Showing papers on "Realism published in 1983"

Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science

Abstract: Analytical table of contents Preface Introduction: rationality Part I. Representing: 1. What is scientific realism? 2. Building and causing 3. Positivism 4. Pragmatism 5. Incommensurability 6. Reference 7. Internal realism 8. A surrogate for truth Part II. Intervening: 9. Experiment 10. Observation 11. Microscopes 12. Speculation, calculation, models, approximations 13. The creation of phenomena 14. Measurement 15. Baconian topics 16. Experimentation and scientific realism Further reading Index.

Realism and reason

Abstract: Introduction 1 Models and reality 2 Equivalence 3 Possibility and necessity 4 Reference and truth 5 "two dogmas' revisited 6 There is at least one a priori truth 7 Analyticity and apriority: beyond Wittgenstein and Quine 8 Computational psychology and interpretation theory 9 Reflections on Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking 10 Convention: a theme in philosophy 11 Philosophers and human understanding 12 Why there isn't a ready-made world 13 Why reason can't be naturalized 14 Quantum mechanics and the observer 15 Vaguenes and alternative logic 16 Beyond historicism Bibliography Acknowledgements Index

On the current status of the issue of scientific realism

Abstract: The aim of the present essay is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the various “traditional” arguments for and against scientific realism. I conclude that the typical realist rebuttals to empiricist or constructivist arguments against realism are in important ways inadequate; I diagnose the source of the inadequacies in these arguments as a failure to appreciate the extent to which scientific realism requires the abandonment of central tenets of modern epistemology; and I offer an outline of a defense of scientific realism which avoids the inadequacies in question.

Love Known: Theology and Experience in George Herbert's Poetry

Abstract: This book changes the way we read one of the greatest masters of the lyric poem in English. Unlike much recent scholarship on George Herbert, Love Known demonstrates the inseparability of Herbert's theology and poetry. Richard Strier argues persuasively for a strongly Protestant Herbert who shared Luther's sense of the primacy of the doctrine of justification by faith. Cutting across traditional lines, the book is the first sustained study of the theological basis of Herbert's poetry, pointing out connections between Herbert and the Protestant "left" of his own and the following era. In each chapter, Strier closely analyzes a coherent group of Herbert's lyrics to reveal the theological motives of their movements and design. When placed in a theological context, the poems come into focus in a remarkable way: many hitherto puzzling or unnoticed details are clarified, some neglected poems emerge into prominence, and familiar poems like "Love" (III) and "The Collar" take on new cogency. The chapters build on one another, moving from the darker implications of "faith alone," the insistence on the pervasiveness of sin and pride, to the comforting implications of the doctrine, the assertion of the possibility of freedom from anxiety, and the defense of individual experience. "Love Known" thus offers not only a new historical approach to Herbert, but a new appreciation of the relationship between the psychological realism and human appeal of the lyrics and their theological core.

Realism and consensus in the English novel

Abstract: The Description for this book, Realism and Consensus in the English Novel, will be forthcoming.

The modern American novel

Abstract: Preface Naturalism and Impressionism: The 1890s Modernity and Modernism 1900-1912 Artists and Philistines 1912-1920 Art-Style and Life-Style: The 1920s Realism and Surrealism: The 1930s Liberal and existential imaginations: The 1940s and 1950s Postmoderns and others: The 1960s and after Late Postmoderns: five fictional enquiries of the 1980s After the post American fiction from the 1970s to the 1990s The American novel since 1890 A list of major works Select bibliography Index

Epistemology, Methodology and the Social Sciences

Abstract: Ideology and Objectivity.- Toward a Logic of Historical Constitution.- Beyond Causality in the Social Sciences: Reciprocity as a Model of Non-exploitative Social Relations.- Empiricism and the Philosophy of Science, or, n Dogmas of Empiricism.- Realism and the Supposed Poverty of Sociological Theories.- The Role and Status of the Rationality Principle in the Social Sciences.- Marxian Paradigms versus Microeconomic Structures.- Paradise not Surrendered: Jewish Reactions to Copernicus and the Growth of Modern Science.- The Peculiar Evolutionary Strategy of Man.- Technologies as Forms of Life.- Index of Names.

