Pragmatic Reason Research Articles

Towards a geographical political economy understanding of platformization

In the last ten years digital platforms have emerged as an important theme in academic discourse and various subdisciplines of geography and adjacent research areas. Whether in the fields of social media, urban transport, industry cloud services or gig work, platformization is therein often discussed as a more-than-economic phenomenon engaging in a conflictive relationship with public interest, sovereignty, regulation and the state. However, while the concept of the platform has become ubiquitous, the integration of and dialogue between various broadened definitions are less often practiced. In our short paper, we argue that for further addressing this intricate relation between platforms, power and sovereignty an engagement with the platform concept and its integration through a political economy understanding is key for two reasons: Firstly, an overarching concept of platformization transcending the political/economy binary is necessary to be able to problematize the reification of normalized economic practices lying at the heart of the phenomenon. Secondly, there is a pragmatic reason for developing a geographical political economy perspective on platformization as it can serve as a common ground for an engaged pluralism within and beyond the discipline of economic geography. Based on a systematization of existing definitions this paper therefore combines insights from political economy perspectives, urban platform research and research on platform labor to propose a working definition stimulating a reflection on the platform discourse thus far and strengthening strategical-relational thinking on platform power in future research.

Semiotokens, Algorithms, and Blockchain Networks: New Possible Patterns in Legal Thought

AbstractThis paper explores the implications of tokens in the legal discourse when it comes to blockchain networks and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In doing so, reference is made to the functioning and requirements of blockchain networks opposite to that of Statehood. Methodologically, the argument is built on the semiotic relationship between signifier and signified as outlined in De Saussure (1916) as further developed in the comprehensive work done by Lacan (Écrits (trans. Alan Sheridan), Routledge, 1977). Apparently, the factors that influence this choice are considered to be of a non-legal nature. More properly, current gaps in regulation and the lack of cooperation at international level require resorting to extra-legal approaches. In contrast, the fact that economic and strategic motives play a role, does not in itself make the legal discourse devoid of any meaning. In what follows, I will concentrate on the study of factors that explain why such approach can be fruitful to establish new strategies to adjust the legal discourse to advances in technology and society. I have three reasons for selecting this topic. The first is a more pragmatic reason, based on my current research of law as a linguistic and societal phenomenon. Secondly, the topic does also touch the existing entanglement between law and economy whereby results intersect with the protection of rights inherent to members of blockchain communities. Lastly, this article relies on a dynamic concept of legal validity as a continuous process of constructing, negotiating, and reconstructing the array of blockchain communities’ interactions and transactions. Overall, these suggested methodological approaches aim at providing non-mutually exclusive reading keys to a prospective evolution of legal thought as of the Fourth Industrial Revolution changes. In contrast, they concur to provide new frames of enquiry instead of approaching these topics as objects of analysis from a sole exegetic standpoint. As a matter of fact, textualism lacks the capabilities to achieve consistent and categorial selections along with methodological exclusions that certain variants of its theories claim to accomplish. When understood against the background of a careful delineation of the choices that legal studies require, their purpose helps to give shape to a fundamental question; given the functioning of legal studies to direct choices among otherwise plausible significance of legal meaning, should they make use of an exclusively legal, or a cross-disciplinary approach? This study advocates the latter method. In this context, reference is made to the relational and representational components of property, contracts, and tokens to frame the contextual rather than the strict textual meaning of tokenisation. In this context, the above elements concur to bridge the gap among referents pertaining to separate realms. Differently put, the recourse to these extra-legal categories corresponds to levels of abstraction (Tanenbaum, 1976) functioning. They refer to the structured representation of information, ranging from detailed specifics to broader concepts. Abstraction aids in comprehending complex phenomena by allowing analysis at varying granularities. Employing multiple levels facilitates a systematic understanding, enabling individuals to delve into intricate systems, discern patterns, and derive insights, thereby fostering a comprehensive grasp of multi-layered phenomena.

:Pragmatic Reason: Christopher Hookway and the American Philosophical Tradition

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Cognitive Research of Chinese Inverted Sentences under Radiation-Boundary Mark Theory Study

Inverted sentences a commonly used in English expression, and unconventional language order exists in Chinese from the cognitive perspective. It is found that in a specific context, the speaker intentionally highlights the topic focus and expresses the specific emotional color, which can be used as the pragmatic or cognitive reason for Chinese inversion sentences.

