Anthony Ossa-Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157115
- eISBN:
- 9781400846597
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157115.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought. The book shows how the study of the oracles influenced, ...
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This is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought. The book shows how the study of the oracles influenced, and was influenced by, some of the most significant developments in early modernity, such as the Christian humanist recovery of ancient religion, confessional polemics, Deist and libertine challenges to religion, antiquarianism and early archaeology, Romantic historiography, and spiritualism. The book examines the different views of the oracles since the Renaissance—that they were the work of the devil, or natural causes, or the fraud of priests, or finally an organic element of ancient Greek society. The range of discussion on the subject, as he demonstrates, is considerably more complex than has been realized before: hundreds of scholars, theologians, and critics commented on the oracles, drawing on a huge variety of intellectual contexts to frame their beliefs. A central chapter interrogates the landmark dispute on the oracles between Bernard de Fontenelle and Jean-François Baltus, challenging Whiggish assumptions about the mechanics of debate on the cusp of the Enlightenment. With erudition and an eye for detail, the book argues that, on both sides of the controversy, to speak of the ancient oracles in early modernity was to speak of one's own historical identity as a Christian.Less
This is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought. The book shows how the study of the oracles influenced, and was influenced by, some of the most significant developments in early modernity, such as the Christian humanist recovery of ancient religion, confessional polemics, Deist and libertine challenges to religion, antiquarianism and early archaeology, Romantic historiography, and spiritualism. The book examines the different views of the oracles since the Renaissance—that they were the work of the devil, or natural causes, or the fraud of priests, or finally an organic element of ancient Greek society. The range of discussion on the subject, as he demonstrates, is considerably more complex than has been realized before: hundreds of scholars, theologians, and critics commented on the oracles, drawing on a huge variety of intellectual contexts to frame their beliefs. A central chapter interrogates the landmark dispute on the oracles between Bernard de Fontenelle and Jean-François Baltus, challenging Whiggish assumptions about the mechanics of debate on the cusp of the Enlightenment. With erudition and an eye for detail, the book argues that, on both sides of the controversy, to speak of the ancient oracles in early modernity was to speak of one's own historical identity as a Christian.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226777481
- eISBN:
- 9780226777504
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226777504.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter makes a case for the modernity of Early Modernity. Thomas Hobbes and Giovanni Battista Vico are secessionist thinkers, seceding from the normative, moralistic, prescriptive program of ...
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This chapter makes a case for the modernity of Early Modernity. Thomas Hobbes and Giovanni Battista Vico are secessionist thinkers, seceding from the normative, moralistic, prescriptive program of Classical political philosophy, repudiating the terms and arguments that dominated medieval and Renaissance as well as ancient thought, jettisoning the dubious transcendental assumptions underpinning its moralistic speculation. While Hobbes and Vico's work can be read as an actualization of the Aristotelian rhetorical possibilities, it remains, on the whole, simply possibility in modernist inquiry. It is a modernism inadequately represented, still, in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century retrievals of rhetoric. Hobbesian psychology has strong affinities of beliefs and habits with those of Aristotle's Rhetoric; and, perhaps more so than Aristotle's inquiry, it is permeated by a “sophisticated” pessimism. Vico's pessimism is expressed in his investment in irony as an explanatory thesis of great power: civility as unintended consequence. All of this, this chapter argues, is rhetorical in tone: and all easily effaced, elided.Less
This chapter makes a case for the modernity of Early Modernity. Thomas Hobbes and Giovanni Battista Vico are secessionist thinkers, seceding from the normative, moralistic, prescriptive program of Classical political philosophy, repudiating the terms and arguments that dominated medieval and Renaissance as well as ancient thought, jettisoning the dubious transcendental assumptions underpinning its moralistic speculation. While Hobbes and Vico's work can be read as an actualization of the Aristotelian rhetorical possibilities, it remains, on the whole, simply possibility in modernist inquiry. It is a modernism inadequately represented, still, in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century retrievals of rhetoric. Hobbesian psychology has strong affinities of beliefs and habits with those of Aristotle's Rhetoric; and, perhaps more so than Aristotle's inquiry, it is permeated by a “sophisticated” pessimism. Vico's pessimism is expressed in his investment in irony as an explanatory thesis of great power: civility as unintended consequence. All of this, this chapter argues, is rhetorical in tone: and all easily effaced, elided.
