Showing papers on "Enlightenment published in 2002"

Dialectic of enlightenment : philosophical fragments

Abstract: Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization. Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book. This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory.

A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War

Abstract: PART ONE: THE MILITARY SCHOOL OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT PART TWO: THE GERMAN MOVEMENT, CLAUSEWITZ, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE GERMAN MILITARY SCHOOL PART THREE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF MILITARY THOUGHT 15. INTRODUCTION: THE 'JANUS FACE' OF FASCISM 21. INTRODUCTION

Contemporary Chinese Philosophy

Abstract: Notes on Contributors. Preface: Chung--ying Cheng. Introduction: Nicholas Bunnin. Part I: Pioneering New Thought from the West:. 1. Liang Qichaoa s Political and Social Philosophy: Yang Xiao. 2. Wang Guowei: Philosophy of Aesthetic Criticism: Keping Wang. 3. Zhang Dongsun: Pluralist Epistemology and Chinese Philosophy: Xinyan Jiang. 4. Hu Shia s Enlightenment Philosophy: Hu Xinhe. 5. Jin Yuelina s Theory of Dao : Hu Jun. Part II: Philosophizing in the Neo--Confucian Spirit:. 6. Xiong Shilia s Metaphysics of Virtue: Jiyuan Yu. 7. Liang Shuming: Easten and Western Cultures and Confucianism: Yanming An. 8. Feng Youlana s New Principle Learning and His Histories of Chinese Philosophy: Lauren Pfister. 9. He Lina s Sinification of Idealism: Jiwei Ci. Part III: Ideological Exposure to Dialectical Materialism:. 10. Feng Qia s Ameliorism: Between Relativism and Absolutism: Huang Yong. 11. Zhang Dainian: Creative Synthesis and Chinese Philosophy: Cheng Lian. 12. Li Zehou: Chinese Aesthetics from a Post--Marxist and Confucian Perspective: John Zijiang Ding. Part IV: Later Development of New Neo--Confucianism:. 13. Fang Dongmei: Philosophy of Life, Creativity, and Inclusiveness: Chengyang Li. 14. Practical Humanism of Xu Fuguan: Peimin Ni. 15. Tang Junyi: Moral Idealism and Chinese Culture: Sin Yee Chan. 16. Mou Zongsan on Intellectual Intuition: Refeng Tang. Afterwords. Recent Trends in Chinese Philosophy in China and the West: Chung--ying Cheng. An Onto--Hermeneutic Interpretation of Twentieth--Century Chinese Philosophy: Identity and Vision: Chung--ying Cheng. Glossary. Index.

Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millenium: A Sociological Profile

Abstract: Most sociologists of religion describe a general decline in religious faith and practice in Europe over the last two centuries. The destruction of the "sacred canopy" by religious pluralism, and the secularizing forces of the Enlightenment, science, industrialization, the influence of Freud and Marx, and urbanization are all felt to have diminished the power of the churches and demystified the human condition. In Andrew Greeley's view, the use of such overarching theories and frameworks do not begin to cope with a wide variety of contrasting and contrary social phenomena. In Religion at the End of the Second Millenium, he engages the complexities of contemporary Europe to show a nuanced picture of religious faith rising, declining, or remaining stable in different countries under differing realities of social and political life.

