Each year since 1983 the American Council of Learned Societies has invited one of America's leading scholars to deliver the Haskins Lecture, in honor of Charles Homer Haskins, a distinguished scholar and teacher who was instrumental in the founding of the ACLS. In this volume, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the ACLS, Douglas Greenberg and Stanley Katz bring together the lectures presented by ten of America's most distinguished scholars. Each lecture is a personal and intellectual glimpse into (...) the "life of learning" of such leading scholars as Maynard Mack, Annemarie Schimmel, and John Hope Franklin. The lectures focus on self-reflection of lives dedicated to learning, rather than on scholarship in the usual sense of the term. Ranging from being forced to learn Latin to painful memories of war and racism, the lecturers all recount stories from their eventful lives. Each offers thoughts on the body of work he or she has produced and the forces, personal and intellectual, that have shaped it. The scholars bring something of their disciplines to the lecture, sharing not only personal anecdotes but their love of learning. (shrink)

This essay asks the question “What would it mean to be a just university?” and answers to that the question may be understood in two ways. One way to understand “just” is procedural, having to do with internal governance and ensuring that a university’s policies are themselves just. The other is substantive, having to do with the university’s purpose or reason for existing. The second assumes the university is to serve some function necessary for the general good. This good is (...) often defined in material terms: fostering a stronger economy, medical breakthroughs, more efficient use of natural resources, and so on. But such a view of the university defines its value entirely by factors external to itself. Proponents of one definition of the university’s purpose typically acknowledge some validity in the other, and universities commonly strive to fulfill the claims of both definitions. But universities also have an obligation to teach the young and to do so within the context of a common set of values that both determines the setting in which teaching takes place and encourages students to develop values that will shape their own lives. Katz argues in particular that intellectuals have a special obligation to work cooperatively to eliminate intellectual obstacles that stand in the way of commensuration, communication, and comprehension globally. It is this responsibility that he calls “intellectual philanthropy.”. (shrink)

At the founding editor’s invitation in 1991–92, the members of the editorial board and the department editors of Common Knowledge wrote individual and small-group calls for papers to be published in the inaugural issue of Spring 1992 and the succeeding issue, Fall 1992. This call for papers was published among the second group.

After decades of single issue movements and identity politics on the U.S. left, the series of large demonstrations beginning in 1999 in Seattle have led many to wonder if activist politics can now come together around a common theme of global justice. This book pursues the prospects for progressive political movements in the 21st century with case studies of ten representative movements, including the anti-globalization forces, environmental interest groups, and new takes on the peace movement.

Eric Katz (1992) influentially argued that ecological restoration involves the ‘big lie’ that a successful restoration re-establishes or re-creates all of what was lost through human degradation, a...

This article consists of two important parts. The first is a specific defense of some of the central claims made by stanley cavell in "must we mean what we say" against the criticisms of fodor and katz in "the availability of what we say." the major issue concerns the question of whether evidence of some sort is needed to support a claim by a native speaker about what we mean when we say something. Further speculations on this topic (...) occupy the other part of the paper. (shrink)

It might seem at this point that I am courting a contradiction: If antiprofessionalism is a form of professional behavior and if professional behavior covers the field , then how can I fault Bate for using antiprofessionalism to further a professional project? By collapsing the distinction between activity that is professionally motivated and activity motivated by a commitment to abstract and general values, have I not deprived myself of a basis for making judgments, since one form of activity would seem (...) to be no different from or better than any other? The answer is no, because the consequence of turning everything into professionalism is not to deny value but to redistribute it. One deconstructs an opposition not by reversing the hierarchy of its poles but by denying to either pole the independence that makes the opposition possible in the first place. If my argument that there can be no literary criticism or pedagogy that is not a form of professionalism, it is also that there can be no form of professionalism that is not an extension of some value or set of values. Whereas before one was asked to choose between professionalism and some category of pure value , the choice can now be seen as a choice between different versions of professionalism, each with its attendant values. To say that antiprofessionalism is a form of professional behavior is not to have closed the discussion but to have identified the basis on which it can continue by identifying the questions that should now be asked: What kind of professional behavior is antiprofessionalism? and What are its consequences? The answer is that, at least in its literary form, it urges impossible goals and therefore has the consequence of making people ashamed of what they are doing. The psychological distress that marks this profession, the fact that so many of its members exist in a shamefaced relationship with the machinery that enables their labors, is in part attributable, I think, to literary antiprofessionalism, which is, as a form of professional behavior, almost always damaging. Stanley Fish’s most recent work is “Wrong Again: A Reply to Ronald Dworking,” Texas Law Review . His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry include “With the Compliments of the Author: Reflections on Austin and Derrida”. (shrink)

Twentieth-century thought appears as a collective project aimed at dismantling metaphysical hierarchies in all their relays across the fields of human culture. Central to this project has been the...

