18,462 research outputs found
ADAM SMITH'S OPTIMISTIC TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF HISTORY
No full textAdam Smith's four-stage theory provides the framework for his writings on history. The fourth stage is the commercial epoch; the culmination of history in this stage is a key component in the conventional interpretation of Adam Smith as a prophet of commercialism. In two historical case studies Smith shows the capacity of commercial society to regenerate itself. This potent capacity suggests that commercial society is inevitable. At a certain point in time it also overcomes the major obstacles to its permanence. Smith's philosophy of history anticipates the end of history views of Kant and Hegel.Political Economy,
How Might Adam Smith Pay Professors Today?
No full textAdam Smith’s proposal for paying professors was intended to induce increased faculty knowledge. If students have imperfect information about what they learn, and universities can only imperfectly measure the input of faculty time in student learning, publications may be used to measure faculty knowledge. If professors’ ability to publish is positively related to their ability to produce student learning, which universities can imperfectly measure, publications may be necessary to attract more able professors. Since research signals faculty knowledge, schools that do not value publications per se could require higher publication standards and pay higher wages than schools that value only publications.
ADAM SMITH'S VIEW OF HISTORY: CONSISTENT OR PARADOXICAL?
No full textThe conventional interpretation of Adam Smith is that he is a prophet of commercialism. The liberal capitalist reading of Smith is consistent with the view that history culminates in commercial society. The first part of the article develops this optimistic interpretation of Smith's view of history. Smith implies that commercial society is the end of history because 1) it supplies the ends of nature that he identifies; 2) it is inevitable; and 3) it is permanent. The second part of the article shows that Smith has some dark moments in his writings where he seems to reject completely such teleological notions. In this more civic humanist mood he confesses that commercial society does not supply the ends of nature, nor is it inevitable, nor is it permanent. Both views exist in Smith and the commentator is forced to choose between passages in Smith's work in order to support a particular interpretation of the former's view of history.Political Economy,
Digital Materialisms: Information Art In English Canada, 1910-1978
No full textDigital Materialisms: Information Art In English Canada, 1910-1978
Adam Lauder
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Art
University of Toronto
2016
Abstract
Information art has a long history in English Canada. The multidisciplinary production of Bertram Brooker (1888-1955) is paradigmatic of early-twentieth-century English-Canadian artists’ distinctive responses to, and interventions within, the channels of an emergent social formation characterized by an unprecedented circulation of “information.” Brooker’s counter-hegemonic renderings of information as a corporeal and qualitative alternative to the mathematical frameworks embraced by American peers cleared a path for a subsequent generation of information artists inspired by the percepts of Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), notably the Vancouver-based N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. (1966-1978). Like Brooker before them, NETCO’s co-presidents would attribute somatic and ontological meanings to information that trouble the cognitive, linguistic and structuralist frameworks conventionally mobilized by discussions of Conceptual art.
In tracing the sources of this discourse network to the Canadian-born British proto-media theorist Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), as well as its subterranean legacy in the Postminimalism of Robert Smithson (1938-1973), this study simultaneously troubles essentializing narratives of English-Canadian identity that problematically project representations of Canadianicity onto the territorial borders, and terrain (or “landscape”), of the nation state. Inspired in equal measure by recent developments in media archaeology and a resurgent scholarly interest in McLuhan, detailed investigations of discrete information media and instrumentalities are woven into a trajectory of progressive “informationalization” coterminous with the rise of an information society.
Through original readings of archival materials and other primary sources, this dissertation argues for a revised understanding of information art produced in and beyond the borders of English Canada as articulating a critique of transcendence. Artists and thinkers implicated in the common “discourse network” delineated in these pages harnessed information concepts and information media to express shared visions of immanence. This dissertation historicizes and marterializes these non-technological visions of information by undertaking an archaeology of specific media and discourses.Ph.D
“Trade Routes of the Mind”: A Brief History of Information Art in Canada
No full textH& IT ON probes the turbulent social environments generated by information
technologies. In a suite of all-new photo- and language-based works, conceptual artist
IAIN BAXTER& (a.k.a. Iain Baxter) stages a satirical theatre of far-from-equilibrium
behaviours and trends characteristic of a chronically web-surfing culture. The artist’s
intervention loosely adapts the irreverent format of Marshall McLuhan’s 1967
collaboration with graphic designer Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage—a
constant inspiration to “the&Man,” as BAXTER& has recently re-branded himself—to
explore the effects of social media on the contemporary information landscape. But make
no mistake, there is nothing nostalgic about BAXTER’s nod to the “McCoolman,” as he
calls him. As in all his work since 1968, BAXTER&’s approach to information is always
hands on. H& IT ON follows BAXTER& as he plays with and repurposes artifacts and
affects circulating within the trade routes of the Information Society to create an unruly collage of observation and ideas. H& IT ON also includes new essays by Adam Lauder
and Dennis Durham that, for the first time, situate BAXTER&’s pioneering information-
based practice historically within a North American context. Lauder’s essay positions
BAXTER& within a distinctly Canadian tradition of information art characterized by a
persistent focus on affect, embodiment, and the multitude. The first history of
information art in Canada, Lauder’s “Trade Routes of the Mind” explores Canadian
artists’s reading against the grain of indigenous formulations of information and the
Information Society in the work of Harold A. Innis, McLuhan and others—from Bertram
Brooker to General Idea and beyond. Durham’s essay compares and contrasts
BAXTER&’s art of Visual Sensitivity Information as Co-President of the Vancouver-
based N.E. Thing Co. with cybernetic representations of entropy found in the
contemporaneous work of American artists Robert Smithson and Dan Graham. Durham’s
essay is essential reading for understanding the international significance of BAXTER&.
H& IT ON also includes a preface by renowned McLuhan and BAXTER& scholar, Richard Cavell
Adam Smith and Roman Servitudes
No full textThis essay is a preprint of an article that appeared at: Tijdschrift voor Rechstsgeschiedenis, 72 (2004), 327–57.This essay discusses Adam Smith historical jurisprudence and his use of Roman law materials in his Lectures on Jurisprudence. It argues that Smith found it difficult to maintain his theory of legal development in the face of a highly developed body of Roman law literature
Adam health illustrated medical encylopaedia : respiratory resource stub
No full textA resource stub for the respiratory entry in the online "Adam health illustrated medical encylopaedia".
THE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF ADAM SMITH'S WORK
No full textThe paper will discuss the theological foundation to Smith's writings. Teleology, final causes and divine design were initially seen as central to understanding Smith's writings. Over time, this view fell out of fashion. In the period after World War II, with the rise of positivism, commentators tended to overlook or downplay this interpretation. In the last decade, or so, teleology has started to be restored to its former position as an essential element in understanding Smith. After spelling out Smith's teleology and his view of final causes, divine design and the ends of nature, we try to explain the Panglossian nature of the 'new theistic view' of Smith. While our view differs somewhat, we agree with the essence of the 'new view' claim: a theological view exists in Smith which underpins his moral and economic theories.Political Economy,
Interview. Matthew Joseph with Adam Gussow, musician and author
No full textInterview in which Adam Gussow discusses hill country blues musi
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