This paper is a article of Pojeo Cho Yik (浦渚 趙翼: 1579~1655)’s point of view related to the book of Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) in the mid-Joseon Dynasty, when Neo Confucianism was overwhelming. At the age of 24, he wrote the Article of Doctrine of the Mean (jung yong seol 中庸說) which was explained the basic lines of the books related to the book of Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) to be written later. He wrote the Indivisual Opinion of (...) Zhongyong (jung yong sa ram 中庸私覽) at 29, and wrote the Hard-earned Zhongyong (jung yong gon deuk 中庸困得) at 37. This paper examines the transitions and consistency of his point of view of the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) in Korean History of Classical Learning, focusing on the Indivisual Opinion of Zhongyong (中庸私覽) and the Hard-earned Zhongyong (中庸困得). The early research on his scholarship started from the work of clarifying the relationship between Wang Yangming (王陽明) and it has been mistaken as one of the schools derived from the teachings of Wang Yangming, but it turns out to be absolutely irrelevant. His thoughts and arguments are so strong in the colors of Neo Confucianism, whicd is derived from the teachings of Zhu Xi (朱熹). And the scholars who knew him at that time absolutely did not define his study as the study of Wang Yang-ming. We can not say that he is the opposite of Zhu Xi, just because his way of distinguishing sentences of the book of Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) is different from Zhu Xi. Because Zhu Xi had already mentioned it in his other works. And although he had been associated with the Yangming scholars, they had never mentioned him as a Yangming scholar. Cho Yik regarded Zhu Xi as the best person after Confucius, and genuinely admired him. His submission of opinions different from Zhu Xi only added to his meticulousness to further strengthen Zhu Xi’s neo Confucianism. (shrink)

Yi Hwang (1501–1570)—best known by his literary name, T’oegye—is one of the most eminent thinkers in the history of East Asian philosophy and religion. His Chasŏngnok (Record of self-reflection) is a superb Korean Neo-Confucian text: an eloquent collection of twenty-two scholarly letters and four essays written to his close disciples and junior colleagues. These were carefully selected by T’oegye himself after self-reflecting (chasŏng) on his practice of personal cultivation. The Chasŏngnok continuously guided T’oegye and inspired others on the (...) true Confucian way (including leading Neo-Confucians in Tokugawa Japan) while it criticized Buddhism and Daoism. Its philosophical merit rivals T’oegye’s monumental Sŏnghak sipto (Ten diagrams on sage learning) and “Four-Seven Debate Letters”; however, as a testament of T’oegye’s character, scholarship, and teaching, the Chasŏngnok is of greater interest. The work engages with his holistic knowledge and experience of self-cultivation by articulating textual and historical material on various key doctrines and ideas. It is an inspiring practical guide that reveals the depth of T’oegye’s learning and spirituality. The present volume offers a fully annotated translation of the Chasŏngnok. Following a groundbreaking discussion of T’oegye’s life and ideas according to the Chasŏngnok and his other major writings, it presents the core of his thought in six interrelated sections: “Philosophy of Principle,” “Human Nature and Emotions,” “Against Buddhism and Daoism,” “True Learning,” “Self-Cultivation,” and “Reverence and Spiritual Cultivation.” The bibliography offers a current catalogue of primary sources and modern works in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English. As the first comprehensive study of the Chasŏngnok, this book is a welcome addition to current literature on Korean classics and East Asian philosophy and religion. By presenting T’oegye’s thought-provoking contributions, it sheds new light on the vitality of Confucian wisdom, thereby affording scholars and students with an excellent primary source for East Asian studies in general and Confucian studies in particular. (shrink)

This very long book sets out to track and trace the working-class men and, less commonly, women who, against the limited expectations of their social position, learned Greek and Latin as an aspiration for personal change. The ideology of the book is clear and welcome: these figures “offer us a new ancestral backstory for a discipline sorely in need of a democratic makeover.” The book's twenty-five chapters explore how classics and class were linked in the educational system of Britain and (...) in its cultural performativity: Is he a gentleman? Does he have Greek? became the paradigmatic questions, as the study of classics became a sign of cultural attainment and social exclusion. This book sets out to explore the counterstory of the cobblers and shepherds who, like Jude the Obscure, fought against society's oppressiveness to access classical learning.The book's breadth is exemplary. It looks at the issue through genres and media, through different communities and national identities, through the prosopography of ragged-trousered philanthropists, beggar-lecturers, body-building performers, and through other institutions and people who helped, including adult-education teachers, kind bosses, supportive vicars, and fiery communists. This breadth, and the fascinating research that it encapsulates, will make this book a fantastic resource for future scholarship: it outlines the richness of a field that has been all too rarely explored properly. If you do not know Stephen Duck, “the thresher poet,” or Hawkie, the crutch-wielding beggar who performed from the books he sold on the streets of Glasgow, then this book is the place to the meet them. The cast list alone is worth the entrance ticket.Yet this very breadth is also the source of the book's limitations. The sheer number of cases listed, treated at similar length and depth, repeatedly conceals the complexity and even the interest of individual figures or events. So, the numerous representations of Vesuvius in shows around London in the first half of the nineteenth century—after the discoveries at Pompeii—are duly noted as a source of excitement and knowledge about antiquity, but against the recent treatment by Clare Pettitt in Serial Forms (which came out the same year) this mere noting looks desperately thin. There is little discussion of how the characters themselves talked about or negotiated class. This deficiency is particularly important for someone like Charles Kingsley, who was very active in the Chartist movement but also became Queen Victoria's chaplain and the professor of history at Cambridge. There are hilarious descriptions of Kingsley's stammering engagement with the working-class leaders he actively supported, which capture how awkward the interaction of classes could be even and especially when the participants shared a goal of transformation. (Ed Richardson's Classical Victorians: Scholars, Scoundrels and Generals in the Pursuit of Antiquity is good on these moments of awkwardness but is one of several books whose absence from the notes looks pointed.) The authors list cases of working men who were picked up by fashionable society as poets or scholars, many of whom were dropped almost as quickly back into penury—but the telling description of such a case in Kingsley's Alton Locke is passed over, although it reveals an acute self-consciousness about such narratives in a best-selling novel.The very structure of the book tends toward listing cases rather than analyzing them in depth. It is not clear why “Shoemaker classicists” should take up a chapter, bar there having been some. Nor is it clear why some figures are not included. John Brown was an uneducated Scottish shepherd who taught himself Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. He was discovered by a professor, one John Pringle, when he went into a shop to buy a secondhand Greek Testament (though his own church thought this newfound and inexplicable linguistic brilliance suspicious or even satanic). Brown went on to write the wonderfully titled The Self-Interpreting Bible, which remained in print and sold very widely for more than a century after its publication in 1778—especially after it was championed by the evangelical preacher Charles Simeon. It is a pity that Brown escaped the authors’ net, but religion, one of the main reasons to learn the classical languages, is downplayed throughout this study, although its imbrication with classics is everywhere in evidence. The book, significantly enough, leads rather toward a rosy-eyed depiction of posh classical communists like Geoffrey de Ste. Croix and George Thompson, and other such heroes of the authors.The authors are much more at home in the years of ardent republicanism in the decades on either side of the turn of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth century, when socialism and communism became embedded in British life. The last half of the nineteenth century, when classics really established itself institutionally as a discipline, and its revolutionary potential moved away from the zeal of the Romantic philhellenists into the artistic idealism of a Richard Wagner or the sexual freedom of an Oscar Wilde, are less adequately explored. The huge attendance at art galleries and the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace as a route to encountering the past of antiquity in material form are barely addressed (Kate Nichols's Greece and Rome at the Crystal Palace would have helped); nor do shows like Astley's Circus get air time (Rachel Bryant Davies's Troy, Carthage, and the Victorians is revealing). It is particularly noticeable in such a voluminous study that there is no discussion of how turning to Greek was a crucial route for the self-understanding of what was considered transgressive male sexuality—and for a particular engagement between the classes. To understand the social force of classics requires a deeper appreciation of the dynamics between conservatism and transformation, disciplinarity and self-discovery. The big picture of how classics matters is lost in the gems picked out by the authors. Gems they are, but their facets need more attention and their setting a broader perspective. (shrink)

