bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Towards a Phenomenology of Time-Consciousness in Music
Authors: Chatterjee Margaret
Published: March 2007

The task I have set myself in the following pages is the examination of certain problems concerning time in music from a phenomenological standpoint. Husserl's treatment of time carries on from that of Hume and Kant in the sense that, like them, he sees that our awareness is not merely successive. There is something in the very structure of consciousness which enables us to go beyond the moment, to stretch the span of the “now.” Without this capacity there would for us be no such thing as unity, identity and continuity of perceptual objects. It was with our awareness of ordinary sensible objects that Hume's and Kant's epistemology was mostly concerned. Moreover their analysis continued the stress on visual awareness characteristic of the western tradition. Kant's step forward as far as his analysis of time was concerned was to see time as the formal structure of all our experience. All that we can ever experience is seen through the lens of time. Kant, however, was equally concerned to show how our temporal consciousness entered into the constitution of the real world. He encounters difficulties on this score in so far as temporality is built into the structure not only of our experiences which claim to be objective but also into that of our merely subjective awareness. The problem of “reality” does not arise for Husserl in that the phenomenological method itself explicitly excludes this consideration. He is at one with Kant, however, in treating temporality in terms of the structure of our consciousness and, like Kant, insists on the importance of retention in perception. He goes on to specify that temporality is in common the form for not only perception but for phantasy, imagination, memory and recollection as well.
Sociological Aspects of Industrial Aesthetics
Authors: Dorfles Gillo
Published: March 2007

Among the elements in our contemporary civilisation which stand out because of their novelty in comparison with past epochs one must definitely remember the vast field which goes by the name of “industrial design,” which is also connected with the field of graphics (in its various incarnations of advertising graphics, traffic signals, lettering, etc.). Actually the advent of an industrialised society such as our own has brought with it the presence of an “industrial aesthetics,” of a will and an instinctive need to “aestheticise,” to make the “natural” world more pleasant and acceptable since today it is almost turned upside down and subverted by the products of a technological civilisation.
A Contestation of Sociology
Authors: Veyne Paul
Published: March 2007

A vast subject, as you see. Rather than enumerate doctrines or problems, it would be better to devote ourselves to one point, only one, but the one that, right or wrong, we hold to be central. This is the relation between history and sociology. It is not precisely a new point; but what if, before beginning to compare, we undertook to ask ourselves if one of the terms of the comparison even exists? If there is such a thing as Sociology? Suppose that sociology is nothing but a word, a homonymous word, under which one traditionally classes various anomalous activities which are, at bottom, history that is not recognized as such? Suppose that sociology is no more a human science than is history, that it is not a science? But first, what is a science?
Recurrent History
Authors: Dhondt Jan
Published: March 2007

For the last two or three years my students have been asking me to explain the concept of historical law. I know for a fact that they have discussed this topic among themselves. This curiosity does not necessarily emanate from the Marxist group, where it would find a fairly natural place. And I am wondering whether I am witnesssing—from afar—a phenomenon of ideological maturation such as we experienced as a result of the second world war. At that time, with my studies ended, I had left a university at which the conception of the objective of history was (for the students) strictly orthodox (history as a study of fact in its unique aspect). In 1945 I came across a university in which the vast majority of the students were impregnated with the spirit of “Annales.” I never really knew how this had come about. It certainly was not due to the teachers—they were, and had remained, the same. At that time there was no such thing as an “assistant.” But it must be admitted that the students were, to some extent, inhaling the mood of the moment. Today, in this mood of the moment, we are faced with a host of questions about the concepts of recurrence and historical law.

One can only situate and appreciate the importance of this situation with any accuracy by considering the recent evolution of historical thinking.
Utopia: Land of Cocaigne and Golden Age
Authors: Cioranescu Alexandre
Published: March 2007

Up to a point, but only up to a point, Utopia is the product of ancient nostalgia mixed with some examples drawn from the past. By “nostalgia” we mean the cast of mind which finds its way by mental channels to feelings and states of mind which are already familiar. The nostalgic aspect of Utopia which consists in the exorcism of reality by the evocation of a perfectly happy society, is only a repetition, rendered conscious and methodical, of the same range of insoluble questions and imaginary solutions which led to the creation of the myth of the Golden Age or of the Land of Cocaigne.
Pharisaism and Values in Art
Authors: Lanuza Eduardo Gonzalez
Published: March 2007

Everything that happens that we experience outwardly, or even inwardly, persists in being strictly and unavoidably “what it is”: a chair is a chair; perceptivity is perceptivity. This self-identification with itself of every phenomenon and every object is a major ontological miracle whose persistent recurrence causes it to pass un-noticed.
Dynamics of Dissymmetry
Authors: Caillois Roger
Published: March 2007

