The Relevance of Cassirer and the Rewriting of Intellectual History

Summary

This essay aims to discuss the historiographical implications and premises of Peter Gordon's masterly book Continental Divide, in which he re-evaluates the Davos meeting between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger. This impressive reminder of the prospects of intellectual history deserves to be paid serious attention, particularly in European philosophy departments. Gordon's book exemplifies how problems of systematic philosophy can be clarified by a detour through history.

I want to highlight three aspects of Gordon's book that fundamentally transform and deepen our understanding of intellectual history in general and the Davos meeting in particular. First, I highlight one of the main merits of Gordon's study: his emphasis on the plurality behind the term ‘continental philosophy’. This opens up a whole new perspective on a seemingly well-known event within the history of twentieth-century philosophy. Second, I address Gordon's methodological premises, which challenge and fundamentally transform our understanding of intellectual history. Third, I attempt to summarise, from an intellectual history perspective, Gordon's argument about Cassirer's relevance. Here we are faced with the task of realigning and legitimising philosophy in a radically historicised world. To adumbrate the core of my comment I should say that I am thrilled by Gordon's book. I agree with nearly everything he says apart from his conclusions. In a closing remark I will try to explain the reasons for this surprising divergence.     

From colonialism to theology: encounters with Martin Wight's international thought

Martin Wight's writings range far more widely than those of most leading historians and theorists of International Relations. His thought escapes from the parochialism of particular academic disciplines and departments. It also escapes from the provincialism of the present, our preoccupation with immediate issues of foreign policy, which is a preoccupation with ourselves and our society. He grappled with some of the great questions of his era, from colonialism to nuclear war. But in doing that he tried to get beyond his time, by recalling other times when similar questions were current. The mark of a leading thinker and writer is the heavy weight of his thought on his readers. Martin Wight's writings left me with a number of ideas and suggestions the accumulative effect of which is the view I hold of International Relations.     

为共产主义事业奋斗到底的一生--我所了解的晚年陈云(上)

陈云同志的一生是坚贞不渝的共产主义者的一生。他在晚年作为党的第二代中央领导集体的重要成员,为共产主义事业奋斗到底的精神,突出表现在他对改革开放的社会主义方向的把握上,对党的重大原则的坚持上,对党和国家战略的深谋远虑上,对人民群众切身利益的关心上以及对个人的严格要求上。在党的建设方面,他思考最多的,除了搞好党风外,主要是如何端正思想路线、保证党内民主和选拔优秀中青年干部的问题。在经济建设方面,他总是从国家的全局和长远利益出发,关注那些影响我们长期发展的制约因素;并且对计划与市场的关系进行了深入思考,为在微观搞活的同时加强宏观控制提供了理论依据。他时刻挂念人民群众的疾苦,关心群众的切身利益,并力求在制订具体政策中加以体现。他在晚年依然保持谦虚谨慎、顾全大局、艰苦朴素、克己奉公的作风,为我们树立了永葆共产党人政治本色的光辉榜样。     

‘A Young Tory’? The Early Parliamentary Career of Charles James Fox 1768–74

This article seeks to redress the neglect, even by his biographers, of Fox's early career, when he made over 250 speeches in the house of commons in six years. The period when young Fox supported government was an inappropriate prelude to his later fame as opponent of Prime Minister Pitt and champion of ‘liberal causes’. He was anything but a ‘man of the people’ in his authoritarian attitude and detestation of popular opinion, and yet there were signs that he would not be an administration man in the mould of his father, Henry Fox.     

A journey to Mars: John Dewey’s lectures and inquiry in China

ABSTRACT

Instead of the framework of influence–acceptance commonly used in previous studies, the author uses new sources to reexamine John Dewey’s visit to China from the perspective of interactive experience. This study presents Dewey’s lectures in China as the result of interrelationships among a variety of elements – Columbia University, different hosts and audiences, the media, all levels of the Chinese government, the domestic situation in the United States, the international situation, and Dewey’s expectations and work – against the general background of China’s New Culture Movement and new educational reforms. Dewey’s speeches on democracy, science, and new education were remarkably successful in the first year of his visit to China, but began to meet with resistance from some students beginning in June 1920. Because of the Red Scare in the United States, Dewey had to stay in China. In the second year of his visit, he gave warmly welcomed lectures on the same topics in Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong Provinces. With a deeper understanding of China, Dewey not only identified himself with reform plans but also began to pay more attention to China’s economic problems. His inquiry into the problems confronting China is a good example of what he advocated in his lectures: seeing democracy, science, and new education as a way of thinking and carrying out actions and making intellectual choices while moving forward.     

