Sociability and Its Enemies contributes both to contemporary studies of political theory and to discourse on postwar Germany by reconstructing the arguments concerning the nature and value of sociability as a form of interaction and interconnection particular to modern bourgeois society. Jakob Norberg argues that the writings of Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Carl Schmitt, and the historian Reinhart Koselleck present conflicting responses to a hitherto neglected question or point of contention: whether bourgeois sociability should serve as a (...) therapeutic practice and politically relevant ideal for postwar Germany. The book sheds light on previously neglected historical and conceptual connections among political theorists, and it enriches established narratives of postwar intellectual history. (shrink)

SummaryThis article reconstructs a significant historical alternative to the theories of ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘liberal’ patriotism often associated with the Scottish Enlightenment. Instead of focusing on the work of Andrew Fletcher, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume or Adam Smith, this study concentrates on the theories of sociability, patriotism and international rivalry elaborated by Adam Ferguson and Henry Home, Lord Kames. Centrally, the article reconstructs both thinkers' shared perspective on what I have called ‘unsociable’ or ‘agonistic’ patriotism, an eighteenth-century idiom which saw (...) international rivalship, antagonism, and even war as crucial in generating political cohesion and sustaining moral virtue. Placing their thinking in the context of wider eighteenth-century debates about sociability and state formation, the article's broader purpose is to highlight the centrality of controversies about human sociability to eighteenth-century debates about the nature of international relations. (shrink)

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the concept of sociability was used mainly to refer to the putative range of primary human qualities or capabilities that preceded—or existed independently of—the formation of political societies. This article is an examination of the impact of Rousseau's thought on this then standard usage. Its initial focus is on Rousseau's concept of perfectibility and its bearing on the thought of Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, and Friedrich Schlegel. Its broader aim is to (...) show how their respective responses to Rousseau were part of a more deep-seated transformation of the concept of sociability itself. (shrink)

Christian Jakob Kraus (1753–1807), political economist and Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Königsberg, has long been neglected by historians, dismissed as a translator, a teacher, and a derivative disciple of Adam Smith. This article posits sociability as a useful category for understanding Kraus’s life, thought, and legacy. It aims to thereby reposition him as a meaningful figure in the late German Enlightenment. First, Kraus is presented as a natural Einsiedler who, surrounded by the commercially vibrant Königsberg, (...) comes to champion a methodology foregrounding praxis, lived experience, and the application of ideas for communal benefit. This ‘sociable’ approach to knowledge is contextualised within broader critiques of scholarly esotericism across Germany. Second, his work is treated as a case study elucidating the interdependence of individualism and sociability in the wider European Enlightenment. I argue that Kraus expressed a ‘sociable individualism,’ drawing upon Smith and Immanuel Kant, which harmonised autonomy and community. (shrink)

SummaryGrotius has a rudimentary theory of sociability. Only with hindsight has a remark about appetitus societatis been promoted to the starting point of a theory that flourished in the writings of later natural jurists. In this article, I address the issue of the appearance in Grotius's natural law of sociability [as the 1715/38 English translation of John Morrice renders appetitus societatis, following Barbeyrac's sociabilité]. Writing in the just war tradition, Grotius is first of all interested in finding out (...) the conditions for peace, and although injustice is a condition of war, it is not per se true that injustice is a perversion of society. Apparently, not all societies are perfect and the violence of war and the legal actions of peace are both instruments for achieving a greater modicum of justice in this world. Yet appetitus et custodia societatis is called the foundation of justice. Grotius achieved this context for sociability in phases, through a series of writings from c. 1600 until De iure belli ac pacis of 1625, and its revision of 1631. In this development the notion of fides plays an intriguing role, through which we can obtain a better understanding of the meaning of appetitus societatis in the later work. The present article is a sequel to a previous publication, on fides in De iure praedae. Analysing the genesis of appetitus societatis in De iure belli ac pacis, I argue that Grotius was changing his strategy over the years, without however arriving at a definitive solution to the question of what commits men to the pursuit of justice. (shrink)

Kant holds that the moral principle is a priori, not empirical. But consistently with this, important parts of Kantian ethics, including his formulations of the moral principle, depend on a rich and interesting empirical theory of human nature.

