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Arnold J. Toynbees historiefilosofiske koncept 'udfordring-og-svar': genese, funktion, reception, revurdering
No full textIn this thesis I have argued that the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee’s metahistorical concept of Challenge-and-Response cannot be separated from its mystical-religious author and context, and that the use and positive reception of the concept disassociated from its mystical definitions is problematic. I have approached this subject mainly through the analytical framework of literary critical historiography, by applying literary critical tools to the analysis of historical texts and concepts. Arnold J. Toynbee got the idea for his concept of Challenge-and-Response and the structure of his magnus epos, A Study of History, as the culmination of a series of mystical experiences. The concept crystallized on a ‘dreamlike trip’ on a train en route from Constantinople to England, Saturday, Sep. 1. 1921. Once conceived, Challenge-and-Response worked as a rhetorical figure that structured A Study of History in an attempted reconciliation of a rational philosophy of history with religious dogma (primarily Catholic, but with inspirations from Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam). The all-encompassing argument being that humanity should move toward a ‘higher transcendental Reality’ or ‘God’ as a’ brotherhood of Saints’. Structurally perceived, A Study of History, is a written in the religious genre of commentary. It mirrors the narrative structure of St. Augustine’s De Cavitate Dei, but lets the concept of Challenge-and-Response connect the overarching mystical-religious argument with the two underlying metaphysical systems of formism and organism (in Stephen C. Peppers terms). On the micro level of the text, Challenge-and-Response is easily and com-monsensically grasped as a dialectical pair, while it structures the rest of the text by discursively referring to extra-textual phenomena like historical persons, events and societies. This makes the concept a root-metaphor: working as a concept of truth in the formic world-hypothesis and as the root-metaphor of organism, Challenge-and-Response embeds the formic world hypothesis in an organic superstructure. Stylistically, the overarching trope (using the terminology of Hayden White and Kenneth Burke) is the synecdoche, as it constitutes the core of A Study of History’s main argument. But the argument is shrouded in metaphor and allegory at all times: a mystical-religious argument clothed in rhetoric and metaphor and, as such, a rhetorical strategy that shows in the intermixing of mythoi or literary plots. Using the terminology of Northrop Frye, a comic plot is superimposed on a tragedy and points toward humanity’s apocalyptic union with God and transcendental reality. The protagonist is Humanity, whose spirit meets the antagonist, Humanity’s ‘self’, in a doubly cycle: The self’s tragic cycle of hybris-nemesis that lets the spirit transcend itself. The self synecdochally illustrates a tragic cycle of civilizations, as the spirit illustrates the ‘higher religion’s’ movement of integration toward God. As a history of events, the total work describes three tragic civilizational cycles and two comic crystallizations of new societies in the shape of higher religions, apocalyptically pointing towards a third integrated religion at some point in the future. What shapes history, then, is the internal and external conflict of soul and self, that shows itself in social life as a Challenge-and-Response-relation between individuals and thereby, through ‘mimesis’, extends to the whole of society. Society is a network of relations, where individual points of Challenge-and-Response (soul vs. self) are connected through relations of Challenge-and-Response (individual vs. individual). As the central concept of A Study of History, Challenge-and-Response makes the work oscillate between myth and rationality. Rational and religious points are not distinguished, making the work self-contradictory from a rational point of view, but making sense in the optic of mysticism. This makes Challenge-and-Response a mysticistic figure, that binds A Study of History together. Mysticism becomes rhetoric through the concept of Challenge-and-Response. This makes the subsequent use of the concept and dissociation from the work and writer on grounds of mysticism and religiosity seem paradoxical. The analysis of Challenge-and-Response has shown how it originated and how it structures Toynbee’s theory of civilizations. The concept is mysticistic, but works at the centre of a theory with certain interesting derivative concepts, such as ‘networks of relations’, ‘mimeses’ and a focus on individual action, all seemingly relevant today. The problem is that these ideas are thoroughly intertwined with mysticistic and religious terms such as ‘the mystic ladder’, ‘the Soul’, ‘God’ and ‘Transcendental Reality’, all of which are connected through the concept of Challenge-and-Response. The positive assessment of the concept rests on the exclusion or forgetting of its mystical aspects. A rational use of the concept would involve a total redefinition. As an analytical concept, Challenge-and-Response breaks down on inspection. But it lives on