In this essay, I will try to elaborate the fundamental postulates of transdifferential ontology, developed through the inscription of some basic concepts of poststructuralist philosophy within the realm of general system theory. In this manner, a system/being will be conceptualized as set of elements which is organized as a functional whole, whose goal is not to establish a homeostasis but to menage and organize disruptive forces of lack/surplus, that represents non-mediated kernel of any system. Therefore, any system is fundamentally grounded (...) on imbalance and radical incompleteness as inherent conditions of its possibility. Among different kind of systems, the complex self - organizing systems based on feedback loops are governed by the principle of syntropy and its transdifferential organization of reality. In order to explicate the syntropic movement of systems, the concept of signifier is expanded beyond the boundaries of language, and the process of writing, as a permanent invention of in-vent, is interpreted in the manner of never ending sublation of the system and subversion of the subject. The interconnection between the general system theory and poststructuralist philosophy will provide us with a conceptual apparatus which overcomes both linguistic and entropic limitations of above mentioned domains, in order to conceive, interpret, predict and govern processes of becoming on different levels of organization of systems. (shrink)

Introduction: "a matter so obscure, so difficult, and likewise so new . . ." -- Argument, narrative, and methods discourse -- Many, many experiments -- Trying again -- Newtonian poison: a mechanical account of viper venom -- Experiment as the only guide -- Thousands of experiments -- Practical criticisms -- Controlling experiment -- Unobservables -- Fragmentation and modularity: notes on crotoxin -- Conclusion: about methods.

This paper raises the question of how a history of the philosophy of eighteenth-century Britain should be written. First, it describes the usual answer to this question, which divides the period into what happened before Hume, then Hume, then responses to Hume. It notes that this answer does not correspond well with how the period saw itself. It then considers how ‘philosophy’ is defined in Britain in the eighteenth century, taking into account dictionary definitions, book titles, and university syllabi. (...) Obvious differences between eighteenth-century and twenty-first-century philosophy are explored, including the idea that ‘natural philosophy’ is as much part of philosophy as moral philosophy, metaphysics, and logic, and the difficulty of making a distinction between philosophy and what we now call psychology. In the final section of the paper some difficulties are raised regarding the hypothesis that ‘enlightenment’ might provide an organizing concept for a more historically sensitive account of eighteenth-century British philosophy. (shrink)

Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards is Sober’s book that comes closest to history of science. Some reviews have expressed reservations about Sober’s inclination to subordinate historical accuracy to analytical clarity, and to contemporary discussions . My comments will be devoted to the kind of relationship that Sober entertains with history of science. I do not think that the author’s interest in history is superficial and instrumental.In the first section, I try to locate Sober’s book within ‘&HPS’ (...) , a recent initiative that gathers a growing number of people willing to promote a new regime of interaction between philosophy and history of science. I will suggest that Sober offers an interesting way of developing this approach. The more critical second section is devoted to Sober’s first chapter, bearing on the relationship between the two main tenets of Darwin’s argument in the Origin—descent with modif .. (shrink)

Why did Thomas More write two versions of his History of King Richard III, one in English and the other in Latin? Critics tend to answer this question by arguing that the two versions were not destined for the same audience: the Latin for a continental elite, the vernacular for a larger British readership. Although perfectly convincing, this explanation may not be the only one: this paper tries to underline the existence of another motivation, one of a literary nature. (...) The History of King Richard III indeed combines two historiographical models: the ancient and classical monograph as illustrated by Sallust, and the medieval tradition of the chronicle. The oscillation between English and Latin may reflect More's wish to renovate the genre of the medieval chronicle, accomplished by an hybridization with classical Latin models—as if More attempted to grasp the best of both traditions in order to initiate a new means of writing history. (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.

