Interpretive Assumptions Research Articles

Can One Write About the Eighteenth Century Without Empire?

Can One Write About the Eighteenth Century Without Empire? Nile Green (bio) To address with requisite brevity the question of whether one can write about the eighteenth century "without empire," this short essay reconstitutes the perspectives of a single "participant-observer" from the immediately ensuing decades. The figure in question is Mirza Salih Shirazi, one of a group of six young Iranians who came to study in London in 1815. During his four years away from home, Mirza Salih maintained a diary-cum-notebook in which he recorded both his quotidian affairs and his unfolding understanding of the novel environment he was exploring.1 The verb "exploring" is justified insofar as Mirza Salih and his companions—being the first group of Muslims sent to study in Europe—were not only moving through what were unfamiliar geographical spaces for Middle Easterners, but were also investigating the new intellectual disciplines, largely the fruit of the scientific revolution, which their contemporaries termed the 'ulum-i farangi ("European sciences") or 'ulum-i jadid ("new sciences").2 Since Mirza Salih was charged by his Iranian royal sponsors with acquiring skills suited for service as a diplomat, his studies largely focused on Britain's history, political system, and economy. As such, his curriculum involved looking back over the previous, eighteenth century. It is this, the self-conscious temporality of his studious notetaking, that allows his diary-notebook to serve as an emic test case of how central empire was then (as distinct from is now) to understanding the eighteenth century. Before turning to the details of Mirza Salih's reflections on Britain's "imperial" moment, it is important to situate him in his political context. While this contextualization will show how fundamental empire was to his arrival in London, we should be wary of making the interpretive assumption that the historical forces [End Page 33] (or more precisely, the trans-imperial networks) that brought him to Britain were what he himself considered to be the most noteworthy features of his time. Like his five companions, four of whom shared his court title of mirza (or 'secretary'), Mirza Salih was escorted to London from Tabriz by Joseph D'Arcy (1780–1848) of the Royal Artillery. Despite never having served in India or anywhere east of Sicily, D'Arcy had been dispatched to Iran in 1811 in the company of the former Bengal jute trader turned diplomat, Sir Gore Ouseley (1770–1844).3 Arriving in the midst of the First Russo-Persian War of 1804–13, D'Arcy and his comrades-in-arms were tasked with reforming the frontier forces under the command of the Crown Prince 'Abbas Mirza (1789–1833).4 The latter's policy of military reorganization—known as the nizam-i jadid or "new order"—was an intrinsically inter-imperial development, having been adopted from the eponymous policy of the Ottomans as a means of resisting the aggressive expansionism of the Russian Empire that was affecting the Qajars and Ottomans alike.5 The shifting alliances of the Napoleonic Wars brought to Tehran several embassies—Russian, French, then British (including separate Crown and East India Company delegations)—who competed for local influence, with the British offering military assistance. When political alliances changed again, leaving the discharged D'Arcy departing for England in the early summer of 1815, Prince 'Abbas Mirza seized the opportunity to make a new move in his "new order" policy: he requested that D'Arcy escort to London a group of young men, mostly the sons of court officials, and oversee their education in subjects of practical strategic value. Assenting under official duress, D'Arcy led the young men to Britain via the overland route through Russia, enabling Mirza Salih to inspect the provinces and capital of the neighboring imperial power that was inflicting such defeats on Iran.6 From the ravaged borderlands of the Caucasus to the resplendent palaces of Saint Petersburg, the young Iranian learned firsthand about European empires through both their violent peripheries and tranquil centers. When Mirza Salih and his fellow students were installed in D'Arcy's London apartment, they were still unable to speak English. After their chaperone's resources ran thin as one of thousands of...

Concrete Bridge Deck Deterioration Assessment Using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has become an effective means for assessing deterioration in concrete bridge decks. While success has been demonstrated, the method is still not adopted widely. Constant technical development is making such high speed GPR mapping more affordable with systems more widely available and easier to deploy. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) has a standard procedure for performing bridge deck deterioration using GPR. The current standard, initially written for air-launched GPR devices and then modified to include ground-coupled GPRs, has many simplifying assumptions that could lead to fallacious evaluations. Both field experience and numerical simulations indicate that ground-coupled GPR systems are preferable to air-launched GPRs in this application, delivering larger signal-to-noise and higher spatial resolution data, which enhance extraction of both electromagnetic wave velocity and attenuation. We describe advances in analysis and interpretation that go beyond the current ASTM approach which ignores the impact of depth and other variables. We demonstrate these advances using a high speed, ground-coupled GPR system with examples of deck deterioration mapping. We describe the workflow for using GPR to evaluate the deterioration of concrete bridge decks, highlight the basic interpretation assumptions, demonstrate successful applications and discuss limitations with the methodology.

