Intellectual History Research Articles

The Politics of Ælfric’s Maccabees

Abstract Ælfric of Eynsham’s Old English homily on the biblical books of Maccabees is a crucial text in the intellectual history of later Anglo-Saxon England, containing the only discussion of ‘just war’ in the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon literature, and the earliest attestation to the ‘Three Orders of Society’. It is now generally understood that Ælfric was writing for a predominantly lay audience, exhorting them to take up arms against the Vikings. This becomes particularly apparent from a close examination of Ælfric’s deviations from, and emendations to, the Vulgate, not all of which have hitherto been noticed. After supplementing this literary analysis with new observations, this article attempts to delineate the historical implications of this interpretation of the text. Once placed within its historical context, Ælfric’s Maccabees appears as a sharp critique of the direction of royal policy under Æthelred the Unready during the 990s, especially the payment of tribute to the Vikings and their conscription as mercenaries. This invites us to reconsider both Ælfric’s own intellectual trajectory and the court politics of Anglo-Saxon England in the final years of the first millennium.

Energy homeostasis from Lavoisier to control theory.

The intellectual history of energy homeostasis, focusing on food intake and energy storage, is briefly reviewed. Physiological energetics was founded by Lavoisier, who in the late eighteenth century invented direct and indirect calorimetry and discovered the role of oxygen in combustion and respiration. Energy was understood well enough by the mid-nineteenth century to realize the physiological energy-balance equation, that energy intake - energy expenditure = energy storage, but this did not greatly influence physiological research for another century. Homeostasis, the concept that many vital physiological variables are actively regulated in narrow envelopes, was developed by Bernard and Cannon between approximately 1870-1940 and remains a central principle of physiology. Kennedy coined the term lipostasis in 1953 to refer to the constancy of fat mass, which Mayer argued was the mechanism regulating body weight. A parameterized control-theory model suggests that a proportional negative-feedback control system incompletely compensates weight loss during persistent negative energy balance, suggesting that Cannon's idea of constancy within a narrow envelope may not fit body-weight regulation well. This modelling encourages further application of control theory to issues in energy homeostasis, including to the development of obesity. It also sets the stage for understanding the underlying neuroendocrine mechanisms. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Causes of obesity: theories, conjectures and evidence (Part I)'.

Metamorphoses of the Lithuanian Environmental Thought: From the Onset through Enlightenment to Romanticism

This article treats the Enlightenment and Romanticism as ways of understanding the world (rather than chronologically defined intellectual movements). The article discusses the main philosophical attributes of these worldviews. It demonstrates how shifts from the symbolical reasoning to the Enlightenment, as well as from the Enlightenment to the Romanticism, transformed the Lithuanians’ relations to the natural surroundings. The article also underscores close connections between literature, philosophy and the Lithuanian environmental practices (i. e. environmental laws, and institutions of environmental protection). For this purpose literary examples (such as works by M. Hussovianus, H. D. Thoreau and P. Mérimée), as well as a tale about a boy raised by the bears in Lithuanian woods, are examined in the light of philosophical tendencies and political transformations. The article shows that the Enlightenment, a project based on rationalization and secularization of the world (an attempt to eliminate symbolical reasoning) brought with itself a view of nature as a resource, and a plan to reconstruct nature alonside the industrial model. The environmental protection of the Enlightenment was a science of optimizing the exploitation. The article shows that Romanticism was a rebellion against the Enlightenment, offering a new type of environmental protection: namely, protecting the nature as useful in-itself, and protecting it from the humans.

Existential spectrum of suffering: concepts and moral valuations for assessing intensity and tolerability

This paper has two aims. The first is to defend a recent critique of the leading medical theory of suffering, which alleges too narrow a focus on violent experiences of...

The Ottoman schools and their impact on the development of the intellectual movement in the country

The Ottoman schools played a central role in the formation of the collective mind of the thought and curriculum of the Ottoman Empire, and the research discussed the history of these schools since their inception, ascent, and then decline, and the research was divided into an introduction, a research summary, three topics and a conclusion. The first topic came under the title of the Ottoman schools from inception until the era of Muhammad al-Fateh, and the second topic was titled the development of the Ottoman schools from the era of al-Fateh until the era of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The third topic dealt with the development of the Ottoman schools in the legal era, then their decline and backwardness in the era of weakness and the stagnation and decline that befell them and the reasons for that until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1924.

