Between February 2002 and April 2006, the Sydney Morning Herald online [www.smh.com.au], an influential Australian newspaper which went online in 1995, showed a remarkable degree of change in the design of its home page. However, over the same time period, the use of images in hard-news stories on its home page was remarkably consistent, both diachronically and synchronically. These hard-news images are small `thumbnails', and are most typically close crops of faces. Their small size, their consistent and limited subject matter, (...) and their positioning in news stories represent a new practice in hard-news reporting, and raise questions about the role they play in the multimodal story-telling practices of the newspaper, and about the discursive practices of online newspapers more generally. This article presents an analysis of these thumbnails using tools from systemic functional semiotics, and an investigation from three socio-historical perspectives. On this basis, I argue that in the specific discursive context of the home page of the Sydney Morning Herald online during the time period studied, thumbnails function less as images and more as an expression of the expanding system of language in computer-mediated communication. (shrink)

Is the existence of God a reasonable metaphysical hypothesis? So asks A. C. Ewing in his important posthumous work, Value and Reality. Thus the topic of the book is theistic religion, not in its entirety, but rather merely in its intellectual part. That it does have such a part, and further that it makes claims ‘to objective truth in the field of metaphysics’, is defended on the grounds that a fictional ‘story’ about God has what religious or ethical impact it (...) may have because, or at least mainly because, it is taken precisely not as fictional, but as expressing an objective theological truth; and that a story, or an account, can constitute a good reason for one's acting in a certain way only if the account is, in fact, objectively true. Bearing on both points is Ewing's observation that ‘emotion, at least except in pathological cases, requires some objective belief about the real, true or false, to support it for long, and if it exists without knowledge or rationally founded belief with which it is in agreement, it is to be condemned as irrational or unfitting, as it would be unfitting to rejoice at something disastrous or be angry with an inanimate thing’. The claim is not, we are told, that religious statements are literal as distinguished from symbolic. The door would seem to be left open, in fact, to their all being symbolic. What is essential is that some of them symbolise distinctively metaphysical truths, or truths ‘going beyond the realm of science’ and ‘throwing some light on the general nature of the real’. We should indeed distinguish, Ewing notes, ‘belief in’ from ‘belief that’. Yet the former is not possible without the latter. ‘Unless I believe that God exists I cannot believe in God’. So in Ewing's opinion, statements of metaphysics—if not concerning God, then at least concerning certain general aspects of reality—are most important for religion as a whole, and are, in being true, conceptually necessary to its validity, or to its ‘fittingness’. (shrink)

Certain facts about subjective successions support, I hold, a theory of mind?dependent sensory data. Suppose that no such theory is true and, furthermore, that as one experiences a visual subjective succession, that of which one is visually aware consists typically in a static physical array. Nevertheless one will, I hold, experience a certain change taking place within one's visual field; and under the imagined conditions, it is hard to fathom what this change could be. Various seemingly plausible and helpful suggestions (...) are examined and rejected. I conclude that neither a common?sense realism nor, in fact, any view which rejects mind?dependent sensory data can deal satisfactorily with subjective successions. (shrink)

It is argued that statements about the ways in which objects appear entail the existence of appearances; in other words, ?A appears ?? ('appears? used phenomenologically) entails ?(Ex) ?x?. The argument turns on the proper analysis of comparative appearance statements, such as ?A feels warmer (to someone) than B?. Here A and B are not being compared directly with respect to the complex character of feeling warm. One is not, in other words, saying that A feels warm more than does (...) B ? an ambiguous statement. Instead, one is saying that A's feel or appearance, or way of feeling or appearing, is warmer than B's. And in making this statement one asserts the existence of appearances. This result is then extended to cover statements of the form ?A appears ??. It is maintained that this generalized result serves to reinstate most of the traditional problems of perception. (shrink)

