scholarly journals The struggle for memory: Jian Bozan on historical materialism

Author(s):  
Dawid Rogacz

Abstract This paper offers a first analysis of the philosophy of history developed by Jian Bozan (1898–1968), the author of China's earliest comprehensive exposition of historical materialism. Despite his central importance for the establishment of professional historical studies in PRC, the existing studies neglect Jian's original contribution to the development of Chinese Marxism and his pre-war works in general, focusing solely on his participation in the debate over the relation between history and theory in the 1960s. The paper seeks to fill this lacuna by providing a critical account of Jian Bozan's understanding of historical laws, progress, the stages of history, human freedom and the class struggle. Jian's synthesis of historicism and historical materialism, which at a time was seen as an alternative to the Maoist view of history, was officially condemned during the Cultural Revolution and led to his premature death. However, this paper demonstrates that, following the public rehabilitation of the thought of Jian Bozan in 1978, it was his system that had an important impact on the historiography in Dengist China. Furthermore, the paper argues that Jian's approach to historical materialism brought many novelties in relation to the preceding Sino-Marxist views of history.

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 1458-1464
Author(s):  
Sweta Kamboj ◽  
Rohit Kamboj ◽  
Shikha Kamboj ◽  
Kumar Guarve ◽  
Rohit Dutt

Background: In the 1960s, the human coronavirus was designated, which is responsible for the upper respiratory tract disease in children. Back in 2003, mainly 5 new coronaviruses were recognized. This study directly pursues to govern knowledge, attitude and practice of viral and droplet infection isolation safeguard among the researchers during the outbreak of the COVID-19. Introduction: Coronavirus is a proteinaceous and infectious pathogen. It is an etiological agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Coronavirus, appeared in China from the seafood and poultry market last year, which has spread in various countries, and has caused several deaths. Methods: The literature data has been taken from different search platforms like PubMed, Science Direct, Embase, Web of Science, who.int portal and complied. Results: Corona virology study will be more advanced and outstanding in recent years. COVID-19 epidemic is a threatening reminder not solely for one country but all over the universe. Conclusion: In this review article, we encapsulated the pathogenesis, geographical spread of coronavirus worldwide, also discussed the perspective of diagnosis, effective treatment, and primary recommendations by the World Health Organization, and guidelines of the government to slow down the impact of the virus are also optimistic, efficacious and obliging for the public health. However, it will take a prolonged time in the future to overcome this epidemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 246 ◽  
pp. 354-373
Author(s):  
Nicolai Volland

AbstractRed Guard newspapers and pamphlets (wenge xiaobao) were a key source for early research on the Cultural Revolution, but they have rarely been analysed in their own right. How did these publications regard their status and function within the larger information ecosystem of the People's Republic, and what is their role in the history of the modern Chinese public sphere? This article focuses on a particular subset of Red Guard papers, namely those published by radical groups within the PRC's press and publication system. These newspapers critiqued the pre-Cultural Revolution press and reflected upon the possible futures of a new, revolutionary Chinese press. Short-lived as these experiments were, they constitute a test case to re-examine the functioning of the public in a decidedly “uncivil” polity. Ultimately, they point to the ambiguous potential of the public for both consensus and conflict, liberation and repression, which characterizes the press in 20th-century China.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 533
Author(s):  
Daniel Porubec

P. A. Florensky dedicated nine writings of his rich interdisciplinary work to the phenomenon of cult, which were first published in a censored form in 1977. We turn our attention to one of these writings called Cult, Religion and Culture, published under the common title Philosophy of Cult, in which the author elaborates a distinctive concept of the cult as the primary activity of man and at the same time as the gift offered to him for his own sanctification. It is the sacred cult—sacra from where, according to the author, two other human activities originate: namely, the ability to create tools—instrumenta—and the ability to create abstract concepts—notiones. However, both human activities have to be understood as a process of disintegration of the cult—sacra. Thus, by prioritizing one of the three human activities mentioned above, we can recognize three historical periods in history. According to Florensky, the human ability to create tools corresponds to the era of historical materialism, the ability to create concepts corresponds to the era of ideologism, and ultimately, the primary human activity—the life of man in the cult and its culture corresponds to the sacral materialism or concrete idealism.


Author(s):  
DANIEL STOLJAR

Abstract Bernard Williams argues that philosophy is in some deep way akin to history. This article is a novel exploration and defense of the Williams thesis (as I call it)—though in a way anathema to Williams himself. The key idea is to apply a central moral from what is sometimes called the analytic philosophy of history of the 1960s to the philosophy of philosophy of today, namely, the separation of explanation and laws. I suggest that an account of causal explanation offered by David Lewis may be modified to bring out the way in which this moral applies to philosophy, and so to defend the Williams thesis. I discuss in detail the consequences of the thesis for the issue of philosophical progress and note also several further implications: for the larger context of contemporary metaphilosophy, for the relation of philosophy to other subjects, and for explaining, or explaining away, the belief that success in philosophy requires a field-specific ability or brilliance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-377
Author(s):  
Ewa Domańska ◽  
Paul Vickers

