Download or read book Grace Talent and Merit written by Anthony J. La Vopa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-06-27 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poor students experienced a kind of upward mobility that was not uncommon in old-regime Europe. They were also objects of controversy. and as such they reveal the many dimensions of the issue of opening careers to talent. At stake were socially and politically sensitive questions about the relative importance of nature and nurture, of natural talent and 'birth', in realizing human potential; about the proper reconciliation of collective imperatives and individual freedom, of hierarchical stability and progress; about how national systems of education should be structured; about the kind and degree of upward mobility the society and the culture needed and could tolerate. This 1988 book shows how a cluster of familiar eighteenth-century ideas about grace, talent, and merit shaped a formative social experience for men whose importance is still celebrated today, as well as for members of the educated elite who were and have remained obscure.
Download or read book Grace Versus Merit in Patience and Pearl written by Robert C. Johnson and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Representations of the Self from the Renaissance to Romanticism written by Patrick Coleman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-04-27 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the public assertion of self by men and women in England, France and Germany from the Renaissance to Romanticism.
Download or read book Enlightenment and Community written by Benjamin W. Redekop and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2000 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an age when it has become fashionable to dismiss the Enlightenment as a sinister movement based on instrumental rationality, Benjamin Redekop delves deeper to understand the movement on its own terms. In Enlightenment and Community he shows that the E
Download or read book Kant and the Theory and Practice of International Right written by Georg Cavallar and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2020-03-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that Kant’s theory of international relations should be interpreted as an attempt to apply the principles of reason to history in general, and in particular to political conditions of the late eighteenth century. It demonstrates how Kant attempts to mediate between a priori theory and practice, and how this works in the field of international law and international relations. Kant appreciates how the precepts of theory have to be tested against the facts, before the theory is enriched to deal with the complexities of their application. In the central chapters of this book, the starting points are apparent contradictions in Kant’s writings; assuming that Kant is a systematic and profound thinker, Cavallar seeks to use these contradictions to discover Kant’s ‘deep structure’, a dynamic and evolutionary theory that tries to anticipate a world where the idea of international justice might be more fully realized.
Download or read book Undeserved Merit written by Christopher Robinson and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the difference between receiving the grace of God and accepting it? What does it take to accept this perfect gift from God and accept it as your own? Is it even possible to live completely in grace? Undeserved Merit tries to seek out the answers to these questions by diving into what the Word of God says about the grace of God and the supposed value that God gives His children. Robinson pours his journey of forgiveness and grace on these pages in hopes that it might impact anyone around the world and teach them how to invite Jesus into their suffering. Through mentorship, constant reading, and perpetually praying, he found that there was nothing that Jesus couldn't do. Including breaking down the internal barrier that he put up.
Download or read book The World We Want written by Robert B. Louden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The World We Want compares the future world that Enlightenment intellectuals had hoped for with our own world at present. In what respects do the two worlds differ, and why are they so different? To what extent is and isn't our world the world they wanted, and to what extent do we today still want their world? Unlike previous philosophical critiques and defenses of the Enlightenment, the present study focuses extensively on the relevant historical and empirical record first, by examining carefully what kind of future Enlightenment intellectuals actually hoped for; second, by tracking the different legacies of their central ideals over the past two centuries. But in addition to documenting the significant gap that still exists between Enlightenment ideals and current realities, the author also attempts to show why the ideals of the Enlightenment still elude us. What does our own experience tell us about the appropriateness of these ideals? Which Enlightenment ideals do not fit with human nature? Why is meaningful support for these ideals, particularly within the US, so weak at present? Which of the means that Enlightenment intellectuals advocated for realizing their ideals are inefficacious? Which of their ideals have devolved into distorted versions of themselves when attempts have been made to realize them? How and why, after more than two centuries, have we still failed to realize the most significant Enlightenment ideals? In short, what is dead and what is living in these ideals?
