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Showing papers on "Realism published in 1980"


Book
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: Billington as discussed by the authors traces the origins of a faith, the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority, which energized Europe in the nineteenth century and became the most pronounced ideological export of the West to the rest of the world in the twentieth century.
Abstract: This book traces the origins of a faith--perhaps the faith of the century. Modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is new is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority. This inherently implausible idea energized Europe in the nineteenth century, and became the most pronounced ideological export of the West to the rest of the world in the twentieth century. Billington is interested in revolutionaries--the innovative creators of a new tradition. His historical frame extends from the waning of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century to the beginnings of the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century. The theater was Europe of the industrial era; the main stage was the journalistic offices within great cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, and St. Petersburg. Billington claims with considerable evidence that revolutionary ideologies were shaped as much by the occultism and proto-romanticism of Germany as the critical rationalism of the French Enlightenment. The conversion of social theory to political practice was essentially the work of three Russian revolutions: in 1905, March 1917, and November 1917. Events in the outer rim of the European world brought discussions about revolution out of the school rooms and press rooms of Paris and Berlin into the halls of power. Despite his hard realism about the adverse practical consequences of revolutionary dogma, Billington appreciates the identity of its best sponsors, people who preached social justice transcending traditional national, ethnic, and gender boundaries. When this book originally appeared The New Republic hailed it as "remarkable, learned and lively," while The New Yorker noted that Billington "pays great attention to the lives and emotions of individuals and this makes his book absorbing." It is an invaluable work of history and contribution to our understanding of political life.

101 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that realism is immune to Putnam's criticism and that attempts at reformulating this criticism are not likely to meet with success, and that realism may be formulated in such a way that the realist need make no appeal to any "intended" interpretation of such a theory.
Abstract: In "Realism and Reason" Hilary Putnam has offered an apparently strong argument that the position of metaphysical realism provides an incoherent model of the relation of a correct scientific theory to the world. However, although Putnam's attack upon the notion of the "intended" interpretation of a scientific theory is sound, it is shown here that realism may be formulated in such a way that the realist need make no appeal to any "intended" interpretation of such a theory. Consequently, it can be shown that realism is immune to Putnam's criticism and that attempts at reformulating this criticism are not likely to meet with success.

59 citations


Book
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: The authors present essays on realism, expressionism, and modernism in literature written by Lukacs's side of the controversy among Marxist writers and critics now known as the Lukacs-Brecht debate.
Abstract: Originally published in the 1930s, these essays on realism, expressionism, and modernism in literature present Lukacs's side of the controversy among Marxist writers and critics now known as the Lukacs-Brecht debate. The book also includes an exchange of letters between LukA!cs, writing in exile in the Soviet Union, and the German Communist novelist, Anna Seghers, in which they discuss realism, the European literary heritage, and the situation of the artist in capitalist culture.

47 citations



Book
01 Jan 1980

36 citations


Book
01 Jun 1980

36 citations




Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the empiricism/realism debate and recast the main points at issue in the debate as empiricist views on theory construction and experiment, and conclude with a simple recasting of the main issues at issue.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the empiricism/realism debate. The initial portion of the paper is a short sketch of the nature of the enterprise of philosophy of science. What are taken as empiricist views on theory construction and experiment are described. The paper concludes with a simple recasting of the main points at issue in the empiricism/realism debate.

24 citations


DOI
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: The Influence of Age on Preferences for Subject Matter, Realism, and Spatial Depth in Painting Reproductions as discussed by the authors has been shown to influence the preference for subject matter, realism, and spatial depth in paintings.
Abstract: (1980). The Influence of Age on Preferences for Subject Matter, Realism, and Spatial Depth in Painting Reproductions. Studies in Art Education: Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 40-53.

24 citations


Book
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: For Japanese who have witnessed the violent attraction to and rejection of foreign cultures of many of their predecessors in the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras, and their final, often sentimental and abstract, glorification of the Japanese cultural heritage, nihon kaiki (return to Japan) still presents enormously complex intellectual as well as emotional problems.
Abstract: This title was first published in 1980. In twentieth century Japanese literature, the opposition and interaction of realism and romanticism on the level of literary concepts, and of Marxism and aestheticism (including, in part, modernism) on the level of literary ideology, supplies a most vital basis for writers searching for new methods of literary expression, fostering debates among the writers and creating the setting for active experimentation with style, form and language. This study is a result of an extended stay in the United States by the author who turned increasingly toward questioning and evaluating my own relation to Japan's literary heritage. For Japanese who have witnessed (at least intellectually) the violent attraction to and rejection of foreign cultures of many of their predecessors in the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras, and their final, often sentimental and abstract, glorification of the Japanese cultural heritage, nihon kaiki (return to Japan) still presents enormously complex intellectual as well as emotional problems.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on Dr Kraupl Taylor's paper, because he has misunderstood my position in the nominalist-essentialist argument; and he seems to think that my statement about the meaning of the names of diseases in medical discourse and the application of ‘modern systems of class logic’ in medicine are in some way incompatible or discordant, whereas I think they are complementary to each other.
Abstract: I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on Dr Kraupl Taylor's paper. I agree with much of what he says and think that he agrees with some of what I have said. We both disapprove of Platonic realism, for which the term ‘essentialism’ used by Popper (1945) seems to me preferable, since it avoids the danger of confusion with the very different meaning of ‘realism’ in the later idealism–realism opposition. But he has misunderstood my position in the nominalist-essentialist argument; and he seems to think that my statement about the meaning of the names of diseases in medical discourse and the application of ‘modern systems of class logic’ in medicine are in some way incompatible or discordant, whereas I think they are complementary to each other.



Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: The thesis of underdetermination of theory by evidence has led to an opposition between realism and relationism in philosophy of science as discussed by the authors, and it is concluded that it is true in at least a weak form that brings realism into doubt.
Abstract: The thesis of underdetermination of theory by evidence has led to an opposition between realism and relationism in philosophy of science. Various forms of the thesis are examined, and it is concluded that it is true in at least a weak form that brings realism into doubt. Realists therefore need, among other things, a theory of degrees of confirmation to support rational theory choice. Recent such theories due to Glymour and Friedman are examined, and it is argued that their criterion of "unification" for good theories is better formulated in Bayesian terms. Bayesian confirmation does, however, have consequences that tell against realism. It is concluded that the prospects are dim for scientific realism as usually understood.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Eliot as discussed by the authors wrote The Changeling, a play of "profound and permanent moral value and horror" that "revealed fundamental passions of any time and any place".
Abstract: contradiction. Middleton was, for Eliot, an \"impersonal\" artist with \"no point of view,\" \"no message\"; he was \"merely a great recorder,\" his work grounded by \"a strain of realism underneath.\"1 With those characteristics, however, and perhaps even because of them, he wrote in The Changeling a play of \"profound and permanent moral value and horror\"; here \"Middleton is surpassed by one Elizabethan alone, and that is Shakespeare.\" Eliot apparently saw no dichotomy: in The Changeling Middleton objectively exposed \"fundamental passions of any time and any place\"; he was not distracted from reality by the Elizabethan deduction that God's revenge triumphs over the crying and execrable sin of murder. The playwright's masterpiece exhibited to Eliot the perennial tragedy, beyond historical pieties, of \"the immoral nature, suddenly trapped in the inexorable toils of morality of morality not made by man but by Nature and forced to


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Book of Psalms is a school of prayer in which we are taught language that grasps the reality of God and given models that encourage us to present ourselves to God with honest realism as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The Book of Psalms is a school of prayer in which we are taught language that grasps the reality of God and given models that encourage us to present ourselves to God with honest realism.


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 1980-Synthese
TL;DR: A number of writers have made extensive studies in both history and philosophy of science, particularly Kuhn, Feyerabend, Toulmin, and in France a writer such as Michel Foucault as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: History of science is an interesting and growing subject in its own right. Philosophers of science have, in the last twenty years or so, become much more aware of the historical studies that have been made in the subject of which their philosophy is meant to be the 'philosophy of'. A number of writers have made extensive studies in both history and philosophy of science, particularly Kuhn, Feyerabend, Toulmin, and in France a writer such as Michel Foucault. What, if anything, has philosophy to do with all of this history? When philosophers survey the recent historiography of science do they find that there is no particularly philosophical question arising out of the history itself? Or do they find that some peculiarly philosophical question does arise, and that philosophy is needed along with the history? Certainly if historians of science make remarks of the kind quoted, above from Kuhn then at least some philosophical therapy is needed. But some philosophers, and many historians themselves, suggest that more is needed from philosophy than just therapy. They suggest that some version of the idealist/realist cont roversy quickly surfaces out of all this history, especially that part of it which deals with scientific revolutions. How this happens can be shown by the following considerations. Some of our philosophical and scientific ancestors believed that many things exist that we, f rom our current theoretical standpoint, do not believe exist at all. There were gods, the Holy Trinity, witches and reincarnated souls. There were, in various early sciences, phlo-



Book
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: Realism and social vision in Courbet and Proudhon are discussed in this article, where the authors present a survey of Courbet's work and their relationships with social vision and philosophy.
Abstract: The Description for this book, Realism and Social Vision in Courbet and Proudhon, will be forthcoming.


