The Philosophy of History: A Value-pluralist Response

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Crowder

AbstractVittorio Hösle’s evaluation of the Soviet Revolution on the ground of the philosophy of history can be usefully examined from the value-pluralist perspective of Isaiah Berlin. Although Berlinwould agree with most ofHösle’s judgements on the Revolution, he would do so for very different reasons. Most importantly, Berlin would not accept the teleology that lies at the heart of the philosophy of history. For Berlin, the notion of a human

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vittorio Hösle

AbstractThe essay begins by discussing different ways of evaluating and making sense of the Soviet Revolution from Crane Brinton to Hannah Arendt. In a second part, it analyses the social, political and intellectual background of tsarist Russia that made the revolution possible. After a survey of the main changes that occurred in the Soviet Union, it appraises its ends, the means used for achieving them, and the unintended side-effects. The Marxist philosophy of history is interpreted as an ideological tool of modernization attractive to societies to which the liberal form of modernization was precluded.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 818-840
Author(s):  
George Crowder

AbstractHow far can monotheism be reconciled with the pluralism characteristic of modern societies? In this article, I focus on the “value pluralism” of Isaiah Berlin, which I suggest captures a deeper level of plurality than Rawls's more familiar version of pluralism. However, some critics have objected that Berlinian pluralism is too controversial an idea in which to ground liberalism because it is profoundly at odds with the monotheism professed by so many citizens of a modern society. I argue that monotheists can be value pluralists as long as they do not insist that their faith is superior to all others. This pluralist position is exemplified by elements of the interfaith movement, according to which many religions are recognized as having roughly equal value. I also argue that a value-pluralist approach to religious accommodation, if it can be achieved, may be more stable than the uneasy combination of disapproval and restraint involved in the more orthodox solution to conflict among religions, toleration.


Author(s):  
Juan Bosco Díaz-Urmeneta Muñoz

RESUMENLa posición de i.Berlin sobre el determinismo fue recibida por muchos como un ataque al alcance de las ciencias humanas. Su argumentación, sin embargo, sugiere nuevas y sugerentes relaciones entre el conocimiento y la libertad, además de una concepción específica de la lectura de la historia. En el presente ensayo, que constituye una primera parte del trabajo, se analiza el argumento de I. Berlin sobre el determinismo, situándolo en las dos discusiones sobre la historia que se desarrollaron tras la II Guerra Mundial. PALABRAS CLAVEDETERMINISMO-BERLINABSTRACTI. Berlin's position on determinism was received by many authors as an attack on the human sciences. His interpretation, however, suggests novel and stimulating relations between knowledge and freedom, together with a specific philosophy of history. This paper, wich constitutes the first part of a whole essay, assesses Berlin's argument on determinism, placing it within the two debates on history held after world war II.KEYWORDSDETERMINISM-BERLIN 


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil Koutanov

All existing solutions to distributed consensus are organised around a Paxos-like structure wherein processes contend for exclusive leadership in one phase, and then either use their dominant position to propose a value in the next phase or elect an alternate leader. This approach may be characterised as adversarial and phase-asymmetric, requiring distinct message schemas and process behaviours for each phase. In over three decades of research, no algorithm has diverged from this basic model, alluding to it perhaps being the only viable solution to consensus. This paper presents a new consensus algorithm named Spire, characterised by a phase-symmetric, cooperative structure. Processes do not contend for leadership; instead, they collude to iteratively establish a dominant value and may do so concurrently without conflicting. Each successive iteration is structured identically to the previous, employing the same messages and invoking the same behaviour. By these characteristics, Spire buckles the trend in protocol design, proving that at least two disjoint cardinal solutions to consensus exist. The resulting phase symmetry halves the number of distinct messages and behaviours, offering a clear intuition and an approachable foundation for learning consensus and building practical systems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 254-269
Author(s):  
Nawal Abass ◽  
Rua'a Tariq Jawad ◽  
Maysoon Taher Muhi

Pauses as pragmatic markers are considered important devices that help readers to gain a better and deeper understanding of certain texts as well as speech, promoting effectively language communication. They can help both the speaker and the hearer, due to the functions they have in a text. Their occurrence in speech has a value that they make it more understandable. In this regard, the present study aims to examine the forms and functions of pauses in literary texts, more specifically, in selected extracts from two dramas, namely, Pinter's The Homecoming and Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation and to compare how the two writers use pauses in these two dramas. To do so, the sequential production approach of turn-taking by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974), in combination with the contributions of some scholars who state the multifunctional use of pauses, has been used. The findings of the present study show that pauses do not exist arbitrarily in speech, but they are found to serve certain functions depending on the context in which they occur. Pauses, whether silent or filled have certain references. They are not merely meaningless. Pauses can express what is going on inside the characters without even saying a word. Regarding the selected extract from each play, it is noticed from the comparison that the two writers employ pauses frequently. Pauses are used by the two writers to be informative and that is why they should be studied with great care as they affect the interpretation of a certain text and consequently affect understanding


