Scepticism, a philosophical tradition that casts doubt on our ability to gain knowledge of the world and suggests suspending judgment in the face of uncertainty, has been influential since its beginnings in ancient Greece. Harald Thorsrud provides an engaging, rigorous introduction to the central themes, arguments, and general concerns of ancient Scepticism, from its beginnings with Pyrrho of Elis to the writings of Sextus Empiricus in the second century A.D. Thorsrud explores the differences among Sceptics and examines in (...) particular the separation of the Scepticism of Pyrrho from its later form—Academic Scepticism—the result of its ideas being introduced into Plato's Academy in the third century B.C. Steering an even course through the many differences of scholarly opinion surrounding Scepticism, the book also provides a balanced appraisal of the philosophy's enduring significance by showing why it remains so interesting and how ancient interpretations differ from modern ones. _Copub: Acumen Publishing Limited _. (shrink)

Harald Thorsrud - Cicero on his Academic Predecessors: the Fallibilism of Arcesilaus and Carneades - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 1-18 Cicero on his Academic Predecessors: the Fallibilism of Arcesilaus and Carneades Harald Thorsrud IN AN IMPORTANT PAPER, Couissin argued for what has come to be called the dialectical interpretation of Academic skepticism. On this interpretation, Arcesilaus and Carneades practiced the same, purely dialectical method -- they would elicit assent (...) to premises characteristic of their interlocutor's position and then derive unacceptable consequences exclusively on the basis of those premises. This method allowed them to remain uncommitted to the premises as well as the conclusions of their arguments. They would simply draw logical consequences from their opponents' own premises for the sake of refutation. This is in keeping with the current consensus that an ancient skeptic is one who has no beliefs, or at least no beliefs of a problematically dogmatic sort. Consequently, the methods of ancient skeptics, including Academic skeptics, are thought to be strictly negative, seeking only the elimination of belief. So when we come to Cicero's Philonian version of Academic methodology and find that it explicitly includes provisions for the acquisition of fallible beliefs, it is no surprise that commentators who are sympathetic to the dialectical interpretation tend to view.. (shrink)

coherent historical narrative. 1 As Thorsrud himself recognizes, this is not an easy enterprise, since virtually every part of that narrative could be challenged. Although it is primarily aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, the book is by no means lacking in interest to specialists, since Thorsrud does not sacrifice scholarly analysis and rigor for accessibility. An attractive aspect of his exposition is that he continuously reflects on the sense and soundness of the ancient skeptical stances and explains (...) them both in their own terms and with reference to our current way of seeing things. In other words, he adopts a more philosophic approach by considering the problems addressed by the ancient skeptics or posed by their outlooks, instead of providing an exclusively historical or doxographical presentation of past philosophical views. Thorsrud's interest in ancient skepticism has been motivated by an as yet unfulfilled "desire to find a satisfactory explanation of pervasive disagreement" -- a question that lately has attracted a great deal of attention from epistemologists. He finds that study of the ancient skeptical arguments has helped him think more clearly about the limits of reason, the nature of rational belief and appearances, and the part these play in action, and he expresses the hope that the book will have the same effect on others. Written in a style which is straightforward and readable, this volume is a valuable addition to the ever growing literature on ancient skepticism. (shrink)

In Prophetic Politics, Philip J. Harold offers an original interpretation of the political dimension of Emmanuel Levinas’s thought.