Jonathan Scott
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243598
- eISBN:
- 9780300249361
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243598.003.0002
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter focuses upon developments within what may be retrospectively designated an Anglo-Dutch-American archipelago. This was a geographical constellation, incorporating the Northern ...
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This chapter focuses upon developments within what may be retrospectively designated an Anglo-Dutch-American archipelago. This was a geographical constellation, incorporating the Northern Netherlands, the British Isles and Atlantic North America, connected by people, their culture, and ships. In more modern metaphorical terms it scrutinizes the Anglo-Dutch subsection of the runway, and the aviation fuel in question, which was importantly North American. The chapter describes a series of economic, cultural, political, and military changes which began in the region between the Baltic and North Sea before crossing the North Sea, and then the Atlantic. The result was the process here called Anglo-Dutch-American early modernity. This world-changing current of invention (oceanic to begin with, electric eventually) achieved a breakthrough in the Low Countries, gathered heft and momentum in seventeenth-century England, and by connection with North America made something new.Less
This chapter focuses upon developments within what may be retrospectively designated an Anglo-Dutch-American archipelago. This was a geographical constellation, incorporating the Northern Netherlands, the British Isles and Atlantic North America, connected by people, their culture, and ships. In more modern metaphorical terms it scrutinizes the Anglo-Dutch subsection of the runway, and the aviation fuel in question, which was importantly North American. The chapter describes a series of economic, cultural, political, and military changes which began in the region between the Baltic and North Sea before crossing the North Sea, and then the Atlantic. The result was the process here called Anglo-Dutch-American early modernity. This world-changing current of invention (oceanic to begin with, electric eventually) achieved a breakthrough in the Low Countries, gathered heft and momentum in seventeenth-century England, and by connection with North America made something new.
Fatma Müge Göçek
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199334209
- eISBN:
- 9780199395774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199334209.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
The 6–7 September 1955 pogroms committed against non-Muslims, including Armenians, constitute the collective violence of this stage. The chapter analyzes the early republican denial of actors of ...
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The 6–7 September 1955 pogroms committed against non-Muslims, including Armenians, constitute the collective violence of this stage. The chapter analyzes the early republican denial of actors of violence as the republican state and its governments argued that all perpetrators of prior violence against the Armenians were tried and duly punished, whereas almost all transitioned into the republic with their violent past silenced and occupied significant military and administrative posts. Such denial of actors, the chapter argues, emerges through the interaction of the early republican structure of sameness and early republican modernity, on the one hand, and of exclusionary republican sentiments with the 1919–22 military tribunals, on the other. The dual early republican denial rejects its past Young Turk connection and hides the numerous perpetrators within the republican elite.Less
The 6–7 September 1955 pogroms committed against non-Muslims, including Armenians, constitute the collective violence of this stage. The chapter analyzes the early republican denial of actors of violence as the republican state and its governments argued that all perpetrators of prior violence against the Armenians were tried and duly punished, whereas almost all transitioned into the republic with their violent past silenced and occupied significant military and administrative posts. Such denial of actors, the chapter argues, emerges through the interaction of the early republican structure of sameness and early republican modernity, on the one hand, and of exclusionary republican sentiments with the 1919–22 military tribunals, on the other. The dual early republican denial rejects its past Young Turk connection and hides the numerous perpetrators within the republican elite.
Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199698233
- eISBN:
- 9780191803772
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199698233.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book explores the processes and histories out of which biography emerged as a literary genre in late early modern England. It examines the purposes and uses of biographies and other forms of ...
