bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Caliphate’s Resources and Wealth
Authors: Manzano Moreno Eduardo
Published: January 2024

The Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba was based on a sophisticated tax system that collected around ten million dinars per year. This chapter examines how this system worked, what were the taxes collected, and how fiscal coertion created serious contradictions with caliphal claims to rule according to Islamic orthodoxy. This chapter also explains the economic cycle of fiscal surpluses, which allowed for the existence of a centralised demand for luxury items, like gold, silver or ivory, as well as good and services that fostered urban manufactures and long distance trade and the creation of a ruling class that emerged within the ranks of the caliphate.
Defending the Muslims
Authors: Manzano Moreno Eduardo
Published: January 2024

By the time of Caliph al-Ḥakam II, the Iberian Christian territories were de facto satellites of Cordoba: embassies were regularly received at the Umayyad court, and Christian kings and counts maintained truces and peaceful agreements with the caliphate. This was the result of a deliberate policy of appeasement that had replaced the regular warfare that Caliph 'Abd al-Raḥmān III had initiated in the first decades of his reign (912-961/300-350). During this period, however, tensions along the border with the Christians increased, with constant skirmishes and raids against Andalusian settlements. These tensions erupted into open conflict when a coalition of Christian rulers attacked an important frontier castle, Gormaz, while the Caliph's army was deployed in North Africa. This attack called into question the effectiveness of the 'appeasement policy' and paved the way for some radical changes in the caliphate's foreign policy after the death of al-Ḥakam II.
The Authority of the Caliph
Authors: Manzano Moreno Eduardo
Published: January 2024

Al-Ḥakam II ruled because he was descended from the Umayyad caliphs of Damascus through a distinguished genealogy. However, the dynasty's legacy had to be reworked in order to meet the Fāṭimid threat, which was considered very real. This led to the formulation of an Umayyad ideology that insisted on anti-Shīʿite slogans such as strict adherence to Islamic tradition, the rejection of innovation, the visible benefits that Umayyad rule had brought to al-Andalus, or the caliph's interest in the welfare of his subjects. All these aspects were expressed in official letters, epigraphs or poetry by court poets, which reveal the sophistication of the political discourse of the Umayyad caliphate. However, there is also evidence that this official discourse was contested by al-Ḥakam II's political opponents, revealing political tensions within his court.
The Representation of Power
Authors: Manzano Moreno Eduardo
Published: January 2024

'Īsà al-Rāzī recorded in detail all the receptions given by the caliph al-Ḥakam II. Some of these receptions were held on the two festivals of the Muslim calendar ('īd al-aḍḥa and īd al-fiṭr), but they were also held to mark the arrival of embassies. On some special occasions, processions were organised to celebrate the arrival of important chieftains who had fled from the rule of the Fāṭids, or even to celebrate military victories. These processions marched all the way from Cordoba to the caliphal city of Madīnat al-Zahrāʼ, surrounded by a lurid display of soldiers, flags and even musicians. These receptions and processions are compared with Fāṭimid processions and examined as exact reflections of the state apparatus displayed in them, to the extent that they can be considered early manifestations of what might be called a 'theatre state'.
Córdoba and Madıˉnat al-Zahraˉ’: Topography of Power and Urban Space
Authors: Manzano Moreno Eduardo
Published: January 2024

In his work, 'Īsà al-Rāzī mentions dozens of sites in Cordoba and in the neighbouring palatine city of Madīnat al-Zahrāʼ. The former retains many traces of its Umayyad past (such as the famous Friday Mosque), as well as a large number of archaeological excavations that have revealed an unexpected number of suburbs outside the walls of the original Madīna. The archaeological remains of Madīnat al-Zahrāʼ are now seven kilometres west of Cordoba. All these circumstances give us the unique opportunity to give the exact location of most of the events mentioned by 'Īsà al-Rāzī in his chronicle. This topographical detail also helps us to understand the different urban dynamics of the two cities, since Cordoba was an old Roman foundation that became a siege of Arab rule after the conquest of Iberia, whereas Madīnat al-Zahrāʼ was founded by the caliph 'Abd al-Raḥmān III and can be characterised as a "disembedded" capital. In both cases, we can speak of a topography of power coexisting with urban dynamics.
Iran’s Syria Policy and its Regional Dimensions
Authors: Entessar Nader
Published: January 2024

This chapter analyses Iran’s policy toward Syria from the perspective of Tehran’s regional security calculus. It examines the history of the Iranian-Syrian alliance from the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, arguing that the Islamic Republic views Syria as its ‘first line of defence’ in its ‘strategic depth’ doctrine. Syria is simultaneously the other pillar with Iran in the so-called ‘axis of resistance,’ along with Hizballah and Hamas. Thus, Iran supported the Assad regime from the beginning of the Syrian civil war and also persuaded Russia to support Assad militarily in 2015. The chapter discusses Iranian-Russian cooperation in Syria and analyses the impact of this on current and future Russian-Iranian relations more generally. It also analyses how a number of regional and international factors including the Iran nuclear negotiations, the rise of ISIS and other Sunni militant groups, Turkey’s involvement in Syria, and Iran’s ‘cold war’ with Saudi Arabia, also impacted Tehran’s strategic considerations toward Damascus.
Turkey and the Syrian Crisis
Authors: Özcan Gencer , Özel Soli
Published: January 2024