Morgan's Quaker gun and the species of belief

AbstractIn this article, I explore how researchers’ metaphysical commitments can be conducive—or unconducive—to progress in animal cognition research. The methodological dictum known as Morgan's Canon exhorts comparative psychologists to countenance the least mentalistic fair interpretation of animal actions. This exhortation has frequently been misread as a blanket condemnation of mentalistic interpretations of animal behaviors that could be interpreted behavioristically. But Morgan meant to demand only that researchers refrain from accepting default interpretations of (apparent) actions until other fair interpretations have been duly considered. The Canon backfired largely because of Morgan's background metaphysical commitment to a univocal, hierarchical, and anthropocentric account of cognitive architecture. I make the case that, going forward, comparative psychologists would do well to pair judicious use of Morgan's Canon with an openness to the existence of non‐humanlike animal minds comprising phenomena belonging to distinct cognitive and folk psychological ontologies. And I argue that this case gives us pragmatic reason to reconcile deep—e.g., psychofunctionalist—and superficial—e.g., dispositionalist—approaches to the metaphysics of belief.

Influence of Kant’s Aesthetics on the Aesthetics of Collingwood

R. G. Collingwood is supposed to be one of the most important Aesthetes of 20th Century. He was a multi-talented person having original ideas in the fields of Philosophical History (his most famous book is ‘Idea of History’), Aesthetics and Anthropology. He was a practitioner in the field of Archaeology and Music. His second most famous book is ‘Principles of Art.’ He is supposed to be an original philosopher of Art too. His Philosophy of Art has much to do and has much connections with the Aesthetics of Immanuel Kant. Kant was a multi-dimensional genius, presenting before the world very original and outstanding ideas about Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics and also Aesthetics. This article is an attempt to understand the influence of Kant’s Aesthetics on the Aesthetics of Collingwood and to present before the readers the great similarities between the Aesthetic ideas of these two philosophers. According to Kant, Aesthetics is the fourth most important function of human mind. Apart from pure reasoning, pragmatic thinking and moral concerns, Aesthetics is that aspect of human mind which deals with beauty. The problem with the Aesthetics of Kant or the Aesthetics of Collingwood is that both of the philosophers present Aesthetics as the divider and in the humble opinion of the writer of this article it is not divider but a connector – connector of moral, pragmatic and pure reason.

EUROPEANIZATION AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR GEORGIA’S DEMOCRATIZATION

This paper reviews the European Union-Georgia relations and explores why and how the Europeanization has been a tool for Georgia’s democratization. It examines the notions of Europeanization and democratization, and scrutinizes their linkage in the context of Georgia. In order to prove the research question, the research reviews several major official documents and implemented reforms, mostly in democracy, good governance, human rights, strengthening democratically accountable institutions, justice, freedom and security. The paper argues that democratization agenda has been driven by Europeanization because of three reasons: it was a legitimization factor; they had value convergence; and pragmatic reason – EU provided necessary technical expertise, knowledge and financial resources for facilitating the painful reforms and easing their transitional consequences.

Kant’s political enlightenment: Free public use of reason as self-discipline

According to recent scholarship, Kant’sAn Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?and the introductory section toThe Conflict of the Facultiesare masterpieces of philosophical rhetoric. The philosophical significance of these texts lies in establishing the free public use of reason as a tool to discipline political power through pure practical reason, and the rhetorical mastery consists in presenting the free public use of reason as a means to satisfy the ruler’s pragmatic practical reason. Elaborating on this interpretation, I flesh out three further aspects of the writings in question. First, I examine the four types of arguments that Kant crafts in defence of the public use of reason and show how their pragmatic practical character is fully in keeping with the foundation of politics on pure practical ideas. Second, contrasting Kant’s notion of the public use of reason with the classical liberal conception of free speech, I argue that the distinctive character of Kant’s notion of the public use of reason consists in adding to the liberal demand for freedom from state censorship the requirement of the self-discipline of the participants in the public use of reason. Third, I contend that Kant’s notion of the public use of reason goes beyond a mere non-coercive discursive procedure and conclude that, to qualify as public in the distinctive Kantian sense, publicly presented positions must uphold theoretical and moral criteria informed by critical philosophy.

