Historian Arthur Herman traces the roots of declinism and shows how major thinkers, past and present, have contributed to its development as a coherent ideology of cultural pessimism. From Nazism to the Sixties counterculture, from Britain's Fabian socialists to America's multiculturalists, and from Dracula and Freud to Robert Bly and Madonna, this work examines the idea of decline in Western history and sets out to explain how the conviction of civilization's inevitable end has become a fixed part of the (...) modern Western imagination. Through a series of biographical portraits spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, the author traces the roots of declinism and aims to show how major thinkers of the past and present, including Nietzsche, DuBois, Sartre, and Foucault, have contributed to its development as a coherent ideology of cultural pessimism. (shrink)

Civil society is one of the most used - and abused - concepts in current political thinking. In this important collection of essays, the concept is subjected to rigorous analysis by an international team of contributors, all of whom seek to encourage the historical and comparative understanding of political thought. The volume is divided into two parts: the first section analyses the meaning of civil society in different theoretical traditions of Western philosophy. In the second section, contributors consider the (...) theoretical and practical contexts in which the notion of civil society has been invoked in Asia, Africa and Latin America. These essays demonstrate how an influential Western idea like civil society is itself altered and innovatively modified by the specific contexts of intellectual and practical life in the societies of the South. (shrink)

Rights and Civilizations, translated from the Italian original, traces a history of international law to illustrate the origins of the Western colonial project and its attempts to civilize the non-European world. The book, ranging from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first, explains how the West sought to justify its own colonial conquests through an ideology that revolved around the idea of its own assumed superiority, variously attributed to Christian peoples, Western 'civil' peoples, and 'developed' peoples, and now to (...) democratic Western peoples. In outlining this history and discourse, the book shows that, while the Western conception may style itself as universal, it is in fact relative. This comes out by bringing the Western civilization into comparison with others, mainly the Islamic one, suggesting the need for an 'intercivilizational' approach to international law. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to assess Arnason’s civilizational theory and methodology and their application to non-Western civilizations from a historical-comparative sociological perspective. Although civilizational analysis and historical sociology as historical-comparative orientations in sociology are closely connected, civilizational analysis concentrates particularly on the macro-history of civilizations, whereas historical-comparative sociology (particularly in its American variety) is orientated rather to a meso- and micro-analytical foundation of societal developments and therefore is more time- and context-sensitive. From such a perspective, the article (...) reconstructs, first, Arnason’s theoretical and methodological approach to civilizational analysis and discusses his contribution to the civilizational origins and dynamics of the West as a measuring rod for non-European societies. Second, it then assesses Arnason’s two major exemplary civilizational studies: the Soviet model in Russia, Eastern Europe and the non-European world as well as the Japanese civilization in the broader East Asian civilizational context. The article concludes with a critical summary of Arnason’s highly innovative approach from the vantage point of a recently developing global orientation in historical and comparative sociology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews A History of Western Civilization. By Ralph M. Mclnerny and A. Robert Caponigri. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963-1971. 5 Vols. Vol. I. From the Beginnings of Philosophy to Plotinus. By Ralph M. McInerny. Pp. xvii+382. $10.00. Vol. II. Philosophy from St. Augustine to Ockham. By Ralph M. McInerny. Pp. xv.1.1.386. $12.00. Vol. HI. Philosophy from the Renaissance to the Romantic Age. By (...) A. Robert Caponigri. Pp. xii+582. $12.00. Vol. IV. Philosophy from the Romantic Age to the Age of Positivism. By A. Robert Caponigri. Pp. xv-t-327. $12.00. Vol. V. Philosophy from the Age of Positivism to the Age of Analysis. By A. Robert Caponigri. Pp. xv+363. $12.00. These five large volumes deserve special recognition for excellence of content, range of history, and usefulness of design. Though they are intended particularly for English-speaking students and though the references are largely to recent works in English accessible to students and teachers, the range of subject-matter is international and comprehensive (for the West) and the detailed treatment of philosophers and philosophical literature is amazing for scholarly, objective clarity and wealth of information. The authors state their general aim: Our basic reason for undertaking the authorship of this work is to promote the return of the history of philosophy to its rightful place of honor and usefulness in the academic program.... Philosophy cannot be pursued in an historical vacuum.... For this reason, in these volumes the chief architectural principle has been to place philosophy as firmly as possible in the cultural context, seeing it in this living relation to all interests of culture and the hfe of the spirit. Introduction, p. xiii. Such history is so evidently needed and so generally welcome that all will surely join in urging the publisher to make these volumes available in paperback for textbook use as soon as possible. About all we can attempt here is to call attention to a few features of this history that are usually neglected in less detailed, less comprehensive histories. Vol. I foUows the usual pattern of Ancient History. Plato and Aristotle dominate, as they must. Plato's Dialogues are analyzed in considerable detail and are arranged around "the crisis in Plato's thought" as a convenient way to separate the Socratic [1071 10S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY dialogues from the varied compositions that seem to get away from both Socrates and Plato. Aristotle is treated well but tersely in view of the encyclopedic range of his interests and ideas. His "first philosophy" is properly so called here instead of by the unfortunate name, "metaphysics." At the end of the volume there are a few pages on Neoplatonism after Plotinus, chiefly to indicate that it wandered from philosophy. Vol. II is especially noteworthy for its description of philosophy in a great variety of distracting environments. Augustine, for example, is presented here primarily as a philosopher, even in terms of his faith and theology. For example: At the same time I was preparing for baptism at Milan, I tried to write books on the arts (disciplinae).... I was able to finish only a work on grammar.... six volumes on music... I had only begun them at Milan. Of the other five arts begun in Africa... on dialectic, on rhetoric, on geometry, on arithmetic, on philosophy. Retractationes. The passage certainly assumes that there are seven such arts, but it is noteworthy that "philosophy" takes the place usually occupied by astronomy. It has been plausibly suggested that this is a quite conscious substitute by Augustine prompted by his abhorrence of what we would nowadays call astrology (pp. 13-14). In his concluding remarks on Augustine, Professor McInerny says: Augustine's influence on subsequent ages is due entirely to the force of his thought.... The influence he had on the thought of his own times is as nothing compared with the undiminishinginfluence he has had through the centuries, even to our own day (p. 47). Another comment by Professor McInerny is worth noting here: "Our lack of sympathy with the latter-day notion of Christian philosophy." If that phrase accurately described the philosophical contribution of... (shrink)

