Christopher Hill Research Articles

Perception's objects, border, and epistemic role: Comments on Christopher Hill's Perceptual experience

Christopher Hill's book Perceptual experience argues for a representational theory of mind that is grounded in empirical psychology. I focus here on three aspects of Hill's picture: The objects of visual awareness, the perception/cognition border, and the epistemic role of perceptual experience. I introduce challenges to Hill's account and consider ways these challenges may be overcome.

Hill on perceptual contents, Thouless properties, and representational pluralism

Part of a symposium on Christopher Hill's book, Perceptual experience. Hill argues that perceptual experiences typically represent objects as having exotic properties that he calls Thouless properties. This and his representational pluralism allow him to attribute less perceptual error than the view that experiences represent simple relational properties (only). However, I think it is plausible that perceptual systems do make these sorts of errors, which although pervasive and systematic, are relatively subtle and perfectly explicable. I also express some concerns about representational pluralism, especially in the context of a representationalist view of the phenomenal character of experience.

Hill on perceptual relativity and perceptual error

Christopher Hill's Perceptual experience is a must‐read for philosophers of mind and cognitive science. Here I consider Hill's representationalist account of spatial perception. I distinguish two theses defended in the book. The first is that perceptual experience does not represent the enduring, intrinsic properties of objects, such as intrinsic shape or size. The second is that perceptual experience does represent certain viewpoint‐dependent properties of objects—namely, Thouless properties. I argue that Hill's arguments do not establish the first thesis, and then I raise questions about the Thouless‐property view and its role in Hill's defense of representationalism.

EU의 공동외교안보정책과 우크라이나 전쟁

This paper seeks to anlayze whether the Capability-Expectations Gap (CEG) of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy has been narrowed after the War in Ukraine broke out on 24th February 2022. It compares in the components of the CEGs before and after the war. Christopher Hill defines the capability as being composed of the resources (economic and diplomatic), policy instruments and policy cohesiveness.
 Before the war, Brexit left the EU’s economic power dwindled by 2.17% point from 15.7% to 13.62% in world output. Policy instruments have seen some changes, as the EU could manage to give military as well as economic aid to Ukraine for the first time. Although the EU is not a military alliance, EU leaders could reach agreements on sending military equipments in the face of Russian aggression. Policy cohesiveness refers to the ability to reach agreements and implement such ones among differing national policy preferences. Hungary remained opposed to banning Russian oil and gas imports to the last moment, thus gaining exemption from the EU’s sanction until the end of 2023, at least a year later after such sanction entered into force.
 With regard to expectations from within and without of the EU, citizens in Europe have wanted the bloc to play a more active role in major international affairs such as in the Ukraine War. The EU also could follow through many sanctions in close consultation with the United States, which has led Western efforts in giving aid to Ukraine.
 EU’s international role is likely to grow in the process of mediating the war, as the war is probably to last another a year or two. It will also shoulder significant burden to help Ukraine reconstruct after the War.

상위가치로서 ‘전략적 자율성’과 통상정책을 통한 구현

This paper seeks to anlayze whether the Capability-Expectations Gap (CEG) of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy has been narrowed after the War in Ukraine broke out on 24th February 2022. It compares in the components of the CEGs before and after the war. Christopher Hill defines the capability as being composed of the resources (economic and diplomatic), policy instruments and policy cohesiveness.
 Before the war, Brexit left the EU’s economic power dwindled by 2.17% point from 15.7% to 13.62% in world output. Policy instruments have seen some changes, as the EU could manage to give military as well as economic aid to Ukraine for the first time. Although the EU is not a military alliance, EU leaders could reach agreements on sending military equipments in the face of Russian aggression. Policy cohesiveness refers to the ability to reach agreements and implement such ones among differing national policy preferences. Hungary remained opposed to banning Russian oil and gas imports to the last moment, thus gaining exemption from the EU’s sanction until the end of 2023, at least a year later after such sanction entered into force.
 With regard to expectations from within and without of the EU, citizens in Europe have wanted the bloc to play a more active role in major international affairs such as in the Ukraine War. The EU also could follow through many sanctions in close consultation with the United States, which has led Western efforts in giving aid to Ukraine.
 EU’s international role is likely to grow in the process of mediating the war, as the war is probably to last another a year or two. It will also shoulder significant burden to help Ukraine reconstruct after the War.