Germans, Jews, and the Claims of Modernity

Abstract: Hess, Jonathan M. Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 258pp. $40.00 hardcover. In a letter from 1964 that has come to be called "Against the Myth of the German-Jewish Dialogue," Gershom Scholem disavows any mutually productive dialogue between Jews and Germans in the modern era. Scholem, in an essay published the next year, goes on to clarify that such a dialogue would have implied Jews participating in the debates of modernity not only as Germans, but also as Jews. Jonathan Hess' Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity, attempts to address Scholem' s critique by making a case for the existence of an active and significant dialogue concerning Jewish emancipation between Jews and Judaism, on the one hand, and modern secular universalism, on the other, in the German states from the late 1770s until 1806. Hess poses the question: "Why were Jews and Judaism of such enormous interest to the German public during this period?" (4). The answer, according to Hess, is that Jews seemed to "offer up the perfect antithesis to the norms of the modern world," and as such could function as a kind of Enlightenment test case. "The project of Jewish emancipation provided [...] the perfect arena for speculating about translating the lofty premises of Enlightenment universalism into concrete political practice" (6). In this study, Hess wishes to recover the agency of the German-Jew within these eighteenth-century emancipation debates, claiming that Jews actively critiqued and indeed shaped contemporary efforts of assimilation. Even more important for Hess' argument is that German-Jews also offered critiques of Enlightenment universalism strategically drawn from their own normative tradition, fashioning and then advocating a specifically Jewish modernity. In the process of reconstructing the German-Jewish voice in the emancipation debate, Hess productively engages his project in many intertwined thematic fields such as secular anti-Semitism, Orientalism, and theology. Hess' constant self-reflexivity about the place of his project within those fields helps, but it is the playfulness of Hess' narrative style which ultimately carries the reader from such seemingly diverse topics as coffee-importation to that of the regeneration of the Jewish inhabitantof Prussia (Chapter 1). However, even Hess' rhetorical skill cannot change the fact that Jewish voices do not play a significant role in his first two chapters. Here, Hess lays out two dominant, non-Jewish stances in the emancipation debate: either the Jews are capable of being civically improved-Chapter 1 focuses on C. …

The Morals of Metaphysics: Kant’s Groundwork as Intellectual Paideia

Abstract: To approach philosophy as a way of working on the self means to begin not with the experience it clarifies and the subject it discovers, but with the acts of self‐transformation it requires and the subjectivity it seeks to fashion. Commenting on the variety of spiritual exercises to be found in the ancient schools, Pierre Hadot remarks that: Some, like Plutarch’s ethismoi, designed to curb curiosity, anger or gossip, were only practices intended to ensure good moral habits. Others, particularly the meditations of the Platonic tradition, demanded a high degree of mental concentration. Some, like the contemplation of nature as practiced in all philosophical schools, turned the soul toward the cosmos, while still others—rare and exceptional—led to a transfiguration of the personality, as in the experiences of Plotinus. We also saw that the emotional tone and notional content of these exercises varied widely from one philosophical school to another: from the mobilization of energy and consent to destiny of the Stoics, to the relaxation and detachment of the Epicureans, to the mental concentration and renunciation of the sensible world among the Platonists.1 While successfully applied to ancient philosophy,2 this approach has not been widely exploited in the history of philosophy more broadly. There is, however, at least one study of medieval metaphysics in these terms,3 and there are some important discussions of early modern Stoicism and Epicureanism.4 And a recent study of Hume shows the fruitfulness of the approach for Enlightenment philosophy.5 It is all the more surprising then that there seems to have been no serious attempt to approach Kant’s moral philosophy in this way.

Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender

Abstract: Acknowledgements. Preface. Prologue: Powers and Submissions. Part I: The Comtemplative Matrix. 1. Kenosis and Subversion: On the Repression of "Vulnerability" in Christian Feminist Writing. 2. Traditions of Spiritual Guidance: Dom John Chapman OSB (1865--1933) on the Meaning of "Contemplation". 3. Creaturehood Before God: Male and Female. Part II: Philosophical Interlocutions. 4. Visions of the Self in Late Medieval Christianity: Some Cross--Disciplinary Reflections. 5. Gender and Knowledge in Modern Western Philosophy: The "Man of Reason" and the "Feminine Other" in Enlightenment and Romantic Thought. 6. Analytic Philosophy of Religion in Feminist Perspective: Some Questions. Part III: Doctrinal Implications. 7. "Persons" in the "Social" Doctrine of the Trinity: Current Analytic Discussion and "Cappadocian" Theology. 8. The Resurrection and the "Spiritual Senses": On Wittgenstein, Epistemology and the Risen Christ. 9. The Eschatological Body: Gender, Transformation and God. Index.

