Early Intellectual Development Research Articles

The concept of Individuality in Friedrich Meinecke’s Early Work

This article investigates the centrality of the concept of individuality in the young Friedrich Meinecke’s theory of history, positing it as a fundamental element shaping Meinecke’s historical conception. To elucidate this position, an analysis is conducted to discern the significance attributed to the principium individuationis at two critical junctures in Meinecke’s early intellectual development: firstly, in his response to the positivist assault on the German historical school, and secondly, in his endeavor to reconceptualize the underpinnings of a revitalized history of ideas between the late 1800s and the initial decade of the twentieth century. By expounding upon these aspects and contextualizing the intellectual evolution in which these ideas emerged, it is argued that the concept of individuality functioned as a theoretical refuge against what Meinecke perceived as the doctrinaire nature of worldviews incompatible with notions of freedom and spontaneity — principles he considered intrinsic to the historical mode of thought.

Utilizing maternal prenatal cognition as a predictor of newborn brain measures of intellectual development

ABSTRACT Identifying reliable indicators of cognitive functioning prior to age five has been challenging. Prior studies have shown that maternal cognition, as indexed by intellectual quotient (IQ) and years of education, predict child intelligence at school age. We examined whether maternal full scale IQ, education, and inhibitory control (index of executive function) are associated with newborn brain measures and toddler language outcomes to assess potential indicators of early cognition. We hypothesized that maternal indices of cognition would be associated with brain areas implicated in intelligence in school-age children and adults in the newborn period. Thirty-seven pregnant women and their newborns underwent an MRI scan. T2-weighted images and surface-based morphometric analysis were used to compute local brain volumes in newborn infants. Maternal cognition indices were associated with local brain volumes for infants in the anterior and posterior cingulate, occipital lobe, and pre/postcentral gyrus – regions associated with IQ, executive function, or sensori-motor functions in children and adults. Maternal education and executive function, but not maternal intelligence, were associated with toddler language scores at 12 and 24 months. Newborn brain volumes did not predict language scores. Overall, the pre/postcentral gyrus and occipital lobe may be unique indicators of early intellectual development in the newborn period. Given that maternal executive function as measured by inhibitory control has robust associations with the newborn brain and is objective, brief, and easy to administer, it may be a useful predictor of early developmental and cognitive capacity for young children.

Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography by Émile Perreau-Saussine