The World Turned Upside Down, Again: Hauntings of the English Revolution and Archaeologies of Futures Past in Contemporary British Films

In the 1960s and 1970s, the period of the Civil War and the English Revolution featured prominently in a variety of films ranging from the mainstream historical drama Cromwell to the independent Winstanley and the folk horror film Witchfinder General. Film-makers’ interest in the period at that time coincided with the cultural, social and political turmoil of 1968 as well as with the increasingly popularised revision of the period in Marxist historiography, such as Christopher Hill’s seminal book The World Turned Upside Down. Recently, there has been a renewed interest of British film-makers in Hill’s focus on the subcultures of the English Revolution, such as the Diggers, as well as in the aesthetics of earlier films about the period. This article analyses two contemporary films about the period, Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England and Thomas Clay’s Fanny Lye Deliver’d, and through historicisation and contextualisation within film, genre and media history seeks to understand the significance of their return to the historical material of the seventeenth century as well as to the style of their filmic models from the 1960s and 1970s. The article argues that the two films perform an ‘archaeology of the future’ (Jameson) that excavates utopian ‘futures past’ (Koselleck) in British cultural history as well as in British film and media history. By analysing Wheatley and Clay’s films as hauntological and archaeological texts, the article explores the potential of the cinematic image for engaging with national and film history as well as with visions of the past and the future.

Plant Conservation vs. Folk Traditions: The Case of Ophrys scolopax Cav. (Orchidaceae) in Central Western Spain.

In central western Spain, the bee orchid Ophrys scolopax Cav. is limited to a few localities of the Arribes del Duero Natural Park, reaching the municipality of Villarino de los Aires (Salamanca) to the north. Due to its restricted distribution, this plant is hardly known in this territory, with the exception of this village, where it is very popular. Although most of its inhabitants are unaware of various aspects of the biology of this orchid, for example its pollination strategy, the place where the only local population grows is well-known: the Teso de San Cristóbal ("St. Christopher's Hill"), a place of ancient pagan rituals Christianised through the construction of a hermitage. The villagers also know that its flowering period coincides with the Easter celebration, and they have traditionally looked for and collected it there during Easter Monday. This ritual has evolved over time based on the needs and interests of the community. From a religious celebration aimed at blessing the fields, it became a game among young men to obtain prestige within the community, and from the end of the 20th century to the present, it has become a festival to revitalise cultural identity. In this article, we analyse how the aforementioned traditional practices affected this orchid species in the recent past, and we describe the educational actions (conferences, workshops, courses, etc.) carried out during the last ten years so that, while maintaining the cultural practices of the village, its population should be respected and conserved at the same time.

Algorithms and Tools for Securing and Protecting Academic Data in the Democratic Republic of Congo

This paper deals with the implementation of Algorithms and tools for the security of academic data protection in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It consists principally in implementing two algorithms and two distinct tools to secure data and in this particular case, academic data of higher and university education in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The design of algorithms meets the approach that any researcher in data encryption must use during the development of a computer system. Briefly, these algorithms are steps to follow to encrypt information in any programming language. These algorithms are based on symmetric and asymmetric encryptions, the first one uses Christopher Hill's algorithm, which uses texts in the form of matrices before they are encrypted and RSA as one of the asymmetric algorithms, which uses the prime numbers that we have encoded on more than 512 bits. As for tools, we have developed them in php which is only a programming language taken as an example because it is impossible to use all of them. The tools implemented are based on the algorithms of Caesar, Christopher Hill and RSA showing how the encryption operations are carried out thanks to graphical interfaces. They are only tools for pedagogical reasons to help students and other researchers learn how to use developed algorithms. We have not developed them for pleasure but rather used them in any information system, which would prevent and limit unauthorized access to computer systems. They will not be used only for the management of academic fees but for any other information system, which explains and shows the complexity of the tools developed. We have not been able to solve the problems of versions for the developed prototype, because if there is a new version later, some functions may be obsolete, which would constitute the limitation of these tools. This work targets primarily the Ministry of Higher Education and Universities, which will make these results their own and implement them in order to solve the problem of intrusions, unauthorized access to developers and researchers who will use tools already made instead of thinking about their development. We are trying to demonstrate the steps and the methodology that allowed us to reach our results, in the following lines.