An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature

Abstract: This collection of 17th century sermons examines the relationship between faith and reason, and forms one of the first attempts in English Protestantism to stress the role of reason in ethics and to develop a doctrine of natural law. Nathaniel Culverwell is considered one of the principal scholars of the seventeenth century. This collection of sermons he delivered in 1645-46, examines the relationship between reason and faith, and forms one of the first attempts in English Protestantism to stress the role of reason in ethics and to develop a doctrine of natural law. Culverwell represents a crucial intersection in the discussion of reason and faith. While providing a link between the Calvinist dependence on faith and grace and the Enlightenment dependence on reason and humanism, Culverwell's Discourse is a picture of the world on the brink of the Enlightenment. The seventeenth century was an era that included the Puritan migration from England to America and the English Civil War. During this period, an understanding of the divine, and the interrelationship between reason and revelation, was often a matter of violent debate. An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature spans several centuries, during which the very nature of knowledge as a product of reason, not the means of revelation, gained ascendancy in Western civilization. This discourse was crucial to the development of a theoretical grounding for individual challenges to established authorities, both political and ecclesiastical, and thus to the development of modern theories of liberty and responsibility.

Genealogy as Critique

Abstract: The traditional philosophical discussion of Christianity, whether critical or apologetic, primarily investigates the truth of the Christian doctrine, or the potential justification of the Christian faith. For centuries philosophers have attempted to generalise ‘critique’ in the everyday sense. This development reached an initial culmination in the Enlightenment, and most particularly in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. And this brings us to the second sense of the concept of ‘critique’. Critique in the first everyday sense is a way of denying or saying no to something. For this reason it is implausible to suggest that Michel Foucault understood his own works as ‘critical sciences’. There is no transcendental ego, nor is there any valid realm of pure reason capable in principle of encompassing the whole range of empirical experience in a unified fashion. Any given language game of justification and legitimation rests upon a complex structure of practical habits and routines.

Transnational religion: Hindu and Muslim Movements

Abstract: In this article I deal with transnational Hindu and Muslim movements. I reject the common assertion that migrant communities are conservative in religious and social matters by arguing that ‘traditionalism’ requires considerable ideological creativity and that this significantly transforms previous practices and discourses. I suggest that religious movements, active among migrants, develop cosmopolitan projects that can be viewed as alternatives to the cosmopolitanism of the European Enlightenment. This raises a number of challenges concerning citizenship, integration and political loyalty for governmentality in the nation-states in which these cosmopolitan projects are carried out. I suggest that rather than looking at religious migrants as at best conservative and at worst terrorist one should perhaps pay some attention to the creative moments in human responses to new challenges and new environments.

Religion in the Making

Abstract: That modern fields of inquiry-whether art history or optics, acoustics or musicology-have complex intellectual genealogies is axiomatic. That the constitution of such disciplinary domains have equally intricate social and cultural histories is becoming ever more evident. The emergence of religion as a distinct object of study in American culture has heretofore been located primarily within the history of divinity schools and universities, and that emphasis is readily understandable. Whether it be the considerable influence of American intellectuals on the emergence of the psychology of religion (William James, Edwin D. Starbuck, James Leuba, and James Pratt) or on the development of the philosophy of religion (James again, Josiah Royce, Alfred North Whitehead, and John Dewey), the making of religion as an abstracted object of scientific study was an international enterprise in which American academics participated with vigor. From this perspective, the history of the study of religion becomes another history of professionalism and specialization, best scripted as a struggle for respectability within the modern research university. As Eric J. Sharpe remarked in Comparative Religion: A History, "An academic subject, it might be argued, comes of age when it first attains the dignity of a University Chair, and the comparable privileges of scholarly journals, lectureships and congresses."' In Exhibiting Religion, John P. Burris suggests that such dignity is overrated-or, at least, overrated as a measure of how religion as a field of study was constituted in American culture. He attempts to shift the story from intellectual histories of the Enlightenment and the universities to histories of popular and material culture, from David Hume and William James to "a cultural history of a field of religion in its formative stages" (p. xviii). In concentrating on Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and its auxiliaries, especially the World's Parliament of Religions, Burris places the making of religion within the context of international exhibitions stretching back to London's Crystal Palace in 1851. That focus allows him to foreground the