The topic of this essay is how non-realistic novels challenge our philosophical understanding of the moral significance of literature. I consider just one case: Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. I argue that standard philosophical views, based as they are on realistic models of literature, fail to capture the moral significance of this work. I show that Catch-22 succeeds morally because of the ways it resists using standard realistic techniques, and suggest that philosophical discussion of ethics and literature must be pluralistic if it (...) is to include all morally salient literature, and not just novels in the “Great Tradition” and their ilk. (shrink)

Immoralists hold that in at least some cases, moral fl aws in artworks can increase their aesthetic value. They deny what I call the valence constraint: the view that any effect that an artwork’s moral value has on its aesthetic merit must have the same valence. The immoralist offers three arguments against the valence constraint. In this paper I argue that these arguments fail, and that this failure reveals something deep and interesting about the relationship between cognitive and moral value. (...) In the fi nal section I offer a positive argument for the valence constraint. (shrink)

Two recent novels, Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, are philosophically instructive. These books are interesting, I argue, because they reveal something about understanding and appreciating narrative. They show us that audience’s participation in narrative is much more subtle and complex than philosophers generally acknowledge. An analysis of these books reveals that narrative imagining is not static or unified, but dynamic and multipolar. I argue that once the complexity of narrative engagement is better understood, some prominent philosophical (...) problems and debates concerning narrative dissolve. (shrink)

One important but infrequently discussed difficulty with expressivism is the attitude type individuation problem.1 Expressivist theories purport to provide a unified account of normative states. Judgments of moral goodness, beauty, humor, prudence, and the like, are all explicated in the same way: as expressions of attitudes, what Allan Gibbard calls “states of norm-acceptance”. However, expressivism also needs to explain the difference between these different sorts of attitude. It is possible to judge that a thing is both aesthetically good and morally (...) bad. While the realist can explain the difference by suggesting that each judgment makes reference to a different property (or set of properties), the expressivist cannot. She must show that what is expressed by the speaker is different in each case. This has proven to be difficult to do. (shrink)

I explore the claim that “fictive imagining” – imagining what it is like to be a character – can be morally dangerous. In particular, I consider the controversy over William Styron’s imagining the revolutionary protagonist in his Confessions of Nat Turner. I employ Ted Cohen’s model of fictive imagining to argue, following a generally Kantian line of thought, that fictive imagining can be dangerous if one has the wrong motives. After considering several possible motives, I argue that only internally directed (...) motives can satisfy the moral concern. Finally, I suggest that when one has the right motives, fictive imagining is morally praiseworthy since it improves one’s ability to imagine the lives of others. (shrink)

Moral philosophers who differ from one another on a wide range of questions tend to agree on at least one general point. Most believe that things are worth valuing either because of their relationship to something else worth valuing, or because they are simply (in themselves) worth valuing. I value my car, because I value getting to work; I value getting to work, because I value making money and spending time productively; and I value those things because I value leading (...) a fulfilling life—and that valuing needs no justification. The values that need to be justified by other values are extrinsic; those that do not are intrinsic. Most traditional philosophical approaches to value justification are foundational in this sense: intrinsic values provide a foundation upon which other values can be justified. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that in at least some interesting cases, the moral value of a narrative work depends on the aesthetic properties of that artwork. It does not follow that a work that is aesthetically bad will be morally bad (or that it will be morally good). The argument comprises four stages. First I describe several different features of imaginative engagement with narrative artworks. Then I show that these features depend on some of the aesthetic properties of those (...) works. Third, I argue that these same features of imaginative engagement are morally salient, by virtue of inviting more or less sophisticated and reflective moral responses. Finally, I show that the overall moral value of an artwork depends in part on whether or not the prescribed response is simple or complex, passive or reflective. (shrink)

