Ian Carter
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198294535
- eISBN:
- 9780191598951
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198294530.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Defending a non-value-based and therefore purely empirical conception of overall freedom must involve showing how available actions can, at least in theory, be individuated and counted. The problems ...
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Defending a non-value-based and therefore purely empirical conception of overall freedom must involve showing how available actions can, at least in theory, be individuated and counted. The problems encountered here include the fact that actions can have an indefinite number of descriptions, that they can be subjected to indefinite spatio-temporal division, and that they give rise to indefinitely long causal chains of events. Solutions to these problems can be found through an application of Donald Davidson’s notion of actions as particulars, and by thinking of act-tokens as located in particular units within a space-time grid. Once possible actions have been adequately individuated, a formula for the measurement of freedom can be constructed, adapting a formula originally proposed by Hillel Steiner and taking into account the compossibility of particular actions and the probability of their being unconstrained. Careful attention to the structure of sets of available actions helps to mitigate some of the supposed counterintuitive implications of this analysis. Furthermore, subscribing to this empirical approach to the measurement of overall freedom does not necessarily imply subscribing to an empiricist or physicalist conception of action.Less
Defending a non-value-based and therefore purely empirical conception of overall freedom must involve showing how available actions can, at least in theory, be individuated and counted. The problems encountered here include the fact that actions can have an indefinite number of descriptions, that they can be subjected to indefinite spatio-temporal division, and that they give rise to indefinitely long causal chains of events. Solutions to these problems can be found through an application of Donald Davidson’s notion of actions as particulars, and by thinking of act-tokens as located in particular units within a space-time grid. Once possible actions have been adequately individuated, a formula for the measurement of freedom can be constructed, adapting a formula originally proposed by Hillel Steiner and taking into account the compossibility of particular actions and the probability of their being unconstrained. Careful attention to the structure of sets of available actions helps to mitigate some of the supposed counterintuitive implications of this analysis. Furthermore, subscribing to this empirical approach to the measurement of overall freedom does not necessarily imply subscribing to an empiricist or physicalist conception of action.
David Miller
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198278641
- eISBN:
- 9780191599903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198278640.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Libertarians defend a narrow version of negative freedom. Hayek defines freedom as the absence of coercion, but this position is shown to be untenable. A more common view is that laws and other such ...
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Libertarians defend a narrow version of negative freedom. Hayek defines freedom as the absence of coercion, but this position is shown to be untenable. A more common view is that laws and other such deliberately imposed obstacles restrict freedom, but a lack of economic opportunities, for instance, does not. Against this, it is argued that any obstacle for which human beings can be held morally responsible should count as a constraint on freedom. Furthermore, contrary to Steiner, a constraint does not have to prevent an action, it can merely make it ineligible.Less
Libertarians defend a narrow version of negative freedom. Hayek defines freedom as the absence of coercion, but this position is shown to be untenable. A more common view is that laws and other such deliberately imposed obstacles restrict freedom, but a lack of economic opportunities, for instance, does not. Against this, it is argued that any obstacle for which human beings can be held morally responsible should count as a constraint on freedom. Furthermore, contrary to Steiner, a constraint does not have to prevent an action, it can merely make it ineligible.
David Miller
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198278641
- eISBN:
- 9780191599903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198278640.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
How can exploitation—in the sense of taking advantage of other people—occur in market settings? Marx understood exploitation in terms of unilateral transfers of value. Steiner and Roemer understand ...
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How can exploitation—in the sense of taking advantage of other people—occur in market settings? Marx understood exploitation in terms of unilateral transfers of value. Steiner and Roemer understand it in terms of exchanges made against the background of an unjust distribution of resources. In opposition to these views, it is argued that exploitative transactions are exchanges made at non‐equilibrium prices, due to asymmetries of information or of bargaining power. This view of exploitation allows us to understand why capitalism is inherently exploitative, whereas under market socialism, exploitation would only occur in specific circumstances.Less
How can exploitation—in the sense of taking advantage of other people—occur in market settings? Marx understood exploitation in terms of unilateral transfers of value. Steiner and Roemer understand it in terms of exchanges made against the background of an unjust distribution of resources. In opposition to these views, it is argued that exploitative transactions are exchanges made at non‐equilibrium prices, due to asymmetries of information or of bargaining power. This view of exploitation allows us to understand why capitalism is inherently exploitative, whereas under market socialism, exploitation would only occur in specific circumstances.