The reflexive novel : fiction as critique

Abstract: Interrogating the basic assumptions of realism, this study examines the postmodern phenomenon of fiction as the presentation of theories of fiction. The writers critically examined include Nabokov, Woolf, Conrad, Faulkner, Joyce, and Beckett.

Realism and the Renegade Putnam: A Critical Study of Meaning and the Moral Sciences

Abstract: For many years Hilary Putnam has been an enthusiastic supporter of the cause of realism about the external world (e.g., in [14]). However, he has never been afraid to change his mind. In the paper, "Realism and Reason," the last part (Part Four) of Meaning and the Moral Sciences [16], he abandons the cause. Indeed, he now finds his former position "incoherent" ([16]: 124). He attributes the change in his views partly to new influences from Michael Dummett and Nelson Goodman, and to an old influence from W. V. Quine (pp. viii-ix). Aside from these influences he is led to anti-realism by a model-theoretic argument he propounds in "Realism and Reason" (pp.125-127) and in much greater detail in a recent paper. "Models and Reality" [18]. One aim of this study is to refute that argument. That is the concern of Part II. The issue of realism is not confined to Part Four of [16]: it recurs throughout, particularly in Part One. Until Part Four, Putnam's stance is pro-realist. To assess the bearing of any of Putnam's discussion on realism we need a clear idea of what realism is. Unfortunately, that is something that Putnam does not supply. On the contrary, Putnam casts almost impenetrable darkness on the question. The other aim of this study is to show this. That is the concern of Part I. The chief difficulty in understanding Putnam's discussion of realism is that it is thoroughly entangled with a discussion of truth. Truth is the other major concern of the book. Part One, the 1976John Locke lectures, comprising half the book, is largely devoted to arguing against Hartry Field [7] that we do not need to supplement a Tarskian theory of truth with theories of reference; indeed, Field's view that such theories are possible is "a species of scientific utopianism" (p. 58). And in Part Three, the paper "Reference and Understanding," Putnam argues for a verificationist theory of understanding but for a correspondence notion of truth. (I have discussed these arguments about truth in [4].) Part Two, the paper "Literature, Science, and Reflection," is the most sketchy part of the book. Part One ends with the claim that the social sciences are fundamentally different from physics and must find a place for Verstehen (empathetic understanding). In Part Two this "humanist" line is applied to literature and morality.

Balzac, James, and the Realistic Novel

Abstract: This book has a double purpose: to compare the literary projects, theories, and careers of Balzac and Henry James, and to develop a theory of realism that can account for their unabashed mimetic intentions and for their novels' sophisticated textuality.Originally published in 1983.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Nature and Origin of Realism in Alexandrian Poetry

Abstract: Recent studies on Alexandrian poetry have tended to be confined exclusively to what has been seen as the variation practised by the Alexandrians on the themes, motifs and in particular the language of earlier literature, especially Homer. They have, no doubt, touched on a real aspect of Alexandrian poetry and have contributed enormously to our understanding of it. Yet with this approach there has emerged the view of the Alexandrians as writing in a timeless world of literary traditions with no relation to contemporary life and events. Thus G. R. McLennan in his commentary on Callimadius' Hymn to Zeus dismisses the view that at lines 57—67 the hymn refers to the seizure of the throne by Philadelphus when the poet seems to have gone out of his way to accommodate a contemporary allusion. Similarly, F. Williams in his commentary on Callimadius' Hymn to Apollo claims that . Yet there are plenty of political references in Callimadius' work, and in some hymns, including that to Apollo, but also in the Hymn to Delos, they are undeniable. I suggest that it is time to reconsider the possibility that Alexandrian poetry was not solely concerned with letters but had in fact a distinctive and important relation to contemporary life. In this paper I intend to explore this possibility. To do so, I shall firstly examine the nature and extent of what would nowadays be called realism in the poetry of the Alexandrians, among whom I include the movement's diief poet, Callimadius, and those other poets, like Theocritus and Apollonius Rhodius, who were active in the city of Alexandria in the first half of the third century B. C. and who shared Callimadius' literary programme or were influenced by it. Secondly, I shall offer for consideration certain social and historical factors in the make-up and government of early Ptolemaic Alexandria which may have contributed to its poets' interest in realism. If it can be established that the Alexandrians exhibit in their poetry recognisably realistic features the origin of which may be seen to lie in their relation to the historical realities of their age, their purely literary preoccupations may be seen in a more just perspective. I am obliged at the outset to offer a working definition of realism. If we take one