Certain facts about subjective successions support, I hold, a theory of mind?dependent sensory data. Suppose that no such theory is true and, furthermore, that as one experiences a visual subjective succession, that of which one is visually aware consists typically in a static physical array. Nevertheless one will, I hold, experience a certain change taking place within one's visual field; and under the imagined conditions, it is hard to fathom what this change could be. Various seemingly plausible and helpful suggestions (...) are examined and rejected. I conclude that neither a common?sense realism nor, in fact, any view which rejects mind?dependent sensory data can deal satisfactorily with subjective successions. (shrink)

What were seen widely in Hume's time as "the obvious dictates of reason" are rarely if ever seen as such today. One reads now that the table does not seem to diminish as one removes oneself from it; instead it appears roughly the same in size all the while. And, what if it did seem to diminish? This would not prove that the existent of which one is visually aware is diminishing, and is therefore but the image of the table (...) rather than the table itself. The appearance of an object is not another object; it is just the original object appearing. Quite simply, things may seem otherwise than they are. (shrink)

We shall get to the crux of the issue if we ask, "What is it that reason is after, and hopes to achieve?" According to Blanshard, it is the grasp of necessity; it is the knowledge not simply of what is, but also and at the same time of what in the strictest sense must be. For reason seeks a final answer to the question, "Why?"; and only when one's knowledge is necessary is a further "Why?" found to be entirely (...) superfluous. Now perfect necessity may be grasped, thinks Blanshard, only in a context of total knowledge. The final goal of reason is thus a knowledge of the world which is perfectly necessary, and by virtue of this fact perfectly complete. (shrink)

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws. I raise two objections to this inertial functionalism. First, it depends on a prior assumption about which coordinate systems defined in a theory are reference frames, and hence on assumptions about which geometric structures are spatiotemporal. This makes Knox’s account circular. Second, her account is vulnerable to several counterexamples, giving the wrong result when applied to topological quantum (...) field theories and parity- and time-asymmetric theories. I advance an alternative account on which our spacetime concept is a cluster concept. On this view, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the cluster, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate. (shrink)

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws. I raise two objections to this inertial functionalism. First, it depends on a prior assumption about which coordinate systems defined in a theory are reference frames, and hence on assumptions about which geometric structures are spatiotemporal. This makes Knox’s account circular. Second, her account is vulnerable to several counterexamples, giving the wrong result when applied to topological quantum (...) field theories and parity- and time-asymmetric theories. I advance an alternative account on which our spacetime concept is a cluster concept. On this view, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the cluster, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate. (shrink)

The Foundations of Pragmatism in American Thought Series offers two sets of volumes containing the most significant defenses and critiques of pragmatism written before World War I: the Early Defenders of Pragmatism and Early Critics of Pragmatism . This, the first collection, Early Defenders , provides key texts for understanding the context of pragmatism’s years of greatest vitality. The early defenders were products of pragmatism’s three cradles. H. Heath Bawden was a graduate of the Chicago philosophy department, having studied with (...) John Dewey and George Mead. John E. Boodin and Horace M. Kallen earned their Ph.Ds with William James and Josiah Royce at Harvard. D. L. Murray and Howard V. Knox were independent scholars and writers inspired by F. C. S. Schiller’s humanistic pragmatism at Oxford. This collection brings together the central texts of the movement along with a representative selection of the secondary texts, reviews and responses, they elicited. Each volume features a newly-commissioned introduction by a leading scholar of American pragmatism. --five central texts reproduced in facsimile, accompanied by the main responses and replies, reset in new typography --scattered and scarce works available together for the first time --new introductions to each volume by leading scholars of American pragmatism. (shrink)

