Steven Belletto
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199826889
- eISBN:
- 9780199932382
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826889.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Chapter six argues that many of the themes and concerns that preoccupied thinkers during the Cold War persist after 1989, a persistence that it visible both in the ways the conflict is explicitly ...
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Chapter six argues that many of the themes and concerns that preoccupied thinkers during the Cold War persist after 1989, a persistence that it visible both in the ways the conflict is explicitly thematized, and in the ways that chance is tied to the sorts of narrative concerns animated by the Cold War. It begins with a discussion of Paul Auster’s writing, which is concerned with questions of chance and coincidence. By reading Auster in light of the preceding chapters, it becomes clear that his preoccupation with chance and his metafictional tendencies are related. From Auster’s writing, the chapter analyzes Chang-Rae Lee’s novel Native Speaker (1995), which brings tropes of accident and espionage into the present in order to analyze causal systems underwritten by the Cold War. The chapter ends with a look at My Life in CIA (2005), by Harry Mathews, a long-time expatriate and the only American member of the French avant-garde literary group, Oulipo. I show how the book turns on questions of chance and coincidence to show, in retrospect, their thematization was of a piece with the fabric of Cold War logic.Less
Chapter six argues that many of the themes and concerns that preoccupied thinkers during the Cold War persist after 1989, a persistence that it visible both in the ways the conflict is explicitly thematized, and in the ways that chance is tied to the sorts of narrative concerns animated by the Cold War. It begins with a discussion of Paul Auster’s writing, which is concerned with questions of chance and coincidence. By reading Auster in light of the preceding chapters, it becomes clear that his preoccupation with chance and his metafictional tendencies are related. From Auster’s writing, the chapter analyzes Chang-Rae Lee’s novel Native Speaker (1995), which brings tropes of accident and espionage into the present in order to analyze causal systems underwritten by the Cold War. The chapter ends with a look at My Life in CIA (2005), by Harry Mathews, a long-time expatriate and the only American member of the French avant-garde literary group, Oulipo. I show how the book turns on questions of chance and coincidence to show, in retrospect, their thematization was of a piece with the fabric of Cold War logic.
John W. Young
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198203674
- eISBN:
- 9780191675942
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198203674.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter discusses Stalin, who died of a stroke on March 6, 1953. It reviews the reactions of the British and Americans to the death of Stalin, and even looks at several Soviet leaders in ...
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This chapter discusses Stalin, who died of a stroke on March 6, 1953. It reviews the reactions of the British and Americans to the death of Stalin, and even looks at several Soviet leaders in relation to the Soviet dictator. Eisenhower's speech, which was dubbed ‘Chance for Peace’, was revealed to have gone through a series of drafts. The resulting speech stated that the West welcomed peace with the Soviets, but blamed the Soviets for the Cold War.Less
This chapter discusses Stalin, who died of a stroke on March 6, 1953. It reviews the reactions of the British and Americans to the death of Stalin, and even looks at several Soviet leaders in relation to the Soviet dictator. Eisenhower's speech, which was dubbed ‘Chance for Peace’, was revealed to have gone through a series of drafts. The resulting speech stated that the West welcomed peace with the Soviets, but blamed the Soviets for the Cold War.
Giorgio Agamben
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262037594
- eISBN:
- 9780262345231
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262037594.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
This book charts a journey that ranges from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger. An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love, and Necessity as the ...
