Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species

1979 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip R. Sloan

The entry of time and history into biological systems of classification is perhaps the single most significant development in the history of biological systematics in the modern era. Darwin's claiming that descent is ‘… the hidden bond of connexion which naturalists have been seeking under the term of the natural system’, rather than seeing the answer in the multitude of previous attempts to resolve the problem in terms of morphological affinities, analogies, and complex relations of resemblance, marked the turning point in a long search into the meaning of biological taxonomy, and allowed the development of Darwin's insights by Haeckel, Plate and others into modern phylogenetic systematics.

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sasson Sofer

There are two popular claims about diplomacy in the modern history of international relations. According to the first, World War One constituted a decisive turning point in the modern era, marking the emergence of a new diplomacy, distinct in both essence and style from that which had existed previously. The second maintains that diplomacy is in a state of continuous decline. This study proposes that the distinction between old and new diplomacy is simplistic and inaccurate, and that the argument regarding the decline of diplomacy is not a valid one, Raymond Aron's observation that ‘diplomacy, in the traditional sense of the term, functions up to a certain degree between allies, but hardly any longer among enemies, or even between the blocs and the neutral nations’ is only partially correct, and reflects its time of writing at the height of the cold war.


1994 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 129-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques A. Gauthier

Publication of the English-language version of Hennig's (1966)Phylogenetic Systematicsmarked a turning point in the history of inquiry into the genealogy of life. Hennig catalyzed a long overdue reevaluation of systematic theory and method that should have followed immediately upon publication of Darwin's revolutionary ideas (de Queiroz, 1988). Hennig revitalized the field by taking the Theory of Descent to the core ofsystematics(de Queiroz, 1988, 1992)—the methods for investigating life's genealogy—andtaxonomy—the methods for communicating the results of those investigations (de Queiroz and Gauthier, 1992). Unfortunately, the Darwinian revolution has yet to sweep aside all vestiges of nonevolutionary thinking in this field. To further that goal, and to provide an update of Gauthier et al. (1989), this contribution summarizes current progress in the phylogeny and taxonomy of the major clades of land-egg-laying, or amniote, vertebrates.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim A. Dreyer

Karl Barth’s theology presents itself as a paradigm shift during the early part of the 20th century. As time went on, the radical nature of his theology manifested in different ways. Not only did it start out as a critique of Protestant liberal theology, but it also transformed the understanding of the church, mission and basic reformed doctrines such as election. This was met by vociferous protest, from liberal as well as more orthodox theologians. Despite all, Pope Pius XII called Barth the greatest theologian since Thomas Aquinas. This contribution reflects on the first of Barth’s major publications, his Römerbrief which first appeared in 1919. The point is made that Barth’s Römerbrief could be regarded as an important turning point in the history of Protestant theology. The context of the Römerbrief is discussed as well as some of Barth’s early theological views present in it, illustrating the radical break between Barth and the liberal theology of the Modern Era.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 435-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Addy Pross

Despite the considerable advances in molecular biology over the past several decades, the nature of the physical–chemical process by which inanimate matter become transformed into simplest life remains elusive. In this review, we describe recent advances in a relatively new area of chemistry, systems chemistry, which attempts to uncover the physical–chemical principles underlying that remarkable transformation. A significant development has been the discovery that within the space of chemical potentiality there exists a largely unexplored kinetic domain which could be termed dynamic kinetic chemistry. Our analysis suggests that all biological systems and associated sub-systems belong to this distinct domain, thereby facilitating the placement of biological systems within a coherent physical/chemical framework. That discovery offers new insights into the origin of life process, as well as opening the door toward the preparation of active materials able to self-heal, adapt to environmental changes, even communicate, mimicking what transpires routinely in the biological world. The road to simplest proto-life appears to be opening up.


