Showing papers on "Realism published in 1996"

The Sources of Normativity

Abstract: Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least when we invoke them, we make claims on one another; but where does their authority over us - or ours over one another - come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy. She traces their history, showing how each developed in response to the prior one and comparing their early versions with those on the contemporary philosophical scene. Kant's theory that normativity springs from our own autonomy emerges as a synthesis of the other three, and Korsgaard concludes with her own version of the Kantian account. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by Korsgaard.

Finding philosophy in social science

Abstract: This book takes a fresh, unorthodox look at the key philosophical concepts and assumptions of the social sciences. Eminent philosopher of science Mario Bunge argues that none of the best known philosophies helps to advance or even understand social science, and he proposes a particular union of rationalism, realism, and systemism as the logical and viable stance for social science practitioners.

After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements

Abstract: Preface p.vii Introduction: After Colonialism p.3 PART ONE: COLONIALISM AND THE DISCIPLINES Ch. 1 Secular Interpretation, the Geographical Element, and the Methodology of Imperialism p.2 Ch. 2 Africa in History: The End of Universal Narratives p.40 Ch. 3 Haiti, History, and the Gods p.66 Ch. 4 Why Not Tourist Art? Significant Silences in Native American Museum Representations p.98 PART TWO: COLONIALISM AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCE Ch. 5 The Effacement of Difference: Colonialism and the Origins of Nationalism in Diderot and Herder p.129 Ch. 6 Retribution and Remorse: The Interaction between the Administration and the Protestant Mission in Early Colonial Formosa p.153 Ch. 7 Coping with (Civil) Death: The Christian Convert's Rights of Passage in Colonial India p.183 Ch. 8 Exclusion and Solidarity: Labor Zionism and Arab Workers in Palestine, 1897-1929 p.211 Ch. 9 The Postcolonization of the (Latin) American Experience: A Reconsideration of "Colonialism,"Postcolonialism," and "Mestizaje" p.241 PART THREE: COLONIAL DISCOURSE AND ITS DISPLACEMENTS Ch. 10 Becoming Indian in the Central Andes p.279 Ch. 11 Ethnographic Travesties: Colonial Realism, French Feminism, and the Case of Elissa Rhais p.299 Ch. 12 In a Spirit of Calm Violence p.326 Notes on the Contibutors p.345 Index p.347

Photography: A Critical Introduction

Abstract: Notes on contributors Editor's preface Acknowledgements Illustration acknowledgements Introduction 1 Thinking about photography: debates, historically and now DERRICK PRICE and LIZ WELLS Introduction Aesthetics and technologies The impact of new technologies Art or technology? The photograph as document Photography and the modern The postmodern Contemporary debates What is theory? Photography theory Critical reflections on realism Reading the image Photography reconsidered Theory, criticism, practice Case study: Image analysis: the example of Migrant Mother 00 Histories of photography Which founding father? The photograph as image History in focus Photography and social history Social history and photography The photograph as testament Categorical photography Institutions and contexts The museum The archive 2 Surveyors and surveyed: photography out and about DERRICK PRICE Introduction Documentary and photojournalism: issues and definitions Documentary photography Photojournalism Documentary and authenticity The real and the digital Surveys and social facts Victorian surveys and investigations Photographing workers Photography within colonialism Photography and war Bearing witness The construction of documentary Picturing ourselves The Farm Security Administration (FSA) Discussion: Drum Documentary: New cultures, new spaces Theory and the critique of documentary Cultural politics and everyday life The real world in colour Documentary and photojournalism in the global age 3 'Sweet it is to scan ...': personal photographs and popular photography PATRICIA HOLLAND Introduction In and beyond the charmed circle of home The public and the private in personal photography Beyond the domestic Fiction and fantasy Portraits and albums Informality and intimacy The working classes picture themselves Kodak and the mass market The supersnap in Kodaland Paths unholy and deeds without a name? Twenty-first-century contemplations Post-family and post-photography? And in the galleries ... Acknowledgements 4 The subject as object: photography and the human body MICHELLE HENNING Introduction The photographic body in crisis Embodying social difference Objects of desire and disgust Objectification, fetishism, voyeurism The anti-pornography campaigns Photography and homoerotic desire Class, commodities, 'real' bodies Case study: La Cicciolina Technological bodies The camera as mechanical eye Interventions and scientific images The body as machine Digital imaging and the malleable body Photography, birth and death Summary 5 Spectacles and illusions: photography and commodity culture ANANDI RAMAMURTHY Introduction: the society of the spectacle Photographic portraiture and commodity culture Photojournalism, glamour and the paparrazzi Commercial photography, image banks and corporate media Commodity spectacles in advertising photography The grammar of the ad Case study: The commodification of human relations and experience - Telenor Mobile TV, 'Everywhere' The photographic message The transfer of meaning The creation of meaning through context and photographic styles Hegemony in photographic representation Photomontage: concealing social relations Concealing labour relations Gender, fashion and the gaze Fashion photography Case study: Tourism, fashion and 'the Other' The context of the image Image worlds Case study: Benetton, Toscanini and the limits of advertising 6 On and beyond the white walls: photography as art LIZ WELLS Introduction The status of the photograph as art Early debates and practices The complex relations between photography and art Realism and systems of representation Photography extending art Photography claiming a place in the gallery The modern era Modernism and Modern Art Modern photography Photo-eye: new ways of seeing Case study: Art, design, politics: Soviet Constructivism American formalism Case study: Art movements and intellectual currencies: Surrealism Late twentieth-century perspectives Conceptual art and the photographic Photography and the postmodern Women's photography Questions of identity Identity and the multi-cultural Photography within the institution Appraising the contemporary Curators, collectors and festivals Internationalism: festivals and publishing The gallery as context Case study: Landscape as genre 7 Photography in the age of electronic imaging MARTIN LISTER Introduction The early 1990s and worries about the truth The humanist response The humanist subject Techno-progressivism Media archaeology and other histories of photography Further critical issues Reception Theory and practice Virtual, hybrid, networked The virtual image Kodak and Nokia Citizen (photo)journalist Surveillance Archives and digital image banks Glossary Photography archives Bibliography Index