Reading Lessons: C.B. Macpherson's Immanent Critique

This article examines C.B. Macpherson's reading strategies and interpretive assumptions in critically engaging texts in the tradition of political theory in English, centrally in Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It reflects upon the parallels and contrasts between Macpherson's critical procedures and the “immanent method” theorized and practised by Theodor Adorno as well as the deconstructive reading strategies made influential in literary studies through Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man. It attempts to bring out how Macpherson's reading strategies are acutely attentive to the logical, rhetorical, historical, and unconscious dimensions of language in the texts he engages. In these respects, his rigorously close readings, the article argues, provide an exemplary model for politicized critical engagements, one that potentially bridges formalism, deconstruction, and historicism – approaches that are too often rent asunder in contemporary literary and cultural criticism.

Generic assumptions in utterance interpretation: the case of indirect instructions

This article addresses the role played by genre in the way in which language users interpret ‘indirect’ directive utterances in the special discourse context of technical instructions. In linguistics, issues of genre have most often been approached from socially oriented frameworks such as systemic functional linguistics and the ethnomethodology of the Swales-Bhatia school. The present article instead adopts the cognitive framework of relevance theory to account for a process of comprehension founded on two modularised cognitive processes, viz. decoding of semantic content and relevance-driven inferential manipulation of resulting representations to which generic assumptions about the discourse provide significant contextual input.

Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church by Hans Boersma

Reviewed by: Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church by Hans Boersma Brian Dunkle S.J. Hans Boersma Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017 xvii + 316 pages. Hardbound. $39.99. In this illuminating volume Hans Boersma revisits a range of themes familiar from his enduring interest in the place of sacramentality and participation in patristic scriptural exegesis. Focusing on the interpretative assumptions and practices of select fathers of the Church, Boersma argues that their "sacramental hermeneutic" involves "the recognition of the real presence of the new [End Page 194] Christ-reality hidden within the outward sacrament of the biblical text" (12). As he examines case studies of this hermeneutic he offers a valuable introduction not only to sacramental reading but also to patristic thought in general. The study first distinguishes the presuppositions of modern historical-critical interpretation from the patristic mindset to show the inescapability of metaphysics for hermeneutics. For Boersma, contrary to certain modern criticisms, the ancient "participatory" metaphysics that prioritizes invisible realities does not nullify the visible; rather, the visible is the indispensable means for moving to the heavenly. Thus, Boersma treats the categories of patristic exegesis by first affirming the patristic commitment to the "literal sense." Here he uses Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine on the Genesis creation narrative to underscore their esteem for the integrity of the sacramentum (Boersma prefers the Augustinian term throughout) in the process of interpretation: patristic reading does not reject but rather requires an historical sense for scripture to draw the audience beyond a surface interpretation. In subsequent chapters Boersma considers the higher level of sacramental reading as "hospitable," "other," "incarnational," "harmonious," "doctrinal," "nuptial," "prophetic," and "beatific." Some of the categories correspond loosely to the ancient "senses of Scripture," with "other" and "beatific" associated with the allegorical and anagogical, respectively. Other categories are specific to patristic engagements with particular influential scriptural passages: "nuptial reading," for instance, deals exclusively with interpretations of the Song of Songs by Hippolytus, Origen, and Ambrose, while "harmonious reading" treats attitudes to psalmody and music in the early Church. The sample will engage both newcomers to patristic exegesis as well as experts. For beginners, Chapter 4 on Melito and Origen treating Exodus 18 offers a clear guide to those who have never encountered the disputes about "typological" and "allegorical" interpretation. Other chapters are quite dense and technical: Chapter 7 on Arian/Nicene debates over Proverbs 8 advances an original argument that distinguishes orthodox interpretation from [End Page 195] non-sacramental alternatives deployed by heretical groups. Boersma shows that the pro-Nicenes shared a sense that the genre of Proverbs was, by its nature, "hidden" and therefore required a "higher" interpretation. At various points Boersma defends patristic readings against a variety of potential modern critics. To charges of arbitrary allegorizing, Boersma maintains that patristic exegesis was guided by the Church's liturgy and confession; to Protestant proponents of salvation sola gratia who claim that early Christian emphasis on virtue belie "Pelagian" tendencies, Boersma argues that sacramental readings presuppose that participation in Christ through Scripture draws the believer into Christ's own moral goodness. Boersma concludes, pace Louis Dupré, that a patristic participatory and sacramental metaphysics are indeed viable in the modern age. In addition to his comprehensive appeal to the intrinsic beauty and coherence of early Christian interpretation, Boersma draws on the insights of contemporary theorists, such as Gadamer, to show the centrality of a text's Wirkungsgeschichte for any viable interpretive endeavor: the retrieval of patristic exegesis is not only possible, it is inevitable. Thus, Boersma calls for Scripture scholars and systematic theologians to recover a sensitivity to the sacramental in service of a generative interpretation of the Bible. Given the study's ambition and scope, critics might quibble over details: some might challenge particular readings—Boersma's focus on syntakatabasis in Origen's and Chrysostom's interpretation of the Mamre theophany lacks textual support in Origen's treatment (as Boersma admits); others might argue that the consistent focus on the harmony of patristic readings leads Boersma to limit the range of possible orthodox interpretations (as, for instance, when Boersma implies that Eusebius's reading...