It is not impossible, it is almost inevitable, to conjecture the existence of laws so general that their jurisdiction would be affected neither by the nature nor the scale nor the level of their object—so that they would apply equally to the relations of numbers or of inert or organic matter, to the progression of rigorous thought or the flights of an amused or charmed fancy. If such laws did not govern the whole extent of the real, possible or conceivable world, or if, although autonomous, they could not be inferred from one another by some system of relations or transfers, I fear that human reflection, in spite of its partial successes, might seem condemned to reveal itself vain, since gaps, or fundamental absences of relationship, could put its cogency into question in a decisive fashion.
Nuclear Families and Kinship Groups in Iran
Authors: Behnam Djamchid
Published: March 2007

In the course of the last fifty years, there has been a slow, but continuous and decisive, transformation of the Iranian family.

In its traditional form, the Iranian family shows three basic characteristics: a certain inbreeding between relatives, a sense of masculine primacy, and a special attachment to the land where the father was born. The woman enjoys no social, professional or political freedom, while the male, the only breadwinner and the only one entrusted with any responsibility, is considered master after God. To belong to a kinship group, a lineage, represents for him an attachment to a respected, well-defined trunk, which guarantees the life and continuity of the family and grants him a place in society. Among the nomads, as well as in the villages, we see the family as the unit of production and of consumption. At the same time, in the cities, the family is not only the unit of consumption, but in the work of craftsmen (which is flourishing in the urban centers) we still see retained the familial aspect. This rule finds its origins not only in Moslem law and in the post-Islamic history of Iran, but also in the traditions and religions of ancient Persia.
Islam Facing Development
Authors: Arkoun Mohammed
Published: March 2007

It is difficult to make valid statements on a subject over which the most distressing commonplaces are poured out daily and which escapes, in large measure, the competence of any one man.* Since the area for all fruitful reflection is encumbered by knotty and prejudicial diagrams, the first task must be to clear an empty space in which to inscribe some concepts and some measures appropriate to the historical and sociological situation of the Islamic countries. However, the situation itself is very little understood because of the very backward state of modern Islamological studies. Under these conditions, it will be understood that theoretical and practical thought cannot avoid encountering obstacles in the question of Islam's development. True scientific research consists in posing real problems well, not so much in defining more or less durable solutions. That does not mean that theory must develop in parallel with practice: the decisions of political man have such a greater import because they are inscribed in a problematic at once large and rigorous. We shall try to surmount the obstacles that hinder reflection and distort the results of the best-intentioned action, by (1) discarding the false problems and (2) posing the essential question.
Warfare in the Cosmos
Authors: Boas George
Published: March 2007

If one were to arrange the history of the ideas of violence and aggression in periods, the first would be that in which such evils were accepted as an integral part of cosmic history. I refer to what we know of Zoroastrianism. According to this complex of ideas there is a constant battle going on between the forces of evil and those of good, a battle whose ground extended to the limits of the universe. Little if anything is known of the sources of this cosmology but judging from appearances it looks as if they were the frank acceptance of the empirical observation that evil is an active force, autonomous and normally present in all human affairs. History would seem to be the result of an ever-living struggle between evil and the good. That the two sets of contradictory forces are given divine names, Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman, is of no importance here. What is of importance is the acceptance of the evil powers as something inevitable and the relegation of the triumph of goodness to the infinitely remote future.
The Name of God and the Linguistic Theory of the Kabbala
Authors: Scholem Gershom
Published: March 2007

“Thy word (or: essence) is true from the beginning”; thus reads the Psalmist's passage, oft quoted in kabbalistic literature (Psalm 119: 160). According to the originally conceived Judaistic meaning, truth was the word of God which was audible both acoustically and linguistically. Under the system of the synagogue, revelation is an acoustic process, not a visual one; or revelation at least ensues from an area which is metaphysically associated with the acoustic and the perceptible (in a sensual context). This is repeatedly emphasised with reference to the words of the Torah (Deuteronomy 4: 12): “Ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.” What precisely we are to understand by this voice and what is uttered through it is the very question which the various currents of Judaistic religious thought have constantly posed themselves. The indissoluble link between the idea of the revealed truth and the notion of language—is as much, that is, as the word of God makes itself heard through the medium of human language, if, otherwise, human experience can reach the knowledge of such a word at all—is presumably one of the most important, if not the most important, legacies bequeathed by Judaism to the history of religions.
The Idea of Justice in Islamic Philosophy
Authors: Kassem Hammond
Published: March 2007