A complete history of Islamic political thought from early Islam to the present Now in its 2nd edition, this textbook describes and interprets all schools of Islamic political thought, their origins, inter-connections and meaning. It examines the Qur'an, the early Caliphate, classical Islamic philosophy and the political culture of the Ottoman and other empires. It covers major thinkers such as Averroes and Ibn Taymiyya as well as a number of lesser authors, and Ibn Khaldun is presented as one of (...) the most original political theorists ever. It draws on a wide range of sources including writings on religion, law, philosophy and statecraft expressed in treatises, handbooks and political rhetoric. The new edition analyses the connections between religion and politics, covering the most recent developments in Islamic political thought and the most recent historical scholarship. It ends with a critical survey of reformism and Islamism from the late-19th century up to the present day. (shrink)

SummaryIn a series of articles from the 1980s and 1990s, Michael Frede analysed the history of histories of philosophy written over the last three hundred years. According to Frede, modern scholars have degenerated into what he calls a ‘doxographical’ mode of writing the history of philosophy. Instead, he argued, these scholars should write what he called ‘philosophical’ history of philosophy, first established in the last decades of the seventeenth century but since abandoned. In the present article (...) it is argued that Frede's reconstruction of the history of histories of philosophy is historically problematic. (shrink)

The Progressive Revolution —continues his legal, historical and literary series based on Natural Law, Natural Rights and the original political philosophy of the constitutional Framers and original jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Progressive Revolution (Volume V)—continues his legal, historical and literary series based on Natural Law, Natural Rights and the original political philosophy of the constitutional Framers and original jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court.

This article addresses the writing of the history of Russian philosophy from the first of such works—Archimandrite Gavriil’s Russian Philosophy [ Russkaja filosofija , 1840]—to philosophical histories/textbooks in the twenty-first century. In the majority of these histories, both past and present, we find a relentless insistence on the delineation of “characterizing traits” of Russian philosophy and appeals to “historiosophy,” where historiosophy is employed as being distinct from the historiographical method. In the 1990s and 2000s, the genre of the (...) history of Russian philosophy has grown increasingly conservative with regards to content, with histories from this period demonstrating an almost exclusive Orthodox focus. This conservatism, in turn, has contributed to widespread contention in recent years over the status of these philosophical textbooks—disagreements that often lead to either (1) further appeals to “historiosophical” methods; or (2) denials of the domestic philosophical tradition altogether, where the response to the query “Is there philosophy in Russia?” is emphatically negative. This article argues that the contemporary disputes over the development and preservation of the Russian philosophical canon are in many ways part of a larger debate over the roles of Orthodoxy and the history of philosophy in post-Soviet philosophical thought. (shrink)

Here at last is an American counterpart to Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. The eminent historian Bruce Kuklick tells the fascinating story of the growth of philosophical thinking in the USA, in the context of the intellectual and social changes of the times. Kuklick sketches the genesis of these intellectual practices in New England Calvinism and the writing of Jonathan Edwards. He discusses theology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the origins of collegiate philosophy in the (...) early part of the nineteenth century. We see the development of secular preconceptions and the emergence, after Darwin's writings of the mid-late nineteenth century, of forms of thought hostile to religion. Philosophy is situated in a variety of cultural contexts - the ministry, the growing system of higher learning, the conflict between philosophers and theologians and between amateur and professional thinkers, the suspicion of European ideas, and worries about the relevance of philosophy to public and political life. Kuklick's narrative portrays such great thinkers as Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, C. I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, W. V. Quine, and Richard Rorty, and assesses their contributions to philosophy. He brings us right up to date with the first historical treatment of the period after pragmatism, and the fragmentation of philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century. Kuklick steers a controversial course between the divergent views that historians and philosophers take of the significance of philosophy in recent years. Anyone interested in American intellectual history, or in how philosophy got where it is today, will enjoy this book. (shrink)

The Progressive Revolution Volume III continues the historical and literary series systematically chronicling both the historical significance and political deconstruction that the Progressive Revolution or the Progressive Age has perpetrated against Western Civilization and American society even to this day.

