Impure temporalities in the history of political philosophy: the historiography of dēmokratia in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain

ABSTRACT

Building on Bernard Williams’ thesis about the intertwining of history and political philosophy, the essay explores how the problem of the history of dēmokratia after the late-eighteenth and over the nineteenth-century in Britain constituted a primary and critical field in which the philosophical meaning of democracy was debated. Configuring a new temporal perspective grounded in the relationship between ancient and modern democracy, historiographical works by John Gillies, William Mitford, and George Grote put forth an understanding of the concept as a battlefield, involving several conflicting meanings, narratives and historical forces. This historiographical tradition highlighted the tensions underpinning the definition of democracy in the long-term temporal frame linking antiquity and modernity. So even more than contemporary philosophical and political writings, historical understanding constituted a unique concept of democracy that both concentrated and dispersed meaning; it was not just one vision of democracy, among others, but one that acquired the paradoxical power to forge some semantic stability and coherence over time, and to accentuate the threat of the concept’s break up into distinct political premises and historical moments that constituted it.     

E pluribus unum and civil harmony at election time

One way to formulate the task of the public theologian at election time is to interpret America's motto, e pluribus unum (out of many, one). Civility both presumes oneness while promoting oneness. After four years of ceaseless divisiveness from the White House, America needs political leadership that promotes a sense of belonging that includes persons of all races, ethnicities, economic classes, ages, genders, and country of origin. The public theologian combats xenophobia and the fear of replacement by demanding police reform, establishing a comprehensive national health delivery system, and comforting those who are anxious about their future in the unum.     

Grote’s analysis of Ancient Greek political thought: its significance to J. S. Mill’s idea about ‘active character’ in a liberal democracy

ABSTRACT

George Grote (1794–1871) published the History of Greece between 1846 and 1856, thereby providing the first positive evaluation of democratic Athens in the early modern period and a novel interpretation of the roles of the sophists and of Socrates, premised on his understanding of democratic Athens. Grote’s account offered a sociological explanation of the moral psychology cultivated by the constitution of the Athenian polis through the citizens’ active political participation. This participation cultivated civic virtues, emotional and ethical attachment to the polis, and a sense of obligation towards the polis, even at the expense of self-interest. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was familiar with Grote’s historical works and emphasized the parallels between the ancient direct democracy and the modern, representative democracy, which he himself promoted in his Considerations on Representative Government (1861). In this article it is argued that J. S. Mill’s concept of the ‘active character’ of the citizen in a modern representative democracy was inspired by Grote’s understanding and positive evaluation of ancient democratic Athens and its moral psychology. This is one example of the phenomenon mentioned in the editorial to this special issue, namely that accounts of past philosophy may influence philosophy proper.     

Differential use of partial information by good and poor readers

Two interpretations of the poor readers' deficit are examined. According to one interpretation, poor readers are primarily deficient in use of phonetic information, and, thus, their deficit is specific to reading or at least to use of language. A second interpretation is that good and poor readers differ in their ability or tendency to use stimulus attributes—that is, partial information for stimulus identity—and, thus, their deficit is not specific to reading. Three experiments provide evidence favoring the second interpretation. Good and poor readers perform differently in tests of memory—whether or not the stimulus items are coded phonetically—when information about stimulus identity is incomplete due to memory loss and the response measure is sensitive to partial-information use in guessing. Likewise, the two groups perform differently in a perceptual task when information for stimulus identity is partial, but they perform at similar levels when information is complete.     

Synesthesia: II. Psychophysical relations in the synesthesia of geometrically shaped taste and colored hearing

The psychophysical function in two synesthetic subjects, one with geometrically shaped taste and the other with colored hearing, is investigated. Each synesthete is compared with three control subjects. Pilot studies are used to construct appropriate response domains. Compared to controls, synesthetes give a restricted set of responses that are also asymmetric with respect to the range of choices available in various subsets of the response domain. A combination of absolute and relative effects is also distinctive of synesthetic percepts. It is concluded that synesthesia is a distinct phenomenon unlike ordinary mediated associations, and occupies an intermediate position in the range of simple to complex brain mechanisms.