The year 2022 marks a century since the death of Reverend John Knox Bokwe, a minister of the United Free Church of Scotland Mission in South Africa. Although little known, Bokwe was an important member of the emerging African intellectual elite towards the end of the 19th century. He demonstrated the creative tension that arises when two cultures encounter each other as he confronted and made sense of the historical meaning of modernity. He emphasised the value of his (...) traditional culture in a context where western culture was making a significant transforming impact on African life, which produced a creative tension throughout his working life in various contexts. This paper analyses his particular contribution as an active committed Christian through a number of overlapping lenses – his life in clerical work, journalism, literature, theology, education, music and his involvement in social and political issues and ministry. In all this he operated with a holistic vision. The paper offers an assessment of his life’s work using a combination of primary and secondary sources. Contribution: This article adds to the growing body of work that is derived from studies on the emergence of indigenous leadership in South Africa by looking at the life, work and Christian witness of Rev John Knox Bokwe from the perspective of the creative tension that he experienced and navigated in the varied professional and vocational perspectives he engaged in during his life. (shrink)

The Foundations of Pragmatism in American Thought Series offers two sets of volumes containing the most significant defenses and critiques of pragmatism written before World War I: the Early Defenders of Pragmatism and Early Critics of Pragmatism. This, the first collection, Early Defenders, provides key texts for understanding the context of pragmatism's years of greatest vitality. The early defenders were products of pragmatism's three cradles. H. Heath Bawden was a graduate of the Chicago philosophy department, having studied with John (...) Dewey and George Mead. John E. Boodin and Horace M. Kallen earned their Ph.Ds with William James and Josiah Royce at Harvard. D. L. Murray and Howard V. Knox were independent scholars and writers inspired by F. C. S. Schiller's humanistic pragmatism at Oxford. This collection brings together the central texts of the movement along with a representative selection of the secondary texts, reviews and responses, they elicited. Each volume features a newly-commissioned introduction by a leading scholar of American pragmatism. --five central texts reproduced in facsimile, accompanied by the main responses and replies, reset in new typography --scattered and scarce works available together for the first time --new introductions to each volume by leading scholars of American pragmatism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Trains Of Thought And AfterthoughtsJohn EllisWhen I think about how this conference has gone, it’s hard not to begin with the fact that so many came. “We happy few” turned out not to be so few after all.* While I cannot be the most objective judge of a conference that I spent so much time helping to plan, it still seems to me that being able to listen, on (...) two successive evenings, to talks of the quality of Bernard Knox’s and Stanley Crouch’s was a rare treat. Stanley’s talk had the effect that all first-rate criticism must have; it made those who heard it want to rush out and get the book to read or reread it. And I shall long remember Bernard’s anecdote about Aristophanes being subpoenaed, which was just about the funniest and most instructive story I’ve ever heard. Singling out any of the shorter papers is unfair, for I enjoyed all of them, but I have to say that poetry as a genre would not be lagging behind the other genres (fiction and drama) in our age if there were more people who could read poetry like Rosanna Warren.Rather than commenting on how things turned out, I should tell you a little of how we wanted things to turn out, so that you can get your own sense of the relation between our intent and what actually happened. The one stark fact that faced everyone involved in planning this conference was that it was easy to say what we didn’t want to do—we could see examples of that everywhere—but deciding how to chart a new course was an altogether different question. There was one shape [End Page 197] we knew we didn’t want, but there were all kinds of possible shapes we could have chosen to replace it. The program as you heard it was in fact the result of many different trains of thought.Take the panel on poets and critics; it might seem just a nice invention, but was actually the result of a studied train of thought. The most visible sign of what has gone wrong with academic criticism is that it is now largely written for and read by other academic critics. Academic criticism in the process has lost touch with the wider world of readers and writers. Academic critical essays have become a game played on campuses in an increasingly isolated and parochial world where they are heavily involved in matters of professional hierarchy and the place of individuals within it, but in very little else in the real world. The “poets and critics” panel was, in part, an attempt to begin to bring academic criticism back to the reality of readers and writers, to subordinate the unquestionable cleverness and intellectual ingenuity of academics to a common sense and realism that recently seem to have been in somewhat short supply.The panel on how to read a book results from a quite different train of thought. Academic criticism has now assumed a forbidding verbal complexity. A highly elaborate verbal superstructure covers over the essentials of the situation—literature and its readers—to the extent that it becomes a barrier that obscures what is real in it. This panel was in part an attempt to cut through pseudo-complexity and to return to the basic elements of the situation. I might well have said “the basic theory of the situation,” since I’m always reluctant to concede theory to people who have no exclusive claim to it (as they imagine) but merely misuse it.1The notion of “back to basics” really requires no justification. There is a charming story of a man who has played golf all his life, but each year goes back to his first teacher and says to him quite simply: teach me how to play golf. The teacher instructs him as he does anyone else who has never played the game, beginning with how to hold a club, how to stand, and so on. This might seem a rather obsessive habit—unless you know who this man is. One has to assume that this... (shrink)

