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Showing papers on "Enlightenment published in 2004"


BookDOI
12 Nov 2004
TL;DR: Futures past Romanticism and anti-colonational revolution Conscripts of modernity Toussaint's tragic dilemma The tragedy of colonial enlightenment as discussed by the authors, and their tragic dilemma
Abstract: Futures past Romanticism and anti-colonial revolution Conscripts of modernity Toussaint's tragic dilemma The tragedy of colonial enlightenment

956 citations


Book
01 Mar 2004
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that after the privatization of religion during the Enlightenment, there has been a second privatization in the post-1980s global marketplace, related to commercial and corporate powers that have taken over the language of spirituality for the market.
Abstract: This jointly authored book critically examines the use of spirituality in a neo-liberal world. It argues that, after the privatization of religion during the Enlightenment, there has been a second privatization in the post-1980s global marketplace. This second privatization is related to commercial and corporate powers that have taken over the language of spirituality for the market. The book thus offers a new typology for the relationship between religion and capitalism and shows how ‘brand-culture’ has transformed the idea of the spiritual. It provides a new genealogy of spirituality, an exploration of western and eastern traditions and explores the use of spirituality in business. This book has received considerable international interest, went into digital printing within six months after the first print run, and has already been translated into Dutch and has other forthcoming translations. The originality of the book is in providing a critical interpretation of market and business based spirituality, not least in the ‘Body, Mind, Spirit’ publishing industry

544 citations


Book ChapterDOI
01 Aug 2004

365 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Buruma and Margalit as mentioned in this paper argue that the most recent manifestation of hostility toward the west is part of a much broader phenomenon, one that has a history stretching far beyond the confines of the Middle East, of Islam, or of specific political circumstances or policy choices.
Abstract: OCCIDENTALISM The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit New York: Penguin, 2004. I66pp, $33.00 cloth (ISBN 1-59420-008-4)"Why do they hate us?" This question has resonated widely in the United States and the rest of the west since the events of 11 September 2001, and there is nary a commentator who has not ventured an answer. The explanations have been diverse, but most have revolved around the specific relationship of the United States, or the west more generally, with the Middle East. It is the legacy of western imperialism; or of US policies; or it is the result of problems particular to the region: lack of democracy, of economic opportunity, of the right of political dissent and free speech. The authors of this slim but expansive volume, however, offer a different perspective. For Buruma, a prolific author-journalist with a special interest in things Asian, and Margalit, a philosopher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the most recent manifestation of hostility toward the west is part of a much broader phenomenon, one that has a history stretching far beyond the confines of the Middle East, of Islam, or of specific political circumstances or policy choices. It is nothing less than the latest variation of a multifaceted, geographically and culturally diverse worldview of resistance to western modernity itself, a worldview that the authors call "Occidentalism."For the authors, occidentalism is a broad phenomenon over time and space, and the object of its hatred-the putative occident-is not so much a geographic region as a set of ideals about the nature and purposes of human life. The occident is the intellectual brainchild of the Enlightenment and the political successor to the American and, especially, the French revolutions. It believes that reason and science are guides to what is right and true, and adopts them as the paths to progress; its societies practice liberal-democratic politics and the economics of capitalist development. To its enemies, the occident holds out a model of human existence that values the physical comfort and gratification of the individual above all. It encourages, even glorifies, mediocrity and ordinariness, and suppresses the heroic possibilities and yearnings of the human spirit. It gives rise, as Tocqueville observed of the United States a century and a half ago, to societies marked by "the rarity, in a land where all are actively ambitious, of any lofty ambition" (55). In the extreme, the occidentalist sees the people of the occident-imagined as shallow, materialistic, self-seeking, mediocre, craven-as something less than human, and therefore as undeserving of the usual moral considerations.To make their case and trace the history of the occident and its enemies, the authors venture far and wide in time and space. The book opens with Japanese nationalist intellectuals gathering to discuss how to resist western modernity in the 1940s, but soon moves on to German Romantic thinkers from Herder to Ernst Junger, to Russian Slavophiles and nihilists, and finally to more recent radical Islamists, with numerous detours that take them to Dostoyevsky, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, and Theodor Herzl, and many others besides. …

254 citations


Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: Gertrude Himmelfarb's elegant and wonderfully readable work, The Roads to Modernity, reclaims the Enlightenment from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and in America.
Abstract: Gertrude Himmelfarb's elegant and wonderfully readable work, The Roads to Modernity, reclaims the Enlightenment from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and in America. Himmerlfarb demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, as well as the unique and enduring contributions of the American Founders. It is their Enlightenments, she argues, that created a social ethic - humane, compassionate and realistic - that still resonates strongly today.

