Human Ideas Research Articles

Could There Be a Humean Sex-Neutral General Idea of Man?

Could There Be a Humean Sex-Neutral General Idea of Man?

Aspects of Communication and the Plowden Report

Abstract Plowden places the child at the centre of the educational process. In doing so it offers a particular definition of ‘the child’ which was heavily criticised at the time. This definition may be seen in the context of a series of social constructs of childhood prompted by the growth of humanist ideas. The Report was timely and informed much subsequent educational thinking. However, its progressive thrust was not completely supported in individual subject areas. English saw itself as trend‐setting but in fact its observations were portly and did not represent the best that was being thought and written at the time, whilst Modern Languages made no secret of its reservations about “the developing tradition in primary education’. But the influence of a document is not confined to what it purports to say. It has socio‐linguistic meanings related to its status, power, context, timing, reader receptiveness, and in Plowden these meanings were benign.

The Mixed Constitution and the Distinction between Regal and Political Power in the Work of Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas is possibly the earliest medieval writer to be influenced by Aristotle's Politics, and he is certainly the most important for political theory as a whole. He is the giant whom later thinkers will interpret, bend to their own purposes, or, less frequently, refute. It is largely through Aquinas that the ideas of man as a social and political animal, of the citizen as one who participates in government, of the classification of government by the number and quality of its rulers, of the mixed constitution, and many other concepts entered the medieval milieu; and future thought is as much shaped by his peculiar interpretations of these ancient principles as by Aristotle's ideas themselves. Yet his political theory is sufficiently ambiguous to allow him to be cited by different scholars as an advocate of absolute monarchy, limited monarchy, republicanism, and mixed constitutionalism.' As Brian Tier-

The State, the Market and the Individual. Politics, Economy and the Idea of Man in the Works of Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith and in Renaissance Humanism

Thomas Hobbes, the father of modern state theory. regarded the loss of the self-government of the individual as a pre-condition of peace. the achievement of which the state was a necessary instrument Adam Smith. the father of political economy, similarly regarded the loss of the versatility of the individual as the price for that growth and prosperity, the achievement of which the division of labour and the market were necessary instruments However, the self-government and versatility of individuals were also the decisive characteristics of the ideal man of renaissance humanism. Are the state and the market as institutions, politics and economics as means of directing them compatible with the ideal man of humanism? What effect has the simultaneous growth of the state and the market since the renaissance had on the types of individuals and the crisis of governability in society?

Idea Men and Engineers in Education

Idea Men and Engineers in Education

Upstairs, Downstairs: Or the Roots of Reformation

There has never been a lack of writing asserting that the English Erasmians and the Thomas More circle had a fundamental impact on the course of the English Reformation, by supplying its foundational motifs. Until 1948, when Zeeveld published his Foundations of Tudor Policy, it could be objected that nobody had ever demonstrated their influence on the course of events. But over the next twenty-five years an important literature grew up on that very question and was capped by Professor Elton's embrace of the thesis that Cromwell's program had been shaped by Humanist ideas.' For Elton this was nothing less than a conversion, as all will recognize who remember his scathing denunciation of any who saw in those poor stirrings of protestantism . . . or in the new humanistic learning . . . anything that could cause . the Reformation in England. 2 That was vastly to overrate the role of intellectuals and vastly to misjudge the revolution that took place. The crown had led the way, without benefit of religious ideas, plans, or programs-one wants to say without benefit of clergy. What has been missing from this discussion of the roots of reformation is any fundamental challenge to the hierarchic theory which confines Reformation to the mediation of events through ideas. This formula obscures the relationship of events to the daily experience of the common people. Humanists faced in common with others conditions that provoked in them a sense of disorder. They vented this through representations of right order, filtered through their literary, historical, theological, and ecclesiological apparatus. This apparatus undergirded their notion that history had an intelligible structure susceptible to alteration. But reformers and restorers agreed that the common people were incapable of conceptualizing right order

L'anthropologie bouddhiste face à la philosophie moderne et à la neurophysiologie contemporaine

Buddhist anthropology vis-à-vis modern philosophy and contemporary neurophysiology The author reminds us the outlines of Buddhist doctrine. Then he examines how a Buddhist reader could react to some examples of Modern Philosophy (Descartes) and also Analytical Philosophy (Wittgenstein). Besides he points out the new prospects of contemporary neurophysiology, such as they are depicted in Prof. Changeux's recent book, "Neuronal Man" (New York, Pantheon Books, 1985). This provides us with a different idea of man. What a Buddhist monk will say, will he raise some objection of principle or not ? Given that we usually think of religion and spiritualism as closely linked to each other, the answer to this question is both unexpected and enlightening.