Moslem thinkers have treated the idea of justice from a religious and human point of view by examining it on two planes: God and Man. Whatever their inclinations may be, their concept of justice is linked to other connected notions such as beauty and ugliness, good and evil, free will, the volition and wisdom of God, and predestination. In the framework of this study of the idea of justice and its related concepts, we shall confine ourselves to setting out the points of view of the principal sects (the Ash'arites, the Mu'tazilites and Maturidism) and of certain philosophers such as Averroes and some mystics including Ibn'Arabi. We shall probably be led to a brief comparison of the ideas of Ibn'Arabi with those of Leibniz. For more ample details on this subject, we refer the reader to a series of articles already published in which we underlined the points of convergence between these two philosophers with regard to the infinite, monadism, optimism, good and evil, and predestination.
Truth
Authors: Resendiz Wonfilio Trejo
Published: March 2007

In the universal history of philosophy it is perhaps impossible to find a definition of truth which has not, to some extent, already been formulated by the philosophers of Ancient Greece. Conversely, however, it is also certain that the universal history of philosophy, in essence, simply consists in a permanent force of human thought, directed at certain times and from certain viewpoints at a redefinition of the nature and essence of truth. By virtue of this, we shall address ourselves to this theme; we shall explore four conceptions of truth which appear to us to be representative and the most relevant in the context of an original philosophical culture, such as was the culture of Greece during the classical period. In this cultural context various concepts of truth will evolve; we shall call them ontological-existential, epistemological, logical (with specifications pertinent to this area) and pragmatic. At the same time we shall attempt to consider the degree to which each one of these concepts appears in other cultural contexts, with the emphasis and bias which they receive in a specific sense from the sensibility proper to these other cultures—Eastern and Western in the various periods—; the object being to indicate the common and distinctive features of their conceptions.
For a Methodology of Islamic Studies
Authors: Laroui Abdallah
Published: March 2007

It is certainly not easy to decide whether Moslems are right or wrong to take as a point of departure for an analysis of their culture the works of “Orientalists.” As it happens, “Orientalists” are Westerners, and can be defined by foreigners as those whose topic of research is Islam.
The Arab Intellectual Between Power and Culture
Authors: Charnay Jean-Paul
Published: March 2007

In the contemporary Moslem-Arab societies, does the function of the intellectual recall that of the classic scholar, at once counsellor of the great people, honor of the city or of the village, and regulator, through the culture, through judicial consultation or through the education, of the social life? Any analogy too greatly stressed would be hazardous. After having sketched the constitutive movement of the Moslem civilization and its present state, we may then attempt to appraise the situation of the intellectual between the power and the cultural system.
The Arabic Language and the Present Conditions and Prospects for the Future of the Arabic-Speaking World
Authors: Mattar Antoine C.
Published: March 2007

When one considers the extent and scientific and technical character of the work done in the field of communication in the past two or three decades, with a view to evolving a methodology of the social sciences there, one is struck by the impressive number and the no-less considerable diversity of factors which figure in this young, all-affecting discipline, recently freed from the hold of philosophy. Such is the case in all the social sciences and that, moreover, is why Lazarsfeld rightly contends that in sociological matters it is a good idea to multiply the “partial inquiries” in order, one day, to combine them into one all-inclusive sociology.
The Paradox of Campanella
Authors: Batkin Leonid M.
Published: March 2007

What we know today of Campanella, largely thanks to the work of Italian researchers (L. Firpo, R. Amerio, A. Corsaro, G. di Napoli, and others), is important for our understanding of the intellectual situation that arose after the decline of the Renaissance—that situation that is best perceived and expressed in Hamlet. Of course, any historico-cultural collision is unique; but the logic of its development may contain elements of repetition. In connection with Campanula's instructive spiritual experience, I shall try to touch on the somewhat broader problem that arises whenever a person who aims to change his society comes into conflict with the dominant institutional and ideological forces of that society, and yet thinks and acts within the limits set by these very forces.
Common Patterns of Eastern and Western Scholasticism
Authors: Panikkar Raimundo
Published: March 2007

Modem scholarship has fairly succeeded in rescuing the term ‘scholasticism’ from its pejorative connotations. But it has not yet attempted, it seems to me, to situate the phenomenon of scholasticism in an overall anthropological setting. A comparative study of eastern and western scholasticisms may help us to acquire a better understanding of the nature of scholasticism and ultimately of the nature of man himself.
Mastering a Natural Language: Rationalists Versus Empiricists
Authors: Margolis Joseph
Published: March 2007

