Monthly Archives: June 2021

In philosophy,rationalismis theepistemologicalview that regardsreasonas the chief source and test of knowledge[1]or any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification.[2]More formally, rationalism is defined as amethodologyor atheoryin which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual anddeductive.[3]

In an old controversy, rationalism was opposed toempiricism, where the rationalists believed that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, the rationalists argued that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths. That is to say, rationalists asserted that certain rational principles exist inlogic,mathematics,ethics, andmetaphysicsthat are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one to fall into contradiction. The rationalists had such a high confidence in reason that empirical proof and physical evidence were regarded as unnecessary to ascertain certain truths in other words, there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience.[4]

Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge to the more extreme position that reason is the unique path to knowledge.[5]Given a pre-modern understanding of reason, rationalism is identical tophilosophy, theSocraticlife of inquiry, or the zetetic (skeptical) clear interpretation of authority (open to the underlying or essential cause of things as they appear to our sense of certainty). In recent decades,Leo Strausssought to revive Classical Political Rationalism as a discipline that understands the task of reasoning, not as foundational, but asmaieutic.In the 17th-century Dutch Republic, the rise of early modern-period rationalismas a highly systematic school of philosophy in its own right for the first time in historyexerted an immense and profound influence on modern Western thought in general,[6][7]with the birth of two influential rationalisticphilosophical systemsofDescartes[8][9] (who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic in the period 16281649 and despite frequent moves, he wrote all his major work during his 20-plus years in theUnited Provinces) andSpinozanamely CartesianismandSpinozism. It was the 17th-century arch-rationalistslike Descartes, Spinoza andLeibnizwho have given the Age of Reason its name and place in history.[30]

In politics, rationalism, since the Enlightenment, historically emphasized a politics of reason centered upon rational choice, utilitarianism, secularism, and irreligion[31] the latter aspectsantitheismwas later softened by the adoption of pluralistic methods practicable regardless of religious or irreligious ideology.[32]In this regard, the philosopherJohn Cottingham[33]noted how rationalism, amethodology, became socially conflated withatheism, aworldview:

In the past, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, the term rationalist was often used to refer to free thinkers of an anti-clerical and anti-religious outlook, and for a time the word acquired a distinctly pejorative force (thus in 1670 Sanderson spoke disparagingly of a mere rationalist, that is to say in plain English an atheist of the late edition). The use of the label rationalist to characterize a world outlook which has no place for the supernatural is becoming less popular today; terms like humanist or materialist seem largely to have taken its place. But the old usage still survives.

Rationalism is often contrasted withempiricism. Taken very broadly, these views are not mutually exclusive, since a philosopher can be both rationalist and empiricist.[2]Taken to extremes, the empiricist view holds that all ideas come to usa posteriori, that is to say, through experience; either through the external senses or through such inner sensations as pain and gratification. The empiricist essentially believes that knowledge is based on or derived directly from experience. The rationalist believes we come to knowledgea priori through the use of logic and is thus independent of sensory experience. In other words, asGalen Strawsononce wrote, you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You dont have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You dont have to do any science.[34]Between both philosophies, the issue at hand is the fundamental source of human knowledge and the proper techniques for verifying what we think we know. Whereas both philosophies are under the umbrella ofepistemology, their argument lies in the understanding of the warrant, which is under the wider epistemic umbrella of thetheory of justification.

The theory of justification is the part ofepistemologythat attempts to understand the justification ofpropositionsandbeliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas ofjustification, warrant,rationality, andprobability. Of these four terms, the term that has been most widely used and discussed by the early 21st century is warrant. Loosely speaking, justification is the reason that someone (probably) holds a belief.

If A makes a claim, and B then casts doubt on it, As next move would normally be to provide justification. The precise method one uses to provide justification is where the lines are drawn between rationalism and empiricism (among other philosophical views). Much of the debate in these fields are focused onanalyzingthe nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such astruth,belief, andjustification.

At its core, rationalism consists of three basic claims. For one to consider themselves a rationalist, they must adopt at least one of these three claims: the intuition/deduction thesis, the innate knowledge thesis, or the innate concept thesis. In addition, rationalists can choose to adopt the claims of Indispensability of Reason and or the Superiority of Reason although one can be a rationalist without adopting either thesis.

Rationale:

Some propositions in a particular subject area, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone; still others are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions.[35]

Generally speaking, intuition isa prioriknowledge or experiential belief characterized by its immediacy; a form of rational insight. We simply see something in such a way as to give us a warranted belief. Beyond that, the nature of intuition is hotly debated.

In the same way, generally speaking, deduction is the process ofreasoningfrom one or more generalpremisesto reach a logically certain conclusion. Using validarguments, we can deduce from intuited premises.

For example, when we combine both concepts, we can intuit that the number three is prime and that it is greater than two. We then deduce from this knowledge that there is a prime number greater than two. Thus, it can be said that intuition and deduction combined to provide us witha prioriknowledge we gained this knowledge independently of sense experience.

