Intellectual Context Research Articles

Por las puertas de la apercepción: Acercamientos a la filosofía de Francisco Gavidia

In the following paper, the author points out some of the aspects of the philosophical project of the Salvadoran writer Francisco Gavidia. One important contribution is that the author reflects on whether a Latin American philosophy is possible, long before the philosophical debates regarding this matter during the 1960s. Gavidia maintained that this philosophy must overcome the limitations of positivism and provide a perspective of reality rooted both on scientific reason and poetic intuition, given the particularities of Latin American identity. That is what the author calls “apperception”, which he considers as the foundation of his philosophical and cultural project for El Salvador. Nevertheless, Gavidia thought has both the scope and limitations of a philosophy rooted in the 19th century intellectual context but focused on the 20th century problems. Realidad, Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, No. 164, 2024: 89-136.

THE POLISH-UKRAINIAN ALLIANCE OF 1920 IN CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

The article is devoted to the study of the development and main trends of modern Ukrainian historiography of the Polish-Ukrainian Alliance of 1920. The source base of the study are monographs, articles, and dissertations of Ukrainian historians in the period from 1991 to 2022. The methodological basis of the study is the principles of the Cambridge School of Intellectual History, which can be generally characterized as a contextualist method of interpretation, which places the main emphasis on historical conditions and the intellectual context of the discourse of a given historical era. These principles are especially relevant for the mentioned issue given its political sensitivity, which has not disappeared to this day. As a result, the political context at the time of the creation of the text can significantly influence the research questions and interpretations of the researchers. The author notes that since Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, Ukrainian scholars have rejected the Soviet paradigm of the history of the Polish-Soviet war and have largely adopted the interpretive schemes of emigration historiography. In this narrative, in contrast to the Soviet one, S. Petliura, when signing the agreement with Poland, was guided by Ukrainian national interests. However, Ukraine became a hostage to the selfish interests of Poland, which eventually betrayed its ally. However, as the author proves, the interpretive model that depicts the Polish-Ukrainian Alliance as the resultant force of Polish and Ukrainian interests and resources is beginning to dominate Ukrainian historiography. The aspect of uniting for the common struggle against Bolshevism began to come to the fore. A significant role in this process is played by the possibility of contacts between Ukrainian historians and Polish colleagues, the essential filling of many factual gaps and, not least, the geopolitical situation of Ukraine.

Does Physics Need Metaphysics?

A number of thinkers both past and present have been skeptical of the role of metaphysics for science. The early modern philosopher David Hume denigrated metaphysics as an attempt to “penetrate into subjects utterly inaccessible to the understanding,” while the Logical Positivists saw metaphysics as meaningless, wholly useless to scientific inquiry. In contrast to these thinkers stands the early modern philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. A mathematician and scientist himself, Leibniz developed a variety of metaphysical principles entailed centrally by his Principle of Sufficient Reason. Leibniz utilized these principles to address scientific topics of his day, including, but not limited to, the relative nature of space and the heliocentric model of the universe. Drawing on Leibniz’s diverse corpus, I will reconstruct his formulations of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the Principle of Perfection, and the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles, providing the intellectual context for their development. I will then argue through examples that his metaphysical principles illustrate the utility of metaphysics for natural science, for they can be used to both ground the logical coherence of the discipline of physics and serve as practical methodological guides for theory development and selection.

Nacionalismus vs. internacionalismus. Karel Hlaváček mezi Moderní revue a sokolstvím

The paper deals with the concept of nation, or Czechness, in the views of the poet, theoretician and artist Karel Hlaváček (1874–1898). In the mid-nineties of the 19th century, Hlaváček belonged to the inner circle around the magazine Moderní revue. In this environment, issues related to national identity, especially in the field of art and culture, but also in the political and social context, were often discussed. At that time, however, Hlaváček was also active in the Sokol association, whose national, i.e. Czech, dimension was not negligible. The texts he published in the Sokol press often differed significantly from those in the pages of Moderní revue, even in terms of the concept of the nation. The difference between the well-known text Nacionalism a internationalism (Moderní revue, December 1896) and his extensive study of Sokol as a social movement, which he published a few months later in the magazine Sokol (October 1897), is absolutely crucial. Hlaváček’s views will be placed in the broader intellectual context of European decadent art.

