Interpretive Political Science is the second of two volumes featuring a selection of key writings by R.A.W. Rhodes. Volume II looks forward and explores the 'interpretive turn' and its implications for the craft of political science, especially public administration, and draws together articles from 2005 onwards on the theme of 'the interpretive turn' in political science. Part I provides a summary statement of the interpretive approach, and Part II develops the theme of blurring genres and discusses a variety of research (...) methods common in the humanities, including: ethnographic fieldwork, life history, and focus groups. Part III demonstrates how the genres of thought and presentation found in the humanities can be used in political science. It presents four examples of such blurring 'at work' with studies of: applied anthropology and civil service reform; women's studies and government departments; and storytelling and local knowledge. The book concludes with a summary of what is edifying about an interpretive approach, and why this approach matters, and revisits some of the more common criticisms before indulging in plausible conjectures about the future of interpretivism. The author seeks new and interesting ways to explore governance, high politics, public policies, and the study of public administration in general. (shrink)

"Biodiversity prospecting" has been touted as a mechanism for both discovering new pharmaceutical products and saving endangered ecosystems. It is unclear what values may arise from such activities, however. Evidence from transactions is incomplete and existing theoretical models are flawed. We calculate an upper bound on the value of the "marginal species." Even under favorable assumptions this bound is modest. Slightly modified assumptions lead to drastically lower estimates. We extend our findings to the value of the marginal hectare of habitat (...) and find that the incentives for habitat conservation generated by private pharmaceutical research are also, at best, very modest. (shrink)

A translation of the earlier books of Galen's On Anatomical Procedures, extant in the original Greek text, was published by Charles Singer in 1956. The remainder, surviving in an Arabic translation, is here presented in a handsomely published English translation. A welcome supplement to the meagre Loch Galen.--R. W.

In this paper we examine the study of minerals from the Renaissance to the early nineteenth century in the light of the work of Michel Foucault on the history of systems of thought. In spite of a certain number of theoretical problems, Foucault's enterprise opens up to the historian of science a vast terrain for exploration. But this is the place neither for a general exegesis nor for a general criticism of his position; our aim here is the more modest (...) one of taking certain points from Foucault's study,The order of things, and seeing how far they can be extended into an area not explicitly considered in that work. (shrink)

A non-epistemological history of historical epistemology Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9501-5 Authors W. R. Albury, School of Humanities, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Notre époque, traversée de courants mystiques, manifeste un intérêt tout particulier pour les idées du neo-platonicien Plotin. Pour le platonicien l'univers participe à l'idée. Platon considérait les choses comme le reflet de l'idée, ce que Plotin se refusait à admettre. La diversité dont la vie fait preuve atteste son inépuisable richesse, et si les choses dans leur état particulier sont imparfaites et défectueuses, c'est que chaque chose représente sa particularité d'une façon imparfaite. Le dualisme platonicien se retrouve chez Plotin; à (...) côté du monde de l'erreur et de l'apparence il situe celui de la vérité et de la réalité. Mais l'ordre des deux mondes étant différent, nécessairement les catégories qui y règnent diffèrent. Contrairement au monde du temps et de l'espace, où tout est désaccord et combat, l'accord et l'harmonie règnent dans le monde de l'idée. D'après Platon l'idée de l'être implique l'idée du repos. Pour Plotin le mouvement et le repos ne sont pas incompatibles. Il y a encore un point de divergence entre les deux philosophes. Tandis que Platon conçoit le bien comme idée, Plotin le superpose au monde des idées et l'en sépare. A l'oppossé du maître il n'était pas dualiste mais moniste. La conception platonicienne du bien est purement éthique, c.a.d. humaine, la conception de Plotin est plus cosmique. L'univers lui apparaît comme une trinité: le monde sensoriel, le monde idéal et l'unité suprême, et il leur découvre une base commune. Tout en admettant l'imperfection du monde, Plotin nie qu'il soit mauvais et méprisable. Il se tourne contre les Gnostiques chrétiens qui prêchent le mépris du monde, et s'oppose vigoureusement aux doctrines qui font des jouissances sensuelles l'unique but de la vie. L'exercice de la vertu n'est autre chose que le moyen de s'unir à Dieu. Pour Plotin la vertu n'est donc pas une fin en elle-même, mais elle est subordonnée à un but qui la dépasse. (shrink)

Eric Olsen argues from the fact that we once existed as fetal individuals to the conclusion that the Standard View of personal identity is mistaken. I shall establish that a similar argument focusing upon dead people opposes Olson’s favored Biological View of personal identity.

First published in 1918 and originally delivered as the Gifford Lectures in the University of Aberdeen in 1914 and 1915, this book is concerned with the relation between the true foundation of ethics and the true knowledge of God. Sorley explores the limits of morality and the problem of the divergence between the order of existence and the moral order, as well as the question of freedom and the very idea of God. This book will be of value to anyone (...) with an interest in ethics or in the theistic grounding of morality. (shrink)

The paper „F. W. Bessel and Russian science by K. K. Lavrinovich published in NTM-Schriftenreihe contains several errors coming mainly from re-translations of German names and texts from Russian into German. The correct spelling of names and original texts are given here. Beside this, some additional information from sources not mentioned by the author is presented, and the kind of relationship between Bessel and W. Struve is discussed on the basis of their correspondence.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1919 Edition.

The precise relationship between Hobbes's political philosophy and his late history of the English Civil War remains something of a puzzle. Given his well known doubts about the epistemological status of history, Behemoth or the Long Parliament is often treated as little more than a procrustean effort at forcing complex historical events into the bed of abstract theory that he had developed earlier. On this view, even Noam Flinker, who offers one of the few studies devoted to a close reading (...) of Behemoth, argues that Hobbes intended the work to be self repudiating, and that the dialogue form and the apparent confusions of one of the participants were meant to point readers to �the less rhetorical logic of the Leviathan�. Others, more impressed by Hobbes�s pragmatic intentions than his methodological pretensions, note that a primary motive for his political arguments was a horror at first of the prospect and then of the reality of civil war. They thus emphasize the significance of Behemoth for Hobbes and his interpreters. Robert Kraynak, for example, argues that it �is a work of primary importance� in completing the �history of civilization which is the logical beginning point of Hobbes's thought�, and that a complete understanding of his political theory is impossible without his analysis of the way in which �doctrinal politics and disputative science� had created political chaos in England. This interpretation correctly emphasizes the role of ideas, as opposed to economic interests, in his explanation of civil conflict. It also rightly notes didactic continuities between Behemoth and his earlier work. However, I argue below that it overestimates the extent to which Hobbes treats the general idea of opinion as an eliminable product of �artificial� historical relations rather than as a permanent feature of human psychology and action. Thus, it discounts the extent to which his understanding of the relationship between opinion and civil war was a product of his philosophy rather than of a 'history of civilization'. (shrink)

(2008). Medicine and Statecraft in The Book of the Courtier ∗. Intellectual History Review: Vol. 18, Humanism and Medicine in the Early Modern Era, pp. 75-89.