Empiricists such asDavid Humehave been willing to accept this thesis for describing the relationships among our own concepts.[35]In this sense, empiricists argue that we are allowed to intuit and deduce truths from knowledge that has been obtaineda posteriori.

By injecting different subjects into the Intuition/Deduction thesis, we are able to generate different arguments. Most rationalists agree mathematics is knowable by applying the intuition and deduction. Some go further to include ethical truths into the category of things knowable by intuition and deduction. Furthermore, some rationalists also claim metaphysics is knowable in this thesis.

In addition to different subjects, rationalists sometimes vary the strength of their claims by adjusting their understanding of the warrant. Some rationalists understand warranted beliefs to be beyond even the slightest doubt; others are more conservative and understand the warrant to be belief beyond a reasonable doubt.

Rationalists also have different understanding and claims involving the connection between intuition and truth. Some rationalists claim that intuition is infallible and that anything we intuit to be true is as such. More contemporary rationalists accept that intuition is not always a source of certain knowledge thus allowing for the possibility of a deceiver who might cause the rationalist to intuit a false proposition in the same way a third party could cause the rationalist to have perceptions of nonexistent objects.

Naturally, the more subjects the rationalists claim to be knowable by the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the more certain they are of their warranted beliefs, and the more strictly they adhere to the infallibility of intuition, the more controversial their truths or claims and the more radical their rationalism.[35]

To argue in favor of this thesis,Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a prominent German philosopher, says, The senses, although they are necessary for all our actual knowledge, are not sufficient to give us the whole of it, since the senses never give anything but instances, that is to say particular or individual truths. Now all the instances which confirm a general truth, however numerous they may be, are not sufficient to establish the universal necessity of this same truth, for it does not follow that what happened before will happen in the same way again. From which it appears that necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics, and particularly in arithmetic and geometry, must have principles whose proof does not depend on instances, nor consequently on the testimony of the senses, although without the senses it would never have occurred to us to think of them[36]

Rationale:

We have knowledge of some truths in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.[37]

The Innate Knowledge thesis is similar to the Intuition/Deduction thesis in the regard that both theses claimknowledgeis gaineda priori. The two theses go their separate ways when describing how that knowledge is gained. As the name, and the rationale, suggests, the Innate Knowledge thesis claims knowledge is simply part of our rational nature. Experiences can trigger a process that allows this knowledge to come into our consciousness, but the experiences dont provide us with the knowledge itself. The knowledge has been with us since the beginning and the experience simply brought into focus, in the same way a photographer can bring the background of a picture into focus by changing the aperture of the lens. The background was always there, just not in focus.

This thesis targets a problem with the nature of inquiry originally postulated byPlatoinMeno. Here, Plato asks about inquiry; how do we gain knowledge of a theorem in geometry? We inquire into the matter. Yet, knowledge by inquiry seems impossible.[38]In other words, If we already have the knowledge, there is no place for inquiry. If we lack the knowledge, we dont know what we are seeking and cannot recognize it when we find it. Either way we cannot gain knowledge of the theorem by inquiry. Yet, we do know some theorems.[37]The Innate Knowledge thesis offers a solution to thisparadox. By claiming that knowledge is already with us, eitherconsciouslyorunconsciously, a rationalist claims we dont really learn things in the traditional usage of the word, but rather that we simply bring to light what we already know.

Rationale:

We have some of the concepts we employ in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.[39]

Similar to the Innate Knowledge thesis, the Innate Concept thesis suggests that some concepts are simply part of our rational nature. These concepts area prioriin nature and sense experience is irrelevant to determining the nature of these concepts (though, sense experience can help bring the concepts to ourconscious mind).

Some philosophers, such asJohn Locke(who is considered one of the most influential thinkers of theEnlightenmentand anempiricist) argue that the Innate Knowledge thesis and the Innate Concept thesis are the same.[40]Other philosophers, such asPeter Carruthers, argue that the two theses are distinct from one another. As with the other theses covered under the umbrella of rationalism, the more types and greater number of concepts a philosopher claims to be innate, the more controversial and radical their position; the more a concept seems removed from experience and the mental operations we can perform on experience the more plausibly it may be claimed to be innate. Since we do not experience perfect triangles but do experience pains, our concept of the former is a more promising candidate for being innate than our concept of the latter.[39]

In his book,Meditations on First Philosophy,[41] Ren Descartes postulates three classifications for our ideas when he says, Among my ideas, some appear to be innate, some to be adventitious, and others to have been invented by me. My understanding of what a thing is, what truth is, and what thought is, seems to derive simply from my own nature. But my hearing a noise, as I do now, or seeing the sun, or feeling the fire, comes from things which are located outside me, or so I have hitherto judged. Lastly, sirens, hippogriffs and the like are my own invention.[42]