Download or read book Down from Olympus written by Suzanne L. Marchand and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the publication of Eliza May Butler's Tyranny of Greece over Germany in 1935, the obsession of the German educated elite with the ancient Greeks has become an accepted, if severely underanalyzed, cliché. In Down from Olympus, Suzanne Marchand attempts to come to grips with German Graecophilia, not as a private passion but as an institutionally generated and preserved cultural trope. The book argues that nineteenth-century philhellenes inherited both an elitist, normative aesthetics and an ascetic, scholarly ethos from their Romantic predecessors; German "neohumanists" promised to reconcile these intellectual commitments, and by so doing, to revitalize education and the arts. Focusing on the history of classical archaeology, Marchand shows how the injunction to imitate Greek art was made the basis for new, state-funded cultural institutions. Tracing interactions between scholars and policymakers that made possible grand-scale cultural feats like the acquisition of the Pergamum Altar, she underscores both the gains in specialized knowledge and the failures in social responsibility that were the distinctive products of German neohumanism. This book discusses intellectual and institutional aspects of archaeology and philhellenism, giving extensive treatment to the history of prehistorical archaeology and German "orientalism." Marchand traces the history of the study, excavation, and exhibition of Greek art as a means to confront the social, cultural, and political consequences of the specialization of scholarship in the last two centuries.
Download or read book The Tyranny of Merit written by Michael J. Sandel and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Times Literary Supplement’s Book of the Year 2020 A New Statesman's Best Book of 2020 A Bloomberg's Best Book of 2020 A Guardian Best Book About Ideas of 2020 The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.
Download or read book Dying with an Enlightening Fall written by David Pickus and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dying with an Enlightening Fall is a study of a critical but under-examined moment in German intellectual history. David Pickus encourages readers to discover the connections between the tumultuous events in Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the critical self-perception of Germany's first generation of truly modern writers. At the same time that the Polish Republic of Nobles was annexed by its neighbors, the German Enlightenment reached its apex. Pickus claims that Poland's manifest failure to adapt to Europe's changing conditions, and its subsequent fall, made Poland a lesson in failure in the eyes of German thinkers. Poland allowed German intellectuals to formulate modern sensibilities; it became a necessary foil, defining what the modern age should be by what it was not.
Download or read book Serving Two Masters written by Elisabeth W. Sommer and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighteenth century was a time of significant change in the perception of marriage and family relations, the emphasis of reason over revelation, and the spread of political consciousness. The Unity of the Brethren, known in America as Moravians, experienced the resulting tensions firsthand as they organized their protective religious settlements in Germany. A group of the Brethren who later settled in Salem, North Carolina, experienced the stresses of cultural and generational conflict when its younger members came to think of themselves as Americans. The Moravians who first immigrated to America actively maintained their connections to those who remained in Europe and gave them the authority for deciding religious, social, and governmental issues. But, as the children born in Salem became acclimated to more freedoms, particularly in the wake of the American Revolution, a series of disputes intensified the problems of transatlantic governance. While the group's leadership usually associated Enlightenment principles with rebellion and religious skepticism, the younger Brethren were drawn to its message of individual autonomy and creative expression. Elisabeth Sommer traces the impact of this generational and cultural change among Moravians on both sides of the Atlantic and examines the resulting debate over the definition of freedom and faith.
Download or read book The Longing for Myth in Germany written by George S. Williamson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-07 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the dawn of Romanticism, artists and intellectuals in Germany have maintained an abiding interest in the gods and myths of antiquity while calling for a new mythology suitable to the modern age. In this study, George S. Williamson examines the factors that gave rise to this distinct and profound longing for myth. In doing so, he demonstrates the entanglement of aesthetic and philosophical ambitions in Germany with some of the major religious conflicts of the nineteenth century. Through readings of key intellectuals ranging from Herder and Schelling to Wagner and Nietzsche, Williamson highlights three crucial factors in the emergence of the German engagement with myth: the tradition of Philhellenist neohumanism, a critique of contemporary aesthetic and public life as dominated by private interests, and a rejection of the Bible by many Protestant scholars as the product of a foreign, "Oriental" culture. According to Williamson, the discourse on myth in Germany remained bound up with problems of Protestant theology and confessional conflict through the nineteenth century and beyond. A compelling adventure in intellectual history, this study uncovers the foundations of Germany's fascination with myth and its enduring cultural legacy.