The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico

Abstract: Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is often regarded as the beleaguered, neglected genius of pre-Enlightenment Naples. His work - though known to Herder, Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, and Michelet - widely and deeply appreciated only during the twentieth century. Although Vico may be best known for the use James Joyce made of his theories in Finnegans Wake, Croce's insightful analysis of Vico's ideas played a large role in alerting readers to his unique voice. Croce's volume preceded Joyce's creation of "Mr. John Baptister Vickar" by a quarter century. During the last 25 years Vico's ideas about history, language, anti-Cartesian epistemology, and rhetoric have begun to receive the recognition their admirers have long claimed they deserve. Increasing numbers of publications appear annually which bear the stamp of Vico's thinking. Even if he is not yet so renowned as some of his contemporaries, such as Locke. Voltaire, or Montesquieu, there are good reasons to believe that in the future he will be equally honored as a cultural theorist. As a theorist of historical process and its language, there is no more innovative voice than his until the twentieth century - which explains in part why such figures as Joyce and R.G. Collingwood freely drew on Vico's work, particularly his New Science, while creating their own. If Vico was Naples' most brilliant, if uncelebrated, citizen prior to the Enlightenment taking hold in Southern Italy, then Croce (1866-1952) is surely the city's most important thinker of modern times, and the single indispensable Italian philosopher since Vico's death. When a genius of Croce's interpretative prowess, evaluates the work of another, it is inevitable that an explosive mixture will result. A great virtue of this book is its fusion of Croce's unique brand of idealism and aesthetic philosophy with Vico's epistemological, ethical, and historical theories. If Vico's theory of cyclical changes in history remains fruitful, it might be argued that Croce's evaluation of his countryman' ideas represented the next turn of the philosophical wheel toward enlightenment.

Entre foi et sciences : Les Mémoires de Trévoux et le mouvement scientifique dans les années 50

Abstract: Contrary to thair traditional image, the Jesuit journalists were not obscurantist and backward-looking, rejecting all aspects of the Enlightenment As we can see by studying the Journal de Trevoux' s attitude towards science, opposition to the Philosophes did not mean a refusal of, or lack of interest in, the Enlighten¬ ment as a whole This is particularly clear in the 1750s, an important decade for scientific progress and the high point of the journal Nevertheless, there were limits that these most eminent members of the Society of Jesus would not cross, concerning the divine In their eyes, Enlightenment was not before us, a Promethean conquest, but behind us, in the form of revelation The attitude of this journal therefore raises the question of the definition not only of the Counter-Enlightenment but also of the Enlightenment itself

Pedantry And The Question Of Enlightenment History: The Figure Of The Antiquary In Scott

Abstract: (2002). Pedantry And The Question Of Enlightenment History: The Figure Of The Antiquary In Scott. European Romantic Review: Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 273-283.

The Neglected Programme of Aesthetics

Abstract: Aesthetics is today widely seen as the philosophy of art and/or beauty, limited to artworks and their perception. In this paper, I argue that today's aesthetics and the original programme developped by the German Enlightenment thinker A. G. Baumgarten in the first half of the XVIII t h century have only the name in common. Baugarten did not primarily develop his aesthetics as a philosophy of art. The making and undestanding of artworks had served in his original programme only as an example for the application of his philosophy. What he really attempts to present is an alternative philosophy of knowledge that goes beyond the purely rationalist, empiricist, and sensualist approaches. In short, Baumgarten transcends the old opposition between rationalism and sensualism. His core theme is the improvement (perfectio) of human knowledge and cognition and the ways to reach this goal. The study of Baumgarten's foundational works on aesthetics should not be undertaken merely out of antiquarian interest. I will argue, instead, that Baumgarten's importance and contemporary relevance lies in this: that his «Aesthetica» may serve as a profound contribution to the philosophy of the cultural sciences and humanities. Revisiting Baumgarten's original idea of aesthetics will lead us to a more inclusive concept of that philosophical discipline.

Integral Development: Taking 'The Middle Path' Towards Gross National Happiness

Abstract: Within Bhutanese culture, inner spiritual development is as prominent a focus as external material development. This follows from an original meaning of development in [a] Bhutanese context in which development meant enlightenment of the individual. I hasten to add that enlightenment is not solely an object of religious activity. Enlightenment is [the] blossoming of happiness. It is made more probable by consciously creating a harmonious psychological, social, and economic environment.