Dissertation
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that the social criticism of the social world, as criticised by Don Juan and Leporello, is Grabbe's own, and his personal admiration for the non-conformity of his heroes, particularly for Don Juan, is scarcely to be overlooked.
Abstract: goals, Don Juan is undoubtedly a pragmatist. It is, however, evident that in his gross overestimation of his own worth and his epicurean negation of moral values he places a great strain on his environment, disrupting society with his asocial behaviour. The extent of his passion for excite­ ment and danger leads him to an excessively individualistic view of the world and culminates in murder; thus Juan, too, is guilty of neglecting the demands of reality and experiences the tragedy of exaggerated self-assertion. Just as Faust's "Unendlichkeitshunger" is not conducive to a tolerable existence in the real world, so too is Don Juan's hedonism incompatible with the constraints on individualism necessary to the survival of society. And Don Juan, like Faust, refuses to the bitter end to sacrifice his ideal, preferring to perish in hell rather than renounce his identity; Was Ich bin, das bleib ich! Bin ich Don Juan, So bin ich nichts, ward ich ein anderer! Wait eher Don Juan im Abgrundsschwefel Als Heiliger im Paradieseslichte! (WB 1, 513) The foundations of his existence his positive attitude to life are destroyed, his ideal values denied. The world which bears the brunt of the heroes' titanic activity is that of bourgeois (one might well infer Biedermeier) morality. Don Gusman, Don Octavio and Donna Anna embody those principles which the heroes despise and against which they rebel. The catchwords of this circle are above all "Ehre" and "Tugend", virtues which raise man above sinful temptation to 58 Die Erde ist so allerliebst, daS mir Vor lauter Lust und Wonne Zeit fehlt, urn An den zu denken, der sie schuf. (WB 1, 472) 73 great heights where he is uncontaminated by evil ("Ehre wandelt den eignen Pfad" WB 1, 423). It is an ethos in which Donna Anna is thoroughly in­ doctrinated (WB 1, 496), choosing to die as a sacrifice of virtue (WB 1, 498). The conventions of the social world, as criticised by Don Juan, are stale, rigid, decorative and superficial. Don Juan describes Don Octavio as a typical representative of his class: lebt maBig, gibt nicht AnstoB, tanzt gut, reitet Ertraglich, spricht franzosisch, kann mit Anstand Im Kreise der Gesellschaft sich bewegen, Und schreibt vielleicht sogar auch orthographisch. (WB 1, 418-19) It is a society which thrives on "Konnexion" and even corruption (the Rubio Negro satire). But, as Anna and her father demonstrate, it is also a circle with strong, if restrictive, ideals. Octavio dies in order to preserve his honour, Gusman in the attempt to avenge him. Anna remains true to her conception of honour, loyalty and virtue to the last, and dies with her strength of conviction intact. These are iideals, practicable within the limitations of reality, which initially appear to have real force. The virtuous Don Gusman has the pleasure of being reunited with his family in heaven (1, 512-13) and returns to earth as an animated statue to confront Don Juan. While the dual heroes perish and are condemned to hell on account of their distorted and exaggerated values, Gusman's circle secures eternity in the after-life through its adherence to solid Christian ideals. Idealism on a modest scale, it seems, is possible: yet it is by no means, Grabbe implies, desirable. There can be no doubt that the social criticism of Don Juan and Leporello is Grabbe's own, and his personal admiration for the non­ conventionality of his heroes, particularly for Don Juan, is scarcely to be overlooked. Ideals, Grabbe suggests with the cynicism which is so charac­ teristic of these early dramas, are tenable only if they do not imply excessive individuality: the only ideals which can prevail are, by impli­ cation, almost worthless. Contentment appears attainable only within the narrow confines of a rigidly structured moral system which is based on an ethic which demands the suppression of creative individualism. It is a system to which Grabbe is most emphatically opposed. On a significant scale 74 idealism cannot survive: the pressure of the real world reduces everything to a basic level. In this drama, too, inflated idealism proves unable to maintain itself in face of the demands of practical experience. Gothland, Don Juan und Faust and Scherz represent a first, experimental 59 phase in Grabbe's development as a dramatist. In this series of plays we find the poet in rebellious mood, anxious to attract attention to himself through the sensational quality of his work and at the same time concerned to refute the heritage of classical idealism, still a force in the 1820s, whose continuation had been secured, if only on an inferior level, by a number of epigones. In these works Grabbe takes strong exception to a world view which has its basis not in experience or empirical reality, but rather in the formative and (the poet implies) distortive power of man's intellect. The notion of transcendence through morality, spiritual freedom or exertion of the supreme will, and the conception of universal harmony which posits man's ability to attain balance and perfection, to improve himself through moral education, are exposed as illusions. The world of experience in­ habited by Gothland and Faust contradicts idealised notions of man's relationship to the divine and brings them down to an immediate level, leaving them with only the conclusions drawn from their tragic situation. Here Grabbe "secularises" drama, removing it from its cosmic setting and adherence to the idea, and aligns it with perceptible reality, a reality which is seldom kind and often cruel. He reduces the world to its visible foundations, refusing to allow abstraction to overshadow pragmatic ex­ perience and postulating a negative reality which contradicts all values. There is, as Gothland and Faust learn, and as the satanic figures of these dramas (Berdoa, the black night, the devil) preach, no absolute truth 59 The fragment Marius und Sulla, although it belongs chronologically to this group of dramas (1823; prose notes added and modifications made in 1827), has more in common with the history plays and will be discussed in that context. 75 beyond the limits of experience. Reality itself is truth, and any attempt to disguise it with higher values is, Grabbe demonstrates, misguided. The early dramas are very much concerned with the process of "Entlarvung". Human pretensions to nobility, knowledge, civilisation and culture are deflated, and bestiality emerges as the basic human instinct. Berdoa's "Religion der Holle", which posits a materialistic and atheistic world of confused values, seems an appropriate credo in face of the levelling power of negative reality. Suffering proves more forceful than speculation, which encourages illusions. Here, then, the foundations of Grabbe's historical world are laid: idealism has made way for a "philosophical realism" which no longer seeks to evade sensitive issues but acknowledges the pressures of reality. The world of immanence is to provide the realm in which history unfolds. In terms of Grabbe's realism the early plays are of great significance in as far as they prepare the stage for the later dramas by combatting speculative conceptions of reality: the poet has, as it were, emptied the world before embarking upon the attempt to fill it with historical matter. In his anti-illusory approach to such matters Grabbe anticipates (with his contemporary Büchner) conceptions of the world which, on account of their fundamental materialism, cynicism and refusal to succumb to the comforting charm of metaphysical speculation, were later to form the basis for the development of a consistently realistic literary art. If one accepts that an anti-idealistic "Weltbild" is of central importance to realism and this is, as has been seen, a thesis which is generally held the three early non-historical dramas represent Grabbe's first, tentative step in a new direction.