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This book charts a journey that ranges from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger. An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love, and Necessity as the four gods who preside over the birth of every human being. We must all pay tribute to these deities and should not try to elude or dupe them. To accept them, the book suggests, is to live one's life as an adventure—not in the trivial sense of the term, with lightness and disenchantment, but with the understanding that adventure, as a specific way of being, is the most profound experience in our human existence. The four gods of legend are joined at the end by a goddess, the most elusive and mysterious of all: Elpis, Hope. In Greek mythology, Hope remains in Pandora's box, not because it postpones its fulfillment to an invisible beyond but because somehow it has always been already satisfied. Here, the book presents Hope as the ultimate gift of the human adventure on Earth.Less
This book charts a journey that ranges from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger. An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love, and Necessity as the four gods who preside over the birth of every human being. We must all pay tribute to these deities and should not try to elude or dupe them. To accept them, the book suggests, is to live one's life as an adventure—not in the trivial sense of the term, with lightness and disenchantment, but with the understanding that adventure, as a specific way of being, is the most profound experience in our human existence. The four gods of legend are joined at the end by a goddess, the most elusive and mysterious of all: Elpis, Hope. In Greek mythology, Hope remains in Pandora's box, not because it postpones its fulfillment to an invisible beyond but because somehow it has always been already satisfied. Here, the book presents Hope as the ultimate gift of the human adventure on Earth.
Helen Steward
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199552054
- eISBN:
- 9780191738838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552054.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter confronts the ‘Challenge from Chance’, which has always been the main difficulty faced by libertarianism. The problem is that it is difficult to see how the mere truth of indeterminism ...
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This chapter confronts the ‘Challenge from Chance’, which has always been the main difficulty faced by libertarianism. The problem is that it is difficult to see how the mere truth of indeterminism might make room for the kind of control over the future we feel we might not have if determinism is true—in some ways, indeed, indeterminism appears to make things even worse. In this chapter, it is argued, focusing in detail on Mele’s formulation of the problem of luck, that the libertarian should make an important concession to the compatibilist, and that having made it, the way is clear for a better understanding of the sorts of alternative possibilities which really are required for agency, and therefore, for freedom. The incompatibilism which results, it is argued, can meet the Challenge from Chance.Less
This chapter confronts the ‘Challenge from Chance’, which has always been the main difficulty faced by libertarianism. The problem is that it is difficult to see how the mere truth of indeterminism might make room for the kind of control over the future we feel we might not have if determinism is true—in some ways, indeed, indeterminism appears to make things even worse. In this chapter, it is argued, focusing in detail on Mele’s formulation of the problem of luck, that the libertarian should make an important concession to the compatibilist, and that having made it, the way is clear for a better understanding of the sorts of alternative possibilities which really are required for agency, and therefore, for freedom. The incompatibilism which results, it is argued, can meet the Challenge from Chance.
Helen Steward
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199552054
- eISBN:
- 9780191738838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552054.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter deals with various objections to the solution to the Challenge from Chance that is offered in the previous chapter. The suggestion that a newly formulated version of the Challenge can ...
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This chapter deals with various objections to the solution to the Challenge from Chance that is offered in the previous chapter. The suggestion that a newly formulated version of the Challenge can simply be raised again against the position offered is considered and rebutted. Objections stemming from so-called ‘Frankfurt-style’ examples are also considered. It is argued that Frankfurt-style examples do not succeed in showing that a power of refrainment is not essential to agency. The idea that the wanted power of refrainment is insufficiently ‘robust’ to constitute anything more than an insignificant ‘flicker of freedom’, as charged by Fischer, is also considered and rejected.Less
This chapter deals with various objections to the solution to the Challenge from Chance that is offered in the previous chapter. The suggestion that a newly formulated version of the Challenge can simply be raised again against the position offered is considered and rebutted. Objections stemming from so-called ‘Frankfurt-style’ examples are also considered. It is argued that Frankfurt-style examples do not succeed in showing that a power of refrainment is not essential to agency. The idea that the wanted power of refrainment is insufficiently ‘robust’ to constitute anything more than an insignificant ‘flicker of freedom’, as charged by Fischer, is also considered and rejected.
John Hawthorne and Maria Lasonen‐Aarnio
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199287512
- eISBN:
- 9780191713620
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287512.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, General
Like Williamson, we are interested in a safety condition on knowledge that ties knowledge to the presence or absence of error in close cases. This chapter explores the connections between knowledge ...