148 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the historical origins of this relationship as a struggle over the ideals of the Enlightenment: the decline of the modern and the rise of the postmodern, and the mechanisms behind this Enlightenment regression are examined here using literary analysis.
Abstract: Capitalism, religion and science (including calculative sciences such as accounting) have a long and turbulent relationship that, today, is manifest in the “War on Terror”. As social ideologies, religion and science have played a sometimes decisive influence in the history of capitalism. What can one learn from these past encounters to better understand their relationship today? This paper explores the historical origins of this relationship as a struggle over the ideals of the Enlightenment: – as decline of the modern and the rise of the postmodern. The paper begins by tracing the evolution of Christianities and their different potentials in both resisting and accommodating the extant social order. Islam, in contrast, has,until recently, enjoyed a relatively sheltered existence from capitalism, and today, some factions present a militant stance against the market and the liberal democratic state. Overall, the Enlightenment and modernist projects are judged to be jeopardy – a condition fostered by orthodox economics and accounting ideology, where it is now de rigueur to divide the secular from the non‐secular, the normative from the positive, and the ethical from the pragmatic or realist. Finally, the mechanisms behind this Enlightenment regression are examined here using literary analysis, as a modest prelude to developing a new politics for a progressive accounting; one that seeks to restore the integrity and probity of the Enlightenment Ideal.

111 citations


Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: A Science for the Soul as mentioned in this paper explores the appeal and significance of German occultism in all its varieties between the 1870s and the 1940s, locating its dynamism in the nation's struggle with modernization and the public's dissatisfaction with scientific materialism.
Abstract: Germany's painful entry into the modern age elicited many conflicting emotions. Excitement and anxiety about the "disenchantment of the world" predominated, as Germans realized that the triumph of science and reason had made the nation materially powerful while impoverishing it spiritually. Eager to enchant their world anew, many Germans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries responded by turning to a variety of paranormal beliefs and practices-including Theosophy, astrology, psychical research, graphology, dowsing, and spirit healing. No mere fringe phenomenon, the German occult movement had a truly national presence, encompassing hundreds of clubs, businesses, institutes, and publishers providing and consuming occult goods and services. In A Science for the Soul, historian Corinna Treitel explores the appeal and significance of German occultism in all its varieties between the 1870s and the 1940s, locating its dynamism in the nation's struggle with modernization and the public's dissatisfaction with scientific materialism. Occultism, Treitel notes, served as a bridge between traditional religious beliefs and the values of an increasingly scientific, secular, and liberal society. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, Treitel describes the individuals and groups who participated in the occult movement, reconstructs their organizational history, and examines the economic and social factors responsible for their success. Building on this foundation, Treitel turns to the question of how Germans used the occult in three realms of practice: Theosophy, where occult studies were used to achieve spiritual enlightenment; the arts, where occult states of consciousness fueled the creative process of avant-garde painters, writers, and dancers; and the applied sciences, where professionals in psychology, law enforcement, engineering, and medicine employed occult techniques to solve characteristic problems of modernity. In conclusion, Treitel considers the conflicting meanings occultism held for contemporaries by focusing on the anti-spiritualist campaigns mounted by the national press, the Protestant and Catholic Churches, local and national governments, and the Nazi regime, which after years of alternating between affinity and antipathy for occultism, finally crushed the movement by 1945. Throughout, A Science for the Soul examines German occultism in its broadest cultural setting as a key aspect of German modernism, offering new insights into how Germans met the challenge of pursuing meaningful lives in the modern age.

87 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The author offers practice-oriented suggestions to facilitate cultural sensitivity and to further integrate the spiritual strengths of Hindus into the clinical dialogue.
Abstract: Although social work is witnessing growing interest in spiritual and religious issues, little guidance has appeared in the literature to assist practitioners in addressing the unique spirituality of rapidly increasing non-Western populations. This article discusses the significant cultural/spiritual beliefs, practices, and values of Hindus, the largest Asian religion in the United States. Possible conflicts emanating from the lack of congruence between the values of Hindu consumers, derived from the dharma--the sacred moral order--and the values of social workers, derived from a Western Enlightenment discourse, are highlighted. The author offers practice-oriented suggestions to facilitate cultural sensitivity and to further integrate the spiritual strengths of Hindus into the clinical dialogue.