Behaviorist theories of language acquisition are the most prominent among current empiricist theories of language. But the inherent weaknesses of behaviorism—whether or not applied to language acquisition or linguistic meaning or the like—do not as such call into question the adequacy of the empiricist conception of language. The issue is central to contemporary speculation about the nature of linguistic competence and the infant's acquisition of language. Empiricism has, in fact, been vigorously challenged in the most sustained way, in a variety of publications, by Noam Chomsky. “From a formal point of view,” Chomsky holds,

the grammar that is internalized by every normal human can be described as a theory of his language, a theory of a highly intricate and abstract form that determines, ultimately, a connection between sound and meaning by generating structural descriptions of sentences (“potential percepts”), each with its phonetic, semantic, and syntactic aspects. From this point of view, one can describe the child's acquisition of knowledge of language as a kind of theory construction. Presented with highly restricted data, he constructs a theory of the language of which this data is a sample (and, in fact, a highly degenerate sample, in the sense that much of it must be excluded as irrelevant and incorrect—thus the child learns rules of grammar that identify much of what he has heard as ill-formed, inaccurate, and inappropriate). The child's ultimate knowledge of language obviously extends far beyond the data presented to him. In other words, the theory he has in some way developed has a predictive scope of which the data on which it is based constitute a negligible part.

The normal use of language characteristically involves new sentences, sentences that bear no point-by-point resemblance or analogy to those in the child's experience. Furthermore, the task of constructing this system is carried out in a remarkably similar way by all normal language learners, despite wide differences in experience and ability. The theory of human learning must face these facts. I think that these facts suggest a theory of human intelligence that has a distinctly rationalist flavor.
Degradation of the Environment and Market Economy
Authors: Vieille Paul
Published: March 2007

By posing the problem of the relation between the degradation of the environment and the market economy, one presupposes a preliminary answer to a more general question: As a result of his “instincts,” is man, by necessity, predatory upon the natural order which surrounds him? If the answer to this question were affirmative, the current massacre of the environment would, at best, represent no more than an acceleration of mechanisms which are as old as the emergence of man, and, if the truth be told, any hope of the relationship between man and nature finding a new balance would be in vain. It is not very likely, however, that the answer would be a positive one. For one fundamental reason, nature is to a large extent a creation of man which has constantly modified itself throughout the history of man, ever since the invention of fire. What we call ‘nature’ is a structured, mobile complex of cycles which relate to our mineral environment and our living environment and which enable man to survive on earth; and it is impossible to ignore the action of man himself within these cycles.
Japanese Youth Culture Today: “Play” as a Way of Life
Authors: Inoue Syun
Published: March 2007

In recent years many essays have been made public and various opinions have been advanced on youth. I would like to conceive one of the salient characteristics in the consciousness and the behavior pattern of today's youth as “play-orientedness” and center my discussion on that particular inclination. “Play-orientedness” here is not intended to mean merely “activeness in sports and hobbies,” nor is it synonymous with “pleasure-orientedness.” It is a broader term and is rather close in meaning to what is commonly called “the spirit of play.” We might perhaps define it as “play as a way of life,” or an inclination to introduce elements of “play” into one's daily life and make his actual life “play-like.”
Indian Social Concepts in the Latter Half of the 16Th Century
Authors: Chandra Savitri
Published: March 2007

The present paper deals with Indian social values and concepts as revealed by a critical study of Hindi poetry of the second half of the 16th century and especially the works of Tulsidasa, Surdasa and Dadu Dayal. Although a detailed comparative study of other forms of literature, particularly in the Persian language, has not been attempted here, this has been taken into consideration in the process of analysing the works of these three poets.

All these writers were religious saints and their theme is essentially devotion (bhakti) and godliness. It is accepted that many of the traditional concepts and some of the idealised situations may not necessarily reflect the position as it obtained in the second half of the 16th century. Nevertheless, a cautious and careful examination of poetry, more particularly of the choice of words, does enable us to determine the prevailing attitudes and social concepts. Some of these are briefly referred to in this paper.
Men and Gods of the Andes
Authors: Vellard Jehan Albert
Published: March 2007

Until the end of the 15th century America had remained the “lost continent.” Her inhabitants, neglected by all, lived removed from the other populations of the globe. The accidental arrival of a few Icelandic boats in Canada and the northeastern United States, or of occasional Asiatic junk boats on the California coast had had no influence on the culture or the physical type of the American Indian. And a real immigration from Polynesia is doubtful and has never been satisfactorily demonstrated.