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Like Williamson, we are interested in a safety condition on knowledge that ties knowledge to the presence or absence of error in close cases. This chapter explores the connections between knowledge and objective chance within such a framework. It formulates a sceptical problem that does not rely on closure. The problem relies on a prima facie plausible principle connecting chance and modal closeness, which seems to be vindicated by ordinary notions of safety and danger. According to this principle, high-chance propositions are true in close cases. This creates sceptical trouble when we consider numerous subjects, each of whom believes a different high-chance proposition, and each of whom seems to be an equally good candidate for knowing the relevant proposition.Less
Like Williamson, we are interested in a safety condition on knowledge that ties knowledge to the presence or absence of error in close cases. This chapter explores the connections between knowledge and objective chance within such a framework. It formulates a sceptical problem that does not rely on closure. The problem relies on a prima facie plausible principle connecting chance and modal closeness, which seems to be vindicated by ordinary notions of safety and danger. According to this principle, high-chance propositions are true in close cases. This creates sceptical trouble when we consider numerous subjects, each of whom believes a different high-chance proposition, and each of whom seems to be an equally good candidate for knowing the relevant proposition.
Susan Jones
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184485
- eISBN:
- 9780191674273
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184485.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter introduces the novel Chance as the current central focus of this book. Serialised in the New York Herald Sunday Magazine in 1912, and aimed at the women readers of the paper, the novel ...
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This chapter introduces the novel Chance as the current central focus of this book. Serialised in the New York Herald Sunday Magazine in 1912, and aimed at the women readers of the paper, the novel represented a turning point in Conrad's career, his first economically successful venture in reaching a wider audience and addressing the themes of gender and romance that would occupy later fiction. Conrad's creation of a central female protagonist has often been heralded as the moment when his artistic powers began to diminish. The novel has also received negative responses from those critics who see it as an unsuccessful attempt to emulate Henry James. This chapter demonstrates that Chance was a new direction in Conrad's fiction, one in which he engages in a theoretical debate with ‘The Master’ on the relationship of vision and epistemology in the presentation of women in romance.Less
This chapter introduces the novel Chance as the current central focus of this book. Serialised in the New York Herald Sunday Magazine in 1912, and aimed at the women readers of the paper, the novel represented a turning point in Conrad's career, his first economically successful venture in reaching a wider audience and addressing the themes of gender and romance that would occupy later fiction. Conrad's creation of a central female protagonist has often been heralded as the moment when his artistic powers began to diminish. The novel has also received negative responses from those critics who see it as an unsuccessful attempt to emulate Henry James. This chapter demonstrates that Chance was a new direction in Conrad's fiction, one in which he engages in a theoretical debate with ‘The Master’ on the relationship of vision and epistemology in the presentation of women in romance.
Susan Jones
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184485
- eISBN:
- 9780191674273
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184485.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter looks at the genesis of Chance in greater detail. By studying three texts of Chance — manuscript, serial, published novel — one can gain a sense, not merely of the length of Conrad's ...
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This chapter looks at the genesis of Chance in greater detail. By studying three texts of Chance — manuscript, serial, published novel — one can gain a sense, not merely of the length of Conrad's commitment to the project, but also the nature of the experiment he engaged in. The history of Chance offers a paradigm for Conrad's artistic development from the early years of rites of passage narratives of an exclusively male discourse, through the responses to gender and genre in the late work, revealing a greater continuity in Conrad's career and establishing a serious alternative to the bifurcation of his fiction.Less
This chapter looks at the genesis of Chance in greater detail. By studying three texts of Chance — manuscript, serial, published novel — one can gain a sense, not merely of the length of Conrad's commitment to the project, but also the nature of the experiment he engaged in. The history of Chance offers a paradigm for Conrad's artistic development from the early years of rites of passage narratives of an exclusively male discourse, through the responses to gender and genre in the late work, revealing a greater continuity in Conrad's career and establishing a serious alternative to the bifurcation of his fiction.
Susan Jones
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184485
- eISBN:
- 9780191674273
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184485.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter describes popular marketing of Conrad's fiction in highly visual contexts. In spite of the modernist emphasis on the fragmentation of vision, the new media of glossy magazines, ...