The 'Histoire des Deux Indes'

This article proposes an interpretation of the Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (1770) within the intellectual context of Enlightenment historiography. The first section describes the book, its contents, editions, authorship, and censorship. The second section provides a critical synthesis of the history of historiography on the work. The third section proposes an interpretation of the Histoire as an enlightened critique of colonialism and empire. A brief conclusion situates the book within a specific definition of the Enlightenment that accounts for its contradictions rather than attempting to overcome them.

The Opportunities and Challenges of Teaching Political Science in a Small Island Developing State: The Case of Mauritius

Political Science is a relatively new subject in the Mauritian academic context. As a small island developing state located in the Indian Ocean, it has many interesting features from which to draw to teach the discipline. These features include the ethnic and cultural diversity of its population; the island’s political stability in a geographical region known for recurrent political violence; its curious power-sharing model and its strategic location in the Indian Ocean magnified by the vastness of its Exclusive Economic Zone and contested territories. All these provide a uniquely stimulating intellectual context for teaching and researching about politics. However, teaching Political Science in Mauritius involves grappling with several complexities such as developing students’ critical thinking skills and limited academic exchanges with international scholars due to the remoteness of the island itself. Moreover, as other African universities, the question of decolonizing the curriculum is relevant in the Mauritian context as the discipline remains highly western centric.

“Enlightened Man Incarnate”: Mediating Enlightenment in Eighteenth‐Century Literary Reviews

Abstract‘Crucial to the Enlightenment’, Roy Porter argued, was the work of ‘critics, knowledge‐mongers, and opinion‐makers’; the critic was ‘enlightened man incarnate’. In order to enhance our understanding of the ways in which exponents of print culture sought to orient public opinion and promote recognizably liberal principles and values, this article will examine both the polemical discourses of prolific literary journalists and the intellectual context of key issues, highlighting the work of the lawyer Owen Ruffhead. In often substantive commentaries, Ruffhead and his fellow critics referenced a distinctive set of natural law principles: they celebrated the norms of right reason, of equity and liberty. Amongst the values expounded in the Reviews were Lockean political precepts congruent with core features of liberal theory. From the mid‐eighteenth century, an early and unfamiliar ‘liberal’ vocabulary and agenda can be traced as civil liberties and rights were advocated, including the rights of the colonists, the underprivileged and the exploited. Decades before the term liberalism was devised, critics contributed to the shaping and diffusion of recognizably liberal patterns of thinking. Such an inquiry into a vibrant domain of ideas engages in ongoing historiographical debates, providing a new perspective on the formation and diffusion of influential ethical and socio‐political modes of thought.

The Shepherd-King Metaphor in the Light of Interdisciplinary Research

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of the article is to analyze the sources of the shepherd-king metaphor, mainly from the perspective of social-political ideas, within a broad cultural and intellectual context. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The article focuses on identifying the intellectual sources of the shepherd-king metaphor in antiquity, their anthropological and cosmological context, and the metaphor’s fundamental message. Particular emphasis is placed on the socio-political aspect; thus, analyses of strictly theological significance are left aside. To achieve the research objective, the author makes use of interdisciplinary instruments, referring to archaeological, biological, and historical knowledge and especially to analyses from the field of the history of ideas. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article’s line of argument reflects the fundamental problems that need to be solved in order to determine the essence and shape of the shepherd-king metaphor. Therefore, the issues analyzed include animal domestication; ancient anthropology understood as the divine domestication of humans; and the distinctions drawn in ancient thought between the essence of the nature of animals, humans, rulers, and gods. RESEARCH RESULTS: As a result of the analyses indicated above, it was possible to capture the main components of the shepherd-king metaphor, their structure and essence, as well as their direct reference to, and significance for both anthropology and socio-political thought. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The article highlights the importance of the shepherd-king metaphor to the history of political ideas, outlining the impact of both its explicit theses and its more implicit, but no less important, elements. Attention was also drawn to the need for further research, which would enable the metaphor’s socio-political aspects analyzed in this article to be combined into one coherent interpretation with the religious and theological aspects.

