Cosmopolis

Chapter 2: Namalie Chapter 3: Eddy Chapter 4: Ela Chapter 5: Sonja ||
 * =Title= || //Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity// ||
 * =Author= || Stephen Toulmin ||
 * =Date= || 1992 ||
 * =Summary By= || Chapter 1: Caroline
 * =Summary= ||  ||
 * =Chapter 1= || Stephen Toulmin. //Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity//. University of Chicago Press. 1992.

Summary by Caroline Chumo

Chapter 1, “What is the Problem About Modernity?”

Main point: Major events happened during the early 1600s to produce the mindset of rationality which fueled so much change in the name of modernity in the coming decades. We cannot take well known narratives of the events as the only truths and must look beyond outcomes to the sequencing of the original events. Toulmin argues that the early (i.e. humanism) and late Renaissance (i.e. rationalism) are two separate periods which together influenced the mindset of Modernity. Why did these changes happen when they did? This is itself a rhetorical question that Descartes (et al.) would have objected to: “a question about the audience for philosophy in that particular context” (36). Also, why did the changes happen so quickly (44)?

//Dating Modernity//

Common themes among scholars—both critics and supporters—of modernity:
 * Recognition of widespread intellectual “rationality” and a new traditions in philosophy and natural science by 17th century “ new philosophers” whose “work was therefore a turning point in European history and deserves to be marked off as the true starting point of Modernity” (9-10). Natural science and philosophy influenced all other disciplines.
 * Today, the natural sciences are still very rational and have much yet to “discover”—modernity is not yet over.
 * The modern philosophical sciences, in the sense that they are “theory-centred” (11), are in an identity crisis as the rationality of knowledge is under attack. So this implies critiques about modernity are really critiques about rationality (12).

//The Standard Account and its Defects//

Modernity is a good thing. It arose out of increased trade and standards of living in primarily Protestant countries along with growing secularism and individual agency. Galileo made breakthroughs in physics and Descartes established a research tradition about building knowledge. Nations demanded sovereignty. Scientific breakthroughs abounded. But…Toulmin contends that modernity was actually born of strife, not leisure (16-17). The value of rationality should be contextualized based on what we know now of the 1600s (21).
 * The prosperity of the early Renaissance had faded
 * Conflict between Catholics and Protestants was worse (30-Years War)
 * Literacy and literature were not as widespread as previously thought

Misconceived origins of Modernity give rise to misconceived reactions to it. But in revisiting history, we must keep in perspective whatever mindset or events gave rise to the standard account of Modernity (22).

//The Modernity of the Renaissance//

The Renaissance was a transition period: not quite medieval, not quite modern. Late Renaissance philosophers and scientists (rationalists) reacted to medieval and early Renaissance thinkers (literary humanists). Both periods can be considered dual origins of “modernity.” The later period was concerned with religions tensions, was philosophically conservative, and favored logic over rhetoric (24-27).

//Retreat from the Renaissance//

There were four ways that the later Renaissance diverged from the novel Renaissance ideals. Taken together these “changes of mind”… …“reflected a shift from practical philosophy, whose issues arose out of clinical medicine, juridical procedure, moral case analysis, or the rhetorical force of oral reasoning, to a theoretical conception of philosophy: the effects of this shift were so deep and long-lasting that the revival of practical philosophy in our own day has taken many people by surprise” (34).
 * //From the oral to the written:// demonizing rhetoric as sensational opinionating (30-31)
 * //From the particular to the universal//: a shift from prioritizing case studies to favoring universal truth (31-32)
 * //From the local to the general:// Descartes’s quote sums up well the late Renaissance aversion to understanding geographically and socially local situations: “History is like foreign travel. It broadens the mind but does not deepen it” (32-33).
 * //From the timely to the timeless:// As in their search for immutable laws late Renaissance intellectuals were concerned with timeless, underlying foundations of life (33-34).

Indeed this is the main point of the book, about the history of ideas that spawned a sense of Modernity and the “Quest for Certainty.” Toulmin seems to find it appropriately ironic that the question is asked in a pre-modern, or post modern, way.