IT IS DIFFICULT for me to read Pride and Prejudice without empathizing either with Elizabeth Bennet, or sometimes with her father, Mr Bennet. Not only do my own responses to and opinions of the events and characters of the book at times resemble theirs, but even when they do not, I find myself seeing the event from Elizabeth’s or Mr Bennet’s point of view. For example, at the close of the book, Elizabeth’s former dislike of Mr Darcy has completely vanished, (...) in part because of learning of a number of good deeds that Mr Darcy has done very quietly for their family. When Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth (for the second time) she is delighted to accept him. However, everyone else in Elizabeth’s family despises Mr Darcy, and they also believe that Elizabeth still hates him. So it is easy to understand Mr Bennet’s surprise and distaste when Mr Darcy asks Mr Bennet for Elizabeth’s hand; after all, Mr Bennet still believes Mr Darcy to be prideful and haughty. While I am not myself surprised to hear Elizabeth’s response—the reader learns much more of Mr Darcy’s character than Mr Bennet does—I do have the experience of imagining being surprised. I am also capable of empathizing with Elizabeth, who is excited, flustered, and a bit ashamed at having so misjudged Mr Darcy early on, and I can imagine having these feelings for people I have misjudged. I can (to some degree) understand why she finds explaining all this to Mr Bennet so difficult. I go back and forth, as I read, between the perspectives of Mr Bennet and Elizabeth. These experiences of mine are experiences of the sort that I call ‘empathizing with fictions’, although we sometimes might describe such experiences by saying that we ‘identified’ with a particular character or characters in a story. (shrink)

Since Phillipa Foot’s paper ‘Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives’ was published some twenty-five years ago, questions about categorical imperatives and the alleged rationality of acting morally have been of central concern to ethicists. For critics and friends of Kantian ethical theories, these questions have special importance. One of the distinctive features of Kantian ethical theories is that they claim that there are categorical imperatives: imperatives which dictate which actions one should follow insofar as one is rational.This way of (...) parsing morally right action as a kind of rational action seems to side-step at least some of the anti-realist objections that other kinds of moral theories must face.1 Instead, the Kantian must defend the claim that failure to act morally is a failure of rationality. Rationality as a normative concept is sometimes thought to be more clear and perhaps more objective than other basic normative concepts. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is good reason to believe that we can be influenced by fictions in ways that matter morally, and some of the time we will be unaware that we have been so influenced. These arguments fall short of proving a clear causal link between fictions and specific changes in the audience, but they do reveal rather interesting and complex features of the moral psychology of fiction. In particular, they reveal that some Platonic worries about (...) the dangers of art cannot be dismissed lightly. (shrink)

I distinguish two varieties of ancient skepticism on the basis of their competing attitudes towards reason. Pyrrhonian skeptics, according to Sextus Empiricus, not only doubt our ability to arrive at true beliefs, but also the value of doing so, whereas the Academics, as portrayed by Cicero, are committed to the view that true beliefs are as beneficial as they are difficult to acquire. Next, I examine Academic epistemology, focusing on one of Cicero's most important and problematic philosophical coinages---probabilitas . He (...) offers this term as the Academic's fallible criterion of judgment and as an alternative to the Stoic criterion which even more problematically guarantees certainty. The Academic, following Plato's Socrates, subjects his beliefs to close scrutiny in order to see whether they can survive refutation. By seeking out these 'dialectical survivors' the Academic seeks to eliminate the false beliefs from the set of beliefs that seem probabile. ;After discussing Academic epistemology, I examine some ethical implications of this view. The Stoics claim that no amount of non-moral goods can add to the eudaimonia of the sage, for he is in possession of the only genuine good, virtue. And virtue, for the Stoics is the healthy state of the psyche which results from deep, systematic knowledge. Here again, Cicero offers an Academic alternative. He maintains the Stoic's naturalistic ethical formula that a virtuous life is one lived in accordance with nature, but his interpretation reflects his epistemic modesty. To live in accordance with nature turns out to mean 'insofar as it is morally intelligible'. ;Finally, I argue for the plausibility of Cicero's claim to practice a method which originates with Socrates and after its revival in the third century BCE continuosly flourished to his own age . I conclude that Cicero's account of the Academy is both historically plausible and philosophically interesting; and thus Cicero should be taken seriously as a philosopher in his. own right and not merely as a doxographer. (shrink)

