Volume 5.2 (Fall 2021)
From Critique to Audit: A Pragmatic Response to the Climate Emergency from the Humanities and Social Sciences, and a Call to Action by Jo Guldi
This short piece reviews the causes of delays to action on climate change and suggests that academics can play a greater role in hastening global policy changes.
Under the Influence: History in Scientific Training, the Case of Textbooks by Scott L. Montgomery andAlok Kumar
Scientists recognize that their work is now part of a global enterprise, thus pluricultural. Historians of science understand this pluricultural dimension has been true for millennia, with essential contributions from Babylonia, China, Persia, and India, as well as Islamic thinkers, and more, absorbed by Europe to help form the basis for modern disciplines. Scientists typically do not recognize these contributions, because history has been a minor and highly selective element in their training. The current essay, written by two scientists and historians of science, finds verification for this by examining three textbooks widely used for the training of undergraduate majors in physics, chemistry, and astronomy. The types of “history” in these texts closely parallel one another. They continue to repeat tropes of extreme Eurocentrism, directed as they are by the idea that little or no science existed before the late sixteenth century in Western Europe, with minimal input from non-Western thinkers thereafter. This has profound implications for the contemporary scientist in terms of understanding what constitutes “science” in a fundamental, epistemological sense and the process by which the relevant knowledge was actually created.
Artwork: Thoughts on the Brush by Kevin Pang
We constantly make choices that determine our path. These choices, and the emotions that accompany them, manifest themselves in mysterious, abstract ways. These abstract manifestations become concrete through the act of creating. Each movement we make takes the abstract sensibilities and gives them a visual representation.
The brush has the unique ability to record even the most minute movement and provide a definition or journal for our abstract self. The memory can be overloaded by day-to-day stresses and complexities. Without a visual or concrete definition of our abstract self, tracking our unique inner pattern becomes more difficult. It is helpful to learn our own inner language in order to navigate our own minds and the physical world.
Aristotle’s Politics under the Last Qing Emperor: An Introduction to the First Chinese Translation by Shadi Bartsch
In 1898, the Chinese reformer, journalist, and political thinker Liang Qichao 梁啓超 (1873–1929) made Aristotle’s political thought available to his countrymen for the first time in China’s long history. Liang’s essay “The Political Theory of Aristotle” has never been available in English, leaving most scholars who are interested in the history of Chinese political thought unable to access what one of the earliest Chinese political reformers chose to say about a philosopher he believed to be the source of Western politics. This contribution includes an introduction by Shadi Bartsch that sets the scene for the first English translation of “The Political Theory of Aristotle,” Liang’s explication and commentary on Aristotle’s Politics.
“The Political Theory of Aristotle,” by Liang Qichao (trans. by Henry Zhao)
In 1898, the Chinese reformer, journalist, and political thinker Liang Qichao 梁啓超 (1873–1929) made Aristotle’s political thought available to his countrymen for the first time in China’s long history. Liang’s essay “The Political Theory of Aristotle” has never been available in English, leaving most scholars who are interested in the history of Chinese political thought unable to access what one of the earliest Chinese political reformers chose to say about a philosopher he believed to be the source of Western politics. This contribution includes “The Political Theory of Aristotle,” Liang’s explication and commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, translated by Henry Zhao.
A Linguistic Framework for Knowledge, Belief, and Veridicality Judgment by Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari
In this essay, we approach the question of language, thought, and reality by studying how grammar and the lexicon encode our relation to the world (veridicality). We will address the fundamental categories of knowledge and belief and focus on specific grammatical devices such as mood morphemes (subjunctive and indicative), attitude verbs of knowledge and belief, and expressions of possibility and necessity such as modal verbs (must, may, will, might). What is the function of these expressions? How much do they tell us about the nature of knowing and believing? What are the factors that play a role in belief formation?