//From Humanists to Rationalists//

In offering support to his purpose, Toulmin pits his two protagonists tête-à-tête—Montaigne, an early humanist, and Descartes, the late Renaissance rationalist—to debate love and the act thereof. Montaigne exemplified how humanists embraced body and spirit. Descartes was the epitome of the Cartesian (of course) mind-body dichotomy. In sum: “Taken at its face value, then Descarte’s position implies that a philosopher can //disclaim// all responsibility for his erections, unless he has a //good reason// for deciding to have one” (40). || Summary by Namalie
 * **Chapter 2** || **Chapter 2: The 17th-Century Counter-Renaissance**

This chapter charts the change in European attitudes between 1590 and 1640 __Major Points__

**Henry of Navarre and Religious Toleration** The religious toleration Henry of Navarre tried to encourage in France between the Protestants and Catholics was a “daring innovation” as many of the other monarchs in Europe were picking one religious side or the other. This move represents a “modest skepticism” as espoused by Montaigne, and went against the “negative dogmatism” that believed that anything that was not totally certain should be rejected. According to Toulmin, “Henry preferred to take the chance of demonstrating that a single large nation, or kingdom, that found room for citizens of more than one religion, would not thereby destroy its citizens’ loyalty or the cohesion of its society” (51).

**Assassination of Henry of Navarre** However Henry’s attempts at religious toleration were halted when he was assassinated in 1610. People across Europe took his death as a sign that religious toleration was not going to work – “a policy of religious toleration was tried, and failed”.

**Quest for Certainty** After Henry’s death, in 1618, the Thirty Years’ War broke out across central Europe. Religious tolerance was no longer a seemingly practical option, and there was a distinct move away from Montaigne’s pluralism. Therefore the “time had come to discover some //rational method// for demonstrating the essential correctness or incorrectness of philosophical, scientific, or theological doctrines” (55).

**René Descartes** Toulmin believed that Descartes was profoundly affected by the death of Henry and the Thirty Years’ War – unlike what some other scholars believe. Even though Descartes was an admirer of Montaigne, as a consequence of the trying times he was living in, Descartes needed a theory that focus more on what could be absolutely known (“single certain thing”) and that would “escape the doctrinal contradictions that have been a prime occasion for the religious wars” (62). Descartes and other intellectuals like him were hoping for a way to //reason// their way out of the political and religious mess they found themselves in.

There was a move away from the oral, the particular, the local, the timely and the concrete for the formally rational theory grounded on abstract, universal timeless concepts (75). However, the Cartesian program would be challenged by Thomas Kuhn in 1962, whose idea that scientific progress is based on a system of historical sequence of patterns of explanations (“paradigms”) was a step back from “the context-free questions of Cartesian rationalism, toward the historical candor of the humanist tradition” (84). Toulmin notes “once the Kuhnian move had been made, however, the Berlin Wall that kept historians and philosophers of science apart was demolished” (85). || by Eddy
 * =Chapter 3= || Cosmopolis by Stephen Toulmin - Chapter 3

Toulmin's third chapter continues his examination of the history of modernity, or perhaps the history of the idea of modernity. Toulmin examines a key transitional period from the Feudal late-middle ages to the modern age. As viewed in early chapters, he continues to expand on his thesis that the history of ideas cannot be decontextualised from the history of events.

Chapter three focuses on the century following the Thirty Years War, although he does not necessarily follow a strict chronological narrative. This period takes us roughly from the conclusion of the Thirty Years War to the onset of the French Revolution. This can be viewed as the age of absolutism in Europe (with the exception Britain). Following the Peace of Westphalia, sovereigns were at the height of their power. Religious figures had been relegated to servants of the state and even the Pope no longer wielded much influence.

With regards to intellectual history the period 1660-1720 sees a predominance of thinkers who focused on social stability. For Toulmin this is a natural response to the Thirty Year's War, which had devastated central Europe. For example, Leibniz's theories, like Descartes', cannot be removed from their historical context. Leibniz's interests in a universal system of symbols was a result of the desire among Europeans to overcome the schisms of the first half of the century. Toulmin also views the scientific theories of Isaac Newton as needing to be regarded within the context of the late seventeenth century. The basis of thought in this period was that rationality and a rational system of order should act as the guide for human endeavor. Emotions undercut rationality, and thus were a force for disorder and chaos. For those who could either remember the Thirty Years War, or had grown up hearing about it, it is little wonder that the desire to banish emotionally driven, irrational actions.