85 citations


Book
10 Jun 2004
TL;DR: An eminent scholar of modern culture argues that the Enlightenment was a more complex phenomenon than either its detractors or advocates assume as mentioned in this paper, and the importance of the Enlightenment in modern culture has been vigorously debated in recent years.
Abstract: An eminent scholar of modern culture argues that the Enlightenment--the importance of which has been vigorously debated in recent years--was a more complex phenomenon than either its detractors or advocates assume. "Ranging as it does over art, morality, religion, science, philosophy, social theory, and a good deal besides, [Dupre's book] is a marvel of scholarly erudition...Formidably well-researched, ...[this] would make an excellent introduction to Enlightenment ideas for the general reader."--Terry Eagleton, Harper's Magazine "This immensely readable book will cause readers to rethink the Enlightenment and to see its positive aspects. It will also add crucial historical perspective to current discussions of modernity."--Donald Verene, Emory University

75 citations


Book
15 Jul 2004
TL;DR: Kim Gutschow as discussed by the authors studied the nuns of a Buddhist nunnery in South Asia and provided a richly textured picture of the culture of the little-known culture of a Tibetan nunnery, offering moving narratives of nuns struggling with the Buddhist discipline of detachment.
Abstract: They may shave their heads, don simple robes, and renounce materialism and worldly desires. But the women seeking enlightenment in a Buddhist nunnery high in the folds of Himalayan Kashmir invariably find themselves subject to the tyrannies of subsistence, subordination, and sexuality. Ultimately, Buddhist monasticism reflects the very world it is supposed to renounce. Butter and barley prove to be as critical to monastic life as merit and meditation. Kim Gutschow lived for more than three years among these women, collecting their stories, observing their ways, studying their lives. Her book offers the first ethnography of Tibetan Buddhist society from the perspective of its nuns. Gutschow depicts a gender hierarchy where nuns serve and monks direct, where monks bless the fields and kitchens while nuns toil in them. Monasteries may retain historical endowments and significant political and social power, yet global flows of capitalism, tourism, and feminism have begun to erode the balance of power between monks and nuns. Despite the obstacles of being considered impure and inferior, nuns engage in everyday forms of resistance to pursue their ascetic and personal goals. A richly textured picture of the little-known culture of a Buddhist nunnery, the book offers moving narratives of nuns struggling with the Buddhist discipline of detachment. Its analysis of the way in which gender and sexuality construct ritual and social power provides valuable insight into the relationship between women and religion in South Asia today.

72 citations


Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: Part I The Eighteenth-Century Legacy: 1 Auspices 2 Pride and Prejudice, a politics of the picturesque 3 Northanger Abbey and the liberal historians 4 Sense and Sensibility and the philosophers Part II Engaging with the New Age: 5 Diffraction 6 Mansfield Park: charting the religious revival 7 Emma, and the flaws of sovereignty 8 Persuasion: light on an old genre 9 Sanditon and speculation Bibliography
Abstract: Part I The Eighteenth-Century Legacy: 1 Auspices 2 Pride and Prejudice, a politics of the picturesque 3 Northanger Abbey and the liberal historians 4 Sense and Sensibility and the philosophers Part II Engaging with the New Age: 5 Diffraction 6 Mansfield Park: charting the religious revival 7 Emma, and the flaws of sovereignty 8 Persuasion: light on an old genre 9 Sanditon and speculation Bibliography

Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: Interpreting the Enlightenment: Metaphysics, Tradition, and PoliticsIn Praise of ProgressInventing LiberalismThe Great Divide: Enlightenment, Counter-Enlightenment and the Public SphereAbolishing the Ghetto: Anti-Semitism, Racism, and the OtherThe Illusory Dialectic: From Enlightenment to TotalitarianismExperiencing Reality: The Culture Industry, Subjectivity, and IdentityPathways to Freedom: Rights, Reciprocity and the Cosmopolitan SensibilityRenewing the legacy: Renewing the Legacy
Abstract: Interpreting the Enlightenment: Metaphysics, Tradition, and PoliticsIn Praise of ProgressInventing LiberalismThe Great Divide: Enlightenment, Counter-Enlightenment, and the Public SphereAbolishing the Ghetto: Anti-Semitism, Racism, and the OtherThe Illusory Dialectic: From Enlightenment to TotalitarianismExperiencing Reality: The Culture Industry, Subjectivity, and IdentityPathways to Freedom: Rights, Reciprocity, and the Cosmopolitan SensibilityRenewing the Legacy: Renewing the Legacy

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Applying a cultural-linguistic approach to religion would require significant changes in the existing methods for studying religion and health, but such changes may generate a deeper understanding of this relationship.
Abstract: Despite recent advances in the field of religion and health, meaningful findings will increasingly depend on the capacity to conceptualize "religion" properly To date, scientists' conception of religion has been shaped by the Enlightenment paradigm However, recent developments in philosophy make the "objectivity" of the Enlightenment paradigm problematic, if not untenable Contrary to common understanding, the secularism essential to the Enlightenment paradigm does not enjoy any special privilege over religious ways of seeing the world, because both religious and secular worldviews constitute self-referentially complete interpretations of the human condition If there is no objective frame of reference from which to measure religiousness, then the study of religion and health is fundamentally contingent on the specific languages and contexts in which particular religions find expression While applying this cultural-linguistic approach to religion would require significant changes in the existing methods for studying religion and health, such changes may generate a deeper understanding of this relationship

