This collection is the final volume of a four book survey of the state of phenomenology fifty years after the death of Edmund Husserl. Its publication represents a landmark in the comprehensive treatment of contemporary phenomenology in all its vastness and richness. The diversity of the issues raised here is dazzling, but the main themes of Husserl's thought are all either explicitly treated, or else they underlie the ingenious approaches found here. Time, historicity, intentionality, eidos, meaning, possibility/reality, and teleology are (...) the main concerns of this collection devoted to studies in aesthetics, metaphysics and literary interpretation, written by such authors as, among others, R. Cobb-Stevens, C. Moreno Marquez, J. Swiecimski, Sitansu Ray and M. Kronegger. These original studies of phenomenological aesthetics and literary theory by scholars from all parts of the world were gathered by the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learn ing during the year 1988/89 during its assessment of the phenomeno logical movement, fifty years after Husserl's death. IX A -T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XXXVII, ix. (shrink)

Abstract We act so as to make things better than they would have been but for the action; we are horrified by an uncontrollable catastrophe because it made things so much worse than they would have been without it. Such attitudes are reasonable only if it is reasonable to make the associated counterfactual conditional judgments. But making such judgments cannot be reasonable if one holds both (1) that this world is absolutely and uniquely actual (?absolute actualism?), and (2) that (...) everything is settled (?ES?). Determinism (strictly understood) figures as the most obvious example of ES theory, but ES can occur in an indeterministic form too: both forms are considered. (shrink)

Comparative studies -- The interdependence of modernities.

Happiness in World History traces ideas and experiences of happiness from early stages in human history, to the maturation of agricultural societies and their religious and philosophical systems, to the changes and diversities in the approach to happiness in the modern societies that began to emerge in the 18th century. In this thorough overview, Peter N. Stearns explores the interaction between psychological and historical findings about happiness, the relationship between ideas and popular experience, and the opportunity to (...) use historical analysis to assess strengths and weaknesses of dominant contemporary notions of happiness. Starting with the advent of agriculture, the book assesses major transitions in history for patterns in happiness, including the impact of the great religions, the unprecedented Enlightenment interest in secular happiness and cheerfulness, and industrialization and imperialism. The final, contemporary section covers fascist and communist efforts to define alternatives to Western ideas of happiness, the increasing connections with consumerism, and growing global interests in defining and promoting well-being. Touching on the experiences in the major regions of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, the text offers an expansive introduction to a new field of study. This book will be of interest to students of world history and the history of emotions. (shrink)

This volume considers the confluence of world history and historical materialism, with the following guiding question in mind: given developments in the field of historical materialism concerned with the intersection of race, gender, labour, and class, why is it that within the field of World History, historical materialism has been marginalized, precisely as World History orients toward transnational socio-cultural phenomenon, micro-studies, or global histories of networks? Answering this question requires thinking, in an inter-related manner, (...) about both the development of World History as a discipline, and the place of economic determinism in historical materialism. This book takes the position that historical materialism (as applied to the field of World History) needs to be more open to the methodological diversity of the materialist tradition and to refuse narrowly deterministic frameworks that have led to marginalization of materialist cultural analysis in studies of global capitalism. At the same time, World History needs to be more self-critical of the methodological diversity it has welcomed through a largely inclusionary framework that allows the material to be considered separately from cultural, social, and intellectual dimensions of global processes. (shrink)

This article focuses on the rise of world history and the challenges it poses to curricula that emphasize history in service to national or civilizational identity. The nature and causes of the world history movement are juxtaposed to the continuing or renewed attachment to more nationalist history. Specific clashes around world history, particularly but not exclusively in the United States, have focused on opposing views about history and identity. Compromises continue to (...) results, as well as clear delays in world history interest in many regions and many programs. Yet world history continues to gain ground, fundamentally because, at its best, it provides many of the tools needed for responsible understanding of globalization past and present. (shrink)

World history is currently one of the most exciting areas of discussion amongst historians.

Introduction : what and why is world history? -- A world history skeleton -- Habits of mind in world history -- Managing time : choosing and evaluating world history periods -- Managing space : world history regions and civilizations -- Contacts and the structure of world history -- Topics in world history -- Disputes in world history -- World history in the contemporary (...) era. (shrink)

This revised and expanded edition of A World History of Ancient Political Thought examines the political thought of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, Iran, India, China, Greece, Rome and early Christianity, from prehistory to c.300 CE. The book explores the earliest texts of literate societies, beginning with the first written records of political thought in Egypt and Mesopotamia and ending with the collapse of the Han dynasty and the Western Roman Empire.

Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past. By Patrick Manning (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 384 pp. £50.00 cloth; £18.99 paper.