This chapter integrate both Turkish domestic politics and regional developments to analyse the evolution of Ankara’s Syria policy after 2011. Turkey’s position toward Syria reflected its ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy at the outset of the Arab uprisings. This changed as the uprisings swept across the region producing the belief in Ankara that major changes were likely to take place in Damascus that would benefit Turkey’s regional standing. The chapter examine the interplay between Turkey’s domestic politics and regional developments to explain the dramatic changes in its Syria policy from ‘zero problems,’ to regime change, to accommodation with Russia and Iran, to one of seeking to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish political entity on Turkey’s southern border.
Sovereignty for Security: The Paradox of Urgency and Intervention in Yemen
Authors: Mahdi Waleed
Published: January 2024

This chapter examines the paradox of urgency and intervention in Yemen since the start of the twenty-first century by exploring the compromising of Yemen's sovereignty for the sake of security and stability. This paradox stems from the intersection of the US-led 'war on terror' campaign in Yemen after 2000 and competing narratives surrounding Yemen’s future since 2011. The United States’ ‘war on terror’ and the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative ostensibly intended to guide Yemen’s political transition and prevent it from becoming a ‘failed state,’ followed by Saudi and Emirati military intervention beginning in 2015, simultaneously denied Yemenis their sovereignty and produced even greater instability in the country. The chapter investigates how such powerful international and regional actors repeatedly employed discourses of security and state fragility to intervene in Yemen in pursuit of their own national security interests. These discourses have produced neither stability nor security and have had disastrous consequences for millions of Yemenis, further denying them the ability to create a future based on national sovereignty.
The Regional Dimensions of Egypt’s ‘Failed Democratic Transition’
Authors: Shehata Samer S.
Published: January 2024

This chapter investigates the role of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel in contributing to Egypt’s ‘failed democratic transition’following the 2011 Egyptian uprising. Based on original research including interviews with American and Egyptian officials, the chapter argues that the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel played significant roles in undermining Egypt’s short-lived democratic experiment. It documents how Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv supported Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 uprising and lobbied the US to continue backing the Egyptian autocrat. It then analyses how Saudi Arabia and the UAE attempted to influence Egyptian politics after Mubarak’s ouster by supporting Egypt’s Salafi parties as a check against the Muslim Brotherhood. The oil rich Gulf states also used economic aid and investment to further their political aims, limiting economic flows to Cairo after the January 25 ‘revolution’ and then virtually ending all aid and investment after Mohamed Morsi’s election. The chapter also analyses how the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel supported the 2013 coup politically, diplomatically and economically and concludes that any account of Egypt’s ‘failed democratic transition,’ while not discounting domestic politics, must acknowledge and integrate the role of regional actors.
Al-Qaida’s Failure in the Fertile Crescent
Authors: Bunzel Cole
Published: January 2024

This chapter assesses Al Qaida’s success in taking advantage of the security vacuum caused by the 2003 Iraq war and the 2011 Syrian civil war to establish a presence in Iraq and Syria. It explains why al Qaida was far less successful in gaining a foothold in the Fertile Crescent than is widely believed. Based on careful analysis of a variety of Arabic primary sources the author (the chapter) reveals significant differences in ideology and tactics between ‘al Qaida central’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the offshoots that emerged in Iraq after 2003 and in Syria in 2011, including al Qaida in Mesopotamia and the Islamic State. Differences in ideology, strategy, and tactics in addition to more mundane disputes over control, reveal that ‘al Qaida central’ had limited authority or influence over the jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria. This chapter serves as a corrective to accounts that emphasize al Qaida’s ‘enduring strength,’ ‘organizational coherence’ or reach into Iraq and Syria.
Rethinking Agamben on the Image
Authors: Lechte John
Published: January 2024

This chapter takes up Agamben’s use of Guy Debord’s notion of the society of the spectacle in his major work, Kingdom and the Glory. The latter reinterprets the notion of oikonomiawithin a theological frame. Also addressed is the way a theology and economy of the image is articulated. Agamben’s approach to the image in Debord’s films is analysed. The image is found to be opaque or a pure mediality, rather than – as with Bataille – transparent.
Conclusion: Understanding Violence, Image and Victim
Authors: Lechte John
Published: January 2024