La tesis principal de este trabajo es que el principio con el que Kant comprende el origen de la cultura o de la historia humana en la tesis cuarta de I dea de una historia universal desde el punto de vista cosmopolita, la insociable sociabilidad, no implica “conceptualmente” el mal moral. Defiendo así, contra una larga tradición de lectura que sostiene lo contrario, que la cultura es producto de dos disposiciones diferentes de la especie humana que son originarias e independientes (...) de su carácter moral y, por lo tanto, también son independientes de su propensión inmoral. Esto significa, específicamente, que si hubiera unos seres racionales que fueran como nosotros, sociables e insociables, pero que no tuvieran noticia, a diferencia de nosotros, de la ley moral, esto es, que fueran moralmente inocentes, producirían, sin embargo, cultura. Como tesis secundarias muestro que se pueden establecer otras relaciones de implicación entre los conceptos de insociable sociabilidad y mal moral: por un lado, inversamente, el mal moral puede implicar “conceptualmente” la insociable sociabilidad; por otro lado, este último principio implica “contingentemente” el mal moral cuando es referido a la especie humana. (shrink)

The robotics industry is growing rapidly, and to a large extent the development of this market sector is due to the area of social robotics – the production of robots that are designed to enter the space of human social interaction, both physically and semantically. Since social robots present a new type of social agent, they have been aptly classified as a disruptive technology, i.e. the sort of technology which affects the core of our current social practices and might lead (...) to profound cultural and social change. -/- Due to its disruptive and innovative potential, social robotics raises not only questions about utility, ethics, and legal aspects, but calls for “robo-philosophy” – the comprehensive philosophical reflection from the perspectives of all philosophical disciplines. This book presents the proceedings of the first conference in this new area, “Robo-Philosophy 2014 – Sociable Robots and the Future of Social Relations", held in Aarhus, Denmark, in August 2014. The short papers and abstracts collected here address questions of social robotics from the perspectives of philosophy of mind, social ontology, ethics, meta-ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, intercultural philosophy, and metaphilosophy. -/- Social robotics is still in its early stages, but it is precisely now that we need to reflect its possible cultural repercussions. This book is accessible to a wide readership and will be of interest to everyone involved in the development and use of social robotics applications, from social roboticists to policy makers. (shrink)

Pour Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on apprend à être citoyen dans les temps modernes en apprenant à être sociable. Si l’éducation doit renoncer à être publique, elle reste politique, tournée vers le développement des passions qui disposent à la reconnaissance.According to Rousseau, we learn to be citizens in modern times by learning to be sociable. Education can not be public one any more, as it was in the ancient cities. But it can be still a politic one : it aims to spread (...) out passions which incline to be grateful. (shrink)

This chapter discusses three types of sociable robots for older adults: robotic caregivers ; robotic friends ; and sex robots. The central argument holds that society ought to make reasonable efforts to provide these types of robots and that under certain conditions, omitting such support not only harms older adults but poses threats to their dignity. The argument proceeds stepwise. First, the chapter establishes that assisting care-dependent older adults to perform activities of daily living is integral to respecting dignity. Here, (...) the argument establishes the vital role that carebots-of-the-future might play in aged societies as the supply of working age adults falls shy of demand. Next, the chapter extends this analysis to designing friendbots for socially isolated older adults. The argument holds that reasonable efforts to provide access to friendbots for socially isolated adults is also a future societal responsibility. Finally, the chapter applies similar reasoning to show that societies ought to make reasonable efforts to support sexual capabilities for older adults who want to be sexual but are bereft of sex partners. The argument draws on capability accounts of justice to show that when central human capacities, such as bodily integrity; intimate relationships; and the use of senses, imagination and thought, are at risk of falling below a threshold level, society should intercede. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

The eighteenth-century moral philosopher Archibald Campbell is now largely forgotten, even to specialists in the Scottish Enlightenment. Yet his work is worth recovering both as part of the immediate reception of Bernard Mandeville and Francis Hutcheson's rival moral philosophies, and for better understanding the state of Scottish moral philosophy a decade before David Hume published his Treatise of Human Nature. This paper offers a reading of Campbell as deploying a specifically Epicurean philosophy that resists both the Augustinianism of Mandeville, and (...) the Stoicism of Hutcheson. This leads him onto ground later claimed more conclusively by Hume, whilst helping us to better conceptualise the deployment and recovery of Hellenistic thought in the early modern period. (shrink)

