The Nature of Design

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Orr
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Ecological Design ◽  
Energy Materials ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World

The environmental movement has often been accused of being overly negative--trying to stop "progress." The Nature of Design, on the other hand, is about starting things, specifically an ecological design revolution that changes how we provide food, shelter, energy, materials, and livelihood, and how we deal with waste. Ecological design is an emerging field that aims to recalibrate what humans do in the world according to how the world works as a biophysical system. Design in this sense is a large concept having to do as much with politics and ethics as with buildings and technology. The book begins by describing the scope of design, comparing it to the Enlightenment of the 18th century. Subsequent chapters describe barriers to a design revolution inherent in our misuse of language, the clockspeed of technological society, and shortsighted politics. Orr goes on to describe the critical role educational institutions might play in fostering design intelligence and what he calls "a higher order of heroism." Appropriately, the book ends on themes of charity, wilderness, and the rights of children. Astute yet broadly appealing, The Nature of Design combines theory, practicality, and a call to action.

Cães Canibais, Homens Simiescos, Harmonia da Criação. Representações da Alteridade na Alemanha do Século XVIII

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (15) ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
Manuela Ribeiro Sanches ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anatomical Studies ◽  
Dog Food ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

The paper deals with the representation of otherness in 18th Century Germany. Departing from an episode narrated in Georg Forster’s account of James Cook’s second voyage around the world, attention is paid to the way in which an uncanny experience for Europeans - eating dog food - is narrated, and translated according to European discursive premises. The analysis of Forster’s considerations on the relativity of customs, on what is to be attributed to nature or culture, on what is to be considered innate or acquired provide the departing point for the reconstruction (and questioning) of strategies of representing of otherness. In the following parts, diverse ways of representing otherness are briefly analyzed (anatomical studies, collections of bodies and artifacts in natural history cabinets) and emphasis is put on the way in which non-European peoples are always ultimately the object of a process of reification. The scientific implications of Contemporary debates on race are also taken into account, namely the controversy between Georg Forster and Kant. The tension between ethnographie empiricism (Forster) and anthropological rationalism (Kant) is stressed and brought onto relation with the Enlightenment discourse on the “Other”. The conclusion focuses on the limits and utopian possibilities of the Enlightenment discourse, by juxtaposing it to the critique of Western rationalism as proposed by postcolonial studies.

scholarly journals A.R. MENGS TRA ROMA E MADRID: LE INQUIETUDINI DEL PITTORE FILOSOFO SULL’ISTITUZIONE ACCADEMICA NELLA SECONDA METÀ DEL XVIII SECOLO.

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
Noemi Cinelli
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The Other ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
San Fernando

It is difficult to frame Anton Raphael Mengs in a specific stylistic movement nowadays that the chronological divisions and the consequent definitions of the art of the Enlightenment are going to be more and more controversial. Because of his eclectic and cosmopolitan activity, his ideas about Ideal Beauty spread across the countries affected by the apprehensions and hopes related to the 18th century. The bohemian painter dedicated his entire life to the study of ancient art; his marble collection of the statues from the great Italian collections interested the artists coming to the Eternal City, and he consecrates esthetic models of different epochs. Mengs never get away from these models – Ancient Greece, Raffaello Sanzio, Tiziano Vecellio, Antonio Correggio. His presence in Spain was favored by propitious circumstances: the coronation of an erudite, educate king, lover of Fine Arts, Charles III of Spain, a king so intimately close to the painter to guarantee him his protection in the difficult relation between Mengs and the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. The relation between the Institution and the Bohemian get complicated because of the different ideas about the organization of the academy and the education of the students. Because of the little original sources, several matters have not been resolved, for example the issue about the false ancient fresco of Jupiter and Ganymede, or the controversy about the Peña case, that brought to the final breakup between the artist and the consiliarios in San Fernando Institution. Mengs focused his attention in an even worse matter about the direction of the academy: concretely, which competences had to have the consiliarios and which the teachers. When Mengs asked to be accepted in the academy, he undoubtedly thought that the Institution was structured as the other great one in which he took part in Italy, San Luca National Academy in Rome. Within Mengs’ proposals to raise the level of the Academy in Madrid there was the institution of anatomy and surgery teachings, which intent was to revolutionize the concept of painters and sculptors. In spite of the difficulties that the first painter of Charles III had during his stay in San Fernando, his acting had a fundamental role in developing the Art Theory and particularly in the European artists’ training.