The Divided Mind: Ideology and Imagination in America, 1898-1917

Abstract: 1. The temper of the times 2. The triumph of reaction: Henry James 3. Restoration as reform: David Graham Philips 4. It couldn't happen here: the failure of socialism in America 5. On being black: Booker T. Washington 6. Woman's place: Edith Wharton and others 7. Building the past and the future: Ralph Adams Cram 8. Innovation and nostalgia: Charles Ives 9. Realism and modernism: John Sloan, Alfred Stieglitz, and others 10. A Glimpse into the twenty-first century: Emma Goldman.

Realism or socialist realism?: the 'proletarian' episode in modern chinese literature 1927-1932*

Abstract: Modern Chinese literature came into being in a literary revolution amidst a ferment of radical anti-establishment and anti-traditional thinking. The protagonists of the literary revolution agreed almost unanimously that the new literature had little to learn from China's own literary tradition and should be modelled on Western literature; of all Western literary schools, they were particularly attracted to the school of realism. In his programmatic article 'On the literary revolution' Chen Duxiu, the standard-bearer of the literary revolution, averred that the new literature was to be a literature of realism. 1

Going astray with a logical scheme

Abstract: For purposes of clarification it is desirable to point out at the very beginning that the title of the Lewis and Smith book (“American Sociology and Pragmatism: Mead, Chicago Sociology and Symbolic Interaction”) is very much of a misnomer. On the basis of the title one would expect at least a modest coverage of the following significant topics: the distinctive nature of pragmatism as a form of philosophy; the importance of its particular picture of human action, based on functional psychology and reflecting the practical character of American frontier life; the ways in which this philosophical and psychological perspective played into the formation of early American sociology; the ways, in turn, by which early American sociological thought with its reform motif played back on pragmatic philosophy; the manner in which American pragmatism entered into and affected the development of sociological thought and research at the University of Chicago; the place of George Herbert Mead in the formation of that thought and research; and finally the ways in which the social psychological thought of Mead exercized influence on what has come to be called “symbolic interactionism.” But the book is far from presenting such an expected coverage. Instead, Lewis and Smith have picked out a recondite philosophical issue-the scholastic issue of “nominalism” versus “realism”-and used this issue to construct a narrowly conceived picture of pragmatism, Chicago Sociology, and symbolic interactionism. The result is a big void in their account. The nominalism-realism theme which Lewis and Smith use to give direction and substance to their book comes from the issue in scholastic philosophy as to whether “universals” (general items) are real or whether only “particulars” (individual objects) are real; for example, whether “redness” as a universal is real or whether only red objects are real. Philosophically, the position of “realism” is that universals are real while the position of “nominalism” is that only particular objects are real; for the nominalist, a universal (such as redness) is only a word or label that is attached to real individuals. The