The original edition of Kant: Political Writings was first published in 1970, and has long been established as the principal English-language edition of this important body of writing. In this new, expanded edition, two important texts illustrating Kants's view of history are included for the first time: his reviews of Herder's Ideas on the Philosophy of The History of Mankind and Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History; as well as the essay What is Orientation in (...) Thinking. In addition to a general introduction assessing Kant's political thought in terms of his fundamental principles of politics, this edition also contains such useful student aids as notes on the texts, a comprehensive bibliography, and a new postscript, looking at some of the principal issues in Kantian scholarship that have arisen since first publication. (shrink)

Simone Téry (1897–1967), French journalist and novelist, joined the French Communist Party in the mid-1930s after visiting the Soviet Union. She worked as a correspondent for L'Humanité, Vendredi and Regards; the latter post took her to Spain during the Civil War. The resulting texts, Front de la liberté: Espagne 1937–1938 (1938) and Où l'aube se lève (1945), form the basis of my analysis of Téry's desire to write the history of the present in inter-war France. These texts, a work (...) of reportage and a novel respectively, illustrate the relationship between the poetic, or imaginative, and the historical, or factual, in historical fiction. This relationship is particularly relevant to the literary history of 1930s France, given the highly politicized nature of literary production in the period and the resulting debates over the nature and future of the realist novel. Téry's rejection of modernism in favour of socialist realism suggests a conversion, common in left-wing writers of the period, to the notion that the modernist text is incapable of ‘containing’ history. The essay raises the question of French women writers’ relationship to committed literature in the 1930s, and demonstrates that women were active in this domain. (shrink)

Writing Technology in Meiji Japan: A Media History of Modern Chinese Literature and Visual Culture. By Seth Jacobowitz. Harvard East Asian Monographs, vol. 387. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. xii + 299. $39.95.

Foucault's governmentality lectures at the Collège de France analyze the history of the state through the lens of governmental reason. However, these lectures largely omit consideration of the relationship between discipline and the state, prioritizing instead raison d'État and liberalism as dominant state technologies. To remedy this omission, I turn to Foucault's early studies of discipline and argue that they provide materials for the reconstruction of a genealogy of the "disciplinary state." In reconstructing this genealogy, I demonstrate that the (...) disciplinary state marks the "dark side" of the liberal state, a dark side which is, moreover, largely obscured in the governmentality lectures. I further construe the difference between this early genealogy of the state and the later governmental studies in methodological terms. At stake in this difference is the historiographic status of capitalism and social conflict. Foucault's governmentality lectures employ what I term an "idealist disavowal," thereby treating capitalism and social conflict as irrelevant to the history of the state. The early disciplinary studies, on the other hand, enact a "materialist avowal," by which these objects are avowed as central to the explanation of how and why the state develops. Finally, I argue that Foucault's governmental genealogy of the liberal state is explanatorily and analytically incomplete, while the genealogy of the disciplinary state contributes to its completion on both fronts. (shrink)

Zha Changping takes inspiration from Western art theories and applies them to a contemporary Chinese context. The article has an ontological perspective, discussing how the concept of “relational aesthetics” manifests in Chinese contemporary art. It also discusses its relation to the history of ideas. The focus is on art, but the ontological perspectives on creation and humanity are universal.

This volume presents a colourful and entertaining overview of German intellectual history by a central figure in its development. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), famous poet, journalist, and political exile, studied with Hegel and was personally acquainted with the leading figures of the most important generation of German writers and philosophers. In his groundbreaking History he discusses the history of religion, philosophy, and literature in Germany up to his time, seen through his own highly opinionated, politically aware, philosophically astute, (...) and always ironic perspective. This work, and other writings focussing especially on Heine's rethinking of Hegel's philosophy, are presented here in a new translation by Howard Pollack-Milgate. The volume also includes an introduction by Terry Pinkard which examines Heine both in relation to Hegel and Nietzsche and as a thinker in his own right. (shrink)

Through a study of the history of the concepts of wealth and poverty, this paper investigates the onset of a transition in the conceptual architecture of epidemiological research concerning social differences in mortality rates from 1858 to 1914. It raises the question as to what the concepts of wealth and poverty meant to those who used them and what objects of interventions the conceptual architecture surrounding the concepts enabled the researchers to create. It argues that a transition began in (...) the late 19th century in which an important framework for the understanding of causal relations behind the mortality patterns changed and that this change in turn influenced the scope of what was conceived as relevant objects of intervention. (shrink)