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This book explores the processes and histories out of which biography emerged as a literary genre in late early modern England. It examines the purposes and uses of biographies and other forms of life writing in early modernity; how and in what ways biography is shaped by cultural styles and national habits of recording, memorialising, and celebrating lives; and how the nation emerged as a determining factor in life writing. It also considers the importance of materials and methods in biographical writing, along with the role of sex and sexuality in modern biography.Less
This book explores the processes and histories out of which biography emerged as a literary genre in late early modern England. It examines the purposes and uses of biographies and other forms of life writing in early modernity; how and in what ways biography is shaped by cultural styles and national habits of recording, memorialising, and celebrating lives; and how the nation emerged as a determining factor in life writing. It also considers the importance of materials and methods in biographical writing, along with the role of sex and sexuality in modern biography.
Robert Ingram, Jason Peacey, and Alex W. Barber (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781526147103
- eISBN:
- 9781526155566
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526147110
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This book offers historical reappraisals of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the early modern anglophone world. Prompted by modern debates about whether or not limitations on free ...
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This book offers historical reappraisals of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the early modern anglophone world. Prompted by modern debates about whether or not limitations on free expression might be necessary given religious pluralism and concerns about hate speech, it brings together historians, political theorists and literary scholars, and offers a longue durée approach to the topic. It integrates religion into the history of free speech, and rethinks what is sometimes regarded as a coherent tradition of more or less absolutist justifications for free expression. Contributors examine the aims and effectiveness of government policies, the sometimes messy and contingent ways in which freedom of speech became a reality, and a wide range of canonical and non-canonical texts in which contemporaries outlined their ideas and ideals. It is shown that – on this issue at least – the period from 1500 to 1850 is a coherent one, in terms of how successive governments reflected on the possibility of regulation, and in terms of claims that were and were not made for freedom of speech. While not denying that change can be detected across this period, in terms of both ideas and practices, it demonstrates that the issues, arguments and aims involved were more or less distinct from those that characterise modern debates. As a collection it will be of interest to religious and political historians, intellectual historians and literary scholars, and to anyone interested in the history of one of the most important and thorny issues in modern society.Less
This book offers historical reappraisals of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the early modern anglophone world. Prompted by modern debates about whether or not limitations on free expression might be necessary given religious pluralism and concerns about hate speech, it brings together historians, political theorists and literary scholars, and offers a longue durée approach to the topic. It integrates religion into the history of free speech, and rethinks what is sometimes regarded as a coherent tradition of more or less absolutist justifications for free expression. Contributors examine the aims and effectiveness of government policies, the sometimes messy and contingent ways in which freedom of speech became a reality, and a wide range of canonical and non-canonical texts in which contemporaries outlined their ideas and ideals. It is shown that – on this issue at least – the period from 1500 to 1850 is a coherent one, in terms of how successive governments reflected on the possibility of regulation, and in terms of claims that were and were not made for freedom of speech. While not denying that change can be detected across this period, in terms of both ideas and practices, it demonstrates that the issues, arguments and aims involved were more or less distinct from those that characterise modern debates. As a collection it will be of interest to religious and political historians, intellectual historians and literary scholars, and to anyone interested in the history of one of the most important and thorny issues in modern society.
Federico Marcon
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226251905
- eISBN:
- 9780226252063
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226252063.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter introduces the argument of the book and its analytical terminology. It presents the contradiction inherent in a project that purports to historicize a form of knowledge like science that ...
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This chapter introduces the argument of the book and its analytical terminology. It presents the contradiction inherent in a project that purports to historicize a form of knowledge like science that has universalistic claims. It defends its strategy of historicizing the very notion of scientific knowledge, by which it avoids the metaphysical traps of either adopting a transcendental and a historical notion of science—which transforms it into a kind of universal—or elevating a historically specific notion of science born in 19th century Europe to an a historical, transcendental standard of judgment.Less
This chapter introduces the argument of the book and its analytical terminology. It presents the contradiction inherent in a project that purports to historicize a form of knowledge like science that has universalistic claims. It defends its strategy of historicizing the very notion of scientific knowledge, by which it avoids the metaphysical traps of either adopting a transcendental and a historical notion of science—which transforms it into a kind of universal—or elevating a historically specific notion of science born in 19th century Europe to an a historical, transcendental standard of judgment.