Interpretacja czynników operacyjnych w regulaminach i doktrynach wybranych państw w kontekście walki z tak zwanym Państwem Islamskim

The main reason, to take this subject was self-perception of the problems arising from the perception and definition of the operating factors in the art of war, to potential military operations against the so-called Islamic State. Operational factors do not have a clear source of their definition and perception of the art of war. Their importance in the art of war was and is treated in many cases instrumentally, their aspect of the phenomenon described operations or attributed to them only part of the description of environmental assessment to guide future actions. Analysis of the importance of operational factors indicating their wider range and finds its justification in the development of operational thinking in the art of war. It should be stressed that the ability to think of operating a psychological category entity associated with the development of thinking and mutual understanding. While the combination of thought process entity with its subject provides a reasonable basis for the use of the concept of thinking operating in the art of war. The thinking process operating relates to compounds and the relationship between perceived material objects of art of war and the influence of these relations on the preparation and organization of effective action. Therefore operational factors are the basis for the development of operational thinking in the art of war. Identification of the material objects of art of war is essential to perceive the relationship produced. You must have the awareness that in practice this means the correct identification of the area of operations and precise description of the parties, fighting. The study formulates assumptions of contemporary perception and interpretation of operational factors as the process of initiating any military action. It must be concluded that the accepted scope and structure (structure) of the work was determined the nature of the problems under consideration.

Appropriation from a script theory of guidance perspective: a response to Pierre Tchounikine

In a recent paper, Pierre Tchounikine has suggested to advance the Script Theory of Guidance (SToG) by addressing the question how learners appropriate collaboration scripts presented to them in learning environments. Tchounikine’s main criticism addresses SToG’s “internal script configuration principle.” This principle states that in any collaboration situation, the learners’ set of goals and perceived situational characteristics influence how they dynamically configure internal collaboration scripts. Tchounikine's critique is that SToG is not very clear about how exactly “the learner’s set of goals” and particularly “perceived situational characteristics” influence the way learners understand and act in a CSCL situation. In response, we argue that SToG, at its core, is deeply concerned with appropriation of external scripts by focusing on how external scripts influence the (re-)configutration of internal scripts. Here, we lay out different aspects of appropriation in line with the basic assumptions of SToG, namely perception, interpretation, and implementation. The process of appropriation may be followed by an internalization of the result of appropriation (or appropriated external guidance).

