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In recent years, in the partial vacuum left by the apparent inadequacy of Keynesian economics, there has been a renaissance of natural law cosmology. Accordingly, the social world is again viewed through pre‐Keynesian spectacles as ideally self‐adjusting through the action of the free market. Although the re‐emergence of this outmoded ideology is reactionary, it has been salutary in checking the hubris of the positivistic and technocratic Keynesian fine tuners. The purpose of this article is to trace this revival of natural law cosmology and assess the challenge this ideological reversal poses to the prospects for the evolution of a “social economics”.

A prima facie case is made that neo‐classical thinking is meaningfully influenced by the philosophy of pragmatism. Three major aspects of this philosophy are considered based on the writings of leading pragmatists and instrumentalists such as James and Dewey. These aspects include the cosmology, the axiology and the methodology of pragmatism. The ways in which these three aspects manifest themselves in neoclassical thought are then examined and identified. Among other things it is concluded that a certain unresolved tension exists within the pragmatist′s view which is also carried over into economic thinking. This tension at least partly accounts for the existence of neo‐institutionalists who likewise claim a pragmatist influence in their work but who are critical of neoclassical thought. The article concludes by pointing out some problems in this philosophy.

Cosmology is of essence for the life of traditional man not only to live in a meaningful universe, but to bound himself with the universe to achieve well-being as well. Architecture is a way of creating spaces through generic forms and symbols to attain this unity of man and the universe. This article interprets the courtyard house which is a well known archetype of spiritual and celestial qualities and has symbolic generic forms through the perspective of theory and practice of feng shui which is an ancient Chinese philosophy, based on the understanding of physical configuration of geographical settings and application of its principles to the built environment. The courtyard houses represented for this article are chosen on a linear axis starting from Cyprus, passing through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and ending at China. In this article, principles of feng shui are selected and formulated to create an evaluation model showing entrance-courtyard relation, building shape, water element, room arrangement, and door alignment and circulation. Based on this evaluation model, the essential aspects of well-being have been revealed through the elements of architecture. In that sense, this article presents the opportunities and possibilies of an ideal plan layout by bringing an awareness to the cosmology and feng shui to achieve well-being.

To give a mathematical expression of what could be called the internal time of a dynamical system, a time which is different from the external or reference time.

The paper introduces a general mathematical definition of internal duration and so of internal time. Then we consider the case of an explosion followed by an implosion, which we apply to cosmology and physiology. The case of diffusion is also presented.

The internal time is generally different from the reference time. In certain cases to a finite reference duration may correspond an infinite internal duration.

Our formulations may help to understand certain aspects of cosmology, physiology and more generally of the evolution of dynamical systems.

For example, the physiology of ageing.

The consideration of the square of the speed of evolution, at instant t, of a dynamical system for measuring the internal duration of interval (t,t+dt) is original, as well as its consequences.

In Part One of ?From the Genius of the Man to the Man of Genius’ I argued that classical and medieval inscriptions of genius figures suggest a coevalence between characters in their respective cosmologies, making it relatively more difficult to delineate Man from “spirits” and “other organisms”. The labour that genii performed flowed around two significant tropes of production and reproduction whose specificities were inflected in and across sources. In medieval poetry, for instance, genius figures took up a new role in regard to the reproduction trope, as promoter of virtue (in the form of censuring the seven deadly sins) and condemner of vice (in the form of prohibition against same sex intercourse). The sedimentation (complex processes of character‐formation), directionality (patterns of descent) and sexual ecology (emergence of a field of ethics) that the medieval literature embodies also indexes an opening disarticulation of Man from universe and the possibility of grounding “morality” in and as His love choices. Through a series of narrative structures, binary concepts and new sources of authority under Christianity the figure now referred to in philosophy as “the subject” is given early grounds upon which to form in the medieval poems.

The two articles that comprise this analysis springboard from the availability and increased popularity of the term genius to nineteenth and twentieth century educational scholars and its (temporary) location along a continuum of mindedness that was relatively new (i.e., as opposite to insanity). Three generations of analysis playfully structure the argument, taking form around the gen‐ root’s historical association with tropes of production and reproduction. Of particular interest in the analysis is how subject‐formation, including perceptions of non‐formation and elusivity, occurs. I examine this process of (non)formation within and across key texts on genius, especially in relation to their narrative structures, key binaries and sources of authority that collectively produce and embed specific cosmologies and their moral boundaries. The argument is staged across two articles that embody the three generations of analysis.

The overall aim of this research is to interpret Ikenga and Ofo creativity as it is revered in Igbo societies. Igbo creativity, especially interpreted through material culture, suffers the threat of extinction resulting from the forces of modernity. Forces of modernisation, which appear in the personae of Christianity, education, urbanisation and industrialisation, denigrated indigenous creativity, brandishing them as devious, fetish and primitive. Ironically, in most cases, the drivers of such narratives keep these “fetish” items in their museums and will give a lot to preserve them.

This study centred mostly on several communities in the Nsukka area of Igboland, Nigeria. It relied on both primary and secondary sources of historical enquiry. This qualitative research discussed the nuances of the subject matter as it relates to Igbo cosmos. These approaches involved visiting the study area and conducting personal interviews.

Archaeologists do often rely on material culture to study, periodise and date past human societies. In this study, it is found that material culture, an expression of indigenous creativity, best interprets how society survived or related with their environment. This paper examined two Igbo sculpted artefacts – Ikenga and Ofo – while unearthing the intricacies in Igbo cosmology as regards creativity, spirituality and society.

The shapes, motifs, patterns and designs depict an imaginary history, the intellectualism of the past and even the present. This serves as an objective alternative to the twisted colonial narrative on Igbo material culture and consequently contribute to ongoing efforts to preserve, protect and promote cultural heritage resources in this part of the world.

In the history of economic thought, a number of heterodox economic thinkers have focused upon the manner in which economic doctrines are built upon an essentially unexamined vision of social reality. Karl Marx referred to this vision as an ideology generated in the interest of the ruling class. Thorstein Veblen saw it as a complex of preconceptions reflecting prevailing beliefs. Joseph Schumpeter saw these visions as providing the “raw material for the analytic effort” of economists. [Schumpeter, 1954:42] In all three instances the vision was understood as a complex of assumptions concerning social reality that economists accept uncritically, if not unconsciously, and upon which the science of economics is constructed.