Abstract In this article I demonstrate that the ideas outlined in Jerzy Topolski’s Methodology of History (Polish 1968, English translation 1976) could not only offer a reference point for and indeed enrich ongoing debates in the philosophy of history, but also help to set directions for future developments in the field. To support my argument, I focus on two themes addressed in Topolski’s work: 1) the understanding of the methodology of history as a separate discipline and its role both in defending the autonomy of history and in creating an integrated knowledge of the past, which I read here through the lens of the current merging of the humanities and natural sciences; and 2) the role of a Marxist anthropocentrism based on the notion of humans as the creators of history, which I consider here in the context of the ongoing critique of anthropocentrism. I point to the value of continuing to use concepts drawn from Marxist vocabulary, such as alienation, emancipation, exploitation and overdetermination, for interpreting the current state of the world and humanity. I stress that Marxist anthropocentrism, with its support for individual and collective agency, remains crucial to the creation of emancipatory theories and visions of the future, even if it has faced criticism for its Eurocentrism and might seem rather familiar and predictable when viewed in the context of the contemporary humanities. Nevertheless, new manifestations of Marxist theory, in the form of posthumanist Marxism and an interspecies historical materialism that transcends anthropocentrism, might play an important role in redefining the humanities and humanity, including its functions and tasks within human and multispecies communities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 555-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hieronim Jakubowski

Epidemiological studies established that elevated homocysteine, an important intermediate in folate, vitamin B12, and one carbon metabolism, is associated with poor health, including heart and brain diseases. Earlier studies show that patients with severe hyperhomocysteinemia, first identified in the 1960s, exhibit neurological and cardiovascular abnormalities and premature death due to vascular complications. Although homocysteine is considered to be a nonprotein amino acid, studies over the past 2 decades have led to discoveries of protein-related homocysteine metabolism and mechanisms by which homocysteine can become a component of proteins. Homocysteine-containing proteins lose their biological function and acquire cytotoxic, proinflammatory, proatherothrombotic, and proneuropathic properties, which can account for the various disease phenotypes associated with hyperhomocysteinemia. This review describes mechanisms by which hyperhomocysteinemia affects cellular proteostasis, provides a comprehensive account of the biological chemistry of homocysteine-containing proteins, and discusses pathophysiological consequences and clinical implications of their formation.


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil T Lunt ◽  
Ian G Trotman

Since the 1960s there has been a growing interest in evaluation shown by most Western countries. Alongside discussion of practical and theoretical issues of evaluation, such as methodological developments, best practice, and cross-cultural practice, there has also been increased interest in mapping the history of evaluation activity. Historical discussions are significant for three reasons; first, in providing a record for future generations of evaluators. Second, they provide a consideration of the domestic and international context that has shaped evaluation development, giving each country its distinct institutional make-up and brand of evaluation activity. Third, they assist a country's evaluation capacity development by building on its strengths and compensating for the weaknesses of its history. This article traces the emergence of evaluation within New Zealand using the metaphor of dramaturgy to introduce the settings and actors that we consider to have been constituent of what was played out in the New Zealand situation. Our remit is a broad one of attempting to describe and explain the range of evaluation activities, including program evaluation, organisational review, performance management, and process and policy evaluation. Within this article a broad overview only is possible. As an example of a more in-depth study, a comprehensive article could be prepared on the history of performance management in the public service. Our comments cover developments in the public sector, tertiary sector, and private and professional organisations. It is a companion paper to one on the history of evaluation in Australia, prepared by Colin A Sharp in a recent issue of this journal (Sharpe 2003).


Author(s):  
YEHESKEL HASENFELD

Human service programs have gone from a period of rapid growth in the 1960s and early 1970s to a period of retrenchment in the 1980s. The changing political and economic context has forced these programs to undergo major organizational transformations and to adopt different administrative strategies. These include degovernmentalization of social services, reliance on cutback management, and deprofessionalization of human-service workers. The article explores the implications of these developments on the delivery of services to the public.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 857
Author(s):  
Simona Čupić

Jacqueline Kennedy’s style is one of the mainstays of the history of fashion and popular culture, as well as contemporary politics. John Kennedy’s way of dressing garnered much less attention. Even though, at first glance, not as interesting as the first lady’s “fashion sense”, the president’s style was no less thought-out. If, however, we view the changes in clothing as social changes and a determinant of various kinds of social differentiation: marital status, sex, occupation, religious and political affiliation, the way in which the Kennedys were presented to the public becomes more interesting – from the (carefully planned) photos and appearances to art and culture. Having in mind that the 1960s were a time when the appropriation of popular and fictional came back into modern art, and that general changes inherent in the new lifestyle, as well as a layered image of American internal politics, and the cold war map of the world, the carefully thought-out image of the presidential couple can be viewed as a specific kind of metaphor for a complicated time.


Author(s):  
Maciej Hułas

The paper argues that the original normativity that provides the basis for Habermas’s model of the public sphere remains untouched at its core, despite having undergone some corrective alterations since the time of its first unveiling in the 1960s. This normative core is derived from two individual claims, historically articulated in the eighteenth-century’s “golden age” of reason and liberty as both sacred and self-evident: (1) the individual right to an unrestrained disposal of one’s private property; and (2) the individual right to formulate one’s opinion in the course of public debate. Habermas perceives the public sphere anchored to these two fundamental freedoms/rights as an arena of interactive opinion exchange with the capacity to solidly and reliably generate sound reason and public rationality. Despite its historical and cultural attachments to the bourgeois culture as its classical setting, Habermas’s model of the public sphere, due to its universal normativity, maintains its unique character, even if it has been thoroughly reformulated by social theories that run contrary to his original vision of the lifeworld, organized and ruled by autonomous rational individuals.     


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