For virtually all the major schools of Western opinion, the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, between 1989 and 1991, represents a triumph of Western values, ideas, and institutions. If, for triumphal conservatives, the events of late 1989 encompassed an endorsement of “democratic capitalism” that augured “the end of history,” for liberal and social democrats they could be understood as the repudiation by the peoples of the former Soviet bloc of Marxism-Leninism (...) in all its varieties, and the reemergence of a humanist socialism that was free of Bolshevik deformation. The structure of political and economic institutions appropriate to the transition from post-Communism in the Soviet bloc to genuine civil society was, accordingly, modeled on Western exemplars—the example of Anglo-American democratic capitalism, of Swedish social democracy, or of the German social market economy— or on various modish Western academic conceptions, long abandoned in the Soviet and post-Soviet worlds, such as market socialism. No prominent school of thought in the West doubted that the dissolution of Communist power was part of a process of Westernization in which contemporary Western ideas and institutions could and would successfully be exported to the former Communist societies. None questioned the idea that, somewhere in the repertoire of Western theory and practice, there was a model for conducting the transition from the bankrupt institutions of socialist central planning, incorporated into the structure of a totalitarian state, to market institutions and a liberal democratic state. Least of all did anyone question the desirability, or the possibility, of reconstituting economic and political institutions on Western models, in most parts of the former Soviet bloc. (shrink)

For virtually all the major schools of Western opinion, the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, between 1989 and 1991, represents a triumph of Western values, ideas, and institutions. If, for triumphal conservatives, the events of late 1989 encompassed an endorsement of “democratic capitalism” that augured “the end of history,” for liberal and social democrats they could be understood as the repudiation by the peoples of the former Soviet bloc of Marxism-Leninism (...) in all its varieties, and the reemergence of a humanist socialism that was free of Bolshevik deformation. The structure of political and economic institutions appropriate to the transition from post-Communism in the Soviet bloc to genuine civil society was, accordingly, modeled on Western exemplars—the example of Anglo-American democratic capitalism, of Swedish social democracy, or of the German social market economy— or on various modish Western academic conceptions, long abandoned in the Soviet and post-Soviet worlds, such as market socialism. No prominent school of thought in the West doubted that the dissolution of Communist power was part of a process of Westernization in which contemporary Western ideas and institutions could and would successfully be exported to the former Communist societies. None questioned the idea that, somewhere in the repertoire of Western theory and practice, there was a model for conducting the transition from the bankrupt institutions of socialist central planning, incorporated into the structure of a totalitarian state, to market institutions and a liberal democratic state. Least of all did anyone question the desirability, or the possibility, of reconstituting economic and political institutions on Western models, in most parts of the former Soviet bloc. (shrink)

