Three Questions of Methodology

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-90
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
Classificatory System ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

Wight composed this note to make clear three caveats about his exposition of three main traditions of thinking about international politics in Western societies since the sixteenth century (Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism). First, the sources considered include not only works by theorists and international lawyers, but also statements and policies of politicians. Second, it is imperative to avoid ‘the hypostatization of categories’—that is, ‘taking a classificatory system too seriously and too concretely’ and attributing objective reality to intellectual concepts. The views of specific thinkers are more valuable than generalizations about shared opinions in categories or claims of progress in philosophical understanding over the centuries. Third, the scholar’s role concerning value judgements in this effort to elucidate the three traditions consists of ‘exposition and comparison, not criticism in any sense of propounding theory’ for the critical assessment of the ideas expressed in these traditions.

Vives's De ratione dicendi: Structure, Innovations, Problems

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mack
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Human Learning ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
The Third ◽  
Linguistic Basis

Abstract This paper presents a critical assessment of Vives's major rhetorical treatise, De ratione dicendi (1533). In terms of structure it shows that the first book is concerned with the linguistic basis of style, that the second deals with the qualities of style, the four aims of rhetoric, decorum and disposition and that the third presents guidance on composing ten genres of writing practised by humanists. The paper describes Vives's original contributions to the analysis of the linguistic basis of style, the qualities of style, emotional manipulation, decorum, and the composition of history and commentary. In assessing Vives's work it makes comparisons with rhetoric texts by Agricola, Erasmus, Melanchthon, and Ramus. It finds that Vives's reform of rhetoric is based in his encyclopaedic grasp of human learning but that this very encyclopaedism can cause weaknesses in his discussions of particular topics. De ratione dicendi tells us a great deal about Vives's perceptiveness and breadth of reading but, with only three sixteenth century editions, it was not a successful textbook.

scholarly journals La noblesse hors d’elle-même

2000 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Pierre-Louis Vaillancourt
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Critical Assessment

In sixteenth-century France, the nobility held an unchallenged and unanimous view concerning its own superior status and quality. A more critical assessment had been expressed in Italy by several Quattrocento and Cinquecento humanists, namely Poggio, Machiavelli, Nenna, Guazzo and Tasso. The arguments against the superiority of the nobility were often simply based on some ironical survey of a handful of European aristocratic groups. But, when attacking the claims to excellence of some national aristocracy, more reasoned arguments could rely on Aristotle’s Politics and its notion of arete.

“Oh Famous Race!”

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-47
Author(s):  
Gilberto Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
American Heritage ◽  
Asymmetrical Power ◽  
Heritage Politics

This article examines the transnational and international politics and motivations behind the Eurocentric campaigns of Portuguese American heritage advocates to memorialize the sixteenth-century navigators Miguel Corte-Real and Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo as the “discoverers” of the United States’ Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and how those campaigns were framed by the advocates’ “ancestral” homeland’s imperialist propaganda. It argues that the study of public memory and heritage politics can offer valuable insights into the processes of diaspora building and helps reveal the asymmetrical power relations often missing in discussions about cultural hybridity.

scholarly journals 'To the Curious Enquirer': Depictions of Pacific Peoples in Popular Illustrated Books from Paris and London c.1775-1810

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vivienne Ruth Morrell
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Illustrated Books ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
New Material

<p>This study considers a range of illustrated encyclopaedias published in London and Paris in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries depicting peoples of the Pacific or Oceania. Using a framework of curiosity, exoticism, and costume iconography, as well as considering relevant contemporary developments, I argue that, despite the widespread appeal to 'curiosity', the books reveal a fairly superficial interest, at a popular level, in other peoples: one that is mainly interested in contrasting 'civilised' Europe with less civilised or 'savage' others. The genres to which these books belonged developed in the sixteenth century, and the books considered in this study followed their genre traditions, fitting the 'new discoveries' of Oceania into these existing traditions. The frontispieces set the tone of the books, and embodied moral value judgements revealing European views of political, social and economic relations between Europe and other peoples and countries at that time. They were also following an iconographic tradition set down much earlier and generally failed to acknowledge recent events that challenged these prevailing views. I consider how the images of Oceanic peoples in the French costume books were developed (or as I argue 'invented') from the source material, which was mainly images in the published accounts of Captain Cook's three voyages. In inventing images designed to please the eye, the sources chosen reveal the prejudices and expectations of European readers. But how were the 'new' Oceanic peoples incorporated into these books? By seeing Oceanic peoples as part of America it was easy to fit them into existing prejudices about 'savages' and into existing pictorial conventions for depicting 'savages'. For an audience expecting to see 'savages' wearing grass skirts and feather headdresses these images would have appeared 'authentic'. My study will highlight more popular views rather than the views of philosophers, or the voyagers' accounts, which understandably have been given more academic attention. These books are overlooked today because they are derivative and their images are not necessarily ethnographically accurate; yet they were popular in their time. They represent a conservative Eurocentric viewpoint and their inclusion of new material from Oceanic voyages did not challenge these views. Images and texts such as these likely reinforced European views of their own superiority and made it easy to justify missionary activity and colonisation in various parts of the world, particularly Oceania.</p>

Introduction: Martin Wight and the Political Philosophy of International Relations

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Wild Card ◽  
International Theory ◽  
Historical Retrospect ◽  
The Many