KARL POLANYI AND THE REALITY OF SOCIETY

This essay reconsiders Karl Polanyi's famous thesis about the “embeddedness” of the economy through an examination of two recent books: For a New West, a collection of previously unavailable essays by Polanyi, and Fred Block and Margaret R. Somers's The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's Critique. The guiding thread of this analysis is the claim that a constant in Polanyi's thought was his belief in what he called “the reality of society,” that is, that society exists as a social fact over and above the individuals that constitute it. The essay begins by tracing Polanyi's intellectual development, drawing primarily on the essays found in For a New West. Polanyi's quest to reconcile individual freedom with social solidarity led him first, in the years between the First and Second World Wars, to embrace liberal socialism, before his readings in anthropology persuaded him that traditional economies “embed” the economy in social relations and that the nineteenth‐century liberal project of a “disembedded” economy (through the so‐called free market) is a departure from this anthropological norm. The essay then examines and questions Block and Somers's claim that Polanyi maintained that the economy is always “already embedded,” arguing notably that Polanyi believed that the advent of market society entailed an economy that was actually disembedded from social relations, not merely one that was re‐embedded in an alternative set of institutions.     

Human ecology and the early history of St Kilda,Scotland

It is 300 years since Martin Martin published hisVoyage to St Kilda, one of the most informative accounts ever published of a seventeenth-century community. Historical treatments of St Kilda have often dramatized its isolation, distinctiveness and «marginality» but Martin's writings suggest that the lifeways of the St Kildans were not very different from those of contemporary Hebrideans. The economy described by Martin was subject to a rigorous regime of communal self-management. This article argues that in late medieval climatic conditions, St Kilda's particular combination of resources—sheltered arable land, seals and sea-bird colonies, including a huge gannetry—would have made the archipelago a valued component of the MacLeod chiefdom and a good target for the annual predatory visit of the sub-chief and his retinue. St Kilda's history should be seen not in isolation, but in a context of regional interdependence, and the archipelago's «marginality» is best understood in a long-term historical perspective.     

Democracy and political economy: Tocqueville's thoughts on J.-B. Say and T.R. Malthus

This essay examines the intellectual origins of Tocqueville's thoughts on political economy. It argues that Tocqueville believed political economy was crucial to what he called the ‘new science of politics’, and it explores his first forays into the discipline by examining his studies of J.-B. Say and T.R. Malthus. The essay shows how Tocqueville was initially attracted to Say's approach as it provided him with a rigorous analytical framework with which to examine American democracy. Though he incorporated important aspects of Say's work in Democracy in America (1835), he was troubled by elements of it. He was unable to articulate clearly these doubts until he began studying Malthus. What he learned from Malthus caused him to move away from the more formalised approach to political economy advocated by Say and his disciples and move towards an approach advocated by Christian political economists, such as Alban Villeneuve-Bargemont. This shift would have important consequences for the composition of Democracy in America (1840).     

论康有为对近代博物馆的认知和宣传

康有为是中国近代史上提倡向西方学习的文化先驱,是最早明确提出建立博物馆的有识之士,是积极倡导建立博物馆的领袖人物。康有为对近代博物馆的认知和宣传,以其1898年逃亡海外为界,分为两个时期。第一个时期,他通过大量阅读西书,知道了近代博物馆及其功能;第二个时期,他流亡海外,仍向国人介绍众多亲历的博物馆,并提出建立博物馆的理论和建议。     

A method,a model and Machiavelli: history colloquium at Princeton, 19 November 1968

John Pocock gave “A method, a model and Machiavelli” as a talk at Princeton University in 1968. What happened to the text afterwards is uncertain, but it remained in the papers of Professor Donald Weinstein until his death in 2015, when it was identified by his widow Beverly Parker as being of importance. The text is especially revealing about Pocock’s attitudes to the history of ideas/intellectual history in the late 1960s and more especially the state of the grand project that became The Machiavellian Moment some years later.     