Performing competitive analysis in QFD studies using state multipole moments and bootstrap sampling

ABSTRACTQFD often makes use of Likert scales to convert opinions into data for analysis. Likert scales are prone to bias in relation to their labeling, interpretation, and distributional assumptions. Analysis is often based on means, without regard to variation or distribution shape, making inferential statistical procedures unreliable. We present a method for extracting increased information from Likert data using State Multipole Moments, and use bootstrap sampling to enable the moments to be statistically compared. We demonstrate application using a published QFD competitor analysis, showing how this method can enable practitioners to perform statistical comparisons resulting in improved decision making.

A representation theorem for guilt aversion

Guilt aversion has been shown to play an important role in economic decision-making. In this paper, we take an axiomatic approach to guilt by deducing a utility representation from a list of easily interpretable assumptions on an agent's preferences. It turns out that our logarithmic representation can mitigate the problem of multiplicity of equilibria to which psychological games are prone. We apply the model in three well-known games and show that its predictions are consistent with experimental observations.

Plato’s Unwritten Doctrine

With the late Author’s (†24.04.2015) kind permission, the present text is published here in a somewhat abbreviated and modified translation that has been given appropriate subheadings and supplemented with an extensive bibliography. Its German original from 1996 has been translated into French (1998) and English (2012). The purpose of the present translation is to make the Polish reader acquainted with the important and innovative account of Plato’s philosophy that has been put forward by the Tübingen School whose one of the most prominent co-founders was Hans Joachim Krämer. While this text is devoted to Plato’s critique of writing, it also presents Plato’s agrapha dogmata as an important supplement to the written dialogues. A fuller overview of the major assumptions of this new interpretation is to be found in the recently published Gesammelte Ansätze zu Platon (2014).

Failure: A Conceptual Proposal To Rethink The Caribbean

I offer a conceptualization of failure as a constitutive experience of Caribbeanness. Failure produces the need to reformulate a history that turned out differently from that initially intended, encouraging the uprooting of interpretative assumptions. Rootlessness, therefore, refers not only national or geographic displacement, but also to the loss of certainties upon which our vision of the world is based. This rootlessness impels us to drift away from the epic assumptions on which social, political or national identities have been established to seek more inclusive forms of community. I show both the potential of failure and the dangers of denying it through the study of ten Hispanic Caribbean narratives written in the 21th Century.

Theory and interpretation in qualitative studies from general practice: Why and how?

In this article, I want to promote theoretical awareness and commitment among qualitative researchers in general practice and suggest adequate and feasible theoretical approaches. I discuss different theoretical aspects of qualitative research and present the basic foundations of the interpretative paradigm. Associations between paradigms, philosophies, methodologies and methods are examined and different strategies for theoretical commitment presented. Finally, I discuss the impact of theory for interpretation and the development of general practice knowledge. A scientific theory is a consistent and soundly based set of assumptions about a specific aspect of the world, predicting or explaining a phenomenon. Qualitative research is situated in an interpretative paradigm where notions about particular human experiences in context are recognized from different subject positions. Basic theoretical features from the philosophy of science explain why and how this is different from positivism. Reflexivity, including theoretical awareness and consistency, demonstrates interpretative assumptions, accounting for situated knowledge. Different types of theoretical commitment in qualitative analysis are presented, emphasizing substantive theories to sharpen the interpretative focus. Such approaches are clearly within reach for a general practice researcher contributing to clinical practice by doing more than summarizing what the participants talked about, without trying to become a philosopher. Qualitative studies from general practice deserve stronger theoretical awareness and commitment than what is currently established. Persistent attention to and respect for the distinctive domain of knowledge and practice where the research deliveries are targeted is necessary to choose adequate theoretical endeavours.

Towards a Jurisprudence of the Embodied mind – Sarah Lund, Forbrydelsen and the Mindful Body

As Erika Fischer-Lichte remarked, the great Polish theatre theorist Jerzy Grotowski redefined the notion of the body of the actor as an embodied mind, as a responsive and responding self. Conversely, law abjures the body, its interpreters – lawyers and scholars – inured in practices of rationality, reason and logic, or mindful disembodiment. Travelling through the Danish capital, encountering Danes real and fictitious to illustrate how much we function through our bodies, this essay suggests that we are better and more effective legal interpreters as embodied minds, rather than disembodied minds. But this is not mindless embodiment, a mere reflex or bodily outburst. The embodied mind is self-aware (physically, socially, intellectually) and possesses the same embodied virtuous morality held by Grotowski’s actors. Reminiscent of Kierkegaard’s uniting of the mind-body divide, this connected mind and body challenges the Augustinian negation of the body and associated interpretative assumptions inherited over centuries of legal thought.

