Intellectual World Research Articles

Still Point of the Turning World

Schubert’s late instrumental music evokes a distinctive time-sense which not only expands the expressive potential of stylistic norms, but also invites deeper reflections on the relationship between the self and the world through his multilayered construction of temporal consciousness. The sense of now, towards which past and future gravitate, is particularly salient. In this article, I examine the formal, harmonic, topical processes through which Schubert constructs a vivid sense of the now in two movements from his late period, D. 956/ii and D. 959/ii, through the lens of phenomenology, drawing on conceptions of time as formulated by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. I aim to bridge two fields together: first, the general theory of musical time, as has been delineated by Kramer, Barry and Clifton, which examines concepts such as linearity/nonlinearity, silence and stasis; and second, the scholarship on late Schubert, with key conceptual tools such as landscape, late style, lyricism, songfulness and interiority, formulated in the works of Adorno, Burnham, Mak and Taylor. I will also provide the cultural context of musical time in the early-nineteenth century, focusing on the wider paradigm shift from form-as-architecture to form-as-process in music. My analysis reflects a phenomenological orientation within a hermeneutic, narrative mode. I highlight the often disorienting subjective experience of time as evoked by moments that deflect from norms and expectations, specifically the tension between the transient nature of music and the sense of permanence evoked through Schubert’s cyclic, paratactic procedures. I then show how Schubert’s construal of temporal consciousness acquires a historiographical import and resonates with the broader intellectual world by framing it in terms of Schlegel’s three stages of history. I conclude by promoting phenomenological approaches in analysing Schubert’s works and nineteenth-century music at large.

The Intellectual Elite of Ukraine in the First Czechoslovak Republic

Sceintific review of Zavorotna N. Scholars in Exile: The Ukrainian Intellectual World in Interwar Czechoslovakia

Judith N. Shklar on disobedience and obligation in a “society of strangers”

Judith N. Shklar on disobedience and obligation in a “society of strangers”

Kritik Ibn al-Jauzi Terhadap Hadis dalam Kitab Ihya Ulum ad-Din dan Pembelaan Abu al-Fadl al-Iraqi

In the world of Islamic intellectuals, Al-Ghazali is one of the Sufistic figures who understands Islam very well. Arguments and ways of thinking about philosophy, monotheism and others were able to become a bridge for Muslims in that era. But apart from the intellectual prowess of al-Ghazali can not be separated from the criticism of his thinking. Some scholars at that time tried to criticize al-Ghazali's thoughts, especially about the hadith arguments that he used in Islamic law. Some scholars' considered that al-Ghazali used the hadith maudlu'. This is as seen in one of his monumental works, Ihya 'Ulum ad-Din, both for the purpose of at-targhib (providing motivation) and at-tarhib (scaring), and/or fadhail al-a'mal (the virtue of attitude/ behavior). It is interesting to briefly examine the epistemological framework of hadith in al-Ghazali's thought, which according to some scholars' has a tasahhul (loose) attitude in terms of hadith transmission, thus drawing criticism from some scholars and even orientalists, and the basis held by al-Ghazali in narrating and using hadiths that are af and even willing' quality, especially those related to haram and halal. However, this monumental book by al-Ghazali is considered a very great book in its era until now because it includes various types of knowledge.

Calcidius on Plato’s Timaeus: Greek Philosophy, Latin Reception, and Christian Contexts by Gretchen Reydams-Schils