International theory: positivism and beyond: The timeless wisdom of realism?

Abstract: Realism is widely thought of as both the orthodoxy and the classical tradition of thinking about international relations. It is often contrasted to idealism, or more specifically to other so-called paradigms such as liberalism and Marxism. Unfortunately, there is no precise consensus on where the boundaries between these bodies of thought should be drawn. In this chapter I will try to provide an answer to those who have questioned why, given the nature of my writings, I continue to call myself a realist. Doing so will mean that I push the boundaries of realism further out than some people think appropriate. What follows is therefore a rather liberal interpretation. It will emphasise three qualities of realism: its continued relevance, its flexibility in coming to terms with many ideas from other approaches, and its value as a starting point for enquiry. The chapter attempts to provide a compact summary and evaluation of realism as an approach to the study of international relations. It starts by giving a brief overview of the intellectual history, and then sets out the main distinguishing features of realism. Next it looks at the place of realism within the discipline of International Relations, particularly how it relates to other paradigms. It concludes with an evaluation of realism, arguing that it remains the essential core of the subject even though it does not and cannot provide a full understanding of it.

Realists as optimists: Cooperation as self‐help

Abstract: (1996). Realists as optimists: Cooperation as self‐help. Security Studies: Vol. 5, Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 122-163.

Key concepts in cinema studies

Abstract: This is an A-Z of the key critical terms in film studies, and aims to make film texts and analysis more accessible to the student. The entries include explanations of familiar concepts such as "realism" and "history", as well as covering more sophisticated constructs like "scophilia" and "gesturality". The text is aimed not just at the European film industry, but takes many of its entries from non-European and American cinema. It also includes terms related to the fields of practical film and video work. It is organized alphabetically with cross-references to related terms, and should be a useful study aid for all students of the cinema.

No one loves a political realist

Abstract: (1996). No one loves a political realist. Security Studies: Vol. 5, Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 3-26.

Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations

Abstract: Beer and Hariman provide a coherent set of essays that trace and challenge the tradition of realism which has dominated the thinking of academics and practitioners alike. These timely essays set out a systematic investigation of the major realist writers of the Post-War era, the foundational concepts of international politics, and representative case studies of political discourse.

The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History

Abstract: A New York Times Notable Book of the Year "For anyone wanting to understand the twists and turns of the history of ideas, this book will be indispensable." John Gray, New York Times Book Review The Sense of Reality was the last new collection of essays published by Isaiah Berlin in his lifetime. All informed by Berlin's lifelong fascination with the history of ideas, these engaging studies range widely: the subjects explored include realism in history; judgment in politics; the history of socialism; the nature and impact of Marxism; the radical cultural revolution instigated by the Romantics; Russian notions of artistic commitment; and the origins and practice of nationalism. The title essay, taking its cue from the impossibility of recreating a bygone epoch, is a superb centerpiece. Now with a new foreword by Timothy Snyder and a new appendix comprising a previously unpublished essay on the great Russian critic Vissarion Belinksy and a previously uncollected lecture on utopianism, The Sense of Reality is a rich and illuminating collection from one of the most seductive writers and thinkers of the twentieth century.