Reviewed by: Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography by Émile Perreau-Saussine Caleb Bernacchio PERREAU-SAUSSINE, Émile. Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography. Translated by Nathan Pinkoski. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. xvii + 216 pp. Cloth, $40.00 This book is the much anticipated translation of the author's doctoral dissertation completed under the direction of Pierre Manent and Charles Taylor in 2000. Manent also contributes a foreword to this edition. Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography comes in the wake of Perreau-Saussine's untimely death in 2010, during which time he was translating a portion of his dissertation (chapter 2, part 1), which is included in the present text. Accordingly, the book does not discuss works published by MacIntyre after 2000. The book provides a detailed account of MacIntyre's intellectual development. Besides the introduction and epilogue, its three chapters cover politics, philosophy, and theology, respectively. [End Page 557] In chapter 1, Perreau-Saussine recounts the impact of British political debates during the 1950s and 1960s on MacIntyre's early intellectual development. Sharing a disdain for the Labour Party's embrace of a "reformed capitalism" and welfare state politics with other members of the New Left such as Charles Taylor, MacIntyre connected this political stance with a theoretical critique of utilitarianism, foreshadowing his later criticisms of bureaucracy in After Virtue. However, unlike Taylor, who "places himself on the field 'culture,'" focusing on the articulation of a richer account of modern values, "in MacIntyre's eyes, virtue and wisdom are more fragile than Taylor thinks." Perreau-Saussine not only insightfully explains the contrasting views of MacIntyre and Taylor in terms of their estimation of the prospects inherent within postwar liberal politics but also explains how MacIntyre's pessimistic take on postwar politics led him to embrace elements of conservatism, especially the theme of the individual as "embedded" within a community and tradition, which thus provide an essential context for understanding individual freedom. As such, the author argues, for MacIntyre, Burke and Marx come together in their critique of the abstractions of liberalism. However, "[u]nlike Burke's conservatism," the author argues, "MacIntyre's is not a liberal conservatism but one that tends toward an antiliberal conservatism." We might also note that this skepticism of the market places MacIntyre in opposition to many contemporary conservatives. Perreau-Saussine shows how MacIntyre's early affinity with conservative ideas, originally as a source of criticism of the Labour Party's embrace of the welfare state, links with MacIntyre's later work, especially his notion of a practice, which connects with Ruskin's discussions of the craftsman, and his account of the natural law, which, like Burke, he takes to be embedded within communities and traditions. Chapter 2 shows how MacIntyre's participation in postwar politics overlaps with various philosophical debates of the time, including those concerning the role of morality within Marxism, the adequacy of analytic moral philosophy, and the impact of the late Wittgenstein's work. For MacIntyre and other Marxists, Stalin's brutality highlighted Marxism's need for an adequate account of ethics. Whereas some appealed to Kantian themes to address this problem, MacIntyre rejected this path. Accordingly, Perreau-Saussine notes "MacIntyre's unceasing interest with Hegelian philosophy of action," especially Hegel's critique of Kant's appeal to an abstract notion of "humanity," a theme that returns in After Virtue. This recognition of the lack of an adequate moral perspective within Marxism, made apparent by Stalin's consequentialism, along with MacIntyre's refusal to embrace Kant's "abstract universalism" was another avenue leading him from Marx to Aquinas, as the author adeptly illustrates. Perreau-Saussine's comparison of MacIntyre and Lyotard is also insightful. For both, Stalinism and the theoretical failures of Marxism lead to a rejection of this political tradition; but where Lyotard, rejecting universalism altogether, turns to Nietzsche, MacIntyre turns to Aristotle and then Aquinas, seeking a more adequate conception of reason rather [End Page 558] than rejecting it. Like Hegel, the late Wittgenstein's emphasis on the role of communal standards for individual thought and action also made an important impact on MacIntyre's thought, further informing his focus on local communities and traditions. As the...

Danger, Disability, and Double Age: Precocity and the Misfit Bodymind in the Nineteenth Century