The problem with faith-based carve-outs: RSE policy, religion and educational goods

AbstractIn September 2020, relationships and sex education (RSE) became compulsory in all English secondary schools, and relationships education became compulsory in all English primary schools, marking a significant step forward in the fight to establish children's rights. Although the new RSE regime will help to ensure that many English schools provide pupils with a far more comprehensive RSE curriculum than ever before, the statutory guidance underpinning it includes a number of caveats that mean, although the subject is compulsory, not all children will receive the same content. Arguably, along with the right to withdraw (which is often exercised on religious grounds), the most insidious of these ‘carve-outs’ allows faith schools to teach RSE according to their ‘distinctive religious character’. This exemption has been used to defend the use of religious RSE resources that critics maintain are misogynistic, homophobic and often draw heavily on pseudoscience, as well as to justify leaving certain topics (such as same-sex relationships or trans rights) out of classroom discussion altogether. Drawing on empirically informed normative case studies and recent reforms to the curriculum in Wales, I argue that faith-based carve-outs to RSE policy imperil children's access to a distinct package of educational goods. Using a recent framework for educational decision-making based on these goods developed by Brighouse et al. I go on to conclude that such policies are politically and morally unjustifiable (at least if one agrees that the relevant package of goods is desirable). I further maintain that, even when considered from the perspective of human rights law—which is often given as a pragmatic reason to allow more permissive policies with respect to teaching topics that may impinge upon parents’ deeply held convictions—there are no necessary grounds for governments to legislate for the subject to be circumscribed by the religious beliefs of parents or the faith ethos of the schools children attend.

Philosophical Definitions: A Pragmatic Approach

Abstract In this paper, I argue for a pragmatic theory of the motivations behind the practice of defining concepts in philosophy. The “correct” definition in philosophy is not, as is usually supposed, the definition that accurately describes some pre-philosophical meaning, but the definition which is useful for the achievement of certain theoretical goals. I consider different examples of definitional debates from the history of philosophy. The analysis of these examples also evidences why philosophers do not usually grant the incidence of pragmatic reason in their conceptual investigations. At the end of the paper, I provide some reasons that explain why the incidence of pragmatic reasons is inevitable.

Equal language communication

Abstract The pragmatic reason for supporting the promotion of equal language communication is that this communication is part of a social event that aims to develop an inclusive society. However, this support also has an anthropological reason, which is based on the reconstruction of the origin of man as a being of his kind and his humanization. His humanization is based on continuous self-realization and rational social solidarity, consisting in the fact that the actors of social interaction are committed to creating a lively environment for parity self-realization. Such self-realization is governed by the principle of equality differentiation, which includes the contextual neutralization of relevant differences between actors. Transparency is essential for overcoming equality barriers in language communication, but it is important to perceive the opposition between levelling and cultivated equality communication. This contrast draws attention to the idea of optimally transparent language, which leads the actors to set the optimal ratio between transparent and non-transparent forms of expression. Since the humanization of individuals and society corresponds to cultivated equality communication, the order of the day is to increase the volume of language communication in society with such a degree of non-transparency (negativity) that stimulates the interpretive activity of the actors. When examining equal language communication with regard to its impact on the cultural level of society, one of the relevant issues is the adaptation of the relationship between positive and negative transparency to current communication events.

They Who Hesitate: The Influencing Factors of Hesitation Phenomena in Students’ Speaking at IAIN Langsa

This research is carried out to investigate the influencing factors of the Hesitation phenomena in students’ speaking. The participant of this research is five students of seventh semester from English Department of IAIN Langsa in academic Years 2017-2021 who have been selected through purposive sampling based on certain characteristics. This research used qualitative method to gain the data, observation and interview. Based on the results, there are five factors lead the students to hesitate during speaking, which is breathing, pragmatic reason, cognitive process, linguistic planning, and nervousness. Therefore, one of the participants blamed that breathing can be the solution to overcome hesitation in speaking as well as practice and preparation. The researcher has several suggestions for this research. Specifically, first, the students should be aware of the existence of the hesitation phenomena during their speaking. Second, it is necessary to raise the lecturers' awareness since the hesitation phenomenon is an important factor that affects students speaking performance and difficulty. Finally, due to the limitation of this study, further investigation hopes to explore more with a larger population and different groups of students. Therefore, further research about certain approaches or methods to reduce hesitation phenomena in speaking is needed.

