In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 175. Price not given.The Art of the Han Essay: Wang Fu's Ch'ien-Fu Lun. By Anne Behnke Kinney. Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1990. Pp. xi + 154. Paper $10.00.The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. By Jamgön Kongtrul (...) Lodrön Thayé and translated by Richard Barron (Chökyi Nyima). Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. xxii + 549. Price not given.Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō. By William R. LaFleur. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xiii + 173. Paper $14.95.Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric Mahamudra for Everyday Life. By Lama Thubten Yeshe, edited by Robina Courtin, and foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xi + 194. Paper $14.95.Between Two Worlds East and West: An Autobiography. By J. N. Mohanty. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 134. Hardcover RS 525.00.The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Edited by Roman Malek, S.V.D. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; and Nettetal, Germany: Steyler Verlag, 2002. Pp. 391. EUR 40.00.Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. By Volker Scheid. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 407. Hardcover $69.95. Paper $23.95.Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978). Translated and adapted by Thomas L. Kennedy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xxi + 170. Price not given.Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. By K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson (North Carolina) and London: McFarland and Company, 2002. Pp. 367. Hardcover $65.00.Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S. Walters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 224. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and Western. By Daya Krishna. Volume X Part 1 of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, edited by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New [End Page 110] Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2001. Pp. xxiii + 417. Hardcover RS 1200.East and West: Identità e dialogo interculturale. By Giangiorgio Pasqualotto. Venezia: Marsilo Editori, 2003. Pp. 210. EUR 16.00.Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. Price not given.Encountering Kā lī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 321. Hardcover $55.00, £37.95. Paper $21.95, £15.95.Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Antonio S. Cua. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xx + 1020. Hardcover $150.00.Essays on Indian Philosophy. By J. N. Mohanty and edited by Purushottama Bilimoria. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvii + 347. Paper RS 525.00.Faith, Humor, and Paradox. By Ignacio L. Götz. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pp. 136. Hardcover $61.95.Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Translated by Karen C. Lang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 240. Price not given.The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper $16.95.The Hidden History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. By Bryan J. Cuevas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 328. Price not given.Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. By Paul U. Unschuld. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 520. Hardcover $75.00, £52.00.In Dewey's Wake: Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction. Edited by William J. Gavin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. vi + 249. Hardcover $71.50. Paper $23.95.Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy. By Tara Chatterjea. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 159. Hardcover... (shrink)

In Culture, Genre, and Literary Vocation, Michael Davitt Bell charts the important and often overlooked connection between literary culture and authors' careers. Bell's influential essays on nineteenth-century American writers—originally written for such landmark projects as The Columbia Literary History of the United States and The Cambridge History of American Literature—are gathered here with a major new essay on Richard Wright. Throughout, Bell revisits issues of genre with an eye toward the unexpected details of authors' lives, and invites us (...) to reconsider the hidden functions that terms such as "romanticism" and "realism" served for authors and their critics. Whether tracing the demands of the market or the expectations of readers, Bell examines the intimate relationship between literary production and culture; each essay closely links the milieu in which American writers worked with the trajectory of their storied careers. (shrink)

The Russian philosopher and cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin has traditionally been seen as the leading figure in the group of intellectuals known as the Bakhtin Circle. The writings of other members of the Circle are considered much less important than his work, while Bakhtin's achievement has been exaggerated in proportion to the downgrading of the thinkers with whom he associated in the 1920s. This volume, which includes new translations and studies of the work of the most important members of (...) the Circle, sets out to correct the distortions in the established representations of its activity. The original contributions to literary and linguistic theory made by Valentin Voloshinov and Pavel Medvedev (but frequently credited to Bakhtin) are assessed, and the distinctiveness of their approaches is highlighted. (shrink)