This volume of Wight’s collected works brings together various writings concerning the political philosophy of international relations. Wight identified three traditions of thinking about international politics since the sixteenth century—Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism, which have become well known thanks to his 1991 posthumous volume, International Theory: The Three Traditions. The current volume includes several works on the same ‘international theory’ theme, some previously published and some never-before-published, with ‘Is There a Philosophy of Statesmanship?’ in the latter category. This volume also includes three essays by Wight on the causes and functions of war in international politics. Wight prepared several papers on legitimacy in domestic and international politics, and this volume features five never-before-published papers on this theme. Wight qualified his orderly analyses of traditions of political philosophy, the causes and functions of war, and principles of domestic and international legitimacy by drawing attention to unpredictable ‘wild card’ factors such as fortune and irony in his paper in this collection entitled ‘Fortune’s Banter’. Unintended, unexpected, and ironical consequences abound in international politics, despite efforts to master the dynamics of history. In view of the many factors behind events, including economic and demographic developments, Wight expressed qualifications about the role of ideas. He nonetheless concluded that ‘in historical retrospect, the philosophies of statesmen do seem observably to colour their policies’.

scholarly journals Buddhism in Italy in the Nineteenth Century

MANUSYA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Paolo Euron
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Italian Studies ◽  
Italian Culture ◽  
Complete Bibliography ◽  
Academic Debate ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

First reports on Buddhism arrived in Italy in the sixteenth century through Italian Catholic missionaries. Later several scholars developed a philological and philosophical understanding of it. The attitude toward Buddhism changed from an anthropological interest to a philological study. In the academic field of philology the Theravāda tradition and the Siamese edition of Tripitaka had great importance. The spread of Buddhism in Italy in the nineteenth century also increasingly influenced Italian culture and ideas. Outside of academic debate Buddhism became a subject of apologetics and philosophy as well as a topic of general interest. This essay is based on books and printed material published in Italy before the twentieth century. It contains the complete bibliography of Italian studies on Buddhism in the nineteenth century. Some texts cited in this essay are unpublished or rare documents from Italian archives.

International Relations and Political Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Material Interest ◽  
International Theory ◽  
Causes Of War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Values ◽  
Raymond Aron ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

This book collects Martin Wight’s works on the theory and philosophy of international politics. It includes classic works, such as “Why Is There No International Theory?” and “Western Values in International Relations,” as well as previously unpublished works such as “The Communist Theory of International Relations” and “Gain, Fear and Glory: Reflections on the Nature of International Politics.” These works encompass four categories: (a) traditions of thinking about international politics since the sixteenth century, (b) the causes and functions of war, (c) international and regime legitimacy, and (d) fortune and irony in international politics. Wight identifies and analyzes three major traditions of thinking about international politics in the West since the sixteenth century: Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism, also known as the Machiavellian, Grotian, and Kantian approaches. Wight examines the causes of war highlighted by Thucydides and Hobbes (material interest, fear, and reputation), and considers the functions of war in international politics (such as winning and retaining national independence and upholding the balance of power). Wight reviews the history of dynastic and popular legitimacy as well as post-1945 concepts of international and domestic legitimacy. Finally, Wight considers fortune and irony, including the decision-maker’s frequent rediscovery of the recalcitrance of events. Unintended, unexpected, and ironical consequences abound in international politics. This volume also features eight book reviews by Wight, including his assessments of works by Raymond Aron, E. H. Carr, Friedrich Meinecke, and Hans Morgenthau.

scholarly journals 'To the Curious Enquirer': Depictions of Pacific Peoples in Popular Illustrated Books from Paris and London c.1775-1810

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vivienne Ruth Morrell
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Illustrated Books ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
New Material

<p>This study considers a range of illustrated encyclopaedias published in London and Paris in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries depicting peoples of the Pacific or Oceania. Using a framework of curiosity, exoticism, and costume iconography, as well as considering relevant contemporary developments, I argue that, despite the widespread appeal to 'curiosity', the books reveal a fairly superficial interest, at a popular level, in other peoples: one that is mainly interested in contrasting 'civilised' Europe with less civilised or 'savage' others. The genres to which these books belonged developed in the sixteenth century, and the books considered in this study followed their genre traditions, fitting the 'new discoveries' of Oceania into these existing traditions. The frontispieces set the tone of the books, and embodied moral value judgements revealing European views of political, social and economic relations between Europe and other peoples and countries at that time. They were also following an iconographic tradition set down much earlier and generally failed to acknowledge recent events that challenged these prevailing views. I consider how the images of Oceanic peoples in the French costume books were developed (or as I argue 'invented') from the source material, which was mainly images in the published accounts of Captain Cook's three voyages. In inventing images designed to please the eye, the sources chosen reveal the prejudices and expectations of European readers. But how were the 'new' Oceanic peoples incorporated into these books? By seeing Oceanic peoples as part of America it was easy to fit them into existing prejudices about 'savages' and into existing pictorial conventions for depicting 'savages'. For an audience expecting to see 'savages' wearing grass skirts and feather headdresses these images would have appeared 'authentic'. My study will highlight more popular views rather than the views of philosophers, or the voyagers' accounts, which understandably have been given more academic attention. These books are overlooked today because they are derivative and their images are not necessarily ethnographically accurate; yet they were popular in their time. They represent a conservative Eurocentric viewpoint and their inclusion of new material from Oceanic voyages did not challenge these views. Images and texts such as these likely reinforced European views of their own superiority and made it easy to justify missionary activity and colonisation in various parts of the world, particularly Oceania.</p>

Maxims of Foreign Policy

Itinerario ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-79
Author(s):  
W.J. Boot
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
Japanese Identity

In the pre-modern period, Japanese identity was articulated in contrast with China. It was, however, articulated in reference to criteria that were commonly accepted in the whole East-Asian cultural sphere; criteria, therefore, that were Chinese in origin.One of the fields in which Japan's conception of a Japanese identity was enacted was that of foreign relations, i.e. of Japan's relations with China, the various kingdoms in Korea, and from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, with the Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutchmen, and the Kingdom of the Ryūkū.

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