The institutional basis of anglophone western centrality

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-188
Author(s):  
Afonso de Albuquerque
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Global Impact ◽  
European Universities ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Personal Contribution ◽  
The One ◽  
Different Parts

Non-western scholars usually face a dilemma if they want to pursue an international scholarly career: On the one hand, mastering western media theories is mandatory for taking part in international forums and exchanging experiences with people from different parts of the world; on the other hand, these theories are, in many aspects, foreign to their cultural backgrounds and, in many cases, seem inadequate for describing their own societies. My personal contribution to the debate arises from the fact that, although having some experience in participating in Anglophonic communication meetings and publishing in international academic vehicles, I never had first-hand experience, either as a student or as a professor, in American or European universities. In consequence, I was exposed to Western Anglophonic theories without being socialized in a scholarly environment in which they are taken as ‘natural’. Based on this experience, I contend that the global impact of western theories cannot be explained only by their intrinsic merits, but as the result of the socialization of scholars from all parts on the world in western educational institutions, and the networks built around them.

Johann Heinrich Callenberg’s Arabic Publications of De Veritate to the Conversion of Jews and Moslems

Grotiana ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-118
Author(s):  
Christoph Rymatzki
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World

In the missionary activities that Halle theologians developed in the first half of the 18th century Grotius’ De veritate plays an interesting role that deserves exploration. To that purpose, the history and nature of the publication of missionary tracts in Halle will be surveyed, the role therein of Johann Heinrich Callenberg and his Institutum Judaicum at Muhammedicum described and the distribution and reception of the texts among the Muslims and Jews that were the target of the Halle missions all over the world summarized and analysed. It is suggested that Grotius’ De veritate, which was an atypical piece of apology in the Halle pietist setting, stands out among the other literature for its efficacy in the missionary process, due to its non-dogmatic character.

scholarly journals The key to the solution of the world crisis we face

Human Affairs ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Nicholas Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
World Crisis ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Great Danger

Abstract Humanity faces two fundamental problems of learning: learning about the universe, and learning to become civilized. We have solved the first problem, but not the second one, and that puts us in a situation of great danger. Almost all of our global problems have arisen as a result. It has become a matter of extreme urgency to solve the second problem. The key to this is to learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second one. This was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment, but in implementing this idea, the Enlightenment blundered. Their mistakes are still built into academia today. In order to le arn how to create a civilized, enlightened world, the key thing we need to do is to cure academia of the structural blunders we have inherited from the Enlightenment. We need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more broadly so that the basic aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge.

scholarly journals Kontrrewolucyjna idea Europy. Rozważania Edmunda Burke’a o tożsamości europejskiej

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Romuald Rydz
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Revolution

1 listopada 1790 r. w Londynie został opublikowany jeden z najważniejszych tek­stów osiemnastowiecznej brytyjskiej myśli politycznej. Autorem dzieła znanego pod skróconym ty­tułem jako Rozważania o rewolucji we Francji był Edmund Burke — jeden z najbardziej znanych wigowskich posłów zasiadających w Izbie Gmin. Choć Burke w Rozważaniach występował przede wszystkim jako obrońca brytyjskiego porządku i zwyczaju politycznego, to zarówno w tym dziele, jak i wielu następnych tekstach można zauważyć, że przedmiotem jego troski była także wspólnota europejska. Wydaje się, że autor Rozważań jako je­den z pierwszych przedstawicieli ówczesnego świata polityki dostrzegł w rewolucyjnej gorączce roz­przestrzeniającej się z Paryża groźbę dla całej Europy. Owo niebezpieczeństwo Burke porównywał, z jednej strony, do fali barbarzyństwa, która zalała Rzym i zniszczyła cywilizację antyczną w okresie wędrówki ludów, z drugiej zaś — przypisywał mu cechy rewolucji religijnej, podobnej do tej, któ-ra podzieliła kontynent w XVI i XVII stuleciu. Było to więc w jego opinii podwójne zagrożenie, które mogło zniszczyć zarówno podstawy materialne Europy, jak i jej kościec kulturowy.A counter-revolutionary idea of Europe. Edmund Burke’s reflections on European identityOn 1st November 1790, one of the most important texts of the 18th century British political thought was published in London. The author of the work, known under the shortened title as Reflections on the Revolution in France, was Edmund Burke, one of the best-known Whigs sitting in the House of Commons. Although in Reflections Burke was above all a defender of the British order and political custom, it can be noticed, both in this work and many subsequent texts, that he was also concerned for Euro­pean community. It seems that the author of Reflections was among the first representatives of the world of politics at that time who viewed the revolutionary fever that was spreading from Paris as a threat to the whole Europe. Burke compared this danger, on the one hand, to the Barbarian wave that had flooded Rome and destroyed the antique civilisation in the Migrations Period, while on the other hand he ascribed it characteristics of a religious revolution, similar to the one that divided the continent in the 16th and 17th centuries. Thus, it was, in his opinion, a double threat. It could destroy both the material foundations of Europe and its cultural core.