Wang Yangming (1472-1529) and his School of Mind dominated the intellectual world of sixteenth-century Ming China (1368-1644), and his Confucian philosophy has since remained an essential component of East Asian philosophical discourse. Yet, the volume of publications on him in the Western-language literature has consistently paled in comparison to the volume of scholarship on classical Chinese philosophy, modern Chinese philosophy, Buddhism, and Daoism. Studying Wang Yangming: History of a Sinological Field explains the history of writing in the (...) West about the famed Ming dynasty scholar-official. From eighteenth-century French Jesuit books to English-language publications in 2020, this book provides a historical overview and summary of a literature published by scholars attempting to grapple with one of the most influential Confucians in the history of China, East Asia, and the world. (shrink)

This bibliographical guide gives a comprehensive overview of the historiography of philosophy and thought in the Japanese language through an extensive and thematically organized collection of relevant literature. Comprising over one thousand entries, the bibliography shows not only how extensive and complex the Japanese tradition of philosophical and intellectual historiography is, but also how it might be structured and analyzed to make it accessible to a comparative and intercultural approach to the historiography of philosophy worldwide. The literature is categorized and (...) organized according to thematic focus areas such as geographical regions and continents, nations or peoples, religious traditions and philosophical teachings such as Buddhism, Islam, Shintō, and Confucianism, as well as disciplines such as ethics, aesthetics, and political thought. The bibliography is accompanied by an introduction outlining the research method as well as quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyzing the material, followed by a chronological overview of the historiography of philosophy and thought in the Japanese language and of the Japanese tradition of writing “world histories of philosophy.” As a first step towards a “history of the historiography of philosophy” in non-European languages, we hope that this guide will provide a useful tool for interculturally oriented scholarship aimed at a non-Eurocentric and diversified historiography of philosophy in a global perspective. (Open access, see link below.). (shrink)

In Historied Thought, Constructed World, Joseph Margolis identifies the philosophical themes that will dominate philosophical discussions in the twenty-first century, given the recognition of the historicity of philosophical thought in the twentieth century. In what follows I examine these themes, especially cognitive intransparency, and the arguments presented in favor of them, noting the extent to which they rest on a view of language that takes a written text, and not speech, as the paradigm of language. I suggest if one takes (...) speech as a mutual embodied action in a shared space as a model for language, the theme of cognitive intransparency—and the problems it brings in its wake—does not loom so large for those of us working in the history of philosophy. I conclude by showing that if we adopt this suggestion in relation to early Greek philosophy, that is, the period in the history of historied thought in which philosophy itself emerges as a linguistic and intellectual activity, we can better understand how and why philosophy emerged as it did—in the form of dialogues by Plato. (shrink)

Originally published anonymously in 1844, Vestiges proved to be as controversial as its author expected. Integrating research in the burgeoning sciences of anthropology, geology, astronomy, biology, economics, and chemistry, it was the first attempt to connect the natural sciences to a history of creation. The author, whose identity was not revealed until 1884, was Robert Chambers, a leading Scottish writer and publisher. Vestiges reached a huge popular audience and was widely read by the social and intellectual elite. It sparked (...) debate about natural law, setting the stage for the controversy over Darwin's Origin. In response to the surrounding debate and criticism, Chambers published Explanations: A Sequel, in which he offered a reasoned defense of his ideas about natural law, castigating what he saw as the narrowness of specialist science. With a new introduction by James Secord, a bibliography of reviews, and a new index, this volume adds to Vestiges and Explanations Chambers's earliest works on cosmology, an essay on Darwin, and an autobiographical essay, raising important issues about the changing meanings of popular science and religion and the rise of secular ideologies in Western culture. (shrink)

