Bayesian Regression and the Expansion Method

This paper shows that within a Bayesian frame of reference the propensity to regard a model as invariant can be formalized into a prior probability density function of the parameters of an expanded formulation in which this model is encapsulated. The Bayesian approach allows to bring to the surface the implications of alternative levels of commitment to invariance assumptions on the results of empirical analyses, and can quantify the comparative strength of alternative drift specifications. The “expanded” Bayesian regressions are demonstrated by an example focusing upon the effectiveness of family planning.     

Thomas Traherne,Thomas Hobbes,and the Rhetoric of Realism

Abstract

Thomas Traherne has often been seen as a mystic detached from the turbulence of his period. Recent scholarship has attempted to place him more firmly in context. This article contributes to this trend in arguing that Traherne's late works, especially Commentaries of Heaven, were shaped by the pressure of responding to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Though Traherne makes only one direct reference to Hobbes, his idiosyncrasies in thought, argument, and mode of expression are all fundamentally influenced by the need to counter Hobbes's account of ethics, metaphysics, and language. Traherne is particularly concerned to assert and display an ardent realism against Hobbes's nominalism. In doing so, he creates a complicated play of rhetorical figures, especially abusio or catachresis, as embodying theological commitments. This both places Traherne more clearly against the background of the intellectual history of the period in which he lived, and demonstrates his particularity as a writer.     

Simulation as Narrative: Contingency,Dialogics, and the Modeling Conundrum

In this paper, we will cast a critical eye on the practice of simulation modeling in archaeology, focusing on some of the unwritten assumptions underpinning currently popular agent-based approaches. We shall suggest the need for (1) a better integration with the basic tenets of complexity theory, (2) a stronger focus on epistemological issues, rather than on technological/methodological preoccupations, and (3) a distributed ecology of models functioning as an exploratory research laboratory. In essence, we argue for a more discursive, dialogic approach that places modeling in the arena of narrative construction, rather than the pursuit of some representation of “reality.”     

Historical Contingency and the Peace Progressives

Robert David Johnson. The Peace Progressives and American Foreign Relations . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.     

Vampires: Social Constructivism, Realism, and Other Philosophical Undead

Books reviewed in this article: Andre Kukla, Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What?     

Historiographical Counterfactuals and Historical Contingency

Book reviewed in this article:
Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals edited by Niall Ferguson     

Oskar Rosenfeld and the Realism of Holocaust-History: On Sex, Shit, and Status

In the Beginning was the Ghetto: 890 Days in Lodz. By Oskar Rosenfeld. Edited and with an Introduction by Hanno Loewy; Translated by Brigitte M. Goldstein     

Green Allies: Speculative Realism,Evangelical Christianity,and Political Pluralism

This essay addresses the question of how to build political coalitions to address global warming. For speculative realists such as Levi Bryant, responding to climate change demands materialist ontologies that recognize the efficacy of things themselves, e.g. fossil fuels. And yet, I argue, Bryant does not sufficiently address the political assignment of building political coalitions with people who endorse different ontologies. To illuminate this possibility, I show how the American evangelical David Gushee arrives at similar conclusions by a different route. The essay encourages speculative realists to fold modesty into their political thinking for the sake of building coalitions with theists about matters of common concern.     

翰海春拍力推市场蓝筹——写实画派与学院艺术演绎独有景观

自2003年下半年开始,中国书画和接续至今的当代艺术的相继飙升助推了整个市场大盘的增量和结构性提升,在天价和流拍带动的涨跌舞蹈中,很多的收藏者和投资者被牢牢的栓在了前卫艺术的热门板块上体验惊风骇浪,     

Cultural Hybridity,Magical Realism,and the Language of Magic in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist

Sister Francisca de la Concepción (Mother Castillo), a Neogranadine nun, articulated multiple, powerful discourses in her works Mi vida and Afectos espirituales. In what I call a "hegemonic confessional discourse," visible throughout her mystical works, the Spanish-American colonial nun affirmed the Iberian colonization and Catholic evangelization of the New Kingdom of Granada by accepting and supporting the Spanish's violent and discriminatory hegemony.

I will defend the aforementioned thesis by analyzing Mi vida and Afectos espirituales, using the construction of Otherness and an explanation of various mystical processes, and by scrutinizing Mother Castillo's social, economic, political, and religious views, as well as her Catholic orthodox, white, traditional perspective.     

Machiavelli and Mandeville: Prophets of Radical Contingency

Abstract

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) deserve to be taken more seriously, and also to be compared. They are great precursors of modernity, and prophets of that wholly contingent world which the abolition of Christian providentialism entails. The one liberated politics from the Church; the other freed human desire from conventional moralizing. Machiavelli's ideas have been assimilated by the modern world, Mandeville's less so. His crude robustness awoke the mind of Adam Smith, and modernity is in part a dispute between the pessimism of Mandeville and the more optimistic Smith. The discussion is illuminated with reference to four contemporary church documents, and their presuppositions are questioned.