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- Approaching democracy: the virtues of representative democracy in mid-Victorian EnglandPublication . Silva, Elisabete MendesIn 19th century Britain the questions of representation, parliamentary reform and democracy were more categorically discussed. The Great Reform Act of 1832 epitomised hope for many people who felt left out of the suffrage, as it would reform the British electoral system but in fact it didn’t match expected outcomes. In this article we explore and assess the direct and unintended effects of the 1867 Reform Act, also known as the Second Reform Act, analysing the relation between representation and democracy as the possession of the vote and of political power were not necessarily the same thing. We also scrutinise the construction of a political discourse sustained by several playwrights, such as historians and political writers, to meet political, economic and social needs, highlighting opposing views regarding suffrage and the disbelief in democracy focusing particularly on Thomas Carlyle and his 1867 pamphlet: Shooting Niagara - And after? and some of the supporters of the extension of the franchise, namely J. S. Mill, Gladstone and Disraeli. In order to support these aims, we will also bring to light how some nineteenth century periodicals cast the debate on suffrage, namely The Illustrated London News (ILN), The Times, Fun and Punch.
- Enlightenment versus Counter-Enlightenment: Isaiah Berlin's account on the sciences and the humanitiesPublication . Silva, Elisabete MendesIsaiah Berlin, one of the most renowned liberal intellectuals of the twentieth century, dedicated his life to the study of ideas, demonstrating how their power influenced and changed world history. A defender of value pluralism, Berlin was against a priori, absolute truths and axiomatic premises safeguarded by the empiricist philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This being said, in this paper I intend to give account of Isaiah Berlin’s ideas in regards to the divorce between the sciences and the humanities, which started with the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’ champions of reason whose sole purpose was ‘to bring everything before the bar of reason’. Berlin gives us a very acute and precise lesson on how this growing tension and great divorce became clear since the seventeenth century up to the present day. An admirer of the Counter-Enlightenment philosophers – Vico, Herder and Hamann – Berlin denies the existence of a perfect world so much sought by the Enlightenment philosophes. This dichotomy will therefore be highlighted as a means to present Berlin’s position, that of agonistic liberalism and value-pluralism, always struggling for the importance of both the sciences and the humanities.
- Transnational networks: (imagined) representations of the Portuguese liberal revolution by the British pressPublication . Silva, Elisabete Mendes; Couceiro, PedroThe Oxford Journal, on 23 September 1820, subjoined part of the Proclamation of the Provisional Junta to the Portuguese nation citing “The Extraordinary” Gazette of Lisbon, news which had also been previously communicated by the Moniteur de Paris. Other newspapers, such as The Morning Chronicle, devoted more lines to the event as they published the complete Proclamation text. News of the revolution in Portugal only reached Britain a couple of weeks after the event via the European press, namely the abovementioned Portuguese periodical and the French papers. Liberal winds of change were spreading throughout Europe and Britain was not an exception. Despite its consolidated constitutional tradition, Britain still struggled with the political and social injustice of an underrepresented Parliament. It is no surprise then the promotion of a discourse sustaining Parliamentary Reform so to change the current political status quo. This discourse found also resonance in the British Press which, in 1820, enjoyed some reasonable freedom. However, it was not only exempt from the influence of “specific political conditions” (Bantman, 2018), which swayed the editorial line of the newspapers and periodicals, but it was also dependent on the political party the papers were associated with, either Tory or Whig supported, or adopting a more radical stance. The purpose of this paper is thus two-fold. On the one hand, we shall identify the type of discourse disseminated by the British newspapers concerning the Portuguese Liberal revolution, analysing the representations constructed around this specific event. On the other, we shall analyse the impact of transnational networks, discernible in the press field, in regards the accuracy of the news conveyed to reading communities and the circulation of liberal ideals.
- Approaching democracy: the virtues of representative government in mid-Victorian EnglandPublication . Silva, Elisabete MendesIn 19th century Britain, the century of reform par excellence, the questions of representation, parliamentary reform and democracy were more categorically discussed. The Great Reform Act of 1832 epitomised hope for many people who felt left out of the suffrage, as it would reform the British electoral system but in fact it undermined the expectations since the vote was based on property and on the payment of a rent. The growing political power of a more dominant middle class and the constant pressure of liberals made parliamentary franchise a need and a reality. For this reason, the 1867 Representation of the People Act, also known as the Second Reform Act, removed anomalies in the system the 1832 Reform Act had not addressed, and extended the vote. Within this framework, the purpose of this paper is thus twofold. On the one hand, we will assess the direct and unintended effects of the 1867 Act, exploring the relation between representation and democracy as the possession of the vote and of political power were not necessarily the same thing. On the other hand, we intend to analyse the construction of a political discourse sustained by several playwrights, such as historians and political writers, to meet political, economic, social and cultural needs. With this in mind, we will highlight opposing views regarding suffrage and the disbelief in democracy focusing particularly on Thomas Carlyle and his 1867 Pamphlet: Shooting Niagara - And after?, and some of the supporters of popular democracy and in favour of the extension of the franchise, namely J.S. Mill, W.E. Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli. In order to support these objectives, we will also bring to light some 19th century periodicals, such as The Illustrated London News, The Sunday Times, The Times and Punch, scrutinising how they cast the debate on suffrage.
- Isaiah Berlin and the role of education: from Riga to OxfordPublication . Silva, Elisabete MendesBeing the result of a lecture to Latvian students in May 2011, this article aims at introducing Isaiah Berlin, who was born in Riga in 1909. The focus will be on the man and the intellectual, how his life experience (his childhood in Russia and the fact that he was an emigrant in Britain) affected his intellectual route, and how he became a defender of liberalism and value-pluralism. Furthermore, special attention will also be given to Berlin’s opinions on Education, the way he regarded the educational problems of his time and how education should be enhanced in order to escape from obscurantism and dogmatism towards a freer intellectual life and also to develop capacities for thought and feeling. Berlin believed education, and particularly university education, could be a powerful means to achieve these ends.
- John Stuart Mill on education and progressPublication . Silva, Elisabete MendesMoney-getting, mechanical progress and human happiness lay at the basis of a utilitarian conception of education in Industrial Britain. “The Benthamic or utilitarian propagandism of that time” (Mill, 1981, p. 105) accounted for the happiness of people at the greatest number possible, even if it implied a mechanical and inadequate instruction. Popular education in the first half of the nineteenth century was not only scarce in quantity, but it was also deficient in quality. John Stuart Mill, the paladin for the provision of state education at a national scale in Victorian England, believed education was a means to foster human mind development as well as it accounted for the future progress of mankind. Mill, a utilitarian and empiricist philosopher and political liberal thinker, unlike Bentham and his father James Mill, believed the state should control education therefore guaranteeing its quality and not only quantity. The reforms in education throughout the nineteenth century accompanied the discussion of what should be included in the curriculum of school or university studies. In fact, many liberal Victorian political thinkers regarded the dissemination of thorough scientific education a sine qua non condition of industrial and human progress. Therefore, education took a rather scientific outlook as Darwinian ideas throve through the educational setting of Britain. Actually, Mill’s concept of education encompassed both the science and the literary studies. Within this context, the purpose of the paper is thus three-fold. First, we intend to validate that Mill’s utilitarian conception of education was different from that of Bentham’s. Even if Mill recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind, his humanistic stance led him to believe “human nature was not a machine to be built after a model.”(Mill, 1997, p. 87) Concurrent with the first aim, we will also describe the changes the national curriculum suffered under the influence of a more scientific outlook, and, lastly, we will put forth Mill’s position on this matter.