Western Self-Contempt travels through civilizations since antiquity, examining major political events and the literature of ancient Greece, Rome, France, Britain, and the United States, to study evidence of cultural self-hatred and its cyclical recurrence. Benedict Beckeld explores oikophobia, described by its coiner Sir Roger Scruton as "the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours,'" in its political and philosophical applications. Beckeld analyzes the theories behind oikophobia along with their historical sources, revealing why oikophobia (...) is best described as a cultural malaise that befalls civilizations during their declining days. Beckeld gives a framework for why today's society is so fragmented and self-critical. He demonstrates that oikophobia is the antithesis of xenophobia. By this definition, the riots and civil unrest in the summer of 2020 were an expression of oikophobia. Excessive political correctness that attacks tradition and history is an expression of oikophobia. Beckeld argues that if we are to understand these behaviors and attitudes, we must understand oikophobia as a sociohistorical phenomenon. Western Self-Contempt is a systematic analysis of oikophobia, combining political philosophy and history to examine how Western civilizations and cultures evolve from naïve and self-promoting beginnings to states of self-loathing and decline. Concluding with a philosophical portrait of an increasingly interconnected Western civilization, Beckeld reveals how past events and ideologies, both in the US and in Europe, have led to a modern culture of self-questioning and self-rejection. (shrink)

Notice --- Hobbes and Adams as Thucydideans --- Ancient Greece --- Alternative Concepts of the Human Condition --- Medieval Monarchy --- Renaissance Republics --- Founding Fathers --- The Moral Recuperation of Self-Interest --- Other Human Worlds --- Now is the Whimper of Our Self-Contempt --- Culture is the Human Nature.

Analyzes the history of Western civilization and develops a scientific and historical argument that shows the exceptional power of Christianity in the evolution of Western social consciousness. It argues that the spiritual power of Christianity has had an extraordinary effect on transforming civilization and the development of humanitarian social institutions that even atheists take for granted"--Provided by publisher.

This engaging and informative text will hold the attention of students and scholars as they take a journey through time to understand the role that history and philosophy have played in shaping the course of sport and physical education in Western and selected non-Western civilizations. Using appropriate theoretical and interpretive frameworks, students will investigate topics such as the historical relationship between mind and body; what philosophers and intellectuals have said about the body as a source of knowledge; educational (...) philosophy and the value of physical education and/or sport; philosophical positions that have impacted the historical development of sport and physical education; the history of women in sport and physical education; the role and scope of sport and physical education in Ancient Greece and Rome; the Ancient Olympic Games; the relationship between sport and religion in ancient and modern times; the theoretical and professional development of physical education; the rise of sport in modern America; the history and politics of the modern Olympic Games; and the contributions of men, women, and social movements to the development of sport and physical education from ancient times to the modern era. (shrink)

The reception of Martin Bernal’s Black Athena in 1987 by classicists focused on Bernal’s errors of fact rather than on the content of his message. The thrust of this message was that Classics is a Eurocentric project that systematically excluded the Levantine and Egyptian contribution to European civilization. In 1996, I was hired to develop a Black Athena course to counter the Afrocentric view that black people were systematically excluded from their contribution to the fetishization of “Western Civilization” in (...) Classics, Near Eastern Studies, Art History, and History, among other fields of study. I chose to avoid devaluating Afrocentric views or valorizing traditional views of Greece as the ethnically pure fount of European civilization. Instead, the course structure underscored that a thorough interrogation of the evidence could promote inclusive and multicultural histories by focusing on how civilization began in the east. Fast forward to the present: classicists have embarked on numerous projects to decolonize the fields of ancient studies through outreach, “colorizing” the Classics, and by recruiting people of color to reshape these fields. In considering the ethical issues involved in this project to decolonize Classics and related areas of research, I argue that the institutional positionality of a discipline that inscribes itself as central can never de-colonize itself but should de-center its privileged position in favor of a broader approach including neighboring regions. (shrink)

Big History - an integral conception of the past since the Big Bang until today - is a novel subject of cross-disciplinary interest. The concept was construed in the 1980-1990s simultaneously in different countries, after relevant premises had matured in the sciences and humanities. Various versions and traditions of Big History are considered in the article. Particularly, most of the Western authors emphasize the idea of equilibrium, and thus reduce cosmic, biological, and social evolution to the mass-energy processes; the (...) informational parameter involving all mental and spiritual aspects are seen as epiphenomena of material structures' complication that do not play their own role in evolution. In Russian tradition ascending to A. Bogdanov, E. Bauer, I. Prigogine, and E. Jantsch, sustainable non-equilibrium patterns are used. This implies attention to the pan-material sources and evolution of mental capacities and spiritual culture (as basic anti-entropy instruments) and humans' growing intervention in the material processes on Earth and outside it. The non-equilibrium approach in the context of modern control and self-organization theories, alters the portrayal of the past, and still more dramatically, estimation of the civilization's potential perspectives. (shrink)

The concept of civilization in the West recognizes the origins of the term in civitas and civilité as the development of civil society and, in particular, the expression of the history of sympathy,...