Michael Patrick Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195333527
- eISBN:
- 9780199868896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333527.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 5 presents a reading of David Lodge's novel Therapy (1995) in light of Balthasar's Theo‐logic. Lodge does well to illustrate that the erasure of God that preoccupies postmodern consciousness ...
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Chapter 5 presents a reading of David Lodge's novel Therapy (1995) in light of Balthasar's Theo‐logic. Lodge does well to illustrate that the erasure of God that preoccupies postmodern consciousness significantly affects contemporary conceptions about “subject formation” and “people in relation.” Lodge develops these themes by constructing a narrative that mirrors both the theological trajectory of Balthasar's tripartite program and the existential progression identified by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard—namely, the aesthetic, ethical, and religious “stages” of human experience. Importantly, a close consideration of Kierkegaard's stages reveals a direct analogy with the transcendentals, which, in turn, illuminates one of the many reasons why Balthasar admired Kierkegaard and why Lodge's novel is a fertile literary example of Balthasar's Theologic. By a close consideration of the triadic structure of being presented by a variety of sources, the chapter begins to discern how God's logic—how human logic—exists in a trinitarian dynamic.Less
Chapter 5 presents a reading of David Lodge's novel Therapy (1995) in light of Balthasar's Theo‐logic. Lodge does well to illustrate that the erasure of God that preoccupies postmodern consciousness significantly affects contemporary conceptions about “subject formation” and “people in relation.” Lodge develops these themes by constructing a narrative that mirrors both the theological trajectory of Balthasar's tripartite program and the existential progression identified by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard—namely, the aesthetic, ethical, and religious “stages” of human experience. Importantly, a close consideration of Kierkegaard's stages reveals a direct analogy with the transcendentals, which, in turn, illuminates one of the many reasons why Balthasar admired Kierkegaard and why Lodge's novel is a fertile literary example of Balthasar's Theologic. By a close consideration of the triadic structure of being presented by a variety of sources, the chapter begins to discern how God's logic—how human logic—exists in a trinitarian dynamic.
Mark Casson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199213979
- eISBN:
- 9780191707469
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199213979.003.0003
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History, Organization Studies
The counterfactual railway system was constructed using nine heuristic principles. The most important was the Steiner Principle, which asserts that under certain conditions an optimal railway network ...
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The counterfactual railway system was constructed using nine heuristic principles. The most important was the Steiner Principle, which asserts that under certain conditions an optimal railway network is linked up by a set of spatially symmetric three-way hubs. The counterfactual network equals or exceeds the performance of the actual network according to various metrics. The counterfactual network achieves this performance with 13,000 route miles as compared to the 20,000 route miles of the actual system.Less
The counterfactual railway system was constructed using nine heuristic principles. The most important was the Steiner Principle, which asserts that under certain conditions an optimal railway network is linked up by a set of spatially symmetric three-way hubs. The counterfactual network equals or exceeds the performance of the actual network according to various metrics. The counterfactual network achieves this performance with 13,000 route miles as compared to the 20,000 route miles of the actual system.
James Davison Hunter
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199730803
- eISBN:
- 9780199777082
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730803.003.0015
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Two overriding characteristics of our time are difference and dissolution. The problem of difference bears on how Christians engage the world outside of their own community, while the problem of ...
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Two overriding characteristics of our time are difference and dissolution. The problem of difference bears on how Christians engage the world outside of their own community, while the problem of dissolution bears on the nature of Christian witness. Pluralism creates both a fragmentation among worldviews and the social structures that support these worldviews. These are social conditions that make faithfulness difficult and faithlessness almost natural. For pluralism creates social conditions in which God is no longer an inevitability. There are key aspects of contemporary life that take us into radically new territory; into a social and cultural landscape that has very few recognizable features from cultures, societies, or civilizations past. The negative aspect of difference and dissolution is that they present conditions advantageous for the development of nihilism: autonomous desire and unfettered will legitimated by the ideology and practices of choice.Less
Two overriding characteristics of our time are difference and dissolution. The problem of difference bears on how Christians engage the world outside of their own community, while the problem of dissolution bears on the nature of Christian witness. Pluralism creates both a fragmentation among worldviews and the social structures that support these worldviews. These are social conditions that make faithfulness difficult and faithlessness almost natural. For pluralism creates social conditions in which God is no longer an inevitability. There are key aspects of contemporary life that take us into radically new territory; into a social and cultural landscape that has very few recognizable features from cultures, societies, or civilizations past. The negative aspect of difference and dissolution is that they present conditions advantageous for the development of nihilism: autonomous desire and unfettered will legitimated by the ideology and practices of choice.
