The time gap between the reader and the text seems to be a problem, an obstacle in the way of interpretation. Gadamer (p. 297) rather views it as productive: “Temporal distance is not something that must be overcome. This was, rather, the naive assumption of historicism, namely that we must . . . . Continue Reading »
Modern hermeneutics highlights hermeneutical circles of various sorts: To understand the part you must understand the whole, but to understand the whole you must understand the parts. To understand the author you must understand his times, but to understand the times you must understand the author. . . . . Continue Reading »
In his study of the rise of the spirit of capitalism, translated as The Quintessence Of Capitalism: A Study Of The History And Psychology Of The Modern Business Man . . . , Werner Sombart emphasizes the role of the State in cultivating the capitalist spirit and in supporting capitalist enterprises. . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 990 - 1992 (Studies in Social Discontinuity) , Charles Tilly tells the story of the modern state as a story of coercion and capital. It is a story of two political forms, state and city. Coercion is gradually monopolized by the state, while the . . . . Continue Reading »
In an earlier post, I quoted Robert Nisbet’s suggestion that the capitalist system was the result of state intervention in and even destruction of earlier economic arrangements. No movement illustrates the point better than the enclosure movement, the subject of JM Neeson’s Commoners: . . . . Continue Reading »
Nisbet ( The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom (Background: Essential Texts for the Conservative Mind) ) admits that “no one can seriously question the abstract superiority of a society in which freedom of economic choice exists as compared to a society in which . . . . Continue Reading »
In his classic The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom (Background: Essential Texts for the Conservative Mind) , recently republished by ISI, Robert Nisbet places the rise of capitalism within the history of modern Statism. He notes, “The expansion of the State in . . . . Continue Reading »
Challenging both the “traditional” social interpretations of English politics in the 17th century (Stone, Hill) and also the Revisionists who dismiss social causes, Robert Brenner ( Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, . . . . Continue Reading »
As Inwood explains, Heidegger doubts that a correspondence theory of truth is coherent. Truth for him is “disclosure” rather than correspondence. Why? If truth is correspondence, then an assertion is true if it corresponds to the facts of the case. Heidegger raises questions about both . . . . Continue Reading »
Michael Inwood’s Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction is superb. It is, as the title indicates, very short. It is, however, thorough; and it is, unlike its subject, completely lucid. Inwood has the English knack of making Heidegger’s most abstruse concepts seem perfectly down-to-earth. . . . . Continue Reading »
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