BookDOI
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the origins of the Enlightenment and the formation of the Dutch Republic as a crucible for change: Englightentment in Britain and the early Enlightenment in France.
Abstract: 1. Intellectual origins of Enlightment. Introduction / Peter Jones -- Science and the coming of Enlightenment / John Henry -- The quest for philosophical certainty / Peter Schouls -- The critique of Christianity / James Sybikowski -- Enquiry, scepticism and Enlightenment / Aaron Garrett -- The Huguenot debate on toleration / Luisa Simonutti -- 2. Aspects of Enlightenment formations. The Dutch Republic: 'that mother nation of liberty' / Hugh Dunthorne -- A crucible for change: Englightentment in Britain / Alexander Murdoch -- The itinerary of a young intellectual in early Enlightenment Germany / Martin Mulsow -- The age of Louis XIV and early Enlightenment in France / Martin Fitzpatrick -- 3. The high Enlightenment. Introduction / Martin Fitzpatrick -- Pursuing an enlightenend gospel: happiness from deism to materialism to atheism / Darrin M. McMahon -- Progress and optimism / Clare Jackson -- The science of man / Christa Knellwolf --^


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) as mentioned in this paper is a seminal work in the history of women's emancipation, and it is one that highlights important tensions in Enlightenment thought on gender issues.
Abstract: Mary Wollstonecraft’s status as an Enlightenment philosophe earns her divided notices. For admirers of Enlightenment, Wollstonecraft’s identification with what she described, significantly, as the ‘masculine and improved sentiments of an enlightened philosophy’ wins her kudos.3 By contrast, those who condemn Enlightenment as sectarian — a ‘conspiracy of dead white men in periwigs to provide the intellectual foundation for Western imperialism’, in Eric Hobsbawm’s satiric formulation4 — criticise her complicity in it. The judgements, until recently, have been more polemical than substantively historical, with little detailed attention to Wollstonecraft’s place in the constellation of writers, ideas, and intellectual practices retrospectively labelled Enlightenment.5 Probably for this reason, both sides in the argument tend to exaggerate her Enlightenment allegiances, and to underestimate the complexities of her intellectual position. Far from an uncritical spokeswoman for a monolithic ‘Enlightenment’, Wollstonecraft elaborated her philosophical stance against the grain of mainstream enlightened opinion. This was particularly evident in her major feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) where, far from echoing Enlightenment perspectives, she mounted a systematic assault on ‘modern’ writings on women which, in her view, portrayed women ‘as a kind of subordinate beings, and not as a part of the human species’.6 If the Rights of Woman is a work of Enlightenment philosophy, in other words, it is one that highlights important tensions in Enlightenment thought, particularly in enlightened thinking on gender issues.7

Book
01 Apr 2004
TL;DR: Dunlap as discussed by the authors traces the history of environmentalism from its roots in the Enlightenment and Romanticism through the Progressive Era to the present, and examines the passion of the movement's adherents and enemies alike, its concern with the moral conduct of daily life, and its attempt to answer fundamental questions about the underlying order of the world and of humanity's place within it.
Abstract: The human impulse to religion - the drive to explain the world, humans, and humans' place in the universe - can be seen to encompass environmentalism as an offshoot of the secular, material faith in human reason and power that dominates modern society. "Faith in Nature" traces the history of environmentalism - and its moral thrust - from its roots in the Enlightenment and Romanticism through the Progressive Era to the present. Drawing astonishing parallels between religion and environmentalism, the book examines the passion of the movement's adherents and enemies alike, its concern with the moral conduct of daily life, and its attempt to answer fundamental questions about the underlying order of the world and of humanity's place within it. Thomas Dunlap is among the leading environmental historians and historians of science in the United States. Originally trained as a chemist, he has a rigorous understanding of science and appreciates its vital importance to environmental thought. But he is also a devout Catholic who believes that the insights of religious revelation need not necessarily be at odds with the insights of scientific investigation. This book grew from his own religious journey and his attempts to understand human ethical obligations and spiritual debts to the natural world.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The willingness to patronize many religions and to acknowledge their followers as praying to the same heaven comes as a refreshing change for students of the Middle Ages as mentioned in this paper, who have been famous for religious toleration since the time of Edward Gibbon.
Abstract: conquerors have been famous for religious toleration since the time of Edward Gibbon. The willingness to patronize many religions and to acknowledge their followers as praying to the same heaven comes as a refreshing change for students of the Middle Ages. Gibbon pioneered the use of the Mongol case to criticize medieval obscurantism when he interpolated into his account of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire a digression on the religious policy of Chinggis Khan. In the midst of a story whose master narrative was the triumph of barbarism and religion over Roman civility, he found a barbarian whose religious policy anticipated that of the Enlightenment, the second age of civility:


Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, the classical, medieval and Renaissance legacies are studied in the context of representation in context and historical, historical and Renaissance representations of urban environments are discussed. But the focus is not on the urban environment.
Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Studying Environmental Representations 3. Representations in Context 4. The Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Legacies 5. Enlightenment and Romanticism 6. Empire, Exploitation and Control 7. Representing Urban Environments 8. Historic Cities, Future Cities 9. Conclusion

Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: Arbitrary Power: Romanticism, Language, Politics as discussed by the authors surveys the politics of British Romantic poetry with a sense of purpose that follows directly from the terms of his title, and the political dimensions of Romantic poetry are rigorously studied here within the medium of language, considered first through Romantic and earlier Enlightenment linguistic theories, and then through the traces that such theories may be said to have left on the style of the major Romantic writers.
Abstract: William Keach. Arbitrary Power: Romanticism, Language, Politics. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. 191. $42.00. In his ambitious and brilliantly argued new book, Arbitrary Power: Romanticism, Language, Politics, William Keach surveys familiar terrain--the politics of canonical British Romantic poetry--with a sense of purpose that follows directly from the terms of his title. The political dimensions of Romantic poetry are rigorously studied here within the medium of language, considered first through Romantic and earlier Enlightenment linguistic theories, and then through the traces that such theories (and the concerns they raised) may be said to have left on the style of the major Romantic writers. In an earlier book, Shelley's Style (1984), Keach established himself as one of our most sensitive and insightful readers of Romantic writing. In welcoming the wider scope of this new study--in addition to Shelley, there are sustained considerations of Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Byron, and Keats--readers will find that Keach is as discriminating a student of class idioms and gender codes as he is of couplet structure and ottava rima form. He is also refreshingly direct about matters of literary-political value, and his willingness to admire Byron's materialism and Shelley's hesitation about direct action while taking a dim view of Blake's representations of political violence may well prove controversial. But the array of sensitive readings marshaled in support of closely argued judgments make this book impossible to ignore. At one point Keach takes Francis Jeffrey to task for a "vaguely generalizing" (53) response to Keats' Endymion: by contrast, he himself seems incapable of any critical response that is not as precisely formulated as it is vividly communicated. The opening chapter, "Arbitrary Power," introduces the central term that links power and language throughout the book, along with a telling paradox about its application and historical development. For it turns out that the "discourse of the arbitrary" (1) that traverses politics and linguistics over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries discloses "something arbitrary about the word arbitrary itself, something inherently and inescapably contradictory" (2). This instability hinges on the question of whether "arbitrary" identifies despotically determined will or rather indeterminate and unpredictable chance. The issue is important for Keach not simply because it cuts across two distinct flames of reference (politics and language) that are central to any understanding of Romantic literary institutions and practices, but also because it indicates something distinctive about the historical operation of those institutions and practices: What I want to insist on here is that in both political and linguistic frames of reference it is not only the doubleness of the arbitrary--its signifying at once absolute determination and utter indeterminacy--that characterizes the problematic I am attempting to define. It is also the interaction between the terms of the doubleness--the historical and social processes through which what is initially random and contingent becomes absolute, or conversely through which absolute will and authority give way to the random and contingent. (4) Beginning (as he ends) with Shelley, whose Defence of Poetry proposes that "language is arbitrarily produced by the Imagination," and deftly orchestrating a range of other poets and theorists, Keach first establishes the terms for the arbitrary Romantic sign by reading back to Locke and to Enlightenment conceptions of language and power, rather than following his own first impulse "to read forward and see Shelley anticipating a central tenet of Saussurian and post-Saussurian linguistic theory" (2). Yet the introductory chapter does move on to Saussure, Derrida, de Man, Chomsky, Bourdieu and others, showing how Enlightenment and Romantic treatments of the arbitrary sign in relation to arbitrary power "have persisted and confounded efforts to relate language as a formal system to its social origins, functions, and meanings" (6). …