Download or read book Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe written by Gábor Almási and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-16 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates how work ethics in Europe were conceptualised from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. Through analysis of a range of discourses, it focuses on the roles played by intellectuals in formulating, communicating, and contesting ideas about work and its ethical value. The book moves away from the idea of a singular Weberian work ethic as fundamental to modern notions of work and instead emphasises how different languages of work were harnessed for a variety of social, intellectual, religious, economic, political, and ideological objectives. Rather than a singular work ethic that left a decisive mark on the development of Western culture and economy, the volume stresses plurality. The essays draw on approaches from intellectual, social, and cultural history. They explore how, why, and in what contexts labour became an important and openly promoted value; who promoted or opposed hard work and for what reasons; and whether there was an early modern break with ancient and medieval discourses on work. These historicized visions of work ethics help enrich our understanding of present-day changing attitudes to work.
Download or read book The Christian Tradition written by Ralph Keen and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2008-08-22 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Christian Tradition, formerly published by Pearson/Prentice Hall, introduces students at the beginning of the third millennium to a religion that has evolved over and shaped two previous millennia. With particular focus placed on the social and cultural background to this tradition, the text provides a stimulating survey of the history of Christianity from its Jewish roots to the challenges it faces in the twenty-first century. This innovative text weaves a consideration of the arts, spirituality, religious life and practice—especially among the laity, women, and others outside the dominant institutional tradition—into its rich historical narrative, and offers a comprehensive and diverse view of the course of Christian history
Download or read book Language and Enlightenment written by Avi Lifschitz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of language in human cognition? Could we attain self-consciousness and construct our civilization without language? Such were the questions at the basis of eighteenth-century debates on the joint evolution of language, mind, and culture. Language and Enlightenment highlights the importance of language in the social theory, epistemology, and aesthetics of the Enlightenment. While focusing on the Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great, Avi Lifschitz situates the Berlin debates within a larger temporal and geographical framework. He argues that awareness of the historicity and linguistic rootedness of all forms of life was a mainstream Enlightenment notion rather than a feature of the so-called 'Counter-Enlightenment'. Enlightenment authors of different persuasions investigated whether speechless human beings could have developed their language and society on their own. Such inquiries usually pondered the difficult shift from natural signs like cries and gestures to the artificial, articulate words of human language. This transition from nature to artifice was mirrored in other domains of inquiry, such as the origins of social relations, inequality, the arts, and the sciences. By examining a wide variety of authors - Leibniz, Wolff, Condillac, Rousseau, Michaelis, and Herder, among others - Language and Enlightenment emphasises the open and malleable character of the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters. The language debates demonstrate that German theories of culture and language were not merely a rejection of French ideas. New notions of the genius of language and its role in cognition were constructed through a complex interaction with cross-European currents, especially via the prize contests at the Berlin Academy.
Download or read book Bengal in Global Concept History written by Andrew Sartori and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today people all over the globe invoke the concept of culture to make sense of their world, their social interactions, and themselves. But how did the culture concept become so ubiquitous? In this ambitious study, Andrew Sartori closely examines the history of political and intellectual life in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengal to show how the concept can take on a life of its own in different contexts. Sartori weaves the narrative of Bengal’s embrace of culturalism into a worldwide history of the concept, from its origins in eighteenth-century Germany, through its adoption in England in the early 1800s, to its appearance in distinct local guises across the non-Western world. The impetus for the concept’s dissemination was capitalism, Sartori argues, as its spread across the globe initiated the need to celebrate the local and the communal. Therefore, Sartori concludes, the use of the culture concept in non-Western sites was driven not by slavish imitation of colonizing powers, but by the same problems that repeatedly followed the advance of modern capitalism. This remarkable interdisciplinary study will be of significant interest to historians and anthropologists, as well as scholars of South Asia and colonialism.
Download or read book The Aristocracy of Talent written by Adrian Wooldridge and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Times (UK) book of the year! Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth. While this initially seemed like a novel concept, by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? In The Aristocracy of Talent, esteemed journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities, and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocratic system. Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.