Rolf Niedermeier
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198566076
- eISBN:
- 9780191713910
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198566076.003.0009
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Combinatorics / Graph Theory / Discrete Mathematics
This chapter shows how to use the well-known dynamic programming technique in order to design fixed-parameter algorithms. More specifically, dynamic programming solutions are presented for problems ...
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This chapter shows how to use the well-known dynamic programming technique in order to design fixed-parameter algorithms. More specifically, dynamic programming solutions are presented for problems such as Knapsack, Steiner Problem in Graphs, tree-structured variants of Set Cover, and others. In a final discussion, the relationship to structural problem parameterization is pointed out.Less
This chapter shows how to use the well-known dynamic programming technique in order to design fixed-parameter algorithms. More specifically, dynamic programming solutions are presented for problems such as Knapsack, Steiner Problem in Graphs, tree-structured variants of Set Cover, and others. In a final discussion, the relationship to structural problem parameterization is pointed out.
David‐Antoine Williams
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199583546
- eISBN:
- 9780191595295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199583546.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter investigates Geoffrey Hill's abiding concern with the equation of semantic and ethical recognition, his experience of language as an arena in which our ethical being is both menaced and ...
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This chapter investigates Geoffrey Hill's abiding concern with the equation of semantic and ethical recognition, his experience of language as an arena in which our ethical being is both menaced and succoured, though perhaps not secured. Hill's cogitations on this problem accompany a career‐long exploration of the question of intrinsic value, a concept which he admits has gone out of fashion but which he nonetheless attempts to rescue for his theory of language. Hill's ethics of responsibility requires that literature memorialize and memorize the dead, but his scepticism about the ability of language to do justice to its subjects forces him into a paradoxical contemplation of silence as the only responsible speech. Even so, the question of value has increasingly been posed by Hill in its public dimension, as embodying the union of civic (including political), theological (including metaphysical), and grammatical (including etymological) thought. One way Hill thinks the writer can realize intrinsic value is in the assiduous plying of words, the working in poetry of their etymology, grammar, and syntax into a high semantic pitch; this chapter pays special attention to the words that have meant the most to Hill: ‘value’, ‘atonement’, ‘endurance’, ‘patience’, ‘attention’, ‘justice’, ‘grace’, ‘pitch’, ‘common’, and ‘alienation’.Less
This chapter investigates Geoffrey Hill's abiding concern with the equation of semantic and ethical recognition, his experience of language as an arena in which our ethical being is both menaced and succoured, though perhaps not secured. Hill's cogitations on this problem accompany a career‐long exploration of the question of intrinsic value, a concept which he admits has gone out of fashion but which he nonetheless attempts to rescue for his theory of language. Hill's ethics of responsibility requires that literature memorialize and memorize the dead, but his scepticism about the ability of language to do justice to its subjects forces him into a paradoxical contemplation of silence as the only responsible speech. Even so, the question of value has increasingly been posed by Hill in its public dimension, as embodying the union of civic (including political), theological (including metaphysical), and grammatical (including etymological) thought. One way Hill thinks the writer can realize intrinsic value is in the assiduous plying of words, the working in poetry of their etymology, grammar, and syntax into a high semantic pitch; this chapter pays special attention to the words that have meant the most to Hill: ‘value’, ‘atonement’, ‘endurance’, ‘patience’, ‘attention’, ‘justice’, ‘grace’, ‘pitch’, ‘common’, and ‘alienation’.
Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199217182
- eISBN:
- 9780191712388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217182.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter One establishes the book's theoretical and methodological context by siting it within recent developments in postcolonial studies, reception studies, and theories of tragedy. Taking as its ...