The generality and particularity of perception

This paper responds to critical comments by Christopher Hill, Ram Neta, and Nico Orlandi on my book The Unity of Perception: Content, Consciousness, Evidence (OUP 2018). It addresses questions about why analyzing mental states in terms of capacities is more explanatory powerful than analyzing them in terms of processes. It further develops my view of functions and their relation to mental capacities. It clarifies the internalist commitments of my externalist view of content, consciousness, and evidence. The topics addressed include further the many‐properties problem, the relation between what is perceived and what is represented, as well as the evidential transparency principle.

Algorithms and Tools for Securing and Protecting Academic Data in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This paper deals with the implementation of algorithms and tools for the security of academic data protection in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It consists principally in implementing two algorithms and two distinct tools to secure data and in this particular case, academic data of higher and university education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The design of algorithms meets the approach that any researcher in data encryption must use during the development of a computer system. Briefly, these algorithms are steps to follow to encrypt information in any programming language. These algorithms are based on symmetric and asymmetric encryption, the first one uses Christopher Hill’s algorithm, which uses texts in the form of matrices before they are encrypted and RSA as one of the asymmetric algorithms, it uses the prime numbers that we have encoded on more than 512 bits. As for tools, we have developed them in php which is only a programming language taken as an example because it is impossible to use all of them. The tools implemented are based on the algorithms of Caesar, Christopher Hill, and RSA showing how the encryption operations are carried out thanks to graphical interfaces. They are only tools for pedagogical reasons to help students and other researchers learn how to use developed algorithms. We have not developed them for pleasure but rather to be used in any information system, which would prevent and limit unauthorized access to computer systems. They will not be used only for the management of academic fees but for any other information system, which explains and shows the complexity of the tools developed. We have not been able to solve the problems of versions for the developed prototype, because if there is a new version later some functions may be obsolete, which would constitute the limitation of these tools. This work targets primarily the Ministry of Higher Education and Universities, which will make these results its own and implement them in order to solve the problem of intrusions, and unauthorized access to developers and researchers who will use tools already made instead of thinking about their development. We are trying to demonstrate the steps and the methodology that allowed us to reach our results, in the following lines.

Overthrow the Orthodoxy! Replies to Hill, Titus, and Sosa

AbstractI respond to three sets of questions and objections to the account of empirical reason I offer in my book Conscious Experience: A Logical Inquiry. (i) In response to doubts expressed by Christopher Hill, I outline the case against Simple Representationalism, the view that experience confers an epistemic status on certain perceptual judgments and that it does so in virtue of its content. (ii) In response to objections of Lisa Titus (née Miracchi) and Hill, I show that the account is not too liberal in its attributions of rationality to transitions, beliefs, and views. (iii) In response to questions raised by David Sosa, I explain why qualities do not constitute appearances and why the account offered of hallucinations is not overly restrictive.

Editors’ Introduction

In introducing this issue of the journal — our 250th — we feel the presence of our predecessors. Past and Present is not overly concerned with its own past, but its editors have, at key moments, reflected on the founding principles of the journal and their persistence over the decades. In 1983, to mark the 100th edition, three of the founding editors, Christopher Hill, Rodney Hilton and Eric Hobsbawm, offered their thoughts on the origins of the journal and its scholarly ambitions, followed by an article by Jacques Le Goff covering the later years. In 2002, to mark our fiftieth anniversary, Lyndal Roper and Chris Wickham remarked on how little the journal’s mission had changed during the preceding half-century. Eighteen years later we see little reason to disagree. Past and Present was founded as a generalist journal, covering all periods of history, from the ancient to the contemporary,...

Christopher Hill: The Future of British Foreign Policy. Security and Diplomacy in a World after Brexit, London: Polity Press 2019, 238 Seiten

<b>Christopher Hill</b>: The Future of British Foreign Policy. Security and Diplomacy in a World after Brexit, London: Polity Press 2019, 238 Seiten

Aesthetics of Contingency: Writing, Politics, and Culture in England, 1639–89. Matthew C. Augustine. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018. Pp. xi+269.

