What France?

Cordellier, S. [et al.], L'Etat de la France 1992 (La Découverte, 1992), 635pp., 149F., ISBN 2 7071 2100 2

Kimmel, A., Vous avez dit France? Pour comprendre la société française actuelle (Hachette/CIEP, 1992), 191pp., 106F., ISBN 2 01 018890 X     

What Is Religion?

Abstract

This essay considers the question: “What is religion and is it essentially violent?” Rather than answer the question directly, Martin suggests that it is a loaded question and reflects on what might motivate it. Through a comparison of the concepts of “religion” and “child abuse”–as analyzed in Ian Hacking’s work on social constructionism–Martin points to the social or political stakes of defining terms tied to normative discourses and which could be designed to pathologize certain behaviors.     

What Do Objects Want?

This paper develops an argument for the agency of objects, looking at the effects objects have on people. Groups of related objects, such as pots or metal ornaments, create stylistic universes which affect producers and users of new objects, bound by the canons of style. For an object to be socially powerful in a recognized manner, the form of the object lays down certain rules of use which influence the sensory and emotional impacts of the object. Formal properties of artifacts are influenced by the genealogy of the object class, including historical continuities and changes, and also its perceived source. The forms of objects, the historical trajectories of the class of objects and their perceived sources combine to have social effects on people, shaping people as socially effective entities. Britain’s incorporation into the Roman Empire between 150 BC and AD 200 provides an excellent case study through which to look at the changing corpora of objects, which had continuities and changes in form, a set of subtle attributions of sources and a complex range of social effects.     

What is Social Economics?

During the 1950s at the latest, Max Weber became a ‘founding father’ of sociology, chiefly on the basis of a restricted set of canonical writings and without any consideration of his wider relationships to law, economics and politics. During the last ten years of his life he was responsible for a major collaborative work, the Grundriss der Sozialökonomik—Outline of Social Economics. The title was of his own choosing; and so it might well shed new light on his work if we consider how this work was organised, and how Economy and Society, written as a contribution to this handbook, was intended to form part of it.     

What Were We Thinking?

This article outlines the context in geography and statistics in the mid 1960s, at the height of geography's so-called "quantitative revolution," that led us into a long-term collaboration about spatial statistics, which has continued in surges and lulls for some 40 years. We focus upon problems in spatial autocorrelation, including the measurement of autocorrelation, distribution theory, and variable geographical lattices. This narrative may not describe how it was, but it does describe how we remember the events of the time.     

What about Translation? Beyond “Persianization” as the Language Policy in Iran

Against the background of language policy research on Iran, and drawing on insights from recent scholarship on the role of translation in language policy, this article calls into question the claim that “Persianization” of non-Persian peoples is the main element of language policy in Iran. In so doing, the article examines closely the role of translation as enacted in two legal instruments: the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Law of Parliamentary Elections. The study illustrates that although official communication between Iranian authorities and citizens is a prototypical example of monolingualism and non-translation, voluntary translation happens between Persian and non-Persian speaking individuals, acting as a viable and cost-effective bottom-up alternative for the inclusion of non-Persian speaking peoples, far more effective than an impractical, top-down language policy reform implicitly found in the “Persianization” claim.     

What future for feminist geography?

Drawing primarily on my own work, speculations are offered on a range of possible futures for feminist geography. It is suggested that the most likely trajectory is one of incorporation as feminist geography is dismissed, regarded with indifference or included within a pluralist, but basically unaltered discipline. While a contentious and depressing suggestion, an alternative trajectory is offered by a feminist geography which actively engages with other progressive developments in the discipline and creatively incorporates new developments in feminist scholarship on, for example, the body, deconstruction and post‐colonialism. A third future builds on such engagements to offer various transformations of the subject, power relations and conceptual baggage which presently constitute feminist geography, through a process of self‐reflection and critical positioning. These three trajectories of incorporation, engagement and transformation I see as simultaneously operating in my own work. Reflections on them are offered for others to consider and to stimulate debate.     

What is a Salafi Reformist?

Abstract

Tariq Ramadan is one of the most prominent and controversial Western Muslim political thinkers today. He has been called everything from a moderate liberal Muslim thinker to a radical Islamist in disguise. He calls himself a Salafi reformist. According to him, Salafi reformists read the sacred texts of Islam dynamically, using reason, and reject literalist readings. Yet Ramadan also calls Sayyid Qutb a Salafi reformist. The problem is that, by most accounts, Qutb is the quintessential radical Islamist. This raises the question of what Ramadan thinks actually makes someone a Salafi reformist, and what this can tell us about his political teaching. To answer this question, I put Ramadan and Qutb into conversation. I argue that, while Ramadan meets his own criteria for being a Salafi reformist, Qutb does not. I suggest some reasons why Ramadan may not share this view; his political theology tells a different story.     

