Atlas of Values and Ethics: A Historical Approach to Axiology Using Overviews and Thematic Outlines, Surveys and Summaries in the Form of Charts, Diagrams, Maps and Tables
This project has grown out of what I believe to be a good idea concerning visualization. The approach I present with this project can perhaps be regarded almost as constituting a new kind of genre - presenting high quality intellectual history graphically - giving overviews, thematic outlines, surveys and summaries in the form of charts, diagrams, 'maps' and tables - the charts and 'maps' will be mostly three or four dimensional in regard to the information they contain. Many of the charts and maps will be chronologically proportional. The advantage of the approach used in this project is in many ways just the opposite of that of traditional texts, and can thus be complementary to the reading of conventional books and treatises. Charts and maps are well suited for structuring, organizing and presenting information, especially when one wishes to emphasize overviews, relations, contexts and/or influences and oppositions between the things charted out. Often there will be short series of connected charts or 'maps' for each topic, theme or period covered, starting with an outline or overview and then adding more detailed information in the following charts. The resulting atlas of this project will constitute a sort of "intellectual atlas", in many ways comparable to a geographical atlas, but instead charting out intellectual landscapes, in this case that of value history.
Final report
Final Report
Original Title: Atlas of Values and Ethics: A Historical Approach
Revised Title: Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics: A Historical Approach
How would it be to study the geography, geology and the biosphere of say, Europe, without using charts and maps. It would require an almost infinitely larger number of words than if using charts and maps, and the information transmitted, understood and remembered by the student or reader would almost certainly be much smaller than if maps were used. And yet, this is how we teach the humanities and about the landscape of human thought. This project attempts to show that ‘maps’ of humanistic knowledge can be constructed and are of great educational value, especially concerning grand views, overviews, and contexts, and applies this to virtues, virtue ethics and to some extent ethics in a broader sense.
This project concerning visualization of humanistic knowledge has had two main parts and goals:
1. To investigate and apply a complementary approach to that of “pure text” for presenting broad and more specific humanistic results and contexts by means of graphical multidimentional charts, ‘maps’ and flow-diagrams. If this approach can be shown to be useful (as I believe it is) then it can be applied to a wide variety of fields or areas. Most obvious, for me as an intellectual historian, is to chart out and map in this manner the landscape of a wide variety of different fields or periods of human thought.
2. To test and apply this graphical approach concretely I have selected one of the most difficult and confusing fields – that of presenting different views of the nature and history of varying estimations of values, virtues and systems of values (such as e.g. different moral schools and traditions) aiming to result in an atlas of the history of values and ethics (axiology).
I quickly realized when I began this project that to make this one-year (part-time) project a success I needed to scale down the ambition somewhat in the second part and goal. Instead of covering all of values (axiology) and ethics I decided to limit the project to dealing with the history of one of the most historically relevant aspect of value and ethics which also experiences a lively revival of interest at present (since c. the 1990s): virtue and virtue ethics, and thus in producing an Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics.
Humanistic knowledge is rarely presented graphically. This project constitutes an examination of and an application of an attempt to do so. Expressed differently, the specific application attempted here is a cartography of the landscape of the history of virtue and virtue ethics. Studies in the humanities and in culture in general are usually based on the reading of primary texts – the works by philosophers, scientists, authors etc – and the reading of secondary literature which presents, discusses, criticizes and analyzes the thinkers, texts or persons in question, and often gives information about the general context. The charts, tables and ‘maps’ produced for this project do not, and cannot, substitute for this. However, in spite of lacking in depth, together they can be regarded as constituting a third pillar, one which strongly emphasizes contexts and relations (including influences and oppositions), and connections between thinkers and traditions. Furthermore, this approach of using historical and intellectual overviews and flowcharts makes these contexts and connections almost instantaneously visually apparent.
It is as an aid mainly to contextual understanding that these charts, tables and ‘maps’ primarily have been constructed.
Anyone venturing out into unknown territory, whether wilderness or a new city, will know by experience the great difference between doing so with or without a map. Therefore, with few exceptions, we tend to use maps. However, oddly enough, when we venture out into new intellectual landscapes – when we encounter new fields, subfields or historical periods – we do so essentially without maps, since there are none. To me, that has always been a surprising and unfortunate lacuna. This project attempts to examine and propose an approach that can at least partly rectify this.