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Ball's Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another as mentioned in this paper is a big book by an author "who thinks big." Ball's first chapter centers on the brutish world of Thomas Hobbes, fathering the Enlightenment enthusiasm for a mechanistic philosophy that looks naive to us now.
Abstract: Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another Philip Ball. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004. This is a big book by an author "who thinks big. Holding a PhD in physics, now a writer and consulting editor in England, he asks essential questions. Why is society the way it is? Are there laws of nature that guide human affairs? Do we have complete freedom in creating our societies? Just how, in human affairs, does one thing lead to another? Where are we headed? Can applying concepts from physics to our culture (he calls this "the physics of society")-to the social, political, and economic areas-improve societies, lead to better decisions, and make for a safer and fairer world? His answers are thoughtful and original, and deserve our thought and attention. He waxes poetic and scientific, bringing the insights of poets and Taoist scholars to bear on the subject. His first chapter centers on the brutish world of Thomas Hobbes, fathering the Enlightenment enthusiasm for a mechanistic philosophy that looks naive to us now. Still, in the work of authors like Galileo and Newton, there are deep and elegant truths about the way the universe works. Their ideas, expanded in later centuries, underpin the physics of society. Understanding what atoms do when they get together is one of science's greatest triumphs. But no one could have expected this to lead where it has. Today, we have confronted "phase transitions," which explain processes of sudden change in social contexts. Postmodernist Charles Jencks calls these "sudden jumps in organization," and Thomas Kuhn, "paradigm shifts" in scientific thought. Our task now is to know something of why and how phase transitions occur. How did we ever get to -what the author calls "The Grand Ah-Whoom," the atomic bomb that altered world thinking and acting? And the idea of the "Global Village" and synthetic society, which lands some countries in Cyberspace, others in riot, exploitation, and war? In the past, cultural beliefs and values were bound up with dreams of empire. Today they favor a commercial imperative and cultural imperialism. We are determined to teach the world to enjoy the benefits of Coca-Cola, computers, e-mail, and hamburgers. My travels have taken me to many parts of the Global Village, meeting people from countries in Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. I was usually well received and accommodated, but I did not always feel at ease in the highly touted Electronic Utopia. I heard from various leaders and sociologists a word seldom used in prosperous America: pillage. I checked my dictionary for an exact meaning: "The act of looting or plundering; to take booty." Are we pillaging many Third World countries, taking their products and labor at near-starvation prices to resell for huge profits? There are still a billion people in the world working for less than $2 a day. Many of their products end up in the United States-plunder? People everywhere are being bombarded, entertained, and enticed by the new mass media. …

Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: Stark as discussed by the authors argues that social scientists and other observers of human society too often misunderstand and misrepresent the nature and role of religion in history and in daily life, from the supposed decline of religious attitudes in Western Europe to the very definition of religion, personal biases and an inadequate grasp of relevant data have led to the formulation and propagation of unsupportable views on the sacred.
Abstract: Though religion is for most people one of the most important aspects of their lives, social scientists and other observers of human society too often misunderstand and misrepresent the nature and role of religion in history and in daily life. From the supposed decline of religious attitudes in Western Europe and the venal motivations attributed to the Christian Crusaders to the very definition of religion, personal biases and an inadequate grasp of relevant data have led to the formulation and propagation of unsupportable views on the sacred. In Exploring the Religious Life, Rodney Stark boldly overturns much received wisdom within the social sciences about religion, drawing on a wide range of sources to reassess a diverse selection of topics in the study of religion. In his first essay, Stark addresses the carelessness with which scholars use the term religion and the conviction that the belief in divinity evolved from the practice of magic in primitive cultures. In subsequent chapters, he challenges the widespread attitude among social scientists that religion is nothing more than a mask for material realities and examines the effectiveness of religious doctrines in attracting converts and influencing individuals; uncovers the surprising prevalence of upper-class asceticism in medieval Christianity; and explores the relationship between gender, piety, and criminal activity. Divine revelation is a central aspect of many religions, and Stark next applies empirical research to the phenomenon to assess its meaning in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism. He then turns to the confusion between faith and practice in debates over the secularization of the developed world before investigating the validity of the classic proposition within the social sciences that religion functions to sustain the moral order. He does so, examining the correlation between criminal behavior and depth of religious belief. Stark concludes with an essay on the ingenious methods he uses to unearth data about the popularity of new religions in California and northern Europe, the decline of Christian Science in America, the spread of Christianity in the Roman world, and the execution patterns during the antiwitchcraft frenzy of Enlightenment Europe. Together, the essays that constitute Exploring the Religious Life offer an engaging introduction to Rodney Stark's provocative insights and a fearless challenge to academic perceptions about religion's place in history, society, and private life.