Reviewed by: Calcidius on Plato’s Timaeus: Greek Philosophy, Latin Reception, and Christian Contexts by Gretchen Reydams-Schils Sara Ahbel-Rappe REYDAMS-SCHILS, Gretchen. Calcidius on Plato’s Timaeus: Greek Philosophy, Latin Reception, and Christian Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2020. 232 pp. Cloth, $99.99; paper and eBook, $29.99 This carefully written study is the first to address in its entirety the fourth-century Latin commentary on Plato’s Timaeus by the otherwise unknown Calcidius. The commentary appears together with a partial translation of the dialogue (“The translation goes up to 53c and the commentary covers the section from 31 to 53c”). In framing this work as part of the Platonic commentary tradition, Reydams-Schils moves us beyond the misunderstanding that the work is a paraphrase of now lost sources (primarily Porphyry and/or Nemesius). She treats the commentary as an original composition by an independent thinker steeped in middle Platonic, stoic, and even Aristotelian philosophy. As such, the work, alongside that of Cicero, Boethius, Macrobius, and Martianus Capella, is one of the crucial conduits for the transmission of Platonism to the Latin West. Reydams-Schils offers an evenhanded assessment of the text’s central arguments. Her immense erudition and meticulous research, together with fine-grained readings of the text in the original Latin, are everywhere in evidence. The book also relies on two decades’ worth of her own writing about and exploration of the intellectual world of this dialogue in concert with other scholars. The book falls into three parts: part 1 gives us a roadmap of the commentary; part 2 assesses the importance of its philosophical themes; and part 3 places Calcidius’s work alongside his reading of stoic, Peripatetic, middle Platonic, and Christian sources. By the end of the volume, we come away with a rich knowledge of Calcidius’s project together with a deeper understanding of what has been called eclecticism in the context of middle Platonic philosophy. As Reydams-Schils shows, [End Page 396] this work should not be taken as sharing in the late antique Neoplatonic milieu that characterizes Proclus or even Boethius, for example. Instead, Calcidius’s commentary develops as an original interpretation of the meaning of Platonism and especially of Plato’s doctrines of creation. The heart of the commentary, as Reydams-Schils unfolds it, relates to the theme of universal providence, an emphasis that has Calcidius reading the Timaeus primarily as an ethical work. In his articulation of how providence works in the world, Calcidius transgresses in fundamental ways the root division that runs through the original dialogue, between the works of intelligence and the works of necessity, between the intelligent cause and the errant cause (Timaeus 47e). Reydams-Schils writes, “the notion [of providence] is so important for Calcidius that he in effect rewrites Plato’s account in crucial passages to make room for it.” She pays attention to how Calcidius (deliberately?) mistranslates Plato’s Greek and thus insinuates his own version of the creation story to accord with a doctrine that borrows a great deal from the Stoic understanding of divine providence. Thus, for example, Calcidius has prouidae mentis intellectus instituit for the Greek “τὰ δία νοῦ δεδημιουργημένα,” where the original Greek entirely lacks any mention of providence. The longest and most theoretically sophisticated section of the commentary forms a subtreatise on the topic of matter (a word that Calcidius admits does not occur in Plato’s text). Reydams-Schils neatly connects the philosophy of providence that Calcidius earlier weaves together through his understanding of the function of the world soul with his philosophy of matter. She shows how Calcidius leans heavily on the stoic delineation of matter as a passive substance in order to circumvent the resistance or even recalcitrance of Plato’s receptacle, by describing matter as “a providential form of obedience in necessity found upon reason.” Strange words for a Platonist, indeed. The third part of the book is a judicious review of previous scholarship on Calcidius’s sources, his dependence on (actually, to a great extent, Reydams-Schils demonstrates, independence from) them, together with a survey of issues surrounding the possible religious identity of Calcidius. (There is no reason to think he is Christian, according to Reydams...

William Poole. The World Makers: Scientists of the Restoration and the Search for the Origins of the Earth.

William Poole. <i>The World Makers: Scientists of the Restoration and the Search for the Origins of the Earth.</i>

Phrasing the Yugoslav Crisis: Jovan Mirić and the Constitutional Debates of the 1980s

Abstract In this article, I analyze the debate triggered in Yugoslavia in 1984 by Jovan Mirić’s book The System and the Crisis. Drawing from a wide corpus of sources, mainly from the Yugoslav press and the intellectual production of the time, I argue that the episode sheds light on many aspects of the Yugoslav crisis. First, it shows the ultimate incapacity of certain actors of the Yugoslav political and intellectual elite to accept a compromise with those who pushed for reform. Second, the episode attests to the changes introduced by the crisis on the Yugoslav political and intellectual landscape, which allowed for an intellectual with no political prominence to attain unexpected influence over party politics overnight. Finally, I also argue that the Mirić affair shows that many in the Yugoslav political and intellectual world who could not be identified as nationalists were nevertheless anxious about the way in which authorities were dealing with the Serbian question, which invites us to leave aside black-and-white notions when considering the power of Serbian nationalism and its rise during the 1980s.