Triplex cogitandi ratio cum methodo Jana Śniadeckiego – nowe źródło do dziejów logiki i epistemologii w szkolnictwie Komisji Edukacji Narodowej

The objective of this paper is to present the intellectual context, partially philosophical, of a newly discovered source for the history of Polish logic and epistemology. The source is the manuscript of lectures on logic given in the so-called Nowodworski Schools, a secondary school associated with the Kraków Academy. The lecture was given in the school year 1777/1778 by Jan Śniadecki (1756–1830), a leading thinker of the Polish Enlightenment – mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and pedagogical activist, including a rector of the Vilnius University. A preliminary interpretation of the manuscript is also delivered, classifying it as an exemplification of philosophia recentiorum. That philosophical and scientific trend, typical of education in the second half of the 18th century, was programmatically eclectic. It assimilated threads of modern epistemology and modern science into the course of philosophy characteristic of modern Christian Aristotelianism (second scholasticism). The article also announces the first critical edition of the manuscript being prepared. It seems to be essential for understanding the first stage of Śniadecki’s work, as well as for understanding the specificity of the education system in the schools supervised by the Commission of National Education, established in 1773.

Going Local: An Agency-Based Approach to Collapse, Resistance, and Resilience in Hittite Anatolia

Abstract Crisis and collapse have long been prominent themes in Hittite studies (much more so than the related topics of resistance and resilience) and most of the extant body of scholarship on these themes have concentrated on the disintegration of the Hittite Empire around 1200 BCE. Though the events, conditions and processes that culminated in the disintegration of the Hittite Empire elude historical reconstruction, recent studies have unanimously rejected monocausal explanations of collapse in favor of the view that it was brought about by a combination of factors – internal, external, acute or chronic. In Hittite scholarship, the study of collapse and its aftermath have typically operated within a markedly state-centered and progressivist framework, focusing primarily on figuring out “what went wrong.” Meanwhile, especially in text-based studies, the agency and resilience of local, small(er)-scale, peripheral, and non-state individuals and communities, as well as their role in the construction, maintenance, and collapse of the Hittite empire, remain largely overlooked. The aim of the present paper is to shift the focus and scale of analysis away from the state, and to draw out from the textual record, the long-term agency, resistance, and resilience of local, small-scale, and often non-state individuals, communities, or socio-political institutions, which have typically been left out of text-based modern narratives. This paper will reassess the prominent view of the Hittite king (and state) as the absolute political, military, judicial, and religious authority, and argue that certain local and non-state communities and socio-political institutions exercised diverse kinds of agency, were remarkably resilient in the long term, and survived the final collapse of the Hittite state. In order to situate the inquiry in its broader scholarly and intellectual context, it will begin with an overview of where things stand in the study of the Hittite collapse. The next step will be to identify individual or collective local actors in the textual record. It will lastly focus on the interactions of diverse local agents with the Hittite state.

Why Am I an Atheist?

This article sheds light on a neglected episode in the scholarship on Egypt's intellectual life in the interwar period, as well as on the Arab renaissance (Nahda) and its intensive preoccupation with the triangle of religion, science, and secularism. The discussion focuses on a provocative manifesto published in 1937 by an Egyptian writer Ismaʿil Ahmad Adham, which called for a godless universe. Adham's challenge to established religions is framed within a broader historical and intellectual context. It raises the following questions: How unique is Adham's atheism in the Egyptian and Arab writings of his time? What can we learn from the public discussions of his views about Egyptian civil culture in the 1930s and its commitment to a democratic ethos? Addressing these questions from a comparative perspective in both Islamic and European history may contribute much to the understanding of Arab debates about the existence of God.

Giovanni Pico and the Scholastics: A Note on «A Philosopher at the Crossroads»

This review note surveys some important aspects of a recent publication by Amos Edelheit, A Philosopher at the Crossroads: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Scholastic Philosophy. While focus over the last decades has been placed on Pico’s thought in relation to Jewish Kabbalah and mysticism, Edelheit hopes to emphasize the importance of the scholastic tradition (or, rather, the pluriform and various tradition of late medieval and Renaissance scholasticism) in Pico’s thought, and the ways in which this intellectual context places this unique Renaissance thinker at a sort of ‘crossroads’. Beyond providing a brief overview of the three main parts of the text, this note examines more closely Edelheit’s study of Pico’s 900 Theses and the methodological approach which involves a reconstruction of the dialectical context for each thesis. The Latin scholastics are real conversational partners for Pico: he is versed in the 13th-century scholastic sources, is certainly familiar with contemporaneous scholastic thought, and is able to employ scholastic methods and terminology within his wider philosophical project. While scholastic philosophy was very much alive at the end of the fifteenth century, Pico’s new and inclusive approach to philosophy and the history of philosophy, never eschewing the Latin masters, departs from both scholastic and humanist trends.