Anthony Carty
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622559
- eISBN:
- 9780748652525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622559.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
The chapter shows that the statist language with which the Court works is unable to grasp the processes of international life. It will be implicit in the critique that the reason lies in the Court's ...
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The chapter shows that the statist language with which the Court works is unable to grasp the processes of international life. It will be implicit in the critique that the reason lies in the Court's continued adherence to the security-oriented language of the classical state sovereign of early modernity. The chapter concludes by setting out possible minimum conditions for an effective observation of the practice of states as institutions and the place of lawyers within them, by invoking the idea of a public space, within and outside the state, in which legal argument can take place.Less
The chapter shows that the statist language with which the Court works is unable to grasp the processes of international life. It will be implicit in the critique that the reason lies in the Court's continued adherence to the security-oriented language of the classical state sovereign of early modernity. The chapter concludes by setting out possible minimum conditions for an effective observation of the practice of states as institutions and the place of lawyers within them, by invoking the idea of a public space, within and outside the state, in which legal argument can take place.
Steven Seegel
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226438498
- eISBN:
- 9780226438528
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226438528.003.0002
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cultural and Historical Geography
The chapter introduces, formally, the main mapmen: Albrecht Penck of Saxony, Eugeniusz Mikolaj Romer of West Galicia in Poland, Stepan L’vovych Rudnyts’kyi of Eastern Galicia in Ukraine, Isaiah ...
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The chapter introduces, formally, the main mapmen: Albrecht Penck of Saxony, Eugeniusz Mikolaj Romer of West Galicia in Poland, Stepan L’vovych Rudnyts’kyi of Eastern Galicia in Ukraine, Isaiah Bowman of Ontario, and Count Teleki de Szek of Transylvania. The chapter provides brief genealogies of the mapmen’s families, for their pursuits in geography were tied closely to feelings of national legacy. Romer, for example, sought to establish Polish geography as a dominant science that confirmed the legacy and influence of the Poles on European land or Count Teleki who used geography to campaign for Transylvania’s independent statehood. All of the men reckoned with imperial powers and colonial aspirations under the guise of establishing their homeland’s geography as a transnational science that broke borders while establishing the strength and dignity of their homelands. The chapter gives special attention to how academic pursuits and marriages affected the class status of the mapmen. It also gives further detail about the men’s first meeting on an AGS expedition through the continental United States and to Alaska in 1912.Less
The chapter introduces, formally, the main mapmen: Albrecht Penck of Saxony, Eugeniusz Mikolaj Romer of West Galicia in Poland, Stepan L’vovych Rudnyts’kyi of Eastern Galicia in Ukraine, Isaiah Bowman of Ontario, and Count Teleki de Szek of Transylvania. The chapter provides brief genealogies of the mapmen’s families, for their pursuits in geography were tied closely to feelings of national legacy. Romer, for example, sought to establish Polish geography as a dominant science that confirmed the legacy and influence of the Poles on European land or Count Teleki who used geography to campaign for Transylvania’s independent statehood. All of the men reckoned with imperial powers and colonial aspirations under the guise of establishing their homeland’s geography as a transnational science that broke borders while establishing the strength and dignity of their homelands. The chapter gives special attention to how academic pursuits and marriages affected the class status of the mapmen. It also gives further detail about the men’s first meeting on an AGS expedition through the continental United States and to Alaska in 1912.
Ho-Fung Hung
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231152037
- eISBN:
- 9780231525459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231152037.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter discusses data and methodological issues, and provides a general overview and classification of all documented protests. These episodes were not distributed evenly over time but were ...