Scientific advice and COVID-19 policy making in the UK: an oral history study

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has posed severe challenges to policy makers in all countries: these include uncertainty about the science of the disease, its epidemiology, and public behaviour, coupled with the need to act fast. This real-time study was undertaken to capture UK Government scientific advisers' perceptions of how scientific advice worked and to learn lessons about what works best in a fast-moving response to a novel epidemic. MethodsRegular semi-structured calls were recorded with ten prominent scientific advisers to elicit their roles in, and reactions to, the UK's COVID-19 response. Interviewees were recruited using the existing networks of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit for Emerging and Zoonotic Infections. They were active in fields including biomedical research, modelling, and global health, and they included members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). In pandemic conditions interviewing was opportunistic: one participant spoke to us almost every 1–2 weeks, others at longer intervals. Interviews were transcribed and coded using a published analytical framework for the study of policy decision-making. Findings93 interviews were conducted between Feb 17, 2020, and July 22, 2021. We report interviewees' perceptions that scientific advice had not led to sufficiently rapid policy decisions, and that a lack of transparency was sapping public trust. Interviewees also drew attention to policy makers' failure in the early months of the pandemic to frame a policy goal, and the problems this posed for giving scientific advice. It also became clear that scientific advisers and policy makers operated in different intellectual worlds, and that useful advice was most likely to be given when individuals could span this gap and understand the agendas of each group. InterpretationThese findings provide empirical information about how science advice has worked, uncovering power dynamics and business processes that are not otherwise well understood. We argue that politicians abdicated responsibility by their early “follow the science” rhetoric, later renegotiated. The study would be strengthened if the perceptions of policy makers were also included. We requested interviews with eight policy makers, who declined due to unavailability. FundingUK Research and Innovation—National Institute for Health Research.

Social Scientists

Social Scientists

"Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts: Other Jewish Voices by Tzahi Weiss (review)

Reviewed by: "Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts: Other Jewish Voices by Tzahi Weiss Alessia Bellusci Tzahi Weiss. "Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts: Other Jewish Voices. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. 208 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000210 Sefer Yeẓirah (The book of formation) is a Jewish cosmogonic book which focuses on the role of the decimal number system (sefirot) and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in the creation and in the created world. Considered a canonical Jewish text since the tenth century—notably, the same period in which the book is first attested—Sefer Yeẓirah became one of the most influential compositions for Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah. Unique in style and content, it has attracted remarkable attention both in Jewish and non-Jewish circles, fascinating scholars from various disciplines as well as a broader readership. Despite the rich scholarship devoted to it, Sefer Yeẓirah has not been fully deciphered yet, especially for what concerns its authorship, dating, and ultimate significance. [End Page 452] With his masterful monograph, Tzahi Weiss offers a clever new interpretation and contextualization of Sefer Yeẓirah, which, for the first time, takes into account and interrelates the actual subject of the book, its textual tradition, and its reception history. The identification of the precise interest of Sefer Yeẓirah in the speculation on the twenty-two Hebrew letters and their creative powers enables Weiss to draw solid comparisons with Syriac Christian literature, and, ultimately, to trace the intellectual matrix from which the book developed. Weiss shows how the nuances of the linguistic, physiologic, astrological, and cosmological notions displayed in the text point to a sophisticated late antique Jewish tradition that cannot be identified with rabbinic Judaism. Challenging the main theories on the time and context of Sefer Yeẓirah, he convincingly demonstrates that the book was "written and edited around the seventh century by Jews who were familiar with Syriac Christianity" (2). Showing how the history of the text is interwoven with its reception, Weiss argues for the existence of a mystical-mythical-magical interpretation of Sefer Yeẓirah prior to the twelfth century. The idea that late antique and early medieval Judaism was much more nuanced than the monolithic and rabbinocentric portrait outlined by a certain type of scholarship is the fil rouge of the book. Weiss situates both the formation and the earliest reception of Sefer Yeẓirah in a nonrabbinic milieu, showing that the text not only crystallized in an intellectual world neatly detached from both rabbinic culture and the known magico-mystical circles spinning in the rabbinic orbit—those that produced the hekhalot literature—but also, already in an early age, was transmitted and interpreted by Jews clearly interested in mysticism and magic and not only by "a limited section of the rabbinical elite" (104). The volume consists of an introduction, five chapters, a short epilogue, and three appendices. The introduction discusses the main issues which complicate a definitive contextualization of Sefer Yeẓirah, explaining how Weiss's theory interconnects with or challenges the most relevant studies on the topic. This section should be read together with appendix 1, which unveils the anachronism of the argument for an Abbasid context for Sefer Yeẓirah. In the first three chapters, Weiss advances his thesis on the composition of Sefer Yeẓirah, starting by demonstrating that—albeit contested by church authorities—letter speculation developed remarkably also in Syriac Christian marginal circles, the specific intellectual environment in which Sefer Yeẓirah was conceived (chapter 1). In his analysis of late antique conceptions on letter speculation, Weiss identifies two main traditions. The first—outlined in chapter 2—resurfaces in rabbinic and hekhalot literature and assumes the creation of the world / seal of the abyss from the ineffable name of God—or, in later articulations, from its specific letters. Within this model—which may be traced back to a Greek/Coptic preference for vowels—the matres lectionis (Hebrew vowels) hold a higher status. Conversely, the second tradition—discussed in chapter 3—conceives the creation of the world from the twenty-two Hebrew letters as a whole and with no hierarchy between vowels and consonants. Completely unattested in rabbinic and...

