ELECTIVE AFFINITIES AND THEIR PHILOSOPHY

Elective Affinities: Musical Essays on the History of Aesthetic Theory collects a selection of Lydia Goehr's recent essays. In them she traces "a history of attraction and reaction … of music to philosophy, drama, birdsong, crime, film, and nationhood" (ix). Goehr examines the ways that philosophers, the ideas that they present, and works of art display "elective affinities". Her procedure is like that of an art historian who presents parallel slides to reveal visual affinities, even between artists who themselves were unaware of each other. Her analyses are erudite, lucid, and always suggestive, but what I found most admirable in Elective Affinities is Goehr's extraordinarily brave experimentation with a novel form of philosophy-writing, the adumbration of which is the focus of this review. Her book is strange enough to be genuinely magnificent and lastingly influential.     

TEXTS AND TRADITIONS IN CHINESE AND COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY

This article considers Quentin Skinner's critique and methodology in his seminal essay “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” vis-à-vis the current methodological debates in Chinese and comparative philosophy. It surveys the different ways in which philosophers who work with ancient Chinese texts in those related fields deal with the tension between textual contexts and autonomy and how some of the errors criticized by Skinner under the mythology of coherence, mythology of doctrines, mythology of parochialism, and mythology of prolepsis might apply to those fields. It argues that Skinner's insistence that understanding a text requires recovering its author's intended meaning by studying its linguistic context has limited application to Chinese and comparative philosophy because those fields’ most important texts are not best understood as means of communication by specific historical authors with intended messages to convey to readers. These texts are instead the means by which Chinese traditions perpetuate their respective beliefs and practices. Instead of being circumscribed by authorial intent, the meanings of traditional texts are dynamic and co-created in the process of producing, reproducing, and consuming texts as well as in the evolution of practices that also constitute each tradition. The meanings received by the audience are never exactly what authors or transmitters intended but have been transformed by each audience's own concerns and interests, even if the audience attempts to grasp what the former intended. Using the Five Classics and the Analects as examples, this article illustrates how such texts’ purposes to teach and perpetuate the practices that constitute a way of life determine their meanings. Understanding is not merely cognitive but practical as well. The meanings of such texts are not static but dynamic as traditions evolve. The debates about methods of reading and interpreting ancient Chinese texts are also debates about the nature of Chinese traditions and struggles over their futures.     

DISCIPLINE,PHILOSOPHY, AND HISTORY

Gorman proposes to investigate historical practice under the rubric of a philosophy of disciplines. Such philosophy must first “recover historically” the self‐constitution of the discipline in order then to appraise its procedures for warranting claims. Gorman's concept of discipline would have profited from consulting the substantial body of empirical research and theory regarding disciplinarity, and his “historical recovery” of the discipline of history leaves a lot to be desired. These insufficiencies vitiate the interesting arguments he has to offer concerning the question of the truth‐claims of whole historical accounts. A better reconstruction of disciplinarity might also have provided him with stronger rejoinders to the postmodern challenge to historical practice that he sees himself called to rebut.     

POPULATION GEOGRAPHY AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC PLANNING

Population geographers are urged to get involved in the program of socio-economic planning that is expected to supplement the present economic planning process in the Soviet Union. So far socio-economic plans have been drawn up only for a few large cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Sverdlovsk. In general, there is a need for integrating the social planning process with purely economic planning, and to supplement the present sectoral planning system with an integrated system of spatial planning entities. At the present time, city and regional plans are derived by simply collating sectoral data at the city and regional level rather than by a separate integrated spatial planning procedure. A system of intra-oblast regions, or okrugs, numbering perhaps 500 or more, is recommended as a new level suitable both for government administration and for socio-economic planning.     

THEORY AND GOD IN GOTHAM

“Theory” is all the rage among religious studies scholars generally. But with the tiniest number of exceptions, this is not true in American religious history. American history in general has not proven receptive to theoretically oriented scholarship, and American religious history may epitomize this aversion; most histories of religion in America follow the classic forms of narrative history. yet the study of religion in modern urban America illustrates the desirability and perhaps even the inevitability of rethinking both religion and modernity. Without rethinking modernity, especially the assumption of its secularity, our histories cannot explain or even adequately describe the remarkable resilience of religion in so seemingly secular a place as Manhattan. And without rethinking religion we may not be able to comprehend its ability to thrive and to embrace uncertainty and spiritual pluralism alike.     