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This chapter describes popular marketing of Conrad's fiction in highly visual contexts. In spite of the modernist emphasis on the fragmentation of vision, the new media of glossy magazines, photographs, and films ensured the endurance of hegemonic codes — of perspective, framing devices, and portraiture. Conrad examined the survival of these codes in a literal sense, looking at the ways in which traditional structures of vision contribute to the limitation of female identity, particularly within the popular genres. Conrad's unexpected contribution to an ongoing debate about female identity, in novels like Chance, Victory, The Arrow of Gold, The Rover, and The Rescue puts him in a much closer dynamic with his contemporaries, with the work of authors ranging from Warthon, James, Bennett, Galsworthy, Ford, and with the inexpensive editions of neglected popular writers.Less
This chapter describes popular marketing of Conrad's fiction in highly visual contexts. In spite of the modernist emphasis on the fragmentation of vision, the new media of glossy magazines, photographs, and films ensured the endurance of hegemonic codes — of perspective, framing devices, and portraiture. Conrad examined the survival of these codes in a literal sense, looking at the ways in which traditional structures of vision contribute to the limitation of female identity, particularly within the popular genres. Conrad's unexpected contribution to an ongoing debate about female identity, in novels like Chance, Victory, The Arrow of Gold, The Rover, and The Rescue puts him in a much closer dynamic with his contemporaries, with the work of authors ranging from Warthon, James, Bennett, Galsworthy, Ford, and with the inexpensive editions of neglected popular writers.
Michelle A. Purdy
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643496
- eISBN:
- 9781469643519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643496.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In this chapter, the author analyses Westminster’s development and its adoption of an open admissions policy in 1965 alongside an increasing national effort to recruit black students to independent ...
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In this chapter, the author analyses Westminster’s development and its adoption of an open admissions policy in 1965 alongside an increasing national effort to recruit black students to independent schools. The civil rights movement and possible changes in federal tax-exemption policies for their institutions captured the attention of independent school leaders, and these leaders then increasingly sought to diversify their student bodies through shifts in policies, practices, recruitment programs, and scholarship funds including A Better Chance and the Stouffer Foundation. Westminster became a southern exemplar of this national agenda with its striking and political announcement of tis open admissions policy, but the school was also emblematic of the pragmatic desegregation politics of Atlanta. The first black students—the fearless firsts—who excelled academically, applied to Westminster as public school desegregation progressed slowly. The Westminster that awaited them had an environment that included racist traditions and a segment of white students who raised important, nuanced questions about the issues of the time.Less
In this chapter, the author analyses Westminster’s development and its adoption of an open admissions policy in 1965 alongside an increasing national effort to recruit black students to independent schools. The civil rights movement and possible changes in federal tax-exemption policies for their institutions captured the attention of independent school leaders, and these leaders then increasingly sought to diversify their student bodies through shifts in policies, practices, recruitment programs, and scholarship funds including A Better Chance and the Stouffer Foundation. Westminster became a southern exemplar of this national agenda with its striking and political announcement of tis open admissions policy, but the school was also emblematic of the pragmatic desegregation politics of Atlanta. The first black students—the fearless firsts—who excelled academically, applied to Westminster as public school desegregation progressed slowly. The Westminster that awaited them had an environment that included racist traditions and a segment of white students who raised important, nuanced questions about the issues of the time.
Kevin Newmark
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823240128
- eISBN:
- 9780823240166
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823240128.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
“Deconstruction” shares with “irony” at least one irreducible feature: in both cases, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to formalize a definition that would not by the same token disfigure beyond ...
