Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast

It’s traditional in Plato scholarship to divide his dialogues in various ways. One common division is a temporal one that distinguishes among early, middle and late dialogues. Another is by content: there are the so-called erotic dialogues, which include Symposium, Phaedrus and Alcibiades I, where themes of love and friendship are explicitly treated, and then the rest, which deal with such non-erotic themes as language and knowledge and ontology. Jill Gordon, Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy at Colby College, argues that this second division deeply misinterprets the role of eros in the Platonic corpus. In her new book, Plato’s Erotic World: From Cosmic Origins to Human Death (Cambridge University Press, 2012), she argues that paradigmatically non-erotic dialogues, such as Theaetetus, Parmenides and Phaedo, are in fact deeply erotic, and that the theme of eros unifies the corpus rather than divides it. For example, the Socratic dialectic, or elenchus, is a give-and-take that is erotic in nature, and doing philosophy itself is an erotic endeavor akin to naked exercise in the gymnasium. Her argument begins with a close reading of Timaeus, Plato’s creation myth, and the role of eros in the immortal human soul, and comes full circle with a reading of Phaedo in which Socrates’ growing rigidity as the hemlock takes hold is an erotic pun.

In The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Ali Ansari traces the nationalist movement in Iran from the Tobacco Revolt of 1891 up to the current government led by president Ahmadinejad. Ansari explains how the events of the early 20th century led to the more well known events of Iran’s recent history, providing detailed insight into the key people that have been a part of Iran’s nationalist movement. The book explains the internal struggles that the movement has faced in the past century, along with the outside influences that effected its development. Ansari describes how Ahmadinejad has used nationalism to his advantage, and what he sees as the future for political participation in Iran.

What if genocide scholars have been approaching the field the wrong way?When I first opened Extremely Violent Societies in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010), I was immediately struck by the immense depth of research and learning. Christian Gerlach chooses his case studies from among the lesser studied cases of genocide and immersed himself in the literature. Moreover, he surveys the history and theory of counterinsurgency warfare in roughly 20 countries over the space of 50 years. His knowledge of the field is encyclopedic, and one must admire his tenacity, not to mention the persuasiveness clearly necessary to persuade the publisher to include such an extensive set of notes.More important, however, than the breadth and depth of research are the conclusions Gerlach reaches. For Gerlach’s book argues that people who study genocide need to approach the subject in a different way, one that is broader, is more grounded in primary research, and one that uses the categories of race and ethnicity much more carefully. Whether you agree with this contention or not, it’s a book that makes you think hard about your own ideas–one of the highest compliments you can pay an author.I have no doubt that Gerlach’s book will be one of the most talked about works in the field. I hope you find the interview just as stimulating.

Citizens of well-developed liberal democracies enjoy an unprecedented standard of living, while a staggering number of people worldwide live in unbelievable poverty. It seems obvious that the well-off have moral obligations to those who are impoverished. But there’s a question regarding the nature and extent of these obligations. Some hold that well-off societies and their citizens own substantial duties of humanitarian assistance to the global poor. Others claim that our duties are stronger than this; they claim that our duties to the global poor are a matter of justice.In her new book, Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Nicole Hassoun proposes a new kind of argument for what she calls “serious moral duties to the global poor.” She claims that in our globalized world, people all over the globe are subject to the coercive power of international institutions. She then argues that these coercive institutions are legitimate only if they can win the consent of those subject to them. From this, she concludes that international institutions owe to the global poor whatever is required in order to enable them to exercise a kind of minimal autonomy; and this autonomy requires access to food, shelter, water, and education. Hassoun’s argument, then, is that familiar minimal requirements for legitimate coercion entail more extensive positive duties to the global poor.

What is a historian? How are they trained? What do they do? What should they do? Are they doing it well? These important questions addressed in James M. Banner, Jr.‘s excellent Being a Historian: An Introduction to the Professional World of History (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Banner knows whereof he speaks: he’s been working historical trade in various capacities (far more varied than most, I’m happy to say) for half a century. He’s a careful observer, a trenchant critic, and (something I found refreshing) an unrelenting optimist. In this interview he talks about the historical discipline, professional historians, and historians (including history majors!) working in a great variety of occupations. If you are a thinking about studying history, already study history, or are in one of the historical trades, you would do well to read this book.