The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture

Abstract: This book completes the author's study of the sociology of the literary process in Soviet Russia, begun in The Making of the State Reader: Social and Aesthetic Contexts of the Reception of Soviet Literature (Stanford, 1997). The history of the literary process of the Soviet era, understood as the living process of the clash of political and ideological aspirations and the interests and psychology of cultural elites, allows one to understand the social origins and cultural aims of Stalinist art in an entirely new way. Previous scholarship has concentrated largely on Sovietological answers to the basic problems of Stalinist aesthetics-such as "political control," "repressions," and "pressure from the regime." However, the author demonstrates that Socialist Realism is not so much directed as it is self-directed; it is not a matter of control but of self-control. The transformation of the author into his own censor is the true history of Soviet literature. Socialist Realism is cultural revolution not only from above but from below as well. The state simply took into account, and accurately discerned, the demands of the masses, and Soviet literature became the reader's answer to these demands. The reader not only shaped Socialist Realist aesthetics down to his own expectations, but in fact created it. The Soviet writer was yesterday's Soviet reader who had learned how to write books. The Soviet writer can be called the product of authority only to the extent that this authority recognized and institutionalized what Lenin called the "lively creativity of the masses." On the other hand, the author shows, the Soviet writer is the radical realization and embodiment of the nineteenth-century Russian populist utopia of enlightenment of the people.

Religion, spirituality, and mental health.

Abstract: 190:697–704, 2002In recent decades, the mental health professionshave begun to reckon with the influence of religionin American life and its ramifications for the individ-ual’s personal functioning. Other sectors of soci-ety—social welfare, the media, education, the legalsystem, and medicine—have made similar efforts totake religion into account, each from its own stand-point. Thus, social workers have attempted to mapout feasible social and rehabilitation goals for cli-ents under the mandate of “faith-based” welfare. Inmedicine, studies have shown that religious belief isvery important to many patients, and that manyseriously ill patients wish that health professionals,including doctors, would demonstrate interest intheir religious beliefs (King and Bushwick, 1994;Ehman et al., 1999; Puchalski, 2000). A new currentis rising in medical education whereby students areinstructed in how to conduct a “spiritual history,”covering the patient’s religious beliefs and valueconstructs (Nichols and Music, 1999).In assessing religion in the United States, it is wellnigh obligatory to recall the separation of church andstate. The federal Constitution prohibits the establish-ment of an official church, and it enjoins governmentfrom supporting, regulating, or curtailing religiousactivity. Neither religion nor government can lean onthe other for legitimation. The founding fathers whoframed the Declaration of Independence and the Con-stitution—Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison—were so-phisticated political thinkers of the Enlightenment. Fa-miliar with European autocracy, they sought anAmerican political framework of limited authority, del-egated powers, and, in regard to religion, no powers orauthority whatsoever reserved to government.Without centralized political focus or administra-tion, religion in the United States flourished. Peoplewere free to form their own religious associations;energies were mobilized that, taken in sum, ex-ceeded what could have been achieved under a cen-tral national establishment. Religion was a small-scale private and family matter. In a broaderterritorial sense, it imparted distinctive culture andcolor to localities and regions (Mormons in Utah,Jews in New York City, Baptists throughout theSouth). As an expression of the convictions andbeliefs of the individual, religious commitment alsobecame, in free society, a meaningful component ofpersonality in assessing mental and emotional well-being. In an open, fluid society, one’s religious ori-entation stands as a clearer lens into his or herpsychic reality than in a society “occupied” or dom-inated by a state religion.The separation of church and state, though a basicAmerican political motif, says nothing about theactual religious composition of the nation. Apartfrom the traditions of the Native American peoples,the United States was overwhelmingly ChristianProtestant in the era of its founding. With the mas-sive flows of immigration that followed, it has sincebecome what Eck calls “the world’s most religiouslydiverse nation” (Eck, 2001). The 19th century sawlarge waves of Catholic and Jewish immigration,which have continued to the present. Muslim immi-gration commenced in the early 20th century andlikewise remains significant today.What can be referred to descriptively as religiousdiversity translates at the levels of community, pub-lic policy, and private attitude into pluralism andtolerance. This does not mean, however, that therehave not been considerable prejudice and discrimi-nation against non-Protestants, and later, againstnon-Christians. Nevertheless, there has been nolarge-scale, prolonged religious conflict or vio-lence—no Inquisition and no Thirty Years’ War. Onthe whole, tolerance has arguably characterized thenational history, which is perhaps all the more re-markable given that religious sentiment has beenhistorically stronger in the United States than inmany other industrialized nations.Although religion is a salient component in theAmerican psyche, there is an aura of reserve aboutthe promotion and display of one’s own religious

The philosophical case for economic democracy

Abstract: One of the most important and widely-held moral beliefs in the modern world is a belief in the principle of equal liberty. According to this principle individuals should have the maximum freedom that is compatible with an equal freedom for all other individuals. Ever since the Enlightenment the principle of equal liberty has provided a basic moral reference point against which the legitimacy of social and political institutions has been judged. And it is, I think, indisputable that this continues to be true today.