This article explores André-Marie Ampère's autobiography in order to analyse the dynamics of science in early 19th century French institutions. According to recent works that have emphasised the value of biographies in the history of science, this study examines Ampère's public self-representation to show the cultural transformations of a life dedicated to science in post-revolutionary French society. With this aim, I have interpreted this manuscript as an outstanding example of the scientific rhetoric flourishing in early 19th century (...) French Romanticism, which celebrated the life and works of men of science by means of biographies. Following this approach, Ampère's account has been analysed in relation to certain commonplaces shared with other autobiographies of that time, such as his traumatic experience linked to the French Revolution. Finally, this article discusses Ampère's autobiography as revealing an emerging model of scientific personae, i.e. a new collective way of thinking, feeling and perceiving, which announced the category of the modern scientist. (shrink)

The great chain of being is an ontological conception in which all beings, from inanimate things to God, are ranked on a scale according to their perfectness. This hierarchical scheme, though widely known in the history of ideas, was systematically addressed by Arthur Lovejoy in 1936. The great chain of being as formulated by Lovejoy is composed of three main principles, whose roots can be found in Plato and Aristotle’s philosophies. These principles are “the principle of plenitude”, “the principle (...) of gradation” and “the principle of continuity.” The first principle, the principle of plenitude, was pointed out in Plato’s philosophy and the latter two, the principle of gradation and the principle of continuity, were addressed in Aristotle’s philosophy. According to Lovejoy, these three principles were systematically addressed in Plotinus’s philosophy and became an essential part of Neo-Platonic cosmology. Platon explains the abundance of beings with reference to the absolute goodness of the God in his famous book Timaios. Accordingly, God has absolute goodness and this attribution has given rise to an abundance of beings as goodness requires the existence of things. The other two principles, the principle of gradation and the principle of continuity, were forwarded by Aristotle and through his works affected Western thought. While the principle of gradation refers to the ranking of beings in a chain based on the criteria of their perfection, the principle of continuity is the natural consequence of that ranking in that all beings share at least a minimum level of similarity. Plotinus synthesized and systematized those three principles as an expression of ranked beings specific to emanation theory and added three hypostasis -One, Nous, and Soul- in addition to the natural world addressed in Aristotle’s works. Therefore, we see that beings were ranked from inanimate things to God in Plotinus’s works. This concept of hierarchical order of beings, the great chain of being, affected many cultures and philosophical ideas from Classical Islamic philosophy to the Western tradition. In this article, we confine our subject to only Western thought, including Medieval Christian theology and philosophy, the Renaissance period, and the Age of Enlightenment as well as a peculiar implication and interpretation of the great chain of being specific to modern times. In every period we will deal with just one thinker and their ideas to demonstrate the effect of the great chain of being on those thinkers’ philosophies and systems. In this context, we examined how Thomas Aquinas used the great chain of being to justify some theological and philosophical matters and tried to show how he utilized the principle of continuity effectively to explain the relationship between matter and soul. Marcilio Ficino, a Neo-Platonist philosopher of the Renaissance period, also used the great chain of being to explain the hierarchical order of beings and their ontological relationship to the perfect being, which is God, placing them in a rising line according to their closeness to God. On the other hand, when we come to the Age of Enlightenment we see that the great chain of being continues to be apparent in some philosophical works. One example is John Locke’s famous book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Here Locke tries to make sense of the existence of many species of spirits with reference to the great chain of being, especially by using the principle of continuity. This attempt of justification shows us that the great chain of being, as an old philosophical and ontological concept, was still used even in the Enlightenment. Finally, it would be beneficial to address how the chain of being in question was presented and understood in modern times. Unlike the justification of some philosophical or theological subjects, in modern times the hierarchical structure of the great chain of being has been anachronistically read into the theory of evolution with reference to some medieval Muslim philosophers’ works. This approach, however, springs from the figural similarities between the great chain of being and the theory of evolution, although the contents of both theories are completely different. It would be accepted easily that similarities in figure do not necessitate similarities in content. In short, the great chain of being has been very effectively used in the history of philosophy to justify different subjects in different areas such as philosophy and theology. In this article, we address the usages of the chain in question and trace its effects specific to the Western tradition from the ancient period to modern times. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the rediscovery of Misch’s A History of Autobiography and its relevance to the problem of self-knowledge and self-esteem. Misch’s work is used to reconstruct a new aspect of self-esteem and to demonstrate that self-esteem can be interpreted as an early historical form of self-knowledge. In particular, self-esteem is characterized as a kind of self-knowledge in the category of the Other, that is, self-esteem appears to be self-knowledge derived from the social perspective regarding the individual.