Agency: What Does It Mean to Be a Human Being?

This paper will look at the results of what has been termed “the crisis of modernism” and the related rise of postmodern perspectives in the 19th and 20th centuries. It concentrates on what is arguably the chief casualty of this crisis – human agency – and the social science that has developed out of the crisis. We argue that modern and postmodern social science ultimately obviate human agency in the understanding of what it means to be a human being. Attention is given to the contemporary intellectual world and the way in which it has been deeply informed by neo-Hegelian and other postmodern scholarly trends, particularly in accounting for how agency has come to play little role in social science understanding of human action. The paper also offers an alternative conception of human agency to the commonly endorsed libertarian model of free choice. Finally, the paper argues that this view of agency preserves meaning and purpose in human action and counters the pervasive social science worldview that sacrifices agency and meaning to powerful invisible abstractions.

Black Cultural Production: After Civil Rights ed. by Robert J. Patterson

Reviewed by: Black Cultural Production: After Civil Rights ed. by Robert J. Patterson Katherine Karlin (bio) Patterson, Robert J., Ed. Black Cultural Production: After Civil Rights, Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2019. 282 pp. ISBN: 9780252084607. $26.00 Paperback. It would be difficult to think of a moment in which Black Cultural Production: After Civil Rights, edited by Robert J. Patterson, would land with greater resonance. The volume arrives during a season of widespread protests against police violence, a significant shift in public opinion on the connection between law enforcement and implicit bias, and a substantive debate on reform versus defunding. What began as a grass-roots effort to dismantle racist iconography—particularly statues of Confederate soldiers—has been taken up by municipal governments, which have ordered the removal of these Jim Crow-era relics by city workers, sometimes under cover of night. In the wake of these sustained protests, cultural organizations have been issuing apologies for blind spots in their diversity efforts, and a period of soul-searching—at least some of which seems to be in good faith—has begun in the fields of literature, entertainment, and the arts. On June 19, 2020, the commemoration of Juneteenth, an astonishing array of Black writers, performers, and artists gathered under the banner of Black Artists for Freedom issued a statement calling for commitments from the institutions they work with, not only to sever ties with the police, but to advance opportunities and representation. "No more stereotypes," the statement reads. "No more tokenism. No more superficial diversity. We will no longer watch Black culture be contorted into a vehicle for self-congratulation, complacency, guilt relief, experiential tourism, fetishism, appropriation, and theft" (Black Artists for Freedom). The moment of reckoning for the culture echoes the decade of the 1970s that Black Culture examines, an explosion of artistic and political activity following the conclusion of the Civil Rights era, and its eradication of Jim Crow laws. The passage of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts left huge areas of institutionally embedded racism untouched, in housing, employment, education, and healthcare. "The post-civil rights era retrenchment of a de facto segregations revealed how white supremacy and antiblack racism were interconnected, intertwined, interrelated, and deeply embedded in America's values and institutions. Neither legislative acts nor a naïve belief in the general goodness of the American people could undo their historical and emotional sentience" (Patterson, 2). The political fight shifted