Since its original publication in Chinese in the 1930s, this work has been accepted by Chinese scholars as the most important contribution to the study of their country's philosophy. In 1952 the book was published by Princeton University Press in an English translation by the distinguished scholar of Chinese history, Derk Bodde, "the dedicated translator of Fung Yu-lan's huge history of Chinese philosophy". Available for the first time in paperback, it remains the most complete work on the subject (...) in any language. Volume I covers the period of the philosophers, from the beginnings to around 100 B.C., a philosophical period as remarkable as that of ancient Greece. Volume II discusses a period lesser known in the West--the period of classical learning, from the second century B.C. to the twentieth century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Moral and Religious Thought of Yi Hwang (Toegye): A Study of Korean Neo-Confucian Ethics and Spirituality by Edward Y.J. ChingMaria Hasfeldt Long (bio)The Moral and Religious Thought of Yi Hwang (Toegye): A Study of Korean Neo-Confucian Ethics and Spirituality. By Edward Y.J. Ching. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Pp. vii + 204. Hardcover $99.00, isbn 978-3-030-77923-8.In recent years, the study of Korean Neo-Confucianism as an (...) international field has been growing exponentially. Compared to former decades, the number of international publications has grown significantly over the last ten years, with Edward Y.J. Chung as one of the most active scholars. The Moral and Religious Thought of Yi Hwang (Toegye): A Study of Korean Neo-Confucian Ethics and Spirituality is the culmination of an almost decade-long study of the Korean Neo-Confucian scholar, Yi Hwang Toegye (1501–1570). With a focus on the moral and spiritual aspects of the theories of Toegye, Chung maps out a brilliant overview of the philosopher's worldview and literary works. Chung's primary objective is to provide "thought-provoking" and fresh insights into one of the most important Korean Neo-Confucian thinkers in history, as well as shed light on Neo-Confucian thought in general and how Toegye's philosophy in particular can be relevant in modern interreligious dialogues (p. 149).Consisting of ten chapters, where each chapter could serve as an individual article, Chung takes the reader through the core concepts of Toegye and his development of a form of self-cultivation different from the Chinese Neo-Confucian idea of self-cultivation. This together created a holistic religious worldview with a strong spiritual dimension, which manifests through selfcultivation practices. The first two chapters introduce Toegye and the historical context of 16th-century Joseon-dynasty Korea (1392–1910); his understanding of the Neo-Confucian tradition as the true learning; and his rejection of Daoism and Buddhism. With the reader introduced to the immediate historical context and Neo-Confucian discourse of the time, the following three chapters cover Toegye's religious and moral understanding of the relationship between the Heavenly Principle (C. tianli, K. cheolli) and human nature (C. renxing, K. inseong). Furthermore, Chung covers the moral-spiritual implications that the Four-Seven Debate had on Toegye's later practical self-cultivation for becoming a sage. In short, the debate concerns the relation between the "four sprouts" of human characteristics as first described by Mengzi (ca. 371–289 BCE) and the seven human emotions mentioned in various classical texts. Toegye believed in the doctrine that the "experience of Heaven was within oneself" (p. 47). Therefore, [End Page 1] to become a sage, one would have to commit to the active practice of an inner feeling of reverence (C. jing, K. gyeong) daily.Chapter six dives into the spiritual practice of self-reflection and mind cultivation (C. xinxue, K. simhak), which was an ongoing process that would lead the practitioner closer to sagehood. The seventh chapter focuses on how this spiritual dimension of Toegye's doctrine is relevant to broader discussions of ecology today. With a strong love for nature, Toegye incorporated the idea of nature within his spiritual self-cultivation, which Chung elaborates on. It was important for the human being to be in harmony with Heaven, earth, and all myriad things. This meant respecting and spending time in nature also played a part in the daily practice of spiritual self-cultivation. Moving on, in chapters eight and nine, Chung presents a comparative study on the philosophical and theological question of how to transcend evil, as well as the matter of interreligious dialogue. By way of a textual-interpretive approach, Chung compares Toegye's thought with Christian contra Buddhist theological ideas and how these findings can help develop an interreligious approach. In chapter nine, Chung suggests that the idea of self-transcendence through self-cultivation can be the ultimate reality. In this chapter, Chung wants to break with the tendency in interreligious dialogue where many scholars rely heavily on Christian theological terms. Chung introduces Neo-Confucian concepts and terms, especially the terms used by Toegye. The last and concluding chapter... (shrink)