The paper develops a conception of marital love as a complex recognitive relation, which I articulate by juxtaposing it against other recognitive relations that figure in Hegel's theory of modern civil society (i.e., respect and esteem). Drawing on Hegel's early writings, I argue that, if love is to provide its unique sort of recognition, it must obtain between “living beings who are equal in power”—a peculiar form of equality that I name (drawing on Stanley Cavell's work) “dynamic equality.” I (...) conclude that it is by Hegel's own lights that we should reject his notorious conception of the sexual difference. However, I also offer reasons why, from Hegel's early 19th century perspective, he could consider the following two conditions as compatible: (1) equality within marriage and (2) sexual hierarchy outside marriage, namely, in civil society. (shrink)

Starting from Søren Kierkegaard's insight that fully accepting the human condition requires one to live with the persistent temptation to escape from it, Ronald Hall finds similar concerns reflected in the work of two modern-day philosophers, Stanley Cavell and Martha Nussbaum, who equally find in a philosophy of love and marriage the key to understanding how humans may achieve happiness in the acceptance of their humanity. All three thinkers follow a "logic of paradox" in showing how success in (...) the human quest to be human depends crucially on the struggle humans experience with the ever-present opportunities to pursue alternative paths. What Kierkegaard called "living existentially" can be achieved only after confronting and refusing the possibilities of living in "aesthetic," "ethical," or even "religious" denial of one's true humanity. By creating this dialogue between the nineteenth-century Danish thinker and two eminent twentieth-century philosophers, Hall reveals the continuing relevance of Kierkegaard's thought to our own age and its cogency as an interpretation of the human predicament. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to follow a lead of Prof. Stanley Cavell's in his paper, "Kierkegaard's On Authority and Revelation." The lead is: "to understand an utterance religiously you have to be able to share its perspective... The religious is a Kierkegaardian stage of life; and I suggest it should be thought of as a Wittgensteinian form of life." I try to present "form of life" as a larger picture sometimes necessary for understanding language-games, and to suggest (...) that what counts as a form of life will depend upon what particular language-game one is trying to understand. Sometimes then, a person's religious belief might figure into this process as a relevant form of life. I then try to represent Kierkegaard's religious stage by discussing three related concepts: paradox, ideal interpretation, and subjectivity. Paradox is one criterion for marking off the religious stage from the ethical and the aesthetical stages. In the religious stage, the talk of believers about God is such that it interprets the events in one's life according to that belief. In calling this an "ideal interpretation" Kierkegaard is calling our attention to the difference between this and the scientific talk of hypothesis, observation, and evidence. The religious stage is subjectivity—a way of life. In it, the truth of what one says is measured by how one lives in relation to it. This, I suggest, is quite close to Wittgenstein's idea of a form of life being important for understanding the language used within it. My conclusion is that Prof. Cavell's suggestion is a helpful lead in thinking about the connection between Wittgenstein's "form of life" and Kierkegaard's religious stage. (shrink)