Harold Sonny Ladoo’s 1972 novel No Pain Like This Body has been analyzed for its seminal representation of the traumas experienced by a formerly indentured Indo-Trinidadian family in the early twentieth century. However, relatively little attention has been given to Ladoo’s experimentation with multiple languages, particularly English, Trinidadian Creole, and Hindi. This article argues that Ladoo’s multilingualism offers a guide for approaching the traumatic experiences he represents. While some aspects of the novel, such as its glossary, make the characters’ (...) language more comprehensible, others, such as the orthography Ladoo chooses to represent Creole speech, deliberately distance the reader. Using decolonial theorists of language, particularly Édouard Glissant's writing on multi­lingualism and opacity, this article considers Ladoo’s use of multilingualism both as a limit to readers’ understanding as well as an invitation to continued engagement with those aspects of the text that are resistant to easy comprehension. This article contrasts opacity as a reading methodology with some of the dominant paradigms for understanding linguistic difference in the field of comparative literature, which rely on linguistic and textual mastery. Ultimately, the article proposes reading multilingual texts through opacity as a model for decolonial reading in which creative, active engagement with the text can produce solidarity without requiring complete transparency. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn the first section I ask two questions: what sort of a poem is Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and what is the immediate experience of reading it in sequence? These two questions are the practical equivalents of the main terms of my title. I try to answer them by reconstructing a first reading of the poem in the light of my own experience and the imagined one of the first readers of the poem. I suggest that two terms—accretion and elimination—are (...) helpful here and that, in some ways, the structure and sequential experiencing of the poem resemble the structures of extended nineteenth-century musical forms. In the second section, I reverse perspective and take a position at the end of the poem. From such a point, it is easier to find what the poem has included and eliminated and this, in turn, suggests the kind of poem that it is. In the third section I tackle the terms “improvisation” and “hybrid genres” directly, link them with my earlier arguments, and engage with some theorists, especially Bakhtin. In particular, I argue against the view that Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage dissolves genre but argue that genres are nevertheless “open categories.” My conclusion is less definite. I confess to difficulties that still bother me. (shrink)

Scientific Metaphysics is a collection of essays in which prominent philosophers of science explore how metaphysics looks like that is judged by scientific standards. Common to all chapters is the requirement that scientific results and methods should be applied to metaphysical puzzle solving and, hence, the skepticism about philosophical reasoning that is based on the analysis of common-sense concepts and appeals to intuitions and a priori knowledge. It is, however, controversial what exactly naturalistic metaphysics might be, since at present there (...) is no clear-cut criterion that distinguishes between scientific metaphysics and its analytic opponent, i.e., no consensus is reached about the sense in which metaphysics can be ‘grounded’ in empirical science.In the first chapter, Anjan Chakravartty expresses some doubts that there is a coherent sense of scientific metaphysics and, as Harold Kincaid points out in the introduction , .. (shrink)

This review discusses Harold Berman’s, Law and Language, published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. It locates this short book in relation to Berman’s extensive body of publications in international and comparative law, and asks what contribution the book’s recent, posthumous publication can make to current debates over approaches to forensic linguistics. Particular attention is given to Berman’s conceptualisation of law as a ‘living language’, as well as to his coining of the term ‘communification’ to describe the value of (...) legal-lay dialogue in building a public sense of community and in sustaining the legitimacy of legal systems. (shrink)

Harold Garfinkel: Toward a Sociological Theory of Information. Ed. Anne Warfield Rawls Content Type Journal Article Pages 117-121 DOI 10.1007/s10746-010-9141-1 Authors James Aho, Idaho State University Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice Pocatello ID 83209 USA Journal Human Studies Online ISSN 1572-851X Print ISSN 0163-8548 Journal Volume Volume 33 Journal Issue Volume 33, Number 1.

Harold Jeffreys' ideas on the interpretation of probability and epistemology are reviewed. It is argued that with regard to the interpretation of probability, Jeffreys embraces a version of logicism that shares some features of the subjectivism of Ramsey and de Finetti. Jeffreys also developed a probabilistic epistemology, characterized by a pragmatical and constructivist attitude towards notions such as ‘objectivity’, ‘reality’ and ‘causality’. 1 Introductory remarks 2 The interpretation of probability 3 Jeffreys' probabilistic epistemology.

