scholarly journals The Concept in Life and the Life of the Concept: Canguilhem’s Final Reckoning with Bergson

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
History Of Biology ◽  
French Philosophy ◽  
Special Place ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Living Being

Foucault famously divided the history of twentieth-century French philosophy between a “philosophy of experience” and a “philosophy of the concept,” placing Bergson in the former camp and his teacher Canguilhem in the latter. This division has shaped the Anglophone reception of Canguilhem as primarily a historian and philosopher of biology. Canguilhem, however, was also a philosopher of life and a careful reader of Bergson. The recently-begun publication of Canguilhem’s Œuvres complètes has revealed the depth of this engagement, and a re-reading of Canguilhem’s final major statement on Bergson, the 1966 essay “The Concept and Life,” has thus become necessary. The basic problem of that essay is the relationship between knowledge and life in the history of biology and philosophy, with a special place for Bergson. Canguilhem’s strong criticism of him turns, however, on a misquotation. In claiming that Bergson fails to account for the struggle of the living being to maintain a species form, Canguilhem misconstrues the crucial Bergsonian distinction between vital order and geometrical identity; he thus misses the importance that Bergson accords to general biological tendencies, rather than to the generality of the species. Despite the differences on display in the 1966 essay, it will be argued that Canguilhem’s earlier remarks on Bergson show a surprising convergence in the underlying aim of each thinker’s biological philosophy: the call for a new ontology that grasps the ordered and intelligible character of life without relying on a principle of identity.

scholarly journals “Journeys are Meaningful” (Travelling, Travellers, Literary Periods, Literary Journeys)

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
István Fried
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Continuous Processes ◽  
New Era ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Educational Journeys ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract If the changes of the “discourse networks” (Aufschreibesysteme) from 1800 to 1900 model the relations pertaining to the personality, to the cultural determinedness of technology and personality as well as to their interconnections (Kittler 1995), especially having in view the literary mise en scène, it applies all the more to travelling - setting out on a journey, heading towards a destination, pilgrimage and/or wandering as well as the relationship between transport technology and personality. The changes taking place in “transport” are partly of technological, partly (in close connection with the former) indicative of individual and collective claims. The diplomatic, religious, commercial and educational journeys essentially belong to the continuous processes of European centuries; however, the appearance of the railway starts a new era at least to the same extent as the car and the airplane in the twentieth century. The journeys becoming systematic and perhaps most tightly connected to pilgrimages from the Middle Ages on assured the “transfer” of ideas, attitudes and cultural materials in the widest sense; the journeys and personal encounters (of course, taking place, in part, through correspondence) of the more cultured layers mainly, are to be highly appreciated from the viewpoint of the history of mentalities and society.

Collecting Chinese Objects in Slovenia at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-180
Author(s):  
Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specific Position ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article addresses the practices of collecting Chinese objects that were brought to the territory of present-day Slovenia by sailors, missionaries, travellers, and others who travelled to China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the time, this territory was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; we will, therefore, begin with the brief historical context of the Empire and its contact with China, followed by a discussion on the nature of collecting Chinese objects in Slovenian territories at that time. We will further examine the status of the individuals who travelled to China and the nature and extent of the objects they brought back. The article will also highlight the specific position of the Slovenian territory within the history of Euro-Asian cultural connections, and address the relevant issues—locally and globally—of the relationship between the centres and peripheries with regard to collecting practices.

Looking Back at History of Madness

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Huffer
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
French Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
Looking Back

This essay offers an overview of History of Madness, including its place in Foucault's oeuvre, its publication and translation history. Huffer focuses especially on the significance of History of Madness as an under-read text whose philosophical and historical implications have not yet been adequately explored. She argues that a careful reading of History of Madness on its own terms offers resources for moving beyond some of the impasses that characterize not only twentieth-century French philosophy, but also many of the fields in the Anglophone world—especially feminist, queer, and critical race theory—that arose in the wake of a debate about madness.

‘Even If You Don’t Want to Drink, You Still Have to Drink’

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Invented Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the history of alcohol in Nuosu Yi society in relation to the formal codification of a Yi heritage of alcohol-related culture, and the question of alcohol in Yi health. The relationship of newly invented tradition to older practice and thought is often obscure in studies that lack historical perspective. Examining the historical narratives associated with the exposition of a Yi heritage of alcohol, this study reveals that those narratives are woven from a tapestry of threads with histories of their own, and they therefore shape present-day heritage work. After a brief overview of ideas about alcohol in contemporary discourses on Yi heritage, the chapter then analyses historical texts to argue that many of these ideas are remarkably similar to ones that emerged in the context of nineteenth and early twentieth century contact between Yi and Han communities.