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“Deconstruction” shares with “irony” at least one irreducible feature: in both cases, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to formalize a definition that would not by the same token disfigure beyond recognition the very thing it aims to identify for thought. This chapter approaches the chance encounter between deconstruction and irony by asking not only what is called deconstruction but also by asking whether what is called deconstruction also always calls for deconstruction. One possible response is offered by the term “la dé-construction” itself, since it can be shown to lend itself at one and the same time to a straightforward historical description and to an occasion for deconstructing the concept of history. As a disruptive occurrence or happening, deconstruction—as well as irony—can be no thing, but rather must always announce itself precisely as that which unpredictably intervenes in and alters things as they are or believed to be.Less
“Deconstruction” shares with “irony” at least one irreducible feature: in both cases, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to formalize a definition that would not by the same token disfigure beyond recognition the very thing it aims to identify for thought. This chapter approaches the chance encounter between deconstruction and irony by asking not only what is called deconstruction but also by asking whether what is called deconstruction also always calls for deconstruction. One possible response is offered by the term “la dé-construction” itself, since it can be shown to lend itself at one and the same time to a straightforward historical description and to an occasion for deconstructing the concept of history. As a disruptive occurrence or happening, deconstruction—as well as irony—can be no thing, but rather must always announce itself precisely as that which unpredictably intervenes in and alters things as they are or believed to be.
Kevin Newmark
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823240128
- eISBN:
- 9780823240166
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823240128.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The question of the philosophical significance of irony is paradoxical to the extent that it was first posed in a theoretical manner by Friedrich Schlegel, whose own seriousness as a philosopher will ...
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The question of the philosophical significance of irony is paradoxical to the extent that it was first posed in a theoretical manner by Friedrich Schlegel, whose own seriousness as a philosopher will always remain in doubt. This chapter examines that paradox by following the way a seminal study by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, The Literary Absolute, addresses the relation between philosophy and literature within the main texts of German romanticism. Can the “non-serious” dimension of literature be addressed adequately by philosophy without being reduced to a philosophical concept of the serious that it will always also resist? The response involves a consideration of the literary “image” and the way that its appearance (Schein) both invites and interrupts philosophical comprehension. The image as it is deployed in Schlegel's texts enacts a mode of ironic fragmentation that by extension unsettles any philosophical claim to understand the limits of its own discursive practices.Less
The question of the philosophical significance of irony is paradoxical to the extent that it was first posed in a theoretical manner by Friedrich Schlegel, whose own seriousness as a philosopher will always remain in doubt. This chapter examines that paradox by following the way a seminal study by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, The Literary Absolute, addresses the relation between philosophy and literature within the main texts of German romanticism. Can the “non-serious” dimension of literature be addressed adequately by philosophy without being reduced to a philosophical concept of the serious that it will always also resist? The response involves a consideration of the literary “image” and the way that its appearance (Schein) both invites and interrupts philosophical comprehension. The image as it is deployed in Schlegel's texts enacts a mode of ironic fragmentation that by extension unsettles any philosophical claim to understand the limits of its own discursive practices.
Paul Wake
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074905
- eISBN:
- 9781781701256
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074905.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter focuses on the last Marlow novel, Chance. Through a consideration of the implications of a narratology that has its basis in the double negation of literary language, it argues that ...
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This chapter focuses on the last Marlow novel, Chance. Through a consideration of the implications of a narratology that has its basis in the double negation of literary language, it argues that rather than rendering literature meaningless, Blanchot's doubling of death generates the possibility of locating meaning in the narrating act itself. Accordingly, the discussion sees a shift of emphasis away from death as impossibility towards a reading of Chance in terms of truth and gender that engages with a number of critical readings that both challenge and exemplify this emphasis on narrative structure over, and as, the content of story.Less
This chapter focuses on the last Marlow novel, Chance. Through a consideration of the implications of a narratology that has its basis in the double negation of literary language, it argues that rather than rendering literature meaningless, Blanchot's doubling of death generates the possibility of locating meaning in the narrating act itself. Accordingly, the discussion sees a shift of emphasis away from death as impossibility towards a reading of Chance in terms of truth and gender that engages with a number of critical readings that both challenge and exemplify this emphasis on narrative structure over, and as, the content of story.
Alastair Wilson (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199673421
- eISBN:
- 9780191782534
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673421.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Science
This volume is a collection of cutting-edge research papers in scientifically informed metaphysics, tackling a range of philosophical puzzles which have emerged from recent work on chance and ...