This collection opens with an inquiry into the assumptions and methods of the historical study of culture, comparing the new cultural history with the old. Thirteen essays follow, each defining a problem within a particular culture. In the first section, Biography and Autobiography, three scholars explore historically changing types of self-conception, each reflecting larger cultural meanings; essays included examine Italian Renaissance biographers and the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Mohandas Gandhi. A second group of contributors explore (...) problems raised by the writing of history itself, especially as it relates to a notion of culture. Here examples are drawn from the writings of Thucydides, Jacob Burckhardt, and the art historians Alois Riegl and Josef Strzygowski. In the third section, Politics, Nationalism, and Culture, the essays explore relationships between cultural creativity and national identity, with case studies focusing on the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, the place of Castile within the national history of Spain, and the impact of World War I on work of Thomas Mann. The final section, Cultural Translation, raises the complex questions of cultural influence and the transmission of traditions over time through studies of Philo of Alexandria's interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, Erasmus' use of Socrates, Jean Bodin's conception of Roman law, and adaptations of the Hebrew Bible for American children. (shrink)

This book is a radical reappraisal of positivism as a major movement in philosophy, science and culture. In examining positivist movement and its contemporary impact, I had the following goals. First, to provide a more precise and systematic definition of the notion of positivism. Second, to describe positivism as a trend of thought concerned not only with the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science, but also with problems of ethics, social, and political philosophy, and show that its representatives usually (...) thought that the problems of the latter cannot be solved without solving the former first. Third, to examine the development of positivism as a movement which preserves a certain tradition and hence possesses some coherence, although the forms of this movement changed in different historical circumstances: it was born in the eighteenth century during the Enlightenment, took the form of social positivism in the nineteenth century, was transformed at the turn of the twentieth century with the emergence of empirio-criticism, and became logical positivism in the twentieth century. Fourth, to reveal the external and internal factors of this evolution. Fifth, to disclose the relation of positivism to other trends of philosophy. Sixth, to determine the influence the positive mind had not only upon philosophy, but upon other cultural phenomena, such as the natural and social sciences, law, politics, arts, religion, and everyday life. (shrink)

The proposed book presents an overview of select theories in the classical Vaiśeṣika system of Indian philosophy, such as the concept of categories, creation and existence, atomic theory, consciousness and cognition. It also expounds in detail the concept of dharma, the idea of the highest good and expert testimony as a valid means of knowing in Vaiśeṣika thought. Some of the major themes discussed are the religious inclination of Vaiśeṣika thought towards Pasupata Saivism, the affiliation of the Vaiśeṣika System to (...) the basic foundations of Indian philosophical thought, namely Veda and Yoga, and their insights into science, hermeneutics and metaphysics. In addition, this book includes recent Sanskrit commentaries on key Vaiśeṣika texts and provides a glimpse of Vaiśeṣika studies across the world. Overall, this book enunciates the Vaiśeṣika view from original sources and is an important work for Vaiśeṣika studies in current times for serious students as well as researchers.. (shrink)

An autobiographic instinct may be as old as Man Writing; but only since 1800 has Western Man placed a premium on autobiography. A bibliography of all autobiographic writing prior to that time would be a small fascicule; a bibliography since 1800 a thick tome. The ground behind this simpleminded assertion of a quantitative measure cannot be explained away by easy reference to the mass literacy of the modern world or the greater ease of publishing. It is as much a (...) fact of cultural conditions as is the significant relation of rhetoric to the intense public mindedness of classical men, the relative insignificance of tragedy in a thoroughly Christianized world view, the disappearance of epic from a nonaristocratic world, or the powerful assertion of the novel in an age of burghers. The usage of the term "autobiography" itself is suggestive, although this mode of historical explanation is always defective in the sense that such older terms as "hypomnemata," "commentarii," "vita," "confessions," or "memoirs" may well have covered the functions subsequently encapsulated in a newly fashionable term. In German the term makes its appearance shortly before 1800; the Oxford English Dictionary attributes first English usage to Southey in an article on Portuguese literature from the year 1809. Karl J. Weintraub, Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of History and dean of the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago, is the author of Visions of Culture and numerous articles. His introduction to a new edition of Goethe's Autobiography will prove of special interest to our readers. (shrink)

