Analytic philosophy, 1925-1969: emergence, management and nature

This paper shows that during the first half of the 1960s The Journal of Philosophy quickly moved from publishing work in diverse philosophical traditions to, essentially, only publishing analytic philosophy. Further, the changes at the journal are shown, with the help of previous work on the journals Mind and The Philosophical Review, to be part of a pattern involving generalist philosophy journals in Britain and America during the period 1925-1969. The pattern is one in which journals controlled by analytic philosophers systematically promote a form of critical philosophy and marginalise rival approaches to philosophy. This pattern, it is argued, helps to explain the growing dominance of analytic philosophy during the twentieth century and allows characterising this form of philosophy as, at least during 1925-1969, a sectarian form of critical philosophy

‘The Grand Guru of Baroque Music’: Leonhardt’s antiquarianism in the progressivist 1960s

‘The Grand Guru of Baroque Music’: Leonhardt’s antiquarianism in the progressivist 1960s In the 1960s, Gustav Leonhardt transformed from a locally successful Dutch harpsichordist into a global phenomenon. Ironically Leonhardt, an advocate for historical performance and building preservation, achieved critical and commercial success during an era marked by the rhetoric of social protest, renewal and technological progress. An analysis of Leonhardt’s American reception reveals paradoxes of taste, aesthetics and political engagement. Record company advertisements, interviews and other materials promoted Leonhardt not only as a virtuoso performer-conductor, but also as a serious and scholarly persona. Leonhardt’s recordings demonstrate an ‘authenticist’ stance, contrasting with the Romantic subjectivity of earlier Bach interpreters and the flamboyant showmanship of competing harpsichordists. Complementing this positioning were Leonhardt’s austere performances in Straub-Huillet’s 1968 film Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, his advocacy for historical instruments, and his uncompromising repertory choices. Associations with the Fulbright program and prestigious American universities further strengthened his reputation as a scholar-performer. To a conservative older generation, Leonhardt represented sobriety and a link to the past. Nonetheless, Leonhardt’s staid persona had broader appeal: an unlikely ‘guru’, he attracted flocks of devotees. Younger musicians, inspired by his speech-like harpsichord articulation and use of reduced performing forces, viewed his performances as anti-mainstream protest music—despite Leonhardt’s own self-consciously apolitical stance. Moreover, the antiquity of the harpsichord and historical instruments complemented concurrent interests in craftsmanship, whole foods and authenticity; yet early music’s popularity was dependent upon technological mediation, especially high-fidelity recordings. Leonhardt thus emerges as a complex figure whose appeal transcended generational boundaries and bridged technological mediums