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two complications for this approach. First, our spacetime concept seems to have the structure of a cluster concept, which means that Knox's inertial criteria for spacetime cannot succeed with complete generality. Second, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the spacetime concept, in which case spacetime functionalism may (...) be uninformative in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate. (shrink)

Most of Kierkegaard’s thought can best be understood as a series of reactions to what he regarded as the excesses of Hegelian speculation. In this work Professor Hamilton provides a stimulating and comprehensive examination of these reactions. He explains in detail how Hegel’s method of direct communication with its claim to the possession of total truth provoked Kierkegaard to imitate Socrates’ ‘maieutic art’ by employing indirect communication through the use of pseudonyms. Then too, Hegel’s preoccupation with the development of the (...) Absolute in world-history served only to cause Kierkegaard to respond with his emphasis on the significance of the individual. Furthermore, the unification of the finite with the infinite within the System seemed to Kierkegaard to be a crude form of pantheism and aroused him to affirm a gulf between the creature and the Absolute. Hegel’s preoccupation with abstraction and Reason only intensified Kierkegaard’s concern for the concrete historical moment in which the individual must struggle to make his leap of faith in the face of the Absolute Paradox. Partly because the Hegelian System viewed faith as ‘an immediate certainty’, Kierkegaard could reiterate that faith is a process and must be constantly achieved. The System’s concern for objective truth and its reduction of Christianity to a philosophical doctrine only reinforced Kierkegaard’s conviction that truth is subjectivity and cannot be learned through abstractions but must be lived with intense passion. Finally, Hegel’s emphasis on a fluid logic increased Kierkegaard’s enthusiasm for the traditional logic and his insistence that this logic should not be distorted by being used to interpret the movements of freedom. In presenting these oppositions to Hegel the work can help to provide an effective introduction to Kierkegaard. However, the work is limited since it merely assumes that Kierkegaard’s interpretations of Hegel are valid. Recent scholarship, particularly by Knox and Seeberger, would indicate that some of these interpretations are highly debatable. (shrink)

In this brief and readable survey of the Reformation in Scotland, Professor Renwick succeeds in supplying both a sketch of the pre-Reformation church in Scotland, and an account of the entanglements of blood, religion and politics involving the Scottish throne. Frankly written from the Protestant point of view, the author demonstrates restraint in his treatment of the role of Mary Stewart, and gives an interesting narrative of John Knox's part in bringing about the reformation of the church.--S. M. (...) W. (shrink)

This article discusses the 2005 OUP biography of Michael Polanyi by William T. Scott and Martin X. Moleski S.J., Michael Polanyi, Scientist and Philosopher . The discussants are N. E. Wetherick, Brian G Gowenlock, and John Puddefoot; Martin X. Moleski, S. J. briefly responds, providing a previously unpulished letter from Polanyi to Reverend Dr. Knox, a Presbyterian mininster.