SummaryIn his early years Herder is known to have been a follower of Rousseau. This article argues that there was indeed a substantial overlap between Herder's and Rousseau's ideas in Herder's early writings, particularly in terms of their joint critique of abstract philosophy and their understanding of the sentimental foundations of morality, as well as their commitment to the ideals of human moral independence and political freedom. Yet Herder's admiration for Rousseau's moral philosophy did not lead him to adopt Rousseau's (...) critique of sociability even in this early period, and there was in fact a deep divergence between their political views. Herder attempted to combine a Rousseauian cultural critique, ‘human’ moral philosophy and philosophy of education with ideas inspired by Thomas Abbt's theory of monarchical patriotism. In contrast to Rousseau, and following Abbt, Herder posited the existence of natural patriotic feelings and underlined their importance in guaranteeing good government and political freedom. Thus, Herder could have a relatively optimistic view of the role of ‘human philosophy’ in regenerating patriotism in a modern setting. Herder embraced Abbt's emphasis on the positive aspects of modern monarchies and ‘modern liberty’ when compared to ancient republics, highlighting the compatibility of Christianity, international commerce and religious tolerance, and the general possibility of developing one's natural inclinations in modern monarchies. (shrink)

There is a tension between our need for associative control and our need for social connections. This tension creates ethical dilemmas that we can call each-we dilemmas of sociability. To resolve these dilemmas, we must prioritize either negative moral rights to dissociate or positive moral rights to social inclusion. This article shows that we must prioritize positive social rights. This has implications both for personal morality and for political theory. As persons, we must attend to each other's basic social (...) needs. As a society, we must adopt a sufficientarian approach to the regulation of social resources. (shrink)

Montaigne’s last words in the Essays—the words that capture his entire project—are “sociable wisdom.” Philosophy has been transformed from the “love of wisdom” to “sociable wisdom” and this transformation is, at the same time, the transformation of the human world, the production of society, a new mode of human association. What is “sociable wisdom” and how has it produced this remarkable effect?Philosophy means “the love of wisdom.” Although the term is believed to have been used first by Pythagoras, Socrates presents (...) us with the most complete picture of the life of philosophy as the love of wisdom. And Socrates is the ancient philosopher most admired by Montaigne. However, the Socrates of the Essays is.. (shrink)

This article, through a case study of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), traces the reception, experimentation with, and uses of radium in early twentieth-century Ireland. Throughout the nineteenth century there was increasing state intervention in the provision of scientific and technical education in Ireland. This culminated in the loss of the RDS's traditional role in this area. The article demonstrates that the RDS was forced to re-envisage its role as a scientific institution by actively seeking to support experimental research. Using (...) radium as a case study, the article argues for the success of this tactic. It demonstrates that radium played a central role within the RDS as a nexus for the maintenance of an experimental and philanthropic culture that permeated much of the society's scientific output in this period. In doing this it highlights the importance of sociability in the promotion of science in Ireland in the early twentieth century. In addition, it explores the role of the RDS as an arbiter of scientific authority. (shrink)

SummaryThis article studies the impact of the debate about human sociability on the crisis of natural law in the later eighteenth century examining the Untersuchungen über den Stand der Natur of 1780 by the Göttingen scholar Michael Hissmann. It makes the case that this crisis ensued from Rousseau's Discours sur l‘inégalité and a revival of neo-Epicurean trends in moral philosophy more generally. The sociability debate revolved around the question to what extent society was natural or artificial to man. (...) This had important implications for the problem of whether distinctions between right and wrong or just and unjust were natural and inborn, or had developed at a much later stage of mankind's history, reflecting merely the respective needs and utility of different societies and cultures. Hissmann's essay summarises this European debate concisely. His point of departure is Rousseauian premises, yet his political conclusions turn Rousseau upside down. Here, Hissmann's essay opens up several questions regarding the allegedly radical political character of one-substance theories in philosophy. (shrink)