N.M. Yadrintsev and the Academic-Literary Journal "Delo": Narratives of Journalism in the 1870s

The article is devoted to the analysis of the narratives of journalism of the founder of Siberian regionalism N.M. Yadrintsev, presented in the journal "Delo" in the 1870s. Guided by the methodology of "new cultural and intellectual history", the authors showed that the cooperation of N.M. Yadrintsev with the democratic journal "Delo" resulted in the development and systematization of several narratives: abolition of exile as punishment, prison studies and educational policy of tsarism.
 The authors established that the problems of exile and prison were not at all the only topics that the Siberian public figure developed in the pages of "Delo" journal. The authors revealed that in the second half of the 1870s N.M. Yadrintsev also developed the issue of educational policy as part of his collaboration with the central periodical. The provincial thinker, within the framework of these publications, convincingly showed that the desire for education in Siberia was constantly growing, and as the number of secondary educational institutions increased, so did the number of Siberians striving for a university education. In the concept of regionalists, the university in general was perceived as a rallying body for the forces of the region, the development of civil liberty in it and the formation of the local intelligentsia. Keywords: Siberian regionalism, history of journalism, exile, prison, educational policy of tsarism, N.M. Yadrint-sev, academic-literary journal "Delo".

The Influence of Renaissance Thought on Martin Luther’s View of Liberty

Abstract Scholars have long acknowledged the substantial influence of the Renaissance movement on Luther’s Reformation. However, due to the absence of comprehensive studies on Luther’s contexts, a thorough and detailed analysis of this influence in Luther’s thought and writings has been hindered. The aforementioned circumstance has resulted in the overall disregard of this contribution in the history of Western philosophy. This paper aims to analyze the distinct impact of Renaissance ideology on the evolution of Luther’s concept of liberty. The first section will discuss the background of Luther’s reform movement and the fundamental place of the humanist concept of liberty in its impact on the destruction of the religious power of the Catholic Church. The second section will examine the significant role played by humanists, such as Erasmus, in shaping Luther’s liberal ideas during his early years. The third section will examine how Luther’s understanding of liberty was developed through his polemical exchanges with Erasmus and other thinkers. This process ultimately resulted in Luther’s distinctive and paradoxical conception of freedom, which highlights Luther’s and humanists’ historical influence on the independence, emancipation, and autonomy of the individual personality in their age. The fourth section will examine the influence of Luther’s paradoxical ontological theory on the development of Western intellectual history. Additionally, it will address the misinterpretation of this intellectual history lineage by the mainstream of Western intellectual history that occurred concurrently. Finally, in the twentieth century, the revival of Luther’s thought, which was gradually revitalized by Heidegger, Karl Barth, and other contemporary scholars, also highlights the significant influence of Renaissance thought on Luther’s theory and the whole history of Western thought.

The Idea of The Muslim World, A Global Intellectual History

The Idea of The Muslim World, A Global Intellectual History | Cemil Aydin | London: Harvard University Press, 2017.
 The notion of "The Muslim World" as a binary point of opposition to "The West" has become a global narrative, accepted by many Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In fact, Muslims reside in different parts of the world, speak different languages, live in different traditions and cultures, and have different nationalities and political interests. Besides, the those who believe in notions of the Muslim world have rarely discussed or imagined the Christian world, the Buddhist world, and so on in similar terms. Thus, how did this narrative about the 'Muslim World' come into being and become a mainstream belief in the modern world? This issue constitutes the main point of discussion in Cemil Aydin's book, as the title suggests, "The Idea of The Muslim World." Questions such as who, when, how, and why this notion arose and persists in the modern era are discussed.

VALIDITY NOW

ABSTRACTThis review essay offers an extended analysis of Martin Jay's Genesis and Validity: The Theory and Practice of Intellectual History, highlighting Jay's emphasis on the need for intellectual historians to address the question of the present‐day validity of ideas. In this volume of essays on twentieth‐century philosophy and historiography, Jay contends that the perennial tension between historicism and truth value is integral to intellectual history; however, it is establishing the latter that is the most crucial, and perhaps most difficult, part of our practice. In thirteen separate but related pieces, Jay explores subjects such as the common ground shared by Quentin Skinner and Hayden White, the “styles” of thought represented by Walter Benjamin and Isaiah Berlin, and recent French theories of the historical sublime and the “advent” of ideas. This review essay discusses these pieces and compares Jay's essay on historical truthfulness to ancient rhetorical discussions of the many forms of lying about history. Its final section deals with the ways in which insights from the history of science might help us to connect genesis and validity by examining the practices of idea‐ or knowledge‐making, and it argues that validity is also, and perhaps most importantly, something we need to embrace in our roles as teachers. What makes ideas valid is the next generation of thinkers, and to make wise and well‐informed life choices, they need to have a full range of older and newer ideas about the human condition from which to choose.