Periodization is rooted in historical theory. It reflects our priorities, our values, and our understanding of the forces of continuity and change. Yet periodization is also subject to practical constraints. For pedagogical reasons, world historians must seek reasonable symmetry between major historical eras despite huge discrepancies in the availability of historical data for separate time periods and for different areas of the world.Political issues arise in periodization. Should world history provide integrated treatment of the evolution of (...) civilization, focusing upon the most developed societies ? Or should it provide equal time to cultures outside the evolutionary mainstream ? If integration is to be preferred--as this article advocates--it is incumbent upon integrationists to provide some overarching theory of change to demonstrate how the destinies of the world's peoples have been linked through the millennia.Although the article attempts to demonstrate how comprehensive theories of change can facilitate the formulation of world history periodization, it does not minimize the difficulty of developing a universally operative organic theory of change. It examines several theoretical orientations, but principal attention is given to world-systems analysis, the most fully refined and well articulated body of theory currently commended as a vehicle for structuring world history.Acknowledging that no body of theory currently achieves a satisfactory universal integration of world history and that this situation may prevail in the future, the author recommends, for the present, an eclectic periodization of four epochs divided at roughly 1000 B.C.E., 400-600 C.E., and circa. 1492. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to consider the following sentence from Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of history: “World history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom, — a progress whose necessity it is our business to comprehend.” I wish to consider this sentence because it seems to me to lie at the heart of two important misunderstandings of Hegel’s philosophy of history. On the one hand, the statement that world history is the (...) progress of the consciousness of freedom has led some — notably Marxists — to argue that Hegel’s is a one-sided, idealist view of history, which, for all its dialectical subtlety, ignores the important role played by material, economic factors in historical development. On the other hand, the statement that this progress must be comprehended as necessary has led others — Nietzsche, for example — to see Hegel as denying the importance of human agency in history and as positing some kind of mysterious world-spirit as the cosmic puppet-master of historical change. Both of these criticisms, in my view, are based on misinterpretations of Hegel’s project in the philosophy of history, and both, I believe, can be avoided if we pay close attention to what Hegel actually means by the sentence cited above. (shrink)

Early communities and states -- Egypt -- Mesoptamia, Assyria, Babylon -- Iran -- Israel -- India -- China -- The Greeks -- Rome -- Graeco-Roman humanism -- The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church of Christ -- Themes : similarities and differences between cultures -- General conclusion.

Margarita Diaz-Andreu offers an innovative history of archaeology during the nineteenth century, encompassing all its fields from the origins of humanity to the medieval period, and all areas of the world. The development of archaeology is placed within the framework of contemporary political events, with a particular focus upon the ideologies of nationalism and imperialism. Diaz-Andreu examines a wide range of issues, including the creation of institutions, the conversion of the study of antiquities into a profession, public memory, (...) changes in archaeological thought and practice, and the effect on archaeology of racism, religion, the belief in progress, hegemony, and resistance. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to assess Arnason’s civilizational theory and methodology and their application to non-Western civilizations from a historical-comparative sociological perspective. Although civilizational analysis and historical sociology as historical-comparative orientations in sociology are closely connected, civilizational analysis concentrates particularly on the macro-history of civilizations, whereas historical-comparative sociology (particularly in its American variety) is orientated rather to a meso- and micro-analytical foundation of societal developments and therefore is more time- and context-sensitive. From such a perspective, the article (...) reconstructs, first, Arnason’s theoretical and methodological approach to civilizational analysis and discusses his contribution to the civilizational origins and dynamics of the West as a measuring rod for non-European societies. Second, it then assesses Arnason’s two major exemplary civilizational studies: the Soviet model in Russia, Eastern Europe and the non-European world as well as the Japanese civilization in the broader East Asian civilizational context. The article concludes with a critical summary of Arnason’s highly innovative approach from the vantage point of a recently developing global orientation in historical and comparative sociology. (shrink)

Early Leaves of Critical Groves In this short text from 1 767, Herder addresses the crucial question of the relationship between historiography and ...