The conclusion undertakes to investigate the main issues arising from the study of the work of the three thinkers in question. Particular emphasis is placed on whether Western law is capable of stemming the scapegoat mechanism, given that there can be bad laws. Aspects to the history of law are outlined. Agamben’s invocation of mediality is deemed inadequate for understanding the dynamics of law and violence. Derrida’s approach to law and justice is addressed. The notion of the image as object is found to be inadequate, as is the notion of the medium as opaque. Violence is defined as what is called violence.
Dreaming of Joyce Vincent’s Life: Carol Morley’s Intersectional Ethics Of Care
Authors: Bolton Lucy
Published: January 2024

This chapter sets out an ethical framework in which to think about Carol Morley’s film Dreams of a Life (2011). The chaper chapter considers the film’s ethical ramifications in the context of contemporary London as a global city, not forgetting that this is a specific woman’s life, in its phenomenological and ethical realities. This film is both very small and immense: it is a spotlight thrown on one person’s life, who ultimately didn’t seem to feature in anyone else’s life except in their memories. The film’s profoundly ethical challenge is to think about the depth of connection we can have with another person at any time and how that connection makes any difference in our lives.
Don’t Look Away: Production-Assemblages Of Rape Culture in Midi Z’s Nina Wu
Authors: Sim Jiaying
Published: January 2024

This chapter examines the affective register through which Nina Wu (Midi Z, 2019) confronts viewers with the sexual and gendered violence of the media and film industries. The production is carefully contextualised in terms of Taiwanese industry, noting that director Midi Z states that Nina Wu is not a #MeToo film. The chapter then considers Nina Wu’s ethical potential to viscerally prompt viewers to rethink rape culture in the specific context of the Asian media and screen industries, with dedicated focus on Taiwan. The analysis of the film’s aesthetics, and its metacinematic reflexivity, demonstrates how the viewer is invited to look anew at the assemblages and affects which produce the sexual and gendered violence which not only appears on screen, but also underpins production.
Michael Field's Revisionary Poetics
Authors: Ehnenn Jill
Published: January 2024

All authors try to do something new, or tell an old story in a new way; but for Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, who called themselves "Poets and Lovers" and who wrote as Michael Field, re-writing old stories, history, and traditional literary forms with extraordinary innovation was nothing short of high art. This book asks: How do ambitious experiments with a joint diary, closet drama, ekphrasis, elegy, and nature, devotional, and love poetry help Michael Field navigate the paradox of looking backward in order to achieve their goal “to make all things new”? How do their revisionary poetics help the coauthors, as queer, female Aesthetes, cope with late-Victorian modernity? Through an interdisciplinary approach to their passionate and sometimes eccentric life and work, this book provokes thought about the fin-de-siècle and invites readers, like Michael Field themselves, to engage the past in order to create transtemporal community and to make sense of the present.
The Game of the World
Authors: Axelos Kostas
Published: January 2024

Drawing on philosophies of gaming and play from Heraclitus and Plato through to Marx, Nietzsche and Heidegger, Kostas Axelos outlines an extraordinary, unique vision of our contemporary world. Originally published in 1969, The Game of the World brilliantly anticipates a 21st century in which ever-accelerating technological transformations coincide with a world at play and in play, at once fragmentary and totalised, disordered and hyper-organised. In the midst of this paradoxical and deranging becoming-planetary of the world, Axelos offers a sequence of profound meditations on play and playing, games and gaming, directing us towards new means of thinking and action that may enable us to face the world-historical challenges of our own present.
World History
Authors: Axelos Kostas
Published: January 2024

The human is a social and historical being. Historical becoming, knowledge and action. The problem of the ‘sense’ of history that becomes world-wide, planetary. The enigma of the historical motor. Ethnology, archaeology, history, economics, law, sociology, political science try to address and resolve the questions. Problematic ethics. The demand to transform the world and change life. Is history the becoming-world of thought, aspiring to universal enjoyment, recognition and liberty? The perspective of the end of history.
Introduction
Authors: Chaudhuri Sneha Kar , Samaddar Ramit
Published: January 2024

The introduction traces the remarkable career of Benegal with its beginnings in the realist ethos of parallel, or new wave, cinema of India. Attention has been placed on how within the ambit of parallel cinema, Benegal has managed to formulate a specific type of cinema that is underpinned by a distinct liberal ideology, an ideology central to his understanding of the complexities of a nation caught in a state of continual transition. How Oscar-winner Satyajit Ray played an instrumental role in shaping this liberal vision of Benegal also has been assessed. Emphasis is laid on the director’s perennial interest in voices from the periphery; his sensitive handling of gender/caste/ class issues through credibly delineated individualized characters. The chapter also tries to illustrate how the films of Shyambabu, as Benegal is popularly known among his Indian aficionados, instead of standing opposed to masala Bollywood potboilers, often critique yet reinforce the hybrid generic conventions of commercial Hindi cinema through a meaningful dialogue with the aesthetic as well as thematic concerns of mainstream filmmakers. The introduction concludes with brief outlines of the subsequent chapters.
Ankur : Multiple Narratives of Protest
Authors: Mondal Sarani Ghosal
Published: January 2024

