Cyril Levitt

Dive into the pioneering work of Lawrence Krader (1919–1998), the trailblazing American ethnologist and philosopher, who challenged conventional linguistics with unparalleled fervor. This edited volume unveils Krader’s unpublished manuscripts and essays in linguistics and semantics, where he critiques innate language theories, universal grammar, and biolinguistics championed by Chomsky and others. Krader’s comparative exploration of human language and animal communication illuminates the intricacies of the human use of symbols and intentionality. He highlights the uniqueness of speech by contrasting the dynamic duality of social interactions with mechanistic computerized languages and artificial intelligence. Finally, Krader presents captivating etymological and semantic interpretations of famed works by Shakespeare and Goethe that emphasize the creativity and inventive nature of the human mind in meaning-making. This volume will appeal to all those interested in Lawrence Krader’s life and work, as well as researchers and students working on linguistics and semantics.

Lawrence Krader (1919-1998) was an American philosopher and anthropologist. His enormous writings addressed a wide range of subjects in the fields of history, ethnology, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, and political economy. Much of it remained unpublished at the time of his death. This book contains excerpts from Krader’s unpublished manuscripts held at McMaster University. They include writing on the peoples of central and north-east Asia, the persona in Western thought, the beginnings of capitalism in Central Europe, myth and ideology, noetics and the theory of nature, and linguistics and semantics, as well as assessments of Marx’s theory of value, considerations of the Russian Revolution and a critical view of Leninism. The book also provides readers with a biographical overview of Krader’s intellectual development and his involvement with New York intellectuals – including Meyer Schapiro, Karl Korsch, Isaiah Berlin, Karl August Wittfogel, Roman Jakobson, Alfred Tarski, Morris R. Cohen, Rudolf Carnap – in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. This book will appeal to all those interested in Lawrence Krader’s life, work, influence, and legacy.

Hostile and Malignant Prejudice: Psychoanalytic Approaches represents the leading edge of work in the field by members of the International Psychoanalytical Association's Committee on Prejudice (Including Anti-Semitism), psychoanalysts who hail from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Peru, Sweden, the United States, and Uruguay. It pursues the issues surrounding hostile and malignant prejudice as defined in the first chapter by Henri Parens, whose path-breaking work over four generations with children and their mothers uncovered the sources of aggression and prejudice on a scale from jocular slurs to murderous genocide. One chapter examines the effects of Latin America's colonial past on the psychic development of a 'mixed race' young man whose analysis implicates a major racial and social divide in the heart of his society. In another chapter we learn of the identity conflicts of children who were separated from their parents during the Holocaust and hidden or 'hidden in plain sight' by adopting a Christian persona.

Ethnic tensions had been rising in Toronto throughout the hot summer of 1933. Hitler had recently come to power in Germany and some residents of the eastern beaches neighbourhood had formed "Swastika Clubs" to protect their community from "undesirable elements." On August 16, at Toronto’s Christie Pits, a baseball game between two local teams - one made up of Jewish players - ignited the simmering resentments. Some troublemakers unfurled a huge swastika flag, shouting, "Heil Hitler!" Retaliation from Jewish spectators and players was swift and reinforcements for both sides poured into the park. The result - never experienced in Toronto before or since - was a four-hour race riot. The riot at Christie Pits remains a disturbing, even legendary part of the city's history. Authors Cyril Levitt and William Shaffir, carefully sifting fact from fiction, provide a compelling perspective on how ordinary Canadians reacted to the intensifying antisemitism in Europe.

Hostile and Malignant Prejudice: Psychoanalytic Approaches represents the leading edge of work in the field by members of the International Psychoanalytical Association's Committee on Prejudice (Including Anti-Semitism), psychoanalysts who hail from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Peru, Sweden, the United States, and Uruguay. It pursues the issues surrounding hostile and malignant prejudice as defined in the first chapter by Henri Parens, whose path-breaking work over four generations with children and their mothers uncovered the sources of aggression and prejudice on a scale from jocular slurs to murderous genocide. One chapter examines the effects of Latin America's colonial past on the psychic development of a 'mixed race' young man whose analysis implicates a major racial and social divide in the heart of his society. In another chapter we learn of the identity conflicts of children who were separated from their parents during the Holocaust and hidden or 'hidden in plain sight' by adopting a Christian persona.

Noetics is Lawrence Krader’s magnum opus, which he began while still an undergraduate philosophy major at the City College of New York in the 1930s. By examining the architectonics of some of the greatest thinkers in history – Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Husserl among others – as works of art combining myth, speculation and empirical science, Krader tackles one of the central problems of the philosophy of science: what is science and how does it relate to human thinking and knowing more generally. Building on his theories concerning the different orders of nature adumbrated in his Labor and Value (2003), he follows not only the lines of development of the three fields of science corresponding to three orders of nature (material, quantum, and human) but also examines the development of all three as human processes and products. Krader takes up the relations of thinking and knowing in conjunction with emotions, feelings and judgment and examines the processes of abstraction as one of the key and unique features of human being and knowing. He proposes noetics as a science of thinking and knowing and establishes its relation to the natural sciences, the human sciences, and the arts. The breadth and depth of Krader’s scholarship is stunning and evokes Spinoza’s thought that «all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.»

Written by authorities on the legal systems of France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Israel, and Canada, this book explores the growing confrontation between democracy and racist incitement. The authors consider existing and prospective laws as they trace the efforts to enact and enforce laws that can curb racism in the early stages of its growth without violating democratic freedoms. Throughout the book, the authors discuss their own legal and political cultures and how the subject countries are affected by historical encounters with racism. Both France and Britain have strong racist political forces and existing laws to combat them. Special attention is given to Le Pen, whose electoral support has been estimated nationally at more than twenty percent, and to the effect Britain's new legislation has had on the country's racist movement. The United States represents a case where strong constitutional guarantees against impingement upon freedom of expression have prevented the passage or juridical validation of laws restricting racist incitement. Israel finds itself struggling to define a legal remedy that can be used against racist incitement by the Kahane movement. Canada, now seeking a legal climate that will foster multiculturalism, strives to define laws against incitement that will be consistent with its newly established Charter of Freedom. And Germany, as it faces the enormous problems resulting from unification, is forced to reflect upon its own past and the challenges that an active racist movement poses for the country's future. Recommended for sociologists, political scientists, and criminal law specialists.