Argument, the Insufficient Causal Basis Argument, the Argument from the Identity Thesis, and the Argument from Spatial Occupation. Second, it evaluates several theories of the continuous existence of pure dispositions, and argues that some pure dispositions are self-grounded via a minimally sufficient occurrence of their own power. Third, it presents two arguments that some pure dispositions are extrinsically grounded, the Argument from the Higgs Field and the Argument from Priority Monism, and deflects numerous objections to those arguments. Finally, it develops and defends an account of systems of pure dispositions, arguing that a pure dispositional system may generate higher-level categorical and dispositional properties by way of an emergence mechanism involving the union of two pure dispositions. (shrink)
Contributing Authors: Lilli Alanen & Frans Svensson, David Alm, Gustaf Arrhenius, Gunnar Björnsson, Luc Bovens, Richard Bradley, Geoffrey Brennan & Nicholas Southwood, John Broome, Linus Broström & Mats Johansson, Johan Brännmark, Krister Bykvist, John Cantwell, Erik Carlson, David Copp, Roger Crisp, Sven Danielsson, Dan Egonsson, Fred Feldman, Roger Fjellström, Marc Fleurbaey, Margaret Gilbert, Olav Gjelsvik, Kathrin Glüer & Peter Pagin, Ebba Gullberg & Sten Lindström, Peter Gärdenfors, Sven Ove Hansson, Jana Holsanova, Nils Holtug, Victoria Höög, Magnus Jiborn, Karsten Klint (...) Jensen, Sigurður Kristinsson, Isaac Levi, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, David Makinson, Anna-Sofia Maurin, Philippe Mongin, Kevin Mulligan, Lennart Nordenfelt, Jonas Olson, Erik J. Olsson, Ingmar Persson, Johannes Persson, Björn Petersson, Philip Pettit, Hans Rott, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Krister Segerberg, John Skorupski, Howard Sobel, Fredrik Stjernberg, Fred Stoutland, Caj Strandberg, Pär Sundström, Folke Tersman, Torbjörn Tännsjö, Peter Vallentyne, Bruno Verbeek, Stella Villarmea, and Michael J. Zimmerman. (shrink)
Twilight of the Idols was the second to last book Nietzsche finished for publication. It was written in three to four months and after some editorial changes the manuscript was sent to the printer in October 1888, and published in January 1889. Nietzsche does not mince words regarding the aim of the book. In the Foreword to the text he claims that it is a "grand declaration of war," not on the idols of the age, but "eternal idols," those he (...) considers to be "the most believed in."1 In Nietzsche's view, there are "more idols in the world than there are realities" and he wants to "sound out idols" as much with a hammer "as with a tuning fork" so that their harmful influence may be avoided in the future. The most .. (shrink)
Are there limits on how human beings can legitimately treat non-human animals? Or can we treat them just any way we please? If there are limits, what are they? Are they sufficiently strong, as some people supp ose, to lead us to be vegetarians and to seriously curtail, if not eliminate, our use of non-human animals in `scientific' experiments designed to benefit us? To fully appreciate this question let me contrast it with two different ones: Are there limits on how (...) we can legitimately treat rocks? And: are there limits on how we can legitima tely treat other human beings? The an swer to th e first ques tion is pre suma bly `No.' Well, that's not q uite right. There are som e limits on what w e can le gitimate ly do with or to rocks. If Paula has a pet rock, then Susan can't justifiably take it away or smash it with a sledge hammer. After all it is Paula's rock. (shrink)
In this paper I discuss Fred Dretske's account of knowledge critically, and try to bring out how his account of informational content leads to cases of extreme epistemic good luck in his treatment of knowledge. My main interest, however, is to establish that the cases of epistemic luck arise because Dretske's account of knowledge in a fundamental way fails to take into account the role our actual recognitional capacities and powers of discrimination play in perceptually based knowledge. This result is, (...) I believe, new. The paper has three sections. In Section 1 I give a short exposition of Dretske's theory, and make some necessary qualifications about how it is to be understood. In Section 2 I discuss in greater detail how the theory actually works, and provide some examples I think are very troublesome for Dretske. In Section 3 I argue that these cases establish my main claim. I also show that there are cases of epistemic bad luck due to Dretske's account of how information causes belief. (shrink)
Living organisms are caught between a hammer and an anvil, evolutionarily speaking. On the one hand, they need to buffer the influences of genetic mutations and environmental stresses if they are to develop normally and maintain a coherent and functional form. On the other, stabiliz- ing one’s development too much may mean not being able to respond at all to changes in the environment and starting down the primrose path to extinction. On page 618 of this issue, Queitsch et (...) al.1 propose that, in plants, the balance between stability and the potential for change is made possible in part through a protein involved in ‘heat- shock responses’ in a wide variety of species, from plants to insects. (shrink)
This paper analyses and criticizes S. Kripke's celebrated argument against materialist identity?theories. While criticisms of Kripke in the literature attack one or more of his premisses, an attempt is made here to show that Kripke's conclusion is unjustified even if his premisses are accepted. Kripke's premisses have sufficient independent plausibility to make this strategy interesting. Having stated Kripke's argument, it is pointed out that Kripke must assume that the contents of the Cartesian intuitions are clear and of a kind suited (...) for the type of explanation he favours, while his own result concerning contents in epistemic contexts is precisely that this might not be so when objects or events we thought distinct happen to be identical. The point is that only by assuming that the identity?theory is false, can Kripke maintain that the Cartesian intuitions express contents which can be explained in his favoured way. But such an assumption is clearly illegitimate when the aim is to establish that the identity?theory is false. Kripke cannot conclude that the identity?theory is false because no explanation of epistemic possibilities is produced, since by his own standards no such explanation can be produced if the identity?theory is true. (shrink)
This book is a meticulous study of Aristotle's phronesis and its applications to the fields of personal development or character formation and of ethical ...