Israel studies in the UK: the history of an idea

ABSTRACT Through oral testimony from the major figures in the discipline, this article traces the narrative- and intellectual history, and development of the discipline of Israel Studies in the United Kingdom, using the three universities – Oxford, SOAS, and Sussex – that have dedicated Chairs in the field. It further seeks to seek to locate the discipline of Israel Studies both practically and ideologically in the minds of the scholars interviewed, and within the greater intellectual canon. It concludes that the discipline of Israel Studies in the UK has entered a new phase, in which a new generation of scholars is happy to shed any Zionist “agenda,” and meet Israel on its own terms, thereby normalizing the study of Israel.

One Perspective on the Evolution of Civil Wars Research

ABSTRACT This essay presents a perspective on the intellectual history and development of the field of civil wars. It argues that scholarship on civil wars has its origins in research on revolution and contentious politics. Over time, work on civil wars grew to become its own distinct research programme. The evolution of this programme has been characterised by three broad trends: conceptual and measurement refinement, a search for the optimal unit of analysis, and a reimagining of what is political in the context of civil wars. The intersection of these trends – which measures, assumptions, units, and concepts – tended to produce intellectual traditions within the civil wars field. The author contextualises herself within these traditions, then presents the promises and pitfalls of these underlying trends in the field for future research.

Republicanizing Leviathan: Kant’s Cosmopolitan Synthesis of Hobbes and Rousseau

ABSTRACT Kant’s thought from the 1750s onward can usefully be understood as a series of efforts to overcome the challenge posed in Machiavelli’s Prince: namely, to reconcile our idea of justice with what is actually possible given human nature as it is, rather than as reason tells us that it “should” be. Especially following his reading of Rousseau, this effort took the form of successive translations of the metaphysical concept of a world into the juridical language of world-citizenship, which transformed a rational and physical cosmology into moral and historical cosmopolitanism. The thought of both Hobbes and Rousseau proved instrumental to those efforts. Initially, Kant thought human history oscillated between Hobbesian and Rousseauian conceptions of civil order—i.e., between orders that guarantee, respectively, security and freedom. In his later works, Kant suggested that history progressed from Hobbes to Rousseau, but he hesitated to declare that a transformation from prudence-based security to virtue-based civil independence was completable even in principle. Speaking generally, Kant sought to reconcile a kind of historical providentialism with the sovereign authority of reason. This reconciliation blurs the distinction between, on the one hand, the metaphysical and/or religious and, on the other hand, the secular—a distinction on which Michael Rosen’s perspicuous intellectual history tends to focus. That this earliest version of Kant’s rational providentialism makes reward of effort morally central also suggests that it is ultimately even more important to Kant than the punitive theme on which Rosen himself focusses.

Human Rights and Oppressed Peoples: Collected Essays and Speeches

Human Rights and Oppressed Peoples: Collected Essays and Speeches

The Secularization of Knowledge in the Age of Reformation

This article argues that the process of secularization of knowledge is essentially related and derived in complex and unintended ways from the doctrinal disagreements of the reformation era. The doctrinal disagreements were dual, between the Christian belief systems and between the monastic, scholastic and humanist movements. These disagreements in many forms also existed in the Islamic intellectual traditions in which the period of the three movements differed from that of Christianity. Conversations between various intellectual movements shall facilitate us in understanding the character of Christendom’s vibrant, varied and sometimes contentious intellectual culture during the reformation, with its monastic, scholastic, scientific and humanistic strands. This will, in turn, enable us to see how this culture and its institutional settings were affected by the reformation. The article will also discuss the contrasting claims of Islamic knowledge tradition on the secularization of knowledge through the development of intellectual movements of scholasticism and humanism in Islam. A significant part of the argument is that the secularization of knowledge in the West was not an inevitable product of the enlightenment. It was rather more of a contingent process derived from the interaction between people, institutions, assumptions, metaphysical belief systems, the exercise of power and human desires. This work has primarily referred to the secondary literature to draw historical inferences, debates and departures in intellectual movements of reformation times, to understand the process of secularization of knowledge.