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Chapter One establishes the book's theoretical and methodological context by siting it within recent developments in postcolonial studies, reception studies, and theories of tragedy. Taking as its methodological parameters the work of Gilroy and Bernal on the Black Atlantic and Black Athena, it introduces the construct of the ‘Black Aegean’ as the zone of cultural transmission among Africa, Ancient Greece, and contemporary Europe. Other issues in postcolonial studies, such as the nature of canonical counter-discourse, and the possible identity of the United States as a postcolonial society, are analysed. The chapter also enters into dialogue with recent writers on classical reception, and develops further the theory of classical reception by positing a version of reception that has learnt from deconstruction and so highlights its self-consciousness and recursivity. The final section of the chapter discusses theories of tragedy, supplementing Steiner with Soyinka.Less
Chapter One establishes the book's theoretical and methodological context by siting it within recent developments in postcolonial studies, reception studies, and theories of tragedy. Taking as its methodological parameters the work of Gilroy and Bernal on the Black Atlantic and Black Athena, it introduces the construct of the ‘Black Aegean’ as the zone of cultural transmission among Africa, Ancient Greece, and contemporary Europe. Other issues in postcolonial studies, such as the nature of canonical counter-discourse, and the possible identity of the United States as a postcolonial society, are analysed. The chapter also enters into dialogue with recent writers on classical reception, and develops further the theory of classical reception by positing a version of reception that has learnt from deconstruction and so highlights its self-consciousness and recursivity. The final section of the chapter discusses theories of tragedy, supplementing Steiner with Soyinka.
Paul F. A. Bartha
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195325539
- eISBN:
- 9780199776313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195325539.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This chapter develops the thesis that the goal of an analogical argument is to generalize a particular logical, causal or explanatory relationship. Three separate types of similarity prominent in ...
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This chapter develops the thesis that the goal of an analogical argument is to generalize a particular logical, causal or explanatory relationship. Three separate types of similarity prominent in scientific analogies are characterized: feature matching, formal similarity, and parametric similarity (or continuity). These types are linked to prominent forms of generalization: common kinds, common mathematical formalisms and invariant relations. Notably, the chapter considers—and rejects—Steiner's thesis that an inscrutable class of “Pythagorean” analogies played a fundamental role in advancing nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century physics.Less
This chapter develops the thesis that the goal of an analogical argument is to generalize a particular logical, causal or explanatory relationship. Three separate types of similarity prominent in scientific analogies are characterized: feature matching, formal similarity, and parametric similarity (or continuity). These types are linked to prominent forms of generalization: common kinds, common mathematical formalisms and invariant relations. Notably, the chapter considers—and rejects—Steiner's thesis that an inscrutable class of “Pythagorean” analogies played a fundamental role in advancing nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century physics.
Nathan Platte (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252043000
- eISBN:
- 9780252051869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
An orchestrator elopes with a composer’s beloved and then dies, leaving behind a pregnant widow and an incomplete melody. Discouraged but not defeated, the composer proposes, offering to adopt the ...
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An orchestrator elopes with a composer’s beloved and then dies, leaving behind a pregnant widow and an incomplete melody. Discouraged but not defeated, the composer proposes, offering to adopt the orchestrator’s child and melody. Just before the composer conducts his new arrangement of the orphaned theme, a child is born. This synopsis describes one plot line within the Warner Bros. film, Four Daughters (1938), and its sequel, Four Wives (1939). Loosely based on a story by Fannie Hurst, the Four Daughters films appear fashioned specifically for musicological musing. But if the films’ intertwined creative crises receive a pat resolution, the film’s production was less tidy. This essay lends a careful ear to the offscreen voices of studio staff whose dissensions and compromises inflect the musical content and onscreen musicians of the films. Screenwriter Lenore Coffee, who replaced an “unreal and ridiculous” contortionist character with an orchestrator, waged battle with male colleagues for credit and narrative control. Collaborative construction of the fictional compositions—credited to Max Steiner but based on themes written by Heinz Roemheld and Max Rabinowitsch—was also initially muffled. After the onscreen orchestrator’s unfinished “Symphonie Moderne” became a central plot point, Steiner and his colleagues were impelled to concede, even celebrate, their shared compositional efforts more publicly. Drawing on sketches from the Max Steiner Collection (BYU) as well as scripts and production documents from the Warner Bros. Archives (USC), this paper considers how battles over creative control were waged through the conception, composition, and onscreen depiction of a musical work that became an unlikely vessel for anxieties over Hollywood’s intensely collaborative methods.Less