This atlas of virtue will bring attention to virtues, and to the major ways virtue, virtues and virtue ethics have been viewed and treated in history. The approach is thus more historical than philosophical. It attempts to make many of the questions and traditions concerning virtue more distinct and apparent, primarily by constructing and using general outlines and surveys, and by presenting questions, traditions and alternative views concerning values in visually apparent graphs, ‘maps’ and diagrams.
The advantage of the approach used in this proposal, with charts, ‘maps’ and tables is in many ways just the opposite of that of traditional texts, and can thus be complementary to the reading of conventional books and treatises. Charts and maps are well suited for structuring, organizing and presenting information, especially when one wishes to emphasize relations, contexts and/or influences and oppositions between the things charted out. Most of the charts, tables and ‘maps’ in this project will be multidimensional. Many of them will be four dimensional; chronological, thematic, rating the importance of the thinker or tradition in regard to the question or field discussed (expressed by size and differential boldness of print) and showing affinities and tensions between thinkers, schools or traditions (often expressed by arrows and double-pointed arrows). Where necessary, rather than adding further information to most charts, I will instead add further, often connected, charts resulting in short series of charts or tables on different related topics. Other charts are and will be more thematic.
The charts and ‘maps’ constructed for this project are of many different kinds. Many maps use chronology along one axis and different intellectual or philosophical positions or views along the other axis.
An alternative way to view this project and atlas is to see it as an attempt to produce ‘pictures’, in the form of charts, tables and ‘maps’, to make it easier for the mind to grasp, to handle and to remember large amounts of complex contextual humanistic information. It allows for the use of pictorial (image) information handling, which is natural to the human brain, and for the use of the sense of orientation and of direction.
The intended audience of my Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics are and have been (first year) university students. However, since many of the charts give broad outlines of virtue and virtue ethics I believe that the atlas will also be useful and potentially attractive for a broader audience.
Application of the project and a brief discussion whether its goals were reached:
The actual work (application) of the project have consisted of two parts; (1) preparing and giving a university course dealing with virtue, and (2) constructing an atlas of virtue and virtue ethics (construced parallel to the course, and many of the charts constructed were tested on the students). A third goal (3) has been to gain knowledge and experience about how best to construct visual presentations of humanistic knowledge, in this case mainly the history of virtue.
The course Virtue: How to become a better human being (in Swedish) has been a success. The course is a B-course (i.e. second semester) for studies in intellectual history and given twice at Uppsala University (and each time the number of students who selected the course was so great that the course had to be doubled, i.e. it has been given four times (and will also be given next term), each time consisting of 8-12 students. For a brief description of the course, see the Swedish version of this text.
I have gained expected knowledge and experience about how better to construct visual presentations of humanistic knowledge.
I have constructed a manuscript entitled Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics, consisting exclusively of about hundred charts and maps (and essentially no pure text). This work is not fully finished, but I plan to contact English-speaking publishers to see if I can find one willing to publish it.
Original Title: Atlas of Values and Ethics: A Historical Approach
Revised Title: Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics: A Historical Approach
How would it be to study the geography, geology and the biosphere of say, Europe, without using charts and maps. It would require an almost infinitely larger number of words than if using charts and maps, and the information transmitted, understood and remembered by the student or reader would almost certainly be much smaller than if maps were used. And yet, this is how we teach the humanities and about the landscape of human thought. This project attempts to show that ‘maps’ of humanistic knowledge can be constructed and are of great educational value, especially concerning grand views, overviews, and contexts, and applies this to virtues, virtue ethics and to some extent ethics in a broader sense.
This project concerning visualization of humanistic knowledge has had two main parts and goals:
1. To investigate and apply a complementary approach to that of “pure text” for presenting broad and more specific humanistic results and contexts by means of graphical multidimentional charts, ‘maps’ and flow-diagrams. If this approach can be shown to be useful (as I believe it is) then it can be applied to a wide variety of fields or areas. Most obvious, for me as an intellectual historian, is to chart out and map in this manner the landscape of a wide variety of different fields or periods of human thought.
2. To test and apply this graphical approach concretely I have selected one of the most difficult and confusing fields – that of presenting different views of the nature and history of varying estimations of values, virtues and systems of values (such as e.g. different moral schools and traditions) aiming to result in an atlas of the history of values and ethics (axiology).
I quickly realized when I began this project that to make this one-year (part-time) project a success I needed to scale down the ambition somewhat in the second part and goal. Instead of covering all of values (axiology) and ethics I decided to limit the project to dealing with the history of one of the most historically relevant aspect of value and ethics which also experiences a lively revival of interest at present (since c. the 1990s): virtue and virtue ethics, and thus in producing an Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics.
