Modernity theory approaches modern experience as it incorporates a sense of itself as 'modern' (modernity), along with the possibilities and limitations of representing this in the arts and culture generally (modernism). The book interrogates modernity in the name of a fluid, unsettled, unsettling modernism. As the offspring of the Enlightenment and the Age of Sensibility, modernity is framed here through a cultural aesthetics that highlights not just an instrumental, exploitative approach to the world but the distinctive configuration of embodiment, (...) feeling, and imagination, that we refer to as 'civilization', in turn both explored and subverted through modernist experimentalism and reflexive thinking in culture and the arts. This discloses the rationalizing pretensions that underlie the modern project and have resulted in the sensationalist, melodramatic conflicts of good and evil that traverse our contemporary world of politics and popular culture alike. This innovative approach permits modernity theory to link otherwise fragmented insights of separate humanities disciplines, aspects of sociology, and cultural studies, by identifying and contributing to a central strand of modern thought running from Kant through Benjamin to the present. One aspect of modernity theory that results is that it cannot escape the paradoxes inherent in reflexive involvement in its own history. (shrink)

This first book in English by Serge-Christophe Kolm provides an overview of his far-reaching vision of distributive justice. Kolm derives justice from considerations of rationality.

In this volume, the third in his classic series of texts surveying the history of art theory, Moshe Barasch traces the hidden patterns and interlocking themes in the study of art, from Impressionism to Abstract Art. Barasch details the immense social changes in the creation, presentation, and reception of art which have set the history of art theory on a vertiginous new course: the decreased relevance of workshops and art schools; the replacement of the treatise by the critical (...) review; and the interrelation of new modes of scientific inquiry with artistic theory and praxis. The consequent changes in the ways in which critics as well as artists conceptualized paintings and sculptures were radical, marked by an obsession with intense, immediate sensory experiences, psychological reflection on the effects of art, and a magnetic pull to the exotic and alien, making for the most exciting and fertile period in the history of art criticism. (shrink)

Annotation. In this volume, the third in his classic series of texts surveying the history of art theory, Moshe Barasch traces the hidden patterns and interlocking themes in the study of art, from Impressionism to Abstract Art. Barasch details the immense social changes in the creation, presentation, and reception of art which have set the history of art theory on a vertiginous new course: the decreased relevance of workshops and art schools; the replacement of the treatise by the (...) critical review; and the interrelation of new modes of scientific inquiry with artistic theory and praxis. The consequent changes in the ways in which critics as well as artists conceptualized paintings and sculptures were radical, marked by an obsession with intense, immediate sensory experiences, psychological reflection on the effects of art, and a magnetic pull to the exotic and alien, making for the most exciting and fertile period in the history of art criticism. (shrink)

Modern Theories of Justice is a synopsis of views developed by distinguished French economist and philosopher Serge-Christophe Kolm in over four decades of investigation into the foundations of economics and justice. This book, his first written in English, is a comprehensive introduction to his vision of a “Liberal Social Contract” as “Practical Justice” for real societies and real people.

Note: The University of Adelaide Library eBooks @ Adelaide.

"Evangelia Sembou's book offers a concise introduction to the main ideas and arguments of the major political thinkers of modernity. It considers the following key thinkers: Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, J.S. Mill, Rousseau, Burke, Hegel and Marx" (4ème de couv.).

Stasis theory has been the backbone of rhetorical theory ever since its full development by Hermagoras of Temnos in the second century BCE.1 Although Hermagoras’s original work was lost, the main parts of his theory were reconstructed in the twentieth century,2 thanks mainly to the major role stasis theory played in nearly all the important works of rhetorical theory until as late as the nineteenth century.3 Stasis theory aims at providing a toolset for the (...) identification of vital issues in cases of accusation and defense.4 To achieve this aim, Hermagoras, the Auctor ad Herennium, and classical authors such as Cicero, Quintilian, and Hermogenes of Tarsus created highly sophisticated models, which break up the main .. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This article considers the relevance of time theory for Beck's theory of reflexive modernization and vice versa. It focuses in particular on discontinuity in the context of continuity, on decontextualization, naturalization and responsibility as key concerns of both perspectives on the industrial way of life. It makes explicit the temporal underpinnings of that cultural form with respect to five Cs: the creation of time to human design, the commodification of time, the compression of time, the control of (...) time and the colonization of time. It concludes that explicit concern with temporal relations shows reflexive modernization in action and facilitates improved knowledge for deliberative change. (shrink)