Some new proof of the extended biological isolation of these populations has been offered by the study of their blood composition. Although most of them show Mongolan traits more or less markedly, almost the totality of South American Indians belong to the blood group O, and all are likewise Rh negative. The group A, largely represented in Asia, is found with certain frequency only in the northwest tribes of the continent.
Time and Chance
Authors: Denbigh Kenneth G.
Published: March 2007

That there is something unsatisfying about the scientific concept of nature has for long been recognized, and not least by scientists themselves. Of course there have been some remarkable changes in the foundations of science during the present century, and these have lessened the previously ‘mechanistic’ character of scientific theory; but it still remains true that physical science finds no place in its scheme of things for life and consciousness. “The ancients,” wrote Paul Valéry, “set their philosophy to peopling the universe as ardently as we, in our time, have set ours to emptying it of all life.” And similarly A.N. Whitehead has spoken of the opening up, since Descartes, of a deep division between two distinct and incompatible attitudes of mind; we seek to believe simultaneously in the mechanical theory of nature and in the self-determining or creative character of living things. Hence there is a radical inconsistency, he says, at the basis of modern thought.
The Evolution of Science: Reformation and Counter-Reformation
Authors: Amsterdamski Stefan
Published: March 2007

The remarks which follow deal with the ideas which I developed in more detail in my book: between Experience and Metaphysics. They are inspired principally by the vigorous polemic aroused by the publication several years ago of a work which caused a great uproar in epistemological circles; I am speaking of The Structure of Scientific Revolution by T.S. Kuhn. One could thus consider this essay, as well as my book, as an element to be added to that polemic's dossier. It goes without saying that I am indebted to a great number of those who before me have given their points of view on the question, whether I agree with their opinions or not.
From Narrative History To History as a Problem
Authors: Furet François
Published: March 2007

History is the child of narrative. It is not defined by an object of study, but rather by a type of narration. To say that history studies time means no more than that it arranges all of its objects of study in a temporal framework: to make history is to tell a story.
Acculturation, Modernization, Nationalism: The Case of Modern Japan
Authors: Kuwabara Takeo
Published: March 2007

The term acculturation was first used by American scholars in dealing with cultural changes in the American Indian society; however, I would like to use this term a bit more freely.
Messianic Myths and Movements
Authors: de Queiroz Maria Isaura Pereira
Published: March 2007

Those religious doctrines which used to foretell the dawning on earth of an age of perfect happiness are called “millennial;” they oppose the existing society, which is considered as unjust and oppressive, and proclaim its impending downfall. These doctrines are called “messianic” whenever the inauguration of this perfect world is dependent upon the arrival of a “son of God,” a divine messenger, or a mythical hero: in fact, of a “messiah.” The messiah is he who announces and inaugurates on earth a “Kingdom of Heaven.”
Colors and Body Painting in Black Africa: the Problem of the “Half-Man”
Authors: Zahan Dominique
Published: March 2007

Accustomed as we are to wearing clothes and to using colors in artistic and utilitarian ways, we often forget that the first “monument” offered to color is the human body and that the first “canvas” for the artist was his own skin. Man has created a distance between skin and colors by introducing clothes, which have a meaning that works to the detriment of both skin and colors. Clothes are a kind of second skin which is far more versatile than the first one and with which tailors and fashion designers may cheat to the full extent of their fantasy and in accordance with how we wish to appear. Colors play an infinite game of combinations which enhance and transform clothes. No skin lends itself to such a range of aesthetic manipulations as cloth does.
The Status of Woman in Ancient India: Compulsives of the Patriarchal Order
Authors: Indradeva Shrirama
Published: March 2007

The status a society assigns to woman largely depends upon the basic structure of that society itself. While considering the emergence of the traditional social structure in India, it is interesting to see how diverse struggling racial groups became parts of an integrated hierarchical society in which the invading immigrants formed the elite stratum. We also see how the values of the elite stratum were forcefully imposed on the integrated culture that emerged as a result of this interaction, how the immigrants suffering from a deep-seated feeling of insecurity performed various rites and rituals to ward off the fear of extermination; how the womenfolk belonging to a stock which was not only racially and culturally different but inimical too, were given a low position; and how due to extraneous origin of womenfolk a feeling of suspicion against them was deeply ingrained in the society.
Urbanism and Its Expression in the African City
Authors: Binet Jacques , Contini Susanna
Published: March 2007

In European cities there is a clear-cut separation between center and suburbs. During the Middle Ages mainly the dictates of military strategy brought about the crowding of the population inside a belt of ramparts. Periodically this corset of walls proved too narrow, and consequently suburbs grew up along the roads leading from the city. These suburbs were in turn incorporated into the city, to be protected by a new enclosure, causing the (older walls to become circular avenues. Paris is a classic example; with its three successive lines of avenues surrounding concentric areas.
Manifestations of Arab Thought in Western Islam
Authors: Arkoun Mohammed
Published: March 2007

Do not believe that the philosophy that has reached us through the writings of Aristotle, Abû Nasr (al-Fârâbî), and the book of Healing (of Ibn Sinâ), will satisfy your longing; neither that any of the Andalusians has written anything adequate on this matter. For the men of superior understanding who lived in Andalusia before the spread of logic and philosophy in that country, devoted their lives to the mathematical sciences…; but could do nothing more…” Ibn Tufayl, Hayy ibn Yaqzân, p. 12.