Danger, Disability, and Double Age:Precocity and the Misfit Bodymind in the Nineteenth Century Courtney E. Thompson (bio) At the age of ten months he could speak and repeat every word that was said to him; when twelve months old he knew by heart the principal events narrated in the Pentateuch; in his second year he learned the greater part of the history of the Bible, both of the Old and new Testaments; in his third year he could reply to most questions on universal history and geography; in the same year he learned to speak Latin and French; in his fourth year he employed himself in the study of religion and the history of the Church, and he was able not only to repeat what he had read, but also to express his own judgment. The King of Denmark, wishing to see this wonderful child, he was taken to Copenhagen, there examined before the Court, and proclaimed to be a wonder. On his return home he learned to write, but his constitution being weak, he shortly after fell ill, and died. . . . 1 Such was the tale of Christian Heinecker, who—by his untimely death at just four years old—purportedly achieved such wonders. This "remarkable instance" in the "annals of precocity" served as both a representation of and a warning for the problem of precocious intelligence.2 In the eighteenth century, Christian was celebrated as a wonder, but by the mid-nineteenth century—when his story and others like it circulated—precocity was instead viewed as a curse. The boundaries and nature of childhood became an object of both scientific study and sociocultural concern over the course of the nineteenth century in the United States. Physicians and scientists began to investigate the stages of life and development on physical and psychological levels.3 At the same time, social reformers worked to define childhood as a state worthy of further protection through such efforts as age-of-consent campaigns, even as social mores surrounding the role of the child in the white, bourgeois family also transformed.4 Within this context, children who failed to conform to the expectations [End Page 376] of childhood behavior—whose chronological age didn't match their physical or intellectual development—were labeled as precocious and subsequently became objects of concern among scientists and social commentators alike. Precocity was viewed as pathological: "double age" was a disease that resulted in disability or even death. Nineteenth-century physiological and neurological research suggested that boys—and to a lesser extent, girls—were overtaxing their brains in ways that endangered their bodies and lives. Anxieties about inappropriate education dovetailed with concerns about the shape of education and the nature of manhood itself at a time when both were challenged and reimagined. Though the stages of child development would become closely tied to specific ages over the course of the twentieth century, nineteenth-century medical and popular notions of childhood development were inchoate, less fixed on milestones linked to specific ages.5 Despite the inconsistency, nineteenth-century writers agreed: mental precocity was dangerous to both body and mind. Precocity, the development of one feature of body, character, or mind in a fashion that outstripped chronological age, could manifest itself morally, sexually, spiritually, and so forth. This article focuses on one form of precocity, early intellectual development, as a case study of double age. Nineteenth-century discourse about precocious intellectual development not only reveals anxieties about double age, but further illuminates the deep-seated relationship between body and mind in nineteenth-century understandings of disability. Interpretations of precocity hinged on an understanding of a reciprocal relationship between the body and mind, which in turn was affected by race, class, and especially gender.6 Representations of the precocious (white, male, bourgeois) child constituted the construction of a bodymind, which Margaret Price defines as "the imbrication (not just the combination) of the entities usually called 'body' and 'mind.'"7 Moreover, the precocious bodymind can be understood to be fundamentally "misfit," as defined by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson: the term "describes an incongruent relationship between two things. . . . The problem with a misfit, then, inheres not in either of the two things but rather in their...

Dialectical Abnormality? Jewish Alienation and Jewish Emancipation between Hegel and Marx

Abstract Karl Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” (1844) has fueled discussions around his early intellectual development as a Young-Hegelian thinker as well as debates about an allegedly distinct form of anti-Semitism native to Left-Hegelian and later to left-thinkers in general, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. In this essay, I argue that Marx’s assessment of contemporary Judaism is motivated by an underappreciated criticism of Hegelian historiography. Surveying the genealogy of the Hegelian treatments of Judaism between Hegel and Marx, I distinguish Marx’s intervention as a reaction to non-materialistic teleological historiography. This historiography assumes dialectical movement and demands practical change from those considered foreign to the movement. In contrast, this article suggests that Marx’s primary target is the belief that Judaism has been sublated into Christianity, that the abnormality lies not in Judaism’s historical persistence, but in the Christian pretense that the material contradictions Judaism was a response to have been overcome. Against the teleological nature of all renditions of Hegelian historiography, including Marx’s later historical-materialism, his “On the Jewish Question” weaponizes a hitherto unrecognized anti-teleological argument against the assimilationist views it responds to, of the kind that should evoke Nietzschean genealogy.

Parasites and priorities: the early evolution of ‘neglected disease’ initiatives and the history of a global health agenda

This article explores the development and evolution of ‘neglected tropical diseases’ (NTDs) as an operative and imaginative category in global public health, focusing on the early intellectual and institutional development...

M123. EPISODIC VERBAL MEMORY DEFICIT IN SCHIZOPHRENIA: A MARKER OF PROGRESSION OF DISEASE OR DIFFERENT NEURODEVELOPMENTAL PATHWAYS FROM THE ONSET?

