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.     

Mouzinho da Silveira and the Political Culture of Portuguese Liberalism, 1820–1832

Summary

Liberalism as an identity and as a political ideology was non-existent in Portugal, as in most of the countries of Ibero-America, before the beginning of the nineteenth century. But the semantic development of the term ‘liberal’ in Portuguese underwent a clear and rapid mutation in the following decades. It became associated with specific meanings in relation to constitutional issues and civil law matters. While the former prevailed between 1820 and 1823, the latter were dominant in the writings of Mouzinho da Silveira and his Civil War legislation of 1832 to 1834.     

Political theory in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The place of political theory in AJPS has historically been a fairly marginal one, partly because Australia does not seem to have a strong national tradition of political theorizing. This is thought to be a function of living in a nation that never produced a great political theorist and was born neither in revolution or utopianism. Yet, although there has been a marked absence of high theory or exegetically-inclined history of ideas over the life of the journal, theorists have responded by contributing work that usefully illuminates applied problems with theoretical insight. Further, it may be the case that there is a peculiarly Australian style of political theory that is pragmatic and self-consciously embedded within our institutions and political culture. The paper explores this and other means by which Australian theorists have adapted in order to retain a presence within the journal.     

Culture,structure and reciprocity: histoire croisée and its uses for the conceptualization of the rise and spread of national movements in Europe and the Atlantic World during the Age of Revolutions

This article seeks to continue the discussion carried on in previous editions of the journal concerning the concepts of transfer, crossed and entangled history and their employment in various fields of enquiry. Specifically, it attempts to clarify some of the principles associated with this growing body of scholarship and the manner in which they may aid in the conceptualisation and historiography of the rise of national movements over the period 1763–1848. Given the procedural dispositions described below, crossed or entangled histories on the rise of nationalism in Europe and the European colonial world would be expected to incline toward particular subject matter and questions, and even presuppose, to paraphrase another writer, a conception of the nation as ‘a relational (cultural) construct’. This largely cultural perspective on the rise and early history of national movements in Europe and the Atlantic World has a number of heuristic advantages, not least of which is its value in enabling productive linkages between older approaches to the subject.     

La Méditerranée solide: un espace double en construction

There exists a space of the ‘solid Mediterranean’. This concept was first proposed by the Annales’s co-founder Lucien Febvre in 1944–45, during a course on Europe in the longue durée. The flexible borders of this double space, both conceptual and contextual, remain in construction within the on-going and global reality of the solid Mediterranean’s space. The comparative history of European societies promoted during the interwar period by Marc Bloch, the other Annales founder, contributes to the construction of said space. Examining this space allows us to concretely articulate scales of analysis from the local to the global. The article is based on a comparative analysis of two Italian and Spanish cases that appear to be particular and paradigmatic (‘exceptional normal’, Edoardo Grendi) of – respectively – Italy’s so-called ‘southern question’ (questione meridionale) and the Spanish ‘agrarian question’ (cuestión agraria). Thus the article helps to conceptualize the space of the Méditerranée solide, marked by the complex and long-term Southern European question. The article compares Il Ministro della mala vita (The Minister of the Corruption, 1910) by historian Gaetano Salvemini and Del caciquismo trágico (On Tragical Caciquism, 1913) by republican journalist Pedro Torres. Through these ‘exceptionally normal’ case studies, taken together and explained reciprocally, it is possible to better understand the space of the solid Mediterranean. The social realities of the Spanish cuestión agraria and the Italian questione meridionale, as well as the conditions of local historiographical production on such realities are, indeed, a consubstantial part of the European transnational, global space of the ‘solid Mediterranean’.     

J.G.A. Pocock and the idea of the ‘Cambridge School’ in the history of political thought

This article offers a reinterpretation of the origins and character of the so-called ‘Cambridge School’ in the history of political thought by reconstructing the intellectual background to J.G.A. Pocock's 1962 essay ‘The History of Political Thought: A Methodological Enquiry’, typically regarded as the first statement of a ‘Cambridge’ approach. I argue that neither linguistic philosophy nor the celebrated work of Peter Laslett exerted a major influence on Pocock's work between 1948 and 1962. Instead, I emphasise the importance of Pocock's interest in the history of historiography and of his doctoral supervisor, Herbert Butterfield. By placing Pocock's intellectual development in these contexts, I suggest, the autonomy of diverse versions of the ‘Cambridge’ approach can more readily be perceived.     

UNCERTAINTY AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

Intellectual historians often make empirical claims, but can never know for certain if these claims are right. Uncertainty is thus inevitable for intellectual historians. But accepting uncertainty is not enough: we should also act on it, by trying to reduce and report it. We can reduce uncertainty by amassing valid data from different sources to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of competing explanations, rather than trying to “prove” an empirical claim by looking for evidence that fits it. Then we should report our degree of certainty in our claims. When we answer empirical questions in intellectual history, we are not telling our readers what happened: we are telling them how strong we think our evidence is—a crucial shift of emphasis. For intellectual historians, then, uncertainty is subjective, as discussed by Keynes and Collingwood; the paper thus explores three differences between subjective and objective uncertainty. Having outlined the theoretical basis of uncertainty, the paper then offers examples from actual research: Noel Malcolm's work shows how to reduce and report uncertainty about composition, and David Wootton's work shows how to reduce and report uncertainty about beliefs.     

“The New World” of Karl Barth: Rethinking the Philosophical and Political Legacies of a Theologian

ABSTRACT

It is only recently that a few histories of interwar European political thought have come to acknowledge that its discursive framing of ethical and social crises was closely interwoven with upheavals in the ways Europeans rethought and debated God. The first aim of the present article is to restore to Karl Barth (1886–1968) a central place in promulgating a thoroughly interdisciplinary approach to twentieth-century European ethical and political thought. Secondly, it seeks to correct the commonplace association of Barth’s theological revolution with radical and authoritarian political ideologies by exploring his early political thought and activities, whilst focusing on several of his most politically and intellectually influential ideas. The article concludes with a discussion of the wider implications of rethinking Barth’s role in intellectual history.     