Man has always hoped to survive his bodily death, and it is a central tenet of many religions that such survival is a reality. It has been supposed by many that one form such survival might take is reincarnation in another body. Subscribers to this view include Pythagoras, Plato sometimes, and a large number of Eastern thinkers. Other thinkers have, of course, disputed that reincarnation is a fact, and some have even denied that it is a possibility. But seldom has (...) it been claimed by its opponents that reincarnation is a logical impossibility. (shrink)

A careful analysis of Harold Pinter’s screenplays, notably those written in the 1980s and early 1990s, renders an illustration of how the artist’s cinematic projects supplemented, and often heightened, the focus of his dramatic output, his resolute exploration of the workings of power, love and destruction at various levels of social interaction and bold revision of received values. It seems, however, that few of the scripts did so in such a subtle yet effective manner as Pinter’s intriguing fusion of (...) the erotic, violence and ethical concerns in the film The Comfort of Strangers, directed by Paul Schrader and based on Ian McEwan’s 1981 novel of the same name. The article centres upon Pinter’s creative adaptation of McEwan’s deeply allusive and disquieting text probing, amongst others, the intricacies and tensions of gender relations and sexual intimacy. It examines the screenplay-regarded by many critics as not merely an adaptation of the novel but another, very powerful work of art-addressing Pinter’s method as an adapter and highlighting the artist’s imaginative attempts at fostering a better appreciation of the connections between authoritarian impulses, love and justice. Similarly to a number of other Pinter filmscripts and plays of the 1980s and 1990s, the erotic and the lethal alarmingly intersect in this screenplay where the ostensibly innocent-an unmarried English couple on a holiday in Venice, who are manipulated, victimized and, ultimately, destroyed-are subtly depicted as partly complicit in their own fates. (shrink)

T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi, editio altera a F. Schoell recognita . 5 M. 60. The Menaechmi of Plautus, edited on the basis of Brix's edition, by Harold North Fowler, Ph. D.

The epistemological problem of objectivism in the production of sociological knowledge confronts the researcher with the question of the risk involved in substituting social reality by the idealizations and abstractions created by science. Without a doubt, the subject seems intriguing and requires its thematization facing toward and appropriate foundation of sociological concepts. In order to address that problem, the article aims to recover, from a hermeneutic perspective, a phenomenologically inspired epistemology in the works of Alfred Schutz and Harold Garfinkel. (...) To achieve this goal we first analyse Schutzian contributions in the context of the correspondence held with Talcott Parsons. There the author thoroughly discusses the difficulties that social sciences go through regarding the foundation of its concepts. Secondly, we revise unpublished bibliographical heritage from Garfinkel’s work who -interested in the epistemological debate between Schutz and Parsons- picks up the epistemological problem again. We will sustain that unlike Schutz who proposes a philosophical response consisting in the articulation of an ontology of the life-world, Garfinkel develops a methodological answer which aims to illuminate the practical reasoning and the methodological decisions of researchers in order to avoid the substitution of social reality by the idealities of the scientific reflection. El problema epistemológico del objetivismo en la producción de conocimiento sociológico confronta al investigador con la pregunta acerca del riesgo que conlleva la sustitución de la realidad social por las idealidades y las abstracciones creadas por la ciencia. A fin de abordar ese problema, el artículo se propone recuperar, desde una perspectiva hermenéutica, una epistemología de inspiración fenomenológica en los textos de Alfred Schutz y de Harold Garfinkel. Para ello se analizan, en primer lugar, los aportes de Schutz en la correspondencia mantenida con Talcott Parsons pues es allí donde el autor discute ampliamente las dificultades por las que atraviesan las ciencias sociales con relación a la fundamentación de sus conceptos. En segundo lugar, se revisan acervos bibliográficos inéditos de la obra de Garfinkel quien, interesado por el debate epistemológico entre Schutz y Parsons, retoma ese mismo problema epistemológico. Sostendremos que, a diferencia de Schutz quien propone una salida filosófica que consiste en la articulación de una ontología del mundo de la vida, Garfinkel elabora una respuesta de carácter metodológico que apunta a iluminar los razonamientos prácticos y las decisiones metodológicas de los investigadores a fin de evitar la sustitución de la realidad social por las idealidades de la reflexión científica. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty finds a philosophical interest in the psychoanalytical clinic, especially in the the clinic of children and hallucinating people, which can support the concepts of flesh and Ineinander. But in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty there is also a clinical interest, residing in the link he establishes between the flesh, conceived as the origin of existence, and the pathologies that Freud described as “narcissistic” and nowadays called “psychotic” or “borderline” states. To support this hypothesis, we will link Merleau-Ponty’s own “clinic of (...) the origins” and Harold Searles’ theory of narcissistic pathologies based on his clinical experience with schizophrenics. This confrontation will reveal how a philosophy of flesh provides us not only with theoretical points of reference relevant to the clinic of schizophrenia, but also fruitful technical indications regarding the direction towards a cure of such a pathology, indications that join those provided by Searles. (shrink)