from Civil Rights to Black Power; demands for institutional measures like affirmative action found their footing; and the culture, in all its manifestations, reflected the push to continue the struggle against racism on a new stage. Although the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement were finite and fulfilled, the [End Page 324] struggle had also instilled a momentum that continued into the cultural sphere long after its legislative battles had concluded. The cover of Black Cultural Production features a photo of actress Cicely Tyson, brandishing the two Emmys she won in 1974 for her lead performance in the television miniseries The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (Tyson was awarded the best actress award and a special citation as "Actress of the Year"). The gleam of Tyson's smile and the shiny awards suggest a promise of a new period in the arts, one in which Black stories could be told without the use of caricature or of white interpreters. Three years after Jane Pittman established the receptivity of white audiences, as well as Black, for stories of Black lives, the miniseries Roots was a cultural juggernaut, with 100 million viewers, a record that remains, as Lisa Woolfork in her essay on "Generations" states, unbroken (59). Mainstream television comedies like "Sanford and Son," "Good Times," and "The Jeffersons" portrayed Black families in a range of socioeconomic circumstances. The theater and poetry of the Black Arts Movement was shaking up the intellectual world. In the movies, Blaxploitation, which began as a low-budget response to the erasure of Black lives from action films, grew into a multimillion-dollar industry. Women novelists like Gayl Jones, Alice Walker, and Octavia Butler began to publish highly personal and experimental fiction, and the editor who nurtured many of these...

Review: Piranesi Unbound

Review: <i>Piranesi Unbound</i>

PHENOMENON OF AL-FARABI IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WORLD PHILOSOPHY

Al-Farabi laid the foundations of the philosophy of mutual understanding, following the principle of tolerance towards other cultures, religions and spiritual practices. He carried out a constructive dialogue between the philosophy of antiquity and the philosophy of the Middle Ages, Islam, Christianity and Judaism and organically entered into the modern discourse of the Kazakh philosophy of mutual understanding. In his teaching on mutual understanding, Al-Farabi revealed the unlimited possibilities of an integral communicative dialogue between completely different spiritual and intellectual worlds. The principle of mutual understanding as a way of mastering the semantic philosophical space of the ancient heritage allowed him to reveal the dialogic essence of philosophy and understand it as a dialogue of free, equal spiritual and intellectual practices. Through the prism of Al-Farabi’s philosophical heritage, the great meaning of the philosophy of mutual understanding is clarified.

Hasan Onat's Main References in His Intellectual World

Hasan Onat, merkezinde insanın olduğu, insanlığın ürettiği evrensel değerlerini de içerip modern dünyaya seslenebilecek yeni bir İslâm medeniyeti oluşturma gayreti içerisinde olan önemli bir İslâm âlimidir. Düşüncelerine müracaat ettiği yazarlara herhangi bir alana mensubiyetleri sebebiyle bir öncelik tanımamıştır. Çıktığı bu yolda ona destek sağlayabilecek tüm kaynakları ve iz bırakan fikirlerini, din, tarih, felsefe, psikoloji, genetik vb. demeden eleştirel bir yaklaşımla kullanmıştır. Geliştirmeye çalıştığı “İslâmî ilimlerde yeni bir usul” anlayışına uygun olarak her birini bütünün bir parçası olarak ilgili yere yerleştirmeye çalışmıştır. Bunları söylemlerine yansıtmaktan da sakınmamıştır. Bu amacına ulaşmada özellikle bilginin kaynakları, kitle psikolojisi ve tarih felsefesi gibi konulara bir hayli ağırlık vermiştir.