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This chapter discusses data and methodological issues, and provides a general overview and classification of all documented protests. These episodes were not distributed evenly over time but were clustered in three waves: 1740–1759, 1776–1795, and 1820–1839. The reasons for establishing 1740 and 1839 as the temporal boundaries of the study are twofold. First, Qing China during this period was at its height of early modernity. Its levels of centralized state power and commercialized economy were comparable to eighteenth-century Europe. Second, studies that deal with unrest in the late Ming–early Qing period (from the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century) and the late Qing period (from the end of the first Opium War, in 1842, to the collapse of the Qing empire in 1911) are relatively abundant.Less
This chapter discusses data and methodological issues, and provides a general overview and classification of all documented protests. These episodes were not distributed evenly over time but were clustered in three waves: 1740–1759, 1776–1795, and 1820–1839. The reasons for establishing 1740 and 1839 as the temporal boundaries of the study are twofold. First, Qing China during this period was at its height of early modernity. Its levels of centralized state power and commercialized economy were comparable to eighteenth-century Europe. Second, studies that deal with unrest in the late Ming–early Qing period (from the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century) and the late Qing period (from the end of the first Opium War, in 1842, to the collapse of the Qing empire in 1911) are relatively abundant.
Meredith Evans
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823270286
- eISBN:
- 9780823270323
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823270286.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Hamlet is the point of departure for this consideration of the status of law and the sovereign in early modern treatments of piracy and travel over water.
Hamlet is the point of departure for this consideration of the status of law and the sovereign in early modern treatments of piracy and travel over water.
Ning Ma
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190606565
- eISBN:
- 9780190606589
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190606565.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
The epilogue presents the parallel employments of the figure of the chaste feminine in seventeenth-century Chinese “talent-beauty” novels and the English works of Samuel Richardson, such as Pamela. ...
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The epilogue presents the parallel employments of the figure of the chaste feminine in seventeenth-century Chinese “talent-beauty” novels and the English works of Samuel Richardson, such as Pamela. It proposes that this East-West correspondence reflects analogous narrative shifts toward representing a more interiorized mode of morality and individual existence in response to the ongoing destablizations of past cultural forms. The parallel in question was noted by Goethe when he advanced his famous notion of “world literature.” Recalling this event and its underlying global dynamics, including Goethe’s vision of a geographical transformation of word civilization, the epilogue reinforces the necessity of the horizontal comparative literature method. It argues that a more future-looking concept of world literature demands an unearthing of a polycentric mode of transcultural early modernity.Less
The epilogue presents the parallel employments of the figure of the chaste feminine in seventeenth-century Chinese “talent-beauty” novels and the English works of Samuel Richardson, such as Pamela. It proposes that this East-West correspondence reflects analogous narrative shifts toward representing a more interiorized mode of morality and individual existence in response to the ongoing destablizations of past cultural forms. The parallel in question was noted by Goethe when he advanced his famous notion of “world literature.” Recalling this event and its underlying global dynamics, including Goethe’s vision of a geographical transformation of word civilization, the epilogue reinforces the necessity of the horizontal comparative literature method. It argues that a more future-looking concept of world literature demands an unearthing of a polycentric mode of transcultural early modernity.
Federico Marcon
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226251905
- eISBN:
- 9780226252063
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226252063.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan is a social and intellectual history of the creation, development, and apparent disappearance of a field of natural history ...