Moses Hess is a major figure in the development of both early communist and Zionist thought. The Holy History of Mankind appeared in 1837, and was the first book-length socialist tract to appear in Germany, representing an unusual synthesis of Judaism and Christianity that showed the considerable influence upon Hess of Spinoza, Herder and Hegel. In due course many of Hess's ideas would find their way into the work of Karl Marx, and into subsequent socialist thought. The distinguished political (...) scientist Shlomo Avineri provides the first full English translation of this text, along with new renditions of Socialism and Communism, A Communist Credo; and The Consequences of a Future Revolution of the Proletariat. All of the usual reader-friendly series features are provided, including a chronology, concise introduction and notes for further reading, in a work of special relevance to students of politics, modern European history, and the history of Zionism. (shrink)

Between 1983 and 2006 there were two distinct sorts of historical writings on Southeast Asian medical history, with quite different emphases. Some historians focused on the history of medicine in national contexts—a practice that resulted in the neglect of larger socioeconomic factors such as migration—that affected the trajectory of pandemics. At the same time, pursuing a different line of thinking, another group of historians focused on the history of specific diseases from a demographic perspective. These two approaches (...) led to very different conclusions about the nature of epidemic disease and pandemics that have beset the region since the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, regional histories of health are neglected in Southeast Asian medical history in favor of either local, national, or global histories. In this essay, I argue that if historians of global health have forsaken the region in favor of the wider world, Southeast Asian historians have neglected the region in favor of the nation. What is missing in Southeast Asian medical history is a regional perspective that would help understand the ways in which pandemic responses are shaped by colonial, Cold War, or national concerns. Beginning 2019, some historians and political analysts trying to understand global pandemics have adopted a regional approach by treating, as a monolithic group, the ASEAN—the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is a regional grouping of Southeast Asian member states, established in 1967. By contrast, others explore specific geographic, political, or economic issues that have contributed to either the spread or containment of disease. In this regard, the COVID-19 crisis in Southeast Asia merits historical attention to comprehend the strengths and weaknesses of a regional approach. (shrink)

Questions central to the ontology of art include the following: what sort of things are works of art? Do all works of art belong to any one basic ontological category? Do all or only some works have multiple instances? Do works have parts or constituents, and if so, what is their relation to the work as a whole? How are particular works of art individuated? Are they created or discovered? Can they be destroyed? Explicit and extensive treatments of these topics (...) written prior to the 19th century have yet to be found. This does not mean, however, that there is nothing relevant to these ontological questions in early writings on beauty, the arts, and related matters. For example, Aristotle's claims about the functions and elements of tragedy can be mined for ideas about the nature of literary works more generally. And what can be made of the hint, in Metaphysics Eta, 6, that the unity of The Iliad is a matter of a set of words made “one” by being connected together? Rather than attempting to make conjectures about such difficult exegetical topics, this entry focuses primarily on contributions made by authors who explicitly address themselves at length to some of the aforementioned questions pertaining to the ontology of works of art, either in general or with reference to such major art forms as music, literature, painting, architecture, and sculpture. One further note about the scope of this entry is in order. Instructive surveys of the subfield of aesthetics known as the ontology of art are fairly plentiful; see Nicholas Wolterstorff, Gregory Currie, Joseph Margolis, Stephen Davies, Amie Thomasson, Guy Rohrbaugh, Theodore Gracyk, Robert Stecker, and Carl Matheson and Ben Caplan. Surveys of the history of the field have not, however, been forthcoming, and the comments on this topic that crop up in the literature are sketchy and sometimes quite misleading. One shortcoming has been a marked tendency to focus on contributions from the last two decades of the 20th century, the one salient exception being due attention paid to works by Roman Ingarden. The present entry has been designed with this shortcoming in mind. A schematic mapping of questions and positions is provided and reference is made to neglected, earlier contributions to the ontology of art. (shrink)

The present issue of Science in Context comprises a collection of articles dealing with various, specific aspects of the history of mathematics during the last third of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. Like the September issue of 2003 of this journal, which was devoted to the history of ancient mathematics, this collection originated in the aftermath of a meeting held in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem in May 2001, under the title: “History of Mathematics (...) in the Last 25 Years: New Departures, New Questions, New Ideas.” Taken together, these two topical issues are meant as a token of appreciation for the work of Sabetai Unguru and his achievements in the history of mathematics. (shrink)