SCIENTIFIC, POPULARISATION AND CIVIL ACTIVITY OF MYRON KORDUBA DURING THE GREAT WAR

The purpose of the article is to clarify the peculiarities of public activity and the scientific work of M. Korduba during the First World War. The methodological basis of the work is an interdisciplinary approach. Particular emphasis is placed on the structural and functional system analysis of historiographical facts and the method of critical analysis of documentary material. The scientific novelty of the article consists in an attempt to comprehensively reconstruct the intellectual biography of M. Korduba during the Great War. Conclusion. In the end, it was noted that the reconstruction of M. Korduba's life and activities during the First World War portrays him as one of the leading representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia of the modern era of national revival. Not being a professional politician by his chosen lifestyle, the scientist lively responded to the numerous needs of the Ukrainian public deprived of its own statehood. During the Great War, he directed his energy to the most important areas of national progress: he carried out cultural and educational work among prisoners of war, wrote popular scientific texts necessary for the self-education of the general public, defended Ukrainian interests with a journalistic pen when discussing the model of the post-war world order, etc. But M. Korduba's range of public talents was most fully demonstrated by the events of the establishment of national statehood in the western Ukrainian lands after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was his composure in difficult situations, responsible initiative and public courage that largely made it possible to declare a short-term, but important for the national self-awareness of the people of Bukovyna, political independence. The events of that time crystallized the sobornist convictions of Korduba-politician, as evidenced by the scholar's intellectual biography of the interwar period, in which once again scientific creativity and public service were inextricably intertwined.

How to Become a Historian of Latin America: The Extraordinary Career of Frank Tannenbaum

In January 2001, before the Conference on Latin American History decided to link its annual luncheon address to the recipient of its Distinguished Service Award, I had the honor of speaking at the CLAH luncheon, and in that previous talk I briefly discussed the circumstances that led to my becoming a Latin Americanist. Here I return to the theme of becoming a historian of Latin America, but this time I will be drawing not on my own rather unremarkable experience, but instead on my current research for an intellectual biography of the renowned Latin Americanist Frank Tannenbaum (1893–1969), whose path to specialization in Latin American history was considerably more remarkable.

Философское «поле» конфессионализации в России: русская религиозная философия XIX в. между «официальной» церковностью и политическими теологиями

The article explores the history of Russian religious philosophy of the 19th century as a part of the history of Christianity in Russia. Such a point of view becomes possible if we analyze how Russian religious philosophers criticize the religious attitudes of the “official” Orthodox Church and secular worldview attitudes. Secular attitudes are considered in the article as “political theologies” that “continued” religion in a secular society by secular means and for secular purposes. Criticism of the “official” ecclesiality and political theologies allows us to say that Russian religious philosophers, starting from the 19th century, initiated a process that was structurally similar to the process of confessionalization in the Reformation era. Within the framework of the “hermeneutic wars” they defended their unique type of religiosity, which can be defined as “the religiosity of intellectuals”. It is through the prism of the confessionalization process that consideration of the history of Russian religious philosophy as part of the history of Christianity in Russia becomes possible; confessionalization is associated with religious conversion, which is common to most Russian religious philosophers. It is concluded that the legitimation of one's own religiosity as genuine is the main goal of Russian religious philosophers, and they use philosophy as a means for this legitimation. This legitimation is proposed to be understood as a perlocutionary aspect of Russian religious philosophy, if we consider it according to the approach of the Cambridge School of Intellectual History. Criticism, in the course of which Russian religious philosophers developed confessionalization activities, substantiating the inauthenticity of both “official” ecclesiality and political theologies, is proposed to be considered an illocutionary, warning aspect of Russian religious philosophy.

On Indexing: The Birth and Early Development of an Idea.

Incorporating techniques from book history into traditional intellectual history, this article traces the effective origin of indexing to the early printed editions of two lexicographical works, Lorenzo Valla's Elegantie and Niccolò Perotti's Cornu copiae, and then follows its development through the editions of the Roman poet Virgil published between 1500 and 1800. Indexing practices turn out to be tied to how books were read, with a new way of consuming books, which is labeled "transverse reading," emerging during this period.