Much remains to be done by way of determining exactly the ways in which Arab thought penetrated Western Islam-I refer both to its sociological extension and the depth of its psycho-cultural effect. The question thus posed is of considerable historical importance, above all if one wishes to cover the whole period from the beginning of the Eighth Century (i.e. the end of the First/beginning of the Second Century of the Hegira), up to the present day. In fact, the spread of Arab thought to the Maghreb, and its penetration in depth, was accelerated again after the reconquest of the politically autonomous areas. This situation lends our research a certain topicality, whence spring both advantages and disadvantages: there is the advantage of historical knowledge not being limited to an erudite accumulation of facts about a past that has no links with any extant community; yet there is the problem that it is hard not to evoke the past in order to justify present ideological ventures.
Sports in the Ancient World
Authors: Bloch Raymond
Published: March 2007

The sports competitions which have taken on such importance in the life and world of today are connected, over the centuries, with the ideas and customs of the Greek people. The Greek heritage still manifests itself in the collective and individual sports today, and our contemporaries were not mistaken in recognizing this fact. After an interval of 1500 years a new series of Olympic Games began, reviving those pan-Hellenic games which, every four years, gathered athletes and crowds from all over the Greek world at Olympia. It is of utmost interest to study closely the similarities, relationships, and differences which exist between our ways of competing and the ways in which our distant forebears competed. Such a study is enthralling and requires the simultaneous use of all the auxiliary disciplines such as ancient history, the study of literary texts, the study of inscriptions, and archeology.
The Intellectual in the Face of His Moral and Political Responsibilities
Authors: Dramaliev Lubomir
Published: March 2007

The relationship intelligentsia-morality-politics is characterized by a number of important features. In the first place, it is not a question of an abstract logical structure, but of an objectively existing social phenomenon. In other words, it is a question of the attitude of real, living men, with their intimate personal feelings and experiences, their social and political convictions.
Grammar Without Transformations
Authors: Hudson Richard
Published: March 2007

It is now nearly twenty years since Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures appeared, and during these twenty years many things have changed in linguistics—not least, the interest that the rest of the world now takes in what we linguists do. The reason for this is clearly because Chomsky claimed to have discovered a window into the human mind, via the study of the structure of languages. The argument is a simple one: a linguist can write a grammar for a language, with some degree of confidence that his grammar is the “ right “ one for that language, but since the language only exists in the heads of its speakers until linguists or other grammar-writers come along, the grammar that he has written must correspond in some direct sense, and in detail, to the knowledge that exists in the speaker's mind. Therefore, in order to study that particular part of our minds, all we need to do is to write grammars, making sure that they are right, of course, and then study the grammars instead. “We can also compare the grammars for radically different languages and see to what extent they are similar or different, and then draw conclusions about general properties of all human beings’ minds— and we can even speculate as to how our minds have developed that way, whether by genetic programming or by other means. It is no wonder that linguists are not the only people who think linguistics is important.
The Silent Revolution: The Communication of the Poor from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Lohisse Jean
Published: March 2007

At the end of the 17th century, 80 per cent of the French were illiterate. A hundred years later, despite a certain amount of progress in reading and writing above all in already favoured regions, their number still represents 63 per cent of the population. Throughout Europe from the 16th to the 18th century, the proportion is never lower than this.
Evolution and Conservatism
Authors: Ryszkiewicz Marcin
Published: March 2007

The first principle of evolution is immutability; the primary objective of a species is to perpetuate itself. A transition from one species to another has never been observed and never will be; even in paleontology the study of fossils will never bring to light a continuity in the history of life: the passage from one form to another is always abrupt, and the “missing links” are only a creation of our imagination, an answer to satisfy our expectation.
On the Interpretation of Other People's Dress
Authors: Fouquier Eric
Published: March 2007

In everyday life, the way people dress is thought to furnish the attentive observer with information about them. In ethnomethodological terms, we would say that clothing is a source of “social information,” allowing subjects to form an idea of the “social and personal identity” of other people. For the sake of convenience, albeit simplifying somewhat, we may distinguish three aspects of this phenomenon: the dress observed, the interpretative process, and the results of the interpretation. This article is concerned with the process of interpretation itself. What I am trying to aim at is this: how to represent this process in a metalanguage, by means of a kind of artificial mechanism capable of simulating it adequately. And I shall be arguing that semiotics can provide a worthwhile conceptual framework for such a metalanguage.
A Semiology of the Sign System Chemistry
Authors: Mounin Georges
Published: March 2007