"A Certain Idea of Man": The Human Person in the Novels of Georges Bernanos

"A Certain Idea of Man": The Human Person in the Novels of Georges Bernanos

A Desert Country Near the Sea: A Natural History of the Cape Region of Baja California by Ann Zwinger

334 Western American Literature The merit of Schulberg’s book does not lie in its thesis, despite the accuracy of his astringent comments on the nature of American publishing, culture, and the get-rich-quick ethic. The six figures are too disparate in their talent, their literary contributions, and their declines to allow for persuasive generalizations, other than that success has its price, and that’s true of any field. The real value of the book lies in its anecdotes about the different writers. The accounts of Lewis, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck are useful because they give the reader who doesn’t have time for the big biographies vivid indi­ cations of what these people were like. The reminiscences about West are valuable because they show a lively, high-spirited, and witty young man very different from the image one might infer from his mordant books. The account of Heggen is interesting because the meteoric rise and sad death of the young Navy veteran whose slim novel became the famous play illustrate Schulberg’s thesis better than any of the other, much longer essays. The Saroyan piece, updated after the writer’s recent death, is perhaps the most valuable contri­ bution in terms of bringing original information to the reader about a man who was once considered very important, like Erskine Caldwell, but who was nearly forgotten by the end of his life. The essays are decidedly uneven in quality as well as length. Those on Fitzgerald, Lewis, West, and Saroyan appeared during the 1960s in Esquire, and the short piece on Steinbeck appeared in the Long Island newspaper, Newsday. The four were printed in 1972 as The Four Seasons of Success. Those on Heggen and West are the only new material in this volume, other than the long and banal introduction. In the Fitzgerald essay Schulberg seems to me to be a perfect Hollywood type: manipulative, tasteless, and memorable. The Lewis essay is on the other hand a wonderful recreation, entirely believ­ able, of the man — lonely, funny, and sad. Readers may judge for themselves whether John Steinbeck really sounded like this when he talked (here, about the Middle Ages of Malory) : “You know, in a lot of ways, Budd, those days are not so different from our own. An old order was on the way out. Some­ thing new was in the air, but no one knew exactly what lay ahead. The concept of chivalry was essentially a humanistic idea — going forth to do good deeds. Not just saving damsels in distress, but protecting the poor. It’s no accident that Kennedy’s Court was called Camelot.” ANTHONY ARTHUR California State University, Northridge A Desert Country Near the Sea: A Natural History of the Cape Region of Baja California. By Ann Zwinger. (New York: Harper & Row, 1983. 399 pages, $24.95.) In this work on the Cape Region of Baja California, Ann Zwinger desig­ nates herself as “creunetes desultorius — the desultory wanderer,” and her self-avowed desultoriness is responsible for the major strengths and weaknesses Reviews 335 of the book. It allows her to investigate a wealth of material, focussing now on geology, now on history, now on a Sally Lightfoot crab. However, in spite of the logical, spatial organization of the chapters, which move from the highest peak of San Lazaro to the underwater landscape off shore, the narrative at times leaves the reader uncomfortably leaping from contemporary mayors to early Jesuits while wishing for more information on a single topic. The persona who narrates this perambulation through the Cape allows us to feel strongly the alien element in the Baja California landscape. Her propensity for domestic simile — a ridge of rock looks “like a pudding full of dates and raisins” ; tiny jellyfish appear “like translucent pink Rice Krispies” — also highlights the alien surroundings through contrast. Neophytes easily identify with the narrator as she makes an unaccustomed and challenging climb only to stop short of the summit, or blunders into the thorns of a “jumping cactus,” or battles the intricacies of mask, snorkel, and wetsuit for the first time. Her reflections on relations with husband and daughters pro­ vide a thin but comforting overlay for the arid peaks and...

Illyrian Humanist Ideas in the Works of the South Slavic Protestant Publishers in Urach.

Illyrian Humanist Ideas in the Works of the South Slavic Protestant Publishers in Urach.