This article will present my autobiographical journey: from communism to capitalism, from the banking system and the pedagogy of the oppressed to problem-posing education. My personal experiences are seen as a way of emigrating internally and as part of the struggle through the process of self-actualisation and self-understanding. In effect, the practice of intellectual freedom shifts from a personal to a civic perspective. My wish for social justice, especially for children from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds living in a (...) global society, will be considered, with reference to the voluntary work in the Romanian community. Thus, from a postmodern perspective, the autobiographical process is not just about self, but also about the Other. (shrink)

This article will present my autobiographical journey: from communism to capitalism, from the banking system and the pedagogy of the oppressed to problem-posing education. My personal experiences are seen as a way of emigrating internally and as part of the struggle through the process of self-actualisation and self-understanding. In effect, the practice of intellectual freedom shifts from a personal to a civic perspective. My wish for social justice, especially for children from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds living in a (...) global society, will be considered, with reference to the voluntary work in the Romanian community. Thus, from a postmodern perspective, the autobiographical process is not just about self, but also about the Other. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce , the most important and influential of the classical American philosophers, is credited as the inventor of the philosophical school of pragmatism. The scope and significance of his work have had a lasting effect not only in several fields of philosophy but also in mathematics, the history and philosophy of science, and the theory of signs, as well as in literary and cultural studies. Largely obscure until after his death, Peirce's life has long been a (...) subject of interest and dispute. Unfortunately, previous biographies often confuse as much as they clarify crucial matters in Peirce's story. Ketner's new biographical project is remarkable not only for its entertaining aspects but also for its illuminating insights into Peirce's life, his thought, and the intellectual milieu in which he worked. (shrink)

In “Autobiography as Mystery: Father Brown and the Case of G.K. Chesterton,” Chene Heady argues that G.K. Chesterton’s Autobiography (1936) complicates common scholarly assumptions about both genre and literary authorship. The popular Edwardian writer G.K. Chesterton produced an improbably vast and diffuse literary oeuvre. Chesterton’s scholarly advocates have typically defending him by redefining him in more specialized and more manageable terms; he becomes either the sage-like nonfiction writer who wrote Orthodoxy or the mystery writer who invented Father Brown. (...) However, Chesterton himself derided the cult of the expert, and mocked the tendency towards literary specialization as elitist. In his Autobiography, he refuses basic genre distinctions by insisting that the work should be read as a detective novel; the work’s climax reverses the relationship between creator and creation, as Father Brown solves the mystery of G.K Chesterton. By making this structural equation between autobiography and mystery, Chesterton asserts the fundamental identity between these hermeneutical enterprises. The Autobiography ultimately posits a fundamental equivalence between all the cultural practices by which we find meaning in the world around us, a premise that serves both to justify Chesterton’s eclectic model of authorship and to enable him to hope for cultural unity in deeply divided interwar Britain. (shrink)