Revisiting ModernNaẓmApproaches to the Qur'an: Iṣlāḥī’s Interpretation of Q. 107 and Q. 108 in hisTadabbur-i Qurʾān

Modern naẓm approaches to the Qur'an ask for a detailed study of the interpretive methodologies and assumptions that function behind them. In order to understand such structural approaches, the present article offers a focused study of two important suras of the Qur'an (Q. 107 and Q. 108), involving some polysemous words, in the Urdu tafsīr of Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī (d. 1997), Tadabbur-i Qur’ān. Iṣlāḥī’s theory of naẓm has gained considerable attention in the academy and is worthy of investigating from new perspectives. It is built on a holistic and unified system of connections within a sura and between suras. The paper aims to investigate the mechanism through which Iṣlāḥī identifies naẓm, and examine its relationship with specific meaning and historical context of a sura. It argues that Iṣlāḥī’s concept of naẓm, which he presents as an internal feature of the Qur'an, seems to be based on and shaped by a specific view of the life of Prophet Muḥammad. It appears that non-linguistic factors play a pivotal role in his theory of naẓm. Therefore, in order to fully comprehend his system of linkages in the Qur'anic discourses, there is a need to further investigate how he understands the biography of the Prophet and the early Islamic history in comparison to other exegetes and historians, and how he approaches the question of the authenticity of our knowledge about the details of Muhammad.

Kant's Universal Law Formula Revisited

AbstractKantians are increasingly deserting the universal law formula in favor of the humanity formula. The former, they argue, is open to various decisive objections; the two are not equivalent; and it is only by appealing to the humanity formula that Kant can reliably generate substantive implications from his theory of an acceptable sort. These assessments of the universal law formula, which clash starkly with Kant's own assessment of it, are based on various widely accepted interpretative assumptions. These assumptions, it is argued in this article, depend on misleading translations of key terms; selective attention to Kant's concrete examples; not taking seriously Kant's theoretical claims about the relations among his various ideas; and a failure to take into account Kant's idiosyncratic definitions of key concepts. The article seeks to right these interpretative wrongs, and finds that the universal law formula is not open to many of the standard objections.

Jessica Rosenfeld Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry: Love after AristotleEthics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry: Love after Aristotle. Jessica Rosenfeld. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. vii+245.

<i>Jessica Rosenfeld</i> Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry: Love after Aristotle<i>Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry: Love after Aristotle</i>. Jessica Rosenfeld. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. vii+245.

You didn’t build that. a relevance-theoretic approach to President Obama’s campaign flub

During the 2012 U.S. Presidential campaign, President Obama turned some heads by stating “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that”. His opponents argued that this was an attack on private enterprise (with “that” referring to business), while his supporters and fact-checking organizations maintained that “that” referred to what Obama was talking about previously (U.S. infrastructure) and represented his political-economic plan of an increased interlacing of private business with government investment. I argue, from a relevance-theoretic perspective, that both interpretations follow from differing contextual assumptions on the part of the audience. In this sense, the role of contextual assumptions in utterance interpretation is highlighted – different contextual assumptions lead to different cognitive effects if the utterance leaves room for more than one interpretation. Combined with a highly polarized U.S. political arena, where participants pounce on their opponent’s every possible miscue, all the ingredients for misunderstanding are present.

The mythology of schooling: the historiography of American and European education in comparative perspective

This essay explores the historiography of American and European education, considering how educational historians communicate powerful messages about the purposes and promises of schooling through their writing. I divide the historiography of American education into four interpretive traditions: traditionalism, radical revisionism, progressive revisionism, and plural revisionism. Each phase of the historiography, I argue, has supported particular myths about the relationship between public schooling and society. European historians have shared many of the interpretive assumptions contained within traditionalist, radical revisionist, and progressive revisionist scholarship, conveying similar myths to their US counterparts. Contemporary histories of European education, however, are distinct from recent histories of the US. In comparing the divergent trajectories of these two historiographies, I conclude by suggesting the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary scholarship in both fields, an assessment derived from a review of the underlying myths conveyed by each history. Recent US scholarship remains committed to narrative and draws attention to the educational experiences of marginalised groups. Scholarship on European education, in contrast, has explicitly embraced theoretical interpretive frameworks while also giving less attention to schooling on the margins. At the same time, many European histories of education have maintained a critical view of schooling, while some recent scholarship within the US has de-emphasised this connection, echoing older interpretive traditions and tacitly reinforcing faith in the ameliorative potential of public education.