Book
30 Nov 1980
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a MicroOntology of Realist Consciousness, which is based on evolutionary epistemic legitimacy and the problematic problem of empiricism, and a theory of Attribution and Appraisal.
Abstract: O: Introduction.- I: Epistemic Legitimacy: The Problematic of Empiricism.- II: Things: The Micro-Ontology of Realist Consciousness.- III: Time and the Self: The Limits of Idealist Consciousness.- IV: Correctness and Community: From the Individual to the Social.- V: Realism and Idealism: Evolutionary Epistemology.- VI: Attribution and Appraisal: Elements of a Theory of Conduct.- VII: Communal Norms: Steps Toward a Collective Pragmatics.- VIII: Explanatory Realism: The Convergence of Conceptual Schemes.- IX: Retrospect: The End of a Myth and the Future of a Discipline.- Appendix I. Notes.- Appendix II. Bibliography.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper pointed out that naturalism was not so much a clean break, however, as a realization of tendencies already implicit in nineteenth-century literature, and modified Zola's definition of naturalism as "un coin de la na-
Abstract: teenth century and the twentieth, one of the most fascinating in literary history, continues to be the subject of debate on a variety of fronts. As writers moved away from realism and naturalism, emphasis on the subjective mediation of reality in literary presentation increased. This development was not so much a clean break, however, as a realization of tendencies already implicit in nineteenth-century literature.1 While naturalism, especially, was primarily concerned with developing the greatest possible objectivity of presentation, its reflections on the practicability of this aim inevitably forced it to take into account (however marginally) the role played by the author-perforce a limited subjective mind. Thus Zola modified his definition of naturalism as "un coin de la na-


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Nouveau Roman brought about a radical shift in literary consciousness which was concretized in what has been called the practice of writing as mentioned in this paper, a profound experience of language and of form and the demonstration of that experience in the writing of the novel which, transgressed, is no longer repetition and selfeffacement but work and self-presentation as text.
Abstract: 1.1 The Nouveau Roman brought about a radical shift in literary consciousness which was concretized in what has been called the practice of writing. "Its foundation is a profound experience of language and of form and the demonstration of that experience in the writing of the novel which, transgressed, is no longer repetition and self-effacement but work and self-presentation as text. Its 'realism' is not the mirroring of some 'reality' but an attention to the forms of the intelligibility in which the real is produced, a dramatization of possibilities of language, forms of articulation, limitation of its own horizon" (Heath, 1972: 22). This practice of writing, which French theoreticians call the scriptive process or the scriptive activity, at work in different ways in the Nouveau Roman in France, in meta-fiction, in surfiction in the United States, and in experimental novels in South America, is by now approached with a particular mental set. Its readers and practitioners do not expect and do not write narratives with beginning, middle, and end, unfolding linearily, and animated by a sense of direction. It is well accepted that Sch6h6razade deliberately ran out of plots, that representation can be generated while narrative is avoided, and that non-linearity, discontinuity, and fragmentation can organize texts.'