We have seen that the theory of the evolution of the universe is very remote from being matter of absolute knowledge as its popular presentation today would have us believe. Moreover, it is based on a certain aspect of reality, namely, that of science, which cannot pretend to be the only one possible and thus to exclude the religious aspect of the world as a creation by God. The same is true regarding the evolutionary theories of life by Eigen (...) or Vollmert, both being based on polymeric chemistry. If, therefore, Vollmert confesses, as already quoted, that he is not afraid to accept a creating God as an alternative to Darwinism, so in this respect he speaks despite everything as a believer and not as a scientist. By no means do I deny that the scientific results of Vollmert which seem to reveal the mystery of life to us can strengthen our faith — but never can faith be based on it. Faith springs from another source.Despite that, we can say today that the situation has changed principally, because both the philosophy of science and the discussions of the theories of evolution have shaken that kind of naive belief in science which in contrast to former times has turned theology into the ancilla, the maid of science.On the other hand, it would be a great misunderstanding to assume that now we can simply turn the tables. The criticism which I have partly put forward against the modern theories of evolution cannot obscure the numerous discoveries of the highest importance which are connected with them. These discoveries have provided us with an immensely deepened knowledge both of the physical conditions of the universe and of the chemical foundations of life. To conclude, I want to quote an American scientist who said: “I am as confused as before — but on a much higher level.” And this, I think, is the best summary of the present situation. (shrink)

Social change does not occur in the same form and direction in every social structure. In this context, every society experiences the modernization process with its own dynamics. These dynamics started with an intervention either from the top or from outside for the countries that want to be included in the modernization process. Due to the government's modernization initiatives, many differences have been made in the individual and social structure. Because, with the changes in the powers governing (...) the state many times in the short term, the society on the way to modernization has faced a new mentality and modernization steps accordingly. However, this difference has not always been in the way the state predicted and organized it. In this sense, the society sometimes accepted the foreseen change and continued it, and sometimes showed resistance to the change. The failure to legitimize the change successfully in the eyes of the people, however, the fact that it was put to work with various sanctions caused the new norms to not be internalized among the people. The modernization movements that could not be internalized by the society were tried to be applied superficially and formally. However, as a result of the development of information opportunities over time and the convergence of the levels in the state on both political and social planes, modernization has started to take its own motivation from internal processes. Thus, an eclectic culture has emerged between the east and the west, but with its own unique motifs. Individuals who grew up in this line have also applied the patterns of the society while living their own modernization experience. These patterns formed in society have changed the emotional and embarrassment thresholds of individuals. Thus, the sense of control, which started from the outside, descended to the core while human beings were civilized. Based on this background, the aim of our study is to read through clothes, within the scope of Elias' theory of civilization, how the change brought about by Turkish modernization has changed the emotional threshold of a single person in social and individual terms. Literature review was preferred for the progress of the study. The research is limited to dress as a subject. Temporally ıt was limited to the period from the II. Mahmud period to the early Republican period. Thus, the study made inferences about today by going back to the Turkish modernization adventure, which dates back 200 years. The study has been divided into three main parts. While these sections were being presented, the topics were often associated with the "religion" theme. (shrink)