Benegal’s first feature film Ankur (1974) deals with feudal tyranny in the hidebound rural world of a fictional village in Andhra Pradesh, India. The chief preoccupation of the film is to put emphasis on the need to protest against oppression and to register protest on various levels, vocal and silent, explicit and symbolic This chapter looks at the diverse forms of protest that Benegal weaves into his narrative about southern India’s victimized subalterns.It also attempts to discuss the ways in which the story, revolving around a landlord’s city-bred son (Surya), a lower-caste ‘dalit’ woman (Lakshmi), and her deaf-mute husband (Kishtaya), becomes a poignant reminder of how the ‘haves’ economically and sexually exploit the ‘have-nots’. Special emphasis has been laid on the character of the female protagonist, the world-weary Lakshmi, who revolts against the landlord’s family and registers her protest against feudal patriarchy. Lakshmi, the chapter will argue, voices the collective emotions of the village dwellers who have thus far silently suffered injustice. The ending of Ankur makes an immensely powerful statement concerning the awakened consciousness of the India’s rustic subalterns.
Nishant and the New Dawn: Towards a Sacerdotal–Secular Modernity?
Authors: Nikhila H
Published: January 2024

Nishant (1975) can be interpreted as the saga of the end of feudalism, an order that is characterized as expropriating the labour and enslaving the bodies of the toiling peasant classes. Thus, when the labouring classes rise in rebellion and kill the landlord and his family in Nishant, their death symbolically marks the end of the dark feudal night. But, Nishant also appears interesting for the way in which the new dawn is brought about: a dawn where the sacerdotal and the secular need, buttress, and aid each other.With this backdrop, the two questions that this chapter addresses are: (a) does the critique of feudalism from the position of modernity re-inscribe the sacerdotal, and thereby work to reinstate caste?; and (b) how much of the anxiety surrounding the figure of the upper-caste woman who (forcibly or by volition) cohabits with a lower caste man comes from the contemporary theatre of the time, where such scenarios of female crossovers and transgressions of caste boundaries were being staged (this is pertinent since Vijay Tendulkar, a leading Indian playwright with liberal leanings, wrote the original screenplay of Nishant)?
Churning Out Change: A Moment of Reading Manthan
Authors: Chaudhuri Ritu Sen
Published: January 2024

This chapter explores Benegal’s engagement with the idea of social change as represented in Manthan (1976), a film set around a milk-producing village in Gujarat, India. Financed by the members of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, the film upholds the incredible power of reform and empowerment of the economically-challenged sections of rural India. It fictionalizes the real-life Dr Verghese Kurien’s groundbreaking work in Gujarat: his efforts to launch the pioneering Operation Flood, a cooperative movement involving the production and distribution of milk and milk products by the farmers themselves, evading the corrupt middlemen. The film’s protagonist, Dr Rao, who embodies Kurien, reaches a remote, idyllic village in Gujarat and sets up a dairy cooperative. A staunch liberal, Dr Rao persistently calls for the untouchable ‘dalits’ to join the cooperative to make it sustainable. Consequently, the cooperative movement gets embroiled into a tug-of-war between the tradition-bound locals and the elite intellectual with a modern, emancipatory outlook.In discussing these details, the chapter tries to trace the politically-charged message of change in Manthan. It explores the ways in which the film creates mass awareness about the changing face of rural India grappling with the often contradictory claims of tradition and modernity.
Mammo and Projections of the Muslim Woman: Indian Parallel Cinema, Partition and Belonging
Authors: Ahmed Omar
Published: January 2024

Released during the final wave of the Parallel Cinema movement (1990 - 1995), Benegal’s Mammo (1994) was the first film in his 1990s trilogy on Muslim identity in a post secular India. The socio-political backdrop to the film, exemplified in three major events, the demolition of the Babri Mosque (1992), the Bombay riots (1993), and the Bombay bomb blasts (1993), map Hindutva’s ascension in the early 1990s. Mammo, and other films (notably Saeed Mirza’s Naseem, released in 1995) serve as ‘a conscious effort…to represent the cultural space of the Indian Muslim’ Also at work in Mammo, and which will be elucidated in this chapter, are the politics of Partition and secularism, both tied to the complicated historical de-Othering of the Muslim.To start with, the chapter examines the ways in which the film mourns the demise of secularism, functioning as a site of grief and loss in a transmuting Indian society and how this resonates with Benegal’s authorial concerns. This has been followed with a reading of how the secularist address is problematized, returning to the lingering memories of Partition in the 1970s, demonstrating how and why the film re-enacts the trauma/wounds of Partition.
§1. On the very idea of an absolutely perfect being.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