Reconsidering Michael Polanyi’s Philosophy

Abstract: The chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was one of the first twentieth-century scientists to propose a program to resolve the internal conflict of the modern Enlightenment: scientific detachment and moral nihilism with humanist values. Stefania Jha's intellectual biography places Polanyi in the context of his time and culture, analyzes his key philosophical ideas, and explicates the application - and at times misappropriation - of his work. Polanyi's method was not laid out in his published works, and his vocabulary tends to make his writings difficult to understand. By exposing the structure of his theory of tacit knowing, and by tracing the growth of his thinking, Jha shows how the various elements of his thought are integrated. Through examination of his philosophical roots in Kant and the complexity of his evolving thought, she counteracts the popular notion that Polanyi's philosophy stands apart from the western philosophic tradition. Jha's deep analysis makes Polanyi's shift of focus from science to philosophy more intelligible, his philosophy more approachable, and the causes he championed - such as the freedom of science and cultural freedom - more understandable. Applying his notion of tacit knowing in practical directions, Jha seeks to bring the study of Polanyi's philosophy out of the specialists' enclave and into such fields as ethics and clinical medicine.

The archaeology of Buddhism

Abstract: During the first half of the first millennium BCE a number of heterodoxical teachers emerged from the mainstream Hindu belief system within the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, partly as a response to the creation of state and urban forms. One of the most successful and influential of these teachers was the individual known as Siddhartha Gautama, although more widely recognised by his title of Buddha or ‘one who has attained enlightenment’ (Figure 3.1). Once an extremely influential force in Asia, there are now only 6.6 million Buddhists within India, the only majority Buddhist communities lying within Sri Lanka and south-east Asia. Traditionally knowledge of the history and nature of Buddhism has come from a combination of two sources, ancient texts and modern devotional practices. Archaeology has seldom been utilised in this process, apart from the largely unscientific clearing of ‘Buddhist’ monuments. Indeed, the role of archaeology may be summarised in de Jong’s words: ‘Buddhist art, inscriptions and coins…cannot be understood without the support given by the texts’ (1975:15). These views are so widely held that when such clearing has revealed material evidence which conflicts with these two sources, it is commonly interpreted as a local aberration or degener-ative practice (Coningham 1998:121). However, an increasing number of scholars (Coningham 1995a, 1998, Coningham and Edwards 1998, Schopen 1997, Trainor 1997) have begun to question this premise, suggesting that it is possible to use archaeology to test the antiquity of such practices, and thus demonstrate a pervasive tradition which is at odds with the traditionally held modes of ‘Buddhist’ behaviour. In fact, when examined in detail, archaeologically based knowledge of Buddhism, and of the Buddha himself, is extremely slight. For example, the date of his birth and death and even the location of his childhood home, Kapilavastu, are still unknown.

Science in the age of sensibility : the sentimental empiricists of the French enlightment

Abstract: Empiricism today implies the dispassionate scrutiny of facts. But Jessica Riskin finds that in the French Enlightenment, empiricism was inimately bound up with sensibility. In what she calls a "sentimental empiricism", natural knowledge was taken to rest on a blend of experience and emotion. Riskin argues that sentimental empiricism brought together ideas and institutions, practice and politics. She shows, for instance, how the study of blindness, led by ideas about the mental and moral role of vision and by cataract surgeries, shaped the first school for the blind; how Benjamin Franklin's electrical physics, ascribing desires to nature, engaged French economic reformers; and how the question of the role of language in science and social life linked disputes over Antoine Lavoisier's new chemical names to the founding of France's modern system of civic education. Recasting the Age of Reason by stressing its conjunction with the Age of Sensibility, Riskin offers an entirely new perspective on the development of modern science and the history of the Enlightenment.

