Abstract

The ideas used to view the world by academics, officials, and citizens affect what they see, the improvements they think are feasible, and the means they presume can be used to reform the world. Ideas seem to be ephemeral, but their results are the artifacts of the world: the cities, the monuments, the wars, the suffering, and all the activities of human beings as they go about their everyday world. Human conceptions can be emancipatory. They may include vistas of untapped capabilities and enable individuals to improve their own and others' welfare. Or they may be conservative—closely guarding the achievements of the past and protecting the storehouse of acquired social knowledge from wanton destruction. Or worse ..