Starting from Søren Kierkegaard's insight that fully accepting the human condition requires one to live with the persistent temptation to escape from it, Ronald Hall finds similar concerns reflected in the work of two modern-day philosophers, Stanley Cavell and Martha Nussbaum, who equally find in a philosophy of love and marriage the key to understanding how humans may achieve happiness in the acceptance of their humanity. All three thinkers follow a "logic of paradox" in showing how success in (...) the human quest to be human depends crucially on the struggle humans experience with the ever-present opportunities to pursue alternative paths. What Kierkegaard called "living existentially" can be achieved only after confronting and refusing the possibilities of living in "aesthetic," "ethical," or even "religious" denial of one's true humanity. By creating this dialogue between the nineteenth-century Danish thinker and two eminent twentieth-century philosophers, Hall reveals the continuing relevance of Kierkegaard's thought to our own age and its cogency as an interpretation of the human predicament. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Stanley Cavell’s moral perfectionism places the task of cultivating richer self-understanding and self-expression at the center of corporate life. We show how his approach reframes business as an opportunity for moral soul-craft, achieved through the articulation of increasingly reflective inner life in organizational culture. Instead of norming constraints on business activity, perfectionism opens new possibilities for conducting commercial exchange as a form of conversation, leading to personal growth. This approach guides executives in designing businesses that foster genius and channel (...) creativity, while giving all stakeholders a meaningful voice within a culture of trust. We first give an account of Cavellian perfectionism. Then, we explain how this underrepresented strand of moral reflection challenges and enriches, but does not supplant, prevailing ethical theories—including other versions of perfectionism. We then demonstrate the salience of Cavellian perfectionism to business ethics through examples from marketing, human resources, and executive organizational design and development. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas was one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. His work has influenced a wide range of intellectuals, from French thinkers such as Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray and Jean-Luc Marion, to American philosophers Stanley Cavell and Hillary Putnam. This set will be a useful resource for scholars working in the fields of literary theory, philosophy, Jewish studies, religion, political science and rhetoric. Titles also available in this series include, _Karl Popper_, and the forthcoming titles (...) _Edmund Husserl_ and _Gottlob Frege_. (shrink)

Fish's writings on philosophy, politics and law comprise numerous books and articles produced over many decades. This book connects those dots in order to reveal the overall structure of his argument and to demonstrate how his work in politics and law flows logically from his philosophical stands on the nature of the self, epistemology and the role of theory. Michael Robertson considers Fish's political critiques of liberalism, critical theory, postmodernism and pragmatism before turning to his observations on political substance and (...) political practice. The detailed analysis of Fish's jurisprudence explores his relationships to legal positivism, legal formalism, legal realism and critical legal studies, as well as his debate with Ronald Dworkin. Gaps and inconsistencies in Fish's arguments are fully explored, and the author provides a description of Fish's own positive account of law and deals with the charge that Fish is an indeterminacy theorist who undermines the rule of law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:56~ BOOK REVIEWS of the problem of free will and God's omnipotence- not a problem peculiar to evolution, to be sure, but one that nonetheless arises within the context of the emergence of living things, especially man, on earth and how that process relates to divine intervention; and Francisco J. Ayola starts everything off with a biologist's hardline defense of evolutionary theory. It may be asking too much to (...) expect original thinking on a topic that has been subjected to so much investigation and controversy over the past century. But it is reasonable to expect, in a book such as Evolution and Crea.tion, ways of approaching the topic which spark the reader's interest and furnish him with a competent and sometimes brilliant overview to it. The book fulfills this.expectation. I think it would be particularly useful as a source book and catalyst in graduate level seminars. University of San Francisco San Francisco, California RAYMOND DENNEHY God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Chris·tianity and Science. Edited by DAVID C. LINDBERG and RONALD L. NUMBERS. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986. Pp. xi + 516. $50.00 (cloth), $17.95 (paper). The editors tell us at the outset of this important volume that it is the outcome of two convictions that they share: (1) "that the interaction of science and Christianity has been of profound imp@tance in the shaping of Western civilization" and (2) that the results of extensive specialist work by historians of science and religion in recent decades belie widelyheld stereotypes and ought to be made generally available. The most familiar of the stereotypes is of course the Draper-White 66 warfare" thesis, the origins and continuing influence of which the editors trace in the first part of their helpful introduction. The eighteen contributors to the volume find plenty of controversies-sometimes rising to the level of conflicts-among individuals, among theological schools of thought, among scientific schools of thought, and among social groups, but at no period do they find anything that could be called an overall conflict of science and theology. They find many instances of smallerand larger-scale influences of theological developments on scientific ones, of scientific developments on theological ones, and of social developments on both. But no grand overall interpretative scheme appears in this respect either. Stanley L. Jaki's thesis, for instance, that modern science BOOK REVIEWS 563 was born of Christian theology and has prospered just insofar as it has remained faithful to its parentage, fares no better than the warfare thesis. No sweeping unitary interpretation can be expected to emerge, Lindberg and Numbers sugg.est, from historical work that " shows the respect for the particularity, individuality and value of each people and age that the canons of historical scholarship demand" (p. 10; i:r).ternal quotation from Donald Kagan). Accordingly, each essay is devoted to a particular period-some longer than others, to be sure. Nearly all are by professional historians. One author is primarily a philosopher, and several have at least secondary philosophical interests ; none are primarily scientists or theologians. Nearly all were trained and teach at secular universities, though a few have formal training from religious institutions as well. The coverage by periods is comprehensive, from Lindberg on " Science and the Early Church" to Numbers on "The Creationists" and Keith Yandell (the philosopher) on "Protestant Theology and Natural Science in the Twentieth Century." The last title calls attention, however, to one oddity in the coverage. Whereas in the essays on the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries both Protestant and Catholic figures and movements are treated, in those on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries attention is focused almost exclusively on the Protestant scene. Clearly, eighteen substantial essays cannot be analyzed in detail in a review of reasonable length. I shall indicate the main topics and theses of each with a few comments where these can be made briefly. First, however, I should stress that the book is treasure-trove of information and ideas. All the essays are good; several are superb. Each should be highly instructive for readers who are not specialists in the topic and period it deals with... (shrink)