Shizi: China’s First Syncretist by Paul Fischer (review)

Reviewed by: Shizi: China’s First Syncretist by Paul Fischer Andrew Meyer Shizi: China’s First Syncretist. By Paul Fischer. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. 248. Hardcover $45.00, isbn 978-0-231-15906-7. As Paul Fischer’s Shizi: China’s First Syncretist has helped demonstrate, it is to be much regretted that the Shizi, a mid–Warring States text attributed to the statesman Shi Jiao (ca. 390–330 b.c.e.), survives only in fragments. Even in its current piecemeal form, the Shizi covers a fascinating array of topics, from the habits of wild ducks to cosmic geography to the exploits of archaic cultural heroes such as Fu Xi and Shen Nong. It is no wonder that the work survived so long, or that it was so frequently cited by medieval commentators seeking an authoritative ancient reference on points of fact and nomenclature. But the extant Shizi is of interest for more than its colorful content. The text displays a substantial and distinctive worldview, one that forces us to rethink interpretive assumptions about the Masters literature of the ancient period. Fischer argues robustly for the historical and literary value of the Shizi. I agree wholeheartedly with his evaluation, though less so with the route by which he arrives at it. As Fischer notes, the text was classified as za (“mixed” or “miscellaneous”) by the compilers of the Han shu yi wen zhi. He places a great deal of emphasis on the categories around which that bibliographical scheme was built, arguing on their basis that in the Shizi we have China’s first deliberately “syncretic” text. In his analysis, a text that mixes different ideological perspectives is either “eclectic” or “syncretic,” the difference between these rubrics being that in an “eclectic” text the mixing is not done self-consciously while in a “syncretic” text it is deliberate. This leaves Fischer on shaky interpretive ground. Even if we discount the difficulty of definitively determining authorial intent, the surviving text of the Shizi is not sufficiently intact to substantiate Fischer’s claims. One surviving quote does find a consensus among mutually opposed ancient thinkers on the value of (in Fischer’s terms) “open-mindedness” (pp. 101–102), but this is a thin thread on which to hang the assertion that the Shizi is deliberately “syncretic” as opposed to “eclectic.” Moreover, Fischer spends much of his introduction correlating parts of the Shizi to each of the “schools” of ancient thought, an approach that predictably produces stilted readings of the text. Though his interpretive framework is not entirely effective, the text itself justifies Fischer’s claims for its value. Standing the Shizi next to the better known works of the Masters corpus, we can see that it connects and conflates concepts, themes, and symbols in ways that break prevalent patterns and conventions. Whether or not the author or authors of the Shizi were self-consciously “mixing” elements from different “schools,” the text clearly renegotiated the boundaries of written expression in ways that we cannot ignore if we wish to understand the discourse of which the Shizi was a part. Moreover, the Shizi has much to say about the social conditions confronting Warring States authors. Its surviving fragments contain some of the most robust and intriguing defenses of the shi or “knights” (“officials” in Fischer’s translation), the [End Page 803] social group with which most Warring States texts self-identify. In all these respects, Fischer is right to assert that “the Shizi is a uniquely representative work of early Chinese thought” (p. 15). Fischer’s translation of the text is uneven. It has become cliché to take translators to task for the particular word choices they make in translating key terms, but when such decisions obscure the meaning of the text they become more than merely academic matters. The above-mentioned translation of shi ± as “officials” is an example in Fischer’s case. The Shizi treats the category of shi as a status held by an individual independently of state sanction, and this is key to many of its most exemplary passages. In consistently translating shi as “officials” Fischer blunts the text’s polemical edge. More problematic than particular word choices...