The Perils of Anarchy Contemporary Realism and International Security

Abstract: Current debates about the nature of international politics have centered on the clash between supporters and critics of realism. The Perils of Anarchy brings together a number of recent essays written in the realist tradition. It includes realist interpretations of the collapse of the Cold War order and of the emerging order that has replaced it, the sources of alignment and aggression, and the causes of peace. A final section provides a counterpoint by raising criticisms of and alternatives to the realist approach. Contributors: Charles L. Glaser. Christopher Layne. Peter Liberman. Lisa L. Martin. John J. Mearsheimer. Paul Schroeder. Randall Schweller. Stephen M. Walt. Kenneth N. Waltz. William C. Wohlforth. Fareed Zakaria.An International Security Reader

Restating the realist case: An introduction

Abstract: (1996). Restating the realist case: An introduction. Security Studies: Vol. 5, Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 9-20.

Scientific Realism and Some Peculiarities of Economics

Abstract: I suggest that the issue of realism about science should be contextualized in terms of the peculiarities of particular disciplines and kinds of theories. Instead of any absolute and universal assertions for or against scientific realism we end up with a sort of relativization of realism. This amounts to a defence of concrete and local as against abstract and global philosophy of science. This suggestion is supported by using the case of economics as evidence.

Scientific Realism and the 'Pessimistic Induction'

Abstract: Over the last two decades, the debate over scientific realism has been dominated by two arguments that pull in contrary directions: the 'no miracle' argument and the 'pessimistic induction'. The latter suggests that the historical record destroys the realist's belief in an explanatory connection between truthlikeness and genuine empirical success. This paper analyzes the structure of the 'pessimistic induction', presents a move--the divide et impera move--that neutralizes it, and motivates a substantive yet realistic version of scientific realism. This move is also compared with Worrall's and Kitcher's recent reactions to the 'pessimistic induction'.

On misunderstanding science

Abstract: The paper examines the differences between Kuhn's account, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, of the sciences as necessarily communal activities with internally set standards of procedure and achievement, and that view of the sciences which calls itself ‘Scientific Realism’ and regards them as striving toward, and perhaps asymptotically approaching, some external and objective reality that bestows truth or falsity on scientific theories. The main argument turns on Poincare's demonstration that Newton's Second Law (f = ma) is not a testable, provable proposition with a truth value, but something that is simply adopted. It is adopted in the light of experience, certainly, but there is no logical necessity in the adoption. My suggestion is that it is a ‘way of looking’ and ‘a method of analysis’ and that the necessity of its adoption by any individual lies in its being a necessary condition of entry into the scientific community. That community itself adopts ways of looking or methods of an...

Realist Philosophy of the social sciences and economics: a critique

Abstract: This paper deals with (critical) realism as a contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences. In the first section, critical realism is introduced. Differences from other philosophies of sciences (espicially positivism and falsificationism) are discussed. In the second section, critical realism is criticised: first for failing as a normative philosophy of science, second for relying upon an impoverished notion of knowledge-acquistion, and finally for its unsuitablity as a contribution to social theory.

Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory

Abstract: "Real" knowing always involves a political dimension, Linda Martin Alcoff suggests. But this does not mean we need to give up realism or the possibility of truth. Recent work in continental philosophy insists on the influence that power and desire exert on knowing, whereas contemporary analytic philosophy largely ignores these political concerns in its accounts of justification and truth. Alcoff engages these traditionally conflicting approaches in a constructive dialogue, effectively spanning the analytic/continental divide.In provocative readings of major figures in the continental tradition, Alcoff shows that the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Michel Foucault can help rectify key problems in coherence epistemology, such as the link between coherence and truth. She also argues that discussions about knowledge among continental philosophers can benefit from the work of analytic philosophers Donald Davidson and Hilary Putnam on meaning and ontology. Alcoff makes a compelling case for the need to address truth as a metaphysical issue, in contrast to minimalist tendencies in Anglo-American philosophy and deconstructionism on the continent. Her work persuasively argues for coherentist epistemology as a more realistic reconfiguration of the ontology of truth.

The ethics of war and peace : religious and secular perspectives

Abstract: A superb introduction to the ethical aspects of war and peace, this collection of tightly integrated essays explores the reasons for waging war and for fighting with restraint as formulated in a diversity of ethical traditions, religious and secular. Beginning with the classic debate between political realism and natural law, this book seeks to expand the conversation by bringing in the voices of Judaism, Islam, Christian pacifism, and contemporary feminism. In so doing, it addresses a set of questions: How do the adherents to each viewpoint understand the ideas of war and peace? What attitudes toward war and peace are reflected in these understandings? What grounds for war, if any, are recognised within each perspective? What constraints apply to the conduct of war? Can these constraints be set aside in situations of extremity? Each contributor responds to this set of questions on behalf of the ethical perspective he or she is presenting. The con-cluding chapters compare and contrast the perspectives presented without seeking to adjudicate their differences. Because of its inclusive, objective, comparative, and dialogic approach, the book serves both as an introduction to the topic and as a valuable resource for scholars, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else who wants to acquire a better understanding of the range of moral view-points that shape current discussion of war and peace. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Joseph Boyle, Michael G. Cartwright, Jean Bethke Elshtain, John Finnis, Sohail H. Hashmi, Theodore J. Koontz, David R. Mapel, Jeff McMahan, Richard B. Miller, Aviezer Ravitzky, Bassam Tibi, Sarah Tobias, and Michael Walzer.