Geoffrey Rose’s prevention paradox points to a tension between two prima facie plausible moral principles: that we should save the greater number and that weshould save the most at risk. This paper argues that a novel moral theory, ex-ante contractualism, captures our intuitions in many prevention paradox cases, regardless of our interpretation of probability claims. However, it goes on to show that it might be impossible to square ex-ante contractualism with all of our moral intuitions. It concludes that even if (...) ex-ante contractualism cannot furnish an entire ethics of risk, it does identify important considerations for any such theory. (shrink)

Geoffrey Rose’s prevention paradox points to a tension between two prima facie plausible moral principles: that we should save the greater number and that weshould save the most at risk. This paper argues that a novel moral theory, ex-ante contractualism, captures our intuitions in many prevention paradox cases, regardless of our interpretation of probability claims. However, it goes on to show that it might be impossible to square ex-ante contractualism with all of our moral intuitions. It concludes that even if (...) ex-ante contractualism cannot furnish an entire ethics of risk, it does identify important considerations for any such theory. (shrink)

The first translation into English and the first detailed interpretation of Hegel’s System der Sittlichkeit and of Philosophie des Geistes, the two earliest surviving versions of Hegel’s social theory. Hegel’s central concept of the spirit evolved in these two works. An 87-page interpretation by Harris precedes the translations.

Beberapa puluh tahun yang lalu Steven McKenzie menjadi editor sebuah kumpulan karangan yang berjudul To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticism and their Application (1993). Dalam bunga rampai itu dibahas metode-metode penelitian lama yang berfokus pada latar belakang sejarah teks (penelitian sumber, sejarah tradisi, jenis sastra, peredaksian), cara-cara penelitian literer yang lebih baru (seperti penelitian strukturalis, pasca-strukturalis, naratif, atau reader’s respons) dan beberapa yang lain (penelitian ilmu sosial, kanonik, atau retorika). Dalam dua puluh tahun sejak terbitan itu (...) banyak pendekatan baru berkembang, misalnya, dalam symposia pertemuan para pakar Alkitab nasional dan internasional, dan dalam banyak monograf, bunga rampaidan artikel Jurnal. Untuk membantu pembaca mengikuti perkembangan cepat itu, kini McKenzie & Kaltner menerbitkan New Meanings for Ancient Texts. Mereka memilih sembilan pendekatan yang makin berpengaruh dan meminta kepada pionir-pionir utama setiap pendekatan untuk memberi deskripsi pendekatannya yang jelas bagi non spesialis dan mengilustrasikannya dengan meneliti satu atau beberapa teks contoh. Judul bab dari beberapa di antara kesembilan pendekatan itu barangkali segera ditanggap pembaca, karena sudah lebih lama dikenal. Misalnya, “Psychological Biblical Criticism” (D. Andrew Kille, pp. 137-154) dan “Ecological Criticism” (Norman Habel, pp. 39-58). Pendekatan-pendekatan ini agaknya dimuat di sini karena mengalami pergeseran paradigma dalam beberapa dasa warsa terakhir. Juga tidak baru di telinga pembaca akademis adalah “Postcolonial Biblical Criticism”(Warren Carter, pp. 97-116) dan “Postmodernism” (Hugh Pyper, pp. 117-136). Postmodernisme yang membongkar cerita-cerita besar seperti sejarah keselamatan Alkitab dan mau menyadarkan pembaca bahwa banyak jawaban kita selama ini sesungguhnya kurang pasti daripada dikira, meluas di dunia tafsir Barat; sedangkan penelitian Alkitab pascakolonial yang meneliti hubungan dominasi dan subordinasi dalam teksteks Alkitab dan dampaknya dalam sejarah kolonialisme dan lanjutannya dalam masa pasca-penjajahan, sekarang ini menjadi sangat aktual dalam distorsi relasi antara Selatan dan Utara. “New Historicism” (Gina Hens-Piazza, pp. 59-76) tidak lagi mencoba merekonstruksi realitas sejarah di belakang teks (seperti dilakukan oleh Historical Criticism), tetapi dengan cara yang multidisipliner meneliti teks sebagai representasi dari realitas kultural, sosial, politik, dan sebagainya, sambil melepaskan distingsi antara literatur dan sejarah, juga antara pengarang dan pembaca, antara arti dulu dan arti sekarang. Dekat tetapi berbeda dengan itu “Cultural-Historical Criticism of the Bible” (Timothy Beal, pp.1-20) meneliti bagaimana kata, kiasan, objek dan ide dalam Alkitab menerima bentuk dan artinya dalam konteks kebudayaan tertentu yang memproduksikannya atau mereproduksikannya. “The Bible and Popular Culture” (Linda Schearing and Valerie Ziegler, pp. 77-96) kurang berfokus pada Alkitab sendiri tetapi menganalisa bagaimana teks-teks tertentu berfungsi dalam ungkapan-ungkapan budaya rakyat, lelucon, iklan, komik, seni, film, dll., juga mengingat pergeseran yang kini terjadi dari budaya teks tertulis ke apropriasi visual. “Disability Studies and the Bible” (Nasya Junior and Jeremy Schipper, pp. 21-38) dan apa yang disebut “Queer Criticism” (Ken Stone, pp. 155-176) meneliti Alkitab dari situasi kelompok-kelompok tertentu, entah mereka orang-orangcacat yang banyak muncul dalam teks-teks Alkitab yang dapat dimengerti lebih baik dari dalam pengalaman invaliditas; atau mereka yang dari sudut seks dan jender berada dalam posisi yang tidak menguntungkan atau bahkan ditolak. Di sini a.l. tempatnya penelitian Alkitab komunitas gay and lesbian, dan lebih awal feminisme......................... Apakah bunga rampai tentang pelbagai pendekatan baru ini penting untuk seorang yang sudah cukup puas dengan metodenya selama ini atau yang menerima Alkitab sebagai buku yang mempunyai otoritas terhadap dirinya dan jemaatnya? Keberatan (kita) yang sudah lama diajukan terhadap pendekatan tersebut, pada akhir setiap karangan dengan jujur dikemukakan dan diberi tanggapan singkat. Membaca contoh-contoh penafsiran dalam bunga rampai ini, saya sering merasa diajak ke dalam suatu perjalanan yang berbelit-belit. Tetapi setelah beberapa tikungan muncul juga pemandangan menarik dan berharga yang belum pernah saya perhatikan selama ini. Selain itu, setiap artikel mulai dengan pengantar umum tentang, misalnya, fenomen postmodernisme, ilmu ekologi, atauqueer criticism yang sudah lebih lama dikembangkan di akademi umum, dan baru sekarang mulai dipakai juga untuk analisa teks-teks biblis. Pengantar-pengantar itu saja memberi gambaran menarik tentang masalah-masalah yang dewasa ini digumuli dalam komunitas global. Setuju atau tidak, mengetahuinya penting untuk keduanya. (Martin Harun, Guru Besar Ilmu Teologi Emeritus, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

