Joseph Conrad’s ‘The secret sharer’ has often been associated with what can be called initiation stories. However, in this article I argue that Conrad’s text is more than that. It can, I suggest, be read as an allegory of the inaccessibility to reveal the essence of being in command, being in education, and also the inaccessibility of the essence of the meaning of the text itself. It keeps its secret by allegorically staging alternative readings. This inaccessibility gives rise to a (...) feeling of strangeness, of the uncanny, that must be faced in order to pass through the initiation into the unknown that all the possible allegorical meanings of the text produce. In other words, ‘The secret sharer’ has an educational value that goes beyond the act of merely using it to exemplify a certain type of initiation. In this way I connect Conrad’s text to the themes of strangeness and the stranger and show how they mutually can involve a reading of education and literature as two distinct discourses of learning. (shrink)

John Hobson claims that throughout its history most international theory has been embedded within various forms of Eurocentrism. Rather than producing value-free and universalist theories of inter-state relations, international theory instead provides provincial analyses that celebrate and defend Western civilization as the subject of, and ideal normative referent in, world politics. Hobson also provides a sympathetic critique of Edward Said's conceptions of Eurocentrism and Orientalism, revealing how Eurocentrism takes different forms, which can be imperialist or anti-imperialist, and (...) showing how these have played out in international theory since 1760. The book thus speaks to scholars of international relations and also to all those interested in understanding Eurocentrism in the disciplines of political science/political theory, political economy/international political economy, geography, cultural and literary studies, sociology and, not least, anthropology. (shrink)

While there have always been schools of religious and ethical thought favourable to poverty, or a simple life, the general opinion of mankind has always regarded the increasing wealth of an individual or a community as conducive to human happiness. Qualifications have commonly been attached to this judgment in recognition of a certain danger and deceitfulness of riches, especially when rapidly acquired and lavishly expended, but the presumption still stands that wealth in general conduces to well-being. The nature, degree or (...) conditions of this correspondence have, however, received singularly little attention from those thinkers who have given closest study to economic processes. Many of the founders of economic science in this and other countries were manifestly concerned for the general welfare of their fellowmen, and were active workers in many fields of social reform. But, in formulating the concepts and laws of their science, they deemed it unnecessary to give any close or continuous thought to the relations between economic wealth and human welfare. This was due, partly, no doubt to the natural desire to make the subject-matter and the treatment of a new science as definitely concrete and measurable as possible. It was this desire that made monetary valuation paramount in all economic estimates. (shrink)

This paper presents a challenge to Eurocentric world history on the grounds that it reifies and exaggerates the role of the West in the creation of modernity, while simultaneously ignoring India's seminal contributions. The groundwork is prepared in the first three sections, which refute the parochial biases of Eurocentrism by revealing India's impressive early developmental record and its place near the center of a nascent global economy. The paper culminates in an approach that places the "dialogue of civilizations" center-stage of (...) progressive world history, which is formulated as an antidote to parochial Eurocentric world history. This entails an extensive discussion of two key contributions that India made in enabling the rise of the modern West. These comprise the dissemination of Indian industrial methods that enabled the British industrial revolution on the one hand, and the transmission of Indian mathematical ideas that helped promote the European scientific revolution on the other hand. Moreover, this discussion is coupled with two speculative counterfactual historical scenarios. They are: first, that in the absence of British imperialism which sought to "contain" Indian development, India might have gone on to make the breakthrough to modernity, and second, that in the absence of Indian (as well as Chinese, African and Middle Eastern) help, the West might not have made the breakthrough to modernity. But whatever the veracity of such counterfactuals may or may not be, the ultimate upshot of the argument presented in this paper reveals that Eurocentrism's central claim - that the West made the breakthrough to modernity all by itself - can no longer hold true. (shrink)

Preface.--Introductory.--Standards of welfare.--Ethics in the evolution of economic science.--The ethics of economic life.--Organic reforms of the economic system.--Appendix: Bibliography, questions, and subjects for study (p. [457]-475)--Indes.

This Routledge Revival sees the reissue of a seminal work by British economist, sociologist and academic John A. Hobson, elucidating his views on a variety of topics across the social sciences. He makes particular reference to the struggle between the disinterested urge of the social scientist and the interests and other motive forces which tend to influence and mould his processes of inquiry. The work is split into three parts, focussing upon free-thinking, economics and political ethics respectively.

