Diderot's Chaotic Order

Diderot's Chaotic Order PDF Author: Lester G. Crocker
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400867940
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
Because of its fragmentary, evolving, exploratory, and dialectical character, Diderot's thought has continuously resisted overall synthesis. In the ideas of "order" and "disorder," ideas important in all of eighteenth-century thought, Lester G. Crocker finds the key to an outline of a structure that leads to a genuine synthesis of Diderot's writings on philosophy, morality, politics, and aesthetics. The tensions in Diderot's thought, Professor Crocker shows, reflect his understanding of reality itself—paradoxically, an anarchic order, a dynamic universe governed by laws but always changing in a chaotic way. The book examines Diderot's approach to aesthetics as a human ordering response to the world, and his approach to morals and politics as practical ways of dealing with the problems of order and disorder in the context of life in society. In light of the concepts of order and disorder, the inextricable associations of all of these realms of thought in Diderot's work become clear, and a unity is perceived. Since the problem of order and disorder was fundamental to an age faced with the dissolution of the Christian view of cosmic order, this novel approach to Diderot's work suggests new ways of understanding the Enlightenment as a whole. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Diderot's Chaotic Order

Diderot's Chaotic Order PDF Author: Lester G. Crocker
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400867940
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
Because of its fragmentary, evolving, exploratory, and dialectical character, Diderot's thought has continuously resisted overall synthesis. In the ideas of "order" and "disorder," ideas important in all of eighteenth-century thought, Lester G. Crocker finds the key to an outline of a structure that leads to a genuine synthesis of Diderot's writings on philosophy, morality, politics, and aesthetics. The tensions in Diderot's thought, Professor Crocker shows, reflect his understanding of reality itself—paradoxically, an anarchic order, a dynamic universe governed by laws but always changing in a chaotic way. The book examines Diderot's approach to aesthetics as a human ordering response to the world, and his approach to morals and politics as practical ways of dealing with the problems of order and disorder in the context of life in society. In light of the concepts of order and disorder, the inextricable associations of all of these realms of thought in Diderot's work become clear, and a unity is perceived. Since the problem of order and disorder was fundamental to an age faced with the dissolution of the Christian view of cosmic order, this novel approach to Diderot's work suggests new ways of understanding the Enlightenment as a whole. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Diderot Studies

Diderot Studies PDF Author: Otis Fellows
Publisher: Librairie Droz
ISBN: 9782600039390
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description


Information Ages

Information Ages PDF Author: Michael E. Hobart
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801864124
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Get Book Here

Book Description
A grand intellectual history from clay tablets to Bill Gates. Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title The late twentieth century is trumpeted as the Information Age by pundits and politicians alike, and on the face of it, the claim requires no justification. But in Information Ages, Michael E. Hobart and Zachary S. Schiffman challenge this widespread assumption. In a sweeping and captivating history of information technology from the ancient Sumerians to the world of Alan Turing and John von Neumann, the authors show how revolutions in the technology of information storage—from the invention of writing approximately 5,000 years ago to the mathematical models for describing physical reality in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the introduction of computers—profoundly transformed ways of thinking.

Disrupted Patterns

Disrupted Patterns PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004456155
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of essays explores the significance of modern chaos theory as a new paradigm in literary studies and argues for the usefulness of borrowings from one discipline to another. Its thesis is that external reality is real and is not merely a social construct. On the other hand, this volume reflects the belief that literature, as a social and cultural construct, is not unrelated to that external reality. The authors represented here furthermore believe that learning to communicate across disciplinary divides is worth the risk of looking silly to purists and dogmatists. In applying a contemporary scientific grid to a by-gone era, the authors play out Steven Weinberg's exhortation to mind the clues to the past that cannot be obtained in any other way. It is of course necessary to get the science right, yet the essays in this collection do not seek to do science, but rather to suggest that science and literature often share common assumptions and realities. Thus there is no attempt to legitimize literary study through the adoption of a scientific approach. Interaction between the disciplines requires mutual respect and a willingness to investigate the broader implications of scientific research. Consequently, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of the long eighteenth century whether the focus is on England (Locke, Milton, Radcliffe, Lewis), France (Crébillion, Diderot, Marivaux, Montesquieu) or Germany (Kant, Moritz, Goethe, Fr. Schlegel). Moreover, given its multiple thrust in employing mythological, philosophical, and scientific notions of chaos, this volume will appeal to historians and philosophers of the European Enlightenment as well as to literary historians. The volume ultimately aspires to promote communication across centuries and across disciplines.

Socratic Satire

Socratic Satire PDF Author: Stephen Werner
Publisher: Summa Publications, Inc.
ISBN: 9780917786594
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Get Book Here

Book Description


Blueprint

Blueprint PDF Author: Stephen Werner
Publisher: Summa Publications, Inc.
ISBN: 9780917786969
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
The 2,569 engraved plates of the Encyclopedie are as central to its meaning as the articles or cross-references themselves. Plates change the discourse of "encyclopedisme" through a novel collaborative effort of written texts and pictures. With vignettes of Paris as their backdrop, they endorse an aesthetic of urban merveilleux. Ultimately they rewrite the encyclopedia genre. The Encyclopedie is far more than a traditional "illustrated" reference work; it is a modern pictorial encyclopedia. Its visionary or "blueprint" qualities are unique and were conceived by Diderot, the chief sponsor and architect of the plates. This work is richly illustrated with reproductions of the original plates. An exhaustive bibliography adds to the functional nature of this study. "Un petit livre tres excitant." --Dix-huitieme Siecle. "...this study is a fruitful examination of the Encyclopedie as an indisputable coherent fusion of the textual and the pictorial. It points the way to further investigation of what still remains a largely unexplored labyrinth of Enlightenment ideologies, values and concerns." --British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies.

British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment

British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment PDF Author: Stuart Brown
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135865116
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Get Book Here

Book Description
This fifth volume covers many of the most important philosophers and movements of the nineteenth century, including utilitarianism, positivism and pragmatism.

Criticism in Action

Criticism in Action PDF Author: Dena Goodman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501745859
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dena Goodman here offers a fresh explanation of how critical theory broke out of the mold of an earlier tradition of discourse—the mirror for princes genre—and shaped its own course in the eighteenth century. Criticism in Action provides a historical analysis of French Enlightenment texts as actions and as the focus of critical activity in which writers and their potential readers participate. Goodman approaches texts as forces that shape the thinking and acting of the individuals engaged in the act of reading and presents new interpretations of major Enlightenment texts by Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Diderot.

Double Dialectics

Double Dialectics PDF Author: Claudia Moscovici
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742513686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book Here

Book Description
Double Dialectics uses a dialectical method of reading to show the resonance between Enlightenment and postmodern speculations about the nature of knowledge and ethics. Further, it offers a possible answer to the question of which Enlightenment values are worth preserving. Double Dialectics shows that different kinds of Enlightenment discourse chart a nuanced path that mediates between relativism and objectivism, offering creative avenues of thought for contemporary ethical and epistemological problems.

Living Words

Living Words PDF Author: Terence J. Martin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780788505126
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
In particular, Martin commends the habit of critical thinking, an appreciation for irony, and an irenic approach to opposition as helpful stances for improving people's efforts to talk about religion. In addressing rhetorical and hermeneutical issues commonly found in philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion, this work's approach through the genre of dialogue will interest those concerned with the intersection of religion and literature.