Ute Daniel is going to present a working paper on 'Marx and Weber on Doing History'

The historiography of democracy mostly tends to focus on movements and endeavours the aims of which were to foster democratic developments and political participation. These topics are extremely important. But they do not help to understand why democratic constitutions were established or universal franchise was introduced (or why both was rejected). So my project asks why monarchs and
governments, parliaments and parties in the course of the 19th and early 20th century extended the franchise (or why they refused to extend it). The underlying hypothesis is, that universal suffrage – the core of democracy as we understand it today – was brought about neither by pro-democratic movements nor by governing classes convinced of the inevitability of democratic developments before 1914, but by the First World War.

Alexander Jordan presents a working paper on 'Thomas Carlyle, Hegelianism, and the rise of “British Idealism” '

During the last few months, I have been focussing on the British side of my postdoctoral project, namely the so-called “British Idealists” of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The current paper is an attempt to bridge the gap between my previous doctoral research on Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881) and this new postdoctoral project. In particular, it examines the ways in which Carlyle’s major writings, most notably Sartor Resartus (1833-4), The French Revolution (1837), Past and Present (1843), and the Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), served to pave the way for the reception of Hegel and the rise of Idealism in Britain during the late nineteenth century. Although Carlyle’s crucial influence on the British Idealists has often been noted in passing, particularly with reference to his doctrine of the immanence of the divine in both nature and man, his opposition to laissez-faire, and his belief in positive liberty and the ethical role of the state, no attempt has been made to develop these points at length and in detail, nor to establish whether other aspects of Carlyle’s thought proved similarly influential. The current paper, which is more akin to research notes than to a first draft, will attempt to set out some initial suggestions.

---

Priyanka Jha gives a working paper on 'The Gaze on Justice: Outlining a Genealogy of Ideas From Anagarika Dharmapala to Dr B R Ambedkar'

 This paper argues that the construction of the notion of justice vary with the way otherness is constructed. It argues for an inclusive notion of justice and shifting from constitutional normative construction of otherness to the construction of otherness within the civilizational ethical-existential values of Kshama (forgiveness), Karuna (compassion) and Atma Gyan (knowledge of spiritual self) drawn from Buddhism.

Drawing on the feminist discussion on ‘subtle invisibilization as injustice’ it is argued that the diverse epistemes present in the critical vernaculars and the colloquial traditions within India, that have been invisibilised by dominant discourse need to made available for a political discourse on justice.

It bring on board the works of four thinkers Anagarika Dharmapala (1873-1933), Dharmanand Kosambi(1876-1947), Ananda K Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) and Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963) all who dynamically drew from Buddhism in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. They initiated the discourse of dignity and self worth based through the life and teaching of the Buddha, invoked as an Exemplar. This discourse preceded Navayana Buddhism as espoused by Dr B R Ambedkar.

These responses were invisibilised as ‘revivalist’ by the oriental and nationalist discourse. The category revivalist positioned Buddhism within the limits of historical time. When in fact it was concerned with the ‘return’ of ethical-existential values to guide a nation cleavaged and marred with inequalities and injustices within civilizational/ discursive formation. These thinkers worked extensively in bringing to the masses the different hues of Buddhism and its varied interpretations.

This has been done with the history of ideas methodology which attempts an overcoming invisibilisation, move beyond the western imagination and emerge out of the frames of oriental. This has been undertaken to clear the ground for discussion on a different idea of India

  

Biographical Details:

Priyanka teaches Political science in School of Undergraduate Studies at Ambedkar University in Delhi. She is presently a Junior fellow at the Max Weber Centre of Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany as part of “Religious Individualisation in historical perspective’ whereby she is working on Buddhism and making of idea of India. She is interested in doing history of ideas and  Political thought and theory.

Knud Haakonssen is going to present a working paper on 'Natural law and moral philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment'

The paper is my contribution to a new edition of The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. A. Broadie & C. Smith (forthcoming late in 2018). The paper is therefore primarily written for an English speaking audience, and this is reflected in the choice of secundary literature. The first section sets the European scene. Section 2 details the institutional adoption of the subject as part of the curriculum in moral philosophy in the five Scottish universities. Section 3 sketches the social function of the natural law works that issued from the academic teaching. The final and longest section attempts an over-all interpretation of the amorphous body of ideas that made up natural jurisprudence as the Enlightenment’s ‘practical ethics’. Readers with limited time or patience may want to concentrate on section 4.