scholarly journals Humanism and nature – some reflections on a complex relationship

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörn Rüsen
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
The One

The paper starts with a systematical analysis of the interrelationship of humanism and nature. It proceeds to a historical reconstruction of this relationship in the development of Western humanism from ancient Rome via Renaissance till the Enlightenment of the 18th century. In both respects the result of the analysis is the same: The Western tradition of humanism is characterised by a gap between an emphasis on the cultural quality of human life on the one hand and nature on the other one. Men are entitled to dominate and govern nature and use it for their purpose. This fits into an idea of a progressing destructive relationship between man and nature in the West. On the other the tradition of humanism has put the gap between man and nature into a harmonising cosmological or theological context. In this context a simple destructive relationship between man and nature is not possible. The humanism of today has to pick up the challenge of the ecological crisis and to refer to its tradition where man and nature are mediated into a meaningful and sense-bearing interrelationship. Instead of simply referring to the traditional cosmology a convincing idea of this mediation or even synthesis can only be made plausible by referring to the already pre-given synthesis between nature and culture, the human body.

The Jesuits and the Enlightenment

2018 ◽  
pp. 854-890
Author(s):  
Joan-Pau Rubiés
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Accommodation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

How we think of the relationship between the Jesuits and the Enlightenment largely depends on how we conceptualize the latter. This chapter addresses it as a series of debates conducted in the context of a cosmopolitan Republic of Letters, and a number of specific cultural practices that made that very Republic possible. The Jesuits were, therefore, participants in, rather than enemies of, the Enlightenment. Because they combined theological conservatism with cultural modernity, the Jesuits were feared and resented with particular vehemence. Placed between two different modernities, one characterized by global structures of communication and learning, as well as by the practices of cultural accommodation, the other by the attack on superstition and religious authority, the Jesuits helped create the conditions for the Enlightenment, making important but paradoxical contributions to some of its central debates. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the impact of missionary ethnographies concerning the “Gentile” pagan peoples of the world.

Orthodoxy, rationalism and the world in eighteenth-century Holland

1973 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 173-192
Author(s):  
J. Van Den Berg
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Road ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Revival Movements

As far as the protestant countries are concerned the eighteenth century, the ‘age of reason’, might as well be called ‘the age of revival’. On the one hand, we meet with a strong desire to escape the snares of this world by concentrating upon the mysteries of salvation: the road to sanctity is a narrow road, to be trodden in fear and trembling. On the other hand there are those for whom this world is a world full of new and unexpected possibilities, a world to be explored and to be made instrumental to the fulfilment of the divine plan with regard to the development of humanity in its secular context. Naturally, also in the eighteenth century ‘sanctity’ and ‘secularity’ were not seen as in themselves mutually exclusive concepts. While many revivalists looked forward to the enlightenment of this world by the knowledge of God, many men of the enlightenment saw before them the prospect of the sanctification of the world by the combined influences of reason and revelation. Some of the fathers of the enlightenment - notably Locke and Leibniz - were essentially committed to the cause of Christianity, while on the other hand protagonists of the pietist and revival movements such as Francke and Edwards cannot in fairness be accused of an anti-rational attitude and of a lack of interest in the well-being of this world. Nevertheless, within the circle of eighteenth-century protestant Christianity there were conspicuous differences with regard to the evaluation of and the attitude towards the world in which the Christian community, while living in the expectation of the kingdom, still had to find its way and its place.

scholarly journals The Mental Time Traveller: Considering the Future Consequences of Present Day Behaviours

2015 ◽  
pp. 123-127
Author(s):  
Lisa Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subjective Time ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Future Consequences

Time cannot be outwardly intuited. These are the words of Immanuel Kant, an 18th century philosopher renowned for his contemplations of the fundamental concepts underlying the entire human experience. Central to Kant’s reasoning is the concept of subjective time, the idea that time is not only an entity to be quantified in the physical sciences, but a subjective experience which can differ across each person, rooting the individual in his or her own mental reality. We all have unique experiences of time. Two individuals can attend the same event, a concert or a party perhaps, and for one of them, time can move extremely quickly, but for the other it can drag on for what seems like an eternity. Time flies when we are having fun and enjoying ourselves, yet feels endless when we are bored or afraid. It is the lens through which we view and experience the world ...

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