Hailed by The New York Times as "tantalizing" and "learned," A History of Western Morals brings together an impressive range of knowledge of Western civilization. From the ancient cultures of the Near East, through the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds, to the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Age of Reason and the twentieth century, Crane Brinton searches human history for the meaning of ethics. A History of Western Morals raises controversial conclusions about the value of (...) religion in society, the practices of sex, the nature of crime and the possibility of progress. (shrink)

Humanism built Western civilization as we know it today. Its achievements include the liberation of the individual, democracy, universal rights, and widespread prosperity and comfort. Its ambassadors are the heroes of modern culture—Erasmus, Holbein, Shakespeare, Velázquez, Descartes, Kant, Freud. Those who sought to contain humanism’s pride within a frame of higher truth—Luther, Calvin, Poussin, Kierkegaard—could barely interrupt its torrential progress. Those who sought to reform humanism’s tenets from within—Marx, Darwin, and Nietzsche—were tested by the success of their own prophecies. (...) So runs the approved view. It is not shared by John Carroll. Instead, Carroll articulates a disruptive and compelling alternative narrative of the course of Western civilization since the Renaissance and the Reformation contrived to unleash reason, will, and a superhuman man on the world. The West’s five-hundred-year experiment with humanism has failed, he maintains in this bracing study of humanism’s rise to preeminence and its headlong tumble into contradiction, because humans ultimately need some kind of contact with a higher, or metaphysical, order beyond the confines of their time-bound, mundane selves. And if this wasn’t entirely clear before September 11, 2001, Carroll concludes, it surely is now. His provocative and brilliant arguments will challenge received wisdom on every side. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: -- Introduction: Civil Society and Human Flourishing -- City States and Republics, c.400 BCE-400 -- Heavenly Mandates, 400-1500 -- The Emergence of the Sovereign State, 1500-1700 -- From Subject to Citizen, 1700-1815 -- Ideology and Equality, 1815-1914 -- Breakdown and Uncertainty, 1914-2010 -- Conclusion -- Endnotes -- Index.

Western culture, which influenced the whole world, came from Europe. But its roots are not there. They are in Athens and Jerusalem. European culture takes its bearing from references that are not in Europe: Europe is eccentric.What makes the West unique? What is the driving force behind its culture? Remi Brague takes up these questions in Eccentric Culture. This is not another dictionary of European culture, nor a measure of the contributions of a particular individual, religion, or national tradition. (...) The author's interest is especially, with regard to the transmission of that culture, to articulate the dynamic tension that has propelled Europe and more generally the West toward civilization. It is this mainspring of European culture, this founding principle, that Brague calls Roman.Yet the author's intent is not to write a history of Europe, and less yet to defend the historical reality of the Roman Empire. Brague rather isolates and generalizes one aspect of that history or, one might say, cultural myth, of ancient Rome. The Roman attitude senses its own incompleteness and recognizes the call to borrow from what went before it.Historically, it has led the West to borrow from the great traditions of Jerusalem and Athens: primarily the Jewish and Christian tradition, on the one hand, and the classical Greek tradition on the other. Nowhere does the author find this Roman character so strongly present as in the Christian and particularly Catholic attitude toward the incarnation.At once an appreciation of the richness and diversity of the sources and their fruit, Eccentric Culture points as well to the fragility of their nourishing principle. As such, Brague finds in it notonly a means of understanding the past, but of projecting a future in proposing to the West, and to Europe in particular, a model relationship of what is proper to it.An international bestseller, this work has been or is presently being translated into thirteen languages. (shrink)

This paper discusses the paradigms of European history and of European civilisation defined in the main histories of Europe written from the Enlightenment to Guizot.Voltaire, Robertson, Gibbon, and Guizot consolidated a model of the history of Europe which has its origins in the fall of the western Roman Empire and the invasions of the Barbarians. The other main steps of this history were the Christianisation, the creation of a vital economic centre in western and northern Europe, the development (...) of the cities, the rediscovery of Roman law, the creation of a complex system of states, the colonial expansion and again the birth of a society of “good manners”.A common civilisation which did not ignore the differences which existed between one country and another – the “national characters”, discussed by David Hume in 1748. Instead the different national characters – the variety of Europe as Guizot wrote – represented an important element of the European civilisation. (shrink)

