Search results for "Enlightenment"
showing 10 items of 110 documents
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: ADAM SMITH’S THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL LAW AND ECONOMICS
2020
For Adam Smith, a crime is not the result of a rational calculation of loss and gain but the consequence of envy and a vain desire to parade wealth to attract the approbation of others, combined with a natural systematic bias in overestimating the probability of success. Similarly, Smith does not conceive of legal sanctions as a rational deterrent but as deriving from the feeling of resentment. While the prevailing approach of the eighteenth century is a rational explanation of crime and a utilitarian use of punishment, Adam Smith instead builds his theory of criminal behavior and legal prosecution consistently on the sentiments. A well-functioning legal system is thus an unintended consequ…
Why France and India? The Convergence Hypothesis
2016
The cross-fertilization of insights derived from French and Indian intellectual history has ignited a pluridisciplinary reflection on the role played by these two countries in the fabric of the knowledge-based economy in the twenty-first century. On the one hand, the Age of Enlightenment in Western Europe in the eighteenth century, brought forward an autonomous position for knowledge in human societies, and, on the other hand, it was once predicted that India’s future would be built in her classrooms (Education Commission). Finally, we lay the ground for the characterization of a triple knowledge-based convergence between the two higher-education systems on academic, economic and institutio…
Aesthetics and Bildung
2012
The article approaches the educational potential of aesthetics and the arts by reviving the notion of Bildung and suggesting an interpretation that emphasizes both its social character and the role of artworks and other aesthetic expressions. Bildung is a dialogic process where human relationships are crucial both for the exchange and the birth of insights. Artworks are described as images (Bilde), which act as intermediaries and points of reference in expressing, communicating and negotiating cultural values. In developing the argument, Immanuel Kant's analysis of aesthetic judgment is read together with his ideas on enlightenment, highlighting the social and political character of judgmen…
The Baltic Enlightenment and perceptions of medieval Latvian history
1998
(1998). The Baltic Enlightenment and perceptions of medieval Latvian history. Journal of Baltic Studies: Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 213-224.
Between the Darkness of Barbarism and the Light of Civilization: British Images of the Finn in the Late Eighteenth Century
2014
This article aims to show that it was the British travellers (Coxe, Tooke, Clarke,et al.) to Finland in the late eighteenth century who discovered Finland for theBritish reading public. As they distinguished the Finns as a separate ‘race’ fromthe Russians, the Swedes, and the Lapps, they contributed to the proto-racialistimage of them that would become popular in the nineteenth century. BecauseSweden had become an important maritime trading partner (in iron ore, tar, andtimber) to the British, its eastern part, Finland, also became an interesting countryto visit en route from Stockholm to Saint Petersburg (or from Saint Petersburgto Stockholm). The travellers were astonished to realize that…
On Thinking the Tragic with Adorno
2016
This article seeks to provide a template for understanding the tragic dimension of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy through a reading of his early collaborative work with Max Horkheimer, the Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). While Adorno’s view has often been considered to be tragic, little has been done to reconstruct the tragic dimension of his thought. I argue that the view of the human condition, presented in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, is founded on metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical convictions that have structural similarities with the positions held by theorists and philosophers of tragedy and the tragic. Since traces of these tragic elements can be found throughout Adorn…
When Venus stays awake, Minerva sleeps: a narrative of female sanctity in eighteenth-century Spain
2021
Written records of confession provide exceptional insight into private histories of women and the gender dynamics that shaped them. The sacrament of confession entailed an implicit inequality between men and women, given that the priest was considered to be shrouded in divine power while the penitent had to submit herself to his moral authority. Nevertheless, confession also offered women the opportunity to express themselves and to discuss and understand their spiritual concerns. Some hoped their confessors would recognize their religious charisma, which would involve an affirmation of individuality, autonomy and personal power. In Spain, we find key information about interactions between …
Scattering community
2001
In discussing the cultural history of the 19th century, Walter Benjamin diagnosed the emergence of the modern novel and its form of narration as the sign of a fracturing experience. The split in experience is related to the scattering of a homogeneous idea of space and time, constituted especially during the Enlightenment and in the German historicism. Benjamin's claim reflected the fracturing temporality of modern communities as well as the transformations in the understanding of the meaning of tradition. Here, I begin by discussing Benjamin's conceptions of experience and memory in detail. Secondly, I consider his ideas on history in the framework of challenging the new forms of narratio…
Mayans and the Society of Jesus. From friendship to rupture. A diverging religious cultural evolution
2018
espanolEn este articulo se analiza, a traves de la correspondencia mantenida por Gregorio Mayans con diferentes y cualificados corresponsales, sus posiciones claramente antijesuiticas. Desde una confianza inicial en la Compania de Jesus, la posicion de Mayans experimento una evolucion con el paso del tiempo hacia una abierta oposicion. En ello influyeron, entre otras causas, el desprecio al regalismo practicado por el ilustrado valenciano y ciertos acontecimientos politicos como la muerte de Carvajal y la desaparicion del escenario politico de Ensenada y el padre Ravago. EnglishThis article analyzes, through the correspondence maintained by Gregorio Mayans with different and qualified corre…