The concept of Ungrund in Jakob Boehme (1575-1624)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Oklahoma, 2003.Includes bibliographical references.This study is an exposition of the key concept of Ungrund as developed by Jakob Boehme (1575-1624) in his last major work, the Mysterium Magnum of 1624. Until lately largely ignored by the history of science community, the thought of this sixteenth century philosopher and theologian is of far-reaching significance. One of the founders of the academic discipline of the history of science, Alexandre Koyre (1892-1964), studied Boehme in a magisterial historiography with his 1928 La Philosophie de Jacob Boehme. The first chapter situates Boehme in his historical and cultural contexts. I do not attempt to explore historiographical issues surrounding Boehme so much as trace the history of the concept of Ungrund. This section is dependent upon archival material brought to light by Andrew Weeks and an earlier historian, John Joseph Stoudt, which details the political currents in Silesia at the time of Boehme, including the Court of Rudolph II. I refer to Boehme's supporter, Bartholomaeus Schultz (Scultetus), a Paracelsian who served as Mayor of Görlitz, and who had been trained as a mathematician in Leipzig and Wittenberg. Schultz was a friend of Tycho Brahe who also had a long-distance professional relationship with Johannes Kepler who had visited Görlitz in 1607. Schultz may have been instrumental in having a copy of the Astronomia Nova produced during Kepler's visit. Scultetus also brought to Görlitz a motley assortment of persons who figure prominently in the history of science, among whom were the alchemists Alexander Seton and Michael Sendivogius. The second chapter defines Boehme's seminal concept of Ungrund, an idea which has strongly influenced the history of science in many ways. I define the term according to its use in Boehme's last major work, the Mysterium Magnum of 1622. Ungrund can best be defined as an atopical negation which has the status of a paradox or negation in the laws of logic. The Greeks used two terms to describe negation, ουκ ον, and µη ον. The first describes a negation which is absolute; a negation which is totally devoid of any ontological status altogether. I argue that Boehme used the term in his late writings. The second term, µη ον, denominates a relative nothingness. This is the familiar "primordial chaos" or "matrix" posited by many classical writers as that out of which the natural order is created or, more accurately, out of which it emanates. It is indeed true that Boehme uses Ungrund in his early works to describe a relative nothingness. However, later in his career he shifts usages; perhaps under the influence of Scultetus and the Görlitz Paracelsian Circle among whom were his friends Tobias Kober, Abraham Walther (the well-known chemist), and Kurtz (a prominent physician). To indicate a relative nothingness, in the 1622 Mysterium Magnum and all his works thereafter, Boehme uses "matrix" or Salitter. When he does use Ungrund in these later works, he indicates an absolute negation, devoid of ontological status. Indeed, in his 1624 Mysterium Magnum, a philosophical and exegetical commentary on the Book of Genesis, Boehme conjoins two concepts, creatio ex nihilo and creatio ex aliquo. In this section I also examine in brief his concept of God Himself becoming out of this Ungrund through an iterative process which preserves the traditional dogma of Divine aseity. The second chapter also explores a key misunderstanding of the term Ungrund as found in Principe and Weeks' study of Boehme's alchemy, in which is perpetuated the claim set forth by many other contemporary philosophers and historians of science who equate the term with such concepts as Meister Eckhardt's Abgrund. The third chapter explores ways in which Boehme influenced two key figures in the history of early modem science, Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle (1627-1691). B. J. Gibbons has noted that "there is in fact a superficial resemblance between Newton's system and Boehme's: both construct the universe as pervaded by mysterious forces of attraction and repulsion. " Gibbons believes there is a clear influence of Boehme on Newton but that historians of science have not taken this seriously. I conclude that Newton was, indeed, influenced by Jakob Boehme by examining the evidence in support of Gibbons' suggestion that Newton's "demonstration that white light can be broken up into a spectrum of colours ... was devised to test a metaphysical and religious hypothesis rather than a purely physical one." Newton investigated an idea that had been discussed amongst the Cambridge Platonists which they had derived from Boehme "that underlying the various different types of material substance in the universe there was also a single, pure, spiritual substance ... white light had been suggested as a candidate." I examine Gibbons' claim that Newton hoped to demonstrate the presence of the Ungrund with his refracting prism, and that this was the central idea around which the impressive company of Cambridge Platonists gathered, of which group Newton was a prominent member. In my concluding section, I examine Boyle's philosophical motivations for undertaking vacuum experiments. According to Gibbons, Jenkins, and Principe, Boyle constructed his elaborate air pumps in the attempt to evacuate all matter from the vacuum chamber so as to empirically demonstrate the (non)existence of the Ungrund

Truth and Probability—Ironies in the Evolution of Social Choice Theory

Social choice theory explores the ways in which individual preferences or choices translate into group choices. One of the most devastating discoveries of social choice theory is sometimes known as the voting paradox, brought back to modem consciousness by economist, Kenneth Arrow, in his famous work entitled Social Choice and Individual Values. Roughly stated, the paradox is that voting in situations involving more than a simple, binary choice will not always reveal the true decision of a decision-making body. The motivation for this Article is to understand how and why, having discovered the voting paradox in 1785, Condorcet actually became a more ardent believer in democratic decision making in later writings until his unfortunate death in 1794. More importantly, this Article examines Condorcet\u27s discovery of the voting paradox in the larger context of his life\u27s work to determine what solutions to the paradox he might have seen that modem social choice theorists and the legal literature have not fully explored. Part II of this Article briefly describes the history and implications of social choice theory and the famous voting paradox. Part III first offers a general picture of Condorcet\u27s life and work. It then explores the connections between the philosophies of Condorcet, Rousseau and the more modem civic republican traditions. Part IV takes a closer look at Condorcet\u27s original decision-making theory. Part V uncovers many civic republican themes within the context of the larger body of Condorcet\u27s work and uses these themes to explore what his work might contribute to the modem discourse

John Huston : eine erste Arbeitsbibliographie

Inhalt: Bücher Rezensionen zu Büchern über Huston Analysen und Gesamtdarstellungen Zeitungsartikel Obituarien Bücher von Huston Bücher und Artikel zu einzelnen Filmen (im Alphabet der Filme) Unklassifizierte