Adventitious ideas are those concepts that we gain through sense experiences, ideas such as the sensation of heat, because they originate from outside sources; transmitting their own likeness rather than something else and something you simply cannotwillaway. Ideas invented by us, such as those found inmythology,legends, andfairy talesare created by us from other ideas we possess. Lastly, innate ideas, such as our ideas ofperfection, are those ideas we have as a result of mental processes that are beyond what experience can directly or indirectly provide.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizdefends the idea of innate concepts by suggesting the mind plays a role in determining the nature of concepts, to explain this, he likens the mind to a block of marble in theNew Essays on Human Understanding, This is why I have taken as an illustration a block of veined marble, rather than a wholly uniform block or blank tablets, that is to say what is called tabula rasa in the language of the philosophers. For if the soul were like those blank tablets, truths would be in us in the same way as the figure of Hercules is in a block of marble, when the marble is completely indifferent whether it receives this or some other figure. But if there were veins in the stone which marked out the figure of Hercules rather than other figures, this stone would be more determined thereto, and Hercules would be as it were in some manner innate in it, although labour would be needed to uncover the veins, and to clear them by polishing, and by cutting away what prevents them from appearing. It is in this way that ideas and truths are innate in us, like natural inclinations and dispositions, natural habits or potentialities, and not like activities, although these potentialities are always accompanied by some activities which correspond to them, though they are often imperceptible.[43]

The three aforementioned theses of Intuition/Deduction, Innate Knowledge, and Innate Concept are the cornerstones of rationalism. To be considered a rationalist, one must adopt at least one of those three claims. The following two theses are traditionally adopted by rationalists, but they arent essential to the rationalists position.

The indispensability of reason thesishas the following rationale, The knowledge we gain in subject area,S, by intuition and deduction, as well as the ideas and instances of knowledge inSthat are innate to us, could not have been gained by us through sense experience.[1]In short, this thesis claims that experience cannot provide what we gain from reason.

The superiority of reason thesishas the following rationale, The knowledge we gain in subject areaSby intuition and deduction or have innately is superior to any knowledge gained by sense experience.[1]In other words, this thesis claims reason is superior to experience as a source for knowledge.

In addition to the following claims, rationalists often adopt similar stances on other aspects of philosophy. Most rationalists reject skepticism for the areas of knowledge they claim are knowablea priori. Naturally, when you claim some truths are innately known to us, one must reject skepticism in relation to those truths. Especially for rationalists who adopt the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the idea of epistemic foundationalism tends to crop up. This is the view that we know some truths without basing our belief in them on any others and that we then use thisfoundational knowledgeto know more truths.[1]

Rationalism as an appeal to human reason as a way of obtaining knowledge has a philosophical history dating from antiquity. Theanalyticalnature of much of philosophical enquiry, the awareness of apparentlya prioridomains of knowledge such as mathematics, combined with the emphasis of obtaining knowledge through the use of rational faculties (commonly rejecting, for example, directrevelation) have made rationalist themes very prevalent in the history of philosophy.

Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy as seen in the works ofDescartes,Leibniz, andSpinoza.[3]This is commonly calledcontinental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britainempiricismdominated.

Even then, the distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period and would not have been recognized by the philosophers involved. Also, the distinction between the two philosophies is not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested; for example, Descartes and Locke have similar views about the nature of human ideas.[4]

Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundational basic principles, like the axioms ofgeometry, one coulddeductivelyderive the rest of all possible knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clearly wereBaruch SpinozaandGottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that,in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possiblein practicefor human beings except in specific areas such asmathematics. On the other hand, Leibniz admitted in his bookMonadologythat we are all mereEmpiricsin three fourths of our actions.[5]

Detail of Pythagoras with a tablet of ratios, numbers sacred to the Pythagoreans, fromThe School of AthensbyRaphael.Vatican Palace,Vatican City,

Although rationalism in its modern form post-dates antiquity, philosophers from this time laid down the foundations of rationalism. In particular, the understanding that we may be aware of knowledge available only through the use of rational thought.

Pythagoras was one of the first Western philosophers to stress rationalist insight.[44]He is often revered as a greatmathematician,mysticandscientist, but he is best known for thePythagorean theorem, which bears his name, and for discovering the mathematical relationship between the length of strings on lute and the pitches of the notes. Pythagoras believed these harmonies reflected the ultimate nature of reality. He summed up the implied metaphysical rationalism in the words All is number. It is probable that he had caught the rationalists vision, later seen byGalileo(15641642), of a world governed throughout by mathematically formulable laws.[44]It has been said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom.[45]

Plato held rational insight to a very high standard, as is seen in his works such asMenoandThe Republic. He taught on theTheory of Forms(or the Theory of Ideas)[46][47][48]which asserts that the highest and most fundamental kind of reality is not the material world of changeknown to us through sensation, but rather the abstract, non-material (butsubstantial) world of forms (or ideas).[49]For Plato, these forms were accessible only to reason and not to sense.[44]In fact, it is said that Plato admired reason, especially ingeometry, so highly that he had the phrase Let no one ignorant of geometry enter inscribed over the door to his academy.[50]