Cet article est en partie biographique, en partie philosophique. Il retrace les échanges entre Russell et le philosophe néo-hégélien britannique Harold Joachim, depuis l’époque où Russell était étudiant dans les années 1890 jusqu’à son compte-rendu cinglant de la conférence de Joachim prononcée à l’occasion de sa leçon inaugurale en tant que professeur Wykeham de Logique à Oxford en 1920. La partie philosophique s’attache à évaluer le principal argument de Russell à l’encontre de la théorie cohérentiste de la vérité de (...) Joachim, selon lequel une telle théorie est équivalente à la doctrine des relations internes. Cet article fait usage de lettres de Russell à Joachim récemment découvertes.The paper is partly biographical and partly philosophical. It traces Russell’s philosophical interactions with the British neo-hegelian philosopher, Harold Joachim, from Russell’s days as an undergraduate in the 1890s to his scathing review of Joachim’s inaugural lecture as Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford in 1920. The philosophical part attempts to evaluate Russell’s main argument against Joachim’s coherence theory of truth, that it is equivalent to the doctrine of internal relations. The paper makes use of Russell’s recently discovered letters to Joachim. (shrink)

Since his death in the 1950s, most of the narratives of Harold Laski’s anti-imperialism have been mostly biographical rather than scholarly. Chroniclers and historians alike often found his genius and contribution amongst his protégés such as Krishna Menon, H.O. Davies, and other post-colonial leaders. In addition, explorations of his political theories paid little attention to his contributions to critiques on imperialism; in fact, his critics often interpreted Laski’s stand on imperialism as unoriginal. This chapter analyses two of Laski’s works (...) on imperialism: a 1932 chapter entitled ‘Nationalism and the Future of Civilisation’ and a 1933 chapter called ‘The Economic Foundations of Peace’. The first section of the chapter analyses his theory of sovereignty and his critique of the ideological ‘habits’ that condition liberal society. The second section contends that Laski’s theory of sovereignty resulted in his framing of imperialism within Leninist terms as a dialectical relationship between the habits of sovereignty and the habits of imperialism. The chapter suggests that Laski’s thinking on imperialism resembles less a truncated Leninism than it does a critical analysis of the way ideology can obscure domination and disciple subjects. It also reveals Laski’s contradictions due to his political activism and commitment to democracy. (shrink)

BOOK REVIEWS 139 Harold Tarrant. Thrasyllan Platonism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. x + 26o. Cloth, $34.5 o. Most contemporary readers of Plato assign the dialogues to early, middle, and late periods. However, developmental schemes exercised much less fascination on Plato's ancient readers, especially those who looked upon him as the fount of wisdom or upon the corpus as a whole as comprising all the higher education a civilized person needed. Such was the case, certainly, with Thrasyllus, (...) the court philosopher and astrologer of the Emperor Tiberius, who arranged the thirty-six dialogues into nine tetralogies. Tarrant's central contention is that Thrasyllus' editorial activity ex- tended well beyond simply "recommending a reading order for an otherwise available collection of Plato's texts" and that he made "available a distinctive collection of texts presented in his own chosen manner" . On this view his edition of the dialogues set standards for authenticity and spuriousness. In.. (shrink)