Social scientific inquiry and meta-theoretical fantasy: the case of International Relations

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1447-1469 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN G. GUNNELL
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe turn to the philosophy of scientific realism as a meta-theory for the study of International Relations manifests a reluctance to confront the basic problem of the relationship between philosophy and social scientific inquiry. Despite the realists' rejection of traditional empiricism, and particularly the instrumentalist account of scientific theory, the enthusiasm for realism neglects many of the same problems that, more than a generation earlier, were involved in the social scientific embrace of positivism. One of these problems was a lack of understanding regarding the character and history of the philosophy of natural science and its relationship and applicability to the study of social phenomena. Proponents of realism have also neither adequately articulated and defended realism as a philosophical position, and distinguished it from other perspectives, nor confronted the fundamental challenge to realism and other foundationalist philosophies which has been mounted by the contemporary critique of traditional representational philosophy.

Britain’s Imperial Press System

2020 ◽  
pp. 434-450
Author(s):  
Simon J. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
British Government ◽  
System P ◽  
News Agencies ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Press ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the twentieth-century British press in its imperial and transnational contexts. It demonstrates how Britain's imperial press system, which developed during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to allow news to flow around the British empire, increasingly failed to serve British geopolitical interests from the mid-twentieth century onwards. It considers the relationship between the British government and the news agency Reuters, and the role of the Empire Press Union. It argues that although contemporary journalists often emphasised the importance of the ideal of press freedom when talking about their profession, state intervention in the affairs of news agencies represents a significant thread in the history of the twentieth-century British press.

Towards a History of Biology in the Twentieth Century: Directed Autobiographies as Historical Sources

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Russell
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of Biology ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Darwinian Revolution ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
Relative Neglect ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientists And Engineers

Interest in contemporary scientific history has concentrated on physics and engineering and its most obvious growth has been in America. By contrast, there has been a relative neglect of the biological sciences, especially in Great Britain. This concern with contemporary scientific history has been an autonomous growth among physical scientists and engineers. There has not yet been any significant development of an historical dimension among modern biologists. Most of those who do study the history of biology are concerned with natural history in the nineteenth century and before, with the largest group concentrating on the Darwinian Revolution. Students of the history of twentieth century biology are just beginning to emerge, but may find themselves uniquely disadvantaged compared with observers of the sciences from earlier centuries, or even of the physical sciences and engineering in the twentieth century, unless certain things are done rather quickly.

7. The fortunes of ritual

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Group Solidarity ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Functionalism ◽  
The Relationship

‘The fortunes of ritual’ charts the history of ritual, its study, and its reception beginning with the Confucian text Liji. This outlines means to counter humanity's fallen state through devices, guides, and practices called li, which are imagined as knots binding society together. Jumping to Enlightenment Europe, ritual came to be viewed as staid and outmoded, a superstitious remnant of a primitive past, a past that prevented humanity from truly advancing. In the early twentieth century, ritual was given some credibility via the Durkhemian tradition of social functionalism and Julian Huxley's causal connection between society's ills and ineffectual ritualization in society. Recent ritual theory articulates the relationship between ritual and group solidarity as seen through participation in contemporary festivals.

Great Is Their Sin

2015 ◽  
Vol 661 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Graves
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Clustering Algorithms ◽  
Genomic Data ◽  
Biological Variation ◽  
Biological Science ◽  
Human Genetic Variation ◽  
Biological Determinism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

The roots of biological determinism are ancient. Yet despite advances in biological science in the twentieth century, determinist thinking has not been eliminated. This article reviews the history of biological determinism, examining its varieties from its creationist beginnings to present-day biological thinking in the age of genomics. It elucidates the relationship between biological determinism and racialist understandings of human genetic variation. Of particular importance in this regard are the ongoing claims of racial medicine (a modern biological determinist variety) as well as resurgent attempts to classify humans into biological races utilizing genomic data and clustering algorithms (such as STRUCTURE). Finally it presents how the complexity of biological variation generated by genetic, epigenetic, environmental, and chance effects vitiates simplistic biological determinism.

A Historical Review of Popular Music and Social Change in Taiwan

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ho Wai-Chung
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Social Content ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article considers the relationship between popular music and the power of the state through an analysis of the history of Taiwan and the settings within which popular music was constructed and transformed by contentious political and social groups in the twentieth century. The historical formation of Taiwanese society falls into three distinct stages: Japanese colonization between 1895 and 1945; the Kuomintang's (KMT) military rule between 1947 and 1987; and the period from the end of martial law in 1987 to the resurgence of Taiwanese consciousness in the early 2000s. The evolution of Taiwan's popular music has always been connected with the state's production of new ideologies in line with changing socio-political and economic conditions, and this music still embodies a functional social content.

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