Order and chance,the pattern of Diderot's thought

This article sets out to show that it is more precise to speak of different liberal traditions than it is to speak of liberalism in general. The argument is pursued by showing how contrary to French liberalism, which has a strong republican element, and in contrast with English and Scottish liberalism, which reserve an important place for political economy, there is also a central European liberalism with a marked philosophical dimension. This particular form of liberalism is analysed by examining the writings of Kant, Simmel and Freud. It is stated at the outset that critiques of liberalism often fail to appreciate the richness and diversity of liberal thinking, and that this depth must be borne in mind in any effective critique. It is explained that there are indeed grounds to critique liberal thought and practice, but that these grounds are obscured by lumping distinct and heterogeneous traditions together as if they all suffered from the same defects.     

The Interplay of Spirit in Greek Island Dancing

Values of honourable courtship are expressed in dance and this paper is an ethnographic reconstruction of a Greek island dance called the sousta practised on the Dodecanesian island of Rhodes during the interwar period (1925–1940). Its performance was a dynamic interplay of gender roles that mediated romance and moved the performers toward the resolution of marriage. The aim of the paper is to elaborate on values ascribed to men and women during the occasion of dancing at a village wedding in southern Rhodes. The interplay of grace (hari) and honour (timi) will locate why and how men reveal through hari and why women are concealed through timi during the dance performance.     

Estonian family farms in transition: a study of intangible assets and gender issues in generational succession

This paper, based on interviews, highlights intangible assets in the intergenerational transfer of farms in two Estonian municipalities from a long-term and gender perspective. The study stretches from the interwar period in the twentieth century up to the present. It has been shown that emotional bonds to the land are generally strong in Estonia. This paper aims to highlight how such bonds and feelings may influence decisions on generational succession. The results of the study indicate that family farming and land transfer have had a significant and persistent role in Estonian society, even during the Soviet period under its collectivised system of agriculture. Transfers of intangible assets were important during Soviet rule, for example, the transfer of knowledge about the pre-Soviet property and the value and importance of the farmhouse. Today, family farming is gradually declining in importance, but older traditions of farm and farmhouse transfer can still be found, such as early decisions on who is to be the successor. This is evident among active farmers but also among former farmers with strong emotional bonds to the land. Traditional gender roles tend towards men’s knowledge still generally being more highly valued in the decision about who is to be the successor to the family land.     

A Bayesian AMS C chronology of the Classic Maya Center of Uxbenká, Belize

Archaeologists require precise chronologies of cultural change to understand the nature and timing, and causes and effects, of ecological and social transformations. The Uxbenká Archaeological Project (UAP) has made chronology building a main goal, employing epigraphic data, artifact seriation, and high-precision AMS ¹⁴C dating. With more than 60 ¹⁴C dates with measurement errors below ±25 ¹⁴C yr, primarily on single charcoal specimens, Uxbenká may be the most intensively dated Classic Period site in the tropical Maya Lowlands. Here we take the next step, combining this rich chronometric dataset with associated stratigraphic information in OxCal's Bayesian framework to generate a high-resolution chronology of Uxbenká's early development and expansion in southern Belize. We show how archaeologists may take advantage of complex architectural stratigraphy to constrain broad calibrated ranges during the Classic Period, and to estimate dates for observed construction events that can not be directly dated (e.g., clearing/leveling plazas, laying plaster floors, renovating/rebuilding structural elements). Our analysis confirms the antiquity of the ceremonial Stela Plaza (Group A), where first construction is estimated between 60 cal BC and cal AD 220 and is associated with a Pre-Classic structure obscured by later construction and reorientation of the group to a N-S alignment ca. AD 150–310. The analysis also indicates initial leveling and construction at plaza Group B from cal AD 60–310 and Group D from cal AD 20–240, both earlier than previously assumed. Though Late Classic contexts are not as well represented by direct dates, architectural modifications are documented at all three plaza groups after AD 550, including the extensive plastering, laying paving stones, and construction of facades on existing structures. The resulting chronology revises our previous thinking on the mode of settlement and development of Classic Maya society at Uxbenká and indicates specific areas of investigation to elucidate events in the Late and Terminal Classic at the site, including political and social fragmentation and the abandonment of the urban core late in the Classic Period.     

Inscribing the border: Schizophrenia and the aesthetics of Aztla´n

Late modernity is replete with new borders that defy traditional geographic notions of scale. The irruption of such transverse borders is seen by some as signalling a threatening loss of the link between place and identity. Yet others have viewed this as a productive decentring. The Chicano movement and the aesthetic production that arises from it illustrates this productivity. Chicano national identity is actively produced through the revisioning of space that both draws from and defies geopolitical borders. This challenges geographers and other border-based scholars to rethink the ways that borders manage late modern power.     

Theory and Akrasia in Aristotle's Ethics

Abstract

In book 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that vice, lack of self-restraint (akrasia), and brutishness are to be avoided. While the opposite of vice is virtue, the opposite of akrasia is self-restraint, and of brutishness a form of divinity. This article explores Aristotle's analysis of self-restraint and its lack, akrasia, focusing on the phenomenon of akrasia and its causes. Self-restraint is the experience of excessive and idiosyncratic desires that are nevertheless resisted. Like self-restraint, akrasia, or lack of self-restraint, involves the experience of excessive and idiosyncratic desires. However, those lacking in self-restraint give in to these desires; the unrestrained person knows the good but does the opposite nonetheless. Possible causes of akrasia are the overpowering of reason by desire among the young and the effeminacy of some women and womanly men. This article argues, however, that the most interesting cause of akrasia in Aristotle's account is theoretical thinking.