Art, Politics, and Development

Philipp H. Lepenies is Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany.

"While none of [the book's] components [are] original, the combination of them may be. The best section, on the invention of perspective... cites art historian Erwin Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form. Lepenies isn't writing history; he's building an intellectual construct. Its end point is the assertion that contemporary thinking on development supports a linear concept of progress and that we possess a privileged viewpoint on it."--Library Journal, October 2013

• PrefaceIntroduction1. Perspective: A Window to the World and to the FuturePERSPECTIVEMedieval Art, Optics, and Perspectives  • The Invention of Perspective: The Mirror  • From the “Intercisione” to the Vanishing Point • The Window • The Role of Mathematics • Rediscovery or InventionAnticipation of a New Weltanschauung: Transgressing Medieval BoundariesThe Iconic Gaze • The Window Revisited • Iconic Space, Subjective Objectivity, and the Invention of Infinity • Friction with Religion • The Artist as Creator • The Horizon • The World and the Future • A Case in Point: The CittÀ Ideale of Berlin2. From Art to WorldviewThe Disenchantment of the Physical WorldThe Universe Open to Our Gaze • The Order to Conquer Nature • Everything Has a Mathematical Counterpart • The Predictable Universe • Control through Calculation Toward a New Horizon: The Discovery of Linear Time and the Idea of ProgressThe Threat of Doomsday Comes to an End • Circularity and Linearity • Progress as the Advancement of Knowledge • Turgot and the Progress of the Human MindCondorcet: From the Linear Perspective Worldview to the Development Mind-setA Life of Science, Action, and Tragedy • Social Mathematics • The Esquisse: The Philosophy of Future Progress • The Future and the Others • Mathematics, the Future, and ActionThe Notion of the “Other” prior to the EsquisseAlternative Views of Otherness • Slavery and the SociÉtÉ des Amis des Noirs The Development Mind-set Further Concretized: The Idea of Civilizing and CivilizationThe Meaning of Civilization • The Destiny of All Nations • The Need for Education and Educators • Civilizing by Teaching PerspectiveLinear Perspective and the Development Mind-set: A Summary of Key Concepts3. Modern DevelopmentThe Contemporary Development Mind-setUs and Them • Endless and Dynamic Progress • The Aim of All AidEducating the “Others”Development as Knowledge Transfer • Knowledge Transfer in Historical PerspectiveThe “Rage de Vouloir Conclure”Knowledge Transfer as a Hindrance to Development and Change • The Visiting Economist Syndrome 115 • Anthropological Views • The Earth Is Not Flat • Planners • Unhelpful Helpers • Summary4. CounterperspectivesResistance to the Perspective WorldviewAntiperspective Movements in Art HistoryArab Views • The Perspective Wars of Paris • Through the Eye of a Cow: Rationalist versus Empiricist Perspective • SummaryProposals for Development AlternativesReversals • Searchers • Midwives • PossibilismA Nonlinear ApproachNonlinearity • Challenges • The Way Forward: Self-Critical Historical Awareness and Knowledge CoalitionsConclusionNotesReferencesIndex