The Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Steven J. Osterlind
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Probability Estimation ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
In The Beginning

This chapter introduces the historical context that gives meaning to the contemporaneous developments in probability theory. It shows how one can only realize the true meaning of quantification by realizing how history set the context for the great number of mathematical developments. The period is defined as the “long century,” starting with the rise of the Enlightenment and lasting well into the age of the Industrial Revolution: roughly 1790 to 1920. Most of this relatively short chapter describes the main historical events that took place during the late-eighteenth century, throughout the nineteenth century, and in the beginning of the twentieth century. This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book, in which those who invented probability theory and developed the methods of probability estimation will be examined within their historical context.

Philosophical threads: natural philosophy and public experiment among the weavers of Spitalfields

1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Stewart ◽  
Paul Weindling
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Public World ◽  
Century Science

In the overwhelmingly public world of the twentieth century, science often seems simultaneously remote and ubiquitous. There are many complex reasons for this, of course, not the least being the capacity of technology for material transformation and the apparent inability of scientific discourse to communicate its practice to the unanointed. In some ways, our current predicament appears similar to that of the late eighteenth century when so many promises had already been made of what natural philosophy might accomplish, and when many clamoured for access to the power of natural philosophical practice. At that point, on the verge of the stunning dislocations of the industrial revolution, many of the literate and mechanical public took considerable steps to bridge the gap otherwise policed by social distinction.

THE “HARD FORM” OF SCULPTURE: MARBLE, MATTER AND SPIRIT IN EUROPEAN SCULPTURE FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH ROMANTICISM

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDA WALSH
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
External Appearance ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Familiar World ◽  
A Site ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The apparently distinct aesthetic values of naturalism (a fidelity to external appearance) and neoclassicism (with its focus on idealization and intangible essence) came together in creative tension and fusion in much late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century sculptural theory and practice. The hybrid styles that resulted suited the requirements of the European sculpture-buying public. Both aesthetics, however, created difficulties for the German Idealists who represented a particularly uncompromising strain of Romantic theory. In their view, naturalism was too closely bound to the observable, familiar world, while neoclassicism was too wedded to notions of clearly defined forms. This article explores sculptural practice and theory at this time as a site of complex debates around the medium's potential for specific concrete representation in a context of competing Romantic visions (ethereal, social and commercial) of modernity.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter provides context for the volume’s subsequent contributions on Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship on a variety of levels. It begins by explaining its aims with regard to the relationship between philosophy and literature. It then locates Goethe’s novel within this set of aims in three ways: first, by providing a brief outline of Goethe’s career; second, by locating his novel in the literary-historical context of late eighteenth-century Europe; and third, by outlining the connections between the Goethe of Wilhelm Meister and specific philosophers and thinkers who influenced his thought and for whom his work was in turn influential.

Maritime labour and economic opportunity: Shetlanders and the Dundee Arctic whaling trade during the late nineteenth century

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-368
Author(s):  
Matthew Ylitalo
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Shetland Islands ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Late Nineteenth

From the late eighteenth century until the early twentieth century, British Arctic whaling vessels called at the Shetland Islands to hire additional crew members. Whalers valued Shetlanders for their boat-handling expertise, and Shetlanders benefitted from earning cash wages. After 1872, local documentation on Shetlanders in Arctic whaling becomes scarcer. This article traces social, economic and environmental factors to contextualise Shetland’s involvement in Arctic whaling during its last decades. It draws information from British merchant marine crew agreements to identify prosopographical characteristics of Shetlanders joining the whalers, and it links this information to other Shetland sources to understand how whaling influenced Shetland’s society and economy. The article also demonstrates the value of using crew agreements to develop alternative perspectives of social, economic and labour histories across a multiscalar range of local, regional and transoceanic histories.

scholarly journals Fantasy Flowers and Mysterious Cities: Winter Carl Hansson and Dalecarlian Folk Art circa 1800

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Barbro Klein
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Folk Art ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Concerns ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Many

During the late eighteenth century, folk art developed in new and intriguing ways in several Scandinavian regions. This essay concentrates on the developments around Lake Siljan in Dalarna, primarily as they were expressed by Winter Carl Hansson, one of the most accomplished of the artists. In his renditions of biblical topics such as the Workers in the Vineyard and the Descent from the Cross, one may observe a skilful blending of religious mystery and mundane life, as well as complex contrasts between floral arrangements and imposing cities. Through his remarkable ability to enhance common features of Dalecarlian folk art, this unschooled artist communicates striking powers of presence. Ultimately, the new artistic energies - in works by Winter Carl and others - must be understood in light of the influence of the many printed texts and images that were then available. Thus, to the extent that a general breakthrough into new cultural and social concerns took place during the late eighteenth century, this is true also of folk art. Furthermore, the folk art that was shaped at this time had a profound impact in the twentieth century, when it came to signify the most appealing aspects of Sweden's national cultural heritage.