BackgroundEpisodic verbal memory primarily indicates acquisition or registration of memory for verbally presented information, being one of the main neuropsychological impaired functions in individuals with schizophrenia. Furthermore, it appears to be more susceptible than other memory systems to early neuronal dysfunction, supporting hypotheses about a neuroprogressive course of schizophrenia (SZ). On the other hand, it is unclear if such memory dysfunction in schizophrenia could not only be associated with illness progression, but also with neurodevelopment markers such as premorbid crystallized intellectual functioning (IQ). Therefore, we aimed to better understand the relationship between years of illness (YOI), IQ and episodic verbal memory in individuals with SZ.MethodsWe included 218 individuals with confirmed diagnosis of SZ from 3 separate centers (Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil; Hospital de Clínicas da Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, and Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Spain). All participants were informed about study procedures and signed consent before assessment. Participants underwent cognitive assessment with Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) for episodic memory and Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence for estimated crystallized premorbid IQ. We conducted a mediational analysis to estimate the effect sizes of years of illness in predicting memory deficits considering the indirect effect of IQ as a mediator, as well as age and sex as covariates.ResultsThere was a significant indirect effect of years of illness on HVLT immediate recall through IQ, ab=-.119 CI 95% [-.248, -.013]. The mediator could account for more than a third of the total effect, PM=.39. The direct effect of years of illness on immediate recall was only a trend (c: -.09, p= .068), while the total effect counting IQ was significant (c’=-.15, p=.007).DiscussionThe effect sizes of IQ were greater than the direct effect of years of illness on memory deficits in our sample. This finding implicates that neurodevelopment markers such as IQ may be as important as disease progression itself in predicting cognitive outcomes in SZ. While patients with lower premorbid IQ appears to be more prone to memory deficits, those with better early intellectual development appears to count on a protective effect. Neuroprogression in schizophrenia would be an addition of neurodevelopment and disease progression. These results help to give new lights on the heterogeneity in the course of schizophrenia, different trajectories and the need of more personalized approach. Further prospective studies are mandatory.

The Lost Library of Anne Conway

ABSTRACT The philosopher Anne Conway (1631-1679) owned a large library, and her reading and book ownership shaped her intellectual life in distinctive ways. Until now, however, almost nothing has been known about the details of her reading or her book collection. Current scholarship assumes that her library, like that of her husband, the third Viscount Conway (c. 1623–1683), was lost or dispersed after her death. This article presents previously unrecognised evidence of Conway’s book ownership, and identifies, for the first time, the only books currently known to survive from her personal library. It traces their path to their current location in the Old Library of Jesus College, Cambridge, through the library of the soldier, book collector, and Cambridge Fellow Francis Sterling (c. 1652-1692). The article demonstrates that the newly identified books reveal previously unknown patterns of intellectual exchange amongst Conway’s family, and argues that they have significant implications for our understanding of her early intellectual development.

Paul Silas Peterson: Romano Guardini in the Weimar Republic and in National Socialist Germany: With a brief look into the National Socialist correspondences on Guardini in the early 1940s

Abstract Romano Guardini was one of the most important intellectuals of German Catholicism in the twentieth century. He influenced nearly an entire generation of German Catholic theologians and was the leading figure of the German Catholic youth movement as it grew exponentially in the 1920s. Yet there are many open questions about his early intellectual development and his academic contribution to religious, cultural, social and political questions in the Weimar Republic and in National Socialist Germany. This article draws upon Guardini’s publications, the secondary literature on Guardini and on some archival material, seeking to outline his early development and his engagement with the ideological context following World War I and in National Socialist Germany. Here Guardini’s criticisms of the modern age are presented. Besides this many other issues are addressed, such as his criticism of the women’s movement, his understanding of the youth movement, reception of Carl Schmitt, views of race, interpretation of the controversial Volk-concept, contribution to a Jewish journal in 1933, and his basic positions on the issues of obedience, order and authority. While Guardini was viewed critically by some National Socialists in the Third Reich, the administrative correspondences on him in the 1940s actually show that there was an internal debate about him among the National Socialist officials. This involved different figures, including a diplomat who came to Guardini’s defense. The internal disagreements were made more complicated because Guardini’s brothers were apparently members of the Fascist Party in Italy at this time.

Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Genotypes and Developmental Phenotype

BackgroundChildren with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), caused by pathogenic variants in TSC1/TSC2, are at risk for intellectual disability. TSC2 pathogenic variants appear to increase the risk, compared with TSC1. However, the effect of TSC2 pathogenic variants on early and specific domains of development hasn’t been studied. Using an extensively phenotyped group, we aimed to characterize differences in early intellectual development between genotypes. MethodsThe study group (n = 92) included participants with TSC enrolled in a multicenter study involving genetic testing and detailed prospective phenotyping including the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, a validated measure of cognition, language, and motor development in babies and preschool children. Mean T-scores at 24 months for each Mullen Scales of Early Learning domain were calculated for children with, versus without, a TSC2 pathogenic variant. Multivariable linear regression models were used to compare the groups, adjusting for seizures. ResultsT-scores on every Mullen Scales of Early Learning domain were significantly worse in the TSC2 group. Below average composite scores were present in three-fourths of the TSC2 group, compared with one-fourth of those without TSC2. Having a TSC2 pathogenic variant was associated with lower composite Mullen Scales of Early Learning scores, even when corrected for seizures. ConclusionsIn a well-characterized patient population with standardized assessment of multiple aspects of development, we found that having a TSC2 pathogenic variant was associated with significantly lower Mullen Scales of Early Learning scores at age 24 months, independent of seizures. These data suggest that a baby with a TSC2 pathogenic variant is at high risk for significant developmental delays by 24 months.

T68. DIFFERENT INFLUENCES OF INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONING AND COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE TO FUNCTIONAL OUTCOMES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND HEALTHY CONTROLS

BackgroundIndividuals with schizophrenia (SZ) have marked functional impairments in wide range of domains, such as employment, independent living and interpersonal relationships. Several clinical, cognitive and psychological factors have been shown to predict functional outcomes. However, current pharmacological and psychosocial treatments have failed to rehabilitate patients, which indicates that the mechanisms of functional outcomes are not completely clear. Therefore, we aimed to better understand the relationship between intellectual and cognitive performance to functional outcome of subjects with SZ compared to unaffected individuals. Considering the neurodevelopmental course of SZ, our hypothesis was that premorbid crystallized IQ would interact with cognition to influence functionality.MethodsWe included 188 individuals with confirmed diagnosis of SZ and 268 unaffected subjects (HC) from two separate multisite studies conducted by the Cognitive Neuroscience Test Reliability and Clinical Applications for Schizophrenia (CNTRACS) consortium. We used the following variables for the analysis: a) Estimated crystallized premorbid intellectual functioning (IQ): Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (WTAR); b) Cognitive performance: Dot Probe Expectancy task (DPX) and Relational and Item-Specific Encoding task (RISE) from CNTRACS; c) Functional capacity: UCSD Performance-based Skills Assessment – Brief (UPSA-B). We conducted linear regressions to predict functional outcome considering demographic, intellectual, and cognitive variables, as well as the interaction between cognition and IQ in participants with SZ and HC separately.ResultsParticipants with SZ had worse cognitive performance and premorbid IQ, and poorer functional outcome compared to HC. For the prediction of UPSA-B, the regression model that included cognition and IQ as predictors and age and parental SES as covariates was significant in SZ (F(4, 124) = 8.473, p < .001, Adj. R2 = .189), with the both variables showing significant main effects: IQ (β = .311, t = 3.324, p = .001) and cognition (β = .216, t = 2.630, p = .0010). When we included the IQ x cognition interaction (F(5, 123) = 7.035, p < .001, Adjusted R2 = .191), it did not significantly improve the model (F = 1.224, p = 0.27), and the interaction was not significant (β = -.11, t = -1.106, p = .27). In HC, the regression model with only main effects was similar to what was seen in SZ (F(4,313) = 27.62, p < .001, Adj. R2 = .25), with main effects of IQ (β = .239, t = 4.418, p < .001) and cognition (β = .349, t = 6.891, p < .001) (Figure 1). However, when we included the IQ x cognition interaction (F(5,312) = 24.15, p < .001, Adjusted R2 = .27), the interaction was significant (β = -.139, t = -2.801, p = .005) and accounted for a significant increase in variance over and above the other main effects (F = 7.8452, p = .005).DiscussionIn SZ, both higher IQ and better cognitive performance were independent predictors of better functioning. However, in HC, functionality was predicted by the interaction between IQ and cognition, with the form of the interaction suggesting that for HC participants with higher IQ, there was less effect of cognition on predicting better functioning. Conversely, in HC with lower premorbid IQ, better cognitive performance has a stronger effect in predicting better functioning. The fact that both IQ and cognition had independent relationships to functional outcome in SZ could help explain the limited clinically significant results found in previous studies of cognitive remediation and psychosocial interventions that did not also consider the impact of premorbid IQ. Future studies could focus on early interventions to prevent functional impairments through the stimulation of early intellectual development.