Wartime Emergency and the Displacement of Indians in Fiji: Cost and Compensation

From 1939, under wartime regulations, land was resumed for military purposes in Fiji. Among the lands taken were plots leased by Indian tenant farmers from Fijians, mainly in western Viti Levu. In some cases this caused loss of livelihood and even destitution, as Indo-Fijian historian Brij V. Lal has shown in his book Broken Waves . Unlike Lal, this author argues that in spite of individual cases of suffering, Indians received adequate government compensation, comparable to other displaced occupiers. The real loss for some was that the resumption of cultivated land still with long unexpired terms was in part an opportunity, if not a pretext, for transferring these to the new Native Land Trust Board to be reserved exclusively for Fijians. This was in contravention of Colonial Office policy on the type of land suitable for reservation. Many Indians saw their former lands reserved, but remaining uncultivated for years.     

首阳斋藏■器与西周宗法社会的贵族教育

本文对新近公布的首阳斋藏西周早期簋铭文作以考释,认为其反映了西周早期宗法社会贵族的教育问题,并得出了庶子虽不能直接继承祖考职事,但才艺考核优秀者亦可被任以官职的结论。簋铭文为研究周代贵族子弟尤其是庶子的教育和任官问题提供了新材料。     

民国时期底层职业妇女探析--以广州茶楼女招待为个案

女招待是在妇女解放思潮的推动下,伴随着近代城市社会经济的发展而出现的新兴女性职业,也是民国时期底层女性的主要职业之一。广州女招待出现较早,人数众多,她们生活艰难,职业环境特殊。在社会舆论的压力和茶楼男工的暴力抵制下,广州市政府曾两度禁止女招待。随着城市社会经济的发展,女子入职服务行业大势所趋,广州市政府不得不承认女招待职业的合法性并采取相应措施进行管理。但由于缺乏法律和制度的有力保障,她们的社会地位始终低下,生活状况也没有得到根本的改善。     

Perpetual peace and shareholder sovereignty: the political thought of José de Carvajal y Lancaster

This article contributes to the recent historiography on Enlightenment plans for European peace by shedding light on the political and intellectual work of the neglected Spanish minister and intellectual José Carvajal y Lancaster. The article begins by outlining the intellectual context surrounding the War of Spanish Succession, and proceeds to analyse the ways that Carvajal deployed, both in his texts and in power, Enlightenment ideals to reform the Spanish Empire and achieve perpetual peace in Europe. The ideas of his first work, his Testamento Político, revealed the ways that the logic of joint-stock companies could catalyse the reform of the Spanish Empire. His measures in government, in turn, illustrated how international cooperation could be mutually beneficial, but turned on his fraught relationship with the future Marquis of Pombal. Finally, his text Mis Pensamientos, written in 1753, envisaged a formal commercial and political coalition between the Spanish and the British Empires. Carvajal’s vision for European peace was at once utopian and clear-eyed, and the ideas behind his plan persist as demanding questions for our age.     

Hans Kohn: the idea of secularized nationalism

More than seventy years after its publication, Hans Kohn's 1944 The Idea of Nationalism is still regarded as a ground‐breaking contribution to the study of nationalism. This essay is aimed to highlight a significant theme in this work which has largely gone unnoticed, namely, the pivotal role of religion and secularism in Kohn's account of nationalism, and especially, in his persistent struggle for a ‘perfect’ nationalism. Kohn's conception – and personal experience – of the relationship of nationalism and religion will be examined through several stages of his turbulent life. First, as a young Zionist in Prague, when he parlayed Martin Buber's Zionist creed into an ethnic concept of nationalism. Then, in Kohn's journalistic writing in the 1920s and in his first theoretical works on nationalism in the years 1929–1942. Finally, Kohn's more mature and crystallized account of nationalism in his 1944 book will be revisited from the perspective of the nationalism–religion relationship.     

