创新礼赞

江泽民同志指出“:创新是一个民族的灵魂,是一个国家兴旺发达的不竭动力。”在我国的政治领域,从马列主义到毛泽东思想到邓小平理论,再到“三个代表”重要思想,每一个阶段都反映了党的理论创新,每一次理论创新都极大地推动了社会主义事业的全面进步。无论是技术创新还是理论创新,无论是思想创新还是文化创新,创新正日益改变着世界的面貌,也改变着人类的命运。创新这个概念是美国经济学家熊彼特在1992年出版的《经济发展理论》一书中提出的。他对创新下的定义是“:生产要素的重新组合。”在经济和科技领域,创新、创造和发明极大加快了社会物…     

In Praise of Recklessness

Abstract

Catherine Zuckert's Plato's Philosophers argues that the central concern of the Platonic dialogues, read as a single corpus, is to examine the character of philosophy as represented in the activities of five different Platonic characters. The activity of philosophy is most clearly triangulated by showing the advantages and limitations of Socratic philosophy as set against the practices of others laying claim to that title. This article endorses Zuckert's interpretation while raising questions concerning Socrates' eventual philosophic status, the relationship between philosophy and irony, and the standing of philosophy as a social practice.     

和谐礼赞

民主法治、公平正义、诚信友爱、充满活力、安定有序、人与自然和谐相处。这是胡锦涛总书记对和谐社会内涵的概括。     

节约札赞

勤俭节约是中华民族的传统美德.我们从小时候起,就不断接受着勤俭节约的教育.这方面的名句格言耳熟能详.譬如：     

团结礼赞

土族的先民吐谷浑在中国西部广袤辽阔的土地上立国350余年,曾经金戈铁马、驰骋纵横,上演过一幕幕悲壮的活剧,留下过一段段千古传颂的佳话。星移斗转、沧海桑田,历史在延续,经过岁月淘洗和沉淀下来的传说,便成为了我们宝贵的精神财富。让我们从其中不断地汲取丰富的营养,以陶冶情操,或者得到一些新的警喻和启示。     

In Praise of Interdisciplinary Archaeology

Abstract

The study of instabilities has long been a central aspect of physical theories and experimental investigation. Chaotic behaviour is a more recently recognized general feature of physical systems, expecially hard-driven dynamical systems. This review describes physical models illustrating these phenomena and seeks to indicate their application to understanding a variety of problems outside physics. Thus, the occurrence of instabilities is advanced as the reason why different sciences have developed independently, and why their results cannot be regarded as deducible from the fundamental laws of physics. In particular, sociology and political science are seen as attempting to deal with extreme cases of chaotic behaviour resulting from widespread instability. Finally, a simple physical model of stop-go oscillations is described, and interpreted as a warning against over-optimistic expectations that modern attempts at participatory democracy are compatible with a stable society.     

Keeping Ideas in their Place: In Praise of Thin Constructivism

After acknowledging the growing focus on ideas in Political Science and giving two cheers for that development, this paper warns against the concomitant rejection of the importance of materialist factors in explaining stability and change. The argument is illustrated by a focus on recent literature on globalisation and the global financial crisis.     

Fighting for the Afterlife: Spiritists, Catholics, and Popular Religion in Nineteenth-Century France

This article examines the position of nineteenth-century French spiritism in relation to the Catholic Church. Spiritism offered an alternative "religion" to French Catholics dissatisfied with the church's traditionalism in a modernizing world. I begin by describing the spiritists' position on Catholic dogma and the movement's place as an urban popular religion. Spiritist critiques of heaven and hell incorporated liberal and republican values, thus making it appealing to these groups who were often hostile to the church. I move next to conflicts between the adversaries. Spiritists, unfettered by dogma or even logic in some cases, freely incorporated the supernatural into the nineteenth-century acceptance of Enlightenment values such as reason and science. The church, unable to deny the reality of supernatural phenomena claimed by the spiritists, limited itself to asserting the devil's hand in these phenomena. It thus could not fully address the challenge of spiritism. Spiritism as a popular religion complicates the assumption by many folklorists regarding the disappearance of popular beliefs in the face of the modern. The article concludes with a call to modify these theories in order to understand an evolving, often urban, popular culture which integrated "tradition" and "modernity" and continually created new forms of the marvellous.     

