scholarly journals The ‘Do It Yourself’ Paradigm: An Inquiry into the Historical Roots of the Neglect of Testimony

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Alloa
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Testimonial Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
The Given ◽  
History Of Epistemology

In contemporary social epistemology, the claim has been made that there is a traditional “neglect of testimonial knowledge,” and that in the history of epistemology, first-hand self-knowledge was invariably prioritised over secondary knowledge. While this paper acknowledges some truth in these statements, it challenges the given explanations: the mentioned neglect of testimonial knowledge is based not so much on a primacy of self-knowledge, but that of self-agency. This article retraces some crucial chapters of this ‘do-it-yourself’ paradigm: it considers the imperative of autopsia in early Greek epistemology, history and medicine, and the early modern refashioning of the privilege of self-generated and self-taught (autodidactic) knowledge. A new picture emerges of how the emphasis on (self-)agency progressively shifted towards a focus on the self as the source of ultimate knowledge.


scholarly journals “Industrious Revolution” Revisited: A Variety of Diligence Derived from a Long-Term Local History of Kuta in Kyô-Otagi, a Former County in Japan

Histories ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 108-121
Author(s):  
Satoshi Murayama ◽  
Hiroko Nakamura
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Industrial Production ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Local History ◽  
The Self ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
History Of

Jan de Vries revised Akira Hayami’s original theory of the “Industrious Revolution” to make the idea more applicable to early modern commercialization in Europe, showcasing the development of the rural proletariat and especially the consumer revolution and women’s emancipation on the way toward an “Industrial Revolution.” However, Japanese villages followed a different path from the Western trajectory of the “Industrious Revolution,” which is recognized as the first step to industrialization. This article will explore how a different form of “industriousness” developed in Japan, covering medieval, early modern, and modern times. It will first describe why the communal village system was established in Japan and how this unique institution, the self-reliance system of a village, affected commercialization and industrialization and was sustained until modern times. Then, the local history of Kuta Village in Kyô-Otagi, a former county located close to Kyoto, is considered over the long term, from medieval through modern times. Kuta was not directly affected by the siting of new industrial production bases and the changes brought to villages located nearer to Kyoto. A variety of diligent interactions with living spaces is introduced to demonstrate that the industriousness of local women was characterized by conscience-driven perseverance.

The Disruptive Presence of the Namban-jin in Early Modern Japan

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 581-602
Author(s):  
Alexandra Curvelo
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Visual Display ◽  
The South ◽  
Early Modern Japan ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
First Time ◽  
Folding Screens

Abstract When the Portuguese arrived in Japan around 1543, it was the first time in the history of the archipelago that Western foreigners had entered the country and settled there. These “barbarians from the south” (namban-jin) were considered strangers and viewed with curiosity and suspicion. In Tokugawa Japan (c. 1615-1868), politically marked by territorial unification and the centralization of power, the image of the Europeans that was created and visually registered on folding screens and lacquer-ware was used as a model to frame this presence by both the Japanese political and economic elites and those considered marginal to the existing social order. Namban art, especially paintings, can be seen as a visual display of Japan’s self-knowledge and its knowledge of distant “neighbours.”

scholarly journals Soul searching: a brief history of the mind/body debate in the neurosciences

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
The Self ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

✓Anatomical and physiological understandings of the structure and function of the brain have worked to establish it as the “seat of the soul.” As an organ of reflection, meditation, and memory, the brain becomes synonymous with what defines the “self” through the existence of consciousness—of mind. Thus, the brain has been associated with a range of transcendent concepts—the soul, spirit, mind, and consciousness—that all relate in fundamental ways to each other both in terms of their perceived location within the brain and because of the way each works ultimately to define the person to whom the brain belongs. In this article, the author provides a brief exploration of how interrelated these categories have been when seen in the context of ancient, Renaissance, early modern, and modern philosophical and medical concerns; how the brain has variously been perceived as home to these intimate states of being; and how practitioners from the neurosciences have reflected on these questions. The author provides novel insights into the interrelationships of philosophy, theology, and medicine by examining these issues through the lens of the history of neuroscience.