Book
29 Mar 2004
TL;DR: The authors explores the dialectical reversal from the occult to the scientific realm that entered physiognomic thought in the late eighteenth century, beginning with the positivistic writings of Swiss pastor Johann Caspar Lavater, and explains how physiognomics had by then become a highly respected "super-discipline" that embraced many prominent strands of German thought: the Romantic philosophy of nature, the "life philosophy" propagated by Dilthey and Nietzsche, the cultural pessimism of Schopenhauer, Husserl's method of intuitive observation, Freudian psychoanalysis, and early-
Abstract: Once associated with astrology and occultist prophecy, the art of interpreting personal character based on facial and other physical features dates back to antiquity. About Face tells the intriguing story of how physiognomics became particularly popular during the Enlightenment, no longer as a mere parlor game but as an empirically grounded discipline. The story expands to illuminate an entire tradition within German culture, stretching from Goethe to the rise of Nazism. In About Face, Richard T. Gray explores the dialectical reversal - from the occult to the scientific realm - that entered physiognomic thought in the late eighteenth century, beginning with the positivistic writings of Swiss pastor Johann Caspar Lavater. Originally claimed to promote understanding and love, physiognomics devolved into a system aimed at valorizing a specific set of physical, moral, and emotional traits and stamping everything else as "deviant." This development not only reinforced racial, national, and characterological prejudices but also lent such beliefs a presumably scientific grounding. In the period following World War I, physiognomics experienced yet another unprecedented boom in popularity. Gray explains how physiognomics had by then become a highly respected "super-discipline" that embraced many prominent strands of German thought: the Romantic philosophy of nature, the "life philosophy" propagated by Dilthey and Nietzsche, the cultural pessimism of Schopenhauer, Husserl's method of intuitive observation, Freudian psychoanalysis, and early-twentieth-century eugenics and racial biology. A rich exploration of German culture, About Face offers fresh insight into the intellectual climate that allowed the dangerous thinking of National Socialism to take hold.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The case of mesmerism shows that awareness both of the domineering power of a gradually emerging medical ‘imagined’ mainstream and an analysis of the complex challenges faced by heterodoxy facilitate a more critical understanding of the development of colonial medicine and psychiatry in the East as well as, arguably, of medicine and Psychiatry in Britain itself.
Abstract: This article is concerned with the development of early nineteenth-century Western medicine and psychiatry in relation to religion and magic during British colonial rule in India. The case of mesmerism is taken to illustrate that 'colonial medicine/psychiatry in India' itself was plural in nature, being made up of a variety of different, at times competing, strands. Religious connotations and references to spiritual enlightenment increasingly posed a peculiar problem to emerging Western science-based medicine in the nineteenth century. Mesmerism was met with as much hostility by an emerging Western medical orthodoxy as indigenous medical systems. The affiliation of mesmerism with Indian magical practices and religious customs contributed to its marginalization - despite or, rather, because of its popularity among members of the Indian nobility and middle classes, Indian patients and practitioners. The case of mesmerism also shows that awareness both of the domineering power of a gradually emerging medical 'imagined' mainstream and an analysis of the complex challenges faces by heterodoxy (as much as by orthodoxy) facilitate a more critical understanding of the development of colonial medicine and psychiatry in the East as well as, arguably, of medicine and psychiatry in Britain itself.

Book
15 Apr 2004
TL;DR: Hume's Enlightenment Tract Bibliography as discussed by the authors provides a good overview of the main ideas in the Tract.1. Clearing the Ground 2. Circumstances and Aim 3. Experimentalism and Scepticism 4. Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding 5. SCEPTical Solution of these DoubTS 6. Of Probability 7. Of the Reason of Animals 8. Of Liberty and Necessary Connexion 9. Of Miracles 10. Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State 12.
Abstract: 1. APPROACHING THE TEXT 1. Clearing the Ground 2. Circumstances and Aim 3. Experimentalism and Scepticism 2. THE ARGUMENT 1. Of the Different Species of Philosophy 2. Of the Origin of Ideas 3. Of the Association of Ideas 4. Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding 5. Sceptical Solution of these Doubts 6. Of Probability 7. Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion 8. Of Liberty and Necessity 9. Of the Reason of Animals 10. Of Miracles 11. Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State 12. Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy 3. CONCLUSION Hume's Enlightenment Tract Bibliography, Index

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A comprehensive overview of the Enlightenment origins and meanings of the term civilisation(s) is given in this article, where a central concern is the oft-neglected normative component of the ideal of civilisation and the implications it carries.
Abstract: There has been a revival in the use of the terms ‘civilisation’ and ‘civilisations’ to describe and explain events in the social sciences and humanities, nowhere more so than in politics and international affairs. This revival has seen the terms interpreted and applied in a variety of manners and different contexts. In too many cases this endeavour has been less than effective because of an oversimplification of what the terms mean and what they have historically represented. In part in response to this revival but also in part as an explanatory tool itself, this article gives a comprehensive overview of the Enlightenment origins and meanings of the term civilisation(s). A central concern is the oft‐neglected normative component of the ideal of civilisation and the implications it carries.