In the context of the main principles, modernity has affected the relationship of individuals with society in two ways; either by promoting a comprehensive individualization or by paradoxically surrendering individual freedoms to new relations due to the many risks it carries. In the modernization process, religion has been affected not only in the context of traditional and everyday patterns; but also, it has been significantly influenced in terms of its dimensions corresponding to the public space. This study examined the (...) relationship between religion and modernization in the sample of Theology Faculty at Sivas Cumhuriyet University which is an organized and official field of religion. The aim of the research is to understand and explain the aspects of modernization in theology faculties that look at individual identity through some concepts such as religion and world designs, pluralism, perspectives on lifestyles, attitudes towards gender, and consumption. In line with these goals, the article problematizes the relations between the attitudes and behaviors of the participants due to modernization and the religious theory of orthodox Islam, political secularism, globalization, and socioeconomic and cultural environments. Within a qualitative method, the research was planned as a "single event" study. With the help of semi-structured interview questions, the data obtained from a sample group consisting of male and female students from different classes by techniques such as "problem-centered interview", "narrative", "participated observation" were theoretically analyzed from interactionist, ethnomethodological, and phenomenological perspectives. Considering its sources, theology in Turkey was shaped under the intense influence of Jacobin and elitist political secularism during the first three quarters of the Republic. In the last quarter of its century-old history, it can be said that a conservative, Islamist secularism was effective there. In this context, the status accorded to religion by the political institution in its authoritarian structure in Turkey, on the one hand, makes sense in terms of the shape and direction of religion and society relations, on the other hand, it gives an idea about the general situation of theology as an official educational institution and the contents of the roles and functions expected from it. For this reason, it is understood that the future of theology in Turkey will be shaped depending on the politics, religion, human, and society paradigms of the political bureaucracy for now, whether in terms of human resources and public visibility or within the scope of the relations of institutional religion with society. All these are related to the social realities as well as the central position and character of politics in the society in Turkey. Besides, these realities strongly show the close relationship of theology with Turkish modernization. For this reason, in this study, political secularism has been seen as an important component of religion and modernization relations in theology. However, this relationship is not with a one-sided point of view that secularism affects theology; from the perspective that theology also affects the direction and forms of modernization and secularization in Turkey, it is discussed in a mutual way. As a matter of fact, as it can be seen, while theology was functionalized for the construction of the nation-state and a secular society paradigm in most of the history of the republic, it also produced an alternative, Islamic secularization related to a postmodern ethics by approaching the ontological, epistemological, and aesthetic designs of religion and world of environmental movements in more modern periods. Today, theology students, like every student, are faced with fluidizing all the artificial and natural boundaries of modernity and their traditional environments outside their own borders, and at the same time being a member of a wider world without borders. These developments, which clearly point to a change in attitude and attitude towards the secular field, are not only for theology students to reach new values in religion and world relations; it has also been important in the context of their entering into very important conflicts and tensions in the context of their individual identities. Finally, when it was associated with “orthodox Islam”, it was seen that this new socialization environment and the tension created by these created a series of alienation in theology in the context of gender, lifestyles, leisure activities, and consumption. (shrink)

The relationship between knowledge and values, experts and lay people, represents a major issue of the debate involving environment and technology. There is a growing awareness that the connection between value commitments and technical solutions, scientific expertise and lay competence, is much more entangled than once was believed. The article deals with this issue by analysing Robert Dahl's `minipopulus' and Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz's `extended peer communities' arguments. They are subsequently inserted into the sociological debate which is, at present, (...) considerably influenced by the reflexive modernization framework. As a result, Ulrich Beck's and Anthony Giddens' theories appear as one of four ideal-typical approaches to the social construction of the issues that can be outlined, according to the priority assigned to knowledge versus power and nature versus society. The idea of an `extended peer review' of problems and solutions is remarkably close to the deliberative democracy concept. However, the high level of uncertainty characterizing major environmental and technological questions suggests that a `strong' version of deliberative democracy, such as the Discourse Ethics proposed by Habermas, is untenable in its search for a universal, rational consensus on the normative grounds of action. Thus it is necessary to develop a `weak' interpretation of the extended peer review, exploring the possibility of fair and stable agreements on bounded, practical solutions to bounded, practical problems. (shrink)

