Search results
I may believe something. I may believe that God does not exist. I may believe Tuesday follows Monday. Is my belief that Tuesday follows Monday so resolute that I cannot disbelieve it? In this chapter, I examine the fate of belief in games and gameplay. There are those who claim that some beliefs are so resolute that it is difficult, if not impossible, to disbelieve them. Given the nature of games and gameplay, I argue in this chapter otherwise. Under the influence of a lusory attitude, under the influence of the rules of a game, it is not only
9 ‘BELIEF’, ‘OPINION’, AND ‘KNOWLEDGE’: THE IDIOT IN LAW IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Simon Jarrett The Tudor formation of the powerful Court of Wards from 1540 had brought a more sharply formalized focus to what constituted incapacity, and what constituted idiocy, in English law, after the loose and sporadically used guidance of the medieval Prerogative Regis.1 This court, through to its demise in the 1640s, consolidated and shaped the conventions and practices of the legal treatment of those deemed incapacitated into a form that persisted through the
7 Beyond the witch trials Public infidelity and private belief? Public infidelity and private belief ? The discourse of spirits in Enlightenment Bristol Jonathan Barry Recent work on the history of witchcraft and magic has identified three themes or approaches as of particular importance in our understanding of a subject which, although it has been centre stage since the publication of Religion and the Decline of Magic in 1971, has continued to trouble historians. The first problem, acknowledged as ‘the most baffling aspect of this difficult subject’ by Thomas
145 9 ‘Belief shifts’: Ireland’s referendum and the journey from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft Eugene O’Brien I would begin this chapter with two pieces of narrative: one from fantasy literature and one from recent political discourse. The fantasy writer Terry Pratchett wrote a book in his Discworld series about religion, gods and belief, entitled Small Gods. In the Discworld, he created a country called Omnia, a theocracy within which everyone and everything revolved around the worship of the Great God Om. Omnianism was the hegemonic ideological position in
This book situates witchcraft drama within its cultural and intellectual context, highlighting the centrality of scepticism and belief in witchcraft to the genre. It is argued that these categories are most fruitfully understood not as static and mutually exclusive positions within the debate around witchcraft, but as rhetorical tools used within it. In drama, too, scepticism and belief are vital issues. The psychology of the witch character is characterised by a combination of impious scepticism towards God and credulous belief in the tricks of the witch’s master, the devil. Plays which present plausible depictions of witches typically use scepticism as a support: the witch’s power is subject to important limitations which make it easier to believe. Plays that take witchcraft less seriously present witches with unrestrained power, an excess of belief which ultimately induces scepticism. But scepticism towards witchcraft can become a veneer of rationality concealing other beliefs that pass without sceptical examination. The theatrical representation of witchcraft powerfully demonstrates its uncertain status as a historical and intellectual phenomenon; belief and scepticism in witchcraft drama are always found together, in creative tension with one another.
TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 91 5 Witchcraft: the formation of belief – part one Ambrosius de Vignate was a well-respected magistrate and legal scholar, a doctor of both canon and civil law, who lectured at Padua, Bologna, and Turin between 1452 and 1468. On several occasions he participated in the trials of accused witches: he tells us that he had heard men and women alike confess – both freely and under torture – that they belonged to the sect of witches (“secta mascorum seu maleficorum”) and that they, and others whom they implicated, had done all sorts of
Rationality upside down The culture you belong to provides you not just with norms for how to behave and what values to hold. It also tells you which claims about the world you should believe and which you shouldn’t. This goes far beyond religious beliefs. It includes factual claims about how best to preserve your health, the environment, how to correct the undesirable behaviour of children, and how to reduce crime. Sociology and anthropology were among the first disciplines to clarify how deeply
19 8 Colonial medicine and folk beliefs in the modern era In the early twentieth century, Dutch doctors and public health officials tried to come to grips with the Afro-Surinamese belief in treef and its influence on the execution of public health policies. Both the Afro- Surinamese and new British Indian and Javanese migrants maintained their beliefs and practices about leprosy. This on-going adherence to folk beliefs and practices alongside Western medical knowledge necessitated a response from Dutch colonial medicine. If modern leprosy politics were to
In recent years there has been a significant growth in interest of the so-called “law in context” extending legal studies beyond black letter law. This book looks at the relationship between written law and legal practice. It examines how law is applied in reality and more precisely how law is perceived by the general public in contrast to the legal profession. The authors look at a number of themes that are central to examining ways in which myths about law are formed, and how there is inevitably a constitutive power aspect to this myth making. At the same time they explore to what extent law itself creates and sustains myths. This line of enquiry is taken from a wide range of viewpoints and thus offers a unique approach to the question of relationship between theory and practice. The book critically assesses the public’s level of legal, psychological and social awareness in relation to their knowledge of law and deviant behaviour. This line of enquiry is taken from a wide range of viewpoints and thus offers a unique approach to the question of relationship between theory and practice. The book covers both empirical studies and theoretical engagements in the area of legal understanding and this affords a very comprehensive coverage of the area, and addressing issues of gender and class, as well as considering psychological material. It brings together a range of academics and practitioners and asks questions and address contemporary issues relating to the relationship between law and popular beliefs.
chap 4 27/7/06 8:19 am Page 115 4 Death, belief and nature: Quarantine (1997) and Being Dead (1999) Quarantine Quarantine is familiar Cracean territory with its rhythmic prose and allusive qualities. Crace says, “It is most like a folktale of all of my work, and most like a scriptural text.”1 Kermode describes it as a “novel-fable.” (8) As Gary Kamiya notes in ‘Quarantine,’ (1998) the central Biblical source is “Jesus’ 40–day ‘quarantine’ in the wilderness, described in Matthew 4:1–11,” (1) but as Richard Eder says in ‘Cavedweller,’ (1998) “Crace’s portrait