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The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan is a social and intellectual history of the creation, development, and apparent disappearance of a field of natural history in Japan from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. It introduces the field of honzōgaku—the original name of the discipline of materia medica introduced from China, which expanded in Japan into an eclectic field of natural history—and the changing views of the natural environment that accompanied its development. The book surveys the ideas and practices developed by honzōgaku scholars, and reconstructs the social forces that affected their work. These included a burgeoning publishing industry, increased circulation of ideas and books, the spread of literacy, processes of institutionalization in schools and academies, systems of patronage, and networks of cultural circles, all of which helped to shape the styles, practices, and goals of the study of nature in early modern Japan. The primary goal of the book is to introduce the field of honzōgaku—which developed into a sophisticated discipline of knowledge about nature analogous to European natural history but independently of direct influence—and the changing Japanese views on the material environment. It also aims to reconstruct the social forces that dominated the life of scholars and cultural producers in general in early modern Europe and Japan, showing how similar social processes produced similar forms of knowledge and similar interventions in the material reality that these knowledges mediated.Less
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan is a social and intellectual history of the creation, development, and apparent disappearance of a field of natural history in Japan from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. It introduces the field of honzōgaku—the original name of the discipline of materia medica introduced from China, which expanded in Japan into an eclectic field of natural history—and the changing views of the natural environment that accompanied its development. The book surveys the ideas and practices developed by honzōgaku scholars, and reconstructs the social forces that affected their work. These included a burgeoning publishing industry, increased circulation of ideas and books, the spread of literacy, processes of institutionalization in schools and academies, systems of patronage, and networks of cultural circles, all of which helped to shape the styles, practices, and goals of the study of nature in early modern Japan. The primary goal of the book is to introduce the field of honzōgaku—which developed into a sophisticated discipline of knowledge about nature analogous to European natural history but independently of direct influence—and the changing Japanese views on the material environment. It also aims to reconstruct the social forces that dominated the life of scholars and cultural producers in general in early modern Europe and Japan, showing how similar social processes produced similar forms of knowledge and similar interventions in the material reality that these knowledges mediated.
Zoltán Biedermann
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198823391
- eISBN:
- 9780191862106
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198823391.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
The collapse of the inter-imperial dialogue in Sri Lanka calls for further extrapolations regarding the merits and shortcomings of connected history. Do commensurability and the potential for mutual ...
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The collapse of the inter-imperial dialogue in Sri Lanka calls for further extrapolations regarding the merits and shortcomings of connected history. Do commensurability and the potential for mutual understandings logically increase as societies talk to each other, or can they also decrease? What does the case examined in this book tell us about the interdependence of the global and the local? Does Sri Lanka enrich our understanding of the making of global power dynamics elsewhere? May it be worth engaging more systematically than before in ‘(dis)connected history’—an approach that explores the global connectivity of early modern polities along with the obstacles arising to it? A methodological state of grace would allow us to examine the profound, inextricable intertwinement of deeply contradictory processes of convergence and divergence as a core characteristic of early modernity at large.Less
The collapse of the inter-imperial dialogue in Sri Lanka calls for further extrapolations regarding the merits and shortcomings of connected history. Do commensurability and the potential for mutual understandings logically increase as societies talk to each other, or can they also decrease? What does the case examined in this book tell us about the interdependence of the global and the local? Does Sri Lanka enrich our understanding of the making of global power dynamics elsewhere? May it be worth engaging more systematically than before in ‘(dis)connected history’—an approach that explores the global connectivity of early modern polities along with the obstacles arising to it? A methodological state of grace would allow us to examine the profound, inextricable intertwinement of deeply contradictory processes of convergence and divergence as a core characteristic of early modernity at large.
Jonardon Ganeri
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199218745
- eISBN:
- 9780191809774
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199218745.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book deals with a fascinating and rich episode in the history of philosophy, one from which those who are interested in the nature of modernity and its global origins have a great deal to learn. ...