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This volume is a collection of cutting-edge research papers in scientifically informed metaphysics, tackling a range of philosophical puzzles which have emerged from recent work on chance and temporal asymmetry. How do the probabilities found in fundamental physics and the probabilities of the special sciences relate to one another? How can we account for the normative significance of chance? Can constraints on the initial conditions of the universe underwrite the second law of thermodynamics, and potentially also all other lawlike regularities? How does contemporary quantum theory bear on debates over the nature of chance and the arrow of time? What grounds do we have for believing in a fundamental temporal direction, or flow? And how do all these questions connect up with one another? The aim of the volume is both to survey and summarize recent debates about chance and temporal asymmetry and to push them forward. The authors bring perspectives from metaphysics, from philosophy of physics and from philosophy of probability. Mainstream approaches are subjected to searching new critiques, and bold new proposals are made concerning (inter alia) the semantics of chance-attributions, the justification of the Principal Principle connecting chance and degree of belief, the limits on inter-theoretic reduction and the source of the temporal asymmetry of human experience..Less
This volume is a collection of cutting-edge research papers in scientifically informed metaphysics, tackling a range of philosophical puzzles which have emerged from recent work on chance and temporal asymmetry. How do the probabilities found in fundamental physics and the probabilities of the special sciences relate to one another? How can we account for the normative significance of chance? Can constraints on the initial conditions of the universe underwrite the second law of thermodynamics, and potentially also all other lawlike regularities? How does contemporary quantum theory bear on debates over the nature of chance and the arrow of time? What grounds do we have for believing in a fundamental temporal direction, or flow? And how do all these questions connect up with one another? The aim of the volume is both to survey and summarize recent debates about chance and temporal asymmetry and to push them forward. The authors bring perspectives from metaphysics, from philosophy of physics and from philosophy of probability. Mainstream approaches are subjected to searching new critiques, and bold new proposals are made concerning (inter alia) the semantics of chance-attributions, the justification of the Principal Principle connecting chance and degree of belief, the limits on inter-theoretic reduction and the source of the temporal asymmetry of human experience..
David Martin-Jones
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622443
- eISBN:
- 9780748651085
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622443.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The films discussed in this book are contemporary manifestations of a tradition that can be traced back to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard – those same ...
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The films discussed in this book are contemporary manifestations of a tradition that can be traced back to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard – those same directors that Gilles Deleuze drew on in constructing his taxonomy of images. The appearance of a labyrinthine model of time in many of these films is particularly indebted to Alain Resnais' oeuvre, which includes such films as Providence (1977) and Smoking/No Smoking (1993). Moreover, Run Lola Run and Peppermint Candy both self-consciously acknowledge their debt to Krzystof Kieslowski's Blind Chance (1981). This book has shown, through a specific focus on particular nations, the historical shifts and resulting transformations of national identity that these films negotiate. It is no longer enough to simply posit the time-image as the European other of the American movement-image. Rather, a global picture must be considered in which these films engage with issues of national identity for both local and international markets. As a final example that illustrates the need for this localised analysis, this chapter discusses Blind Chance.Less
The films discussed in this book are contemporary manifestations of a tradition that can be traced back to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard – those same directors that Gilles Deleuze drew on in constructing his taxonomy of images. The appearance of a labyrinthine model of time in many of these films is particularly indebted to Alain Resnais' oeuvre, which includes such films as Providence (1977) and Smoking/No Smoking (1993). Moreover, Run Lola Run and Peppermint Candy both self-consciously acknowledge their debt to Krzystof Kieslowski's Blind Chance (1981). This book has shown, through a specific focus on particular nations, the historical shifts and resulting transformations of national identity that these films negotiate. It is no longer enough to simply posit the time-image as the European other of the American movement-image. Rather, a global picture must be considered in which these films engage with issues of national identity for both local and international markets. As a final example that illustrates the need for this localised analysis, this chapter discusses Blind Chance.
Ray Zone
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813136110
- eISBN:
- 9780813141183
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813136110.003.0028
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Animated computer generated digital 3D movies are discussed as a driver for a new wave of stereoscopic cinema. The techniques for storytelling in the 3D medium are analysed.