In his seminal book on the historical periods of Western attitudes toward death, Philippe Aries describes four consecutive periods through which these attitudes evolved and transformed. According to him, the historical attitudes of Western cultures have passed through four major parts described above: “Tamed Death,” One’s Own Death,” “Thy Death,” and “Forbidden Death.” This paper, after exploring this concept through the lens of Persian Poetic Wisdom, concludes that he historical attitudes of Persian-speaking people toward death have generally passed (...) through two major periods. The first period is an amalgamation of Aries’ “Tamed Death” and “One’s Own Death” periods, and the second period is an amalgamation of Aries’ “Thy Death” and “Forbidden Death” periods. This paper explores the main differences and similarities of these two historical trends through a comparative review of the consecutive historical periods of attitudes toward death between the Western and Persian civilizations/cultures. Although both civilizations moved through broadly similar stages, some influential contextual factors have been very influential in shaping noteworthy differences between them. The concepts of after-death judgment and redemption/downfall dichotomy and practices like deathbed rituals and their evolution after enlightenment and modernity are almost common between the above two broad traditions. The chronology of events and some aspects of conceptual evolutions and ritualistic practices are among the differences. (shrink)

This paper discusses the paradigms of European history and of European civilisation defined in the main histories of Europe written from the Enlightenment to Guizot. Voltaire, Robertson, Gibbon, and Guizot consolidated a model of the history of Europe which has its origins in the fall of the western Roman Empire and the invasions of the Barbarians. The other main steps of this history were the Christianisation, the creation of a vital economic centre in western and northern Europe, the (...) development of the cities, the rediscovery of Roman law, the creation of a complex system of states, the colonial expansion and again the birth of a society of “good manners”. A common civilisation which did not ignore the differences which existed between one country and another – the “national characters”, discussed by David Hume in 1748. Instead the different national characters – the variety of Europe as Guizot wrote – represented an important element of the European civilisation. (shrink)

The theory of human moral evolution elaborated in the later work of Jürgen Habermas represents one of the most challenging and provocative of recent, linguistically inspired attempts to reinterpret our understanding of Western history. In critically examining this theory, the present article identifies some major problems with Habermas's reinterpretation of the history of the formation of Western civilization as the universal pragmatic process of the evolution of human moral communicative competences. Drawing on the works of Norbert Elias and (...) Michel Foucault, the article seeks to show how the formal grounding of Habermas's evolutionary theory in the categories of his universal pragmatic conception of communicative action ultimately prevents him from grasping the radically embodied nature of human discursive practice and its implications for the historical process of the formation of human moral will. (shrink)

Western culture, which influenced the whole world, came from Europe. But its roots are not there. They are in Athens and Jerusalem. European culture takes its bearing from references that are not in Europe: Europe is eccentric.What makes the West unique? What is the driving force behind its culture? Remi Brague takes up these questions in Eccentric Culture. This is not another dictionary of European culture, nor a measure of the contributions of a particular individual, religion, or national tradition. (...) The author's interest is especially, with regard to the transmission of that culture, to articulate the dynamic tension that has propelled Europe and more generally the West toward civilization. It is this mainspring of European culture, this founding principle, that Brague calls Roman.Yet the author's intent is not to write a history of Europe, and less yet to defend the historical reality of the Roman Empire. Brague rather isolates and generalizes one aspect of that history or, one might say, cultural myth, of ancient Rome. The Roman attitude senses its own incompleteness and recognizes the call to borrow from what went before it.Historically, it has led the West to borrow from the great traditions of Jerusalem and Athens: primarily the Jewish and Christian tradition, on the one hand, and the classical Greek tradition on the other. Nowhere does the author find this Roman character so strongly present as in the Christian and particularly Catholic attitude toward the incarnation.At once an appreciation of the richness and diversity of the sources and their fruit, Eccentric Culture points as well to the fragility of their nourishing principle. As such, Brague finds in it notonly a means of understanding the past, but of projecting a future in proposing to the West, and to Europe in particular, a model relationship of what is proper to it.An international bestseller, this work has been or is presently being translated into thirteen languages. (shrink)