For the last twenty years Luis Prieto, in his published work in French, has reiterated that the systematic study of the codes (other than natural languages) which were invented by men for communication purposes is in and of itself an undertaking essential for an understanding of both the laws of communication in general and of the mechanisms of these systems of communication—the totality of which would make up the (Saussurian) semiology of communication (Prieto 1966, 1968, 1975). Among these systems the symbols of chemistry—referred to as such for a long time— and their combinatory rules constitute a very ancient code or series of codes (Crosland, 1962). Up to now this code has not been subjected to a genuine semiological study, except for the essay by Dagognet (1969, see Mounin 1970) which is more literary or poetical and metaphysical than scientific.
Woman as a Model of Pathology in the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Crawcour Michael , Azouvi François
Published: March 2007

Doctors have always thought, it seems, that the female body is more susceptible to illness than the male. Ancient medicine founded this dogma on the doctrine of elementary qualities, in attributing to woman a cold and humid constitution. As heat is the principal instrument which nature uses to produce the forces of the body and to maintain them, it must be lacking in woman, as is proved by her weakness, the softness of her limbs, her lack of external sexual organs and the crudeness of her menstrual blood. If the Aristotelians and the Galenists diverge, in the Renaissance and in the XVIIth century, about the nature—fertile or not—of the “female seed,” they agree to pledge the female body to illnesses. Such a predisposition is explained by the female constitution: its coldness and its humidity, as well as retaining women's strength badly, contribute to giving them a “soft, slack body, of rare texture,” little suited to letting the body fluids, of which it is full, circulate correctly; their blood, corrupted by humidity, instead of being properly heated like it is in men, accumulates, blocks up the too small blood-vessels and causes all the illnesses of which they are the habitual victims. To this it is necessary to add the pathogenic importance of the womb, “a part of the body so sensitive and so easily upset, that its least indisposition causes an infinity of strange and almost unbearable evils.” The indispositions which affect this part of the body are always in relation to humidity or dryness, that is with “the two excrements” which it receives: sperm and menstrual blood. Whether, insufficiently impregnated by the virile liquor, “it mounts to the liver and other higher parts of the body to suck humidity from them until it becomes moist,” or it retains for an abnormally long time the seed, which decays inside it; or the periods are suppressed, or on the other hand they are produced too often; all womens illnesses are a question of impeded or excessive discharge.
The Subject Genesis, the Imaginary and the Poetical Language
Authors: Schwab Gabriele
Published: March 2007

“I am, but I do not own myself”—this famous formula of Plessner conceives man as an excentric subject, i.e. a being who can never dominate and dispose of himself as a whole. If we add to Plessner's dictum Bloch's answer to it: “I am. But I do not own myself. Therefore we are still becoming” then we are already suggesting the anthropological space of the imaginary; because the ability to imagine something that is not, plays an essential role in this subject's becoming.
Man and the Bull
Authors: De Laet Sigfried J.
Published: March 2007

It is some 900 years before Christ that we find the most ancient traces of two innovations which were to have incalculable consequences for the future of mankind. The evolution of civilization has, in fact, been marked by a clean break located at the era when man discovered the rudiments of agriculture and animal husbandry and began to produce his own food. Whereas for the three million years during which he had to provide for his needs exclusively through hunting, fishing and gathering, his progress was extremely slow, the adoption of a new way of life based on agriculture and animal husbandry allowed man to transform himself in less than twelve thousand years from deer hunter into astronaut.
Terms of Address in Contemporary Chinese
Authors: Alleton Viviane
Published: March 2007

Terms of address are the words we use when we speak to someone. The circumstances in which they are used are the same everywhere: when we call to someone; when we meet someone; when we want to attract someone's attention; when we speak to one person in a group—to ask a question or to give an order; at the beginning of a discourse; on an envelope; and at the beginning of a letter. Nevertheless, it depends on a particular society whether the use of these terms, in a given circumstance, is necessary or not. In Chinese, for example, when one meets someone he knows, he is not obliged to call him by name, title or any other term. The most normal attitude is to ask a question about what he is doing, a question whose objective depends on the circumstances and whose form depends on the degree of familiarity one has with the person addressed.
God and the Human Consciousness
Authors: Krishna Daya
Published: March 2007

To talk of God is almost a presumption, for who can say with any certainty that it is or if it is, in what sense of “is” it is, and what is its nature. And, perhaps, of all those who talk of God, the philosopher is the least qualified, as by temperament and training he lives in a world where concepts and arguments and ratiocinative thought are more real than anything else. And God, whatever it may or may not be, is not an idea or a concept or the conclusion of a well-reasoned chain of argumentation. Nor is it even a hypothesis to be tested or a necessary postulate without which our experience would make no sense and life cease to have a meaning.
Thought Without Verbal Expression
Authors: Lhermitte François
Published: March 2007

Can we think without words? At first, the question is surprising, and the answer is most often, “No.”

