THE TRUTH HURTS: VERA SCHWARCZ'S HEARTFELT QUEST

Vera Schwarcz offers a penetrating examination of the concept and meaning of “truth” in China (antiquity to contemporary) and elsewhere (primarily in the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible to contemporary thinkers). Highly critical of the sharp turn toward cultural relativism which abandons the search for truth in the name of everyone having his or her own situated truths, she examines in particular how scholars, philosophers, and writers living in dark times have sought to cut through the enforced amnesia of oppressive regimes, especially that of post‐1949 China. This broad‐ranging search brings numerous great minds into a kind of transtemporal, transcultural conversation, voices rarely, if ever, discussed between the covers of the same book.     

Moral teaching in geography

Abstract

Moral issues tend to be marginalised in contemporary education. This paper argues that geography is well placed to help to address this defect. Some cases with an obvious geographical dimension are outlined, to show how they might be used to open up broader moral problems. Geography teaching in higher education could have an important part to play in the reassertion of a moral dimension in how people come to understand the world and play a part in its re‐creation.     

Legalism as an Executive Ideology: Foundations of Barack Obama's Leadership Style

Abstract

The purpose of this commentary is to explore the sources of decision-making by President Obama. Specifically, the article notes his strong foundation in legal education, law journal editing, and early occupational activities related to law practice. It is observed that a legalist cast of mind rather than broad statements about race, class, and nation define the Obama early period in office. These considerations are often at the center of presidential options chosen, especially in areas of foreign policy and global challenges. The article claims that “legalism” serves to place serious limits on initiatives and independent actions, but also serves to put a brake on tendencies to impose a new imperial presidency. Such ideological checks and balances show unique dimensions to this president, but also continuity with past limits to extremism.     

SUCCESS,TRUTH, AND MODERNISM IN HOLOCAUST HISTORIOGRAPHY: READING SAUL FRIEDLÄNDER THIRTY‐FIVE YEARS AFTER THE PUBLICATION OF METAHISTORY1

This essay provides a close reading of Saul Friedländer's exceptionally successful comprehensive history of the Holocaust from the theoretical perspective of Hayden White's philosophy of history. Friedländer's The Years of Extermination has been celebrated as the first synthetic history of the “Final Solution” that acknowledges the experiences of the victims of Nazi genocide. But Friedländer has not simply added the voices of the victims to a conventional historical account of the Holocaust. Instead, by displacing linear notions of time and space and subtly deconstructing conventional concepts of causality, he has invented a new type of historical prose that performs rather than analyzes the victims' point of view. Friedländer's innovation has particularly radical consequences for the construction of historical explanations. On the one hand, Friedländer explicitly argues that anti‐Semitism was the single most important cause of the Holocaust. On the other hand, his transnational, multifaceted history of the “Final Solution” provides a wealth of data that escapes the conceptual grasp of his explicit model of causation. Friedländer chooses this radically self‐reflexive strategy of historical representation to impress on the reader the existential sense of disbelief with which the victims experienced Nazi persecution. To Friedländer, that sense of disbelief constitutes the most appropriate ethical response to the Holocaust. Thus the narratological analysis of The Years of Extermination reveals that the exceptional quality of the book, as well as presumably its success, is the result of an extraordinarily creative act of narrative imagination. Or, put into terms developed by White, who shares Friedländer's appreciation of modernist forms of writing, The Years of Extermination is the first modernist history of the Holocaust that captures, through literary figuration, an important and long neglected reality of the “Final Solution.”     

Defending the Concept of Time in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

Due to the scarcity of reflection on time as an independent subject in the Hebrew Bible, there has been a scholarly tendency to consider biblical time conception more limited than our own_perhaps even nonexistent. This article confronts the scholarly skepticism regarding the ability of the biblical authors to think about time, defending the presence of time conceptualization in the Hebrew Bible. In the article I discuss central research contributions to the subject of biblical time, in particular Sacha Stern’s thesis that the concept of time is entirely absent from the Hebrew Bible and from ancient Judaism more widely. I explore linguistic and anthropological assumptions which underpin large parts of the discussion on time within biblical studies, arguing that one cannot assume on the basis of either that the biblical authors lacked a concept of time. Finally, I suggest that the ability of the biblical writers to coordinate unrelated processes according to a temporal axis is a strong argument in favour of their awareness of time.     