The history of the mushaf, which began with the collection of the verses of the Qur'an in the era of Hazrat Abu Bakr, holds a significant place in terms of the science of qiraat and the methodology of tafsir. It is not possible to say that the subject, which is the focus of Western researchers especially to prove their thesis that the Qur’an is the human word, is popular in our country. At this point, in this study prepared with (...) the aim of contributing to the field, tafsir introductions and mushaf history issues were examined. Many of the tafsir works provide valuable information about the history of the mushaf. In this direction, one of the important works of tafsir, Garāib al-Qur'ān, Tafsīr al-Khāzin, Jawāhir al-ḥisān, Fath al-rahmān Rūh al-meānī, Tafsīr al-Marāgī and Tafsīr al-hadīs were analyzed. They constitute the basis of our research because they contain rich information about its history and have not yet been examined in this respect. In this regard, the introductions of the aforementioned commentary works are examined under headings created according to the subjects. First of all, the issue of turning the Qur’anic verses into mushafs during the period of Hazrat Abu Bakr is discussed, and then the principles observed in the mushaf copying activity in the Hazrat Osman period, how many companions were in the commission, the number of mushafs that were copied and sent to the leading towns of the period, and who made the surah arrangement in the mushafs are examined. In addition, information shared about the official mushaf rules and whether these rules must be taken as a basis in the writing of the mushafs is included. Finally, within the context of personal companions’ mushafs, the study delves into the claims, accusations, and debates surrounding the mushafs with Hazrat Osman. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society by Riccardo PozzoRobert R. ClewisPOZZO, Riccardo. History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021. vi + 231 pp. Cloth, $94.99In a forward-looking proposal, Pozzo lays out his vision for a multidisciplinary history of philosophy "from a global perspective." This book is "a long position paper, an extended essay dedicated to twenty-first century policies of (...) philosophical research from a global perspective." The chosen format is a Denkschrift, that is, a memorandum in the sense of a document that experts lay out for their government to ponder. Perhaps, Pozzo suggests, the history of philosophy could even have an impact on economic authorities and policymakers. Indeed, the work seems driven by the laudable aim of promoting access and equality around the world. The author reveals a just concern for migrants in particular, since they bring [End Page 156] with them their intellectual traditions and philosophical texts, which can be translated and thereby foster intercultural dialogue.The book consists of an introduction (chapter 1) followed by nine chapters. It has a thirty-page references list as well as subject and name indexes. In part one, Pozzo argues for the need for new narratives in the history of philosophy (chapter 2), in order to establish its role in addressing migration (chapter 3). The second part concerns reflective society (chapter 4). It considers societal readiness (chapter 5) and cultural innovation (chapter 6). Part three explores the paradigm shift from a close reading of texts to a "distant" reading of corpora (chapter 7), a shift Pozzo endorses. It examines implications for the translation of languages (chapter 8) and the translation of studies (knowledge) and competencies (chapter 9). Chapter 10 concludes by briefly reflecting on the notions of the "fluidity" of peoples and their ideas, biodiversity (and food), and spiritual humanism based on dignity.Scholars in the history of philosophy "should be open to the idea of a pluriversum of a history of facts and places, whereby history of philosophy finds its grounding in spatial heterogeneity." Nowadays, when people migrate and transfer competencies at increasing velocity, the "history of philosophy can be usefully reinvented on the basis of its consideration of intercultural dialogue." Pozzo considers the World Digital Library to be "one of the most exciting examples of corpora that talk to each other"—an idea he uses not merely metaphorically. By "corpora" is meant not just the sum of separate books, but XML-accessible complete collections of traditions of texts, with corresponding dictionaries, thesauri, and reference works, which make it possible to analyze a number of original texts as well as transliterations into other alphabets or hanzi characters. The result would be a "data-driven" history of philosophy.Given that history of philosophy is a product of culture, it is influenced by migrating peoples, who bring philosophical ideas and religious traditions with them. Research on migration thus ought to also consider translations of texts and competencies from one to another context, be it linguistic, economic, political, or cultural. The humanities, and a reflective society more generally, might provide a partial basis for intercultural dialogue. The history of philosophy might even thereby improve the quality of life of citizens.Pozzo rightly emphasizes that we need multilingual philosophers and historians of philosophy. History of philosophy ought to also be based on robust lexical and historical considerations, and historians of philosophy should be trained in a number of the world's languages as well as face the challenge of dealing with multilingualism and with validating translations. Pozzo's proposed methodology, informed by computational techniques, relies on tools such as vocabularies, ontologies, concordances, frequencies, or the analysis of texts and corpora, which integrates quantitative and formal methods into the portfolio of the methods of history of philosophy and intellectual history. Since Pozzo has published [End Page 157] widely on Kant, it is fitting that he explores Kant on migration as well as the editorial contexts and translation projects concerning the philosopher's writings.As for aesthetics, Pozzo notes that the history of philosophy can reflect on migrants' cultural and artistic creations. Historians of philosophy should thus start observing and interpreting phenomena created by... (shrink)