The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics is the first comprehensive scholarly account of the global history of medical ethics. Offering original interpretations of the field by leading bioethicists and historians of medicine, it will serve as the essential point of departure for future scholarship in the field. The volumes reconceptualize the history of medical ethics through the creation of new categories, including the life cycle; discourses of religion, philosophy, and bioethics; and the relationship between medical (...) ethics and the state, which includes a historical reexamination of the ethics of apartheid, colonialism, communism, health policy, imperialism, militarism, Nazi medicine, Nazi "medical ethics," and research ethics. Also included are the first global chronology of persons and texts; the first concise biographies of major figures in medical ethics; and the first comprehensive bibliography of the history of medical ethics. An extensive index guides readers to topics, texts, and proper names. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the relations between the notion of the I and the conception of World history in Hegel’s philosophy. First, I address Hegel’s account of the I by reconstructing its phenomenological and logical development from consciousness to self-consciousness through recognition with the other and arguing that the project of the Philosophy of Right is normative, as it provides an account of the logical process of affirmation of the I as the normative source of the realm (...) of objective spirit. I then argue for an account of World history as the self-conscious development and liberation of the I in time and objectivity, and I consider Hegel’s philosophy of history in light of the Philosophy of Right as the historical emergence of the I through the forms of objective spirit in history. Finally, I focus on two of the allegedly most problematic issues related to Hegel’s conception of World history: the nature and very possibility of an ‘intersubjective consciousness’ and the notion of ‘World spirit’. I conclude by outlining how the conception of World history, if reconstructed in light of Hegel’s conception of the I, can have previously unnoticed political implications. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: PART ONE: TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF HISTORY -- SECTION I: THE SOCIOLOGICAL -- FOUNDATIONS OF HISTORY -- I. The Sources of Culture Change -- 2. Sociology as a Science -- 3. Sociology and the Theory of Progress -- 4. Civilization and Morals -- 5. Progress and Decay in Ancient and Modern Civilization -- 6. Art and Society -- 7. Vitality or Standardization in Culture -- 8. Cultural Polarity and Religious Schism -- 9. Prevision in (...) Religion -- Io. T. S. Eliot on the Meaning of Culture -- SECTION II: THE MOVEMENT OF WORLD HISTORY -- I. Religion and the Life of Civilization -- 2. The Warrior Peoples and the Decline -- of the Archaic Civilization -- 3. The Origins of Classical Civilization -- 4. The Patriarchal Family in History -- 5. Stages in Mankind's Religious Experience -- SECTION III: URBANISM AND THE ORGANIC -- NATURE OF CULTURE -- I. The Evolution of the Modern City -- 2. Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind -- 3. The World Crisis and the English Tradition -- 4. Bolshevism and the Bourgeoisie -- PART TWO: CONCEPTIONS OF WORLD HISTORY -- SECTION IV: CHRISTIANITY AND THE -- MEANING OF HISTORY -- I. The Christian View of History -- 2. History and the Christian Revelation -- 3. Christianity and Contradiction in History -- 4. The Kingdom of God and History -- SECTION II: THE VISION OF THE HISTORIAN -- I. The Problem of Metahistory -- 2. St. Augustine and the City of God -- 3. Edward Gibbon and the Fall of Rome -- 4. Karl Marx and the Dialectic of History -- 5. H. G. Wells and the Outline of History -- 6. Oswald Spengler and the Life of Civilizations -- 7. Arnold Toynbee and the Study of History -- 8. Europe in Eclipse -- Afterword by John J. Mulloy: Continuity and Development -- in Christopher Dawson's Thought -- Sources -- Notes -- Index. (shrink)

The paper puts forward a theory of historical modalities that is framed in terms of possible continuations rather than possible worlds or histories. The proposal is tested as a semantic theory for a language with historical modalities, tenses, and indexicals.

Once focused primarily on European and Chinese history, South Korea's world history courses are moving toward a global approach that spans multiple regions. In the midst of this curricular shift, we examined how Korean teachers conceptualize world history for themselves and for their instruction. We interviewed eight Korean teachers using card-sorting tasks and a think aloud methodology. Findings revealed that all participants sorted the cards differently when considering instruction compared to when they sorted cards for (...) their own understanding, suggesting the role of teachers as instructional gatekeepers even in a country with a centralized National Curriculum. The Korean teachers discussed three instructional challenges in making these changes: connecting world historical events to students’ present lives, unpacking for students events that spanned across large amounts of time and space, and managing students’ preconceived notions or attitudes about different cultures. The ways in which participants dealt with these challenges differed. Additionally, in-service teachers made more complex connections between events and focused less on regions than did pre-service teachers. We discuss the cultural tools that Korean participants used in making instructional decisions as well as implications for curriculum development and teacher education for world history in South Korea and beyond. (shrink)

Jusqu’à une époque récente la recherche occidentale sur l’histoire des femmes s’est presque exclusivement intéressée à l’Europe et aux États-Unis. Ailleurs dans le monde, l’intérêt porté à la condition des femmes était aussi centré sur le niveau local ou national. L’histoire des États-nations a servi de cadre aux innombrables découvertes des chercheurs. Mais aujourd’hui, l’histoire des femmes s’est enrichie d’autres dimensions d’analyse, notamment du concept de genre et d’une ouverture sur le monde. Cette étude trace l’évolution de l’histoire des femmes (...) et du genre dans son rapport avec la New World History. À partir de quelques exemples récents, nous montrons aussi comment l’histoire mondiale réoriente les études dans le domaine de l’histoire des femmes et de du genre. (shrink)