Fables of Power

Abstract: MICHAEL FOUCAULT claims that a privileged topic for history is the history of disciplines, since they control the generation of very important types of discourse, discourse which shapes general rationale and choice, discourse which is "powerful."'" Etymology, as quasi-discipline, generates etymologies, as brief narratives; these narratives, however, are embedded in an extraordinary range of scholarly and non-scholarly contexts, and are employed to bolster a very dishevelled array of arguments. And, as stories describing ur-events of naming, they are necessarily highly speculative, "fictive"; Malkiel speaks of "the unavoidable admixture of strong doses of subjectivism," and his judgments of specific etymologies range from "provocative, reconnoitering," to "mystic, neoromantic."2 An inclusive model of etymologizing is one of simple confabulation: the etymologies are intellectual fables, stories we tell each other. Yet etymological discourse is of peculiar diagnostic value for the Foucaultian historian: etymologies have spoken directly to the issues of the power or force of words, and have related the force to political incident, to originary civil decisions; they can be myths of founding events, and they are evidence of fabling activity, scholarly fictions of connection.3 I will argue that a history of etymological practice reveals a very sharp and suggestive antinomy: analysis of the discourse of "classical" etymologizing uncovers a layer of egregious narrative realism: a policy which asserts the quintessentially "historical" nature of linguistic force, and the quintessentially "linear" nature of social identity. But "modernist" etymologizing finds this narrative fundamentalism disturbing and rejects it. I maintain that the modernist subversion of narrative fundamentalism constitutes a cession of a domain of proper investigative interest, and is a subversion, or abdication, of intellectual range and disciplinary power.

The trial begins ; &, On socialist realism

Abstract: Abram Tertz, one of the most important writers to emerge in the Soviet Union since World War II, came to prominence in 1959 when "On Socialist Realism" was published in the West It was the first important critique of the central dogma of Soviet literature It arrived with a novel - "The Trial Begins", which was published in 1960 Other books followed these into the West, until in 1965 a respected literary scholar at the Gorky Institute, Andrei Sinyavsky was arrested, revealed to be Abram Tertz, tried, and sentenced to seven years in a forced labor camp

Contextual Analysis: Taking Space, Time, and Place Seriously

Abstract: In June 1981, International Studies Quarterly published a 'Symposium in Honor of HansJ. Morgenthau'. In it, the discussion and debate focused on various aspects of realism and idealism as they apply in today's world. I am sure most readers found it to be an interesting and useful retrospective on one of the major figures and major schools of thought in the field of international relations. In this symposium, honoring Harold and Margaret Sprout, we deal with a very different type of realism. It is at the same time less familiar and more challenging because it raises several basic questions about international relations which Morgenthau's approach did not. Harold and Margaret Sprout certainly understood themselves to be 'realists' in the sense that they devoted much effort to describing and clarifying the role of power in international relations. Yet their approach was very different than that of Morgenthau:

Empirical Realism and Transcendental Anti-Realism

Abstract: Some years ago, a student of mine penned the following line, to which I hereby give the immortality it surely deserves: 'Descartes held that when he was thinking, his mind could detach itself from his body and think about it completely objectionably'. Perhaps I must bear some responsibility for the less than perfect understanding of Descartes there displayed, but the final slip of the pen which gives the line its memorability invites a Freudian explanation which, assuming that the student was suffering under the old Scottish tradition of compulsory philosophy, attributes to him the unconscious thought 'All this attempt at philosophical objectivity is really objectionable.' Be that as it may, other people who have pursued their philosophical inquiries rather further than my nameless student have recently found reason to question how far objectivity is desirable or even possible. Thomas Nagel diagnoses a whole cluster of philosophical problems (the meaning of life, freewill, personal identity, mind and body, consequentialist versus agent-centered views in ethics) as involving a tension between the claims of subjective and objective points of view,1 and offers the suggestion that 'perhaps the best or truest view is not obtained by transcending oneself as far as possible, perhaps reality should not be identified with objective reality'.2 Bernard Williams, in evaluating the contemporary relevance of Descartes' philosophical project, claims that what is most fundamental to it is something to which we still find ourselves committed, namely the search for 'an absolute conception of the world', that is, 'a conception of reality as it is independently of our thought, and to which all representations of reality can be related'.3 Williams concludes that although physical science is (legitimately) a search for such absolute knowledge, it is not to be had in the social sciences, since there can be no such objectivity about the mental.4