SummaryThe aim of this article is to shed light on the methodological relationship between the history of ideas and the history of emotions, starting from the conception of weeping in the eighteenth-century French reflection. This period was critical for the defining of the modern concept of emotion because it encompassed the development of a new aesthetic and moral code centred on the exasperation of sensitivity and an exaggerated use of tears. This study brings out, in terms of methodology, (...) the importance that the analysis of tears assumed from two points of view: on the one hand, it places the problem in a framework determined by history and culture (the object of study for the history of emotions); on the other, it recognises the unavoidable axiological and moral element that characterised crying (the object of study for the history of ideas). After a brief reconstruction of the discussion of tears in the history of emotion—from the histoire des mentalités to the ‘emotional turn’—and in the history of ideas, respectively, the article outlines some potential areas for research in an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

Traditional empiricism, although largely abandoned, has marked the social studies of science through the persistent division between macrolevel analysis of the institutions promoting and regulating science and microlevel analysis of the laboratory, theories, and experiments. Further traces appear in the largely separate methodologies used in social studies of science, which do not draw from political theory, and studies in political theory, which are silent with respect to the expression of power in the development of science. Poststructuralist conceptions of science have (...) reinforced this divcsion by encour aging a turn away from explanations that assume human agency and accountability. This article attempts to bridge the present methodological gulf between political theory and the social studies of science through methods that are sensitive to the nature and operation of power and to its expression in discourse. The application of these methods in the study of genetic engineering policy m the United States and the United Kingdom is outlined. (shrink)

While the history of science in Polish language has a long history, both intellectual and institutional, it became less visible internationally following the fall of the Iron Curtain. This article looks into the institutional state of history-of-science writing in Poland, and discusses several key focal points that emerged in recent years. By distinguishing between the core history of science, written at institutions devoted to this discipline, and broader academic discussions concerning science's past, I claim that, (...) in recent decades, more important topical and theoretical innovation has come from what we can term the “esoteric” circle (referring to Ludwik Fleck)—that is, scholars who do not identify themselves as historians of science. Given that those scholars from abroad who are interested in Polish history of science are in fact general historians, we get a strong impression that we are witnessing a deeper turn in the field, one with diminishing specialization and greater attention paid to situating science in a broader range of societal processes. (shrink)

Well-known for his work on absolutism, divine right theory, and his contextual reading of Hobbes’ ideas, Sommerville also published successful critical editions of Sir Robert Filmer and King James vi and I’s political writing. Sommerville’s engagement in key historiographical debates on early- modern British history, involving “opposing camps” of revisionists and post-revisionists, is less explored. Here, I focus on the question whether pre-Civil War England was immune to ideological conflict or, instead, featured a confrontation between King and Parliament (...) based on ideas of power, liberty and obedience. I also highlight the continued relevance of Sommerville’s innovative account of English political thought as deeply shaped by European theories. His work reminds us of the role of the history of political thought in rectifying false claims and unchecked opinions, so commonly expounded in our divided world. In conclusion, I advance my own critical interpretation of Sommerville’s views on absolutism and patriarchalism. (shrink)