The psychology of the anti-vaccine movement

The psychology of the anti-vaccine movement

Georgian-Austrian Unknown Preludes of the Treaty of Georgievsk

Studying the external policy of the king Erekle II is a topical issue for the modern historiography. The information maintained in the archives of various European cities, namely of Vienna, Vatican and Venice, convey to us the fact that while exercising pragmatic attitude toward relations with the European countries the King of Kartli and Kakheti considered the interests of both his own country and of those European countries as well. Over the years 1781-82 Erekle II sends his ambassadors to Europe twice: first he sends a Capuchin monk Domenique who dies in Constantinople in uncertain circumstances not having reached the destination; after him Erekle II sends another Capuchin Mauro the Veronese who also dies for unknown reasons while still on his way. It is a very important fact that the letters sent by the King Erekle, unlike the ambassadors, reach their destination which is the Emperor’s Court in Austria.The present article shows the international political background that the king Erekle II had at that time and that he attempted to use for the interests of his country.The plan of dividing Europe anew, officially developed by the relevant imperial authorities of Saint Petersburg and Vienna, aimed at neutralizing the Ottoman Empire and dividing its territories. According to the Greek Project, it was supposed to resurrect the Byzantine Empire that would be formally independent from Russia but factually acting as a marionette with the Romanov dynasty ruling in it and build Dacia Kingdom as a buffer between the Ottoman and the Austrian Empires.This project was topical for Erekle II who was trying to get involved in the international political processes to the maximum level as the king of a sovereign and independent country, as in the result of implementation of the Greek Project Georgia would obtain an environment of Christian countries instead of the previous encirclement by Muslim countries. Thus, Georgia would find herself in an absolutely different qualitative dimension that had been a sacred dream of the Georgian Kings at all times. This was why the Greek Plan held such a great importance for Erekle II. This international project was made secret by the empress Catherine the Great and Joseph II, therefore, the official pragmatic reason that Erekle II referred to when sending ambassadors to Austria which was obtaining financial support for two regiments was merely a mask behind which in reality the ambassadorial mission served the purpose of active involvement and participation in the implementation of the Greek Project. The Austrian Emperor’s Court, on its part, was going to use this intension of the Georgian king for its own pragmatic goals which implied strengthening of the Holy Roman Empire that had been actually made fictitious by that time. The widely acknowledged and reputed international level diplomats of the Austrian Empire Kaunitz and Kobenzl were involved in the process.

Социальное предпринимательство как драйвер развития социокультурной среды малых территорий

В статье рассматривается вопрос о воздействии социальных инноваций, источниками которых являются проекты социального предпринимательства (СП) и гражданские инициативы, на развитие социокультурной среды малых территорий. Согласно исследованиям, социальные инновации влияют на развитие территории через создание новых возможностей для взаимодействия между значимыми акторами. Подобное взаимодействие приводит к улучшению коммуникации и росту способности к совместным действиям. Следствием также является изменение социального капитала, выраженное в росте сетей сотрудничества для решения общих проблем, возникновении социального партнерства и создании социально-инновационных экосистем. Статья основана на результатах полевого исследования, проведенного летом 2018 и 2019 гг., включающего 48 полуструктурированных интервью с участниками проектов и организаций в сфере культуры всех секторов экономики Волосовского и Лужского районов Ленинградской области, а также Каргопольского и Вельского районов Архангельской области. Исследование показало, что при наличии координирующего внешнего воздействия происходит переход к системному стратегическому сотрудничеству между СП. Уникальность формируемых СП отношений состоит в том, что в них между акторами одновременно имеет место и партнерство, не подразумевающее прагматических целей, и бизнес-партнерство. Бизнес-модели СП в культурной сфере нередко строятся на кооперации и создании комплементарных товаров и услуг по отношению к другим проектам, работающим на малой территории. Сети, формируемые СП, включают различных акторов, что приводит к формированию устойчивых экосистем. На культурных мероприятиях и постоянно действующих площадках, организованных СП, взаимодействуют социальные проекты, малый бизнес, СП и жители территории. Эта среда действительно формирует у участников новые модели поведения, за счет которых создаются партнерские связи. Поэтому потенциально СП является существенным фактором развития социокультурной среды малых территорий, однако степень этого влияния можно выяснить лишь при проведении более долгосрочных исследований.

