La Philosophie Analytique ou les Promesses d’Une Pensée Technologique

This article focuses on the origins of analytical philosophy. It argues that the conditions under which it was thought out were similar to the conditions necessary for critical thinking - like the scientific inquiry that served as its model, analytical philosophy was based on the distinction between syntax and semantics. Resulting from logical analysis, this distinction was later essential to all systems of representation - works of art, human action, intellectual endeavours. This evolution reveals a major concern - the need for a technical tool for the critical mind.     

PRODUCTIVITY AND THE DENSITY OF HUMAN CAPITAL*

ABSTRACT We estimate a model of urban productivity in which the agglomeration effect of density is enhanced by a metropolitan area's stock of human capital. Estimation accounts for potential biases due to the endogeneity of density and industrial composition effects. Using new information on output per worker for U.S. metropolitan areas along with a measure of density that accounts for the spatial distribution of population, we find that a doubling of density increases productivity by 2–4 percent. Consistent with theories of learning and knowledge spillovers in cities, we demonstrate that the elasticity of average labor productivity with respect to density increases with human capital. Metropolitan areas with a human capital stock one standard deviation below the mean realize no productivity gain, while doubling density in metropolitan areas with a human capital stock one standard deviation above the mean yields productivity benefits that are about twice the average. These patterns are particularly pronounced in industries where the exchange of information and sharing of ideas are important parts of the production process.     

Recent developments in social and cultural geography in Spain

Controversy has erupted in Selma, Alabama, over recent efforts to commemorate the career of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate cavalry officer and founding member of the original Ku Klux Klan. More generally, the controversy in Selma is emblematic of an enduring regional pattern in which contests over the future are couched in terms of the past. Relative to other media, monuments appear to be trustworthy and lasting. Despite this appearance of historical consensus and stability, the city's public spaces are the product of and conduit for ongoing politics. The current conflict pits memorial activists associated with the Civil Rights Movement against neo‐Confederates. Interpreted in the context of Selma's increasing promotion of Civil Rights heritage and the recent election of the city's first African American mayor, the Forrest affair highlights the utility of the concept of symbolic accretion for understanding the complexities of commemorating antagonistic histories in the same place. Symbolic accretion describes the appending of commemorative elements onto already existing memorials. The situation in Selma suggests two different types of symbolic accretion, allied and antithetical. More generally, the act of commemoration itself may be understood as a process of accretion in that heretofore anonymous spaces are formally recognized via the grafting of memorial elements.     

Japan's Sporting Diplomacy: The 1964 Tokyo Olympiad

At a time when Japanese foreign policy was constrained by the legacies of war and the exigencies of the Cold War, hosting the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was conceived as an alternative means of engagement with the international community. The sporting diplomacy of the Tokyo Olympics centered around elevating Japan’s international position by engaging the people of the world on a grassroots level. The pervasive notion that sports are separate from politics helped smooth Japan’s return to the international community, while concerns about the image presented to foreign audiences motivated efforts to internationalize Japan, in terms of both the physical infrastructure of the capital and attitudes of the people. The development of infrastructure for the Games—including new buildings, roads, and trains, and even a satellite to facilitate live international broadcast—all contributed to making Japan more “international.” The event was a great success for Japan, both athletically and diplomatically, and sports diplomacy became a lasting component of Japan’s foreign policy, still used today to promote international connections and develop greater knowledge and understanding of Japan. At the same time, this build-up of soft power also cleared the way for the development of greater hard power by Japan.     

Advances in the archaeology of the Pampa and Patagonia

Archaeological data reveal two distinctive cultural adaptations on the Pampa and Patagonia of Argentina: terrestrial hunter-gatherers in the former and most of the latter region and maritime hunter-gatherers along the southern extreme. Both adaptations were achieved by the end of the fifth millennium B.C. Thereafter, a stable equilibrium was maintained, with a slow drift toward greater emphasis on resources providing the maximum return for the least effort. The high productivity of the Fuegian environment sustained a population 30 times greater than occupied the Pampa and continental Patagonia prior to Araucanian penetration in the sixteenth century A.D. The long-term stability is attributable to the absence of environmental or demographic pressures or encroachments by neighboring groups, which might have made more intensive exploitation of the environment necessary.     

Book reviews—Comptes rendus

I canonici ai servizio dello Stato in Europa, secoli XIII‐XVI—Les chanoines au service de l'Etat en Europe du XIIIème au XVIème siècle

Recueil d'études sous la direction d'Hélène MILLET, avec la collaboration d'Elisabeth MORNET.

Istituto di studi rinascimentali, Ferrara, saggi, Modena (Franco Cosimo Panini editore), 1992, 290 pages (avec cartes, tableaux, graphiques). 80 000 lires.

Rodzina w Osiemnastowiecznej Warszawie (La famille à Varsovie au XVE?ème siècle)

Cezary KUKLO

Instytut Historii Filii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego w Biatymstoku, Biatystok, 1991 (Institut d'Histoire, filiale de l'Université de Varsovie à Biatystok, Biatystok, 1991. 262 pages)

Collapse of a State: Honecker, Krenz, Modrow, and the end of the German Democratic Republic