nonetheless, as this thesis has shown.In this thesis I have argued that the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee’s metahistorical concept of Challenge-and-Response cannot be separated from its mystical-religious author and context, and that the use and positive reception of the concept disassociated from its mystical definitions is problematic. I have approached this subject mainly through the analytical framework of literary critical historiography, by applying literary critical tools to the analysis of historical texts and concepts. Arnold J. Toynbee got the idea for his concept of Challenge-and-Response and the structure of his magnus epos, A Study of History, as the culmination of a series of mystical experiences. The concept crystallized on a ‘dreamlike trip’ on a train en route from Constantinople to England, Saturday, Sep. 1. 1921. Once conceived, Challenge-and-Response worked as a rhetorical figure that structured A Study of History in an attempted reconciliation of a rational philosophy of history with religious dogma (primarily Catholic, but with inspirations from Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam). The all-encompassing argument being that humanity should move toward a ‘higher transcendental Reality’ or ‘God’ as a’ brotherhood of Saints’. Structurally perceived, A Study of History, is a written in the religious genre of commentary. It mirrors the narrative structure of St. Augustine’s De Cavitate Dei, but lets the concept of Challenge-and-Response connect the overarching mystical-religious argument with the two underlying metaphysical systems of formism and organism (in Stephen C. Peppers terms). On the micro level of the text, Challenge-and-Response is easily and com-monsensically grasped as a dialectical pair, while it structures the rest of the text by discursively referring to extra-textual phenomena like historical persons, events and societies. This makes the concept a root-metaphor: working as a concept of truth in the formic world-hypothesis and as the root-metaphor of organism, Challenge-and-Response embeds the formic world hypothesis in an organic superstructure. Stylistically, the overarching trope (using the terminology of Hayden White and Kenneth Burke) is the synecdoche, as it constitutes the core of A Study of History’s main argument. But the argument is shrouded in metaphor and allegory at all times: a mystical-religious argument clothed in rhetoric and metaphor and, as such, a rhetorical strategy that shows in the intermixing of mythoi or literary plots. Using the terminology of Northrop Frye, a comic plot is superimposed on a tragedy and points toward humanity’s apocalyptic union with God and transcendental reality. The protagonist is Humanity, whose spirit meets the antagonist, Humanity’s ‘self’, in a doubly cycle: The self’s tragic cycle of hybris-nemesis that lets the spirit transcend itself. The self synecdochally illustrates a tragic cycle of civilizations, as the spirit illustrates the ‘higher religion’s’ movement of integration toward God. As a history of events, the total work describes three tragic civilizational cycles and two comic crystallizations of new societies in the shape of higher religions, apocalyptically pointing towards a third integrated religion at some point in the future. What shapes history, then, is the internal and external conflict of soul and self, that shows itself in social life as a Challenge-and-Response-relation between individuals and thereby, through ‘mimesis’, extends to the whole of society. Society is a network of relations, where individual points of Challenge-and-Response (soul vs. self) are connected through relations of Challenge-and-Response (individual vs. individual). As the central concept of A Study of History, Challenge-and-Response makes the work oscillate between myth and rationality. Rational and religious points are not distinguished, making the work self-contradictory from a rational point of view, but making sense in the optic of mysticism. This makes Challenge-and-Response a mysticistic figure, that binds A Study of History together. Mysticism becomes rhetoric through the concept of Challenge-and-Response. This makes the subsequent use of the concept and dissociation from the work and writer on grounds of mysticism and religiosity seem paradoxical. The analysis of Challenge-and-Response has shown how it originated and how it structures Toynbee’s theory of civilizations. The concept is mysticistic, but works at the centre of a theory with certain interesting derivative concepts, such as ‘networks of relations’, ‘mimeses’ and a focus on individual action, all seemingly relevant today. The problem is that these ideas are thoroughly intertwined with mysticistic and religious terms such as ‘the mystic ladder’, ‘the Soul’, ‘God’ and ‘Transcendental Reality’, all of which are connected through the concept of Challenge-and-Response. The positive assessment of the concept rests on the exclusion or forgetting of its mystical aspects. A rational use of the concept would involve a total redefinition. As an analytical concept, Challenge-and-Response breaks down on inspection. But it lives on nonetheless, as this thesis has shown
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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