Kant, Rawls and the Problem of Public Use of Pragmatic Reason

Kant, Rawls and the Problem of Public Use of Pragmatic Reason

Use of marketing strategies to attract investments by diversified enterprises of Ukraine

Introduction. Characteristics of the current state of the Ukrainian economy, create conditions under which there is uncertainty in obtaining the expected end result from the invested funds. Persuading investors to invest in the capital of modern diversified enterprises requires the ability to build and maintain relationships. The purpose of the work is to investigate and substantiate the effectiveness of the marketing aspects of a diversified enterprise in relation to their investment activities in the field of more effective financing in various stock markets, banking sector, direct investment, reinvestment of own funds. Results. To date, economic activity has been carried out by diversified enterprises solely on the basis of general trends in identifying positive growth rates of financial performance of the enterprise. Thanks to the implementation of mar-keting strategies it is possible to move to another level of efficiency of fundraising. There is also the problem of operational decisions at the level of the most diversified enterprise. A more pragmatic reason for studying the diversification of modern enterprises is that corporate managers decide to diversify and reorient their firms. In addition, executives are faced with investment decisions in several of the businesses they operate. Empirical evidence of how such decisions have worked in the past can be useful in strategic planning of investment marketing activities. Assessing specific costs and benefits can also be useful to investors and regulators. This study found that these strategies are endowed with sufficient strength to find new opportunities among investors, which are aimed at long-term investment. Conclusions. In the course of the study of the performance of diversified enterprises, the marketing tools which help to attract investors were analyzed. First of all, the strategies of long-term investors were analyzed. The relationship between the effectiveness of marketing in terms of the activity of attracting consumers of goods and services of the enterprise and the interest of investors in them was also established. It is established that there is a discount on the business value of diversified enterprises among the investment environment. Businesses that have chosen to diversify or be acquired by diversifiers are essentially different from single-segment businesses. In terms of balance, industry case studies and econometric analysis of enterprise growth allow domestic capital markets to be efficient in reallocating resources. Keywords: diversification, investment marketing, enterprises, financial indicators.

Li Zehou’s Ethics and the Structure of Confucian Pragmatic Reason

Li Zehou believes that human psychology, just like humanness or “human nature”, is not fixed or given, but is rather something characterized by changing developmental forms of human pragmatic reason, which is formed over millions of years, and is still continuously accumulating and changing. However, reason alone is by no means something that would absolutely separate humans from their sensuality and thus from other animals. The difference between human beings and animals primarily occurs somewhere else, namely in the very realm of the specifically human social existence, which is defined by “subjectality” (zhutixing 主體性) and includes specific human values. In this context, Li shows that Confucian pragmatic reason is formed and functions within the “emotio-rational formation” (qingli jiegou 情理結構), which is deeply rooted in the human world. It is based on actual human conditions and arises from human social emotionality, transforming these culturally integrated general communal emotions through rites in the process of “condensation of reason” (lixing ningju 理性凝聚) into rational concepts of right and wrong, good and evil. The rationality of these concepts governs the subjective personal feelings of each member of a community; the pragmatic nature of this rationality, however, is tightly linked to and intertwined with human emotions. In the concrete social life, these rational concepts can nevertheless dissolve—through the process of the “melting of reason” (lixing ronghua 理性融化)––in the heart-minds of people and thus become an integral part of individual emotions. This paper aims to posit the Confucian pragmatic reason into the framework of Li Zehou’s ethics and political axiology.

MICRO LEVEL ORGANIZATION OF ELECTRONIC MULTILINGUAL TERMINOLOGICAL DICTIONARY

The article studies the peculiarities of an electronic multilingual terminological dictionary micro level organization. The scientific research defines the concept of “dictionary”, which means a special linguistic genre designed to meet the professional needs of its users, providing relevant linguistic information on the lexical unit required. The emphasis is placed on the importance of electronic multilingual terminological dictionary compilation. The dictionary optimizes terminological systems of various scientific fields and significantly contributes to international scientific cooperation thus facilitating scientific and technological progress in the society. The compositional components of the dictionary, namely its macro- and microstructure are considered. The concept of “dictionary entry” is defined as a source of information that reveals the essential characteristics of a word, its contextual, paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections, stylistic and functional features, as well as derivational potential. The article provides a historical overview of a dictionary entry genesis as well as approaches to language units’ linguistic description. The types of dictionary entries are given, the peculiarities of one-component, two-component and multi-word information dictionary entries are highlighted. Electronic multilingual terminological dictionary entry is determined to belong to multi-word information lexicographic entries. The research presents the requirements for the electronic multilingual terminological dictionary compilation. It analyzes lexicographic, linguo-cognitive and linguistic principles of information organization in the multilingual terminological dictionary entry. The article emphasizes the importance of contradictions of micro-level organization representation. It also highlights the significance of language parameters depending on dictionary pragmatic reason. The pragmatic reason includes the object of lexicography, which determines the content of a dictionary; the volume of lexicography, which presupposes relevant language unit linguistic description, as well as the addressee of the electronic multilingual terminological dictionary, which implies average user characteristics. The article presents the model of the electronic multilingual terminological dictionary micro level organization. Prospects for further scientific research are seen in language data digitization study.