<i>Aesthetics of Contingency: Writing, Politics, and Culture in England, 1639–89</i>. Matthew C. Augustine. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018. Pp. xi+269.

The European Union's Superpower Revisited

‘International Relations and the European Union’, edited by Christopher Hill, Michael Smith and Sophie Vanhoonacker, is the 3rd edition of a book which is part of ‘The New European Union Series’, by the Oxford University Press. The book is a collection of 20 articles by several authors engaged in research on the European Union (EU), and highlights the importance of creating a link between the internal integration and the policymaking process of the EU, and the development of its international [...]

On the Pragmatic Approach to Counterpossibles

Nina Emery and Christopher Hill proposed a pragmatic approach toward the debate about counterpossibles—i.e., counterfactuals with impossible antecedents. The core of this approach is to move the burden of the problem from the notion of truth value into the notion of assertion. This is meant to explain our pre-theoretical intuitions about counterpossibles while claiming that each and every counterpossible is vacuously true. The aim of this paper is to indicate a problematic aspect of this view.

Jeffrey S. Doty, Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere

Refreshingly, Jeffrey S. Doty writes like an historian. In the tradition of Christopher Hill, Keith Thomas, and Keith Wrightson, he seeks to master complexities, rather than to exacerbate them through fashionably oblique postulation and self-regarding intricacies of hypostatization. His clean prose pursues with honest clarity the topics outlined in his title, Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere, to produce a slim, but learned, and perhaps seminal volume. Elizabeth I and James I, he reminds us, each remarked disconsolately that monarchy occupied a public stage, recognizing thereby the vulnerability of supreme power to assessment by the ogling multitude. ‘Public performance could win assent and adoration; publicity could also stain, degrade, and produce resistance’ (4). Officially, the commoners’ political role was reverential passivity; they were ‘things created’, in Coriolanus’ exasperated words (3.2.9–12), ‘to show bare heads, / In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder’ (169). Peter Lake and Steven Pincus have shown, however, that through the sixteenth century, elite incitements of commons support cumulatively created a post-Reformation public sphere, establishing the widespread recognition that authority might be buttressed by ‘popularity’ (The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England, Manchester University Press, 2007). ‘Popularity’ remained nonetheless a dirty word, stigmatizing those who courted it illegitimately as pandering to the potential many-headed monster. Thus, whilst Elizabeth’s calculated showcasing of ‘love’ to her people on progresses comprised an unprecedented and successful stratagem, the Earl of Essex’s competitive street-wooings had him proclaimed in Star Chamber in 1601 ‘a popular traytor’ (16). The trick, for non-royal political actors, was to grasp the substance without incurring the stain. Prince Henry’s wiles in the Henry IV plays succeed here deftly: determinedly sullying himself at Eastcheap, his reformation upon accession glitters o’er his fault, to win him the popularity that he appears, falsely, not to have courted (74). It was Shakespeare’s prescient and timely achievement, argues Doty, to dramatize the political imperative of popularity for any regime: a phenomenon whose ubiquity today obscures recognition that ‘Shakespeare’s integration of publicity into political action has no precedent in early modern drama’ (3, 191).

Book Review: Christopher Hill, Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century

Book Review: Christopher Hill, Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century

The Cold War and Western Perspectives on Soviet Science

This essay presents an overview of the dominant trends in the Western historiography on the Soviet Union along the Cold War inquiring how they affected the perspectives on the history of Soviet science. It discuss three major trends, namely totalitarian school, which resonated with Robert Merton and Karl Popper’s claims that science best develops in democratic societies; the revisionists, which came of age in the 1960s and resembled some schools of the sociology of science both in their motivation to subvert the dominant perspective in their discipline and in their methodological choices; and, finally, the post-Cold War and post-revisionists perspectives on Soviet history and history of Soviet science, and how they challenged widely held beliefs on Soviet science and society that underpinned many Cold War-era works on the Soviet Union. The conclusion discussed how the historiography of Soviet Science resonates with Christopher Hill’s claim that history needs to be rewritten at every generation.

Book Review: Christopher Hill, The National Interest in Question: Foreign Policy in Multicultural Societies

Book Review: Christopher Hill, <i>The National Interest in Question: Foreign Policy in Multicultural Societies</i>