Aristotles main contribution to rationalist thinking was the use ofsyllogisticlogic and its use in argument. Aristotle defines syllogism as a discourse in which certain (specific) things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so.[51]Despite this very general definition, Aristotle limits himself to categorical syllogisms which consist of threecategorical propositionsin his workPrior Analytics.[52]These included categoricalmodalsyllogisms.[53]

Although the three great Greek philosophers disagreed with one another on specific points, they all agreed that rational thought could bring to light knowledge that was self-evident information that humans otherwise couldnt know without the use of reason. After Aristotles death, Western rationalistic thought was generally characterized by its application to theology, such as in the works ofAugustine, the Islamic philosopherAvicennaand Jewish philosopher and theologianMaimonides. One notable event in the Western timeline was the philosophy ofThomas Aquinaswho attempted to merge Greek rationalism and Christian revelation in the thirteenth-century.[44]

Early modern rationalism has its roots in the 17th-centuryDutch Republic,[54]with some notable intellectual representatives likeHugo Grotius,[55]Ren Descartes, andBaruch Spinoza.

French thinker Ren Descartes proposed several arguments that could be termed ontological.

Descartes was the first of the modern rationalists and has been dubbed the Father of Modern Philosophy. Much subsequentWestern philosophyis a response to his writings,[56][57][58]which are studied closely to this day.

Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths including the truths of mathematics, and the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the sciences could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by thescientific method. He also argued that althoughdreamsappear as real assense experience, these dreams cannot provide persons with knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about sensory reality. He elaborated these beliefs in such works asDiscourse on Method,Meditations on First Philosophy, andPrinciples of Philosophy. Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which nothing that cannot be recognised by the intellect (orreason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths are gained without any sensory experience, according to Descartes. Truths that are attained by reason are broken down into elements that intuition can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will result in clear truths about reality.

Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum,cogito ergo sumor I think, therefore I am, is a conclusion reacheda priorii.e., prior to any kind of experience on the matter. The simple meaning is that doubting ones existence, in and of itself, proves that an I exists to do the thinking. In other words, doubting ones own doubting is absurd.[59]This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. Descartes posited a metaphysicaldualism, distinguishing between the substances of the human body (res extensa) and themindor soul (res cogitans). This crucial distinction would be left unresolved and lead to what is known as themind-body problem, since the two substances in the Cartesian system are independent of each other and irreducible.

In spite of his early death, Spinoza exerted a profound influence onphilosophy in the Age of Reason.[60][61][62]He is often considered one of three most remarkable rationalists of modern Western thought, along with Descartes and Leibniz.

The philosophy ofBaruch Spinozais a systematic, logical, rational philosophy developed in seventeenth-centuryEurope.[63][64][65]Spinozas philosophy is a system of ideas constructed upon basic building blocks with an internal consistency with which he tried to answer lifes major questions and in which he proposed that God exists only philosophically.[65][66]He was heavily influenced byDescartes,[67]Euclid[66]andThomas Hobbes,[67]as well as theologians in the Jewish philosophical tradition such asMaimonides.[67]But his work was in many respects a departure from theJudeo-Christiantradition. Many of Spinozas ideas continue to vex thinkers today and many of his principles, particularly regarding theemotions, have implications for modern approaches topsychology. To this day, many important thinkers have found Spinozas geometrical method[65]difficult to comprehend:Goetheadmitted that he found this concept confusing. Hismagnum opus,Ethics, contains unresolved obscurities and has a forbidding mathematical structure modeled on Euclids geometry.[66]Spinozas philosophy attracted believers such asAlbert Einstein[68]and much intellectual attention.[69][70][71][72][73]

Main article:Gottfried Leibniz

Leibniz was the last major figure of seventeenth-century rationalism who contributed heavily to other fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, logic, mathematics, physics, jurisprudence, and the philosophy of religion; he is also considered to be one of the last universal geniuses.[74]He did not develop his system, however, independently of these advances. Leibniz rejected Cartesian dualism and denied the existence of a material world. In Leibnizs view there are infinitely many simple substances, which he called monads (which he derived directly fromProclus).

Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes andSpinoza, because the rejection of their visions forced him to arrive at his own solution. Monads are the fundamental unit of reality, according to Leibniz, constituting both inanimate and animate objects. These units of reality represent the universe, though they are not subject to the laws of causality or space (which he called well-founded phenomena). Leibniz, therefore, introduced his principle ofpre-established harmonyto account for apparent causality in the world.