“THE PAN-ROMANCE STATE” AS AN INVENTED HISTORIOGRAPHICAL TRADITION IN THE INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to analyze the perception of the common pan-Romance state in the intellectual history of Romance philology. The author analyzes various viewpoints on the common pan-Romance state, including the arguments of supporters and opponents of its existence.
 Novelty. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of interpretations of the common pan-Romance state in contexts of the history of the Romance languages through the prism of intellectual history and the history of ideas.
 Materials and methods. Methodologically, the article is based on the principles of interdisciplinary historiography proposed in intellectual and cultural history, which allows us to analyze the problems of the common pan-Romance state as part of the history of ideas and an invented historiographic tradition or intellectual construct.
 Results. The article analyzes 1) the arguments of supporters of the existence of a common Romance state as a stage between Latin and Romance languages, 2) the ideas of critics and opponents of the idea of a common Romance state, who tend to look for the origins of the Romance languages directly in Latin, 3) the possibilities and potency of revising early viewpoints in contexts the history of late Latin and the early genesis of the Romance languages. The article also analyzes 1) the arguments of supporters and opponents of the existence of the common Romance state through the prism of intellectual history and the history of ideas, 2) the history of Romance philology through the prism of the archaeology of ideas, which allows us to trace how the arguments of supporters and opponents of the common Romance state have changed, 3) the general logic of the development of Romance philology through the prism of the transformation of ideas about the general Romance state.
 Conclusions. The results of the study suggest that 1) ideas about the common Romance state in the history of Romance linguistic became a common historiographic place, turning into an invented intellectual and historiographical tradition, 2) discussions and debates about the existence or absence of a general Romance state stimulated the search for new ideas, contributing to the development of Romance philology, 3) the controversy and debatability of the concept of the general Romance state in the history of Romance philology will remain a factor contributing to intellectual discussions and actualization of the role of revisionism as a universal factor in the development of modern interdisciplinary linguistics.

Women’s Ornaments in the Poetry of Khawaja Farid and their Analytical Review

Throughout intellectual history, mystics, philosophers, poets, and aestheticians have engaged in discussions about the concept of beauty. The character of beauty is also considered a divine attribute reflecting God’s love for beauty. Consequently, everything created by Allah is beautiful. Human beauty is unparalleled in terms of the appropriateness and attractiveness of his stature, shape and appearance. Allah’s blessing is that the almighty created man’s best creations and created his structure in good manners. Khawaja Farid, a Sufi poet, also shed light on the concept through his poetry, particularly in glorifying female obsession with ornaments. Khawaja Farid belongs to the pantheistic (Wahdat Al-Wajood) spiritual school of thought. Those affiliated with this spiritual school of thought loved every creature of this universe. As a result, they love the creator and have more spiritual intimacy with God. In this article, I aim to answer several questions regarding this theme, including the types of ornaments used, their purpose, the feelings they keep, and their symbolic meaning. Khawaja Farid’s poetry indicates that all ornaments, colours, and forms are used to enhance the beauty of the female form for the beloved. These ornaments are worn on various body parts, such as fingers, wrists, elbows, nose, ears, neck, head, and feet, to gain the romantic approval of the beloved. Female characters in his poetry not only adorn themselves but also try to acquire famous and expensive clothes and ornaments from different places and cultures to increase their attractiveness. These ornaments’ purpose is aesthetic and symbolic, representing the lover’s desire to draw the beloved’s attention and keep their love alive. The feeling of wearing these ornaments arises from the belief that they will enhance the wearer’s beauty and make them more attractive. However, the critical study also finds these ornaments uncomfortable and impractical. Although these beautiful ornaments make life complicated and unbearable, they still practise those traditions to impress the beloved. In overview, the article excavates into the aesthetics of Khawaja Farid’s poetry and the role of ornaments in enhancing the female form’s beauty. The embellishments are worn to gain the beloved’s romantic appreciation and represent the lover’s desire to keep their love active. Although these ornaments are uncomfortable, they are essential for aesthetic and symbolic value. The article provides insight into the romantic aspects of ornamentation in poetry and the hidden sense behind these adornments.