Recent scholarly comment on the relation between Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James offers an either–or choice between conflating the two thinkers in a proto-postmodern, antifoundationalist cast or dividing them into mutually exclusive categories of idealist believer and relativist skeptic. Contending that neither of these positions captures the pragmatist adumbrations in Emerson or the transcendentalist retentions in James, this essay turns to James's annotations of Emerson's writings as a singularly revealing yet largely neglected source of information about the exact nature (...) of the Emerson–James connection. This evidence points to a pluralistic and distinctly literary formulation of intuitive insight as the key for opening up the Emerson–James relation and for framing it with a precision hitherto missing in discussions of these thinkers. The balance of the essay presents an analytic overview of the various aspects and implications of Emerson's and James's ideas of intuition. Combining doubt and belief, skepticism and faith, realism and idealism, a particular formulation of intuition is the answer that Emerson and James both offer to the problem of modernity—the problem of locating a source of value that is both of the self and beyond the self. (shrink)

Due to great importance in the construction of theories it is imperative to analyze the nature of time and space and their use by scholars, societies and subjects. This text is the product of such analysis. My claim is that the validity of an argument depends on the spatial and temporal conditions that it is produced in. Moreover, I posit that time and space have been used in order to impose regimes of oppression over different collectives. My intention, however, is (...) not only denounced these uses because the oppression of the societies, to present the lack of such arguments. In other words, arguments based on universality of time and space have been the cornerstone of modern knowledge. This knowledge justifies regimes of oppression in different parts of the world. However, the intention of this analysis is not to denounce the lack of humanism in this knowledge, but to present the falsehood or incompleteness of this knowledge. It is not only wrong because its lack of humanity which justifies the inhuman regimes of oppression. It is also wrong, since its premises are false. (shrink)