In Praise of Vagueness: Uncertainty,Ambiguity and Archaeological Methodology

This article stipulates that vagueness is a socially important yet academically largely overlooked aspect of human interaction with the world. Vagueness and vague experiences can structure material categorisations of the world; it can contribute to the shaping of social relations and nurture the appreciation of difficult experiences. However, the recent archaeological (re)turn to science as the main provider of knowledge of the past renders vagueness futile as an empirical occurrence through its exorcism of elusiveness and ambiguity in the notorious pursuit of absolute, exact and quantifiable facts. This article challenges the pursuit and use of exact data in archaeological science and the consequential implications of the omission of vague occurrences, discussing the problem that ambiguous and absent evidence become neglected in subsequent conclusion. Second, it is demonstrated that vagueness and ambiguity can be integral to certain social and material phenomena. Third, the article examines recent archaeological analyses of burial practices in South Scandinavian passage graves from the Middle Neolithic in order to discuss the pursuit of certitude in archaeological observations and interpretations. Finally, it is argued that the idealisation of certitude in archaeological analysis needs to be complemented by an interpretative framework making it possible to recognise vagueness as a social phenomenon.     

In Praise of Heresy: Hus,Luther, and the Ethos of Reformation

Reformation is confined neither chronologically nor geographically but is best understood as a series of efforts to recover particular visions of Christian faith and practice. These endeavours always have potential for religious and social change. The martyred Bohemian priest Jan Hus (1372–1415) has often been characterised as a forerunner of the European Reformations and Martin Luther frequently referred to him. Past scholarship has evaluated the relation between Hussite history and the Reformation, Hus and Luther, in a variety of ways arguing either for organic connections or dismissing the possibility of causal connections. I argue that what Hus and Luther shared was not theology, common principles of reform, or visions of religious practice as much as a particular ethos. That ethos can best be understood within the idea of heresy. This article examines what Hus and Luther were striving to achieve, assesses the assumptions about Hus current in the sixteenth century, evaluates the Hus myth, and argues for a reconsideration and rehabilitation of heresy, a concept that epitomises the shared ethos that made Hus relevant to sixteenth‐century reformers.     

In haec signa: Pilgrim-badge trade in southern France

Medieval shrines acquired their wealth from the pilgrims who worshipped in them. Though a large part of this wealth come in the form of outright donations, shrines received a considerable income from the sale of pilgrims' badges and other souvenirs. Originally an ecclesiastical monopoly, the sale of badges became a bone of contention in many pilgrimage centers between the shrine proper and the surrounding town. This phenomenon can be seen in the shrines of St James in Compostela, St Mary Magdalen in Saint-Maximin, and the Virgin Mary in Rocamadour and Le Puy. During the later middle ages the development of a whole souvenir industry for pilgrims reflected the change in the popular attitude towards pilgrimages. The pilgrimage ceased to be a purely religious undertaking of someone who had severed himself from secular society for the duration of the journey. It became a social event which combined piety with tourism.     

In haec signa: Pilgrim-badge trade in southern France

Medieval shrines acquired their wealth from the pilgrims who worshipped in them. Though a large part of this wealth come in the form of outright donations, shrines received a considerable income from the sale of pilgrims' badges and other souvenirs. Originally an ecclesiastical monopoly, the sale of badges became a bone of contention in many pilgrimage centers between the shrine proper and the surrounding town. This phenomenon can be seen in the shrines of St James in Compostela, St Mary Magdalen in Saint-Maximin, and the Virgin Mary in Rocamadour and Le Puy. During the later middle ages the development of a whole souvenir industry for pilgrims reflected the change in the popular attitude towards pilgrimages. The pilgrimage ceased to be a purely religious undertaking of someone who had severed himself from secular society for the duration of the journey. It became a social event which combined piety with tourism.