This book provides a framework for thinking about foundational philosophical questions surrounding machine learning as an approach to artificial intelligence. Specifically, it links recent breakthroughs in deep learning to classical empiricist philosophy of mind. In recent assessments of deep learning's current capabilities and future potential, prominent scientists have cited historical figures from the perennial philosophical debate between nativism and empiricism, which primarily concerns the origins of abstract knowledge. These empiricists were generally faculty psychologists; that is, they argued that the (...) active engagement of general psychological faculties-such as perception, memory, imagination, attention, and empathy-enables rational agents to extract abstract knowledge from sensory experience. This book explains a number of recent attempts to model roles attributed to these faculties in deep neural network based artificial agents by appeal to the faculty psychology of philosophers such as Aristotle, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), John Locke David Hume, William James, and Sophie de Grouchy. It illustrates the utility of this interdisciplinary connection by showing how it can provide benefits to both philosophy and computer science: computer scientists can continue to mine the history of philosophy for ideas and aspirational targets to hit on the way to more robustly rational artificial agents, and philosophers can see how some of the historical empiricists' most ambitious speculations can be realized in specific computational systems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 535 eluded. Have Straussians proved that there is no higher human knowledge than philosophy? One hopes that they will meet their critics, because Stmussians are deeply serious men and women, and we can all learn from their mentor. Hillsdale, College Hillsdale, Michigan D. T. ASSELIN Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory. By NOEL CARROLL. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp. 268. This book is a (...) provocative, clearly written, and carefully argued presentation of a philosophical critique of traditional film criticism. If film is taken as a serious art form, one which can stand alongside of music, painting, theatre, and literature, then Carroll's book is a good example of the type of philosophical study that is needed. Assistant professor of philosophy at Wesleyan University, Carroll knows the world of film well and attacks with vigor what he takes to be erroneous in traditional film criticism. His three targets are the film theories of Rudolf Arnheim, Andre Bazin, and V. F. Perkins. It would be difficult to overemphasize the influence of Arnheim and Bazin on the history of the aesthetics of film: each man is a giant in the history of theorizing about film. Though much less influential, Perkins does present an mteresting view of film. Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory consists of an introduction, three central chapters, and a conclusion. Each of the three chapters is devoted to one of the film theorists, and each chapter begins with an explanation of the theory being discussed. In trying to present the theory in its strongest form, Carroll includes a detailed discussion of its historical setting, and this makes its contextual importance clear. But most of each chapter is devoted to criticism of the theory iii question. Thinking of film theories as a series of answers to abstract questions, Carroll suggests that Arnheim, Bazin, and Perkins address the same central questions and expect the answers to these questions to be related logically in the same way. Carroll lists three questions that he thinks suggest a similar structure in the three theories he is studying: " What is the determinant or special feature of film? What is the value or role of cinema? What are the processes of articulation in film in relation to the previous two answers? " Concerning the answers to these questions Carroll writes 586 BOOK REVIEWS Most classical film theories-including those of Amheim, Bazin, and Perkins-relate answers to the three basic questions in the following way: the determinant characteristic stands to the role of cinema as a means to an end, while the articulatory processes are assessed as instances of the determinant characteristic of cinema (pp. 14-15). Arnheim represents an early type of film theorizing which Carroll names the silent-film paradigm. Those who embrace this approach, and Carroll would include the Soviet montagists of the twenties such as Sergei Eisenstein, insist that film is not merely a record of reality but rather manipulates reality expressively. Though Arnheim wrote after sound had entered film, he disdained talkies and looked back to silent film to discover the paradigm of film. Carroll's treatment of Arnheim relies on the latter's 1957 Film As Art, which is a condensed version of his 1933 book Film. The 1957 condensation can he considered the authoritative articulation of Arnheim's position. The prejudice against cinema in its early days derived from the fact that a major constituent of film was photography. Many felt that photography could not be an art form because it was merely a copying process. Arnheim's theory can be called creationist because he successfully showed how cinema could be creative in capturing and re-presenting reality. Arnheim showed that film transcends the simple viewpoint that simple recording implies. Carroll summarizes Arnheim's view: In summary, Arnheim holds that one role of filmmaking-the one that concerns him-is art. He also contends that the determinant characteristics of the medium-those relevant to the purpose of art makingare the various ways that the medium diverges from the mechanical duplication of reality, and finally, Arnheim spends the bulk of Film As Art on lengthy examinations of the various modes of cinematic articulalation, in order to demonstrate... (shrink)

Since its original publication in Chinese in the 1930s, this work has been accepted by Chinese scholars as the most important contribution to the study of their country's philosophy. In 1952 the book was published by Princeton University Press in an English translation by the distinguished scholar of Chinese history, Derk Bodde, "the dedicated translator of Fung Yu-lan's huge history of Chinese philosophy". Available for the first time in paperback, it remains the most complete work on the subject (...) in any language. Volume I covers the period of the philosophers, from the beginnings to around 100 B.C., a philosophical period as remarkable as that of ancient Greece. Volume II discusses a period lesser known in the West--the period of classical learning, from the second century B.C. to the twentieth century. (shrink)