The eternal recurrence of the same. Simmel's critique ; Awareness ; Evidence ; Significance ; Coherence -- Demon or god? Deathbed revelation ; Daimonic prophecy ; Dionysian doctrine ; Diagnostic test -- The dwarf and the gateway. The gateway to Hades ; The dwarf's interpretation ; Zarathustra's cross-examination ; The inescapable cycle ; Crossing the gateway ; No time until rebirth ; The ancient memory ; Midnight swan song -- The great noon. Two conclusions ; Tragic end and analeptic satyr (...) play ; Zarathustra's hour ; Noon crucifixion ; Seventh-day convalescence ; Last temptation ; Third-day resurrection -- The laughing lions. Revaluation of values ; Dawn reunion ; Morning consecration ; Call to arms ; Final farewell and last will ; Zarathustra's great destiny -- The shepherd and the serpent. The eternally recurring human ; The future human ; Zarathustra the dragon-slayer ; The decapitation ; The heavy hammer ; No longer shepherd -- Circulus vitiosus deus. Impotence and revenge ; Backward-willing ; Self-redemption ; The third transformation ; The child spirit ; No longer human ; Zarathustra's dying gift -- Post-Zarathustra. Nietzsche and Zarathustra ; Reversing the bad conscience ; Atheism and the death of God ; Countering the ascetic ideal. (shrink)
Wittgenstein is often thought to have challenged the view that assertion is an important theoretical category in a philosophical view of language. One of Wittgenstein’s main themes in the early sections of the Investigations is that philosophy misses important distinctions about the uses of language, distinctions hidden from us by ‘the uniform appearances of words.’ (1968, #11) As Wittgenstein goes on to say: It is like looking into the cabin of a locomotive. We see handles all looking more or less (...) alike. (Naturally, since they are all supposed to be handled.) But one is the handle of a crank which can be moved continuously (it regulates the opening of a valve); another is the handle of a switch, which has only two effective positions, it is either off or on; a third is the handle of a brake-lever, the harder one pulls on it, the harder it brakes; a fourth, the handle of a pump: it has an effect only so long as it is moved to and fro. (1968, #12) Few contemporary philosophers share Wittgenstein’s evident familiarity with cabin of a steam locomotive, and in general, most of us are increasingly remote from all but the most superficial understanding of the underlying functions of the tools on which we rely. So we are perhaps even more prone to the mistake that Wittgenstein thinks that philosophy makes with respect to language, that of regarding it as one tool rather than many: ‘Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, glue, nails and screws.—The functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.’1 (1968, #11). (shrink)
In 1972, one of Michelangelo's earliest and best-known Pietàs was attacked by an evident lunatic. Fifteen times it was struck with a ninepound hammer; the Madonna's arm was broken in several places, her nose was knocked off, and her eye and veil were badly chipped. Immediately after the assault, and before knowing precisely what was needed to be replaced, the Director of the Vatican Museum, Redig de Campos, decided that integral restoration was called for.
"To think with Nietzsche against Nietzsche." Thus the editors describe the strategy adopted in this volume to soften the destructive effects of Nietzsche's "philosophy with a hammer" on French philosophy since the 1960s. Frustrated by the infinite inclusiveness of deconstructionism, the contributors to this volume seek to renew the Enlightenment quest for rationality. Though linked by no common dogma, these essays all argue that the "French Nietzsche" transmitted through the deconstructionists must be reexamined in light of the original context (...) in which Nietzsche worked. Each essay questions the viability of Nietzsche's thought in the modern world, variously critiquing his philosophy of history as obsessed with hierarchy, his views on religion and art as myopic and irrational, and his stance on science as hopelessly reactionary. Contending that we must abandon the Nietzsche propped up as patron saint by French deconstructionists in order to return to reason, these essays will stimulate debate not just among Nietzscheans but among all with a stake in modern French philosophy. Contributors are Alain Boyer, André Compte-Sponville, Vincent Descombes, Luc Ferry, Robert Legros, Philippe Raynaud, Alain Renault, and Pierre-André Taguieff. (shrink)
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it's also in the language we use and everywhere in the world around us. In this elegant, witty, and ultimately profound meditation on what is beautiful, Crispin Sartwell begins with six words from six different cultures - ancient Greek's "to kalon," the Japanese idea of "wabi-sabi," Hebrew's "yapha," the Navajo concept "hozho," Sanskrit "sundara," and our own English-language "beauty." Each word becomes a door onto another way of thinking about, and (...) looking at, what is beautiful in the world, and in our lives. The earthy and the exalted, the imperfect and the ideal: things, spaces, high art, sounds, aromas, nothingness. Sartwell writes about handfuls of beautiful things - among them, a Japanese teapot and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel, the pleasure in a well-used hammer and in pop music and in Vermeer's "Girl in a Red Hat." In Sartwell's hands these six names of beauty -and there could be thousands more-are revealed as simple and profound ideas about our world and our selves. (shrink)