Not long ago I had a discussion (prompted, I think, by a poll in The Economist) with my colleague about which city on earth could boast that it was the true ‘World City’. We threw around a couple of ideas – it seems obligatory to mention something connected to China these days – before deciding that the city where we both sat was the true holder of that title.London has its frustrations, and as somebody who recently moved out of London I am acutely aware of some of them: the crowds, the transport system, the sheer expense! But it is also a quite remarkable and exciting place (as the Olympic games seem to have demonstrated), full of energy, history and a sense of occasion that belies its location in the corner of a slightly damp island off the north west coast of the Eurasian landmass.How this place became a real World City is the underlying story at the heart of Robert Bucholz and Joseph Ward‘s London: A Social and Cultural History, 1550-1750 (Cambridge University Press, 2012). England and London in 1550 were slightly peripheral places, and certainly in the shadow of some of the true great cities of Europe and beyond. By 1750, however, London had been transformed into a place of innovation, wealth, power and progress, and England was well on the path to becoming a nation that was to shape much of the history of the world over the next two centuries.The story is also deeply human and very colourful, involving lashes of gin, some terrible smells, lots of sex, and countless accounts of amazing lives and shabby deaths. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and talk.

Roel Sterckx‘s book Food, Sacrifice, and Sagehood in Early China (Cambridge University Press, 2011) had me at drunken seances. (Drunken seances! Do you really need another excuse to read it?) It is a compelling and engaging read, and a wonderful resource for anyone interested in early China, the history of...

Near the opening of his book A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable (Cambridge University Press, 2007; paperback 2010), Anjan Chakravartty warns readers: snack before reading! Though the occasional exemplary slice of pumpkin pie and chocolate fudge brownies do sweetly sprinkle the narrative, fear not, intrepid reader: most of A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism is devoted to providing a unified account of a metaphysical proposal in support of one of the most crucial concepts in the philosophy of science, scientific realism. In the course of his masterfully written account, Chakravartty explains the core elements of major versions of contemporary realism with exceptional clarity, laying the foundations in a systematic way that makes the contours of the major debates around scientific realism comprehensible even to readers new to the philosophy of science. After a Part I that lays a foundation for the work, offering an account of the central commitments of realism as they have evolved over time, Parts II and III of the book delve more deeply into the metaphysical and epistemological issues surrounding the theories and claims about unobservable objects in the practice and history of science. It is a wonderfully rich and clearly organized work that is written with a sense of humor and rewards a close reading, and we had a good time talking about it. Enjoy!

It’s now well over 100 years since John Stuart Mill noted that, if I say “I saw some of your children today”, you get the impression that I didn’t see all of them. This idea – that what we don’t say can also carry meaning – was fleshed out 50 years ago by Paul Grice. Given the timeframe involved, you might be tempted to ask why we’re still working on this today. (I work in this area myself, and I’m often tempted to ask…)Bart Geurts‘s engaging book Quantity Implicatures (Cambridge University Press, 2011) answers this question in several ways. For one thing, as the author observes, inferences of this type are very widespread in day-to-day interaction. For another, as this book also makes clear, some of these inferences are difficult to explain systematically, and this difficulty has begotten a wide range of contrasting and conflicting theories that make competing claims about the nature of pragmatics (and semantics) in general.In this interview, Geurts discusses the evidence that leads him to favour a Gricean view over a conventionalist account (one in which the richer meanings have the status of linguistic conventions), but also why he thinks the precise direction of recent Gricean approaches is not quite right. Following the trajectory of the book, we go on to look at more complex expressions, and discuss why these sometimes exotic constructions might enable progress to be made in distinguishing correct from incorrect theories.

Richard Sakwa‘s new book, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism, and the Medvedev Succession (Cambridge University Press, 2011), comes at a moment in Russian political history when uncertainty is once again in the headlines and on the lips of experts and journalists. While Sakwa’s book is principally...