Animated computer generated digital 3D movies are discussed as a driver for a new wave of stereoscopic cinema. The techniques for storytelling in the 3D medium are analysed.
Will Cooley
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041426
- eISBN:
- 9780252050022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041426.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the historical evolution of Chicago’s African American underground economy. During the first decades of the twentieth-century games of chance associated with cards and dice were ...
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This chapter examines the historical evolution of Chicago’s African American underground economy. During the first decades of the twentieth-century games of chance associated with cards and dice were the primary source of gambling revenue in black Chicago. By the early 1930s, this facet of the underground economy had been surpassed by policy, also referred to as “the numbers game.” An important linkage between these two periods was that gambling proprietors funneled some of their profits back into the larger community. Later in the twentieth century, gang-controlled drug trafficking became the primary manifestation of black Chicago’s underground economy. Unlike the earlier period’s relatively violence-free focus on games of chance, the selling of illicit drugs by street gangs turned black Chicago into a battleground.Less
This chapter examines the historical evolution of Chicago’s African American underground economy. During the first decades of the twentieth-century games of chance associated with cards and dice were the primary source of gambling revenue in black Chicago. By the early 1930s, this facet of the underground economy had been surpassed by policy, also referred to as “the numbers game.” An important linkage between these two periods was that gambling proprietors funneled some of their profits back into the larger community. Later in the twentieth century, gang-controlled drug trafficking became the primary manifestation of black Chicago’s underground economy. Unlike the earlier period’s relatively violence-free focus on games of chance, the selling of illicit drugs by street gangs turned black Chicago into a battleground.
Robert K. Weninger
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041667
- eISBN:
- 9780813043678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041667.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Following an extended theoretical examination of the continuing relevance of the concepts of influence and rapport de fait for comparative criticism today, this chapter provides a contrapuntal ...
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Following an extended theoretical examination of the continuing relevance of the concepts of influence and rapport de fait for comparative criticism today, this chapter provides a contrapuntal “parallactic” reading of Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795) and Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. The focus is placed on the role of irony and “parallax” in the depiction of the main characters of these “Bildungsromane,” Wilhelm Meister and Stephen Dedalus (and, to a lesser degree, Leopold Bloom), the role and relevance of chance and coincidence in these novels, and the symbolic significance of the Icarus-motif for an interpretation of the protagonists’ development.Less
Following an extended theoretical examination of the continuing relevance of the concepts of influence and rapport de fait for comparative criticism today, this chapter provides a contrapuntal “parallactic” reading of Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795) and Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. The focus is placed on the role of irony and “parallax” in the depiction of the main characters of these “Bildungsromane,” Wilhelm Meister and Stephen Dedalus (and, to a lesser degree, Leopold Bloom), the role and relevance of chance and coincidence in these novels, and the symbolic significance of the Icarus-motif for an interpretation of the protagonists’ development.
Emanuela Bianchi
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823262182
- eISBN:
- 9780823266449
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823262182.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
The Feminine Symptom is a deconstructive, psychoanalytic, continental feminist study of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. It proposes that Aristotle’s theory of sexual reproduction is key to ...