To write a history “from antiquity to the present” of classical art or literature (or, worst of all, classicism) is the ultimate nightmare aspiration for a scholar whose colleagues are attentive methodologists. The product, when there is one (which I add because the aspiration can yield paralysis), is always in part an apologetic treatise on historical method. Professor Vout—of Christ's College, Cambridge—apologizes with the first word of her subtitle, A, which stresses that many differing histories may be as (...) valid as her own. The next two words, Life History, imply that her study is unauthorized, conjectural, a bit personal or informal, and reliant to an extent on unconfirmable stories. Her book, she tells readers, is of necessity an arrangement of “fragments” and “a mapping not of facts, but of ways in which Greek and Roman artifacts experience history.” She sets down, moreover, as a rule that “classical” is not “a self-standing category: it is always relational” (which historians of the novel have been telling us for many decades about “realism”).We might expect the result of Vout's axioms to be evenhanded diffidence when treating definitions of the classical, and indeed she entertains even the idea of Jeff Koons—maker of Balloon Venus (Orange) and Gazing Ball (Barberini Faun)—as a classical sculptor. There is, however, one approach that she dismisses out of hand: the obsession of classical humanism with authenticity and its renascence. She objects especially to research into the original conditions of objects and to the application of increasingly intrusive methods of restoring them. As she writes, “ ‘Real knowledge’ comes not from antiquities that have been ripped from their original context, cleaned and reconstituted for display in galleries and glass cabinets. ‘Real knowledge’ comes from antiquities that carry their dirt with them.”What Vout, as a critic of humanism, means by dirt is patina—the residue, interesting and sometimes beautiful in itself, of the use and misuse of objects. Dirt is a word that would occur to a humanist art historian when examining the patina of a Greek or Roman object. Vout's use of the word is a parodic expression of reverse snobbery. When studying changes, whether mistakes or enhancements, in a Greek or Roman document, a humanist literary historian would speak of corruption and edit the corrupt text by means of processes that humanist editors invented and perfected. Despite the humanists’ devotion to the recovery of classical learning, however, once a Renaissance edition of a manuscript was in print, the original, however rare, was often destroyed or lost. In effect, the work was reborn, better than new. Rebirth is not the same as preservation: though both are perhaps conservative (or better, in Ulysses's words, “rere regardant”), a renascence or a resurrection is cataclysmic.The humanist approach to the past can appear unlovable and is certainly arrogant, but it can also inspire awe and gratitude. The work of Michelangelo depended on it, and so (more to the point) did Martin Luther's. Vout's attitude toward dirt (patina, corruption, misprision, insertions, recontextualizations, bowdlerizations, misappropriations, translocations) resembles that of Catholic theologians to the depositum fidei. Restoring the original conditions of the Christian church involved methods of research learned from Renaissance humanists and the removal, often destructive, of the “deposit” or residue or patina that adhered to, distorted, discolored, and obscured the conditions of the “primitive church.” A Roman Catholic may well dislike the processes that Luther set in motion, but imagine a scholarly history of Christianity that mentioned Protestantism only to regret its existence.Still, Vout's reasoning, it seems to me, is more sophisticated in its defense of dirt and in its criticism of restoration than any offered against the Protestants’ reasoning during the Counter-Reformation. Consider, for instance, this inspiring passage: “When the curators at the Munich Glyptothek removed Thorwaldsen's restorations from the Aegina pediments, they did not so much take them back to a pristine state as out of the feedback loop, rendering them damaged goods. It was not a restriction of avenues or a change of direction that was being enacted here, but a refusal to speak the language, or rather an insistence that the only language worth speaking was an academic [humanist, restorationist] one.... In 2011, the Glyptothek marked the two hundredth year of the pediments’ discovery by putting new versions of Thorvaldsen's restored figures on display. They had relearned the lingo. For art to be ‘classical,’ it has to know its place in the discourse.” May lingo and feedback loop have successful careers in the lexicon of classical scholarship. “Far from producing a nostalgic narrative,” as Vout informs us, “the lessons learned from looking back ensure that we keep traveling.”. (shrink)

While a clear distinction was drawn between “classical learning” and “modern science” at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the early nineteenth century, we see no such contrast being made in other spaces of knowledge making, such as the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. Drawing on Bacon's insistence that his inductive method should apply across all fields of knowledge, early members of the Society interpreted “science” as referring to any systematic inquiry utilising an empirical approach. An investigation of the ways (...) in which classical authors were used within the researches of early members of the Society raises important questions about how we should think about empirical method and scientific research in early nineteenth–century England. Frequently understood as primarily engaged in researching natural knowledge, the members of the Manchester Society concerned themselves with a wide range of subjects across all branches of knowledge. Crucially, classical authors were drawn upon as sources of empirical evidence across all types of inquiry, from investigations into the colours of opaque bodies to the origins of party feeling. It is possible to identify a common approach – “history as empirical method”, which, this article suggests, was developed from Bacon's call for a “just story of learning”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:History of Philosophy and History of Ideas PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER THE TF.~MS "history of philosophy" and "history of ideas" are frequently associated in current public and professional discussions, and many statements seem to suggest that the two terms are more or less synonymous, or that the former term, being old-fashioned, might well be replaced with the latter which for many ears appears to have a (...) more fashionable and glamorous ring. Hence there arises the question what each of these terms really means, or what it should mean, and whether and to what extent it is justifiable to identify them with each other, to reduce the history of philosophy to the history of ideas, or to treat the former as a part or subdivision of the latter. I am not convinced that these questions can be answered through an appeal to ordinary usage since this usage is fluid and reflects at best the intellectual formulations and decisions of a remote or recent past. We may have reason to question the very validity of these decisions, and perhaps to suggest or make different decisions, and in case we are successful and obtain a reasonable amount of approval, these different decisions will be reflected in the ordinary usage of tomorrow, though not yet in that of today. The attempt to discuss the meaning and relationship of the history of philosophy and the history of ideas is obviously difficult and hazardous. It involves not only the discussion of such complicated notions as history and philosophy (and idea), but also the shifting balance of the intellectual globe that includes the continents or territories denoted by those terms, and even of the academic globe that purports to be, with varying success, its faithful image. In a short paper, I cannot hope to present an original or adequate discussion of these difficult problems, but merely try to raise a few questions which to my knowledge have not received sufficient attention and may be of interest to philosophers and historians. The history of philosophy has been of recurrent interest to philosophers and other scholars, especially in classical antiquity and again in the Renaissance period. It came to occupy a central place in European thought during the last century, especially in the wake of German idealism. Hegel recognized "history" as a major area of reality and of philosophical concern, as Vico and Herder had done before him, and thus left a living heritage not only to his followers down to Croce and Gentile, but also to Marx and his [1] 2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY disciples, and to many other thinkers who cannot be called Hegelians. Hegel also did not conceive political history in isolation, but in his phenomenology and philosophy of the spirit came close to a concept of culture or civilization in which political and social institutions, religion and the arts, the sciences and philosophy are interrelated as manifestations of the same spirit and subject to the same "dialectical" laws of historical development. The vast progress which the historical disciplines made during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not only in the field of political and economic history but in the history of languages and literatures, of the arts and religions, and of civilization in general was not influenced by Hegel's theories, but rather opposed to them. Yet this vast body of knowledge and of learning imposed itself as an epistemological problem to such thinkers as Dilthey, Rickert, and Cassirer. Finally, Hegel considered philosophical thought itself as dialectical, that is, in a certain sense as historical, and thus foreshadowed not only Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, or Croce's claim that philosophy and history are identical, but also Heidegger's conception of historicity as a basic aspect or dimension of human thought and being. Within such a framework, the history of philosophy occupies a significant and even a central position for the philosopher since it elucidates the basic stages through which philosophical thinking passed before it reached its present situation. Any attempt to grasp or answer our present philosophical prob- ]ems thus presupposes at least a general understanding of the historical developments which have prepared or produced these problems. In the English-speaking world, both... (shrink)