An orchestrator elopes with a composer’s beloved and then dies, leaving behind a pregnant widow and an incomplete melody. Discouraged but not defeated, the composer proposes, offering to adopt the orchestrator’s child and melody. Just before the composer conducts his new arrangement of the orphaned theme, a child is born. This synopsis describes one plot line within the Warner Bros. film, Four Daughters (1938), and its sequel, Four Wives (1939). Loosely based on a story by Fannie Hurst, the Four Daughters films appear fashioned specifically for musicological musing. But if the films’ intertwined creative crises receive a pat resolution, the film’s production was less tidy. This essay lends a careful ear to the offscreen voices of studio staff whose dissensions and compromises inflect the musical content and onscreen musicians of the films. Screenwriter Lenore Coffee, who replaced an “unreal and ridiculous” contortionist character with an orchestrator, waged battle with male colleagues for credit and narrative control. Collaborative construction of the fictional compositions—credited to Max Steiner but based on themes written by Heinz Roemheld and Max Rabinowitsch—was also initially muffled. After the onscreen orchestrator’s unfinished “Symphonie Moderne” became a central plot point, Steiner and his colleagues were impelled to concede, even celebrate, their shared compositional efforts more publicly. Drawing on sketches from the Max Steiner Collection (BYU) as well as scripts and production documents from the Warner Bros. Archives (USC), this paper considers how battles over creative control were waged through the conception, composition, and onscreen depiction of a musical work that became an unlikely vessel for anxieties over Hollywood’s intensely collaborative methods.
Gareth Wood
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199651337
- eISBN:
- 9780191741180
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199651337.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter sets out to answer two questions: why did Marías begin to work as a translator and how does he translate. To answer the first of these, the chapter examines in detail his lecture ‘Desde ...
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This chapter sets out to answer two questions: why did Marías begin to work as a translator and how does he translate. To answer the first of these, the chapter examines in detail his lecture ‘Desde una novela no necesariamente castiza’, where he sets out the reasons for his initial rejection of his cultural and literary heritage in the early part of his career. Comparisons are made with other members of his generation, notably Antonio Muñoz Molina, to provide a wider picture of the ‘Novísimos’ generation of Spanish writers who came of age in the 1970s. To answer the second question, the chapter looks in detail at Marías's two most substantial essays on Translation Theory, placing them alongside works by George Steiner, José Ortega y Gasset, and Octavio Paz. Above all, Marías's attitudes to naturalization of the foreign culture through translation and to the degree of creativity involved in translation are the focus of discussion.Less
This chapter sets out to answer two questions: why did Marías begin to work as a translator and how does he translate. To answer the first of these, the chapter examines in detail his lecture ‘Desde una novela no necesariamente castiza’, where he sets out the reasons for his initial rejection of his cultural and literary heritage in the early part of his career. Comparisons are made with other members of his generation, notably Antonio Muñoz Molina, to provide a wider picture of the ‘Novísimos’ generation of Spanish writers who came of age in the 1970s. To answer the second question, the chapter looks in detail at Marías's two most substantial essays on Translation Theory, placing them alongside works by George Steiner, José Ortega y Gasset, and Octavio Paz. Above all, Marías's attitudes to naturalization of the foreign culture through translation and to the degree of creativity involved in translation are the focus of discussion.
Lucy Newlyn
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187110
- eISBN:
- 9780191674631
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187110.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter argues that the defence strategies that constitute Romantic ideology are visible both in the practices of individual writers, and in larger cultural and ideological trends. Just as the ...
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This chapter argues that the defence strategies that constitute Romantic ideology are visible both in the practices of individual writers, and in larger cultural and ideological trends. Just as the habit of reading aloud returned reception to its earlier manifestations; so the concepts of genius, originality, posterity, and canonicity functioned for Romantic writers as comforting symbols of transhistorical connectiveness with their ideal readers. The ‘communion of shared echo, of participatory reflex’ which George Steiner sees as ‘pertinent to the notion of canon’ is absolutely central to high Romanticism and the work it has gone on performing. In Romantic models of influence, intertextuality, and canon-formation, the curse of time is defeated by a habit of reading which looks for the underlying similarities between different epochs, discerning the spirit of continuity that unites them, and celebrating the amalgamation of individual authorial identities in a larger connective whole.Less
This chapter argues that the defence strategies that constitute Romantic ideology are visible both in the practices of individual writers, and in larger cultural and ideological trends. Just as the habit of reading aloud returned reception to its earlier manifestations; so the concepts of genius, originality, posterity, and canonicity functioned for Romantic writers as comforting symbols of transhistorical connectiveness with their ideal readers. The ‘communion of shared echo, of participatory reflex’ which George Steiner sees as ‘pertinent to the notion of canon’ is absolutely central to high Romanticism and the work it has gone on performing. In Romantic models of influence, intertextuality, and canon-formation, the curse of time is defeated by a habit of reading which looks for the underlying similarities between different epochs, discerning the spirit of continuity that unites them, and celebrating the amalgamation of individual authorial identities in a larger connective whole.