Universalizing Dignity in the Nineteenth Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mika LaVaque-Manty
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
United Nations Declaration

This chapter traces some of the conceptual history from the late eighteenth century, when arguments about equal, intrinsic, and universal human dignity became politically important, to the mid-twentieth century, when the idea of universal human dignity was enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The chapter argues that this universalization process primarily took place in the nineteenth century, in political controversies around gender, race, and labor. The chapter argues that a particular Christian conception about the dignity of labor, expressed by Pope Leo XII, helped cement the value of inherent human dignity while at the same time weakening its more radical political potential.

Are we Really Past Truth? A Historian’s Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
Sophia Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

Abstract The prevalence of the term post-truth suggests that we have, in the last few years, moved from being members of societies dedicated to truth to being members of ones that cannot agree on truth’s parameters and, even worse, have given up trying. But is this really what has happened? The author argues that, under the sway of the Enlightenment, truth has actually been unstable and a source of contention in public life ever since the founding moment for modern democracies in the late eighteenth century; the ‘post’ in ‘post-truth’ elides this complex history even as it accurately describes some of the conditions of our moment. What that means, though, is that rather than attempt to turn the clock back to past models and practices for restoring the reign of truth, we should be looking for new, post-Enlightenment paradigms for how to define and locate truth in the context of democracy, as well as new mechanisms for making this possible.

Hamann, Johann Georg (1730–88)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Beiser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Friedrich Schlegel ◽  
Sturm Und Drang ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Mind

Hamann was one of the most important critics of the German Enlightenment or Aufklärung. He attacked the Aufklärung chiefly because it gave reason undue authority over faith. It misunderstood faith, which consists in an immediate personal experience, inaccessible to reason. The main fallacy of the Aufklärung was hypostasis, the reification of ideas, the artificial abstraction of reason from its social and historical context. Hamann stressed the social and historical dimension of reason, that it must be embodied in society, history and language. He also emphasized the pivotal role of language in the development of reason. The instrument and criterion of reason was language, whose only sanction was tradition and use. Hamann was a sharp critic of Kant, whose philosophy exemplified all the sins of the Aufklärung. Hamann attacked the critical philosophy for its purification of reason from experience, language and tradition. He also strongly objected to all its dualisms, which seemed arbitrary and artificial. The task of philosophy was to unify all the various functions of the mind, seeing reason, will and feeling as an indivisible whole. Although he was original and unorthodox, Hamann’s critique of reason should be placed within the tradition of Protestant nominalism. Hamann saw himself as a defender of Luther, whose reputation was on the wane in late eighteenth-century Germany. Hamann was also a founder of the Sturm und Drang, the late eighteenth-century literary movement which celebrated personal freedom and revolt. His aesthetics defended creative genius and the metaphysical powers of art. It marked a sharp break with the rationalism of the classical tradition and the empiricism of late eighteenth-century aesthetics. Hamann was a seminal influence upon Herder, Goethe, Jacobi, Friedrich Schlegel and Kierkegaard.

Closer Still: The Total Artwork

Lyric Cousins ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Sampson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Richard Wagner ◽  
Interior Decoration ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Future ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter considers the Gesamtkunstwerk, which English musicologists translate as ‘total artwork’. Richard Wagner had used the expression to characterise his operas, though he had only ever used the term in two essays, both published in 1849: ‘Art and Revolution’ and ‘The Artwork of the Future’. Moreover, the term did not originate from Wagner himself, and he did not even spell it in the conventional way. Since the late twentieth century ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ has been applied to other artforms, particularly architecture, which like opera can unite a number of elements. (Architecture, for example, marries engineering, landscaping and interior decoration, among others.) But the term's origins are in the late eighteenth-century notion that all the arts could be unified in poetry.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document