It can certainly be said that history of science has experienced a large growth in recent decades in Spain. This has occurred despite the generic term ‘history of science’ covering activities of a very varied nature and lacking an intimate relation between each other, in research as well as instruction. At present the number of publications which could fit into the frame of this branch of learning has increased remarkably and commercial publishing houses have opened their editorial lists (...) to the publication of classics as well as to monographs on the history of science. Moreover, new specialized journals on these subjects have become popular and have joined the small number of journals which already had a certain tradition. The number of participants in the periodical congresses of the Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas [SEHCYT] has risen and the number of congresses and symposia that have been held in Spain and have assembled Spanish as well as foreign historians has also increased. As another recent promising detail, we could quote the presence of history of science in the curricula of Spanish university programmes, a presence that tends to increase progressively. (shrink)

This thesis is directed towards a philosophy of music by attention to conceptions and perceptions of space. I focus on melody and harmony, and do not emphasise rhythm, which, as far as I can tell, concerns time rather than space. I seek a metaphysical account of Western Classical music in the diatonic tradition. More specifically, my interest is in wordless, untitled music, often called 'absolute' music. My aim is to elucidate a spatial approach to the world combined with a (...) curiosity about the nature of the Pythagorean intervals. Thus one question I seek to answer is: What do the Pythagorean intervals import to music? In their original formulation by Pythagoras, and further, by Plato, their import seemed mystical and analogous to a 'harmony of the spheres.' In this spatial approach, the Pythagorean intervals are indicative of infinite depth. The faculty of hearing alone does not ordinarily spatially locate sources. Hearing is ordinarily combined with sight in order to spatially locate a sound. Yet we talk about music as if it were spatially located, that is, as if it were a visible object with a surface and themes or 'objects'. I explore the faculty of vision and consider in what ways the processes of vision might be similar to and distinct from audition. My source for this approach is David Marr's book 'Vision' and his theory of the 2 1/2-dimensional sketch. In a medium in which there is no spatial location, it is important to situate the listener. Newton solved the problem of location by demonstrating the effects of gravity. P. F. Strawson claims that an analogy of distance is required in hearing to situate the listener, that is, a sense of nearer to and further from a source or object that permits a perception of distance. I claim that in music, the key signature and the scalar relations of musical themes provide this analogy of distance. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton are studied for their accounts of motion, bodies, and space. From these metaphysicians can be gleaned elements of music that include form, motion, timbre, dynamics, and attraction. By incorporating motion, I aim to show that although we may not know the true nature of space, we can learn from hearing music that space is perceptible in other than three dimensions. (shrink)

It was in the closing year of the nineteenth century that Paul Tannery organized at an international historical congress the first international meeting devoted to the history of science. If antiquity would make a scholarly subject respectable, scholarship in the history of science must be beyond reproach; still earlier than Tannery and his colleagues in many European countries were the German historian of chemistry Kopp, and William Whewell, Master of Trinity; the eighteenth century had produced substantial works like (...) those on mathematics and astronomy of Montucla and Delambre; Isaac Vossius and others virtually take these studies back to the Renaissance and Polydore Vergil. Just as in our day such classical scholars as Heiberg, Bailey, Housman, Drachman or Peck have chosen scientific texts as their subjects, so in the past, too, learning and science have met on this common ground. Few creative mathematicians of the seventeenth century thought that attention to the writings of Euclid or Archimedes was a waste of time. (shrink)

According to the standard (recent) history of connectionism (see for example the accounts offered by Hecht-Nielsen (1990: pp. 14-19) and Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1988), or Papert's (1988: pp. 3-4) somewhat whimsical description), in the early days of Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CCTM) based AI research, there was also another allegedly distinct approach, one based upon network models. The work on network models seems to fall broadly within the scope of the term 'connectionist' (see Aizawa 1992), although the (...) term had yet to be coined at the time. These two approaches were "two daughter sciences" according to Papert (1988: p. 3). The fundamental difference between these two 'daughters', lay (according to Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1988: p. 16)) in what they took to be the paradigm of intelligence. Whereas the early connectionists took learning to be fundamental, the traditional school concentrated upon problem solving. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Abraham, Planter of Mathematics":Histories of Mathematics and Astrology in Early Modern EuropeNicholas PopperFrancis Bacon's 1605 Advancement of Learning proposed to dedicatee James I a massive reorganization of the institutions, goals, and methods of generating and transmitting knowledge. The numerous defects crippling the contemporary educational regime, Bacon claimed, should be addressed by strengthening emphasis on philosophy and natural knowledge. To that end, university positions were to be created devoted to (...) "Artes and Sciences at large," rather than to the professions. High salaries would render lecturers "able and sufficient," undistracted from their task. Most famously, he argued that teaching of the "operatiue studie of many Scyences" should involve sophisticated technical education. The study of natural philosophy demanded not only books, but globes, astrolabes, and other "instrumentals." Most significantly, yielding reliable and meaningful knowledge from experiential gleanings required a rigorous system of deductive reasoning.The legacy of this colossal proposal has earned Bacon honored status as devisor of the scientific method.1 But Bacon's educational reform extended [End Page 87] beyond the methods of producing and transmitting knowledge. To facilitate more efficient "vse and administration" of the knowledge produced by his system, he also demanded a searching examination of the history of learning. This history would provide a mirror enabling his contemporaries to deploy the fruits of his method, by considering how learning in the past had been used successfully or ill-advisedly. Producing this history was the ambition of the Advancement, for he explained: "no man hath propounded to himselfe the generall state of learning to bee described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of Nature, & the State civile and Ecclesiastical." He continued:And yet I am not ignorant that in divers particular sciences, as of the Iurisconsults, the Mathematicians, the Rhetoricians, the Philosophers, there are set down some smal memorials of the Schooles, Authors, and Bookes: and so likewise some barren relations touching the Invention of Arts, or usages. But a iust story of learning, containing the Antiquities and Originalls of Knowledges, & their Sects; their Inventions, their Traditions; their diverse Administrations and Managings; their Flourishings, their Oppositions, Decayes, Depressions, Oblivions, Removes, with the causes, and occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning, throughout the ages of the world; I may truly affirme to be wanting.2Bacon thus positioned himself not only as a Father of Modern Science, but also a Father of the History of Science.Following Bacon's suggestion, I will examine the "small memorials" of the history of mathematics—and particularly the mathematical art of astrology—in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. My conclusion, however, will not bear out Bacon's claims. Despite his frustration, Bacon was only one of many early modern scholars appraising the role of mathematics within history. And he devoted less energy than others to mapping its origins and tracing its transmissions between communities. In fact, Bacon's 1605 proposal for a history of mathematics was already out-of-date. Discussions [End Page 88] of the history of mathematics had been rife on the continent and in England throughout the previous century.3The evidence that Renaissance scholars inherited was sprawling and inconclusive. Several genealogies for mathematics could be found within classical Greek, Latin, and patristic references. One lineage claimed mathematics began in ancient Assyria, where the priestly caste, the Chaldeans, practiced a form of mathematics that seemed a corrupt admixture of philosophy, medicine, and religion, and relied heavily on observation of the heavens. Other scholars traced the origins to Egypt, claiming that the field developed to survey lands frequently flooded by the Nile. The real problem for ancient, late antique, and medieval scholars had not been the origins of mathematics, but what exactly mathematics were. For some, the term strictly referred to the quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. But for others, mathematics' origins amongst the Egyptians or Chaldeans inextricably linked it to forms of astrological divination, augury, and necromancy that were unsavory to both Latin and Christian traditions. Mathematici were included alongside ghastly lists of Magi, Brahmins, Aruspices, Genethliaci, and other diabolic practitioners of idolatrous magic. These might or might not be distinguished from mathematici such as Pythagoras... (shrink)