MY TIBETAN MOTHER KELSANG

In his youth, he worked for sixteen years in northern Tibet where he put his heart and soul into this snow-covered plateau. According to his friends, it is impossible to give a complete portrayal of his life with limited words. He is Wu Yuchu, head of the Yok Museum of Tibet. Mr. Wu is known as"Mr. Yak", a mon in his 60s working tirelessly for the preservation and promotion of yak culture.In 2017, Mr. Wu agreed to start writing a column called"Colorful Choracters of Tibet"about real Tibetan people he knew over the years on China'sTibet magozine. We will select some of the bestpieces to share with our readers.     

Hallucinations and Pathological Visual Perceptions in Maupassant's Fantastical Short Stories- A Neurological Approach

Maupassant excelled as a realist writer of the nineteenth century, with fantastical short stories being an outstanding example of his literary genius. We have analysed four of his fantastical stories from a neurological point of view. In “Le Horla,” his masterpiece, we have found nightmares, sleep paralysis, a hemianopic pattern of loss and recovery of vision, and palinopsia. In “Qui sait” and in “La main” there is also an illusory movement of the objects in the visual field, although in a dreamlike complex pattern. In “Lui,” autoscopy and hypnagogic hallucinations emerge as fantastical key elements.

The writer suffered from severe migraine and neurosyphilis involving the optic nerve, which led to his death by general paralysis of the insane (GPI). Visual loss and visual hallucinations affected the author in his last years, before a delirant state confined him to a nursing home. Our original hypothesis, which stated that he could have translated his sensorial experiences coming from this source to his works, had to be revised by analyzing some of his earliest works, notably “Le Docteur Héraclius Gloss” and “La main d’écorché” (1875). We found hallucinatory symptoms, adopting the form of autoscopy and other elaborated visual misperceptions, in stories written at age 25, when Maupassant was allegedly healthy. Therefore, we hypothesize that they may be related to his hypersensitive disposition, assuming that no pathology is necessary to experience such vivid experiences. In addition, Maupassant's abuse of drugs, as illustrated in “Rêves,” could have provided an additional element to outline his painstaking visual depictions. All these factors, in addition to his up-to-date neurological knowledge and attendance at Charcot's lectures at “La Salpêtrière,” armed the author for repetitive and enriched hallucinatory experiences, which were transferred relentlessly into his works from the beginning of his career.     

“Wachstum” oder “Revolution”? Ernst Cassirer und die Wissenschaftsgeschichte

“Growth” or “Revolution”? Ernst Cassirer and History of Science. Ernst Cassirer's contributions to history of science have been long time neglected. The aim of this paper is to show the historical and philosophical framework of Cassirer's engagement in this field, starting from his seminal work about the problem of knowledge in science and philosophy of the modern age. Moreover the author suggests that Cassirer's late studies about Galilei and the origins of mathematical science are of some interest in order to comprehend both his commitment to contemporary history of science (from Burtt to Koyré) and his intellectual heritage for our agendas in a post‐Kuhnian era.     

Foucault and Technology

This article offers the first comprehensive analysis of the ways in which the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) employed the terms ‘technology’ and the ‘technique’ over the course of his intellectual career. His use of these words in his mature writings, it is argued, reflects a profound ambivalence: Foucault sought to denounce the pernicious effects of what he called modern ‘technologies of power,’ but also deliberately evoked the more positive values associated with ‘technology’ to develop a philosophical standpoint shorn of the ‘humanist’ values he associated with existentialism and phenomenology. The article situates Foucault’s condemnation of power technologies within the broader skepticism towards ‘technological society’ that pervaded French intellectual circles following World War II. In the first phase of his career (1954-1960), Foucault built on these attitudes to articulate a conventional critique of technology’s alienating effects. Between 1961 and 1972, the theme of ‘technology’ fell into abeyance in his work, though he often suggested a connection between the rise of technology and the advent of the ‘human sciences.’ Between 1973 and 1979, ‘technology’ became a keyword in Foucault’s lexicon, notably when he coined the phrase ‘technologies of power’. He continued to use the term in the final stage of his career (1980-1984), when his emphasis shifted from power to ‘technologies of the self.’ The essay concludes by addressing Paul Forman’s thesis on the primacy of science in modernity and of technology in modernity, suggesting that in many respects Foucault is more of a modernist than a postmodernist.