The history and philosophy of social science

Carlo Ginzburg is best known as the author of a popular and widely commented work of microstoria Il formaggio e i vermi, published in 1976. Rather than focusing on Ginzburg's contributions to the genre of microstoria, or on the development of his long and very productive scholarly career, my aim in this article is to reflect on a set of themes that recur, with impressive persistence, in his work, from his earliest publications in the mid-1960s, to his most recent works. Above all, I suggest that two elements recur in his work, and that these, jointly, impart upon it its defining character. They are the concern with epistemological issues of knowing, and the ethical conception of the historian's work, which Ginzburg expressess and defends with urelenting rigour.     

Hobbes ou la crise de l'état baroque

Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan presented a paradigm of the social contract that has proven foundational in Western political thought. A proper understanding of the philosopher’s thought is thus of paramount importance. I argue that today’s case for a religiously tolerant Hobbes has missed an important part of the historical record. I first consider an obscure but important document, the second edition of the Humble Proposals. It demonstrates that leading members of a seventeenth century Christian denomination, the Independents, considered a state-enforced confession of faith. Independents are generally seen as tolerant, and one of the arguments for Hobbesian toleration is that Hobbes endorsed them. But the second edition of the Humble Proposals aligns with the possibility in Hobbes that the civil sovereign will impose part III of Leviathan on the Universities and treat its contents as a legally required confession of faith – one that may be necessary for security, and the avoidance of civil war. Hobbes’s endorsement of Independency alone cannot be used to argue that his work leads to religious toleration. The evidence I present reinforces an earlier assessment and alongside other evidence points to the return of the intolerant Hobbes.     

Seeing the World Through Ramist Eyes: The Richardsonian Ramism of Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone

Using as examples the writings of Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone, founding ministers of the First Church of Hartford, Connecticut, this article shows how influential thinkers in early seventeenth-century England and New England saw the world around them through the filters of the Ramist philosophy of Alexander Richardson. It argues that Richardsonian Ramism produced theology and preaching that was less “biblical” and more “Calvinist” than has been conventionally thought.     

Technology,chronology and the role of crucible steel as inferred from iron objects of the ancient site at Junnar,India

Ordinary iron objects from an ancient habitation site at Junnar in India, dating to the 2nd BC to AD 2nd century, were examined for their microstructure, chemical composition and age. The objects were mostly made of high carbon steel with a homogeneous microstructure consisting of fine spherical particles of carbide in the ferrite background, free of non-metallic inclusions. Their carbon concentration ranged from 0.7% to over 1.6% with one exception at 0.2%. Some of them contained trace amounts of silicon, manganese and sulfur while one object retained cavities due to volume contraction during solidification reactions. These features indicate that the objects examined constitute an early example of Indian steel making in crucibles. Evidence was found that basic techniques needed for the success of crucible steel technology were mostly available at Junnar at the time. The radiocarbon measurement on carbon samples extracted from one of the iron objects placed its date between 176 BC and AD 20, in agreement with the radiocarbon dates of three charcoal samples from the same site. The forgoing results support that crucible steel was produced in India at a much earlier date than previously supposed, to serve as a material for specific needs arising in daily life.     

Regulating commercial public service broadcasting: a case study of the marketization of Norwegian media policy

This article looks at the issues facing the regulation of commercial public service broadcasting in Norway. A document analysis of the 2010 renegotiation process to renew TV 2’s public service licence illuminates how a general marketization affects the regulation of the television sector. This process comments on Hallin and Mancini’s model of democratic corporatism in the Nordic countries regarding the power of the state to regulate private media enterprises as cultural institutions. As such, the process of commercialization should include not only the broadcasting sector, but also the political sector. As part of a solution to retain TV 2’s licence agreement, the government effectively had to re‐regulate the cable distribution sector. This case study demonstrates not only the enduring strength and value of the public service institution in a political context, but also the extent to which regulation is guided by technical and economic forces to sustain democratic considerations.     

“The Delicious Sense of Foreignness”: American Transcendentalism in the Atlantic

Abstract

This essay presents one example of the ways in which place, transiency, and change have shaped the American experience. In the mid-nineteenth century a diverse group of American Transcendentalists came together on the island of Fayal in the Azores. The Transcendentalists' reaction to the Portuguese Catholic culture they encountered in the Azores indicates a broader pattern among nineteenth-century American liberals. These tourists operated within a larger transatlantic atmosphere of uncertainty characterized at times by hope but also by crisis. This culture of uncertainty, moreover, was one of the key factors in shaping how American liberals struggled with their conceptions of religion and nation.     