June O. Leavitt
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199827831
- eISBN:
- 9780199919444
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827831.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This chapter presents the classical theory about clairvoyance and contrasts it to Kafka’s confession to Rudolph Steiner about being clairvoyant and to the discourse on clairvoyance popularized by the ...
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This chapter presents the classical theory about clairvoyance and contrasts it to Kafka’s confession to Rudolph Steiner about being clairvoyant and to the discourse on clairvoyance popularized by the modern Theosophical movement. The chapter analyzes the statement that Kafka made to Steiner during their meeting that his soul yearned for “Theosophy,” in light of the tremendous impact which the founder of modern Theosophy, Madame H.P. Blavatsky, made on European arts, literature and culture.Less
This chapter presents the classical theory about clairvoyance and contrasts it to Kafka’s confession to Rudolph Steiner about being clairvoyant and to the discourse on clairvoyance popularized by the modern Theosophical movement. The chapter analyzes the statement that Kafka made to Steiner during their meeting that his soul yearned for “Theosophy,” in light of the tremendous impact which the founder of modern Theosophy, Madame H.P. Blavatsky, made on European arts, literature and culture.
June O. Leavitt
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199827831
- eISBN:
- 9780199919444
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827831.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This chapter presents two major implications that can be drawn from Kafka’s confession to Rudolph Steiner that he occasionally experienced states of clairvoyance while writing. First, Kafka’s prose ...
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This chapter presents two major implications that can be drawn from Kafka’s confession to Rudolph Steiner that he occasionally experienced states of clairvoyance while writing. First, Kafka’s prose necessarily contains indications of clairvoyant perception. Second of all, the fact that he deferred to Steiner’s explanation of clairvoyance suggests that Kafka was immersed in the occult discourse of his day, and this discourse would leave traces in his prose. Subsequently, this chapter aims to identify the indications of clairvoyant experience in Kafka’s prose while at the same time it draws attention to occult referents which may have shaped this experience. In addition to presenting definitions of “occult” “occultism” “mystic,” and “mysticism,” the chapter relates to trends in contemporary literary studies that are relevant to a discussion on the mystical life of Franz Kafka but have fallen short of elucidating the textuality of a clairvoyant writer.Less
This chapter presents two major implications that can be drawn from Kafka’s confession to Rudolph Steiner that he occasionally experienced states of clairvoyance while writing. First, Kafka’s prose necessarily contains indications of clairvoyant perception. Second of all, the fact that he deferred to Steiner’s explanation of clairvoyance suggests that Kafka was immersed in the occult discourse of his day, and this discourse would leave traces in his prose. Subsequently, this chapter aims to identify the indications of clairvoyant experience in Kafka’s prose while at the same time it draws attention to occult referents which may have shaped this experience. In addition to presenting definitions of “occult” “occultism” “mystic,” and “mysticism,” the chapter relates to trends in contemporary literary studies that are relevant to a discussion on the mystical life of Franz Kafka but have fallen short of elucidating the textuality of a clairvoyant writer.
Dan McKanan
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520290051
- eISBN:
- 9780520964389
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520290051.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
For the past century, initiatives inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy have contributed to the evolution of environmental activism. Steiner’s 1924 course of lectures on agriculture initiated ...