During the period of 1720-1780 Toulmin traces sub-texts in European history. As Newtonian scientific view continued to gain creedence, so did the faith in rationality. Whereas previous generations commonly believed that they were living in the “end times,” eighteenth century Europeans came to view themselves as living in a rationally ordered and stable world. || __Chapter 4: The Far Side of Modernity__ In this chapter, Toulmin describes modernity from the 1690s to the early 1960s. He describes the period of the 1690s to 1914 as the “High Tide of Sovereign Nationhood.” The rise of the nation-state is central to modernity, and few philosphers questioned the legitimacy and sovereignty of nation-states. Although this period marks the height of modernity, it is also characterized by innovative thinking that challenged modernity. For example, modernity denies that Nature has a history and instead posits it as timeless and unchanging. In contrast, many thinkers challenged this notion, especially in the field of historical geology. Also, the modernist view that matter is inert was challenged by new theories in quantum physics and quantum mechanics. Physiology and psychology challenged the views that human were separate from nature and that reason was separate from emotions.
 * =Chapter 4= ||

These innovations could have led to the fall of Modernity. However, two World Wars and a worldwide economic crisis caused people to sense once againt hat the world was falling apart and needed to be re-made from scratch, launching a renewed quest for certainty. Formalism, positivism, and a preference for abstract, decontextualized theories came back with a vengance, and Modernity continued until the early 1960s in virtually all fields.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Modernity begins to fall apart. People question the state as well as hierarchical and unequal social relations. Academic fields beging to value what is particular, applied, pragmatic, experiential, humanistic. People begin to return to Renaissance values. || Summary: Chapter 2: Toulmin seems to prefer a return to a more humanistic way of thinking. Do you agree with him or do you prefer the Cartesian program – or a combination of both? Chapter 3: - Although Toulmin's book gives a good account of European history, how relevant is it in other regions? Can similar sub-texts be traced in places like China, the Middle East, etc... - Toulmin's principal thesis is that everyone (even Descartes) is a prisoner of their historical context. How does the contemporary historical context shape intellectual endeavors today? Chapter 4: Are we really returning to Renaissance values, or beginning a new era? Chapter 5: Toulmin calls his reader to both recognize and participate in the process of humanizing modernity, and thus contextualizing it in a way that reconciles theory and practice. How is this different than "postmodernity" as previously defined? Is it even possible to humanize modernity by re-infusing it with attention to morality? Finally, are the suggestions he gives (a return to rhetoric, for example) even practical? || = = = = = = = = = = = =
 * =Chapter 5= || Chapter thesis: We must reconcile the divergent paths that the sciences and the humanities have taken. Or, in Toulmin’s words, “We need to balance the hope for certainty and clarity in theory with the impossibility of avoiding uncertainty and ambiguity in practice” (175). We do this through a humanization of modernity.
 * Most era-changing exercises (or, rather, Kuhnian shifts) have begun with an attempt to start with a “clean slate.” The trick to developing this new beginning is determining where the “scratch line” is. According to Toulmin, however, there is no “scratch line” from which we can build a new philosophical framework.
 * We therefore cannot simply “throw out” modernity but rather “humanize” it through a strategic look at the natural sciences, at philosophy, and at politics. Part of this exercise is infusing these with a moral compass, or “recontextualizing” them.
 * In the natural sciences, humanization has meant a return to the notion of the interdependence of science and practice, captured in the academic debate from the 1960s and 70s concerning “excellence” and “relevance.”
 * In philosophy, Toulmin calls for a return to the oral, to the particular, to the local, and to the timely.
 * In politics, we need to recognize the //de facto// power of nongovernmental institutions and the fact that the nation state is not the central actor in asserting sovereignty and power, especially in the moral realm.
 * Toulmin calls us to adopt a skeptical rationality. ||
 * **Discussion points** || Chapter 1: What method or research tradition does Toulmin use to pursue his quest for when and why Modernity happened?

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