Numerous theories have attempted to overcome the anti-essentialist scepticism about the possibility of defining art. While significant advances have been made in this field, it seems that most modern definitions fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art raised by Morris Weitz, and rarely even attempt to provide an account which would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This thesis looks at the most successful definitions currently defended, determines their strengths and weaknesses, (...) and offers a new, cultural definition which can preserve the good elements of other theories, solve or avoid their problems, and have a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. The resulting theory is a synthetic one in that it preserves the essential institutionalism of Dickie's institutional views, is inspired by the historical and functional determination of artistic phenomena present in Levinson's historicism and Beardsley's functionalism, and presents the reasons for something becoming art in a disjunctive form of Gaut's cluster account. Its strengths lie in the ability to account for the changing art-status of objects in various cultures and at various times, providing an explanation of not only what is or was art, but also how and why the concept 'art' changes historically and differs between cultures, and successfully balancing between the over-generalisations of ahistorical and universalist views, and the uninformativeness of relativism. More broadly, the cultural theory stresses the importance of treating art as a historical phenomenon embedded in particular social and cultural settings, and encourages cooperation with other disciplines such as anthropology and history of art. (shrink)

Modernization represents a political project of power and domination, marginalization and exclusion. The concepts that make up modernization-theory are deeply complicit with this and are implicated in legitimation strategies for the regimes and peoples who benefit. As with other power/knowledge projects, tropes of literality that reference materiality generate the discourses of certainty through which political persuasion takes place. These discourses are bounded by a constitutive “outside” of metaphor, and thus devalue other subjects of knowledge and knowing subjects. (...) Said’s Orientalism presents a remarkable catachresis through which an alternative understanding of knowledge-production becomes visible. This work challenges Euro-Americano-centric social science and intellectual life, because it undermines the binaries through which ideas themselves are understood as certain or not. Butler’s theory of materialization in turn conceptualizes materiality and certainty in a complementary way. (shrink)

The Neuzeit is that of "modern Scholasticism", a period rich in the investigation of logical questions, but relatively neglected by historians and philosophers interested in these matters. Hickman here offers a general outline and interpretation of the major tendencies of Neuzeit theories of second intentions through the examination of several characteristic examples. The opening chapter is devoted primarily to an interpretation of modern scholastic predication theory in terms of class membership and class inclusion, following which he proceeds to a (...) discussion of the sense in which "intention" was used by various authors and schools, distinguishing several basic trends, the more detailed analysis of which occupies the greater part of the book. 1) "Psychologistic Conceptualism and Nominalism", is a series of variations on a single theme, represented here chiefly by William of Ockham for the former and John Major for the latter. Hickman notes that albeit one distinguished first and second intentions, the theory did not formally recognise higher level predicates as such, since intentions were understood as psychological entities and though a second intention was thus considered the concept of a concept or sign or a sign, it nonetheless signifies a first level existent, viz., another sign, really existing in the thinker. The tendency was carried even further, Hickman says, by John Major and his disciples, who tended to neglect in practice the distinction between intentions and words. (shrink)

Fragments of Modernity provides a critical introduction to the work of three of the most original German thinkers of the early 20th century. In their different ways, all three illuminated the experience of the modern in urban life, whether in mid-19th-century Paris or in Berlin at the turn of the century or later as the vanguard city of the Weimar Republic. They related the new modes of experiencing the world to the maturation of the money economy (Simmel), the process of (...) rationalization of capital (Kracauer), and the fantasy world of commodity fetishism (Benjamin) - in each case focusing on those fragments of social experience that could best capture the sense of modernity.David Frisby is Reader in Sociology at Glasgow University. Fragments of Modernity is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

On the face of it, there is no connection between the social theory developed by Ulrich Beck under the name of `second modernization' and the post-ethnomethodological argument developed by Bruno Latour and his colleagues under the name of actor-network theory. Yet they are both concerned with empirical evidence of a major shift in modernity. Hence the idea of elaborating an empirical test to probe the extent to which `second modernization' is a real phenomenon, or rather, as (...) is suggested here, a shift in our interpretation of what modernity has always been about. (shrink)