Effect of bronchopulmonary dysplasia on early intellectual development in preterm infants.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) on the early intellectual development of preterm infants. From 2011 to 2015, 83 preterm infants diagnosed with BPD were recruited to the BPD group, and 89 preterm infants without BPD and 98 healthy term infants were randomly recruited to the non-BPD and term group, respectively. Neural and intellectual development according to the Gesell Development Scale were evaluated and compared between groups at 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months, and 9-12 months of adjusted age for preterm infants and real age for term infants. Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine the associations between BPD and adverse neurological outcomes at 9-12 months of adjusted age. Compared with term infants, preterm infants had significantly lower developmental quotients for adaptability, gross motor, fine motor, language and social skills. At follow up, deficits in one or more neurofunctions related to adaptability, gross motor, fine motor, language and social skills were significantly more frequent in preterm children with BPD than in those with no history of BPD. BPD was independently associated with adverse neurological outcome at 9-12 months of adjusted age in preterm infants. Early intelligence disturbances occurred significantly more frequently in BPD infants than in non-BPD infants. Monitoring of the development of the nervous system in BPD infants should be strengthened.

From classicism and idealism to scientific naturalism: Titchener's Oxford years and their impact upon his early intellectual development.

Edward Titchener (1867-1927) is one of the most prominent figures in the history of American psychology from the early 20th century. Accordingly, his psychological system-structuralism-has received due attention in the secondary literature. However, a closer look at traditional interpretations of the development of Titchener's ideas reveals a series of missing elements, such as his early studies before going to Leipzig. The central goal of this article is to present the main elements of Titchener's intellectual education in Oxford, thereby showing the influence of the British tradition of the 19th century upon his early intellectual development. On the basis of hitherto unexplored primary sources, we discuss Titchener's relationship with British idealism and scientific naturalism, two movements that shaped a significant part of British psychological thinking in the 19th century. We conclude that Titchener's Oxford years are much more relevant to understanding his intellectual development than the literature has so far assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS): The Early Context of Sam Moyo’s Intellectual Development

One of the key sites of Sam Moyo’s early intellectual development was the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS). Established by the newly independent Zimbabwean government in the early 1980s to provide an alternative intellectual space for considering socialist policy alternatives, the Institute was subject both to the opportunities and to challenges of state politics. In his work at ZIDS, Sam drew on a long history of radical political economy studies on Zimbabwe, as well radical Africanist thought to pursue his seminal work in agrarian studies. In the midst of a highly contested fast-track land reform programme, Sam led the way in understanding not only the economic challenges of the programme but also the opportunities that it opened up to move beyond the unequal legacies of the settler-colonial agrarian political economy. However, while Sam pioneered the study of the changing forms of agrarian production relations in the 2000s, he focused less on the changing forms of political rule in the country. Into this space, a rich literature from different disciplinary frameworks has emerged and expanded the debate on agrarian and political change in Zimbabwe.