The idea of sociability - a person’s disposition and ability to communicate and live in the community - goes through the whole history of philosophy. Due to the peculiarity of translations, this term and the whole tradition related to it have been lost to the Russian reader. The article discusses some tendencies in comprehending the idea of sociability in early modern moral philosophy. The key to this consideration is F. Hutcheson’s essay On the Natural Sociability of Mankind, (...) the title of which contains the very term “sociability” and which presents the main essential points in a discussion of the issue in the first third of the 18 th century. One can distinguish two main approaches to the problem. According to one of them, sociability determined by various human natural needs is the basis of social relations, and a person becomes a moral agent as a social being (H. Grotius, T. Hobbes, S. Pufen-dorf, B. Mandeville). According to another approach, sociability is a manifestation of a person’s natural tendency to care for the good of others, and its consistent implementation leads to the formation of community and supports its stability (Cambridge Platonists, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, J. Butler, D. Hume, A. Smith). Representatives of both approaches recognized contradiction in manifestations of sociability or in its nature. I. Kant theoretically overcame the confrontation between these approaches and conceptualized the contradiction and associated it with the human nature. According to Kant, the “unsociable sociability” is given in the fact that a person has a tendency to sociability but also a tendency to self-assertion at the expense of others. However, despite the presence of asocial features (evil principle), Kant considered the person’s inherent sociability (good principle) as a prerequisite for culture and as one of the most important conditions of possibility of morality. (shrink)

The chapter analyses the debates on the relation between self-interest and sociability in eighteenth-century British moral philosophy. It focuses on the selfish hypothesis, i.e. on the egoistic theory that we are only motivated by self-interest or self-love, and that our sociability is not based on disinterested affections, such as benevolence. The selfish hypothesis is much debated especially in the early eighteenth century (Mandeville, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, Clarke, Campbell, Gay), and then rather tacitly accepted (Hartley, Tucker, Paley) or rejected (...) (Hume, Smith, Reid). It is asserted for example by philosophers with an Augustinian and Epicurean background and by the associationists, yet rejected especially by thinkers inspired by Stoic ideas. In particular for these latter authors, who emphasise the disinterested aspects of moral motivation, the debates on the selfish hypothesis have an important moral dimension. Others again argue that specific kinds of self-interest motivate virtuous actions. (shrink)

This article argues that the notions developed by post-Kleinian object relations psychoanalysis are continuous with a certain British political tradition. British object relations authors think that the healthy personality necessitates a social-democratic political environment. Their ideas follow both historically and logically upon a set of notions about human development that resemble those held by advanced liberals and social democrats since the nineteenth century. Social democracy and advanced liberalism perceive sociability and community as goods that complement traditional liberals? respect for (...) autonomy and individual difference. Much of this outlook evolved from an earlier preoccupation with the exclusive discretion of already-existing individuals over portions of their lives. This concern has been gradually transformed into an interest in enhancing the conditions under which the autonomous personality may form. (shrink)

This book is about Enlightenment ideas of "character." It argues for their central importance in eighteenth-century thought and culture. The scope of this volume extends well beyond the confines of literary history. It examines discussions of race, nation, the self, virtue, sociability, and historical progress. The specially commissioned essays in this volume are the first, collectively, to address the broader significance of Enlightenment "character," and to do so from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus is on the Scottish Enlightenment, but (...) contributors consider these debates in their international contexts and in relation to parallel developments in Britain, Europe, and America. (shrink)

Rousseau is often seen as the quintessential representative of Swiss republicanism. But to most of his Swiss contemporaries Rousseau's brand of republicanism and his self-professed Protestantism remained deeply suspect. They found his thinking, and especially his discussion of the natural origins of morality, far too sceptical and thus ultimately unsuited for their own attempt to forge a theory of republican reform. The article focuses on the reply by Rousseau's most sympathetic yet also most persistent critics, the Basle secretary of state (...) and author of the famous ‘History of Mankind’. (shrink)

Although all readers of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein agree with Victor that his creation of the monster was a mistake, few are certain about how it should be resolved. Shelley offers two vexed solutions to the problem of the creature. The first, explored in the plot of Frankenstein, unfolds with an air of tragic inevitability; Victor destroys his creature and—by extension—himself. But the second solution that Shelley raises, through the creature’s earnest behest that Victor make him a partner, also presents obstacles. (...) Shelley invites her readers to sympathize with the monster’s predicament, but not with its resolution in the nightmarish prospect of a “race of devils … propagated upon the earth, who might make the.. (shrink)