Leibniz defines ‘perfection’ as an attribute containing no contradiction and capable of a highest degree. On this basis, number and figure imply contradiction and no highest degree, thus cannot be perfections; but ‘goodness’ and ‘knowledge’ can be; therefore, God can have these attributes. Difficulty arises however when we try to conceive of God as ‘without limits’ and yet as containing a highest degree. One possibility is to conceive of God as absolute, containing all possible infinities including number. Explanations are given for why space and figure involve incomplete and contradictory notions. God is also thought to be morally perfect, a point which will be shown in several ways throughout the Discourse.
On those who say that God could have done better.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

As a consequence of God’s perfection, Leibniz insists that God could not have made a better world than he did. To say so would be to find fault in God. Holy Scripture, the Holy Fathers—all agree on the general harmony of the universe—except for some Modern philosophers who hold that if God could not have made a better world, then he would not be free. Against this Leibniz maintains that it is ‘the highest freedom to act in perfection following sovereign reason.’ Consequently, God deserves to be glorified. A clarification is offered regarding God’s glory: we glorify God, not for his benefit, but for ours. Additional insight on perfection is gained by noticing a passage Leibniz had excised from the first draft. A circle is the most perfect of figures because it consists of a single, continuous, symmetrical line. But it also contains an infinity of angles. This example of simplicity encompassing variety foreshadows Leibniz’ rule for perfection as will be seen in articles 5 and 6.
On the rules of perfection: the simplest means and the richest effects.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

In this article Leibniz begins to advance his conception of the rule of God’s conduct and creation, as consisting of a balance of simplicity and variety. Accordingly, the world consists of the fewest laws, or decrees, productive of the richest, most varied, effects. The appeal of this criterion is that we intuitively appreciate God as a Divine Architect, who always provides the most efficient use of space, material, and purpose of design. This criterion reflects the traditional notions of God’s simplicity and abundance. But variety implies imperfection, as well, since it requires difference, and difference entails degrees of imperfection. This justifies, in part, God’s permission of sin. As a result, the world cannot be the best possible in an absolute sense, but the best it can be given the necessary limitations. In the end, simplicity and variety best characterize God’s wisdom, as reflected in astronomy, where the laws are neither too simple nor too complex to produce the richest phenomena.
That miracles conform to the general order, though counter to natural laws; and how God permits evil but does not will it.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

The previous articles focusing on God’s order have led to this problem: miracles, conceived as contravening natural laws, would appear to be out of order; worse, they imply that God could have made the world better, as if his will were not already most simple and fruitful. However, again depending on Malebranche, Leibniz distinguishes God’s ‘general will’ with which all events correspond, from God’s ‘particular will’ from which miracles ensue. How this view is consistent with God’s simplicity is not resolved until article 16 with the notion of God’s ‘extraordinary concourse’. Another difficulty arises, however: Since everything occurs according to God’s general will, God appears to be responsible for all evils (misfortunes as well as human moral transgression). Leibniz attempts to solve this problem with the notion of God’s ‘permissive will’, which means that while God always disapproves of evil, he permits it (so as not to interfere with human freedom), but only because he knows how to derive a greater good from it. This does not mean that God uses evil to make things better, but that in spite of evil, the good arises eventually.
Several ‘paradoxes’ following from the complete notion; and that ‘each unique substance expresses the whole universe in its manner’, that is, according to its unique degree of perfection.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

These “paradoxes” or unfamiliar theoretical consequences of Leibniz’s account of a complete notion, are as follows: The first is the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, which states that each substance is unique. The second is that on the genus-specie classification system each substance is a ‘lowest species’; the third, that a substance begins only by creation and ends by annihilation; fourth, a substance cannot be sub-divided without destroying it; nor can two substances become one; and finally, each substance expresses every other. The doctrine of expression is explained in some detail. It is then argued that each substance is unique according to its unique degree of perfection, which is determined by the individual substance’s degree of knowledge, power, and contribution to the overall perfection. However, the substance’s knowledge and power do not necessarily determine its overall contribution, since the latter must weighed in relation to the contributions of all other substances.
That substantial forms have their place in physics, but not as explanations of the details of phenomena.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

In this article Leibniz takes a sharp turn aways from theological and metaphysical questions to questions of physics--yet these questions still have metaphysical import. Leibniz deals with the traditional, Aristotelian, concept of substantial forms, which are responsible for the division of natural things into distinct kinds. A history of substantial form physics, drawn from ancient philosophy, is given in order to shown how the “Modern”, Cartesian sort of physics, called the “mechanical philosophy” came to reject it. Leibniz, however, thinks that something of both types of physical investigation should be preserved. The mechanical philosophy cannot, ultimately, do without an appeal to substantial forms; but neither should substantial forms be appealed to in empirical investigation. In subsequent articles, Leibniz will explain more precisely why substantial forms, or at least something of an incorporeal nature, must be included in fundamental physics.
Thus, to explain the cause of motion in bodies, ‘one must have recourse to metaphysical considerations separate from extension’.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