Book
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: The BULGARIAN REVIVAL EPILOGUE as mentioned in this paper explores the history of the BulgARIAN revolution and its evolution from a dictatorship to a modern economy and society.
Abstract: PREFACE INTRODUCTION: FROM METAPHOR TOWARD HISTORICAL EPOCH CHAPTER ONE: MEANINGS OF THE REVIVAL (I) NATIONAL AND CULTURAL * THE NATIONAL INTERPRETATION * CONCEPTS OF THE (BULGARIAN) NATION * NATIONALISM AND ROMANTICISM * THE NATIONAL AND THE SPIRITUAL (CULTURAL) MEANINGS * THE ANALOGY WITH THE RENAISSANCE * THE BULGARIAN REVIVAL AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT * ANALOGIES WITH THE REFORMATION * THE BULGARIAN REVIVAL AND EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT * MODERNITY AND MODERNIZATION CHAPTER TWO: MEANINGS OF THE REVIVAL (II) ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL * THE TRANSITION FROM FEUDALISM TO CAPITALISM * CAPITALISM DURING THE REVIVAL * OTTOMAN FEUDALISM * THE SOCIAL (BOURGEOIS) REVOLUTION AND THE AGRARIAN THESIS * THE ECONOMIC AND THE NATIONAL-SPIRITUAL INTERPRETATION EXCURSUS ON PERIODIZATION CHAPTER THREE: CLASSES AND CLASS STRUGGLES * THE URBAN "ESTATE" AND SOCIAL STRUGGLES IN OLDER HISTORIOGRAPHY * BOURGEOISIE AND NOTABLES IN EARLIER MARXIST CONTROVERSIES * TOWARD REHABILITATION * THE PEASANTS * THE INTELLIGENTSIA * THE CLASS STRUGGLES BETWEEN THE SOCIAL AND NATIONAL * VULGAR MARXIST SOCIOLOGISM AND ITS ABANDONING CHAPTER FOUR: PATHS OF THE REVIVAL AND NATIONAL HEROES * PAISII AS A PROBLEM * EVOLUTIONISTS AND REVOLUTIONARIES * THE HIERARCHY OF NATIONAL HEROES: RAKOVSKI, KARAVELOV, LEVSKI, BOTEV REAPPRAISALS AND RESHUFFLING CHAPTER FIVE: THE APRIL UPRISING, THE RUSSO-TURKISH LIBERATION WAR, AND THE REVOLUTION * THE APRIL UPRISING AND THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR * THE REVOLUTION * REVISIONS AND REAPPRAISAL CHAPTER SIX: THE CONTINUING REVIVAL: SYMBOLIC STRUGGLES AND IMAGES * RIGHTIST VISIONS OF THE BULGARIAN REVIVAL * THE DEMOCRATIC IMAGE * THE BATTLE OF THE COMMUNISTS FOR THE LEGACY OF THE REVIVAL EPILOGUE: THE BULGARIAN REVIVAL AS A NATIONAL MYTH

Book
30 Sep 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, the first major study of Irish antiquarian and historical writing during the turbulent second half of the eighteenth century, demonstrates the truth of the maxim that all history writing is political, and shows the complex ways in which Irish cultural politics in this period was open to, and interacted with, British imperial and wider European Enlightenment trends.
Abstract: It is often said that all history writing is political. This book, the first major study of Irish antiquarian and historical writing during the turbulent second half of the eighteenth century, demonstrates the truth of this maxim. It charts the ways in which contemporary politics, notably the Catholic question, legislative independence and the gathering agrarian and political crises from the late 1780s, shaped articulations of the remote and recent past. Historical and antiquarian disputes mirrored political debate, so that Catholic and liberal Protestant interpretations of the past were pitted against conservative Protestant reiterations of earlier colonialist analyses. This study sets Irish writing in a broad European focus, examining the influence of key cultural developments, such as orientalism, primitivism and the vogue for Ossian. The intention is to show the complex ways in which Irish cultural politics in this period was open to, and interacted with, British imperial and wider European Enlightenment trends. Throughout the book, Scotland forms a particular point of comparison, since antiquaries there drew on the same Gaelic heritage in much of their work.Leaman criticizes the influence of Sufism on Islamic aesthetics and contends that it is generally misleading regarding both the nature of Islam and artistic expression. He discusses issues arising in painting, calligraphy, architecture, gardens, literature, films, and music and pays close attention to the teachings of the Qur'an. In particular he asks what it would mean for the Qur'an to be a miraculous literary creation, and he analyzes two passages in the Qur'an-those of Yusuf and Zulaykha (Joseph and Zuleika) and King Sullayman (Solomon) and the Queen of Sheba. His arguments draw on examples from history, art, philosophy, theology, and the artefacts of the Islamic world, and raise a large number of difficulties in the accepted paradigms for analyzing Islamic art.