Stewart,Kant, and the Reworking of Common Sense

Summary

Dugald Stewart was the first metaphysician of any significance in Britain who attempted to take account of Kantian philosophy, although his analysis appears generally dismissive. Traditionally this has been imputed to Stewart's poor understanding of Kant and to his efforts to defend the orthodoxy of common sense. This paper argues that, notwithstanding Stewart's reading, Kant's philosophy helped him in a reconsideration and reassessment of common sense philosophy. In his mature works—the Philosophical Essays (1810), the second volume of the Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1814), and the second part of his historical ‘Dissertation? (1815–1821)—Stewart's analysis of Kantian philosophy is far from being uniform. In the first two works, he takes a cautious approach to transcendentalism, showing some interest in the challenge it might represent for common sense; in the last, he turns to rash criticism. This change may appear confusing and inconsistent unless considered in the light of a precise ‘nationalistic’ strategy. In fact, once Stewart had taken from Kantian philosophy what he deemed useful for his own aims, he eventually dismissed it in order to show that his reworked version of common sense was the most original and most consistent outcome of the whole Anglo-Scottish philosophical tradition.     

Much Ado About Dugald: The Chequered Career of Dugald Stewart's Letter to Sir William Forbes on James Beattie's Essay on Truth

Summary

Although Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo's An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie has long served as an invaluable resource for those interested in Beattie's life and thought, there has been little scholarship on the genesis of Forbes's book. This article considers the role played by Dugald Stewart—as well as that of his friend, Archibald Alison—in the making of Forbes's Life of Beattie. It also examines the reasons for Forbes's decision not to print Stewart's letter in its entirety in the Life of Beattie and explores the letter's significance for understanding Stewart's philosophical development.     

Common Sense in the Public Sphere: Dugald Stewart and the Edinburgh Review

Summary

Although George Davie has identified the debate between Dugald Stewart and Francis Jeffrey as a crucial chapter in the history of Scottish philosophy, their exchange remains a neglected episode. Jeffrey questioned the role of the philosophy of mind in nineteenth-century culture and suggested that it lacked a truly scientific method of investigation. Although Jeffrey was not articulating a common perception, his criticism stimulated both Stewart's further exploration of our intellectual powers and his search for a new role for the philosophy of mind. The result was a stronger emphasis on education in Stewart's thought and a shift away from Reid's formulation of common sense philosophy.     

一部颇具新意的拓荒之作——评《当代中国政治思想史》

河南大学出版社新近出版的《当代中国政治思想史》一书 ,不论在学术价值、理论建树方面 ,还是在推动学科建设、为现实提供借鉴方面 ,都不失为一部创见迭出、极富新意的开拓性佳作。该书也有某些不足之处     

Work,Gender & History in the 1990s and Beyond

By the end of the 1980s, having amply demonstrated that the study of class could no longer be separated from the study of gender, feminist historians were advocating a new gendered history of work. At the beginning of the 1990s, American historian Ava Baron identified four problems that women's labour history had left unresolved: the need to move women's labour history out of its ghetto; an explanation for the mechanisms of sexual difference in labour relations; the theorisation of women's and men's ‘consent’ to oppression; and an understanding of the differences among women. The quest for a gendered labour history required new conceptual tools and new theoretical approaches. This paper tests this agenda against research on work and gender in the last decade of Gender & History. The moves toward the interrelation of public and private, work and family, as well as toward the construction of identities calls into question whether work remains a distinctive historical field.     

Political History and Political Philosophy: Making Sense of the West

Abstract

The old Western synthesis, the coming together of self-government, the Christian proposition, modern equality, and the commitment to relieving man's estate, appears to be unraveling. In the European context, it is being replaced by a “pure democracy” that cannot do justice to the continuity of Western civilization. Rejecting the twin temptations of Progress and Decline, Pierre Manent recovers the perspective of the human agent. While the polis or classical city is no longer available to us, the self-government of free human beings remains at the heart of the Western enterprise. Manent shows that the Christian notion of conscience preserved the classical analogy between the soul and the political association and is at the hear of Western liberty. The West as a whole rests on the synthetic and mediating notion of conscience.     

20世纪西方分析或批判的历史哲学

分析或批判的历史哲学的兴起,一方面批判了思辨的历史哲学,另一方面将历史哲学研究的重点从解释历史的性质转移到解释历史知识的性质上来。这极大地推进了史学理论的发展,也为历史学确立了更为稳固的根基。德国历史哲学家狄尔泰、文德尔班、李凯尔特继承德国历史主义传统,从文化科学与自然科学相异的角度来分析历史知识的性质;克罗齐、柯林武德也遵循了这个传统。分析学派罗素、波普尔、亨佩尔等人,则从语言逻辑的角度来分析理解历史的方式和历史知识的可能性。这两个方向共同构成了20世纪西方历史哲学的主流,进一步深化了人们对自我的认识。     

读《中国近代史上的官绅商学》

章开沅主编的《中国近代史上的官绅商学》的突出特点,在于摆脱了西方研究理论的束缚,选取活跃于当时历史舞台上的几个重要社会群体,着重分析它们在近代的交错流变以及它们与社会变迁之间的互动关系,以窥视特定历史时期内社会转型的特征。故该书不论是在学术价值、理论建树方面,还是为现实提供借鉴方面,都不失为一部佳作。     

