Epistemological Crises Made Stone: Confederate Monuments and the End of Memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-151
Author(s):  
Ryan Andrew Newson
Keyword(s):  
Epistemological Crises

Of Iron Cages, Double Binds, Epistemological Crises, and Environmental Destruction

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 358-379
Author(s):  
Anthony O. Balcomb
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
Prediction And Control ◽  
Epistemological Crises ◽  
And Control

The Western worldview, otherwise known as the modern worldview, has its origins in ancient Greek culture and its best known analyst and critic is Max Weber. Weber described the rationalization processes by which it came about as involving the disenchantment of the world, the disengagement of the autonomous self from the world in order to become its central agent, the objectification of the cosmos and the bureaucratization of all aspects of human life with the intention of mastery and control. This has led to what Weber called the Iron Cage in which modern human beings find themselves, unable to escape the alienation that such disengagement has brought about but equally unable to find an alternative. The exploitative nature of the western project is the basic cause of the contemporary destruction of the environment. Gregory Bateson probes more deeply into the alienating influences of the modern worldview which he says is based on its inability to understand the world holistically, which will inevitably lead to the world’s destruction. At the heart of this condition is his theory of the double bind. His advocacy for a more holistic understanding of the world resonates with postmodern critics in the fields of philosophy, anthropology, and theology, all of whom are advocating engagement, vulnerability, and participation as opposed to separation, prediction, and control.

Bin Laden’s Ghost and the Epistemological Crises of Counterterrorism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Training Programs ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
The Past ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
The Media ◽  
Epistemological Crises

This chapter argues that despite all the media attention, punditry, scholarly analysis, and official commentary, Osama bin Laden's death remains an essentially meaningless (non-)event. His death is meaningless or without consequence in two main senses of the word. First, it is meaningless in real-world strategic and material terms. For example, as a direct consequence of bin Laden's death, no counterterrorism programs have been scaled back or ended, counterterrorism laws repealed, military or security funding reduced, security agencies scaled down or closed, foreign training programs ended, overseas military forces withdrawn, or military bases closed. Instead, the global counterterrorism effort remains completely unchanged by his death and continues on as it has for the past ten years. Second, and perhaps more importantly, bin Laden's death has generated so many divergent meanings that it has been rendered ultimately meaningless in terms of its analytical consequences, symbolism, and epistemological significance.

scholarly journals “Carlo Ginzburg, microhistoria y escala. El caso del vinatero calvinista / Carlo Ginzburg, Microhistory and Scale: the Case of the Calvinist Vintner

2017 ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Blanca Fernández García
Keyword(s):  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The Past ◽  
Epistemological Crises

Over the past forty years historiography has been affected by typically postmodern epistemological crises, which have questioned two of its basic principles: the universality and the possibility to reach the truth in its narratives. In this article, we shall reflect on the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg’s answer to this crossroads. His works, from the first steps of microhistory to the most recent debates on literary fiction, combine a methodology, which may be considered in principle as postmodern, with rigorous historical investigations. We analyze how this methodology contributes however to the revaluation of the modern historiographical principles prior to postmodernityKey WordsCarlo Ginzburg, Eric J. Hobsbawm, postmodernity, historiography, story, fiction, proof.ResumenEn los últimos cuarenta años, la historiografía se ha visto afectada por crisis epistemológicas típicamente posmodernas que han cuestionado dos de sus principios básicos: la universalidad y la posibilidad de alcanzar la verdad en sus relatos. En este artículo se reflexiona sobre la respuesta del historiador italiano Carlo Ginzburg ante esta encrucijada. Sus trabajos, desde los primeros pasos de la microhistoria hasta los debates más recientes en torno a la ficción literaria, combinan una metodología que, en principio, se puede juzgar posmoderna con rigurosas investigaciones históricas. Se analiza en qué modo esta metodología contribuye, sin embargo, a revalorizar los principios de la historiografía moderna previos a la posmodernidad.Palabras claveCarlo Ginzburg, Eric J. Hobsbawm, posmodernidad, historiografía, relato, ficción, prueba 

Magical Thinking

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart McWilliams
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Magical Thinking ◽  
Scholarly Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Epistemological Crises ◽  
New Atheism

How do we write about magic? Responding to a renewed interest in the history of the occult, this volume examines the role of magic in a series of methodological controversies in the humanities. In case studies ranging from the ‘necromancy’ of historiography to the strident rationalism of the ‘New Atheism,’ Magical Thinking sets out the surprising ways in which scholars and critics have imagined the occult. The volume argues that thinking and writing about magic has engendered multiple epistemological crises, profoundly unsettling the understanding of history and knowledge in Western culture. By examining how scholarly writing has contended and conspired with discourses of enchantment, the book reveals the implications of magic - and its scholarship - for intellectual history.

scholarly journals Katznelson's Working Within the System Now

1994 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 33-36
Author(s):  
Lizabeth Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Epistemological Crises ◽  
Liberal Vision ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

Germany has been reunified. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have fractured into ethnically defined nationalist republics trying to dismantle decades of communist political and economic structures and replace them with free markets and free marketplaces of ideas. It seems only fitting that Ira Katznelson should publically embrace liberal political theory with a new “zest for political engagement”, enthusiastically endorsing the old liberal vision of political science as a discipline, and thrusting both onto labor historians as the perfect solution to political and epistemological crises in their field.In response, I would say to Katznelson, “You're working within the system now, but do we all need to?” Even more significantly, did the working-class populations we study operate within a liberal framework sufficiently enough to make liberal, state-centered concerns—the relationships and negotiations between actors in civil society (particularly articulated through unions and parties) and the liberal state—the “most potent tools” for political and historical analysis?

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