Against Autonomy: Global Dialectics of Cultural Exchange

Abstract: This book investigates "cultural instruments," meaning normative forms of analysis and practice that are central to Western culture and in the course of their history came to be ways of understanding and controlling different cultures. Examples are: notions of autonomy and the division of intellectual, social, cultural, and aesthetic practices; ideas of otherness (taking forms like Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft, negritude, and afrocentrism); cultural and aesthetic forms such as tragedy, mimesis, self, mind/body; certain modes of history and memory; and particular forms of discourse such as science, philosophy, and literature. The book explores the interlocking histories of cultural instruments from antiquity to the early Enlightenment and their instrumental use and reworking by different cultures, moving from Europe to Africa and the Americas, especially the Caribbean. In the process, the author gives close readings of works by a wide range of authors: Balboa, Balbuena, Brathwaite, Calvino, Carpentier, Cervantes, Cesaire, Depestre, Descartes, Eltit, Fanon, Freud, Gombrowicz, Harris, Kane, Kipling, Marshall, Walcott. Many other authors' works become part of the book's general argument about how cultures are made, how they figure both themselves and other cultures, and how they mutually interact (when they do) through productions of what the author calls the "fictive imagination"-what in the West is called "art" but in different cultures may take different names and serve different purposes.

Enlightenment Enthusiasms and the Spectacular Failure of the Philadelphian Society

Abstract: Good English folk, come shake both Sides and Head; For after all her Vaunt Poor Philly’s Dead. Who in this Nation made such a fearful riot, Folks could not eat and drink their common Dyet, Nor play, nor fight, nor go to Church at quiet. Whose notions soard above the starry Sky-Balls, Beyond the reach of dim, and clearer Eye-Balls. Icrus like she flew to[o] near the flame, Melted her waxen wings, and down she came. An Elegy, Upon the Philadelphian Society: With the False Oracles, Last Speech, and Confession (1703), lines 1–9

Wesley and the Wesleyans

Abstract: Wesley and the Wesleyans challenges the cherished myth that at the moment when the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution were threatening the soul of eighteenth-century England, an evangelical revival - led by the Wesleys - saved it. It will interest anyone concerned with the history of Methodism and the Church of England, the Evangelical tradition, and eighteenth-century religious thought and experience. The book starts from the assumption that there was no large-scale religious revival during the eighteenth century. Instead, the role of what is called 'primary religion' - the normal human search for ways of drawing supernatural power into the private life of the individual - is analysed in terms of the emergence of the Wesleyan societies from the Church of England. The Wesleys' achievements are reassessed; there is fresh, unsentimental description of the role of women in the movement, and an unexpectedly sympathetic picture emerges of Hanoverian Anglicanism.

An Examination of Taoist and Buddhist Perspectives on Interpersonal Conflicts, Emotions, and Adversities

Abstract: Taoism and Buddhism teachings have increasingly been integrated into psychology literature and psychotherapy. The Taoist notion of nonaction and the way and the Buddhist idea of enlightenment offer insight into human emotions. Communication scholars have also begun to explore the Taoist approach to conflict. By examining Taoist and Buddhist classics and teachings, this paper reveals the following essential themes: sunyata (emptiness or egolessness), Four Noble Truths, Tao, Conflict and Emotions, self-actualization, spontaneity and nonaction, ebb and flow of life, and nonattainment. This paper discusses fundamental Asian values while examining these spiritual readings. It illustrates implications of these Taoist and Buddhist teachings for communication studies.

Unsettling Obligations: Essays on Reason, Reality and the Ethics of Belief

Abstract: Should we hold beliefs only insofar as they are rationally supportable? According to Allen W. Wood, we are morally obliged to do so - and yet how does this apply to religious beliefs? "Unsettling Obligations" examines these and related ethical and philosophical issues, taking and defending stances on many of them. Along with the theme of belief and evidence, other topics include an historical perspective of philosophy based on the Enlightenment rationalist tradition and a study of how our practical commitments help define truth and value.

The dead end of postmodernism.

Abstract: June/July 2002 • American Psychologist tal outlook known as the Enlightenment (cf. Shimony, 1997). Gergen’s case for embracing a postmodern psychology specifically challenges the Enlightenment notions of science and reason as they are used in modern psychology. I find these challenges unconvincing and have briefly indicated why I think this is so with respect to the important ideas of truth and method. I believe psychologists are justified in defending the historical tradition of Enlightenment thinking and should be encouraged to enrich it with the hard-won products of modern psychological research.