3. RADICALIZING TEMPORAL DIFFERENCE: ANTHROPOLOGY,POSTCOLONIAL THEORY,AND LITERARY TIME

This article is an attempt to address on a theoretical level an antinomy in postcolonial approaches to the question of temporal difference. Current scholarship tends both to denounce the way in which the others of the Western self are placed notionally in another time than the West and not only analytically affirm but indeed valorize multiple temporalities. I elaborate on the two problematic temporal frameworks—linear developmentalism and cultural relativism—that belong to a colonial legacy and generate the antinomy in question, and then proceed to discuss possible alternatives provided by a Koselleck‐inspired approach to historical time as inherently plural. I thereby make two central claims: (1) postcolonial conceptions of multiple temporalities typically, if tacitly, associate time with culture, and hence risk reproducing the aporias of cultural relativism; (2) postcolonial metahistorical critique is commonly premised on a simplified and even monolithic understanding of Western modernity as an ideology of “linear progress.” Ultimately, I suggest that the solution lies in radicalizing, not discarding, the notion of multiple temporalities. Drawing on the Brazilian classic Os sertões as my key example, I also maintain that literary writing exhibits a unique “heterochronic” (in analogy with “heteroglossic”) potential, enabling a more refined understanding of temporal difference.     

Fear of Scandalous Knowledge: Arguing About Coherence in Scientific Theory and Practice

Helen E. Fisher. The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior.New York: William Morrow, 1982. 253 pp. $13.50.     

HYPOTHESES,GENERALIZATIONS, AND CONVERGENCE: SOME PEIRCEAN THEMES IN THE STUDY OF HISTORY

This essay examines the relationship among some key elements of Charles Sanders Peirce's general theory of scientific inquiry (such as final causality, real possibility, methodological convergence, abductive reasoning, hypothesis formation, and diagrammatic idealization) and some prominent issues discussed in the current philosophy of history, especially those pertaining to the role of generalizations in historical explanation. The claim is that, appropriately construed, Peirce's recommendations with respect to rational inquiry in general can provide a reasonable basis for formulating a productive critical method for a responsible philosophy of history. The essay further seeks to reduce the tension between Peirce's interest in epistemic convergence and the arguments that champion the value of historical distance and perspectival pluralism. On the account offered, the kind of methodological convergence envisioned by Peirce need not conflict necessarily with a responsibly construed historical pluralism. On the other hand, the critical perspective of an epistemically disciplined philosophical inquiry may prove indispensable in weeding out wishful but unrealistic ideological perspectives from the writing of history. Hence, the resulting proposal envisions the critique of historical imagination as one potentially viable modality for the pragmatist philosophy of history.     

Historical Epistemology: On the Diversity and Change of Epistemic Values in Science

Historical Epistemology: On the Diversity and Change of Epistemic Values in Science. Historical epistemology involves the claim that the system of scientific knowledge is not determined by the observations but is also subject to epistemic requirements that may change in the historical process of doing research. As a result, the system of knowledge is path‐dependent in that its shape is contingent on epistemic choices made at certain historical points. I attempt to elaborate this approach by drawing attention to the double role of epistemic values. First, such values create relations of significance and thereby contribute to directing research into certain avenues. Second, they are also important in the process of confirmation in that they entail that certain forms of agreement with the facts are superior and preferable to other such forms. Some epistemic orientations and reorientations can be reconstructed as arising from an interaction with nature, but others are based on commitments to the kind of knowledge we appreciate. The epistemic authority of science is created in large measure by rules of the scientific community that express how to deal with knowledge claims.     

学科共识、认知美德和学者角色--化解历史知识客观性问题的新思路

通常而言,客观性是客体的属性和特征,与主观性相对立。以此为对照,历史知识的客观性问题就展现为历史实在论与历史相对主义之间的辩难,难分仲伯。换一种思路而言,当代新实用主义历史哲学家则认为客观性与主观性是可区分但不可分离的整体,在横向结构上,历史知识的客观性是"自我、他者与世界"共在的语义三角,在纵向历程上,历史知识的客观性也是一个不断辩证发展的过程。在社会认识论或史学社会学的视野下,在自我与他者所组成的学术共同体之中,历史知识的客观性就具有了规范性的涵义。历史知识作为一种公共性的知识,历史知识的客观性就是历史学家群体之间所签订的"真之契约",是历史学家群体不断协商和试错出来的学科共识,同时也需要史家的认知美德和学者角色提供担保。