This is a book about how politics, government - and much else - needs to change in response to the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene, the emerging epoch of human-induced instability in the Earth system and its life-support capacities.

ABSTRACTThe historical process underlying Darwin’s Origin of Species did not play a significant role in the early editions of the book, in spite of the particular inductivist scientific methodology it espoused. Darwin’s masterpiece did not adequately provide his sources or the historical perspective many contemporary critics expected. Later editions yielded the ‘Historical Sketch’ lacking in the earlier editions, but only under critical pressure. Notwithstanding the sources he provided, Darwin presented the Origin as an ‘abstract’ in order to avoid giving sources; (...) a compromise he acknowledged and undertook to set right in later editions, yet failed to provide throughout the six editions under his supervision. Darwin’s reluctance to publish the historical context of his theory and his sources, particularly sources which were also ‘precursors’, may be attributed as much to the matter of intellectual ownership as science, or even good literary practice. Of special concern to Darwin were issues of priority or originality over ‘descent with modification’ and especially over Natural Selection. Many later historians have argued that Darwin was unaware of the work of his precursors on Natural Selection. Darwin’s theory was an example of independent discovery, albeit along with such obscure precursors as Matthew or Wells, who were unknown to Darwin until after the publication of the Origin. Both Matthew and Wells had a medical education, like James Hutton or Erasmus Darwin earlier in the eighteenth century, or even Charles Darwin. Evolutionary theory, at least in Britain was a product largely of the medical evolutionists rather than the natural historians which ‘history’ has chosen to select for the focus of attention; and among the medical evolutionists the figure of John Hunter stands out as theorist, experimentalist and teacher: the medical evolutionists were predominantly the product of Hunter’s legacy or of the medical profession and particularly the Scottish Universities. Much recent Darwin scholarship has focused on the private Notebooks, to establish Darwin’s discovery of Natural Selection around 1837–1838 and demonstrate Darwin’s ignorance of his precursors; requiring an explicit acknowledgement by Darwin as the legitimate substantiation of any claim to prior influence. The precursors have been categorized as uniformly obscure or irrelevant to the science of evolution which may be defined exclusively as ‘Darwinian’. The inclination to acknowledge influences, however was not something Darwin was gratuitously given to doing, especially on matters of priority. The Notebooks are not Darwin’s private thoughts; from an early stage he considered them incipient public documents and later sought to protect them as proof of his originality. William C. Wells was not an obscure thinker, but a celebrated scientist whom Herschel, Darwin’s guide to scientific methodology, had recommended as providing a model of scientific method. Darwin discovered Wells through Herschel, and quickly acquired a copy of Wells’ recommended work, no later than 1831, and held it thereafter in his library at Down House. This book, the 1818 edition of Wells’ Two Essays contains a third essay, Wells’ account of Natural Selection. Later, in the Descent of Man Darwin acknowledged his separate discovery of the correlation of colour and disease immunity in man, also earlier recounted by Wells. (shrink)

In this book, John Dryzek criticizes the dominance of instrumental rationality and objectivism in political institutions and public policy and in the practice of political science. He argues that the reliance on these kinds of politics and to technocracies of expert cultures that are not only repressive, but surprisingly ill-equipped for dealing with complex social problems. Drawing on critical theory, he outlines an alternative program for the organization of political institutions advocating a form of communicatively rational democracy, which he (...) terms discursive democracy, that stresses the importance of active citizenship and public discourse. He draws out the limitations of instrumental rationality and investigates how policy analysis and political science may be reformed to help constitute and comprehend democracy. Discursive Democracy examines how the political process can be made more vital and meaningful. At the same time it shows how such an invigorated process will serve as a more effective agent for social problem solving. (shrink)

Contending discourses underlie many of the worlds most intractable conflicts, producing misery and violence. This is especially true in the post-9/11 world. However, contending discourses can also open the way to greater dialogue in global civil society and across states and international organizations. This possibility holds even for the most murderous sorts of conflicts in deeply divided societies. In this timely and original book, John Dryzek examines major contemporary conflicts in terms of clashing discourses. Topics covered include the alleged (...) clash of civilizations; societies divided by ethnicity, nationality, or religion; economic globalization versus resistance; plus an in-depth discussion of the 'war on terror'. Dryzek concludes by highlighting the limitations of current neoconservative and cosmopolitan approaches, arguing that only deliberative global politics offers unprecedented new possibilities for democratic engagement in the international system. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, politics, philosophy, and sociology. (shrink)

Would democratic theory in its empirical and normative guises be in a better position without the theory of the deliberative public sphere? In this paper I explore recent theories of agonistic democracy that have answered this question in the affirmative. I question their assertionthat the theory of the public sphere should be abandoned in favor of a model of democratic politics based on political contestation. Furthermore, I explore one of the fundamental assumptionsat work in the debate about the theory of (...) the public sphere’s status, namely the assumed opposition between consensus and contestation. Questioning the rigid nature of the opposition, I go on to argue that the deliberative theory of the public sphere actually facilitates the development of the agonistic approach to democratic theory and practice. Key Words: agonistic democracy • deliberative democracy • democratic theory • Habermas • theory of the public sphere. (shrink)