Die Zwei Welten des Zauberbergs: Castorps Transzendenz als „inward transcendence“

Abstract Thomas Mann’s Novel, The Magic Mountain, is characterized by the opposition of two distinct worlds. A comparative study of various novels that share the ‘two worlds’ motif demonstrates to us that the existence of the two worlds plays an essential role in the Bildungsroman. The experience with the new possibilities of life at the sanatorium has given Hans Castorp, the hero of The Magic Mountain, the access to the ideal world. Towards the end of the novel, Castorp has denied the material understanding of death, love and disease that constitutes the world of reality and has thus attained an inward transcendence, which, as Ying-shih Yü argues, characterizes the Chinese intellectual world. Mann’s conception of Bildung as pointing to socialization, which is exemplified by Castorp’s transformation, is apparently opposed to the notion of Bildung as individualization. What is implied in Castorp’s integration into the historical context, the war, is far from a failure of the Bildung, but the noblest form of its triumph.

Un pasaporte a la república de las letras: Vicente Fidel López y Les races aryennes du Pérou

This article analyzes the creative process of Les races aryennes du Perou by the Argentinian writer Vicente Fidel Lopez, since its first appearances in La Revista de Buenos Aires until its publication in Paris in 1871. It also examines the first receptions (positive and negative) the work received in the local and regional intellectual sphere, as well as the impact that his work had in European academic circles. In this way, it seeks to recognize the characteristics of American publicity and the intellectual world, and to evaluate, in this context the obstacles (material and intellectual) that have emerged around the research related to linguistic-philological studies. At the same time, this analytical exercise enables us to observe how the book and its author worked to become the protagonists of the central debates around the study of language and acquired a relevant place in the nineteenth century worldwide publishing market.

MOĞOL İSTİLÂSINA DAİR İKİ FARKLI AKTARIM BİÇİMİ: TARİHÎ KAYNAKLAR VE MENAKIPNAMELER

Undoubtedly, the Mongolian invasions rank first among the chain of events that shaped the fate of the states and left indisputable effects on the societies in their path during the Middle Ages. The invasions began during the reign of great Chinghis Khan who had the ideal of world domination. With the invasions, on one hand, the political equilibrium in several regions was changed dramatically; on the other hand, the religious and intellectual (including those of ṣūfī structures) patterns of the societieswere also deeply influenced by depending on the changing political balance. Conventionally, the way the religious and ṣūfī structures in this period were affected has usually been studied by referencing the historical sources. However, such evaluations neglecting the menākıbnāmes in which the stories of the sheikhs and dervishes of these religious and ṣūfī structures were told fall short in variety of aspects. As the menākıbnāmes were regarded as the sacred literary texts that were formed in the context of the semantic worlds of the sheikhs and dervishes, they can serve as complimentary sources for the period that can shed light on the neglected spots of the historical studies. Nonetheless,the menākıbnāmes not only convey the words and actions of wisdom by the ṣūfīs but also reflectthe traces of the social and religious structures these ṣūfīs lived in. In this study, therefore, themenākıbnāmes, which have invaluable significance in terms of cultural history, were used accordinglywith the historical sources. Using menākıbnāmes as a source led us to the conclusion that there weretwo different narratives regarding the Mongolian invasions. When historical sources and modernstudies are surveyed, it can be implied that the Mongols’ own belief in their status as selected nationand their notion of a universal empire were among the most important factors in their quest forconquests. Equally important, the richness of the Islamic world and the welcoming attitudes of someMuslim states further motivated the Mongols for conquests. When the historical progress of theconquests is followed from the menākıbnāmes, however, a different kind of narrative appears. Thisdifferent narrative was especially elaborated in the narratives of Nafahāt al-Uns, Menāḳıb al-ʿĀrifīn,Sipehsālār Risalesi and Vilāyet-Nāme. The records of these menākıbnāmes help us comprehend themental and intellectual world of some sheikhs and dervishes, and allow for how they interpreted theMongolian invasions. Keywords: The Mongol Invasions, Historical Sources, Menākıbnāmes, Sheikhs and Dervishes,Prophecies.

The Routledge Research Companion to the Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

The Routledge Research Companion to the Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Subtle Insights Concerning Knowledge and Practice

Subtle Insights Concerning Knowledge and Practice