Adventures in Lollard Street: An Experimental London Playground, 1955–60

Abstract This essay situates the emergence of the adventure playground movement in Britain within social and intellectual contexts. It provides a detailed account of the Lollard Adventure Playground, London, which lasted from 1955 to 1960, and describes the general ecology of the playground including indoor activities, the administration of the playground, and its mediation through pamphlets and journalism. It argues that the playground combined a Christian ethos evident in the early playground movement with the growing permissiveness of autonomous play, and shows how adventure playgrounds were a locus for tensions around class and gender.

The Moment of Patient Safety: Iatrogenic Injury, Clinical Error and Cultures of Healthcare in the NHS

Summary This article explores the ‘the moment of patient safety’—the period around 2000 when patient safety became a key policy concern of the British National Health Service (NHS), and other healthcare systems. While harm caused by medical care (iatrogenic injury) had long been acknowledged by clinicians and scientists, from 2000 a new systemic language of patient safety emerged in the NHS that promoted novel managerial and regulatory approaches to patient harm. This language reflected the state’s increasing role in regulating healthcare, as well as the erosion of medical autonomy and the rise of new forms of bureaucratic management. Acknowledging a transnational, intellectual context behind the rise of policy interest in patient safety—for example, the application of insights from the industrial safety sciences—this article examines the role played by domestic cultural factors, such as medical negligence litigation and healthcare scandals, in helping to define the new language in Britain.

Wright’s path analysis: Causal inference in the early twentieth century

Despite being a milestone in the history of statistical causal inference, Sewall Wright’s 1918 invention of path analysis did not receive much immediate attention from the statistical and scientific community. Through a careful historical analysis, this paper reveals some previously overlooked philosophical issues concerning the history of causal inference. Placing the invention of path analysis in a broader historical and intellectual context, I portray the scientific community’s initial lack of interest in the method as a natural consequence of relevant scientific and philosophical conditions. In addition to Karl Pearson’s positivist refutation of causation, I contend that the acceptance of path analysis faced several other challenges, including the introduction of a new formalism, conceptual barriers to causal inference, and the lack of model-based statistical thinking. The presence of these challenges shows that the delayed progress in causal inference in the early twentieth century was inevitable.

Reading against Reform: The Bristol Library Society and the Intellectual Culture of Bristol's Elections in 1812*

AbstractThis article pioneers a new methodological approach to the study of electoral politics by combining an analysis of the politics of reading, library association and the reading habits of electors in an English urban constituency in the early 19th century. By integrating an examination of reading practices and intellectual context into our analysis of electoral contests, political history scholars can go further in their examination of the unreformed electoral system and attempt to gauge the motivations behind voting habits and partisan identification in this period. Using electoral voting data and the records of an urban subscription library, this article explores the interrelation between the Bristol Library Society and Bristol's electoral politics, as well as conducting an analysis of which books were being borrowed and read by electors in a politically tumultuous year. Although few in number compared with the total size of Bristol's electorate, Bristol Library members were among some of the most politically and culturally influential individuals in Bristol society and were active participants in electoral contests in the city, either as candidates, campaigners, civic officials or voters. An analysis of their voting habits reveals that the library's membership reflected the Tory political hegemony that became pronounced in the city's civic politics. Moreover, an analysis of their reading habits in 1812 reveals an interest in political texts that were conservative and anti‐Gallic in tone, that were representative of the political climate in Bristol in 1812, and which contributed to the defeat of candidates for reform in its electoral contests.

The ‘individualization of war’: discussion and critique of a discourse

ABSTRACT ‘Individualisation of war’ is an expression used by several scholars to conceptualise in a holistic way contemporary forms of political violence as targeted killings or extraordinary renditions. Yet, the expression does not simply mirror the practices of the real world, but it also constitutes and is constituted by the practices, thus it can be framed as a discourse. This article questions how the discourse on the ‘individualisation of war’ has emerged, in what context it has gained institutional legitimacy, and what is the meaning that the discourse produces and re-produces. To answer such questions, the article in a first part outlines the intellectual context in which the ‘individualisation of war’ has emerged and how it has been articulated in specific knowledge domains. While in a second part, the article analyzes the discourse’s meaning(s) by questioning separately the two conceptual components: ‘individualisation’ and ‘war’. Eventually, the article claims that ‘individualisation of war’, despite the insightful interpretative tools it offers to decipher the role of the individual in the realm of in contemporary war, serves more a rhetorical and legitimising role than analytical functions.