Wittgenstein, mathematics, and ethics

Abstract: A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our words. - Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity. (PI, 122) How does Wittgenstein's later thought bear on moral philosophy? Wittgenstein himself having said so little about this, philosophers have been free to take his ideas and methods to have the most various implications for ethics. I shall in this essay be concerned with Wittgenstein's ideas about mathematics and some possible ways of seeing their suggestiveness for ethics. I shall bring those ideas into critical contact with a rich and thoughtful treatment of ethics, that of Sabina Lovibond in Realism and Imagination in Ethics. She defends a form of moral realism which she takes to be derived from Wittgenstein (RIE, p. 25); and her work is thus of great interest if we are concerned not only with questions about how Wittgenstein's work bears on ethics but also with questions about the relation between his thought and debates about realism. Wittgenstein is misread, I think, when taken either as a philosophical realist or as an antirealist. Elsewhere I have argued against antirealist readings. One aim of this present essay is to trace to its sources a realist reading of Wittgenstein - its sources in the difficulty of looking at, and taking in, the use of our words. The clearest unchanging feature of the course over the decades was the opening question: How does the Investigations begin? Against even the brief, varying introductory remarks I would provide - all omitted here - concerning Wittgenstein's life and his place in twentieth- century philosophy, in which I emphasized the remarkable look and sound of Wittgenstein's text and related this to issues of modernism in the major arts, the opening question was meant to invoke the question: How does philosophy begin? And how does the Investigations account for its beginning (hence philosophy's) as it does? And since this is supposed to be a work of philosophy (but how do we tell this?), how does it (and must it? but can it?) account for its look and sound?

A house divided: Tragedy and evil in realist theory

Abstract: (1996). A house divided: Tragedy and evil in realist theory. Security Studies: Vol. 5, Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 385-423.

Theories for theorists or theories for practice? Liberating academic accounting research?

Abstract: Concurs with much of Humphrey and Scapens’ opinions about promoting eclecticism in theory, but takes issues with points made about the nature of theory. Asserts that they fail to build on the “conditions of possibility” inherent in practice by their rejection of realism. Looks at the use of accounting in the public sector, and the apparent paradoxes found by Humphrey and Scapens, using the NHS as a case example. Concludes that liberating accounting should look beyond the eclectic use of social theories towards more practical interventions.

Neorealism and the myth of bipolar stability: Toward a new dynamic realist theory of major war

Abstract: (1996). Neorealism and the myth of bipolar stability: Toward a new dynamic realist theory of major war. Security Studies: Vol. 5, Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 29-89.

Positivism, Scientific Realism and Political Science: Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science

Abstract: During recent decades in which political scientists have been debating positivism, the official philosophers of science have made a radical about-face and declared logical positivism defunct. The philosophers of science have adopted a new metaphysic, scientific realism, which turns away from the positivistic emphasis on universal laws, prediction and the legitimation of theories through the falsification process; and emphasizes instead scientific models, attention to the mechanisms and processes that underlie observed behavior, and the search for rigorous, complete explanations of scientific events. This shift at the metaphysical level puts several issues in political science in a new light because the scientific realist approach makes it possible to be `scientific' without being a positivist in the traditional sense. This creates new options and new challenges for rigorous political science research, and clarifies existing methodological discussions.

Why realists disagree about the Third World (and why they shouldn't)

Abstract: (1996). Why realists disagree about the Third World (and why they shouldn't) Security Studies: Vol. 5, Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 358-381.

Peirce's Philosophical Perspectives

Abstract: This collection focuses primarily on Peirce's realism, pragmatism, and theism, with attention to his tychism and synechism

Political realism in international theory

Abstract: Part I: 1. Theory and practice in international relations 2. Positivist-empiricism and international relations 3. Emancipatory international relations: a first cut Part II. 4. Evaluative political realism: a beginning 5. State and state-systems in evaluative political realism 6. Evaluative political realism and human nature 7. Evaluative political realism and historical realism 8. Evaluative political realism as moral realism 9. Conclusion.