In this synthetic introduction to the history of the philosophy of art, Noël Carroll elucidates and analyzes selected writings on art by Plato, Aristotle, Hutcheson, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, and Bell. Carroll’s narrative tracks developments between major positions in philosophy of art, ranging from the idea that art is unavoidably embedded in society to the evolution of the notion that art is autonomous ("art for art’s sake"), thereby setting the stage for continuing debates in the philosophy of art. (...) Presupposing no prior background, and useful on its own or accompanying the reading of primary works, _Classics in Western Philosophy of Art_ is ideal as a text for introductory undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of art and aesthetics, or for anyone interested in learning about the origin of some of our most fundamental conceptions of art in the Western tradition. (shrink)

Nazariyat, Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences, issued twice a year in English and Turkish (Nazariyat İslam Felsefe ve Bilim Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi), is a refereed international journal. It publishes original studies, critical editions of classical texts and book reviews on Islamic philosophy, kalām, theoretical aspects of Sufism and the history of sciences. The goal of Nazariyat is to contribute to the discovery, examination and reinterpretation of the theoretical traditions in the history of (...) Islamic thought, by giving special attention to the post-classical period of it. **ISSN: 2148-8088 E-ISBN: 2547-9415**. (shrink)

A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit - Pali - Prakrit. Siegfried Lienhard. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1984. viii + 307 pp. DM 128.

This paper reviews the history of Korean Neo-Confucian thought from its introduction in the late fourteenth century until the end of the Joseon dynasty in the early twentieth century. With the founding of Joseon in 1392 the Neo-Confucian synthesis that had swept China was adopted in Korea, replacing the Buddhist establishment of the previous dynasty. The introductory section discusses the major figures in this transition and their grasp of the new metaphysical framework and ascetical theory which now supplemented (...) the traditional Confucian ethical core. The new teaching took deep root in the fifteenth century, but it did so in the context of succession problems leading to a series of “literati purges” of Confucians serving in government. The sixteenth century marked the coming to full intellectual maturity of the Neo-Confucian thought of the Cheng-Zhu school on the Korean peninsula. Toegye and Yulgok, the most famous names in Korean Neo-Confucian thought, represented opposing sides in the celebrated Four Seven Debate concerning the origination of feelings in the mind-and-heart. As the Mongols established the new Qing dynasty in China in the seventeenth century, Korean Neo-Confucians felt they had become the sole heritors and defenders of true civilization, leading to a period of intense and conflicted conservative orthodox orientation towards the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian school. In the intense factional struggles of the time the Yulgok followers of a faction led by Song Siyeol rose to dominance, and in the early eighteenth century the second most celebrated controversy, the Horak Debate, broke out within the ranks of this single intellectual lineage. The debate is best known for the question of whether and how humans and all other creatures share the same “original nature,” but it also inquired deeply into the accessibility of the original nature in techniques of meditative self-cultivation. The latter part of the eighteenth century is known for the emergence of a broad, loosely coordinated movement away from philosophical questions towards “practical learning,” or “Silhak” as twentieth century historians have named it. Philosophical inquiry continued to have a lively life well into the nineteenth century, however, with a deepening and radicalization of lines of thought established in the earlier debates, as well as some creative crossing and merging of the boundaries that separated the intellectual lineages of Toegye and Yulgok. (shrink)

사람과 사람 사이의 올바른 관계를 추구하는 유학은 수기(修己)와 치인(治人)이라는 논리구조를 통하여 도덕적 개인이 공동체의 발전에 기여하는 이상향을 그린다. 16세기 한국 성리학의 태두인 퇴계 이황은 자신의 교육적 의도와 관심을 반영하고 성리학의 본체와 공부의 전 과정을 그림 열 폭에 정리하여 『성학십도』를 만들었다. 『성학십도』에서 표방하는 교육의 목적은 성인(聖人)이 되는데 있으며, 이는 성찰적이며 실천적인 도덕인이 되고자 하는 도덕교육의 목적과도 궁극적으로 그 궤를 같이 한다. 『성학십도』의 전체 주제는 경(敬)을 기초로 인륜과 도덕의 원리를 밝혀 인간의 본성을 회복하기 위한 것과 연관된다. 경(敬)은 또한 수양의 목적이자 방법이며, 주요 (...) 내용이다. 전통 유학의 교육 방식은 교육의 목적ㆍ내용ㆍ방법 간의 유기적 통합성을 지향하고 있으며, 내용과 방법에 있어서 지(知)와 행(行)의 병진이라는 일관성을 드러내고 있다. 전통문화가 가지고 있는 보편적 가치를 탐구하고, 전통교육의 측면에서 도덕문화를 다시 일으키는 것은 현재와 미래에 유효한 것들이 과거의 전통으로부터 연원한다는 점을 논의하는 것으로서 오늘의 교육 문제를 해결하는 데 있어서 유용할 수 있다. 특히, 전통교육이 추구했던 도덕교육의 본질을 분석하여 교육의 궁극적 목적인 ‘자신을 실현하고’ ‘공동체를 배려’할 수 있는 인재를 배양하기 위한 반성적 접근은 매우 의미가 있다. (shrink)

History and Systems of Psychology provides an engaging introduction to the rich story of psychology's past. Retaining the clarity and accessibility praised by readers of earlier editions, this classic textbook provides a chronological history of psychology from the pre-Socratic Greeks to contemporary systems, research, and applications. The new edition also features expanded coverage of Eastern as well as Western traditions, influential women in psychology, professional psychology in clinical, educational, and social settings, and new directions in twenty-first century psychology (...) as a cognitive and a positive science. Assuming little prerequisite knowledge, the authors discuss the people, places, and concepts that have shaped psychology's story, and show that we remain fascinated by the same enduring questions that confronted our ancestors - namely, our wonder at our subjectivity and consciousness of self. The seventh edition is fully supported by robust pedagogical features, instructor resources, and a companion website to aid student learning. (shrink)

Translated, with a philosophical introduction.