Hume believes that distinctively moral sentiments can only be felt from a disinterested perspective. While much scholarly attention has been paid to the question of how Hume believes we “correct” our moral sentiments to form a coherent moral language, less has been paid to the question of why we first adopt this disinterested vantage point. Answering this question involves determining what, for Hume, enables our disinterested point of view to influence us despite the fact that the sentiments produced by our (...) parochial vantage points are originally stronger. I term this the “influence question.” I contend that Hume has two answers to this question: one in the Treatise and one in the second Enquiry. While the former is based upon our ability to share sentiments with others via sympathy, the latter holds that our disinterested vantage point enables us to found the “party of humankind” upon the universal principle of humanity. I argue that Hume saw this latter answer as rectifying a certain deficiency in his Treatise explanation and that his later answer supports Hume’s aim of demonstrating that morality is a fundamentally social phenomenon. (shrink)

Over the past decade, countries such as France, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Latvia, and Bulgaria have banned face-coverings from public spaces. These bans are popularly known as ‘burqa bans’ as they seem to have been drafted with the aim of preventing people from wearing burqas and niqabs specifically. The scholarly response to these bans has been overwhelmingly negative, with several lawyers and philosophers arguing that they violate the human right to freedom of religion. While this article shares some of the concerns (...) that have been raised, it argues that banning face-coverings in public is morally justified under certain conditions with the exception of facemasks that are necessary for the containment of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. The reason for this is that those who publicly cover their face make it very difficult for other members of society to socially interact with them, especially for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, which is problematic in an age where many people are chronically lonely or at risk of becoming chronically lonely. As such, this article can be understood as a more elaborate, and arguably more sophisticated, defence of the justification that France offered for its face-covering ban before the European Court of Human Rights, namely that covering one’s face undermines the conditions for ‘living together’. (shrink)

This article presents Grotius’s argument against raison d’état and his defense of the rule of law in international relations. Grotius remains an important voice in the debate about the character of international politics. He challenges the views of the adherents of the doctrine of raison d’état who, following Machiavelli, give rulers the license to disobey legal and ethical norms whenever the vital interests of the state are at stake, and to use any means to achieve their goals, including warfare. On (...) the other hand, he also takes a position against pacifists who on moral or religious grounds are adverse to any war. By putting forward the idea of international rule of law, even in warfare, he provided the foundation for a universal legal order applicable to all nations. (shrink)

This book centres on Samuel Pufendorf’s moral and political philosophy, a subject of recently renewed interest among intellectual historians, philosophers and legal scholars in the English-speaking world. Pufendorf’s significance in conceptualizing sociability in a way that ties moral philosophy, the theory of the state, political economy, and moral psychology together has already been acknowledged, but this book is the first systematic investigation of the moral psychological underpinnings of Pufendorf’s theory of sociability in their own right. Readers will discover (...) how Pufendorf’s psychological and social explanation of sociability plays a crucial role in his natural law theory. By drawing attention to Pufendorf’s scattered remarks and observations on human psychology, a new interpretation of the importance of moral psychology is presented. The author maintains that Pufendorf’s reflection on the psychological and physical capacities of human nature also matters for his description of how people adopt sociability as their moral standard in practice. We see how, since Pufendorf’s interest in human nature is mainly political, moral psychological formulations are important for Pufendorf’s theorizing of social and political order. This work is particularly useful for scholars investigating the multifaceted role of passions and emotions in the history of moral and political philosophy. It also affords a better understanding of what later philosophers, such as Smith, Hume or Rousseau, might have find appealing in Pufendorf’s writings. As such, this book will also interest researchers of the enlightenment, natural law and early modern philosophy. (shrink)

How David Hume and Adam Smith forged a new way of thinking about the modern state What is the modern state? Conspicuously undertheorized in recent political theory, this question persistently animated the best minds of the Enlightenment. Recovering David Hume and Adam Smith's long-underappreciated contributions to the history of political thought, The Opinion of Mankind considers how, following Thomas Hobbes's epochal intervention in the mid-seventeenth century, subsequent thinkers grappled with explaining how the state came into being, what it fundamentally might (...) be, and how it could claim rightful authority over those subject to its power. Hobbes has cast a long shadow over Western political thought, particularly regarding the theory of the state. This book shows how Hume and Smith, the two leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment, forged an alternative way of thinking about the organization of modern politics. They did this in part by going back to the foundations: rejecting Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguements about our capacity to form stable societies over time. In turn, this was harnessed to a deep reconceptualization of how to think philosophically about politics in a secular world. The result was an emphasis on the "opinion of mankind," the necessary psychological basis of all political organization. Demonstrating how Hume and Smith broke away from Hobbesian state theory, The Opinion of Mankind also suggests ways in which these thinkers might shape how we think about politics today, and in turn how we might construct better political theory. (shrink)