From Philosophical Theology to Democratic Theory: Early Postcards from an Intellectual Journey

This paper examines the early intellectual development of John Rawls, paying special attention to the transition from his work in moral epistemology to his work in political philosophy and democratic theory. It appears in the recently published Blackwell Companion to Rawls, which I edited with Jon Mandle.

PARTY, PARLIAMENT, AND CONQUEST IN NEWLY ASCRIBED BURKE MANUSCRIPTS

ABSTRACTThis article presents four manuscript essays from the mid-1750s, three of which are attributed to Edmund Burke for the first time. In doing so, the article aims to reconstruct Burke's earliest political thought during a period often described as the ‘missing years’ of his biography. These essays cover themes that would later occupy places of central importance in Burke's thinking, and so form a bridge between his early intellectual development and his subsequent political career. After presenting the grounds for ascribing these writings to Burke, the article then sketches their main lines of argument and situates them in their political context. It also briefly establishes their significance with reference to their enlightenment intellectual milieu. Covering such themes as the nature of party, the functioning of the mixed constitution, and the terms on which Ireland was subjected to the English crown, these early essays address a set of political and constitutional issues that were major areas of controversy in British politics in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The Confucian Roots of zen no kenkyū: Nishida's Debt to Wang Yang-Ming in the Search for a Philosophy of Praxis

This essay takes as its focus Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945) and his seminal first text, An Inquiry into the Good (or in Japanese zen no kenkyū). Until now scholarship has taken for granted the predominantly Buddhist orientation of this text, centered around an analysis of the central concept of ‘pure experience’ (junsui keiken) as something Nishdia extrapolates from his early experience of Zen meditation. However, in this paper I will present an alternative and more accurate account of the origins of this important work, a text often seen as marking the beginning of Modern Japanese philosophy. I will show that while Buddhism is an important part of Nishida's early intellectual development, there is ample biographical and textual evidence to suggest that zen no kenkyū is at its core a text which attempts to solve key ethical problems via a modern interpretation of concepts drawn from the Confucian tradition. This analysis thus places the concept of ‘Conduct’ (koi), rather than ‘pure experience’, at the center of the text, suggesting that ethics, rather than metaphysics, is the core theme of the book.

An interview with Quentin Skinner

Quentin Skinner is one of the most eminent and influential political theorists of our time. In the interview he discusses the ideas and authors who shaped his early intellectual development, his ground-breaking methodological work on meaning and interpretation, the logic of the development of his thinking, his subsequent work about freedom and the state, his ideas on republican liberty, and his current research. He also reflects upon the trajectory of contemporary political theory, and on issues in contemporary politics that political theorists should be/are/aren't addressing.

Anos de aprendizagem de um jurista formado “numa perspectiva histórica”: Max Weber e o historicismo

São ainda raros os estudos sobre a trajetória intelectual de Max Weber entre o início de seus estudos universitários em Heidelberg (1882) e a publicação de sua tese de doutoramento sobre as companhias de comércio medievais (1889). Através da análise da sua correspondência, este artigo pretende demonstrar a importância de historiadores como Erdmannsdörffer, Baumgarten, Ranke e Treitschke para o jovem jurista Weber e como sua formação se inseriu plenamente nos quadros da tradição historicista da época.

Alexander Hamilton's Notes on Plutarch in His Pay Book

AbstractAlexander Hamilton's notes to his reading of two pairs of Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Theseus-Romulus and Lycurgus-Numa, probably made in the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge, reveal his early attention to the rewards of founding a new state, the natures and advantages of different political institutions, and economic, social, military, and cultural practices. They furnish a valuable testament to Hamilton's early intellectual development. He focuses on monarchy and the danger of tyranny and on the institutions by which states had limited the power of monarchs and of the popular will: the senate at Rome and the gerousia and later the ephors at Sparta. Hamilton admires Numa's use of religion to nourish civil society, while his interest in the Spartans' treatment of their helots is a testimony to his early concern about the problem of slavery.