In addition to the classical mode of classroom philosophy education that focuses on the history of philosophical thinking, methods of “doing” and “using” philosophy, including philosophical practice and philosophical drama can also form part of philosophy education. Such thinking and language exercises are introduced into activities of the academic philosophy cafe, Inner Mongolia University’s 1957 Coffee. Based on core activities of the philosophy cafe as well as the concept of “language game”, an additional language training project is being (...) designed for bilingual participants and language learners, especially for students in secondary education. A two-pronged approach of linguistic and philosophical foci encourages learners to sharpen their minds to the use of languages in the academic world. (shrink)

This first comprehensive account of the utilitarians' historical thought intellectually resituates their conceptions of philosophy and politics, at a time when the past acquired new significances as both a means and object of study. Drawing on published and unpublished writings - and set against the intellectual backdrops of Scottish philosophical history, German and French historicism, romanticism, positivism, and the rise of social science and scientific history - Callum Barrell recovers the depth with which Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, George (...) Grote, and John Stuart Mill thought about history as a site of philosophy and politics. He argues that the utilitarians, contrary to their reputations as ahistorical and even antihistorical thinkers, developed complex frameworks in which to learn from and negotiate the past, inviting us to rethink the foundations of their ideas, as well as their place in - and relationship to - nineteenth-century philosophy and political thought. (shrink)

A constructive analysis of reasoning as a self-corrective process of learning in which a dialectic between inquiry and anomaly, between intuition and inference, between analysis and synthesis, between induction and deduction, gradually produces a virtually unconditioned but always corrigible solution to a problem. The argument is both a synthesis of contributions from classical and modern philosophers to the interpretation of learning and an attempt to bridge the gap between critical thinking and formal logic in the analysis of reasoning. The (...) aim is to show that learning as well as demonstration has a logic susceptible to philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Li Zehou is widely regarded as one of China’s most influential contemporary thinkers. He has produced influential theories of the development of Chinese thought and the place of aesthetics in Chinese ethics and value theory. This book is the first English-language translation of Li Zehou’s work on classical Chinese thought. It includes chapters on the classical Chinese thinkers, including Confucius, Mozi, Laozi, Sunzi, Xunzi and Zhuangzi, and also on later eras and thinkers such as Dong Zhongshu in the (...) Han Dynasty and the Song-Ming Neo-Confucians. (shrink)

The cultural politics of Catholic restoration under Mary Tudor have been as crucial to the historical legacy of Thomas More as More's image was to the regime's own historical self-presentation. Not only did the Marian period see the first reappearance in print of many of More's writings after twenty years, the overwhelming presence of More's figure and work in official Catholic discourse, especially from 1556 onwards, also generated many instances of implicit Morean echoes pervading a great variety of Marian literary (...) texts and genres. This essay analyses a number of such hidden presences of More within classical translations of the period, from John Brende's History of Quintus Curtius, which was issued almost simultaneously with the 1553 Marian edition of More's Dialogue of Comfort, to George Colvile's Boethius and Nicholas Grimald's De officiis, whose appearance coincided with the preparation of More's English Workes for print. As it emerges, such implicit echoes and allusions to More's life and writings not only reshaped the classical works themselves, both updating them and enriching them with additional cultural and political significations; above all they helped to invest the program of Marian religious restoration with the credentials of classical learning promoted by the early Tudor humanists. (shrink)

This paper examines Choi Myeonggil’s understanding of the Daxue, based on the “Daehakgieui” 大學記疑 and “Daehakgwangyeon” 大學管見 where Choi’s view on the Daxue is well expressed. In the “Daehakgieui” Choi questions Zhu Xi’s Daxuezhangju system as well as his interpretation of the Daxue. In addition, the “Daehakgwangyeon” conveys Choi’s unique view on the Daxue. With an aim to elucidate the particular aspects of Choi’s understanding of the Daxue, this paper analyzes these two texts focusing on two main subjects: the system (...) of the Daxue and the philosophical discussions of the Daxue. Endorsing the system of the old text version of the Daxue, Choi Myeonggil criticizes Zhu Xi’s Daxuezhangju system and justifies his criticism by advancing reasoned arguments. Choi is in line with Wang Shouren in that he accepts the system of the old text version of the Daxue; however, Wang regards the old text version as the definitive edition whereas Choi considers that it is littered with flaws. Regarding the philosophical discussions of the Daxue, this paper examines four concepts formulated in the Daxue: sangangling 三綱領, zhizhi erhou youding 知止而后有定, gewu 格物, and chengyi 誠意. Choi raises objections to Zhu’s interpretation of these four concepts, and makes his own interpretation supported by logical evidence in challenging of Zhu’s. Through the above discussion, this paper demonstrates that Choi Myeonggil gained a systematic understanding of the Daxue in an independent and critical manner. At the time of Choi, it was virtually forbidden to present one’s original idea while defying Zhu Xi’s authority. Considering this oppressive academic atmosphere of the Joseon dynasty, Choi’s interpretation of the Daxue assumes profound significance in Korean history of thought of Confucian classics. (shrink)

This volume is the first comprehensive and in-depth discussion written in English of the Confucian tradition in the context of the intellectual history of Korea. It deals with the historical, social, political, philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Korean Confucianism, arguably the most influential intellectual tradition, ethical and religious practice, and political-ideological system in Korea. This volume analyzes the unique aspects of the Korean development of the Confucian tradition by examining the role of Confucianism as the ruling ideology (...) of the Choson Dynasty. It investigates Confucianism’s social and cultural construction, and intellectual foundation in highlighting the Korean achievement of the Neo-Confucian discussion on "human nature and its principle" in light of the Chinese Neo-Confucian development. The volume also surveys the most influential Korean Confucian scholars discussing their philosophical significance in relation to one of the most fundamental Neo-Confucian discourses, namely the li and qi debates, to elucidate how metaphysical theories shaped the socio-political factions of the Choson Dynasty. Furthermore, issues concerning the relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism and other native traditional belief systems are also included in this volume. The volume explores the Confucian confrontation with modernity, encounter with the "Western Learning" including Western science and Catholicism, and the Confucian struggle with modernity in dealing with issues such as democracy, human rights, and gender in modern Korea. Individual contributors of this volume are either well established senior scholars or promising young scholars in the field. (shrink)