Kant is one of the central figures of modernphilosophy, and set the terms by which all subsequent thinkers have had to grapple. He argued that human perception structures natural laws, and that reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to hold a major influence in contemporary thought, especially in fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.[75]

Kant named his brand of epistemology Transcendental Idealism, and he first laid out these views in his famous workThe Critique of Pure Reason. In it he argued that there were fundamental problems with both rationalist and empiricist dogma. To the rationalists he argued, broadly, that pure reason is flawed when it goes beyond its limits and claims to know those things that are necessarily beyond the realm of all possible experience: theexistence of God, free will, and the immortality of the human soul. Kant referred to these objects as The Thing in Itself and goes on to argue that their status as objects beyond all possible experience by definition means we cannot know them. To the empiricist he argued that while it is correct that experience is fundamentally necessary for human knowledge, reason is necessary for processing that experience into coherent thought. He therefore concludes that both reason and experience are necessary for human knowledge. In the same way, Kant also argued that it was wrong to regard thought as mere analysis. In Kants views,a prioriconcepts do exist, but if they are to lead to the amplification of knowledge, they must be brought into relation with empirical data.[76]

Rationalism has become a rarer labeltout courtof philosophers today; rather many different kinds of specialised rationalisms are identified. For example,Robert Brandomhas appropriated the terms rationalist expressivism and rationalist pragmatism as labels for aspects of his programme inArticulating Reasons, and identified linguistic rationalism, the claim that the contents of propositions are essentially what can serve as both premises and conclusions of inferences, as a key thesis ofWilfred Sellars.[77]

Rationalism was criticized by William Jamesfor being out of touch with reality. James also criticized rationalism for representing the universe as a closed system, which contrasts to his view that the universe is an open system.[78]

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What Is Rationalism? - The Spiritual Life

Someone told me that a Georgian woman recently compared the COVID-19 public health safety measures to the Holocaust. This seemed too ignorant and hateful to be true -- although no, someone did make that comparison.

Upon examination, it is certainly unsurprising that someone who builds their brand on white nationalism, conspiracy theories, anti-religious pluralism, and transphobia would use her white privilege to equate annoying public health safety measures to the systematic intentional mass execution of around 6 million Jewish people, as well as other groups (e.g., members of the LGBTQ community, individuals living with disabilities and many others).

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is the Age of Rationalism over? - The Shippensburg News-Chronicle

For 2021, Bulgari has introduced three new versions within its Octo Finissimo range, the highly anticipated Chronograph GMT in stainless steel (S), the Octo Finissimo S in a new monochrome style with a silvered dial, and the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Titanium with a new black dial and rubber strap.

Bulgaris Octo Finissimo immediately had a huge impact when it made its entrance in 2014. The minimalistic design not only represented a bold approach to watchmaking in general, but Bulgari also proved successfully that an ultra-thin case design could be as contemporary as the materials used. Or in other words, the Italian brand had almost instantly created a haute horlogerie icon without looking for inspiration in the companys past.

Even more impressive, Bulgari has set six world records in six years with the Octo Finissimo, including the worlds thinnest tourbillon (Ref. 102138 in 2014), the thinnest minute repeater (Ref. 102559 in 2016), the thinnest (serially produced) automatic watch (Ref. 102713 in 2017), the thinnest automatic tourbillon (Ref. 102937 in 2018), the thinnest automatic chronograph (Ref. 103068 in 2019) and the thinnest tourbillon chronograph (Ref. 103295 in 2020). Unsurprisingly, the Finissimo has not only won critical acclaim worldwide; three of these record breakers have already been awarded at the Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Genve (GPHG).

Bulgaris award-winning design has long been influenced by the Estetica della Meccanica, or the aesthetic of mechanics, and has been staying close to a quintessential Italian understanding of rationalism and functionality. The Octo is not making an exception from this approach: it is set apart by its eight-sided (Octo) ultra-thin (Finissimo) case, representing the intersection of circle and square inspired by Romes architectural wonders, rendered throughout the line in a minimalist, mainly monochrome aesthetic. But the Octo has also become a rare example of a Grald Genta design that got even better after having been carefully modernized (it was originally produced under Gentas own name before the legendary watch designer sold his company to Bulgari in 2000).

The man who made this possible is Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Product Creation Executive Director at Bulgari Horlogerie SA. Buonamassa immediately understood how to respect and preserve the Octos initial design essence, while making it more modern and unmistakably Bulgari at the same time. In the 20 years the Naples-born designer has been working on watches for Bulgari, the Octo Finissimo might very well be his chef-doeuvre. But he not only has a different way of seeing things, he also knows very well how to apply the principle of progressive reduction in his designs. This is perhaps best reflected in the minimalistic executions used for the dials, but also in how altruistically he looks at design in general. His approach to the role of design, treating it almost like a canvas, has allowed for a couple of interesting collaborations. Buonamassa worked, for example, on special editions of the Octo with Ando Tadao, a Japanese architect and winner of the 1995 Pritzker Prize, and Senju Hiroshi, a Japanese Nihonga painter.

In 2020, Octo again disrupted the immensely popular luxury sports watch segment with the introduction of the Octo Finissimo S (Ref. 103297), a highly anticipated stainless-steel execution of the Octo (mounted on an integrated steel bracelet with a recessed clasp), powered by the thinnest automatic movement, and offering an increased water resistance of 100 meters (instead of 30 meters), made possible by increasing the case thickness just slightly from 5.15 mm to 6.40 mm and adding a screw-down crown.

This watch is now also available in a new monochrome execution (Ref. 103464). It features a 40-mm steel satin-polished case with a new silver vertical-brushed monochromatic dial, and is powered by Bulgaris BVL138 caliber with micro-rotor.