Most philosophical writing is impersonal and argumentative, but many important philosophers have nevertheless written accounts of their own lives. Filling a gap in the market for a text focusing on autobiography as philosophy, this collection discusses several such autobiographies in the light of their authors' broader work, and considers whether there are any philosophical tasks for which life accounts are particularly appropriate. Instead of the common impersonal and argumentative forms of ordinary philosophical discussion, these autobiographical texts are deeply personal (...) and largely narrative or explanatory. The contributors to this book examine the philosophical significance of philosophers’ autobiographies and whether or not there are broadly philosophical tasks for which this sort of writing is particularly suited. _Autobiography as Philosophy_ contains a general discussion about the relation between philosophical and autobiographical writing, and essays on the specific writings of Augustine, Abelard, Montaigne, Descartes, Vico, Hume, Rousseau, Newman, Mill, Nietzsche, Collingwood and Russell by specialists on the works of these individuals. Original and distinctive in its efforts to think about the writings of historically recognized philosophers as communicative acts governed by their own distinctive interests and purposes, the book reveals that it is as much about the texts and the authors as it is about their doctrines and arguments. As a result the book steps back from many of the issues of substantive philosophical discussion to reflect on certain forms of writing as means to philosophical ends, to consider what those ends have included. (shrink)

Most philosophical writing is impersonal and argumentative, but many important philosophers have nevertheless written accounts of their own lives. Filling a gap in the market for a text focusing on autobiography as philosophy, this collection discusses several such autobiographies in the light of their authors' broader work, and considers whether there are any philosophical tasks for which life accounts are particularly appropriate. Instead of the common impersonal and argumentative forms of ordinary philosophical discussion, these autobiographical texts are deeply personal (...) and largely narrative or explanatory. The contributors to this book examine the philosophical significance of philosophers’ autobiographies and whether or not there are broadly philosophical tasks for which this sort of writing is particularly suited. _Autobiography as Philosophy_ contains a general discussion about the relation between philosophical and autobiographical writing, and essays on the specific writings of Augustine, Abelard, Montaigne, Descartes, Vico, Hume, Rousseau, Newman, Mill, Nietzsche, Collingwood and Russell by specialists on the works of these individuals. Original and distinctive in its efforts to think about the writings of historically recognized philosophers as communicative acts governed by their own distinctive interests and purposes, the book reveals that it is as much about the texts and the authors as it is about their doctrines and arguments. As a result the book steps back from many of the issues of substantive philosophical discussion to reflect on certain forms of writing as means to philosophical ends, to consider what those ends have included. (shrink)

The increased popularity of the label "cultural" within science studies, especially in relation to "cultural studies, " invites consideration of how it is and can be used in historical work. A lot more seems now to be invested in the notion of "cultural history. " This article examines some recent historiography of science as a means of considering what counts as cultural history in that domain and attempts to coordinate it with the sociologically informed (...) studies of the past ten orfifteen years. The label "sociocultural" seems a more useful term by which to capture recent developments. (shrink)

The Saami assert that "to move on is better than to stay put" (jot'tit lea buorit go orrot). The senior (in more ways than one) author, Myrdene Anderson, found as a Saami ethnographer that her life history resonated well with this Saami philosophy. In addition, Anderson had adopted from her own heritage the adage that "one can't hit a moving target". The Saami would also be comfortable with that formula. Together, one might minimally collapse and paraphrase both adages as: (...) "a rolling agent invests in the moment". Devika Chawla, the junior author, interrogates Anderson in nuancing this philosophy. To what degree is our research overdetermined and underdetermined by such factors as life history, culture, personality, and narrative reflections? The inquiry proceeds to unpack the opacities and transparencies in semiosic constructions. (shrink)

How has the concept of democracy been understood, manifested, reimagined and represented through the ages? In a work that spans 2,500 years these fundamental questions are addressed by 66 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. With the help of a broad range of case material they illustrate the physical, social and cultural contexts of democracy in Western culture from antiquity to the present. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the (...) whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter themes are identical across each of the volumes. Superbly illustrated, the full six-volume set combines to present the most comprehensive and authoritative survey available on democracy throughout history. The six volumes cover: 1 - Antiquity (500 BCE-565 CE); 2 - Medieval Age (565-1450); 3 - Renaissance (1450-1650); 4 - Age of Enlightenment (1650-1800); 5 - Age of Empire (1800-1920); 6 Modern Age (1920-present) The ten themes are: Sovereignty; Liberty and the Rule of Law; The 'Common Good'; Economic and Social Democracy; Religion and the Principles of Political Obligation; Citizenship and Gender; Ethnicity, Race and Nationalism; Democratic Crises, Revolutions and Civil Resistance; International Relations; Beyond the Polis. The page extent for the pack is approximately 2016pp. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors and an Introduction and concludes with Notes, Bibliography, and an Index. The Cultural Histories Series A Cultural History of Democracy is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com). (shrink)