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This book deals with a fascinating and rich episode in the history of philosophy, one from which those who are interested in the nature of modernity and its global origins have a great deal to learn. Early modernity in India consists in the formation of a new philosophical self, one which makes it possible to meaningfully conceive of oneself as engaging the ancient and the alien in conversation. The ancient texts are now not thought of as authorities to which one must defer, but regarded as the source of insight in the company of which one pursues the quest for truth. This new attitude implies a change in the conception of one's duties towards the past. After reconstructing the historical intellectual context in detail, and developing a suitable methodological framework, the author reviews work on the concept of knowledge, the nature of evidence, the self, the nature of the categories, mathematics, realism, and a new language for philosophy. A study of early modern philosophy in India has much to teach us today — about the nature of modernity as such, about the reform of educational institutions and its relationship to creative research, and about cosmopolitan identities in circumstances of globalisation.Less
This book deals with a fascinating and rich episode in the history of philosophy, one from which those who are interested in the nature of modernity and its global origins have a great deal to learn. Early modernity in India consists in the formation of a new philosophical self, one which makes it possible to meaningfully conceive of oneself as engaging the ancient and the alien in conversation. The ancient texts are now not thought of as authorities to which one must defer, but regarded as the source of insight in the company of which one pursues the quest for truth. This new attitude implies a change in the conception of one's duties towards the past. After reconstructing the historical intellectual context in detail, and developing a suitable methodological framework, the author reviews work on the concept of knowledge, the nature of evidence, the self, the nature of the categories, mathematics, realism, and a new language for philosophy. A study of early modern philosophy in India has much to teach us today — about the nature of modernity as such, about the reform of educational institutions and its relationship to creative research, and about cosmopolitan identities in circumstances of globalisation.
Oliver Eberl
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- April 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198865308
- eISBN:
- 9780191898242
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198865308.003.0007
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
Following up on Tischer’s, Becker Lorca’s and Teschke’s observations on early modern war discourse, Oliver Eberl in this chapter elaborates Immanuel Kant’s critique of the justification of the use of ...
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Following up on Tischer’s, Becker Lorca’s and Teschke’s observations on early modern war discourse, Oliver Eberl in this chapter elaborates Immanuel Kant’s critique of the justification of the use of force in early modernity which revolutionized the thinking on international order. Kant condemned the justification of the use of force as just war since this would perpetuate the state of nature which the states still found themselves in. Kant does not link directly theory and practice but rather formulates his theory on the background of revolutionary change, which in his view opens up the possibility of a completely new approach to international order. However, in unfolding his theory, Kant had to take into consideration its possible practical consequences in the context of an unstable international constellation of power. Furthermore, he had to accommodate the practice of the French republic to identify its opponents as ‘unjust enemies’, thereby contradicting the envisaged role of the revolution as the nucleus of the new era of peace envisioned by Kant.Less
Following up on Tischer’s, Becker Lorca’s and Teschke’s observations on early modern war discourse, Oliver Eberl in this chapter elaborates Immanuel Kant’s critique of the justification of the use of force in early modernity which revolutionized the thinking on international order. Kant condemned the justification of the use of force as just war since this would perpetuate the state of nature which the states still found themselves in. Kant does not link directly theory and practice but rather formulates his theory on the background of revolutionary change, which in his view opens up the possibility of a completely new approach to international order. However, in unfolding his theory, Kant had to take into consideration its possible practical consequences in the context of an unstable international constellation of power. Furthermore, he had to accommodate the practice of the French republic to identify its opponents as ‘unjust enemies’, thereby contradicting the envisaged role of the revolution as the nucleus of the new era of peace envisioned by Kant.
James McHugh
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- October 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780199375936
- eISBN:
- 9780197603048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199375936.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
Chapter 9 contains some very brief observations on what happened to the drinks, ideas, narratives, and rituals discussed in this book over the later second millennium CE. Although limited to certain ...
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Chapter 9 contains some very brief observations on what happened to the drinks, ideas, narratives, and rituals discussed in this book over the later second millennium CE. Although limited to certain narrow sectarian and professional contexts, many of these ancient intellectual resources still formed a repertoire of materials with which to think about drink and drugs in very changed historical circumstances. The chapter first examines what happened to traditional methods of surā brewing, and how distillation was incorporated, practically and conceptually. Then the chapter briefly considers how tobacco was described and classified within the world of Sanskrit texts. Although this period witnessed new technologies and substances, the Sanskritic tradition continued to adapt to these new situations, often by having recourse to ancient ideas and motifs.Less
Chapter 9 contains some very brief observations on what happened to the drinks, ideas, narratives, and rituals discussed in this book over the later second millennium CE. Although limited to certain narrow sectarian and professional contexts, many of these ancient intellectual resources still formed a repertoire of materials with which to think about drink and drugs in very changed historical circumstances. The chapter first examines what happened to traditional methods of surā brewing, and how distillation was incorporated, practically and conceptually. Then the chapter briefly considers how tobacco was described and classified within the world of Sanskrit texts. Although this period witnessed new technologies and substances, the Sanskritic tradition continued to adapt to these new situations, often by having recourse to ancient ideas and motifs.