Scripting the Self

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Pollmann
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Development ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Cultural Script ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores the importance of family memory for early modern people, before moving to the question of how and why people structured personal memories as they did. Departing from the observation that early modern personal memories were more often associated with bodies than with emotions, it explores how memoirists selected memories for their exemplary potential. Memoirs were used to show how someone had ‘performed’ his life in accordance with cultural ‘scripts’ that were used to give meaning to personal experiences and made them useful to share. This helps explain the memorialization of two particular types of personal religious experience—martyrdom and conversion. Finally, this chapter will explain how, in the eighteenth century, memoirs were first put to a new use, to construct a history of one’s own emotional and moral development, so creating an important new cultural script for personal remembering that is more in line with modern expectations.

Another Turn for Transnationalism: Empire, Nation, and Imperium in Early Modern Studies

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (2) ◽  
pp. 412-418
Author(s):  
Barbara Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The Self ◽  
Full Picture ◽  
History Of

How might early modern studies participate in the larger conversations and transformations of postcolonial studies while attending to the specificities of the age? How might we develop and mobilize period-specific understandings of a moment when states aspire to both empire and nation? My inquiry is motivated not only by the questions posed by the cluster of essays to which it belongs but also by the generalized, and often historically imprecise, move to transnationalism as a catchall for work that complicates our traditional nation-based categories. As I will suggest here, despite the strategic advantages of transnationalism for forging trans-historical connections, for developing a critical pedagogy, and for interrogating our own academy, the approach threatens to occlude the intertwined histories of nation and empire, even as it fails to capture the liminal, transitional qualities of the early modern. Instead, I propose a focus on imperium, to highlight the mimetic rivalries occurring among emergent empires at the very time they solidify sovereignty. Imperium studies challenges the self-sufficient histories of nation and empire by arguing for their imbrication and competition: only a plural history of the intersections among them can provide the full picture. Moreover, imperium studies explicitly engages with the multiple early modern temporalities, as well as allegiances—to an imperial future, certainly, but also to a classical past that remained central as exemplar and motivator and to the imperfect, incomplete work of nation making.

scholarly journals МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНІ ТА СОЦІАЛЬНО-ФІЛОСОФСЬКІ ПРОБЛЕМИ САМОРЕАЛІЗАЦІЇ ТА САМОМОТИВАЦІЇ

World Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (7(35)) ◽  
pp. 32-38
Author(s):  
Ободовська С. В. ◽  
Бохан Ю. В.
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Effective System ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Individual

The article deals with the socio-philosophical aspects and proposes an analysis of the ideas and views of thinkers of different historical epochs and times on the problems of self-realization and self-motivation. The theoretical basis for the study of the aspects of this problem was the fundamental approaches to the self-knowledge and motivation of the personality of the philosophers of antiquity (Epicurus, Socrates, Plato), the Middle Ages (K. Alexandria, St. Augustine), the Renaissance (D. Alighieri, F. Petrarca, M. Montaigne), New Time (B. Pascal, B. Spinoza) and German Philosophy (I. Kant, I. G. Fichte, A. Schopenhauer). The proof of the history of studying the problem of self-realization and personality motivation during its formation allows to emphasize the important essence of the aspiration of individuals to self- motivation as to the ultimate realization of the personal potential of a person. The analysis of motivation and self-motivation as an effective system of self-development and self-realization of the personality is conducted. An attempt has been made to generalize author's studies and representations of the essence of the processes of motivation and self- motivation of the individual and highlighted a number of aspects that focus the attention of researchers in explaining the essence of these processes. The disclosure of the ideas reflected in the study contributes to the further study and development of the structure of the process of self-motivation of the person, the mechanisms for its activation, the creation of pedagogical conditions that stimulate this process in professional activity.

scholarly journals Badacz i jego perspektywy interpretacyjne w studiach nad dziejami nauki

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
Jaromir Jeszke
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
The Self ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specialist Knowledge ◽  
Self Knowledge