Bulgari has also expanded its Octo Finissimo S line with the new Finissimo S Chronograph GMT (Ref. 103467), equipped with the automatic in-house chronograph and GMT ultra-thin Caliber BVL318 with peripheral rotor (3.30 mm thick). Initially launched only with a titanium case, this watch is now finally available in (satin-polished) steel with a new blue sunray dial, paired with silver counters for what Bulgari calls a more sport chic look. Its mechanical movement allows the display of a second time zone on the sub-counter at 3 oclock. The octagonal case (8.75 mm thick) also features an integrated vertical brushed steel bracelet with polished parts. Like the automatic version in stainless steel, the Octo Finissimo S features a larger screw-down crown than the former sandblasted titanium models to ensure an increased water resistance of up to 100 meters.

The third Finissimo novelty for 2021 is a new version of the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Titanium (Ref. 103371), which is now available with a new black dial and a rubber strap for a sportier look. The worlds thinnest automatic chronograph also features the automatic inhouse chronograph and GMT ultra-thin Caliber BVL318 with peripheral rotor (3.30 mm), and has an overall thinness of 6.9 mm. As its counterpart in stainless steel, it has a combined chronograph and GMT function that allows it to show two time zones at once (the 24-hour GMT display can be operated independently thanks to the button at 9 oclock). Moving ahead from its original matte titanium monochrome aesthetic, the Octa Finissimo Chronograph GMT Titanium is equipped with a titanium case, black opaline dial and a texturized rubber strap with titanium pin buckle.

SPECS Bulgari Octo Finissimo S Chronograph GMT TitaniumReference number: 103371Functions: Hours, minutes, running seconds, GMT, chronograph with 30-minute totalizerMovement: Self-winding mechanical Caliber BVL318 (3.3 mm thick) with peripheral oscillating weight, 28,800 vph (4Hz), 55-hour power reserveCase: Sandblasted titanium case with transpar-ent caseback, crown set with a ceramic inlay, black dial, water resistant to 30 mBracelet and clasp: Black rubber strap with pin buckle (titanium)Dimensions: Diameter = 42.0 mm, height = 6.9 mmPrice: $16,500

SPECS Bulgari Octo Finissimo S Chronograph GMT SteelReference number: 103467Functions: Hours, minutes, running seconds, GMT, chronograph with 30-minute totalizerMovement: Self-winding mechanical Caliber BVL318 (3.3 mm thick) with peripheral oscillating weight, 28,800 vph (4Hz), 55-hour power reserveCase: Satin-polished steel case with transpar-ent caseback, screw-down crown set with a ceramic inlay, blue dial, water resistant to 100 mBracelet and clasp: Integrated brushed steel bracelet with folding claspDimensions: Diameter = 43.0 mm, height = 8.75 mmPrice: $16,500

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Edge of Tomorrow: Building the Bulgari Octo Finnissimo Collection - Watchtime.com

Kierk Suren, the protagonist in Erik Hoels new novel, The Revelations, is hellbent on coming up with an all-encompassing theory of consciousness, and its nearly his undoing.

Hoel, a research assistant professor working in the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts, knows the territory; he got his Ph.D. in neuroscience studying the integrated information theory of consciousness, and recently proposed a new theory for why humans dream.

As the book opens, Kierk is living out of his car in San Diego, having abruptly dropped out of a Ph.D. program in neuroscience in the Midwest. He spends his days scribbling theories in a notebook, muttering to himself, easy to mistake for someone who is losing his mind.

But a chance fellowship at New York University turns up, and jolts him into action. He travels across country, and is soon back on the hunt for that grand scientific theory of consciousness that has eluded himand everyone else. His days are focused on the small group of young researchers he has joined and their work in neuroscience, including experiments done to primates in the name of science. Soon, one of the researchers dieswas it an accident, or murder?

I like writing in settings that Im familiar with, particularly because what Im writing about is generally quite complex, says Hoel, whose book was published by The Overlook Press in April. I have a real need to get all the little details rightof scientific experimentation, how academia works, everything. So I draw from my own background to flesh out various characters, but its always filtered through some fictional lens.

Listen to a conversation with Erik Hoel about what books influenced him growing up and in writing his first novel The Revelations.

Tufts Now: Youre a scientisthow did you come to write a novel?

Erik Hoel: I grew up in an independent bookstore that was owned by my mother, and I worked there as a teenager. I knew then that I wanted to be a writer.

I liked the old idea of going out and gaining some sort of real-world knowledge, and then writing through the lens of that. It was then that I discovered the world of science. I realized that what I hadnt readand what I wanted to readwas kind of the great scientific novel.

One of the reasons I went into science was precisely to research this novel. And the reason I went into consciousness research was because consciousness is the one realm in which literature and science are on an equal footing. Also, novels represent peoples consciousnesses, and they do it very well. So consciousness is the natural medium for the writer.

Are there parts of yourself in the any of the characters in The Revelations?

Theres definitely a part of me in all of the characters. I feel attached to pretty much all the characters who show up in the book at various points, with all their flaws and their humanness, many of which are my flaws and my humanness.