ПОЛИТИЧЕСКАЯ ФИЛОСОФИЯ И ОНТОЛОГИЯ АВТОНОМНЫХ ЗОН

The article reveals the content of the Temporary Autonomous Zones’ conception (TAZ), proposed by the American anarchist thinker and poet Hakim Bey (real name – Peter Lamborn Wilson, 1945–2022) and rather poorly represented in Russian-language scientific publications. The political and intellectual contexts within which this concept was formed and formulated, as well as its ontological roots, theorized by Hakim Bey himself, are highlighted. A brief overview of the main provisions of this concept, a critical reaction to it from other anarchist authors (M. Bookchin), as well as counterarguments by post-anarchist theorists R. F. Day and S. Newman are presented. The relevance of this work is due to the fact that the trends of instability and non-linearity, fixed both in the modern post-non-classical world picture (reflected in philosophy) and in current global politics, though not identical, but in a certain way correlate with anarchist approaches to understanding reality in general and political reality in particular. The purpose of this articleis attempt to incorporate the concepts of ontological anarchy and autonomous zones, developed by Bey in the 80s of the 20th century, into the context of the latest theoretical approaches in ontology, namely those presented by Q. Meillassoux’s speculative materialism, L. R. Brynt’s object-oriented ontology (onticology) and B. Latour’s actor-network theory. This also determines the scientific novelty of this work, achieved by methods of historical and philosophical description and comparative analysis and also thanks to the involvement of a number of rare English-language sources devoted to the scientific consideration of the work of Hakim Bey. The results of the work include the detection of theoretical approaches to the development and articulation of an anarchist political ontology, which may be associated with further areas of scientific research. In addition, as a conclusion, those nuances of the concept of autonomous zones that seem to be the most relevant today are outlined.

Comparing the Roots of the Faculty of Imagination and Analyzing the Concepts of the Divine Names (Asma’ Allah al-Husna) in the Degrees of Human Existence from the Perspective of Ibn Arabi

This research examines and analyzes the roots of the faculty of imagination and the concepts of the Divine Names (Asma’ Allah al-Husna) in the degrees of human existence from the perspective of Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi. The transformations of theological and mystical concepts, from the advent of Islam to the medieval periods, especially in the realm of Sufism, have been accompanied by depth and evolution. From the 8th century CE, Islamic mystics in both the eastern and western parts of the Islamic world solidified and developed the theoretical foundations of Sufism. In the 12th century CE, Ibn Arabi, considering the cultural and intellectual context of his time, revisited mystical teachings and, utilizing the concepts of the faculty of imagination and the Divine Names, reinterpreted ideas such as the Perfect Man (Insan Kamil) and the unity of existence in a novel way. This research demonstrates that Ibn Arabi, by blending previous mystical concepts and employing the power of imagination, restructured and expanded the language of Sufism and the meaning of the Perfect Man. He succeeded in deeply analyzing the Divine Names, interpreting the existential ranks of humans, and presenting a new understanding of humanity’s place in the cosmic order. The goal of this article is to provide a comprehensive view of the impact of the faculty of imagination and the analysis of the Divine Names on the structure of mystical anthropology and to explain the key concepts of Sufism from Ibn Arabi’s perspective.

Navigating Intellectual Crossroads: Intersections of Modern Western Thought and Islamic Reformism

Introduction: The article begins by outlining the historical and intellectual context of the interaction between Modern Western Thought and Islamic Reformism. It highlights the challenges and opportunities arising from the convergence of these two intellectual traditions, noting the significant impact of Western secularism, scientific inquiry, and rationality on global discourse, including Islamic societies. The introduction sets the stage for a detailed exploration of the exclusivist and inclusivist movements and their implications for Islamic societies. Objectives: The primary objective of this article is to examine the intellectual challenges and opportunities presented by the interaction between Modern Western Thought and Islamic Reformism. It aims to provide insights into the diverse perspectives within Islamic societies, the clash between tradition and modernity, and the potential for reconciling religious faith with reason. The article also seeks to foster a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural contexts that shape these debates and to promote respectful dialogue and critical inquiry. Conclusion: The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of fostering mutual understanding and respectful dialogue between Eastern and Western philosophies. It underscores the need for a nuanced approach that considers historical and cultural contexts to bridge the epistemological gap between these two intellectual traditions. By promoting critical inquiry and embracing pluralism, the article suggests that both Islamic and Western societies can engage in a productive exchange of ideas, ultimately contributing to intellectual advancement and societal progress.