Humanistic knowledge is rarely presented graphically. This project constitutes an examination of and an application of an attempt to do so. Expressed differently, the specific application attempted here is a cartography of the landscape of the history of virtue and virtue ethics. Studies in the humanities and in culture in general are usually based on the reading of primary texts – the works by philosophers, scientists, authors etc – and the reading of secondary literature which presents, discusses, criticizes and analyzes the thinkers, texts or persons in question, and often gives information about the general context. The charts, tables and ‘maps’ produced for this project do not, and cannot, substitute for this. However, in spite of lacking in depth, together they can be regarded as constituting a third pillar, one which strongly emphasizes contexts and relations (including influences and oppositions), and connections between thinkers and traditions. Furthermore, this approach of using historical and intellectual overviews and flowcharts makes these contexts and connections almost instantaneously visually apparent.
It is as an aid mainly to contextual understanding that these charts, tables and ‘maps’ primarily have been constructed.
Anyone venturing out into unknown territory, whether wilderness or a new city, will know by experience the great difference between doing so with or without a map. Therefore, with few exceptions, we tend to use maps. However, oddly enough, when we venture out into new intellectual landscapes – when we encounter new fields, subfields or historical periods – we do so essentially without maps, since there are none. To me, that has always been a surprising and unfortunate lacuna. This project attempts to examine and propose an approach that can at least partly rectify this.
This atlas of virtue will bring attention to virtues, and to the major ways virtue, virtues and virtue ethics have been viewed and treated in history. The approach is thus more historical than philosophical. It attempts to make many of the questions and traditions concerning virtue more distinct and apparent, primarily by constructing and using general outlines and surveys, and by presenting questions, traditions and alternative views concerning values in visually apparent graphs, ‘maps’ and diagrams.
The advantage of the approach used in this proposal, with charts, ‘maps’ and tables is in many ways just the opposite of that of traditional texts, and can thus be complementary to the reading of conventional books and treatises. Charts and maps are well suited for structuring, organizing and presenting information, especially when one wishes to emphasize relations, contexts and/or influences and oppositions between the things charted out. Most of the charts, tables and ‘maps’ in this project will be multidimensional. Many of them will be four dimensional; chronological, thematic, rating the importance of the thinker or tradition in regard to the question or field discussed (expressed by size and differential boldness of print) and showing affinities and tensions between thinkers, schools or traditions (often expressed by arrows and double-pointed arrows). Where necessary, rather than adding further information to most charts, I will instead add further, often connected, charts resulting in short series of charts or tables on different related topics. Other charts are and will be more thematic.
The charts and ‘maps’ constructed for this project are of many different kinds. Many maps use chronology along one axis and different intellectual or philosophical positions or views along the other axis.
An alternative way to view this project and atlas is to see it as an attempt to produce ‘pictures’, in the form of charts, tables and ‘maps’, to make it easier for the mind to grasp, to handle and to remember large amounts of complex contextual humanistic information. It allows for the use of pictorial (image) information handling, which is natural to the human brain, and for the use of the sense of orientation and of direction.
The intended audience of my Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics are and have been (first year) university students. However, since many of the charts give broad outlines of virtue and virtue ethics I believe that the atlas will also be useful and potentially attractive for a broader audience.
Application of the project and a brief discussion whether its goals were reached:
The actual work (application) of the project have consisted of two parts; (1) preparing and giving a university course dealing with virtue, and (2) constructing an atlas of virtue and virtue ethics (construced parallel to the course, and many of the charts constructed were tested on the students). A third goal (3) has been to gain knowledge and experience about how best to construct visual presentations of humanistic knowledge, in this case mainly the history of virtue.
The course Virtue: How to become a better human being (in Swedish) has been a success. The course is a B-course (i.e. second semester) for studies in intellectual history and given twice at Uppsala University (and each time the number of students who selected the course was so great that the course had to be doubled, i.e. it has been given four times (and will also be given next term), each time consisting of 8-12 students. For a brief description of the course, see the Swedish version of this text.
I have gained expected knowledge and experience about how better to construct visual presentations of humanistic knowledge.
I have constructed a manuscript entitled Atlas of Virtue and Virtue Ethics, consisting exclusively of about hundred charts and maps (and essentially no pure text). This work is not fully finished, but I plan to contact English-speaking publishers to see if I can find one willing to publish it.