Why did you begin each chapter with a character waking up, usually Kierk wakes up?

Its funny, when you write a novel, for some reason you have the urge to impose constraints on yourself. If you kind of hate yourself, then youll do things like write a novel without the letter e.

When a writer sits down and looks at the page, it is formless, endless, and empty. And so when you give yourself constraints, youre beginning to construct a structure within that space. Suddenly things seem much more buildable and doable.

I wanted the wake-up scene to suck people into the daily life of this character, and make them feel like theyre traveling along closely with his consciousness.

Kierk Surens name cant help but remind me of Sren Kierkegaard. Intentional?

Oh, absolutely. I generally have some sort of abstract theme and then I find characters that personify those themes. With Kierk, I needed a romantic force to combat rationalism.

The existential philosopher Sren Kierkegaard is a perfect example of kind of a poetic romanticism that lies behind a lot of human behavior. I think many of the very best scientists are definitely not rational in their behavior, so I wanted this character to have some of those traits.

Kierkegaard famously has a quote, I need to find an idea for which I can live and die. Hes talking about this monomania and the importance of ideas, which very much influenced this particular character. Kierk is almost a reincarnation of Kierkegaard.

What books influenced you as you wrote The Revelations?

Moby Dick, more than anything else. Melvilles language is utterly gorgeous. I read Moby Dick maybe five times during the writing of this book, just kept going back to it. I first read it when I was in my 20swhich is the appropriate time to read it, not when youre in high school.

There are parallels. For Melville, its kind of a mad quest for a white whale, the search for meaning. And in The Revelations, its the search for this impossible theory of consciousness. In Moby Dick, there are huge swaths devoted to the details of whaling, how things are done. In The Revelations, theres a lot about how science is done, how animal experimentation occurs, behind-the-scenes things.

A more direct relationship to something that I read growing up would be Umberto Ecos The Name of the Rose. It contained a huge amount of nonfiction, and that was fascinating to me. And I thought, why dont people write more books like this?

This is what I want, this level of detail and the expertise that lies behind it. I dont think The Revelations would have anything like the structure that it does, including a murder or a possible murder, without my having read The Name of the Rose.

What are you reading now? Do you mostly read fiction or nonfiction?

I read both. Right now, Im on the third of 11 volumes of Will and Ariel Durants The Story of Civilization. Its an entire history of the world, and its been my goal to get through it before I die. Its absolutely gorgeous. People just dont write like that anymore.

For fiction, Im reading Gone So Long, which is Andre Dubus IIIs new novel. Hes just such a masterhe builds books so well. He was my first and only writing teacher, when I was 13.

How did that happen?

He lived in the same town as I did. My mother ran the local bookstore, and knew him. He did a program for young writers at my mothers urgingthere were maybe eight or 10 of us in the class. It was basically a workshop, with him talking about writing and reading. Hes just an incredible teacher.

When you were growing up, were there writers who you admired and who inspired you?

I had writers that I loved and wanted to write as well as themlike Dow Mossman, who wrote The Stones of Summer. Another out-of-this-world, absolutely gorgeous writer is David Foster Wallace; I think his facility with pure on-the-page language remains unrivaled. Joan Didion also influenced me a great deal, particularly her essays.

I would also say Dan Simmons does not get enough credit for how good of a writer he is, and the different genres he wrote in. He wrote the sci-fi book Hyperion, which won the Hugo. He also wrote Summer of Night, a great horror novel, and Drood, which is about Charles Dickens unfinished novel; its better than the vast majority of historical fiction.

Whats next for you?

Im working on a nonfiction bookits about consciousness. I have a contract, so I have a deadline. This is the first time Ive ever written anything under a deadline.

Taylor McNeil can be reached at taylor.mcneil@tufts.edu.

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Bookish: Mixing Science and Fiction in a Literary Novel - Tufts Now

Fascism is not just sepia images of yesteryear but a contemporary threat. A liberal-left alliance is needed to counter it.

If you search the database of white-supremacist Discord channels, leaked by the monitoring group UnicornRiot since 2018, the word genocide appears more than 10,000 times. Often it is in the context of white genocidethe core concept of the Great Replacement theory, which claims that migration into the advanced world is a form of genocide against white people.

Sometimes, however, there are lists of modern genocidesRwanda, Myanmarsuggesting more to come. Sometimes the usersthere are 158,000 anonymous identities in the databasesimply exclaim GENOCIDE! Whichever way you want to interpret these memetic and subtextual conversations, it is safe to conclude that the modern far right is obsessed with the mass murder of ethnic groups.

This, in itself, should be a measure of the risk we are taking if we refuse to defeat modern fascism through militant, democratic means.

The genocidal logic of the volkisch anti-Semitism prevalent in Germany in the 1920s is clear in retrospect but it was rarely spelled out in advance. Few on the left, even as they confronted the horror of fascist totalitarianism in the interwar period, understood its inevitably genocidal conclusions. And, even after the event, the first journalists to encounter the liberated Majdanek concentration camp could not process what they had discovered.

