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POLITICAL participation, CONSTITUTIONALISM, AESTHETICS, and READING

I propose taking the beautiful and the sublime in Edmund Burke not just as aesthetic but also as theoretical categories which can help us read his constitutional thought in dialectical terms. I suggest indeed that his usage of these categories in the Reflections on the Revolution in France points to a consistently held argument concerning the aporias of early-modern contractarian theories and their influence on the French Revolution. My hypothesis is that for Burke the Revolution is unable to think of any concrete relation between beauty and sublimity, insofar as they can be associated, respectively, with particularity and universality. Furthermore, I underscore how Burke's defence of partial representation against contractarian representation aims to overcome this impasse. My goal is to demonstrate that Burke raises decisive questions as to the intrinsically anti-democratic effects of the contractarian concept of democracy and is still useful to confront the contemporary crisis of democratic participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PHILOSOPHY & politics and POLITICAL doctrines

In Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss accused Edmund Burke of being ignorant of the nobility of last-ditch resistance; defending a conception of history that set the path for historicism; and discarding a vision of politics as it ought to be. By separating philosophy from politics, Burke, according to Strauss, helped lay the intellectual foundation for modern political ideologies. While a number of scholars have attempted to vindicate or refute Strauss' criticisms through textual exegesis, my article aims to lay a sharper emphasis on particular historical episodes of Burke's political life in which his political thought and statesmanship calls into question Strauss' interpretations. I argue, moreover, that Burke's legislative activities retain a closer resemblance to Strauss' conception of classical statesmanship than Strauss suggests in Natural Right and History. I conclude by maintaining that Straussian scholars could enrich their framework of the Western canon by giving greater attention to Burke's political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SCIENTIFIC literature, ETHICS, SOCIAL order, HUMAN beings, and PUBLIC opinion

The article explores how Edmund Burke he made the family the touchstone of his good governance vision and not just opposed the revolutionary ideas of philosophers. Burke reminded his English readers in "Reflections on the Revolution in France" that the source of their constitutional liberties was inheritance's principle. The English may not meet the approval of philosophers of France, who saw irrationality and oppressiveness in the family, by staying loyal to the principle.

FACIAL muscles and HAPPINESS

The sublime is an enduring concept in Western aesthetic discourse and is often portrayed such as in Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful of 1759 as a delightful horror, a kind of enjoyment based on negative emotions. In the current article, the relationship between sublimity and fear was explored using behavioral and physiological measures. In 2 studies (total N ≈ 120), photographs of nature were selected (Study 1: 192 photographs and Study 2: 72 photographs), rated on sublimity, beauty, fear, happiness, and arousal, before being assessed against facial muscle movement (fEMG) and skin conductance (SCR). In line with philosophical theories, ratings of sublimity showed positive associations with subjective fear ratings in both studies. Looking at fEMG data (Study 2), sublimity was in fact associated with a decrease of corrugator supercilli (frowning) reactions, indicating reduced emotional negativity. Furthermore, sublimity did not change activation levels of the zygomaticus major (smiling/positive emotional valence), nor did it influence movements of the medial frontalis (inner brow raise/fear). Increased ratings of fear increased corrugator supercilii and medial frontalis activations, and decreased zygomaticus major activation, replicating past findings. SCR activation was not predicted by any variable. The discrepancy between behavioral and physiological results likely results from a combination of false appraisal and distancing mechanisms, and thus encourages the reconsideration of generalizations made over the sublime in its relation to fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intervention (Administrative procedure), Minimum wage, Economic reform, and Liberalism

LIBERALISM and CONSERVATISM