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。     

THE IMPLICATIONS OF ROBERT BRANDOM'S INFERENTIALISM FOR INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Quentin Skinner's appropriation of speech act theory for intellectual history has been extremely influential. Even as the model continues to be important for historians, however, philosophers now regard the original speech act theory paradigm as dated. Are there more recent initiatives that might reignite theoretical work in this area? This article argues that the inferentialism of Robert Brandom is one of the most interesting contemporary philosophical projects with historical implications. It shows how Brandom's work emerged out of the broad shift in the philosophy of language from semantics to pragmatics that also informed speech act theory. The article then goes on to unpack the rich implications of Brandom's inferentialism for the theory and practice of intellectual history. It contends that inferentialism clarifies, legitimizes, and informs intellectual historical practice, and it concludes with a consideration of the challenges faced by inferentialist intellectual history, together with an argument for the broader implications of Brandom's work.     

The Upper Paleolithic Rock Art of Iberia

Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11 kya, but–tracking the course of human demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian. Dramatic discoveries and dating projects have significantly expanded the Iberian rock art record both geographically and temporally in recent years, in close coincidence with the growth of contemporaneous archeological evidence: cave art loci in Aragón and Levante attributable to the Solutrean and Magdalenian, many cave art sites and a few open-air ones in Andalucía and Extremadura that are mostly Solutrean (in line with evidence of a major Last Glacial Maximum human refugium in southern Spain), the spectacular Côa Valley open-air complex in northern Portugal (together with a growing number of other such loci and one cave) that was probably created during the Gravettian-Magdalenian periods, and a modest, but important increase in proven cave and open-air sites in the high, north-central interior of Spain that are probably Solutrean and/or Magdalenian. Despite regional variations in decorated surfaces, themes, techniques and styles, there are broad (and sometimes very specific) pan-Iberian similarities (as well as ones with the Upper Paleolithic art of southern France) that are indicative of widespread human contacts and shared systems of symbols and beliefs during the late Last Glacial. As this Ice Age world and the forms of social relationships and ideologies that helped human groups survive in it came to an end, so too did the decoration of caves, rockshelters and outcrops, although in some regions other styles of rock art would return under very different conditions of human existence.     

“A Rather Stupid Sort of Game Played by the Bald and Obese Middle-aged”: Partisanship and Patronage in Late Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century English Canadian Historical Writing

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, English Canadian historians and other thinkers came to revise the history of the struggle for Responsible Government in Upper and Lower Canada, along with the accepted narrative of political developments during the early nineteenth century. This revisionism reflected a contemporary critique of “partyism” which was seen to be an outcome of extreme partisanship, patronage, and the brokerage system of politics. These practices were characterized as irrational, inefficient, and a threat to social cohesion and national unity. Moving away from a “Whiggish” vision of political progress in Canada, historians increasingly came to use “excessive” partisanship as a negative characteristic in the evaluation of past events and individuals. The increasing authority of the “new” social scientists is seen in the move away from moralistic condemnations of partyism. Overall, the writing of history was significantly shaped by the sense of political disillusionment felt by English Canadian intellectuals in how liberal democracy was practiced in their society.     

Challenging intellectual hierarchies. Hegel in Risorgimento political thought: an introduction

ABSTRACT

The introduction to this special issue rethinks Italy’s liberal tradition and nineteenth-century Italian political thought in transnational perspective, with particular focus on the role of Italian Hegelianism during the emergence of the modern Italian nation state. Starting from an attempt to recast the transnational dimension of the Risorgimento, this co-authored article relates existing studies of Italian Hegelianism to wider trends in intellectual history elsewhere in Europe. Introducing the different contributions to this special issue, our approach challenges notions of centre and periphery in the history of intellectual flows, and helps to free the history of the Risorgimento from self-incurred exceptionalism.     

From industrial change to historical inevitability: Annie Besant’s socialism and the philosophies of history

ABSTRACT

A leading figure of the British and Indian intellectual stage from the 1880s, Annie Besant (1847–1933) is chiefly remembered for her numerous and somewhat diverging commitments. This article seeks to account for her shift from socialism to theosophy by focusing on the latter as a system of thought and on the philosophical basis of her critique of capitalism. It is argued that the case for the common ownership of means of production that she makes throughout her socialist writings both results from her secularism and explains her eventual drift away from it. In an attempt to promote equality through democratic and pragmatic methods, Besant claimed to predicate her enterprise on the laws of evolution rather than on utopian schemes or revolutionary action. It is shown how this approach drew on philosophies of history: collectivism was deemed the necessary outcome of economic changes and the next stage of industrialization. It is also shown how Besant’s brand of socialism rested on a faith in progress, rather than on scientific reasoning. A secularized theology – her plea for socialism, it appears – was at odds with the philosophical foundations of democracy that she advocated throughout her life.     

Putting Religion First

Abstract

This paper examines a version of the religious violence thesis drawn from William Cavanaugh's critical diagnosis of it, and particularly the characterization of some of its proponents that religion is uniquely divisive and, consequently, a unique cause of conflict and violence. According to one representative model advanced by Martin Marty, Mark Juergensmeyer, and others, religion is an inherently disunifying phenomenon because it uniquely enables sacred and exclusive bonds that nurture antagonistic proclivities toward those outside that bond. This paper presents some viable counterexplanations for this kind of phenomena that provide a sufficient basis for questioning the core thread of the thesis.