A cultural studies textbook that deals with issues of methodology, as well as mapping out the history and theories and ideas in cultural studies. The book examines the work of Raymond Williams, Lacan and Hoggart, among others, and explores notions of subculture, psychoanalysis, Marxist thought, narrative, autobiography, fiction, subjectivity, language, history and representation. The book focuses on the past, present and future of cultural studies, with the aim of providing readers with a clear overview (...) of the central ideas within the area, developing current debates and possible future avenues. (shrink)

The second edition of What is Cultural History? will continue to be an essential textbook for all students of history as well as those taking courses in ...

In a series of incisive readings of signature historical works, Mark Poster charts the move from social history to new practices of cultural history that are drawing strength from poststructuralist interpretive strategies and raising issues found in feminist and postcolonialist discourse. In the process, he sets forth an outline for a postmodern historiography that can negotiate the contested terrain between the ambiguities of discourse and the pull of the "real." As Poster provides close readings of leading historians (...) and theorists such as Lawrence Stone, Francois Furet, Michel de Certeau, and Michel Foucault, key themes animate his work: the often irreducible difference between past and present; the relationship of writing and representation to power and domination; the dissolving distinctions between high and low culture, production and consumption, and reality and fiction; and, most important, a new perspective on human agency and the construction of political subjects. (shrink)

Cultural historical research has deliberately challenged “historical realism,” the view that history is comprised entirely of observable actions that actually occurred, and instead has emphasized the historical significance of thoughts, emotions, and representations; it has also focused on the invisible, the momentary, and the perishable. These latter elements introduce the notion of the possible in history. This article examines the ways in which cultural history has approached the notion of the possible, as well as the (...) methodological and theoretical implications of this approach. Its chief claim is that the idea of possibility is fundamental for the concept of culture and ineliminable from its historical study.The question of possibility is present in multiple ways in the study of history; it is important to distinguish among different levels of possibility. The possible may mean, for instance, what it is possible for historians to know about the past, or the possibilities open to historical agents themselves, or, indeed, the possibilities they perceived themselves as having even if these seem impossible from the point of view of the historian. The article starts with the first aspect and moves on toward the possibilities that existed in the past world either in fact or in the minds of those in the past.The article argues that the study of past cultures always entails the mapping of past possibilities. The first strand of the essay builds on the metaphor of the black hole and intends to solve one of the central problems faced by cultural historians, namely, how to access the horizon of the people of the past, their experience of their own time, especially when the sources remain silent. The second, more speculative strand builds on the notion of plenitude and is designed to open up avenues for further discussion about the concept of culture in particular. (shrink)

While the twentieth-century Confucian thinker Mou Zongsan has left behind one of the most thought-provoking and intensively studied bodies of philosophical writings in modern Chinese intellectual history, his own life and its relation to his philosophy, a theme at the centre of his Autobiography at Fifty from the mid1950s, has so far remained largely unexamined. After some introductory remarks on the context and outlook of the Autobiography, my paper turns to the close relation between Mou’s conception of (...) life and his approach to the “cultural life” of China as a nation. In doing so, I examine the notion of a distinctly Chinese “learning of life” in his writing and explore the motif of “life in itself ” running through the Autobiography. I argue that this motif is crucial for gaining a better understanding of Mou’s relation to his teacher Xiong Shili, his own father, the social conditions of his childhood in rural Shandong, as well as his overall approach to subjectivity as a space for articulating socio-political concerns. (shrink)