After surveying the development of world-historical views from Herodotus and Ssu-ma Chen to Spengler and Toynbee, the author sketches his own current understanding of the best approach to the subject. The organizing concept is hard to name, being the geographically largest circle of effective interaction among peoples of diverse cultures and circumstances. In recent times interaction has become literally world-wide; but before 1500 several different communications nets co-existed, each with a dynamic of its own, though the largest was (...) always situated in Eurasia and now embraces the globe.Competing terms exist: "interactive zone," "world system," and "ecumene," but none is completely satisfactory or generally accepted by world historians. Nonetheless, the author asserts that a perceptible drift towards recognizing the reality and centrality of this large structure in the human past has begun to show up among practicing world historians; and the balance of the essay sketches how key alterations in patterns of Eurasian communication mark the principal stages in the expansion and intensification of interaction within the Eurasian ecumene. (shrink)

The development of moral ideas in world history as evidenced in ancient Egypt, Greece, & Rome.

Hegel’s Phenomenology is based on the insight into the historic existence of spirit and the historic constitution of truth. Still, the “work of world history” is not exactly the topic of Phenomenology; it is the appropriation of his results in the knowledge of spirit. Thus, Hegel’s work does not directly point to historic experience, but should rather be understood as a systematic arrangement of historically identifying positions.

Since Erik Erikson's clinical and psychohistorical writings of the 1950s and 1960s, the notion of identity has served as a bridge between formulations of personality development and the psychosocial aspects of cultural cohesiveness. More recently, under the influence of a postmodern perspective, clinical writers have questioned the notion of a stable, integrative identity or self as an organizing agent in human behavior. In the area of gender identity, particularly, feminist theorists have criticized the construction of polarized gender identities both for (...) their psychological inadequacy and their cultural bias.A parallel line of criticism has developed at the cultural or historical level. Writers such as Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner have effectively contrasted the shallow ideological and historical roots of nationalism with the effort to base national identity on the appeal to tradition and continuity. Other writers have emphasized the heterogeneous condition of the contemporary nation in a postcolonial world. They contrast a static concept of cultural or national identity to a more fluid notion which incorporates the ongoing process of displacement that, they argue, characterizes national discourse. The identity structures that emerge from this critique, both within a clinical and a historical setting, are more ambiguous and unstable, and reflect the heterogeneous experience of contemporary culture.World historians such as William McNeill and Theodore von Laue have cited the boundedness of historians within their own cultural identities as a significant obstacle to the development of an intercultural approach to world history. These postmodern reformulations of identity theory challenge the notion of cultural boundedness by emphasizing the discontinuities endemic to modern life and the inescapably plural character of contemporary identity. (shrink)

Philosophies sometimes claim international authority by claiming to be the expression of rationality that is universal in character or validity. This paper attacks Hegel’s internationalism of universal spirit and world history for unjustly excluding the philosophical value of non‐European cultures and races: Africans, Asians, Arabs, Jews, and Native Americans. Hegel’s Eurocentric internationalism also displays a particularly strong nationalist pride in German philosophical superiority. One cannot simply excuse the prejudices of Hegel’s historical context for his exclusionary attitudes. For Hegel’s (...) contemporary Goethe displayed a more truly international spirit in his inclusionary concept of world literature. (shrink)

In our current times, educators as a whole—and social studies educators particularly—are facing increased pressures of conservatism and accountability as applied to their curriculum, resulting in excessive test preparation, narrowed curricula, and an inability to prepare students satisfactorily for their lives as adult citizens—factors which are exacerbated in schools of color. While some scholars have proposed the framework for authentic intellectual work (AIW) as a solution to satisfy both accountability pressures and students’ needs beyond schooling while reducing achievement gaps, few (...) have examined classroom teachers with this framework directly. To consider whether the AIW framework stands a chance at successful adoption long term, this study explores several high school world history teachers’ experiences with learning to use authentic intellectual work in a school of color, describes the textures and structures of their experiences through the lens of hermeneutic phenomenology, and makes recommendations for additional research. (shrink)

For the English speaking reader of today, Ranke is surprisingly inaccessible; indeed, he has become something of a patron saint, more praised than read. Now all his major works have been translated, while almost none of his letters, notes, or essays, so important in getting an informal appraisal of his craft of history, is in English. Many of his of books, whether in German or in English, are no longer in print, and the modern reader is less likely to (...) bear up with the four or six volume works which are. Thus the purpose of this anthology is to bring attention to some of the riches which a reader might find in a more extended study of Ranke's histories. Its emphasis is on Ranke as an historian, with translations of essays and addresses which lay down his program for research, politics, and the relationship between and historian's values and his work. It also attempts to give some sense of Ranke's literary skill, by including examples of his historical portraiture from his History of the Popes, History of France, and History of the Reformation. Finally, a selection of letters and brief reflections culled from his works and notes tries to recapture the man, whose own inner development joined with the tendencies of his age to make him a world-historical figure in Ranke's own sense of the word. (shrink)