An extraordinary reversal: hermeneutics and the divide between the sciences

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-139).Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.Theories of hermeneutics -- the study of interpretation -- have been used both to support and to reject the division of the natural and human sciences. Wilhelm Dilthey and Charles Taylor defend that divide, while Richard Rorty and Clifford Geertz have contested its validity. The arguments of Dilthey and Taylor stem from the classical hermeneutical tradition founded by Friedrich Schleiermacher. On the other hand, Rorty and Geertz have claimed support for their position from the philosophical hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. In this thesis, however, I argue that the confrontation between Dilthey and Heidegger has been misconceived. Geertz and Rorty are actually committed to the same hermeneutical principles as Dilthey and Taylor, which makes their rejection of a divide between the sciences an "extraordinary reversal." Once the history of hermeneutics has been clarified and its central figures properly characterized, I argue that Dilthey and Heidegger probably would have agreed about the former' s divorce of the sciences. I also argue that Geertz and Rorty are more committed to that division than they themselves may readily admit

Our Country is the World: Radical American Abolitionists Abroad

This thesis is my doctoral dissertation submitted for my Ph.D in history at Johns Hopkins University.Antebellum abolitionists participated—through correspondence, print, and travel—in extensive transatlantic reform networks and often considered themselves citizens of the world. William Lloyd Garrison, the radical antislavery editor, was at the center of such networks and printed the same cosmopolitan slogan on every issue of his Boston newspaper, the Liberator: “Our Country is the World—Our Countrymen are All Mankind.” By focusing on the public and private writings of the Garrisonians—the antislavery radicals who took their name from Garrison—this dissertation shows how transnational reform networks functioned as communities of discourse in which the abolitionists developed radical ideas about slavery, democratic politics, nations, and patriotism. The Garrisonians’ transatlantic friendships, many of which were forged at a “World’s Convention” on slavery held in London in 1840, brought abolitionists into contact with numerous European radicals, including Chartists, free traders, Irish Repealers, and revolutionaries like the Italian Giuseppe Mazzini and the Hungarian Lajos Kossuth. Interpreting their networks in light of a broadly Romantic worldview, the Garrisonians were convinced that they were uniquely cosmopolitan figures. But the Garrisonians’ affinity with certain British reformers also reveals that they were more similar to other antebellum reformers than previously thought. Though often seen as the anti-political pariahs of the antislavery movement, the Garrisonians’ endorsements of movements like Chartism and Irish Repeal suggest that they were more sensitive to political strategy than scholars have allowed, and that they belong within a transatlantic context of democratic politics. The Garrisonians’ transatlantic networks were also crucial to their development of forward-looking ideas about nations and patriotism. Garrisonians were “civic nationalists” who viewed nations as political, rather than racial or ethnic, communities, and they also articulated a version of “cosmopolitan patriotism,” which identified love for country with a willingness to criticize the vestiges of despotism in American institutions. But in contrast to exceptionalist narratives, which view the concept of “civic nationalism” as an inevitable outgrowth of the nation’s founding creeds, I argue that the Garrisonians’ ideas about nations were forged within transnational discursive communities, and were informed in part by encounters with European reformers

The Programming Historian - Print Edition

The Programming Historian (http://programminghistorian.org) offers novice-friendly, peer-reviewed tutorials that help humanists learn a wide range of digital tools, techniques, and workflows to facilitate their research. This PDF version of the project is a snapshot of all published lessons as they appeared in February 2016. It contains 48 tutorials introducing topics ranging from: setting up (5 lessons) acquiring data (7 lessons) transforming data (17 lessons) analyzing data (6 lessons) presenting history (10 lessons) sustaining data (3 lessons) All content is licensed under a creative commons license. We encourage you to use, distribute, and print out lessons (or the whole book) as it suits you. Go forth and learn! Author List: Amanda Morton, Spencer Roberts, James Baker, Sarah Simpkin, Dennis Tenen, Grant Wythoff, Ian Milligan, Seth van Hooland, Ruben Verborgh, Max De Wilde, Doug Knox, Laura Turner O'Hara, Seth Bernstein, Jon Crump, Adam Crymble, Heather Froehlich, Vilja Hulden, Shawn Grahan, Scott Weingart, Fred Gibbs, Matthew Lincoln, Jim Clifford, Josh MacFadyen, Daniel Macfarlane, Marten Düring, Miriam Posner, Caleb McDaniel, Kellen Kurschinski, Jeri Wieringa, William J. Turkel