Written by a team of distinguished scholars, this is an authoritative and comprehensive history of Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings to the present day. Illustrated with over 150 color and black-and-white pictures, chosen to illuminate and complement the text, this lively and readable work is an ideal introduction to philosophy for anyone interested in the history of ideas. From Plato's Republic and St. Augustine's Confessions through Marx's Capital and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, the extraordinary philosophical dialogue between great (...) Western minds has flourished unabated through the ages. Dazzling in its genius and breadth, the long line of European and American intellectual discourse tells a remarkable story--a quest for truth and wisdom that continues to shape our most basic ideas about human nature and the world around us. That quest is brilliantly brought to life in The Oxford History of Western Philosophy. With spectacular illustrations--including sixteen pages of full-color plates--this splendidly written volume takes the reader on a magnificient chronological tour through the revolutions of thought that have forged the Western philosophical tradition from ancient times to the present. Throughout, the six contributors--an internationally renowned team of philosophers including Roger Scruton, Anthony Quinton, and Anthony Kenny--bring the astonishingly diverse, wide-ranging landscape of intellectual history into sharp focus, emphasizing how notions seen today as part of an inevitable march of ideas were in their own time often considered radical, if not revolutionary. Thus we are treated, for example, to lively accounts of how Plato's "theory of forms" and Aristotle's pioneering exercises in logic broke with the past to irrevocably alter the course of Western thought. The authors also reveal the relationships between landmark thinkers, and the ways they drew on their intellectual heritage. They show, for instance, how St. Augustine and Aquinas, though advancing the cause of Christian doctrine, picked up where their pagan Greek forebears had left off. We witness how, during the Renaissance, the profound empiricist ideas underlying Descarte's famous utterance--"I think, therefore I exist"--lived in a tense but complementary relationship with Locke's rationalist theories. Moving into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the book explores how Hume greatly influenced Kant's conception of the "transcendental aesthetic," and how Hegel drew upon the lesser known (but groundbreaking) work of Fichte and Schelling. The authors bring the story up to our own time, vividly recounting the existential trend from Nietzsche ("God is dead") to Sartre, along with other increasingly fractious schools of thought. Along the way, we not only encounter the vast intellectual riches of the Western mind, but we also meet the personalities behind the great thoughts, from the saintly Hume (described by Adam Smith as having "come as near to perfection as anybody could") to the ill-mannered outcast Fichte. And the hundreds of maps and striking illustrations (including full-color reproductions of art ranging from medieval manuscripts to the works of Raphael, Ingres, and Magritte) form an integral part of the book, revealing the interweaving of art and ideas through the ages, as artists have striven to give visual immediacy to philosophical concepts. The Oxford History of Western Philosophy is the most authoritative single-volume account ever written for the general reader. Engagingly written and astonishingly far-reaching, it provides the consummate introduction to the intellectual bedrock upon which Western civilization is built. (shrink)

From Plato's Republic and St. Augustine's Confessions through Marx's Capital and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, the extraordinary philosophical dialogue between great Western minds has flourished unabated through the ages. Dazzling in its genius and breadth, the long line of European and American intellectual discourse tells a remarkable story--a quest for truth and wisdom that continues to shape our most basic ideas about human nature and the world around us. That quest is brilliantly brought to life in The Oxford History (...) of Western Philosophy. Featuring hundreds of spectacular illustrations--including sixteen pages of full-color plates--this splendidly written volume takes the reader on a magnificient chronological tour through the revolutions of thought that have forged the Western philosophical tradition from ancient times to the present. Throughout, the six contributors--an internationally renowned team of philosophers including Roger Scruton, Anthony Quinton, and Anthony Kenny--bring the astonishingly diverse, wide-ranging landscape of intellectual history into sharp focus, emphasizing how notions seen today as part of an inevitable march of ideas were in their own time often considered radical, if not revolutionary. Thus we are treated, for example, to lively accounts of how Plato's "theory of forms" and Aristotle's pioneering exercises in logic broke with the past to irrevocably alter the course of Western thought. The authors also reveal the relationships between landmark thinkers, and the ways they drew on their intellectual heritage. They show, for instance, how St. Augustine and Aquinas, though advancing the cause of Christian doctrine, picked up where their pagan Greek forebears had left off. We witness how, during the Renaissance, the profound empiricist ideas underlying Descarte's famous utterance--"I think, therefore I exist"--lived in a tense but complementary relationship with Locke's rationalist theories. Moving into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the book explores how Hume greatly influenced Kant's conception of the "transcendental aesthetic," and how Hegel drew upon the lesser known (but groundbreaking) work of Fichte and Schelling. The authors bring the story up to our own time, vividly recounting the existential trend from Nietzsche ("God is dead") to Sartre, along with other increasingly fractious schools of thought. Along the way, we not only encounter the vast intellectual riches of the Western mind, but we also meet the personalities behind the great thoughts, from the saintly Hume (described by Adam Smith as having "come as near to perfection as anybody could") to the ill-mannered outcast Fichte. And the hundreds of maps and striking illustrations (including full-color reproductions of art ranging from medieval manuscripts to the works of Raphael, Ingres, and Magritte) form an integral part of the book, revealing the interweaving of art and ideas through the ages, as artists have striven to give visual immediacy to philosophical concepts. The Oxford History of Western Philosophy is the most authoritative single-volume account ever written for the general reader. Engagingly written and astonishingly far-reaching, it provides the consummate introduction to the intellectual bedrock upon which Western civilization is built. (shrink)

A brief history of philosophy in western civilization, written primarily for the undergraduate. Not as systematic or as well-documented as Windelband's history, nor as polemic as Russell's, this work is explicitly designed to make philosophical ideas and traditions come alive for the student. Short and somewhat facile chapters on positivism and existentialism bring the volume up to date, but its chief merit lies in its easy digestibility.--D. B.

In this volume, Peter Burke, a prominent "Western" historian, offers ten hypotheses that attempt to constitute specifically "Western Historical Thinking".