Author(s):  
Christopher Brooke

This is the first full-scale look at the essential place of Stoicism in the foundations of modern political thought. Spanning the period from Justus Lipsius's Politics in 1589 to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile in 1762, and concentrating on arguments originating from England, France, and the Netherlands, the book considers how political writers of the period engaged with the ideas of the Roman and Greek Stoics that they found in works by Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The book examines key texts in their historical context, paying special attention to the history of classical scholarship and the historiography of philosophy. The book delves into the persisting tension between Stoicism and the tradition of Augustinian anti-Stoic criticism, which held Stoicism to be a philosophy for the proud who denied their fallen condition. Concentrating on arguments in moral psychology surrounding the foundations of human sociability and self-love, the book details how the engagement with Roman Stoicism shaped early modern political philosophy and offers significant new interpretations of Lipsius and Rousseau together with fresh perspectives on the political thought of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes. The book shows how the legacy of the Stoics played a vital role in European intellectual life in the early modern era.


Author(s):  
К.А. Панченко

Abstract The article examines the conquest of the County of Tripoli by the Mamelukes in 1289, and the reaction of various Middle Eastern ethnoreligious groups to this event. Along with the Monophysite perspective (the Syriac chronicle of Bar Hebraeus’ Continuator and the work of the Coptic historian Mufaddal ibn Abi-l-Fadail), and the propagandist texts of Muslim Arabic panegyric poets, we will pay special attention to the historical memory of the Orthodox (Melkite) and Maronite communities of northern Lebanon. The contemporary of these events — the Orthodox author Suleiman al-Ashluhi, a native of one of the villages of the Akkar Plateau — laments the fall of Tripoli in his rhymed eulogy. It is noteworthy that this author belongs to the rural Melkite subculture, which — in spite of its conservative character — was capable of producing original literature. Suleiman al-Ashluhi’s work was forsaken by the following generations of Melkites; his poem was only preserved in Maronite manuscripts. Maronite historical memory is just as fragmented. The father of the Modern Era Maronite historiography — Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî († 1516) only had fragmentary information on the history of his people in the 13th century: local chronicles and the heroic epos that glorified the Maronite struggle against the Muslim lords that tried to conquer Mount Lebanon. Gabriel’s depiction of the past is not only biased and subject to aims of religious polemics, but also factually inaccurate. Nevertheless, the texts of Suleiman al-Ashluhi and Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî give us the opportunity to draw conclusions on the worldview, educational level, political orientation and peculiar traits of the historical memory of various Christian communities of Mount Lebanon.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
Frederick S. Colby

Despite the central importance of festival and devotional piety to premodernMuslims, book-length studies in this field have been relatively rare.Katz’s work, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, represents a tour-deforceof critical scholarship that advances the field significantly both throughits engagement with textual sources from the formative period to the presentand through its judicious use of theoretical tools to analyze this material. Asits title suggests, the work strives to explore how Muslims have alternativelypromoted and contested the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth atdifferent points in history, with a particular emphasis on how the devotionalistapproach, which was prominent in the pre-modern era, fell out of favoramong Middle Eastern Sunnis in the late twentieth century. Aimed primarilyat specialists in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, especially scholarsof history, law, and religion, this work is recommended to anyone interestedin the history of Muslim ritual, the history of devotion to the Prophet, andthe interplay between normative and non-normative forms ofMuslim beliefand practice ...


2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-257
Author(s):  
Jan Greitens

AbstractIn the history of economic thought, monetary theories in the Germanspeaking world of the early modern era are considered backward compared to the approaches in other European countries. This backwardness can be illustrated by two authors from the mid-18th century who were not only contemporaries but also successively in the service of Frederick II (“the Great”) of Prussia. The first is Johann Philipp Graumann, one of the 'projectors' of the 18th century. As master of the mints in Prussia, he developed a coin project, where he tried to implement a new monetary standard to promote trade, generate seigniorage income and implement the Prussian coins as a kind of a reserve currency. In his writings, he developed a typical mercantilistic monetary theory with a clear understanding of the mechanism in the balance of payments. But even when he tried to include credit instruments, he did not take banks or broader financial markets into account. The second thinker is Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi, who took the opposite position concerning the coin project as well as in his theory. He defended a strictly metalistic monetary approach where the value of money is only based on the metal's value. While Graumann rejected the English coin system, Justi recommended its laws for countries without their own mines, because the sovereign should not misuse his right of coinage. For him, the monetary system had tobe reliable and stable to serve trade and economic development.


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