Judging from the title, Leibniz is simply following the results of the previous article. However, his purpose is more specifically directed to exposing a flaw in yet another Cartesian conception—of motion itself. That is, on Descartes’ account motion consists in the ‘change of place’ of a body from its place among resting bodies to a place among other resting bodies. But if this were true, Leibniz counters, then the same motion could be observed, except by attributing tmotion to the bodies supposed to be at rest, and rest to the body supposed to be in motion. In other words, motion is apparent and not real, since motion cannot be truly attribute to one body rather than another. The same indeterminability could result when deciding between the Ptolemaic and Copernican astronomical hypotheses, since the geometrical relations among the objects are the same in both. Thus motion can be attributed to one set of bodies rather than another. We must then be able to attribute motion to the force of the individual moving body. Furthermore, since Descartes depends on motion to distinguish parts of matter, no distinctions can be observed, due to the relativity of motion.
On the utility of final causes in physics.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

Leibniz has two main reasons for retaining final causes in physical explanations, against their banishment by Descartes and Spinoza. For one, final causes are needed to complete the account of efficient causes; two, leaving out final causes leads to impiety, since final causes are, in the end, the causes of God in nature. A detailed account is given of the difference and relationship between efficient and final causes and why Descartes and other natural philosophers sought to banish them as unnecessary and unknowable. But for Leibniz, without final causes, we cannot explain why the world should contain the apparent order it has—and this implies God’s intelligent design; moreover, as he goes on to show in subsequent articles, final causes may be employed usefully in the discovery of efficient causes.
Reconciliation of final and efficient causes, as exemplified by the laws of reflection and refraction.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

Continuing to bring to bear the evidence of final causes, Leibniz shows how efficient and final causes are necessary for a complete explanation of phenomena. They are also useful for the discovery of the former. As a point of focus, Leibniz examines Descartes’ Optics, in which his laws of reflection and refraction are given efficient causal explanations. Leibniz then shows that the law of reflection, that the angles of incidence and reflection of a light ray are equal, depend on a law of the “easiest path.” But this implies a final, not an efficient cause. The same holds for the law of refraction. Considerable detail is given on how these laws are supposed to work for Descartes and Leibniz. The overall conclusion is that the two types of law harmonize with each other in that the same phenomena is observed by means of either. However, without final causes, the reason for the efficient cause cannot be explained.
The degrees and varieties of ideas and knowledge: Ideas clear, confused, distinct, adequate, intuitive, and suppositive. Definitions: nominal, real, causal, and essential.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

This article consists of epistemology proper, that is, an examination of the degrees of clarity and certainty of our knowledge, including empirical knowledge, but mostly conceptual. Leibniz borrows much of this article from his earlier essay called “Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas,” in which he aims to show that Descartes’ criteria for certainty, namely ‘clear and distinct ideas’ is not very clear and distinct. He aims to improve and go beyond it by giving precise definition of each of these terms and others that involve higher degrees of cognition. Cognition rises to the level of ‘adequate’ knowledge when all the ideas of a thing are defined right down to its primitive notions. ‘Intuitive’ knowledge also consists in this but requires all definitions to be grasped immediately in a single comprehension.
On divine concurrence; on the spontaneity of the soul; that the will should always tend to the apparent good; on the indifference of the will; on precautions against the surprises of appearances; on the assurance from all eternity that the soul will not make use of this power; on whether you can act contrary to your notion and remain the same individual; on Judas’ sin – and possible worlds; on the metaphysics of sin and evil: the original limitation of creatures; on the degrees of grace.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

This complex and far-ranging article encompasses several concepts central to Leibniz’s metaphysical system. They are: The spontaneity of the soul, in which being the cause of your actions is asserted as a necessary condition for free will; That the will always tends to the apparent good, which is the primary action-guiding principle of the soul; On the indifference of the will, which argues that the will is never in a state of complete indifference to choice, nor is it necessitated; On precautions against the surprises of appearances, in which pain and difficulty can be avoided by preparing for them in advance; On the assurance from all eternity that the soul will not use this power, which argues it is possible, though difficult, to act according to duty rather than following a sinful, sensual impulse; On whether you can act contrary to your notion and remain the same individual—you can, as long as the change is caused by you; On Judas’ sin and possible worlds, where it is explained how Judas’ sin could be included in a world that conceived to be the best possible; and finally on the metaphysics of sin and the degrees of grace.
On God’s dispensation of grace; on middle knowledge and God’s reasons for admitting a possible individual into existence – thus resolving all the difficulties.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