A highly readable historical survey of the major developments in scientific thought and the impact of science on Western culture, this book takes the reader from ancient times through to the twentieth century. Organized chronologically, the book explores the history of studies of the natural world, and man's role within that world, in a single volume"--Provided by publisher.

The article discusses such a new phenomenon of modernity as the rehabilitation of utopia, which has not yet become widespread, but it is a serious symptom of the crisis of civilization in Russia and in the West. It is shown that attempts to rehabilitate utopia are associated with the situation of crisis, uncertainty, unpredictability caused by the ongoing transformations of the modern epoch. Under these conditions, the utopia is not only a reflection of the existing situation but also an opportunity (...) for the formation of new ideas and the reduction of uncertainty. Many astute researchers in both the West and Russia demonstrate a positive attitude towards utopia, as they see the opportunities offered by utopia, especially in times of crisis. It is noted that in Russia there is a gradual overcoming of the negative attitude to utopia, which was associated with the collapsed socialist system. A summary history of utopia shows that utopia is a significant factor in history that accompanies the development of mankind throughout history. Despite this, in the earlier decades of the 20th century and the beginning of 21st century the “death of utopia” was declared, it was driven by ideological and political reasons and by globalization in general. Meanwhile, at present its importance is again actualized in relation to the complex international situation. Therefore, both in the West and in Russia there is a growing demand for the ideal concepts of the future of human existence in the form of utopia. (shrink)

We can no longer speak of a state of war in any traditional sense, yet there is currently no viable theory to account for the manifold internal conflicts, or civil wars, that increasingly afflict the world's populations. Meant as a first step toward such a theory, Giorgio Agamben's latest book looks at how civil war was conceived of at two crucial moments in the history of Western thought: in ancient Athens (from which the political concept of stasis emerges) and (...) later, in the work of Thomas Hobbes. It identifies civil war as the fundamental threshold of politicization in the West, an apparatus that over the course of history has alternately allowed for the de-politicization of citizenship and the mobilization of the unpolitical. The arguments herein, first conceived of in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, have become ever more relevant now that we have entered the age of planetary civil war. (shrink)

The partisan split in American politics is the result of a major transformation of the West, as the psychology of the past based on hierarchy and privilege is being replaced by a psychology of equality. The status of women and minorities is at the center of this. The West's long history of inequality is gradually changing. When women's equality is considered symbolically, it represents the feminine rising to parity with the masculine, a status it has not held since prehistory. Minority (...) groups have carried the projected shadow of the White majority for centuries; that is gradually ending. Integration of the feminine and the shadow are core concepts of C.G. Jung's psychology of individuation. The emerging equality of women and minorities indicates that our group psychology is entering a period of individuation. This is a huge change, at least as profound as pagan Rome becoming Christian or medieval Europe transitioning into the modern West. The turmoil of our time is because of the great historical change as we leave what has been the modern West. The turmoil is the widespread appearance of the same conflicts that Jung saw in his patients a century ago. The same answer still applies, the path Jung realized at the time, individuation, and it is already beginning to shape our future. In this book author John Cahman traces the history of Western Civilization as a developmental process and shows how our time marks a great turning point in that story as we leave an age of sexism, racism, and hierarchy and enter one of individuation. (shrink)

Richard Löwenthal’s response to the challenges of ‘1968’ was more complex than that of most of his liberal colleagues. He did not simply remain beholden to the interpretative patterns of a German ‘special path’ (Sonderweg). He also, and increasingly so, drew on the conceptual framework of ‘Western civilization’ to make sense of and cope with the socio-cultural transformations of his times. What many like-minded intellectuals perceived solely as a ‘deviation from the West’, he also viewed as a ‘crisis of (...) the West’. This article argues that this transnationally ‘Western’ stance was part and parcel of Löwenthal’s intellectual profile as ‘cold war liberal’. This was a relatively rare species in Cold War Germany, and Löwenthal was rather exceptional in his sustained engagement with the topic of ‘Western civilization’. Compared with luminaries such as Carl Joachim Friedrich, Ernst Fraenkel or Karl Loewenstein, Richard Löwenthal may be lesser known in English-speaking scholarship, but he makes for a particularly instructive case when discussing ‘cold war liberalism’ in West Germany. With its focus on the spatialization of political thought, and ‘the West’ as a spatial imaginary, this article also seeks to contribute to the growing discussion of how to ‘spatialize’ intellectual history. (shrink)

This book argues that the uniquely dynamic and propulsive character of Western Civilization, for better and worse, has been generated by a creative argument ...