Edward Harold Fulcher Swain (1883?1970) developed a unique idea about the importance of forests, advocating the creation of a new society based upon forests, and he pursued policies to implement his unique vision of forestry when he served as the Director of Queensland's Forestry Board from 1918 to 1924 and the Forestry Commissioner for New South Wales from 1935 to 1948. Swain's beliefs developed out of a combination of his Australian experiences and connections with foresters in the British Empire (...) and America. When he could not convince Australian elites about the need to create a forest-based society, he asked foresters at the 1947 Empire Forestry Conference in London to assert the primacy of forestry in land management in the British Empire. Many foresters positively received parts of Swain's argument, but his ideas could never be fully implemented in the British Empire because of the dominance of agrarian doctrines of development in post-Second World War colonial planning and the rapid process of decolonization. Swain's life sheds light onto current debates among historians about the origin and legacy of forestry in Australia and the British Empire. His ideas, many that parallel the basic tenets of modern environmentalism, require historians to rethink the relationship between Empire forestry and environmentalism. (shrink)

An Exact Pair for the Arithmetic Degrees whose join is not a Weak Uniform Upper Bound, in the Recursive Function Theory-Newsletters, No. 28, August-September 1982.

Resenha do livro de Sellars, Roy, e Allen, Graham (Orgs.). The Salt Companion to Harold Bloom . Cambridge: Salt, 2007. 505 páginas.

The goal of this book is to recapture the diminished roles of affect, psychological needs, and the psychodynamic mechanisms that are crucial for understanding political behavior by explaining and extending the contributions of Harold D. Lasswell, the dominant figure in political psychology in the mid-twentieth-century. Although Lasswell was best known for applying psychodynamic theories to politics, this book also demonstrates how his framework accommodated for cognitive processes and social interactions ranging from communications to policy-making. The authors use Lasswell's contributions (...) and the debates over his ideas as a springboard for examining current policy, political, and leadership issues. _Revitalizing Political Psychology_ presents and extends four aspects of Lasswell's contributions to the field: the psychodynamic mechanisms drawn from psychoanalytic theory, the use of symbol associations to understand political propaganda, the analysis of "democratic character" for both the public and the elites, and the structure of belief systems. In so doing, the authors link personality and political communication theory to democratic practice. The authors also critique leadership studies using Lasswell's concerns over the risks to democratic accountability and the current preoccupation with strengthening the roles of charismatic and transformational leaders. Intended for researchers, practitioners, and students in the areas of political and historical psychology, political strategy, and political communication, the book's emphasis on psychodynamics also appeals to psychoanalysts and the material on leadership appeals to professionals in management and industrial/organizational psychology. (shrink)

This is a major new study of the international thought of Sir Harold Nicolson , one of the most prominent commentators on diplomacy, international order, and world peace of his day, and an anti-appeasement MP. This meticulously researched work will stand for many years as the definitive guide to Nicolson's contribution to the theory and practice of international relations. It also establishes a place for him in the pantheon of key British international thinkers of the twentieth century.

This book examines the political and international thought of Harold Laski (1893-1950). The early chapters discuss his socialist critique of politics within states, paying close attention to the turbulent environment of the early to mid-twentieth century. His ideas on democracy, rights, freedom and sovereignty are closely analyzed and clarified. The book goes on to discuss the way in which he applied many of his political ideas to the analysis of international politics. The final chapter investigates the contemporary significance of (...) his work. Laski will be of interest to scholars today who explore the overlapping themes of political and international thought. (shrink)