349,353 research outputs found
Are People Rational?
ABSTRACT. It is common for Bertrand Russellâs admirers to repeat his many quips about other peopleâs lack of good sense, for example, âmost people would die sooner than think â in fact, they do so.â1 But it is less common for them to assert that this view is one of Russellâs fundamental assumptions about human nature and at the core of his serious moral, social, and political thought. This essay aims to show that this expressed scepticism about human reason is indeed a core assumption of Russellâs public philosophy throughout his life. Even if one accepts this, however, one can still ask: âBut is it true?â It will be argued that there is much support for Russellâs view of human reason in recent psychological literature. Examples of how this assumption affects Russellâs social and political thought are indicated.
1. The complete and correct quote is âWe all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think â in fact, they do so.â (The ABC of Relativity, 1925
Polaroid, aperture, and Ansel Adams: rethinking the industry-aesthetic divide
This article takes the history of Polaroid photography as an opportunity to question a presupposition that underpins much thinking on photography: the split between industrial (ie useful) applications of photography and its fine art (ie aesthetic) manifestations. Critics as ideologically opposed as Peter Bunnell and Abigail Solomon-Godeau steadfastly maintain the existence of this separation of utility and aesthetics in photography, even if they take contrasting views on its meaning and desirability. However, Polaroid, at one time the second largest company in the photo industry, not only enjoyed close relations with those key representatives of fine art photography, Ansel Adams and the magazine Aperture, but it also intermittently asserted the âessentially aestheticâ nature of its commercial and industrial activities in its own internal publications. The divide between industry and aesthetics is untenable, then, but this does not mean that the two poles were reconciled at Polaroid. While Aperture may have underplayed its commercial connections and Polaroid may have retrospectively exaggerated its own contributions to the development of fine art photography, most interesting are the contradictions and tensions that arise when the industrial and the aesthetic come together. The article draws on original research undertaken at the Polaroid Corporation archives held at the Baker Library, Harvard, as well as with the Ansel Adams correspondence with Polaroid, held at the Polaroid Collections in Concord, Massachusett
Information Outlook, May 2006
Volume 10, Issue 5https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2006/1004/thumbnail.jp
Information Outlook, May 2006
Volume 10, Issue 5https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2006/1004/thumbnail.jp
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