Leibniz continues his discussion of problems with the traditional doctrine of grace, which creatures are powerless to earn, since God’s dispenses it freely; hence it appears that God dispenses grace arbitrarily and without merit. However, for Leibniz God must have reason for his will. A possible solution arises with Molina’s doctrine of God’s middle knowledge, according to which God possesses counterfactual knowledge of what some individual would do in some non-factual situation. This would allow God to consider how the creature would respond to grace, were it freely given. Thus, grace would remain a free gift. Leibniz rejects this solution, because it does not explain why God dispenses more grace to some rather than others. His solution, which he boldly claims puts an end to all the difficulty, is to argue that prior to creation God examines the complete notion of every individual substance and determines which require the right amount of grace to bring about the best possible world. This way, creatures still do not deserve the grace God gives them, but the actions of the creature figure to some degree in the compossibility calculus for creating the best possible world.
On the metaphysical ‘commerce’ of soul and body; and on the source of confused perceptions.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

This article focuses on one of Leibniz’s most well-known doctrines, which later came to be called “pre-established harmony.” According to what he here calls the ‘commerce’ of soul and body, Leibniz provides a solution to the so-called mind-body problem. It is unclear, even to Descartes who was the first to formulate the problem, how these two supposed distinct substances could causally interact. Leibniz’s solution is a consequence of two firmly held positions: that the body itself is not a substance; and that no predicates external to the substance can enter it. So, while the body and soul do have a relationship, it is not one of causal interaction. Rather, the motions of the body correspond with the perceptions of the soul, acting in parallel to each other, without interacting. Leibniz is shown to reject Cartesian dualism, Malebranche’s occasionalism, and the Scholastic doctrine of causal influx. The second theme in the article touches on the source of confused perceptions, which lies in the perceptions the soul has of bodies external to it. All perceptions occur internal to the soul; however, it is possible for the soul to have unconscious perceptions that can rise to the level of conscious awareness or apperception.
On the differences between spirits (minds), animal souls, and substantial forms; and that immortality implies continuity of memory (or, why it is pointless to wish to become the King of China).
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

This article outlines Leibniz’s distinctions among kinds of soul-like entities encountered so far. Substantial forms: Leibniz hesitates or denies that bodies are substances, largely for the reason that bodies lack their own principle of unity. But substantial form provides them with unity. These are soul-like because they are immaterial and cannot perish. However, they lack something animal souls have: sensation. Animal souls also are capable of certain degrees of intelligence and memory (which Descartes denied to them). At a higher level, spirits or substances properly speaking have all the capacities of animal spirits, but also the distinguishing capacities for reflection, abstraction of universals from sense experience, and moral behaviour. This last makes them susceptible of reward, punishment, and immortality. Leibniz makes the additional point that immortality requires continuity of identity. It would make no difference to you if when you died you became a different person, say, the King of China, or something fantastic. You would have no reason to wish for it, because you would have no memory of your previous self.
That Jesus Christ has revealed the mystery of the admirable laws of the Kingdom of Heaven and the grandeur of the supreme felicity God prepares for those who love him.
Authors: Johns Christopher
Published: January 2024

Leibniz reminds us that he is, after all, a Christian philosopher who wants to show how his complex metaphysical system reflects the most ordinary aspects of biblical truth. He does this by quoting copiously from the New Testament, quotes which reflect his positions in the Discourse. For example, that God has numbered all the hairs on our head (Luke 12: 6-7) reflects God’s care for every predicate true of us, as contained in our individual notion. But more to the point is what Augustine asserted in his Confessions: it was the instructions of the Platonists lead him to understand Scripture. In this way, a discourse on metaphysics may lead us to an adequate conception of the nature and ways of God, and the happiness that issues from the contemplation of his perfections.
‘If It Can be Done why Do It’: Gertr Ude Stein
Authors: Wallace Jeff
Published: January 2024

This chapter explores the fortunes of abstraction across a range of Gertrude Stein’s texts, principally The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Tender Buttons and The Making of Americans. It observes that while there is a critical consensus that Stein is an abstract writer, what this abstraction means is unstable and ambiguous, encapsulated in Mina Loy’s phrase ‘abstract impress’. It proposes that abstraction in Stein emerges from a scientific and philosophical training influenced by Emerson, James and Whitehead (for whom see chapter 7), a sense of what a specifically American modernity means, and a vision of the ‘Master-Piece’ in experimental writing and visual art. Abstraction for Stein becomes an affirmation of the impossible – ‘if it can be done why do it’ – in which impossibility is a demotic and enabling condition of the radically new, surpassing the known forms of scientific truth and human nature. Stein’s theory of abstraction, the chapter concludes, is of a self-sufficient writing that can be loved, beyond established modes of human communication, meaning or representation.
‘Resist The Intelligence Almost Successfully’: Wallace Stevens
Authors: Wallace Jeff
Published: January 2024