One may discuss the role played by mechanical science in the history of scientific ideas, particularly in physics, focusing on the significance of the relationship between physics and mathematics in describing mathematical laws in the context of a scientific theory. In the second Newtonian law of motion, space and time are crucial physical magnitudes in mechanics, but they are also mathematical magnitudes as involved in derivative operations. Above all, if we fail to acknowledge their mathematical meaning, we fail to comprehend (...) the whole Newtonian mechanical apparatus. For instance, let us think about velocity and acceleration. In this case, the approach to conceive and define foundational mechanical objects and their mathematical interpretations changes. Generally speaking, one could prioritize mathematical solutions for Lagrange’s equations, rather than the crucial role played by collisions and geometric motion in Lazare Carnot’s operative mechanics, or Faraday’s experimental science with respect to Ampère’s mechanical approach in the electric current domain, or physico-mathematical choices in Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. In this paper, we will focus on the historical emergence of mechanical science from a physico-mathematical standpoint and emphasize significant similarities and/or differences in mathematical approaches by some key authors of the 18th century. Attention is paid to the role of mathematical interpretation for physical objects. (shrink)

Since the 1990’s the rise of China provokes heated debates in the West. Numerous politicians and scholars, who study contemporary political affairs, pose the question, which will be the new role of China in international affairs? Many Western observers presume that China will act as the Western powers did in the past, promoting policy of domination, enslavement and gaining profits at all costs. The Chinese declarations on peace, co-operation, mutual interests, and harmony are often considered empty words, a (...) certain decorum of “real politics”, as it had been often practised in the West. An inquiry into the Chinese political and intellectual traditions, almost unknown in the West, challenges such widespread opinions and fears. Of course, it is an open question to which degree the traditional Chinese concepts will determine contemporary policy, since China had been westernised in enormous degree.Nevertheless, attitude to war, struggle, and competition constitutes one of the principal characteristics of each culture and appears closely related to its structure of values. Such attitudes determine political concepts and systems, foreign relations, norms of social life, etc. The analysis of Western and Chinese civilisations demonstrates that in this respect they represented divergent orientations. In Erich Fromm’s typology of societies, the Chinese culture could be considered non-destructive but aggressive, whereas Western civilisation could be called aggressive and destructiveOf course, there were great differences both within Chinese and within Western civilisations. Local/regional cultures belonging to each of them had their own characteristics in respect to struggle, and one could also notice great changes in the course of their histories. In general, at the dawn of these two civilisations, both of them were more or less bellicose, although in the cultures of the Chinese Central Plain “avoiding struggle” traits could be detected quite early. Appreciation of peace and harmony eventually prevailed with the predomination of the Confucian ideology, although Taoism and other schools of thought also condemned struggle and war. On the other hand, in the Mediterranean the bellicose cultures and war-mongering states prevailed. The beginning of this “great divergence” could approximately be dated for the middle of the 1st millennium BC, and the civilisations of East Asia and Europe took the opposite courses in theirsocial and political development. Struggle constituted a fundamental principle in the Western vision of the world-order, and its crucial archetype constituted the eternal struggle of Evil against Good, with the eventual triumph of God, who embodies Good and forces of Light. The Chinese tradition promoted instead the vision of the universe as one giant organism based on the principle of harmony, where Yin complements Yang. Hence both civilisations adopted the dualistic concepts, but one was antagonistic, and the second—complementary.In the 19th century, when Asian nations faced the colonial conquests, many of them tried to protect their independence and modernise themselves. For this end they tried to adopt not only Western armaments and military skills, but also Western bellicose ideology and values. Japan was obviously the champion of such a militarist course, but there were similar tendencies in China as well. Such bellicose ideology reached its apex there during the famous Maoist Cultural Revolution, when class struggle and bellicosity was exalted. The triumph of the Western bellicose approach and rejection of the traditional native heritage marked the century 1860’s–1960’s in China. However, after the unimaginable sufferings of the World War I and II, of Nazism and of communism, the West started to revalidate its traditions condemning war and violence. People started to appreciate peace and co-operation within and among nations. The United Nations and the European Union had been founded for such purposes: to promote peace and co-operation. However, the condemnation of wars did not halt military confrontation of the states, and the West still cultivates political ideologies, which propagate the “proper order” based on competition and struggle. Hence the concepts of multi-party democracy and of free market could serve as hallmarks of the West. In China, since the end of the 1970’s step by step the ancient ideological traditions have been appreciated again and the new concepts of peaceful and harmonious development evolved. At the beginning of the 21st century the Chinese leaders elaborated a new ideology of both harmonious domestic and international order aiming at peaceful development based on co-operation. Of course, there are still vivid the remnants of the previous Western-type approach of the brutal competition and of aggressive foreign policy.Notwithstanding divergent tendencies inside each of these civilisations, in general they both approach each other again, but this time in a common search for peace, cooperation and harmonious development. Their interpretations obviously differ, since in China such concepts are traditional, but rather new in the West, and in various respects both sides have different values and ideals. (shrink)