Beate Jahn
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- April 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198865308
- eISBN:
- 9780191898242
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198865308.003.0020
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
Beate Jahn follows on from Nina Wilén’s chapter: Contrary to the widely held belief that humanitarian intervention is the result of a gradual universalization of moral obligations, Jahn shows that ...
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Beate Jahn follows on from Nina Wilén’s chapter: Contrary to the widely held belief that humanitarian intervention is the result of a gradual universalization of moral obligations, Jahn shows that classical authors—Francisco de Vitoria, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and John Stuart Mill—as well as state practice regularly contemplated and often justified the use of force as measures to rescue citizens of other states from excessive violence. The authors dealt with, moreover, show that humanitarian action requires particular political arrangements—making regime change the direct aim of such wars. The meteoric rise of the concept of humanitarian intervention during the 1990s thus did not signify the advent of a new type of war. Instead, it functioned as a ‘doctrinal advance guard’ for a new international political order—which finds itself today in rapid decline.Less
Beate Jahn follows on from Nina Wilén’s chapter: Contrary to the widely held belief that humanitarian intervention is the result of a gradual universalization of moral obligations, Jahn shows that classical authors—Francisco de Vitoria, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and John Stuart Mill—as well as state practice regularly contemplated and often justified the use of force as measures to rescue citizens of other states from excessive violence. The authors dealt with, moreover, show that humanitarian action requires particular political arrangements—making regime change the direct aim of such wars. The meteoric rise of the concept of humanitarian intervention during the 1990s thus did not signify the advent of a new type of war. Instead, it functioned as a ‘doctrinal advance guard’ for a new international political order—which finds itself today in rapid decline.
Deborah J. Brown
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199375967
- eISBN:
- 9780199375998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199375967.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Descartes’ long-standing interest in animals had many motivations—to reinforce his dualism of mind and body; to demonstrate the completeness of his physics; and to resolve what he considered to be ...
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Descartes’ long-standing interest in animals had many motivations—to reinforce his dualism of mind and body; to demonstrate the completeness of his physics; and to resolve what he considered to be inconsistent metaphysical and theological positions on the status of animal souls. Thus, the subject of animals serves to unite the various strands of Cartesian philosophy, whilst posing some of the deepest and most persistent challenges to that philosophy. Whether or not we agree with Descartes’s notorious view that animals are mere machines lacking all thought and sensibility, it is important to recognize that Descartes established the terms of a debate which continues to shape our thinking about animals, their cognitive capacities and their relationship to us. This chapter locates Descartes’ position within the scientific and moral debates of his time, emphasizing the sophistication of his attempts to explain animal life and behavior and the challenge he throws down to nonmechanistic explanations.Less
Descartes’ long-standing interest in animals had many motivations—to reinforce his dualism of mind and body; to demonstrate the completeness of his physics; and to resolve what he considered to be inconsistent metaphysical and theological positions on the status of animal souls. Thus, the subject of animals serves to unite the various strands of Cartesian philosophy, whilst posing some of the deepest and most persistent challenges to that philosophy. Whether or not we agree with Descartes’s notorious view that animals are mere machines lacking all thought and sensibility, it is important to recognize that Descartes established the terms of a debate which continues to shape our thinking about animals, their cognitive capacities and their relationship to us. This chapter locates Descartes’ position within the scientific and moral debates of his time, emphasizing the sophistication of his attempts to explain animal life and behavior and the challenge he throws down to nonmechanistic explanations.