Only in the last twenty-five years have scholars begun to appreciate Samuel Pufendorf’s importance for the history of ethics. The signal element of Pufendorf’s ethics for recent commentators is his idea that morality arises when God imposes his superior will on a world that can contain no moral value of or on its own. But how, exactly, is “imposition” accomplished? According to Pufendorf, human beings do not simply defer to God in the way elephant seals do to a dominant male. (...) Rather, imposition is realized through recognition of God’s authority to direct and hold us answerable. This brings a whole battery of concepts into play—recognition, accountability, imputation, and authority—along with the capacities to operate with them in practical thought. What is brilliantly original in Pufendorf is his appreciation of these conceptual connections and his awareness of their implications for moral psychology. Authority is a kind of “moral power,” as Pufendorf calls it, which agents can exercise only within a social, moral space that is constituted by their respective obligations to and rights against one another, and whose exercise directly affects those rights and obligations. Only “sociable” beings with the capacity for mutual recognition are thus capable of moral obligation. Recent commentary has generally missed these important aspects and so, in my view, what is most fascinating and original in Pufendorf’s thought. Pufendorf was far from the first thinker to hold some version of a divine command theory of morality. But he may have been the first to attempt to work out what such a view must look like if it is to take seriously the conceptual links between authority, recognition, and accountability, as well as the psychology necessary for these to be realized in the moral life. In the end, however, this introduces an instability into Pufendorf.s view. I argue that whereas Pufendorf seeks to derive human moral powers, equal dignity, and sociability from God’s superior moral power, the very idea of moral powers, including God’s, seems already to presuppose a more basic moral power or dignity that is shared by any being who is capable of sociable relations. (shrink)

How David Hume and Adam Smith forged a new way of thinking about the modern state What is the modern state? Conspicuously undertheorized in recent political theory, this question persistently animated the best minds of the Enlightenment. Recovering David Hume and Adam Smith's long-underappreciated contributions to the history of political thought, The Opinion of Mankind considers how, following Thomas Hobbes's epochal intervention in the mid-seventeenth century, subsequent thinkers grappled with explaining how the state came into being, what it fundamentally might (...) be, and how it could claim rightful authority over those subject to its power. Hobbes has cast a long shadow over Western political thought, particularly regarding the theory of the state. This book shows how Hume and Smith, the two leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment, forged an alternative way of thinking about the organization of modern politics. They did this in part by going back to the foundations: rejecting Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguements about our capacity to form stable societies over time. In turn, this was harnessed to a deep reconceptualization of how to think philosophically about politics in a secular world. The result was an emphasis on the "opinion of mankind," the necessary psychological basis of all political organization. Demonstrating how Hume and Smith broke away from Hobbesian state theory, The Opinion of Mankind also suggests ways in which these thinkers might shape how we think about politics today, and in turn how we might construct better political theory. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic threatened our physical health, alongside our mental and social wellbeing. Social distancing requirements, which are necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, increased social isolation by limiting social interactions that are an essential part of human wellbeing. In this study, we examined the stress caused by COVID-19 early on in the pandemic through the lens of sociability among a large sample of preservice educators. We found that individuals who have higher sociability experienced greater COVID-19 stress. (...) This study also contributed to prior literature which has sought to relate pandemic-related stress to demographic group differences. We found no significant relationship between demographic membership and COVID-19 stress. This study is among the first, however, to demonstrate that vulnerability to pandemic stress varies as a function of sociability. Implications of these findings and ways people can better cope with pandemic isolation are discussed. (shrink)

This article situates the work of Edmund Burke, principally his writings on the French Revolution, in an enlightenment debate about sociability, monarchy and mixed government. It shows how his conception of manners in general, and honour in particular, relates to similar preoccupations in Montesquieu, Voltaire, Smith and Millar, and how that conception has consequences for his theory of authority and moderation in politics.