CRITICAL THEORY AND PUBLIC POLICY

In the confines of the study of politics, public policy analysis involves a shift from pure to applied research, a shift which intensifies the problem of the fact-value split inherited from positivist behavioralism. While early public policy literature concentrated on empirical policy-making processes bypassing moral criteria, some recent writings have elaborated on policymaking and policy evaluation as a type of normative inquiry; significant steps in this direction have been undertaken by Duncan MacRae and especially by Jurgen Habermas in the context of “critical theory.” According to Habermas, policy evaluation requires a critically reflective “practical discourse” open not only to experts or policy analysts but to the public at large. The paper argues that such discourse is a valuable remedy against the technical-instrumental bent of applied science, but that recovery of a fully non-instrumental “practical” judgement presupposes an evaluation not only of concrete policies but of the status of “policy” itself.     

GEOGRAPHY'S SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF ERNST CASSIRER

O ne of the distinctive features of geographic research is the spatial perspective which is manifested in the geographic literature through the use of a wide variety of spatial concepts. Until the recent work of phenomenological geographers, the variety of concepts used by geographers conformed to the ideals of a scientific geography in that they referred to measurable relations between phenomena. The relations may be directly measurable, such as the highway distance between Los Angeles and San Diego, or they may be indirectly measurable, such as an individual's perception of the distance between the same two cities. This interest in both objective as well as perceived spatial relationships illustrates the expanded scope of geography's spatial perspective, which has resulted in an increase in the number of spatial concepts of significance to geographers and a proliferation of the meanings given to the traditional spatial concepts of geography.     

THE CRITICAL THEORY OF HISTORY: RETHINKING THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY IN THE LIGHT OF KOSELLECK'S WORK

There are many ways to consider the philosophy of history. In this article, I claim that one of the most viable approaches to the philosophy of history today is that of critical theory of history, inspired by Reinhart Koselleck. Critical theory of history is based on what I call known history, history as it has been established and expounded by historians. What it contributes—its added value, so to speak—is a reflection on the categories employed to think about historical experience at its different levels, not only as a narrative but also as a series of events: their origins, contexts, terminology, functions (theoretical or practical), and, finally, eventual relevance.     

THE HISTORY AND THEORY OF EMPIRES

Contemporary histories and theories of empire generally remain within boundaries inspired by varieties of liberalism, and by Marxian theory and its hybrids, in which changing modes of production determine the forms of power, including empire. Liberal theorists and historians of empire generally trace a complex process in which expanding imperial power systems led ultimately to nation‐states, democracy, and market economies. For Marxists and postmodern theorists, the formal aspects of empire remain unimportant compared to the broader workings of modes of production and particularly, the global power of capitalism. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri use the word “empire” to describe the workings of contemporary capitalism and its myriad forms of power. Whether they rely upon the formal definitions of empire or the Marxian‐postmodern one, theories of empire often descend from modern utopian visions: perhaps the Kantian variety emphasizing a peaceful union of states and collective learning, or the Marxian one, although now taking into account changes in the mode of production and victims unattended to by Marx and Engels. New technologies and communications networks impress all contemporary theorists. Some proclaim the end of modern power systems and empire; others find empire in a new, postmodern form. Nonetheless, there are stubborn continuities with the modern in the very persistence of modern utopias, the dominance of nation‐states, the pursuit of democracy, and the durability of capitalism. Theorists of power and empire have to explain these and other continuities, alongside the disappearance of the more than 400‐year‐old balance‐of‐power system in which imperial powers in the European core finally delivered vast power to the United States and the Soviet Union, and created new technologies that strengthen human connection as well as threaten vast destruction. The question of the power of the United States and its imperial status commands the center of attention.     

PERESTROYKA AND THE ECONOMIC REGION IN STATE MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING

The concept of region-based planning and management bodies, which flourished for a time during Khrushchev's sovnarkhozy reforms, is resurrected, this time under the guise of promoting decentralization and enhancing territorial versus sectoral planning under perestroyka. More precisely, the authors argue for devolution of meaningful planning and management functions to a network of smaller and more numerous economic regions, with “regional economic councils” serving as bodies for planning and coordinating the activities of smaller spatial units within these regions. A scheme describing how such a network might function within the current Soviet bureaucratic structure and economic environment is presented (translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005).     

PHILOSOPHY AND GEOGRAPHY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: A COMMENT

At the end of his review essay occasioned by 'the appearance of Margarita Bowen's Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt ,' J. A. May wrote: I think