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For the past century, initiatives inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy have contributed to the evolution of environmental activism. Steiner’s 1924 course of lectures on agriculture initiated biodynamics, which became the first organized form of organic agriculture. Farmers and activists inspired by Steiner helped prepare the way for Rachel Carson’s campaign against pesticides, anticipated the major themes of Gaian spirituality, invented community-supported agriculture, and founded many of the world’s largest green banks. Waldorf schools and Camphill intentional communities, also inspired by Steiner, integrate concern for the environment into their practices of education and care for persons with special needs. Eco-Alchemy tells all these stories, with special attention to the ways anthroposophical initiatives have interacted with impulses rooted in other spiritual traditions. By placing anthroposophy within the broader history of environmentalism, Dan McKanan demonstrates that the environmental movement itself has a complex ecology and would not be as diverse or transformative without the contributions of anthroposophy. Anthroposophy’s greatest contribution has been its emphasis on the balancing of polarities, drawn from alchemy. By refusing the dichotomies of matter and spirit, nature and humanity, and science and spirituality, students of Rudolf Steiner help environmentalism evolve in new and creative ways.Less
For the past century, initiatives inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy have contributed to the evolution of environmental activism. Steiner’s 1924 course of lectures on agriculture initiated biodynamics, which became the first organized form of organic agriculture. Farmers and activists inspired by Steiner helped prepare the way for Rachel Carson’s campaign against pesticides, anticipated the major themes of Gaian spirituality, invented community-supported agriculture, and founded many of the world’s largest green banks. Waldorf schools and Camphill intentional communities, also inspired by Steiner, integrate concern for the environment into their practices of education and care for persons with special needs. Eco-Alchemy tells all these stories, with special attention to the ways anthroposophical initiatives have interacted with impulses rooted in other spiritual traditions. By placing anthroposophy within the broader history of environmentalism, Dan McKanan demonstrates that the environmental movement itself has a complex ecology and would not be as diverse or transformative without the contributions of anthroposophy. Anthroposophy’s greatest contribution has been its emphasis on the balancing of polarities, drawn from alchemy. By refusing the dichotomies of matter and spirit, nature and humanity, and science and spirituality, students of Rudolf Steiner help environmentalism evolve in new and creative ways.
Paolo Mancosu
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199296453
- eISBN:
- 9780191711961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296453.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This chapter offers a broad survey of the literature on mathematical explanation, and shows the importance of this area of work for a philosophical understanding of mathematical practice and for ...
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This chapter offers a broad survey of the literature on mathematical explanation, and shows the importance of this area of work for a philosophical understanding of mathematical practice and for other philosophical areas such as metaphysics and epistemology. The discussion begins with a distinction between mathematical explanations of scientific facts and mathematical explanation of mathematical facts. The former topic leads naturally to a discussion of new versions of the indispensability argument and the latter to a discussion of the two major accounts of mathematical explanation available, e.g. those of Steiner and Kitcher.Less
This chapter offers a broad survey of the literature on mathematical explanation, and shows the importance of this area of work for a philosophical understanding of mathematical practice and for other philosophical areas such as metaphysics and epistemology. The discussion begins with a distinction between mathematical explanations of scientific facts and mathematical explanation of mathematical facts. The former topic leads naturally to a discussion of new versions of the indispensability argument and the latter to a discussion of the two major accounts of mathematical explanation available, e.g. those of Steiner and Kitcher.
Jody Azzouni
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195159882
- eISBN:
- 9780199834990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195159888.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
Several applications of mathematics to empirical domains are described, including a small portion of Newtonian mechanics. The simplest case is one where a nonmathematical empirical description of the ...
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Several applications of mathematics to empirical domains are described, including a small portion of Newtonian mechanics. The simplest case is one where a nonmathematical empirical description of the domain of application is already in place. A far more (ontologically) complicated case is one where no such empirical description is in place; instead mathematical nomenclature is applied empirically by reinterpreting some of that nomenclature as empirically referring. A concern due to Mark Steiner, that the empirical success of the drafting of mathematical kind-terms for the role of projectable (empirical) predicates in empirical theories, involves an unexplained methodological miracle, is shown to be groundless.Less
Several applications of mathematics to empirical domains are described, including a small portion of Newtonian mechanics. The simplest case is one where a nonmathematical empirical description of the domain of application is already in place. A far more (ontologically) complicated case is one where no such empirical description is in place; instead mathematical nomenclature is applied empirically by reinterpreting some of that nomenclature as empirically referring. A concern due to Mark Steiner, that the empirical success of the drafting of mathematical kind-terms for the role of projectable (empirical) predicates in empirical theories, involves an unexplained methodological miracle, is shown to be groundless.