The Researcher and Their Interpretative Perspectives in the Studies on the History of Science A historian (also of medicine) should accept the values and canons of the studied culture, including medical ones, as their own. As Florian Znaniecki pointed out in his works, they should be the researcher’s highest authority. This means that the researcher should deviate from evaluating the ideas and practices of the studied culture from their own perspective. The category of minimal cultural imputation developed by Wojciech Wrzosek shows that it is not an easy process. However, the application of the subjective-rational perspective to the interpretation has already become an obvious approach. An open and much less obvious problem is the role of the historian of science when they venture to make comparisons between past and present scientific cultures. By doing so, do they still remain a historian, or – by undertaking such comparisons and evaluations – do they abandon the role, assuming the position of, for example, methodologist? The author of the article outlines the possibilities of separating these roles, presenting the attitude of a ‘methodologist’ who searches in the past for the roots and theoretical justifications for contemporary paradigms of their discipline, using the latter to evaluate the past. However, the possibility of a non-evaluative dialogue between the cognizing culture and the cognized culture is also shown, where the former also includes the specialist knowledge of a contemporary researcher interested in the past of their discipline. The historiography of a given science appears here as a record of the self-knowledge of a given generation of researchers – as their self-reflection. As Jan Pomorski calls it, a researcher assuming such a role appears as homo metahistoricus in their field of study.

Becoming Turk the Rajput Way: Conversion and Identity in an Indian Warrior Narrative

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
CYNTHIA TALBOT
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Self ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Modern Era

AbstractThe Kyamkhanis were a small Indian Muslim community who flourished in northern Rajasthan from c. 1450 to 1730. This article examines memories of the Kyamkhani past recorded in a seventeenth-century history of the ruling lineage, as a case study of both the process of Islamic expansionism in South Asia and the self-identity of rural Muslim gentry. While celebrating the ancestor who had converted to Islam generations earlier, the Kyamkhanis also represented themselves as local warriors of the Rajput class, an affiliation that is considered exclusively Hindu in India today. Their history was written in a local literary language, Braj Bhasa, rather than in the more cosmopolitan Persian that was widely used by Muslim elites at the time. The Kyamkhanis of the early modern era thus negotiated multiple social and cultural spheres, simultaneously participating in the local/vernacular as well as global/cosmopolitan arenas.

MUSEUM SPACES AND SPACES OF SCIENCE. REFLECTIONS ON THE EXPLANATORY POSSIBILITIES OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE COLLECTIONS

Nuncius ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 415-429
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPH LTHY
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Self ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Science Museums ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Functional Context

Abstracttitle ABSTRACT /title Historians of science have been discussing the degree to which local scientific and social practices and circumstances may be taken into account before 'the history of science' as a coherent narrative implodes. This article argues that museum curators face related issues, albeit of a more complicated order, when deciding how to present historical scientific instruments. A number of these issues are discussed here. One of them concerns 'functional isometry', a term that refers to the ability of an historical instrument to perform its original functions also within the museum. It is shown that 'functional isometry' tends to disappear between the early modern and the modern period, just as the self-explanatory capacity of scientific instruments generally decreases. Indeed, there appears to be a discontinuity between early modern and modern instruments with regard to their ability to be exhibited in their functional context. This article concludes on a reflection on the implication of these findings for science museums.

Tsukuba Challenge: Open Experiments for Autonomous Navigation of Mobile Robots in the City – Activities and Results of the First and Second Stages –

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shin’ichi Yuta ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Robots ◽  
Basic Concept ◽  
Autonomous Navigation ◽  
Mobile Robotics ◽  
The Self ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Given ◽  
The City ◽  
Autonomous Mobile Robotics

The Tsukuba Challenge is an open experiment for autonomous mobile robotics researchers who want to build small mobile robots capable of autonomously moving through real and populated pedestrian environments. The Tsukuba Challenge started in 2007 and has been run every year since then. Each year, the self-contained mobile robots of participated team are tasked with autonomously navigating more than 1 km of a given pedestrian pathway through the city. As of 2017, the final year of the second stage, a total of over 500 teams have taken a part in this challenge, by trying to develop their own robot hardware and software to complete the given task. In this paper, the basic concept and the history of Tsukuba Challenge are first explained, and then what has and has not achieved is discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document