校史编研:当代史研究的一个新领域

改革开放以来 ,学校教育得到了快速发展 ,同时校史编研也应运而生。经过 2 0多年的努力 ,校史编研取得了丰硕的成果 ,已经成为当代史研究的一个新领域。步入 2 1世纪 ,随着我国学校教育进入新的发展时期 ,校史编研也面临着提高编研水平、调整研究方向和与国际上先进高等学校院校研究接轨等多重任务 ,今后校史编研工作将会提高到一个新的水平     

学术转型期的民国史研究--中华民国史国际学术讨论会纪要

2002年8月21－23日在北京举行了“中华民国史国际学术讨论会”。从提交此次会议的论文可以看出近年来民国史研究的几个基本特征：民国政治史在致力于突破,民国外交史因新史料的出现而凸现新意,民国社会史的研究日益深化,民国经济史的研究更加细化,民国思想文化与教育史领域的研究在不断拓宽,民国史料的不断发掘与学术史研究的重视。     

日本宋代政治史研究的现状与课题

近五十年来的日本宋代政治史研究,深受内藤湖南、宫崎市定倡导的“君主独裁政治”论的重大影响。在此引导下,日本的宋代政治史研究不断发展,有关政治的大致框架得到了澄清,但在研究领域、理论和方法等方面仍有改进的必要。今后需要引进微观政治学、宏观政治学、国际政治学等理论和方法,扩大研究领域,跨出制度史研究的框架,并努力发掘新资料和扩大对以往资料的多方面利用,从而推进“谁?何时?什么?怎样搞?”这种政治结构的研究。     

Innovative Trends in Women's and Gender Studies of the National Socialist Era

The text is less a review of the new literature than a reflectionon significant and innovative current trends in the historiographyon women and gender in the National Socialist era. The firstpart deals with various women's activities within milieus andprofessions, including their room for manoeuvre: midwives, socialworkers, female Nazi functionaries, and female auxiliary workersof the Nazi Wehrmacht. The second part of the article addressesspecific features of biopolitics, targeted not only againstJews but also against asocial women, homosexuals and prostitutes.It also looks at visual images of bodies. Although the Nazistried to create strongly determined binaries to categorize ‘we’and ‘the others’ in the arts and other propagandamaterial, there existed, in fact, a broad spectrum of body images,especially among media stars. A third trend in the history ofthe Third Reich deals not only with the politics of exclusionbut also of inclusion, as found in the concept of Volksgemeinschaft(national community), a concept that had many facets, such asthe Volksfamilie, comradeship and home front. And it was themedia that had the task of ‘translating’ this conceptto the people in many appealing ways. The fourth part considersthe gendering of memories after 1945 and the dominance of malenarratives and points of view. The four parts of the articleare intended to contribute to intersectional history and thehistory of social engineering.     

回顾与展望:社会史视野下的中国蝗灾史研究

近二十多年来,社会史新颖的视角使史学研究趋向丰富和深入,但这并未引起蝗灾史研究者的重视。本文以蝗灾与社会的互动关系为线索,在梳理蝗灾史研究的发展脉络的基础上,对目前的研究不足提出几点看法,并就蝗灾史研究中应该引入新的视角和方法、挖掘新的历史资料等方面做出展望。     

Women,gender and feminism in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This review article, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Journal of Political Science (formerly Politics), analyses articles focusing on women, gender and feminism that were published in the journal. The analysis demonstrates that the study of gender is relevant to a broad range of fields, and methodological approaches used, in political science. It also demonstrates that political science knowledge is itself historically and socially constructed, reflecting both traditional social power relations and the influence of the social movements that challenge them. Consequently, key articles have drawn attention to the ways in which the frameworks of mainstream forms of political science were gender-biased and have sometimes continued to be so, particularly in terms of narrow constructions of the ‘political’. Such narrow constructions may still be contributing to some ongoing gaps in the literature, despite the important contributions made by work published in the journal.     

读高敏先生新著《南北史掇琐》

李延寿的《南史》和《北史》,乃增删、抄撮有关南北朝时期的八部正史而成,然其增了哪些,删了哪些,所删之当否,所增之价值,皆治南北朝史者所不可不悉心探究的。高敏先生的《南北史掇琐》,即在这方面做了十分有意义的工作。高著将《南北史》对于八书的删削和增补处依卷次及行文之先后一一尽数列出,加以考辨,并列举异文,增补校勘,因而大有益于南北朝史的研究。     

前资本主义社会历史规律的求索——马克垚先生与历史比较研究

马克垚先生是我国历史比较研究的开拓者之一。多年来,他基于“前资本主义诸形态的政治经济学”的学术构想,开创出宽阔的“求同”学术理路,对中西封建社会进行诸多深入的比较考察。他在这一领域中的重要建树,在很大程度上廓清了西方学理模式的偏见及其对我国史学界的影响,深化了对封建时代中西历史异同的认识,促进了对封建社会历史规律的探索,推动了中国史学界历史比较研究的发展。     

Mirrors of the Nation: The Construction of National Character and Difference in the Historical Writings of E. G. Geijer

This article suggests that marriageable young upper-class women can be taken as indicators of the longue durée of the ancien régime mentality and the stepwise advancement of the bourgeois mentality. This is so because of factors that made such women particularly prone not to break with established conventions. Source materials in this analysis are taken from contemporary non-fiction texts in which 19th-century St Petersburg and Helsinki serve as the scenes and in which marriageable young women feature as the protagonists or objects of appraising gazes. It is suggested that the differences emerging around the mid-19th century between the two societies with regards to the habitus and education of upper-class girls and marriageable women can at least in part be explained by different institutional settings vis-à-vis land, labour and the status of the bourgeoisie.