Seth Benardete
Ronna Burger (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226042787
- eISBN:
- 9780226042770
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226042770.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book presents a portrait of the life and works of Seth Benardete that reflects on both the people he knew and the topics which fascinated him throughout his career. The first part of the book ...
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This book presents a portrait of the life and works of Seth Benardete that reflects on both the people he knew and the topics which fascinated him throughout his career. The first part of the book discloses vignettes about fellow students, colleagues, and acquaintances of Benardete's who later became major figures in the academic and intellectual life of twentieth-century America. We glimpse the student days of Alan Bloom, Stanley Rosen, George Steiner, and discover the life of the mind as lived by well-known scholars such as David Grene, Jacob Klein, and Benardete's mentor Leo Strauss. We also encounter a number of other learned, devoted, and sometimes eccentric luminaries, including T.S. Eliot, James Baldwin, Werner Jaeger, John Davidson Beazley, and Willard Quine. In the book's second part, Benardete reflects on his own intellectual growth and on his ever-evolving understanding of the texts and ideas he spent a lifetime studying. Revisiting some of his recurrent themes—among them eros and the beautiful, the city and the law, and the gods and the human soul—he shares his views on thinkers such as Plato, Homer, and Heidegger, as well as the relations between philosophy and science, and between Christianity and ancient Roman thought.Less
This book presents a portrait of the life and works of Seth Benardete that reflects on both the people he knew and the topics which fascinated him throughout his career. The first part of the book discloses vignettes about fellow students, colleagues, and acquaintances of Benardete's who later became major figures in the academic and intellectual life of twentieth-century America. We glimpse the student days of Alan Bloom, Stanley Rosen, George Steiner, and discover the life of the mind as lived by well-known scholars such as David Grene, Jacob Klein, and Benardete's mentor Leo Strauss. We also encounter a number of other learned, devoted, and sometimes eccentric luminaries, including T.S. Eliot, James Baldwin, Werner Jaeger, John Davidson Beazley, and Willard Quine. In the book's second part, Benardete reflects on his own intellectual growth and on his ever-evolving understanding of the texts and ideas he spent a lifetime studying. Revisiting some of his recurrent themes—among them eros and the beautiful, the city and the law, and the gods and the human soul—he shares his views on thinkers such as Plato, Homer, and Heidegger, as well as the relations between philosophy and science, and between Christianity and ancient Roman thought.
Matthew Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199605712
- eISBN:
- 9780191731617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605712.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
The verb ‘to translate’ has had many meanings: ‘to transplant’, ‘to move’ for example. Even as applied to texts—especially literary texts—its meaning varies: Derrida's idea that there used to be a ...
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The verb ‘to translate’ has had many meanings: ‘to transplant’, ‘to move’ for example. Even as applied to texts—especially literary texts—its meaning varies: Derrida's idea that there used to be a ‘classical model’ of translation as a ‘ “transfer” of pure signifieds’ is not true of literary translation. It does not follow that ‘human communication equals translation’ (as George Steiner claimed). Rather, the word ‘translation’ names many distinguishable processes which are metaphorically connected to other things. The word ‘translation’ includes within itself the metaphor of ‘carrying across’; but poets can think of translation also as ‘interpretation’, ‘opening’, ‘giving way to passion’, ‘desire’, ‘taking a view’, ‘dying, ‘bringing to life’, ‘metamorphosis’. What poet‐translators do, and therefore what translation is, varies with the guiding metaphor: this book will explore many examples from across the history of English literature.Less
The verb ‘to translate’ has had many meanings: ‘to transplant’, ‘to move’ for example. Even as applied to texts—especially literary texts—its meaning varies: Derrida's idea that there used to be a ‘classical model’ of translation as a ‘ “transfer” of pure signifieds’ is not true of literary translation. It does not follow that ‘human communication equals translation’ (as George Steiner claimed). Rather, the word ‘translation’ names many distinguishable processes which are metaphorically connected to other things. The word ‘translation’ includes within itself the metaphor of ‘carrying across’; but poets can think of translation also as ‘interpretation’, ‘opening’, ‘giving way to passion’, ‘desire’, ‘taking a view’, ‘dying, ‘bringing to life’, ‘metamorphosis’. What poet‐translators do, and therefore what translation is, varies with the guiding metaphor: this book will explore many examples from across the history of English literature.