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The Feminine Symptom is a deconstructive, psychoanalytic, continental feminist study of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. It proposes that Aristotle’s theory of sexual reproduction is key to understanding his philosophical project as a whole. Just as a craftsman creates an artifact, the male supplies the form, which acts on matter provided by the female. The “feminine symptom” refers to the mechanism by which a female offspring is produced, namely a fault or misstep in the teleological unfolding of reproduction, occasioned by the presence of chance forces, but one that is necessary to the teleological cosmos. The book repositions Generation of Animals as the central text of Aristotle’s thinking, and traces the aleatory feminine symptom as accident, chance, coincidence and necessity operating in Aristotelian metaphysics and physics: in cause, place, motion, potentiality, and actuality, as well as exploring the relationship of Aristotle’s natural philosophy to Plato, atomism, and other predecessors. The methodology attends to Aristotle’s figures, his literariness and teleological momentum, seeking out textual aporias, slippages, and symptoms in relation to sexual difference. The analysis reveals the dual vectors at work in Aristotle’s thought: a movement toward system-building, hierarchy, and teleology, but also a phenomenological attunement to the singularity of things. The book engages Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle, and remedies the lack of attention paid to Aristotle by 20th-century French thinkers, and also addresses an Anglophone literature on Aristotle’s biology and feminism. The book develops a politics of “aleatory feminism” that converges with the contemporary turn to “new materialisms” in the theoretical humanities.Less
The Feminine Symptom is a deconstructive, psychoanalytic, continental feminist study of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. It proposes that Aristotle’s theory of sexual reproduction is key to understanding his philosophical project as a whole. Just as a craftsman creates an artifact, the male supplies the form, which acts on matter provided by the female. The “feminine symptom” refers to the mechanism by which a female offspring is produced, namely a fault or misstep in the teleological unfolding of reproduction, occasioned by the presence of chance forces, but one that is necessary to the teleological cosmos. The book repositions Generation of Animals as the central text of Aristotle’s thinking, and traces the aleatory feminine symptom as accident, chance, coincidence and necessity operating in Aristotelian metaphysics and physics: in cause, place, motion, potentiality, and actuality, as well as exploring the relationship of Aristotle’s natural philosophy to Plato, atomism, and other predecessors. The methodology attends to Aristotle’s figures, his literariness and teleological momentum, seeking out textual aporias, slippages, and symptoms in relation to sexual difference. The analysis reveals the dual vectors at work in Aristotle’s thought: a movement toward system-building, hierarchy, and teleology, but also a phenomenological attunement to the singularity of things. The book engages Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle, and remedies the lack of attention paid to Aristotle by 20th-century French thinkers, and also addresses an Anglophone literature on Aristotle’s biology and feminism. The book develops a politics of “aleatory feminism” that converges with the contemporary turn to “new materialisms” in the theoretical humanities.
Jonathan Dent
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719095979
- eISBN:
- 9781526115195
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719095979.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the complex, often antagonistic relationship between Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Hume’s The History of England (1754–62). As Walpole’s correspondence reveals, he had ...
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This chapter examines the complex, often antagonistic relationship between Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Hume’s The History of England (1754–62). As Walpole’s correspondence reveals, he had read numerous volumes of Hume’s history before writing Otranto (the first Gothic novel) and did not think very highly of its content or the methods used to write it. Reassessing the significance of the Gothic in the eighteenth century, this chapter discusses the extent to which Walpole’s novel can be viewed as a bold response to, and critique of, Hume’s historiography. Discussing the proliferation of violent and supernatural occurrences in Otranto, it is argued that the Gothic functions as Enlightenment history’s other; it exploits its insecurities, plagues its vulnerabilities, and imaginatively provides fictional presences for its many absences and omissions. Taking into account a wealth of historical evidence, this chapter proposes that Walpole’s novel can be read as an imaginative revolt against Hume’s multi-volume work of historiography and that it marks the beginning of the genre’s contentious relationship with Enlightenment historiography and the philosophy that underpins it.Less
This chapter examines the complex, often antagonistic relationship between Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Hume’s The History of England (1754–62). As Walpole’s correspondence reveals, he had read numerous volumes of Hume’s history before writing Otranto (the first Gothic novel) and did not think very highly of its content or the methods used to write it. Reassessing the significance of the Gothic in the eighteenth century, this chapter discusses the extent to which Walpole’s novel can be viewed as a bold response to, and critique of, Hume’s historiography. Discussing the proliferation of violent and supernatural occurrences in Otranto, it is argued that the Gothic functions as Enlightenment history’s other; it exploits its insecurities, plagues its vulnerabilities, and imaginatively provides fictional presences for its many absences and omissions. Taking into account a wealth of historical evidence, this chapter proposes that Walpole’s novel can be read as an imaginative revolt against Hume’s multi-volume work of historiography and that it marks the beginning of the genre’s contentious relationship with Enlightenment historiography and the philosophy that underpins it.