The soul, which dominated many intellectual debates at the beginning of the twentieth century, has virtually disappeared from the sciences and the humanities. Yet it is everywhere in popular culture-from holistic therapies and new spiritual practices to literature and film to ecological and political ideologies. Ignored by scholars, it is hiding in plain sight in a plethora of religious, psychological, environmental, and scientific movements. This book uncovers the history of the concept of the soul in twentieth-century Europe and North (...) America. Beginning in fin de siècle Germany, Kocku von Stuckrad examines a fascination spanning philosophy, the sciences, the arts, and the study of religion, as well as occultism and spiritualism, against the backdrop of the emergence of experimental psychology. He then explores how and why the United States witnessed a flowering of ideas about the soul in popular culture and spirituality in the latter half of the century. Von Stuckrad examines an astonishingly wide range of figures and movements-ranging from Ernest Renan, Martin Buber, and Carl Gustav Jung to the Esalen Institute, deep ecology, and revivals of shamanism, animism, and paganism to Rachel Carson, Ursula K. Le Guin, and the Harry Potter franchise. Revealing how the soul remains central to a culture that is only seemingly secular, this book casts new light on the place of spirituality, religion, and metaphysics in Europe and North America today. (shrink)

This paper examines the translation of literary terminology as cultural sign in the selected versions of the History of Chinese Literature in the Anglophone world. It argues that classical Chinese literary terminology with its rich connotations and strong prescriptiveness as „symbol‟ in semiotics, holds great difficulty for translators and scholars. Its inherent social and cultural elements in determining the meaning of these terms cannot be transferred across cultures, thus causing problems such as „neutralization‟ either in free or (...) literally translation or transliteration of these terms. The paper points out that an ideal way out for translation of classical Chinese literary terms should be transliteration coupled with proper notes. Although not qualified as translation in the strict sense, transliteration could, in some way, remind the readers of the heterogeneity of the term, thus offsetting the negative effect by the “neutralization” of the term. It could also guarantee the term‟s independency with the ultimate aim to make the term accepted by and integrated into the culture of the new land. (shrink)

The present text addresses the following questions: Why is the history of ideas in pioneering contemporary Chinese art essentially a history of culture? Why and how is art a kind of historical cultural phenomenon? What kind of challenges will artistic production encounter in the course of China’s civilizational transformation, and which artworks testify to these? These queries constitute the central focus of the history of ideas in pioneering art understood as a history of culture.

The effort to penetrate the literary surface of Vico’s Autobiography exposes us to questions worthy of the best minds. What could it mean to understand our own lives as the ordered content of our own Ideas? What if, prior to being appropriated by forms imposed upon them from without, our lives possessed their own original and inalienable forms? What if human life were essentially one interpretative ascent to its own native form? What if Ethics coincided with the “writing” in (...) which the original dignity of one’s own life found its truly human vindication? What if human “reading” were in its essence the providential act of civil religion’s God? (shrink)

v. 1. Cultures and politics of research from the early modern period to the age of extremes --.

When a term is used in science, we tend to integrate its origins, functions, and history to see if the term is a scientific one or comes from other fields. The term «empathy» is an example to such a case. This article challenges the widespread view that empathy is the capability of a person to understand emotions and thoughts of others. We will deconstruct the concept of empathy as an academic one by focusing on its limits. We will discuss (...) the possibility of empathy for humans in critically reconstructing the meaning of the word and its meanings from its ancient origins to contemporary research. Our question is centered on cognitive actions that enable empathy as an emotional way of understanding others. Based on our findings, we argue that the concept of empathy is a recently established academic term. As a concept, it matches with some alternative concepts such as apathy and sympathy. In rhetoric, it is the pathos of the speech that affects the speaker by emotions since no specific receptive ability of the speaker is needed. Similarly, when we use the term empathy, we should use it as a category of the sender, not that of the receiver. This concept of logical empathy opposes to the classical view of empathy studies emphasizing that empathy is a receptive category of the receiver. So, empathy is nothing else but the ability to send emotional or intellectual content suitable to a capable receiver. Also, the comparative study in the concept of empathy in Buddhism gives us evidence that empathy is a spiritual or mental concept whose applications are in the area of pre-linguistic states and esoteric contexts. In rhetorical terms we could define it as a persuasive mood of pathos-driven speech. (shrink)