The Montage of Coming Attractions

307 BOOKS IN REVIEW better city planning; some even openly criticize existing tendencies in the US and make references to the extra-filmic utopian discourse of city planners such as Ebenezer Howard, Lewis Mumford, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier. But they also deviate from the utopian ideal type, either because of artistic aspirations or because of commercial interests. Spiegel’s last two examples widen the boundaries of the definition of utopia even more. He calls them “postclassical utopias.” On the one hand, there is Demain (2015), a film that is utopian in that it shows aspects of better societies that actually do exist, such as urban gardening, ecological farming, alternative energy production, recycling, and alternative currencies. On the other hand, there is The Marsdreamers (2009), a film that quite unintentionally attains a utopian quality when Kim Stanley Robinson, who is being interviewed, warns that the colonization of Mars will be not as feasible as he describes in his MARS trilogy (1992-1996). Each film that Spiegel discusses is compared to other films, to the utopian literary tradition in general, and to the complex definition of utopia with which he works. Thus Spiegel manages to reconcile the manifold filmic utopias that he discusses and to construct a basis for future research on utopian film. His study is essential reading for anyone trying to come to grips with this almost uncharted field. Alas, it is in German but if you cannot read it, you can at least enjoy the 164 illustrations and still pictures that Spiegel provides. Or you can read the English-language collection Utopia and Reality: Documentary, Activism and Imagined Worlds (ed. Simon Spiegel, Andrea Reiter, Marcy Goldberg [U of Wales P, 2020] that has the same starting point as Bilder einer besseren Welt, but finds different paths through the jungle of utopian films.—Peter Seyferth, Independent Political Philosopher, Munich The Montage of Coming Attractions. J.P. Telotte. Movies, Modernism, and the Science Fiction Pulps. New York: Oxford UP, 2019. 192 pp. $29.95 pbk. For much of the first half of the twentieth century, sf and film seemed to be traveling in separate orbits. Intersecting occasionally, they traced different paths as they tracked their respective courses through modernity. As he follows these two satellites of popular culture in Movies, Modernism, and the Science Fiction Pulps, J.P. Telotte covers territory that he acknowledges has been explored before, but he maps it in fresh and surprising ways. Despite the “felt connections” (2) between two cultural entities that “breathed the same modernist atmosphere” (3), the picture that emerges is of worldviews each facing the future, but facing away from each other. After sketching in some background on the gravitational pull that film and sf exerted on one another in the two decades on either side of World War I, Telotte takes up the story of the unsteady relationship between the sf pulps and cinema in the latter part of the 1920s, at the dawn of talking pictures. It was the advent of sound in movies, he argues, that cemented film as the non-print medium best suited to share and shape an sf consciousness, at the same time bringing film under “more critical examination, as various pulp stories sounded warnings against ... constantly developing film technology” (62). 308 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 47 (2020) Even when it was not employed to warn readers of future dangers, a filmic gaze soon became a recognizable, possibly even a defining, feature of sf pulp fiction. Plots concerning cameras with reality-altering powers and illustrations framed cinematically or with a camera at their focal point contributed to an overall view of film as “another, and especially attractive way of thinking about, depicting and arguing for the importance of science and technology in the shape of things to come” (75). There may have been a very pragmatic reason for this trend, one which Telotte glances at without examining in depth. The concept of cinema as a montage of attractions crops up again and again in Movies, Modernism and the Science Fiction Pulps, with a fleeting nod to its originator Sergei Eisenstein, but there is no further elaboration on how Eisenstein’s theory may have been vital...