Recent work on functional brain architecture during dreaming provides invaluable clues for an understanding of dreaming, but identifying active brain regions during dreaming, together with their waking cognitive and cognitive functions, informs a model that accounts for only the grossest characteristics of dreaming. Improved dreaming models require cross discipline apprehension of what it is we want dreaming models to “explain.” [Hobson et al.; Neilsen; Revonsuo; Solms].

In recent years, a number of theorists have developed approaches to social cognition that highlight the centrality of social interaction as opposed to mindreading (e.g. Gallagher and Zahavi 2008 ; Gallagher 2001 , 2007 , 2008 ; Hobson 2002 ; Reddy 2008 ; Hutto 2004 ; De Jaegher 2009 ; De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007 ; Fuchs and De Jaegher 2009 ; De Jaegher et al. 2010 ). There are important differences among these approaches, as I will discuss, (...) but they are united by their commitment to the claim that various embodied and extended processes sustain social understanding and interaction in the absence of mindreading and thus make mindreading superfluous. In this paper, I consider various ways of articulating and defending this claim. I will argue that the options that have been offered either fail to present an alternative to mindreading or commit one to a radical enactivist position that I will give reasons for being skeptical about. I will then present an alternative and moderate version of interactionism, according to which the embodied and extended processes that interactionists emphasize actually complement mindreading and may even contribute as an input to mindreading. (shrink)

The dissertation defends a teleological liberal normative theory against the most prominent contributions to contemporary liberal thought, specifically the deontological liberalism of John Rawls and those who have followed in the spirit of his work. The teleological theory that is advanced incorporates an objective conception of value; hence, the reference to "ideal" liberalism to designate the position that is defended. ;Ideal teleological theories have had a prominent place in modern liberal thought in the works of T. H. Green, the (...) new liberals, and others , although as a result of the impact of Rawls's work such positions have not recently received much attention and doubts have been raised about their capacity to satisfy liberal commitments to tolerance, anti-paternalism, and liberty. The dissertation defends the liberal credentials of ideal liberalism while arguing it is in a better position to respond to some of the more forceful criticisms of contemporary Rawlsian liberalism. In particular, the dissertation argues that contemporary liberalism's commitment to a resourcist conception of value, or to "liberal neutrality," cannot be sustained against criticisms about the fairness of this account of value to certain non-individualistic ways of life and against criticisms about its capacity to ensure a stable, progressive social environment. These criticisms point to the need to adopt a neo-Aristotelian conception of value as the basis of a liberal normative theory. It is also argued that a liberal theory that is based in such a conception of value is better able than its main competitor to address issues related to justice, gender, and culture. A chapter is also devoted to restoring a traditional liberal commitment to liberty as a predominant value in liberal theory by defending a normative conception of liberty in response to contemporary liberal skepticism that there is an important role for liberty in normative moral or political theory. Although the dissertation is not an exercise in the history of ideas, it draws importantly on the work of earlier ideal liberals such as J. S. Mill, T. H. Green, L. T. Hobhouse, and J. A. Hobson. (shrink)

In this manuscript Hobson et al. propose a model exploring qualitative differences between the three states of consciousness, waking, NREM sleep, and REM sleep, in terms of state-related brain activity. The model consists of three factors, each of which varies along a continuum, creating a three-dimensional space: activation (A), information flow (I), and mode of information processing (M). Hobson has described these factors previously (1990; 1992a). Two of the dimensions, activation and modulation, deal directly with subcortical influences upon (...) cortical structures – the reticular activation system, with regard to the activation dimension and the locus coeruleus and the pontine raphe neuclei, with regard to the modulation dimension. The focus of this review is a further exploration of the interaction between dreaming and the cortical and subcortical structures relevant to REM sleep eye movements. [Hobson et al. ]. (shrink)

American pragmatist John Dewey's economic thought has remained relatively unknown by both philosophers and economists. This article addresses this lack of interest and replies to criticism of pragmatism as the philosophy of ‘corporate liberalism’ by tracing one source of Dewey's economic thought to British New Liberal John Atkinson Hobson. General similarities are discussed first, followed by a presentation of Dewey's use of Hobson's theory of underconsumption during the Great Depression. It concludes by presenting Dewey's understanding of (...) a liberalism that had truly become corporate. (shrink)