Images of Drinking in "Woman Singing," Ceremony, and House Made of Dawn

the earliest contacts between Europeans and Indians until the present time.1 Already in the seventeenth century, the English explorer Henry Hawkes complained that Indians were soone drunke, and that the wine in Spaine and in France were not sufficient for the West Indies only,2 so great was the Indian thirst for alcohol. Similar views abound in the reports left by innumerable white explorers, trappers, soldiers, settlers, missionaries, and priests. Almost from the start, Native Americans themselves have also lamented the effects of drinking, viewing this activity not so much as a reflection on Indian as an attempt by whites to manipulate and destroy native people.3 The reasons for Indian susceptibility to alcohol have never been clear, nor have all tribes shown this susceptibility.4 Most white settlers in North America, however, were quick to see any instance of Indian intemperance as a sign of depravity and barbarism, as yet another manifestation of native inferiority to Europeans. Indeed, through most of the history of American culture, rarely has the Indian been seen except through the distorting lens of white prejudices and fantasies, so that sentimental images of the Indian as noble brave or maiden have vied with the equally unrealistic view of the Indian as a liquor-maddened savage on the one hand, and as a pathetic sot on the other. Alcohol in particular has been central to the white man's idea of the Indian, and its use has developed into an emblem of the Indian's own destruction in the face of white civilization. As Roy Harvey Pearce has observed, in seventeenthand eighteenth-century America, liquor was seen to be the most effective agent in dissolving savage character the that had to be dissolved because, so whites reasoned, it could not and would not be civilized.5 In the nineteenth century, with the expansion of the western frontier, white stereotypes of Indian intoxication became all the more deeply entrenched, for Indians increasingly epitomized the larger phenomenon of binge drinking associated with ages of Drinking in Woman ging, Ceremony, and House Made of Dawn

Nuclear-Physical Methods of Analysis in Lunar and Planetary Investigations

The advances of space technology ushered in a new era in the development of man's ideas about the solar system. The flights of space vehicles to the Moon, Venus, Mars and other planets made it possible to obtain quite new information on the composition, structure and properties of the matter of the solar system's bodies. In these studies a prominent role is played by remote and contact nuclear-physical methods of analyzing extraterrestrial matter — gamma-spectrometry, X-ray-spectrometry, alpha-spectrometry and neutron spectrometry. At present practically any space vehicle bound for planets carries scientific instrumentation based on the nuclear-physical methods of analysis. In this review paper we shall consider only gamma-spectrometry and X-ray-spectrometry by means of which the main information on the composition, structure and properties of the material of the Moon and planets was obtained.

Conrad: Satire and Fiction

In the sixth chapter of The Shape of Utopia Robert Elliott discussed the conflict between utopian fiction and the novel. 'The novelist's art is to metamorphose ideas into the idiosyncratic experience of complex human beings', but the utopian writer, interested as he is in the ideas for their own sakes, is content to create characters that are stylized, mechanical, flat. 'The expectations we bring to the Satyricon, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Candide, Barth's Giles Goat-Boy are very different from those we bring to Emma or Sons and Lovers: it is pointless to require of Brave New World that it try to be what they are.'1 My concern is with the way that satire and the novel may combine or conflict, and, while I shall start with a few instances from Dickens, my subject is really the uneasy mixture of satire and fiction in Joseph Conrad.2 In his discussion of the 'great misanthropes', under the rubric 'the satirist satirized', Elliott had occasion to cite Conrad's remarks in Nostromo about Charles Gould: 'A man haunted by a fixed idea is insane. He is dangerous even if that idea is an idea ofjustice: for may he not bring the heavens down pitilessly upon a loved head?'3 Conrad is, as I have tried to show elsewhere, essentially concerned with the 'idea' and the way in which it possesses men, turning them, as in the case of Gould, into both victims and tyrants.4 Conrad tries to show how much our lives are governed by ideas or, as he often chooses to call them, illusions. Because the idea always outruns the actual, it is threatened by calm reflection. Such reflection will make us recognize the very unrealizability of ideas. The universe is inhospitable to man's ideas; no human meanings are accommodated in the grand spectacle of nature. Man must choose among roles: he may assert and live by idea in the face of inevitable defeat; he may adapt himself to the world as it is and ignore the

A View From Within: Amos Gitai's The House and A Field Diary

To its many supporters, one of Israel's great strengths has been its ability to steer a political course based on humanistic ideas and nationalistic contingencies. Within perennial tensions created by these twin forces, has managed to project image of a haven under constant threat and, by implication, in need of perpetual protection from real and potential adversaries. Yet growth of state of from a seemingly modest homeland for dispossessed to a regional superpower has generated a tradition of often anguished debate about viability and consequences of pursuing a policy of peace and security, based on oppression of another people. In recent years these peripheral protests have become increasingly vocal, and voices from the other Israel have questioned uneasy alliance between humanistic ideals and tough militarism. Though less known than some of other participants in this debate, Israeli film-maker Amos Gitai has confronted dilemmas facing in two recent films, The House (1979) and A Field Diary (1983). Ironically, neither film has been seen by audiences for whom it was intended. The House, an 18-minute documentary, was initially produced for Israeli television and, despite its ambiguous, bittersweet tone, never shown in Israel; A Field Diary was filmed entirely in occupied West