This response is quite understandable. Words and thought are so closely connected in our mental activity that they appear almost indissociable, since if we follow an introspective process, it is not possible for us to analyze our reasoning and our feelings without having recourse to words. Moreover, man's verbal expression is not only a means of communication; it is also an instrument of progress for the mind, without which the mind would not be able to attain the very high levels of abstract and conceptual thought that are proper to it. No one would dream of minimizing the important influence of words on thought. It is more correct to magnify it as Paul Valéry did: “The honor of man, blessed speech.”
Critical Theory and Social Organization
Authors: Murphy John W.
Published: March 2007

Critical Theory is usually associated with an intellectual tradition which emerged from the work of a group of social philosophers who coalesced around the Institute for Social Research, established in Frankfurt in 1923. This tradition is now considered to have two major branches: the first related to the work of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Leo Lowenthal, and Walter Benjamin, while the second pertains to the expansion of this original work which has been proffered by Jürgen Habermas, Claus Offe, Niklas Luhmann, Karl-Otto Apel, and others. It should be immediately noted that Critical Theory does not form a unity, for it does mean different things to both its early and current adherents. Without overstating the case, however, the common theme which unites these theorists is a dislike for the types of determinism which saw socialism arising automatically from either appropriate social conditions or at the behest of elite party members. In each case the belief was inadvertently advanced that people do not make their own history. In line with the work of Lukács and Korsch, these critical theorists wanted to develop a more vital Marxist theory, one which understands human praxis to be at the center of social development and, thus, human liberation.
Self-Reference in Logic and Mulligan Stew
Authors: Brown Harold I.
Published: March 2007

The novel has always provided a vehicle for commenting on various aspects of human existence. We are familiar with the political novel, the historical novel, or the metaphysical novel, and in this sense Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew, with its running commentary on novels, novelists, critics and publishers, may be viewed as a critical novel. A critical novel, however, has a striking feature which it does not share with the other sorts of novels mentioned above in that a critical novel is itself a novel, and a member of the class of objects on which it is commenting. This is a structure that logicians call “self-reference” and the phenomenon of self-reference has provided a central theme in twentieth century logic and philosophy.
Utopia, Promised Lands, Immigration and Exile
Authors: Ainsa Fernando
Published: March 2007

Behind every Utopia there is always a territory, but a territory that “is not here”, a territory removed from immediate reality in space or in time. In time, when the Utopia invokes the past of an Age of Gold or a Paradise Lost “illo tempore,” but also when there is a gamble with the hope of a better world to be organized in the future. These are “ideal times” or “longed-for times,” past or future of which philosophers, writers or political men speak.
Risks and the Perception of Risks in a Changing Society
Authors: Odén Birgitta
Published: March 2007

In 1976 an interdisciplinary study on risks and risk evaluations was inaugurated in Sweden and was sponsored by the Committee for Future-oriented Research. One of the basic assumptions of the Swedish risk project was that modern society has created “new, increasingly complicated and large-scale technical systems.” It also assumed that “large systems are economically efficient, but vulnerable and therefore create risks.” A third assumption was that “the ever rising standard of living is purchased at the cost of certain additional risks.” The perspective of the project was thus markedly historically oriented.
Art(s) and Power(s)
Authors: Berger René
Published: March 2007

At first glance such a title seems antinomic. Obviously we accept the fact that there exists a relation, frequently conflictual, between the press and public authority, without mentioning other media; but art continues to represent, at least in the mind of the public, a privileged domain which, though subject to frequently abrupt and brutal changes, benefits nevertheless from an “innocence” distinguishing it from other activities. Visiting the Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi in Florence, or touring the Loire valley châteaux are all so-called cultural activities pursued “simply to develop the personality.”
Theoretical Problems in the Description of African Languages
Authors: Bouquiaux Luc
Published: March 2007

In a work that appeared in 1967 but which has lost none of its interest today, P. Alexandre gave a list of the 51 languages of Black Africa (or homogeneous dialectical and linguistic groups) that approached or surpassed a million speakers. For each of them he evaluated available documentation, on a scale of from 1 to 6. He gave the rating 1 to languages for which the documentation was poor (outdated grammars and dictionaries, incomplete or absurd systems of unscientific transcription) and the rating 6 to languages for which works conforming to modern requirements were available (correctly noted sound systems, phonological and phonetic descriptions, annotated texts, dictionaries, stylistic and dialectological studies, audio material). Only three languages merited the rating 6 and only four were rated 5. This means that only seven languages out of about 1200 could be considered as accurately described, that is, offering all the necessary guarantees to the specialist.