There have been few attempts, so far, to document the history of artificial intelligence. It is argued that the “historical sociology of scientific knowledge” can provide a broad historiographical approach for the history of AI, particularly as it has proved fruitful within the history of science in recent years. The article shows how the sociology of knowledge can inform and enrich four types of project within the history of AI; organizational history; AI viewed as technology; (...) AI viewed as cognitive science and historical biography. In the latter area the historical treatments of Darwin and Turing are compared to warn against the pitfalls of “rational reconstructions” of the past. (shrink)

Toegye Yi Hwang is the most renowned Neo-Confucian thinker of Korea’s Joseon dynasty. The first three sections of this chapter describe his early life, the violent “literati purges” that preceded and extended tragically into his early career, and his career in office, from which he sought retirement only to be recalled repeatedly. The fourth section looks into the primary sources, the books from which he became steeped in the learning of the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucian thought. His own major written (...) works are briefly described. The fifth section is devoted to the most famous controversy in the history of Korean Neo-Confucian thought, the Four-Seven Debate, which originated between Toegye and a younger scholar, Gobong. This is followed by a section of description and analysis of the work that is considered his masterwork, the Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning. A brief conclusion sums up his contribution and imprint on Korean Neo-Confucian thought. (shrink)

This paper takes five different perspectives on kinesthesia, beginning with its evolution across animate life and its biological distinction from, and relationship to proprioception. It proceeds to document the historical derivation of “the muscle sense,” showing in the process how analytic philosophers bypass the import of kinesthesia by way of “enaction,” for example, and by redefinitions of “tactical deception.” The article then gives prominence to a further occlusion of kinesthesia and its subduction by proprioception, these practices being those of well-known (...) phenomenologists, practices that exemplify an adultist perspective supported in large part by the writings of Merleau-Ponty. Following this extended critical review, the article shows how Husserl’s phenomenology enlightens us about kinesthesia and in doing so offers us substantive clues to the phenomenology of learning as it takes place in the development and acquisition of skillful movement. It shows further how phenomenological methodology contrasts markedly with existential analysis, most significantly in its recognition of, and its ability to set forth a developmental history, a veritable genetic phenomenology that is basically a phenomenology of learning anchored in kinesthesia. After showing how that phenomenology of learning finds mutual validation in a classic empirical study of infant movement, the article ends by highlighting how human “I cans” are grounded in “I move,” specifically, in the pan-human ability to learn one’s body and learn to move oneself. (shrink)

As an aspect of civic humanism, the liberal arts comprehended the skills necessary to realize the common good of free citizens within a free society, the mental habits basic to citizenship as preached and taught in the classical, medieval, and Renaissance worlds. The liberal arts formed people with the virtues proper to civic life. The Church has never been quiet about these issues. In every age Christians have addressed themselves to what the human animal is that such a being (...) can be trained in civic virtue, and how this can best be done, why Christians should care, and what Faith has to say on such matters as profane learning. This book's essays explore how the various Christian Traditions have taken up the question of liberal learning by setting it within the context of their own peculiar idioms and histories."--from back book cover. (shrink)

A constructive analysis of reasoning as a self-corrective process of learning in which a dialectic between inquiry and anomaly, between intuition and inference, between analysis and synthesis, between induction and deduction, gradually produces a virtually unconditioned but always corrigible solution to a problem. The argument is both a synthesis of contributions from classical and modern philosophers to the interpretation of learning and an attempt to bridge the gap between critical thinking and formal logic in the analysis of reasoning. The (...) aim is to show that learning as well as demonstration has a logic susceptible to philosophical analysis. (shrink)

This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through to the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics and classical learning. Through the performance of rites, the early Qing scholars believed they could cultivate Confucian virtues and achieve social order. The author shows how Confucian ritualism, with its emphasis on lineage, became a broad movement of social reform that stressed conformity and clearly prescribed rules of behavior, expressed notably in the (...) growing cult of female chastity. (shrink)

This volume covers a relatively short span of time, rather less than the first three-quarters of the first century BC; but it was an age of profoundly important developments, with enduring consequences for the subsequent history of Latin literature. Original and innovative in widely differing ways as was the work of Lucretius, Sallust and Caesar in particular, the scene is dominated, historically, by two figures: Cicero and Catullus. Cicero was a politician and a man of affairs as well as (...) a man of latters, whose vast literary output reflects a range of intellectual interests unparalleled among surviving Roman writers; creator of a prose style the Quintilian regarded as synonymous with eloquence itself; and better known to us, from his letters, as a human being, than any other figure from classical antiquity. Catullus was a poet, single-mindedly devoted to fostering the tradition of learned Alexandrian poetry at Rome; the author of one slender volume of verse that has attracted more critical attention in proportion to its size than any other ancient poetry-book; and the lover of Lesbia. In these chapters it is shown how these, and other, Roman writers of genius continued the process of transforming their traditional Greek models into new and vigorous Latin forms, with lasting effects for oratory, historiography, and the higher genres of poetry. (shrink)

This second volume of Voegelin's magisterial _Order and History, The World of the Polis,_ explores the ancient Greek symbolization of human reality. Taking us from the origins of Greek culture in the Pre-Homeric Cretan civilizations, through the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey,_ Hesiod, and the rise of philosophy with the Pre-Socratics Parmenides and Heraclitus, this masterful work concludes with the historians of the classical period. In _The World of the Polis,_ Voegelin traces the emergence of the forms of the city-state (...) and of philosophy from the ancient symbolism of myth. He maintains that the limits and ultimate goals of human nature are constant and that the central problem of every society is the same—"to create an order that will endow the fact of its existence with meaning in terms of ends divine and human." Thus, Voegelin shows how "the meaning of existence" achieved concrete expression in the typical political, social, and religious institutions of Greece and in the productions of its poets and thinkers. He deals with more than fifty Greek writers in the course of his analysis of the rise of myth and its representation of the divine order of the cosmos as the first great symbolic form of order, one later supplanted by the leap in being reflected in the emergence of philosophy. The book is a tour de force, a virtuoso performance by a scholar and philosopher of great power, learning, and imagination that places its subject matter in a new light. The editor's critical introduction places _The World of the Polis_ in the broader context of Voegelin's philosophy of history. Scholars and students of political science, philosophy, and the history of ideas will find this work invaluable. (shrink)