Iron precipitation in a natural CO2 reservoir: Jurassic Navajo Sandstone in the northern San Rafael Swell,UT, USA

Diagenetic iron (oxyhydr)oxide minerals are common precipitates expected in CO₂ reservoirs, and these minerals record fluid flow for application to carbon capture and sequestration (CSS). Multiple mineralogy and spectroscopy analyses on a pore to meter scale characterize a well‐exposed, lithologically controlled, iron (oxyhydr)oxides reaction front in the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone. Dolomite is the most prevalent cement (up to 23 area%), followed by only several percent or less of iron (oxyhydr)oxides, kaolinite, illite, and gypsum cements. Bulk geochemistry based on diagenetic mineralogies in the reaction front is compared with the water chemistry from nearby modern spring effluent emanating from the Navajo Sandstone to conclude that similar fluids (i.e., CO₂‐charged, saline waters containing hydrocarbons) are responsible for the precipitation. A second comparison of bulk geochemistry and diagenetic mineralogies of the reaction front with data from other abundant Navajo Sandstone concretions in the Spencer Flat region (in south central Utah) shows that reservoir fluids likely vary spatially and temporally in the porous and permeable Navajo Sandstone. CO₂ injection into porous and permeable, quartz arenite, saline aquifers will likely result in minor clay and abundant dolomite precipitation that will significantly decrease porosity.     

ENVIRONMENTAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY: TIME FOR EEG2?

This article argues that recent proposals for environmental and evolutionary economic geographies (EEG 1 and EEG2) should be integrated; EEG² is used as “passing convenience” to make this case. EEG1's emphasis on environmental imperatives is loosely framed and needs a theoretical socio‐economic evolutionary base that is the central thrust of EEG2. Meanwhile EEG2 would be empowered by incorporating environmental concerns within its mandate. Moreover, both EEG1 and EEG2 share common roots in institutional methodologies, emphasize cumulative causation and path‐dependent behaviour, have strong interests at regional scales of analysis, and both are intimately tied to the causes and consequences of innovation. This article provides a rationale and suggests an integrative conceptual approach for developing EEG². In particular, the article outlines a conceptual framework that interprets EEG² in terms of co‐evolutionary socio‐ecological and multi‐scalar processes that are situated within a reasoned history interpretation of economic development. This framework further highlights the roles of path dependency, innovation, multinational corporations and value chains. How this multi‐scalar framework may be elaborated is then discussed around three themes: extending placed‐based analysis of localized clusters; broadening the scope of global value chain analysis; and re‐engaging the analysis of core–periphery relations. Ultimately the case for EEG² is to ensure that economic geographic perspectives are fully incorporated in debates over the co‐evolution of economy and environment, in research and policy terms one of, if not the, central challenges of development in the 21st century.     

Tu m'as repondu

ABSTRACT

Literal biblical interpretation advocates the view that at the outset of the paradise story Adam and Eve were only banned to eat of the tree of knowledge. The present paper challenges this view through an economic, ra-tional choice interpretation and the application of a self-interested decision calculus (model of economic man). I mount the thesis that, on grounds of a rational choice reconstruction, Adam and Eve must have been implicitly banned from the outset not to eat of the tree of life, despite no explicit ban be-ing stated in Genesis. The paper argues for the validity and insightfulness of such a rational choice analysis of the paradise story, which considerably clari-fies the conceptual logic and structure of the Eden story.     

Zionism and Palestine in anti‐Semitic thought in imperial Germany

Britain honored its international commitment under the Balfour Declaration for the duration of the 1920s in order to retain control of Palestine – a strategic buffer to the Suez Canal. The import of Jewish capital and revenues from Zionist enterprise and commerce in Palestine enabled it to do so. Not only was Britain able to administer Palestine at a minimal cost to the British taxpayer, but it also used Zionist-generated capital to finance its own imperial projects in the region: the construction of Haifa harbor, and an oil pipeline and road from Baghdad to Haifa.