Three Russian Writers and the Irrational: Zamyatin, Pil'nyak, and Bulgakov

The idea of man as an essentially irrational being has preoccupied some of the most influential of Russian thinkers, including the three important Soviet writers considered by Dr Edwards in this book. Since the 1917 Revolution the polemic between rationalists and irrationalists has become directly relevant to the way life is lived in the Soviet Union, and a knowledge of the irrationalist point of view is essential for an understanding of much of Soviet literature and of the foundations of Soviet dissidence. As with other titles in this series, this book is not intended simply for the specialist. The broad speculations arising from the subject will fascinate all those who take a serious interest in the Russian literary tradition; a tradition whose principal figures have been concerned to reject philosophical and political creeds that, in seeking to produce a perfect human being in a perfect society, point in fact towards a vision of hell.

"Alexander the Pig": Shakespeare on History and Poetry

In one satirical scene of Henry V, Shakespeare criticizes a tradition of humanist ideas about the writing and reading of history. He specifically questions the assumption that the past possesses an inherently normative authority for the present, that the function of history is to produce exemplary models for human behavior. At the same time, he challenges the claim of the historian to provide a fully objective account of past events, uncolored by his own present circumstances and self-interest. The play thus denies to itself either of two canonical readings of the historical text: it presents itself neither as a collection of improving moral and political exemplars, nor as a true and impartial narration of historical fact. Shakespeare's play thus finds a middle ground in the quarrel between humanism and historicism, a quarrel which was initiated in the self-reflections of Renaissance humanism and which has received its most distinguished modern contribution in the thought of HansGeorg Gadamer. What Gadamer terms the effective-historical consciousness (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein) is constituted not only by an historicism that understands the temporal distance separating present from past, but also by a recognition that both past and present belong to the same continuum of historical tradition. This recognition, by which the present observer grasps the historical limitations-what Gadamer sees as a constantly shifting horizon-

The Role of Consciousness in Marx's Theory of History

In the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy we have Marx's famous phrase is not the of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being which determines their consciousness.[1] Again in the German Ideology we find Marx saying that life is not determined by consciousness, but by life[2] and that consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all. . . . moreover, it is quite immaterial what starts to do on its own.(3] Finally, in the Communist Manifesto Marx asks rhetorically does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views and conceptions, in a word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?(4] These well-worn phrases of Marx have been cited by many a writer who in attempting to explicate Marx's materialist conception of history have concluded that with Marx has exactly the opposite role that it had for Hegel. Whereas Hegel treated nature as a shadowy product of mind (Geist) Marx treats as a more or less epiphenomenal manisfestation of material forces--a manifestation which at best can have the quality of being a mirror-image of reality, but which oftentimes functions as an illusion when it, attributes to itself causal powers which are really attributable to material forces. Marx himself seems to give credence to this interpretation when in the 1872 afterword to Capital he states that:

Sur la notion d’eidolon chez Proclus

The theory of the Eidolon was suggested to Proculus by examples drawn from art, for the most part by Plato. Unity, unicity, and stability are the dominant features of the existence of the intelligible, while the existence of the sentient is related to plurality, particularity, movement and fluidity. If this is the status of the sentient, we are not far way from the idea of man as «a dream of a shadow», inspired by the allegory of the Cave (Pindar, Pyth. 95-96 ; Aeschylus, Agam. 839).

An Early Eighteenth-Century Discussion of Musical Acoustics by Étienne Loulié

An Early Eighteenth-Century Discussion of Musical Acoustics by Étienne Loulié. Un article de la revue Canadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes (Numéro 2, 1981, p. 1-240) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

Comments on Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking

1. Nelson Goodman's book and Hilary Putnam's observations on it evoked in me vivid memories of the conception of empirical know ledge that was propounded by Otto Neurath of the Vienna Circle about 1930, and which contrasted sharply with the views held by other members of the Circle at that time. Neurath certainly cannot be claimed to have anticipated Good man's ideas with their very wide scope; moreover, there are also important differences in fundamentals. But there are striking similarities between some of the basic ideas informing the two conceptions, and it may be of interest to begin with a brief consideration of those similarities: this will illuminate some of the virtues of Goodman's ideas, but it will also afford me an oppor tunity to suggest the desirability of a certain supplementation of the account given in Ways of Worldmaking.