Author(s):  
Gwynne Tuell Potts

Casual readers of American history may assume the United States enjoyed relative peace between the end of the Revolution and the War of 1812, but in fact, the West remained in turmoil and Kentucky lay at the center of British, French, and Spanish intrigue. Kentuckians struggled with significant decisions leading to statehood: should they remain part of Virginia, join the United States, or become an independent entity aligned with another nation? Navigation rights on the Mississippi River were at the heart of Kentuckians’ concerns, and as long as the federal government refused to negotiate the matter with Spain, most farmers initially were reluctant to commit themselves and their children to land-locked futures. George Rogers Clark, with the encouragement of his former soldiers, agreed to lead a contingent of settlers to form a colony on the Mississippi. Going so far as to ask Spain for permission to do so (as did Sevier, Steuben, and others), Clark unnerved the federal government.


1997 ◽  
Vol 12 (04) ◽  
pp. 723-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Bamert

We analyze LEP and SLC data from the 1995 Summer Conferences as well as from low energy neutral current experiments for signals of new physics. The reasons for doing this are twofold: first to explain the deviations from the Standard Model observed in Rb and Rc and second to constrain nonstandard contributions to couplings of the Z0 boson to all fermions and to the oblique parameters. We do so by comparing the data with the Standard Model as well as with a number of test hypotheses concerning the nature of the new physics. These include nonstandard [Formula: see text]-, [Formula: see text]- and [Formula: see text]-couplings as well as the couplings of the Z0 to fermions of the entire first, second and third generations and universal corrections to all up- and down-type quark couplings (as can arise see for example in Z' mixing models). We find that nonstandard [Formula: see text] couplings are both necessary and sufficient to explain the data and in particular the Rb anomaly. It is not possible to explain Rb, Rc and a value of the strong coupling constant consistent with low energy determinations invoking only nonstandard [Formula: see text]- and [Formula: see text]-couplings. To do so one has to have also new physics contributions to the [Formula: see text] or universal corrections to all [Formula: see text] couplings.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Nawal Fadhil Abbas ◽  
Ru'aa Tariq Jawad ◽  
Maysoon Tahir Muhi

Pauses and hesitations are phenomena that can be found in speech. They can help both the speaker and the hearer, due to the functions they have in a dialogue. Their occurrence in speech has a value that they make it more understandable. In this regard, the researchers intend to critically examine the pauses and hesitations used in the two texts as well as their functions. The present paper aims to identify the types of pauses and hesitations used by Pinter’s The Homecoming and Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation as well as the functions they serve and to compare both playwrights in this regard. To do so, the sequential production approach of turn taking, in combination with the contributions of some scholars who state the multifunctional use of pauses and hesitations, has been used. The findings of the present study show that pauses and hesitations do not exist arbitrarily in speech but they are found to serve certain functions depending on the context in which they occur. Regarding the two selected extracts, it is noticed from the comparison that the two writers do not use pauses and hesitations equally. Baker uses them more frequently than Pinter due to the context in which they are used which requires using pauses to aid comprehension.


1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (01) ◽  
pp. 54-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Houlgate

In his lectures on the philosophy of history Hegel passes this famous judgement on the French Revolution. “Anaxagoras had been the first to say that nous governs the world; but only now did humanity come to recognize that thought should rule spiritual actuality. This was thus a magnificent dawn”. What first gave rise to discontent in France, in Hegel's view, were the heavy burdens that pressed upon the people and the government's inability to procure for the Court the means of supporting its luxury and extravagance. But soon the new spirit of freedom and enlightenment began to stir in men's minds and carry them forward to revolution. “One should not, therefore, declare oneself against the assertion”, Hegel concludes, “that the Revolution received its first impulse from Philosophy” (VPW, p 924). However, Hegel points out that the legacy of the revolution is actually an ambiguous one. For, although the principles which guided the revolution were those of reason and were indeed magnificent – namely, that humanity is born to freedom and self-determination – they were held fast in their abstraction and turned “polemically”, and at times terribly, against the existing order (VPW, p 925). What ultimately triumphed in the revolution was thus not concrete reason itself, but abstract reason or understanding (VPW, p 923). In Hegel's view, the enduring legacy of such revolutionary understanding was, not so much the Terror, but the principle that “the subjective wills of the many should hold sway” (VPW, p 932). This principle, which Hegel calls the principle of “liberalism” and which we would call the principle of majority rule, has since spread from France to become one of the governing principles of modern stat. It has been used to justify granting universal suffrage, to justify depriving corporations and the nobility of the right to sit in the legislature, and in some cases to justify abolishing the monarchy. What is of crucial importance for Hegel, however, is that such measures have not rendered the state more modern and rational, but have in fact distorted the modern state.


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