What If? Modality and History

Philosophers and historians have long been suspicious of modal and counterfactual claims. I argue, however, that historians often legitimately use modal and counterfactual claims for a variety of purposes. They help identify causes, and hence help explain events in history. They are used to defend judgments about people, and to highlight the importance of particular events. I defend these uses of modal claims against two arguments often used to criticize modal reasoning, using the philosophy of science to ground the truth of modal claims. This analysis puts several important points into perspective, including how certain we can be about our claims about what might have been, and the role that determinism plays in those claims. The proper analysis of modality shows, I argue, that counterfactual claims are legitimate and important, if often uncertain, and that issues of determinism are irrelevant to the modal claims used in historical analysis.     

What Should I Do Later?

IfirstmetLobsangGyamcointheNehruPark.The180-cmman,inhis50s,wasthinandpoorLyingontheemeraldlawn,whichwasdottedwithblossomingflowers,helookedlikeadyingtreebranch.Atmyrequest,hetoldmethefollowingstory.AREGRETTEDDECISION.Icomefromamedium-sizedfamily.Myparentshavefourchildren:myelderbrother,mytwoeldersisters,andme.BeforeIcamehere,Ilivedwithmyparents,wheremybrotherandsistersoffenvisitedusduringweekends.IgraduatedfromacollegeinChina'shinterlandand,upongraduationfromthecollege,wasassigneda…     

Reading What Is Political Philosophy?

Abstract

Leo Strauss is responsible for the revival of political philosophy as a necessary response to the problem of human life. This essay articulates his own summary account of this necessity, the intellectual underpinning of his division of political philosophy into the classical and the modern approahces, and his preference for the former as the natural path leading to the understanding of man's political situation.     

What Do Historians Argue About?

Those who think that general historical interpretations do no more than express a personal point of view deny that arguments over their credibility can have any point. They commonly believe that historians decide upon particular facts about the past in the context of a general interpretation of those facts. Consequently they deny that there is any independent basis for judging the credibility of general interpretations of the past, and conclude that each coherent account is as good as every other. Similarly, those who think causal explanations are arbitrary can make no sense of arguments about their adequacy. They assume that historians simply pick out causes that interest them, and that there is no objective basis for judging the adequacy of the explanations they provide. This essay defends the credibility of interpretations against the skeptics, and the adequacy of causal explanations too. It shows that historians do discover a mass of particular facts independently of the general interpretations they finally provide, facts that provide a basis for assessing the credibility and fairness of those interpretations. It will also show that there is an objective basis for judging the adequacy of causal explanations, as some causes of an event are far more influential in bringing it about than others. A much more difficult problem concerns the need for historical interpretations to provide not just a credible account of the past, but also one that is fair, balanced, not misleading. Historians frequently argue about the fairness of general interpretations. Does this mean that fairness is always required? Quite often historians produce partial interpretations, in both senses, with no apology. It would be wrong to call such interpretations “biased” because they do not pretend to be comprehensive. So long as they are credible, they are acceptable. On the other hand, many interpretations are intended to present a fair, comprehensive account of their subject. When judging the adequacy of interpretations, it is necessary to know whether they are meant to be fair or not.     

What drives the equatorial electrojet?

There is a controversy over whether the equatorial electrojet is a separate system with its own return currents at low latitudes or it is an integral part of the Sq current system driven by emfs mostly beyond the Sq focus. The arguments of Onwumechili (1989) in support of the first hypothesis are examined, but the second idea is preferred. Ground-based, satellite and rocket data are reviewed together with correlation studies and various computer models. A picture is suggested where there is a relatively constant current system, including both electrojet and Sq, with other superposed current systems mostly driven by semidiurnal tides, which are responsible for both day-to-day and seasonal variations and also for the poor correlation between geomagnetic variations at the electrojet and elsewhere.     

What did the Greeks mean?

By tracing in the work of medical authorities, some of whom are not widely quoted, the changing meaning of three neurological terms used in ancient Greece - poplexia, epilepsia and cephalalgia - the development of Greek ideas about neurological science may be appreciated. It may be concluded that the achievement of the schools of Greek medicine was in keeping with the level attained by the ancient Greeks in philosophy and other aspects of civilization.