This is a brief response to Loïc Wacquant’s article, ‘Homines in extremis’. The response makes four contributions. First, I consider some of the reasons for the confusion surrounding the habitus concept, arguing that this confusion may be lessened (without any obvious loss) if we revert to ‘habit’ or ‘disposition’. Second, I argue that, irrespective of these terminological quibbles, it is vital that we do not conflate ‘habitus’ and ‘embodied actor’ as some accounts do. There is more to the embodied actor (...) than her habits and she can only have habits because this is so. Third, I begin to explore the point of view offered by ‘carnal ethnography’ and call for further clarification of that point of view. Finally, I note that Wacquant’s ethnography has the effect of rendering certain of Bourdieu’s ideas in a more concrete manner and foregrounding sociability, which the latter is sometimes inclined to ignore. This, I suggest, is a positive development. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on placing Damaris Masham in the social and religious context of her time, focusing particularly on her position as an educated woman. It explains the importance of letters for women philosophers, by way of introduction to a discussion of how religion figures in her correspondence with Locke and Leibniz. Damaris Masham acknowledges the various disincentives to female education, among them the discouraging image of the educated lady, especially of the philosophical lady and the reference to philosophy here (...) means that this is quite possibly a self-portrait. Yet her letters to Locke are the most intimate or familiar' letters in her extant correspondence. Damaris Masham had religious and moral issues at her finger tips and some of the best evidence of this is the way in which she invoked religion to facilitate her entry into the Republic of Letters. (shrink)

Semi-realism offers a metaphysics of science based on causal properties. Insofar as these are understood in terms of dispositions for specific relations that comprise the concrete structure of the world it can be regarded as a form of structural realism. And insofar as these properties are 'sociable' and cohere into the groupings that comprise the particulars investigated by science, it captures the underlying intuition behind forms of entity realism. However, I shall raise concerns about both these features. I shall suggest (...) that dispositionalism is not an appropriate metaphysics for modern physics and that 'sociability' should be understood in terms of the coherence revealed by symmetry principles. I hope to show how we can retain the virtues of semi-realism while dispensing with the problematic elements by recasting it in more thoroughly structuralist terms. (shrink)

SummaryScholars have pointed to Montesquieu's influence on Rousseau's work generally. Other scholars, who focus more intently on the Letter to d'Alembert, discern a crucial but limited influence of Montesquieu in two of Rousseau's teachings there: first, that some practices, including the theatre, can be appropriate and even wholesome for some societies, while noxious for others; and second, that mores are important in determining what types of laws and institutions a given people can tolerate and maintain. Careful consideration of Rousseau's Letter (...) in light of Montesquieu's Persian Letters and Spirit of the Laws reveals a much more pervasive influence, however. Rousseau's depictions of the theatre as well as his discussions of the role of women in both French and English society reveal that the Letter bears a striking resemblance to, and, in fact, appears to be a response to, aspects of Montesquieu's thought. Montesquieu's captivating depictions of the sociability that the French theatre can engender was surely an obstacle for Rousseau's opposition to its influence in Geneva. In resisting such influence, Rousseau counters many of Montesquieu's specific arguments and judgements. (shrink)

Beginning from Kant’s famous idea that “unsociable sociability” stimulates human progress and civilization, the essay investigates Kant’s categories of the “unsociable” and the “sociable,” and argues that the fundamental difference between them is that the former presuppose a social perspective that is third personal, whereas the latter is always a second-personal affair, instantiated when people relate to one another in various ways, or manifest the disposition to do so. Kant’s “unsociable” attitudes, like “competitive vanity,” are deeply social. They are (...) the fruit of Rousseauean “amour propre,” presupposing a social “observer’s” perspective from which we can desire to be positively regarded or seen. Sociability, as the concept enters into the early modern natural law tradition of Grotius and Pufendorf that led up to Kant, is an irreducibly second-personal phenomenon, realized in our mutual relatings, and the social and legal institutions that govern these. This essay explores these conceptual differences and interactions and the historical background of Kant’s remark in Grotius, Pufendorf, and Rousseau. (shrink)

Les séjours d’étude à l’étranger se sont développés après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Plus que d’autres formes de voyage, ils permettent aux jeunes adultes de s’immerger dans la culture et le quotidien d’un autre pays. Les jeunes femmes américaines qui ont étudié en France entre la fin des années 1940 et les années 1960 ont été marquées par les stéréotypes de genre et les pratiques sociales et sexuelles auxquels elles ont été confrontées. S’appuyant sur des entretiens oraux avec d’anciennes étudiantes (...) et sur des lettres envoyées alors aux familles, cet article examine la manière dont ces Américaines ont négocié les différences culturelles, pour évaluer certains aspects de la culture française et se forger une identité individuelle plus indépendante et plus assurée. (shrink)