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, Stanley Katz (who now chairs the editorial board of this journal) invited the intellectual community to reflect on its own history of involvement in public affairs and to make good on its mistakes. This essay examines a single case of intellectuals involving themselves in public affairs and some of the difficulties in saying and evaluating exactly what happened. Critical attention is given to Anthropological Intelligence, a book by David (...) Price published in 2008, which concerns the involvement of anthropologists in wartime activities during World War II and argues that even that “just war” left an indelible stain on the moral fabric of the discipline. (shrink)

Returning to John P. Reeder's 1978 essay on “Religious Ethics as a Field and Discipline,” this essay explores debates surrounding the original intentions for the Journal of Religious Ethics (JRE) and for the field of religious ethics, as these have played out over the decades among an influential group of scholars involved with the JRE since its inception: Arthur Dyck, Ronald Green, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jeffrey Stout. While the JRE and its founding mission are in need of ongoing (...) critique and transformation, we might well still affirm the journal's ongoing importance as a site for the negotiation of a commons, the identification of possibilities for shared life, imagined beyond exclusion and domination. (shrink)

The essays in this volume blend historical and philosophical reflection with concern for contemporary political problems. They show that the causes and motivations of civil religion are a permanent fixture of the human condition, though some of its manifestations and proximate causes have shifted in an age of multiculturalism, religious toleration, and secularization.

In this chapter, we offer a reconstruction of the evolution of Leibniz’s thought concerning the problem of the infinite divisibility of bodies, the tension between actuality, unassignability, and syncategorematicity, and the closely related question of the possibility of infinitesimal quantities, both in physics and in mathematics.Some scholars have argued that syncategorematicity is a mature acquisition, to which Leibniz resorts to solve the question of his infinitesimals – namely the idea that infinitesimals are just signs for Archimedean exhaustions, and their unassignability (...) is a nominalist maneuver. On the contrary, we show that syncategorematicity, as a traditional idea of classical scholasticism, is a feature of young Leibniz’s thinking, from which he moves away in order to solve the same problem, as he gains mathematical knowledge.We have divided Leibniz’s path toward his mature view of infinitesimals into five phases, which are especially significant for reconstructing the entire evolution. In our reconstruction, an important role is played by Leibniz’s text De Quadratura Arithmetica. Based on this and other texts, we dispute the thesis that fictionality coincides with syncategorematicity, and that unassignability can be bypassed. (In this chapter, we employ “syncategorematic” as a shorthand for “eventually identifiable with a procedure of exhaustion” and, as a consequence, “involving only assignable quantities.” We also identify syncategorematicity with potentiality, as suggested by some part of the scholastics, and in Sect. 2.2, we show that the two characterizations are equivalent, provided that “potentiality” is intended in the correct way: namely as in the unending iterative procedures of Greek mathematics.) On the contrary, we maintain that unassignability, as incompatible with the principle of harmony, is the ultimate reason for the fictionality of infinitesimals. (shrink)