Since the rise of the populist right, political science has comforted mainstream policy-makers with the suggestion thatnoxious though they aremen like Donald Trump, Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orbn and Nigel Farage could act as a firewall against the return of the real thing.

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But the firewall is on fire. The modus operandi of right-wing populism is now to gain power and eviscerate democracy, creating space on the streets, the media and online for the fascists to operate. It is evenin the case of Trumpto turn official conservative parties into the willing hosts of fascism.

In turn, the far right does not yet seek power. It wants to operate in the space provided between a fragile judicial system and a mercurial presidential leader. Even when it is massed on the streets of Charlottesville, or protecting the statue of Winston Churchill in London, its main activity remains metapoliticsthe creation and propagation of a coherent myth.

But in their minds the fascists believe their Day X will come. On that day they will brush aside todays populists, just as easily as Adolf Hitler swept away Alfred Hugenberg and Benito Mussolini Gabriele dAnnunzio.

Faced with this rising threat we must all becomeand proudlyanti-fascists. Five hundred prisoners escaped from Majdanek. None would escape a facility built for the same use today. It would be Guantanamo with death chambers, equipped with autonomous lethal weapons, biosurveillance and impassable fences.

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Combating modern fascism effectively means understanding it better. This is not the tribute band to Nazism we were dealing with up to around 1990. Its project is no longer formed around violent national rebirth.

It is an international movement, highly adapted to the conditions of a networked, non-hierarchical and globalised society. It is fascism regrown from its pre-1914 philosophical root-stock: from Nietzschean anti-rationalism, scientific racism and the power-worship embodied in the writings of the now-fashionable Carl Schmitt.

Everything fascists do is designed to propagate a myth: a global ethnic civil war is coming, from which will emerge ethnically pure continental powers; to prevent white genocide, western societies must be rid of ethnic and religious diversity; all forms of liberalism and democracy arein realityMarxism, and western society will endure a cataclysmic end, from which a pre-enlightement society will emerge.

Over the past ten years I have watched this new thought-architecture of fascism colonise the minds of people who were once only motivated by racism, ignorance and xenophobia. They have backfilled their prejudices with theory. And thats why the danger has increased.

To defeat the new fascism there are three lines of action. The first is obviousactive anti-fascism. Whether it be through monitoring, infiltration or outright opposition on the streets, there is no substitute for mobilising progressives, trade unionists and members of minority communities to deny fascism an active space in civil society. Since civil society has moved online, that also has to mean forcing the social media monopolies to remove, suppress and deter fascist content. The price, unfortunately, will be limits to anonymity.

Secondly, we need an overt political alliance of the centre and the left. Liberalism and socialism have been at war, for justifiable reasons, throughout the 21st century. Now we face a bigger mutual enemy. The lessons of both Italian socialism and German communism, faced with the interwar fascist threat, are that not even a strong, politically educated proletariat could defeat fascism alone.

Hannah Arendt described fascism as the temporary alliance of the elite and the mob. Only twicein the Popular Front electoral coalitions of Spain and France in 1936was it stopped in its tracks, by a temporary alliance of the centre and the left. Today, every left-wing activist is taught that the Popular Fronts were a disaster. They fell apart, for sure, but without them there would have been no left governments.

More importantly, the Popular Fronts created a strong, anti-fascist cultural ethos in the back half of the 1930s, which became the default ideology of the resistance movements of the 1940s. It was created in the movies of Jean Renoir, the plays of Clifford Odets, Bertolt Brecht and Federico Garca Lorca, and the journalism of George Orwell, Martha Gellhorn and Robert Capa. And it lived in peoples minds as an unspoken premise long after 1945.

Karl Loewenstein understood that fascist movements manipulate the weaknesses built into democracy. Democrats, in response, must exploit the weaknesses built into fascismwhich are that you cannot stage a torchlit march if you are in jail, you cannot receive money from a crowdfunding site if you have no bank account and you cannot anonymously advocate genocide if anonymity is engineered out of social media platforms.

Countries where the rule of law is strong, protected by a depoliticised judiciary and explicitly anti-fascist laws, begin this task from a strong basis. The country that begins from the weakest basis is the one most at riskthe United States, the first and second amendments to whose constitution are a licence for fascist activism and violence, and whose separation of power, and federal system, allowed a fascist mob to storm its legislature.

This three-point programmeanti-fascist activism, a new Popular Front and, following Loewenstein, Militant Democracy 2.0will find ready opponents within both liberalism and the left. I understand their reservations.

Its just that, having peered into the innocuous brick outhouse that still stands at Majdanekthe turquoise stains from Zyklon B still on its plaster wallsI dont want to take the chance.

Paul Mason is a journalist, writer and filmmaker. His forthcoming book is How To Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance (Allen Lane). His most recent films include R is For Rosa, with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. He writes weekly for New Statesman and contributes to der Freitag and Le Monde Diplomatique.

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Democracy, activism and the rule of lawkey weapons against fascism Paul Mason - Social Europe