This chapter addresses the prominence of the words abstract and abstraction in Wallace Stevens’s poetry, offering a close reading of a range of Stevens’s poems but focussing on ‘The Ultimate Poem is Abstract’ and ‘Notes toward a Supreme Fiction’. It builds on but distinguishes itself from existing critical work by Ragg, Altieri and Skibsrud by arguing for abstraction in Stevens as a word that must do its work as poetry. It proposes, following Ben Lerner’s theory of the ‘hatred’ of poetry (which is also a love) that Stevens’s conception of an ultimate abstract poetry can never be realised in actual poetry. Rather, Stevens creates a glamour around abstraction, a condition of sensual attraction towards the kind of philosophical as well as aesthetic work that poetry might aspire to – ‘It Must Be Abstract’. Such work, it is argued, involves a new way of imagining the relationship between the human and the inhuman; Stevens calls into question such polarities as being and nothingness, cold and warmth, through the singular deployment of recurrent figures such as the sun and the giant.
Conclusion: Herbert Read and Aesthetic Education
Authors: Wallace Jeff
Published: January 2024

This conclusion presents Read as a critic and writer whose preoccupation with artistic abstraction foreshadows the concerns of this book. The chapter notes that Herbert Read’s humane and anarchistic educative mission was, as in Whitehead’s thinking, to place aesthetics at the centre of learning and of critical thought. It argues further, however, that Read’s recursive attempts at explaining modernist abstraction to the common reader allowed intellectual difficulty and the affect of enjoyment to co-exist, and that what Read derived from the work of Worringer was an inorganicism that queries the limits of the humanism Read otherwise espoused. In returning to the question of what it is that we want from abstraction, this conclusion proposes Spivak’s formula of aesthetic education for epistemological performance as a useful definition of abstraction in modernism and modernity, and one that opens out the utopian prospect of an ‘abstraction for all’.
Epilogue
Authors: Kwan Roberta
Published: January 2024

The epilogue first recaps the key strands of this book’s theoretical framework. The Protestant Reformation contributed significantly to situating humans hermeneutically in relation to truth, thus to the emergence of the interpreting self. Drawing on Gadamer’s notion of ‘productive prejudices that enable understanding’, the epilogue argues that the Reformers’ complex model of human being – at once ‘familiar’ and ‘strange’ to modern interpreters of Shakespeare – and the hermeneutic tradition it informs are productive prejudices affording understanding of Shakespeare and his continuing relevance in ‘a different way’. Moreover, (re)acquiring some knowledge of this tradition might introduce a different way of seeing oneself and others that holds out the possibility of hope in today’s conflict-riven public square. The epilogue sketches early modern and modern treatments of this possibility: Shakespeare’s dramatization of it in The Winter’s Tale and Rowan Williams’ argument that theology can contribute to the cultivation of ‘genuine pluralism’. Today, we continue to turn to Shakespeare’s stories to illuminate our own. This book has shown that bringing the Reformers’ hermeneutics into dialogue with Shakespeare provides interpreters with a complex, rich (and sometimes different) way of understanding his plays, their representations of selfhood, and ourselves.
The Empire Gazes Back? The Portrait of a Lady and Vanity Fair
Authors: Roberts Gillian
Published: January 2024

This chapter discusses the effects that foregrounding a settler-colonial or postcolonial positioning in the framing or selection of elements from the literary source has on the adaptation of canonical literary texts. It engages with the transnationalism of filmmaking at the same time as it addresses the specificities of national film industries and the national and cultural contexts in which individual filmmakers operate. Focusing on Australia-based New Zealander Jane Campion’s 1996 adaptation of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady and Indo-American director Mira Nair’s 2004 adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, the chapter argues that these films constitute settler- and postcolonial and feminist refractions of these American and British male-authored canonical novels. While both films interrogate the figure of the white, male collector, they unevenly address their source texts’ representations of race, with Campion privileging white characters’ European experiences and Nair seeking to represent India but in an exoticist manner that aligns with Orientalism. In different ways, however, in grappling with these canonical novels, Campion’s and Nair’s films intervene in prevailing representations of empire and the nineteenth century.
Challenging Points of Entry: Theorising ‘Modern’ and ‘Contemporary’ Art of Iran
Authors: Keshmirshekan Hamid
Published: January 2024

It articulates the main concept around which this book is centred, that is, the question of terminology and definitions of modern and contemporary art of Iran. Both by conceptual and historiographical examination of modern and contemporary art in Iran, it tries to theorise the concepts through an alternative art historical account. The chapter takes a step towards (re)tracing the historiography of modern and contemporary art of Iran. It raises the question of whether artworks created outside the Euro-American sphere, the so-called Global North, can be narrated within existing parameters of art historical conceptualisation and classification. It addresses the problem of terminology and temporality together with how these have been interpreted in Iran. The chapter examines the question of whether the history of the modern and contemporary art of Iran can be defined within or in contradiction to the existing parameters and frameworks of Euro-American and Islamic art historical context. It tries to expand upon the genealogies of modern and contemporary art movements in Iran placing them within the Iranian cultural history, including corresponding cultural developments in other fields of the arts such as poetry and literature.