Plato's Charmides: Positive Elenchus in a "Socratic" Dialogue by Thomas M. Tuozzo (review)

Reviewed by: Plato's Charmides: Positive Elenchus in a "Socratic" Dialogue by Thomas M. Tuozzo David J. Murphy Thomas M. Tuozzo . Plato's Charmides: Positive Elenchus in a "Socratic" Dialogue. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. xii, 359. $90.00. 978-0-521-19040-4. This is the best book in English on Plato's Charmides. Tuozzo analyzes the drama and arguments more deeply than did Tuckey or van der Ben, and unlike Hyland and Schmid, he strives to draw his interpretative assumptions from Plato rather than from Heidegger or Strauss. A close reading, not a commentary, this book also engages historical background, the bulk of the secondary literature since 1900, and related passages in Plato and Aristotle. The Charmides ends in puzzlement when Charmides and Critias—both relatives of Plato and leaders in the Tyranny of the Thirty (404-403 B.C.E.)—as well as Socrates, fail to define σωφροσύνη. Tuozzo locates the philosophical core of the dialogue in Socrates' dissection of Critias' second definition, "knowing oneself," which Critias reformulates as what I call Definition 4B, "knowledge of itself and the other knowledges." Tuozzo shows that Critias' mistake is not that he allows Socrates to nominalize γιγνώσκειν as ἐπιστήμη, with its associations to craft-knowledge, for ἐπιστήμη includes "all different kinds of knowing" (194). Neither is it Critias' replacement of "knowledge of oneself" with 4B. Tuozzo deems this move "an insightful response" to Socrates' demand for an object of self-knowledge, for it makes the sophron person know himself and govern craftsmen (197). Instead, Tuozzo convincingly traces the fall of Critias' definition to the absence of a value criterion, and to Critias' acceptance of Socrates' "Exclusionary Proviso" that self-knowledge is "of" nothing but itself and the other knowledges. These allow Socrates to reduce Critian sophrosyne to "knowledge that someone knows something," (my 4D), so that the knowledge we need for the good life turns out to be not sophrosyne but "knowledge of good and evil." Given links between the above notions and sophrosyne elsewhere in Plato, many scholars seek to pull a definition out of the Charmides, even to salvage 4B. Denying that sophrosyne amounts to Socratic self-examination (as, e.g., Schmid), Tuozzo reaches two positive results. First, sophrosyne as "health of soul" and informed self-restraint, adumbrated in the drama and in Socrates' discourse on doctors (Chrm. 156b-157c), remains unrefuted. Second, noting that the meager epistemic benefits of 4D are not rejected, Tuozzo takes up what he believes is Plato's challenge to go beyond the dialogue and attempt a "speculative fleshing-out of the Critian formulation." He combines 4B/4D with Knowledge of the Good to yield "a richer understanding of . . . sophrosyne" (304). Although not the first to attempt this, Tuozzo goes furthest. Observing that Socrates' Exclusionary Proviso deprived 4B of an object other than knowledge, Tuozzo recalls Republic Books 6-7, where the Good is the cause of the essence of the objects of knowledge and is necessary for us to know anything. Drop the proviso, add knowledge of the Good, and Critian self-knowledge acquires an object other [End Page 525] than knowledge; it knows itself and other knowledges as good things (313-319). This combination underlies Socrates' own procedure (323-324). Since only a colleague can test a craftsman (Chrm. 170d-171c), however, it is not clear that this augmented self-knowledge does any work not done by Knowledge of the Good plus the craft knowledges. Tuozzo raises two challenges against the mainstream. First, he attacks the assumption that Plato presents Charmides and Critias as latent tyrants, whose failure to understand sophrosyne portends their evil deeds. Tuozzo shows that a less hostile view toward Critias prevailed in Academic circles than in Xenophon, who biases modern readers. I wish he had nailed Critias' bad reasoning more firmly, however. Second, Tuozzo contends that Socrates' elenctic practice is educative, not "aggressive and adversarial" (3), aimed not so much to expose contradictions among beliefs as to advance the interlocutor's (and the reader's) philosophical insight. Tuozzo builds a strong case from our dialogue (esp. 165b, 166c-d) in light of the Phaedrus, Republic, and Seventh Letter. Still, Socrates' eristic techniques, even fallacies, deserve a brighter spotlight...