Philosophical Traditions

Con su teoría crítica de la resonancia, Hartmut Rosa ha propuesto las bases de un modelo para evaluar normativamente y afrontar en la práctica las consecuencias de la aceleración social y su inherente tendencia al crecimiento y la innovación. Dicho modelo ha supuesto una bocanada de aire fresco en la Teoría Crítica para reflexionar sobre una dinámica que atraviesa la práctica totalidad de las actividades sociales. No obstante, también ha sido asociado a determinadas características que podrían hacerlo merecedor de dos (...) calificativos siempre reprobados por la Teoría Crítica: el paternalismo y el totalitarismo. Con el fin de contribuir a los debates suscitados por el trabajo de Rosa, la pretensión de este artículo es mostrar el modo en que su planteamiento pretende sortear esas acusaciones al apoyarse especialmente en el concepto de Weltbeziehung [relaciones con el mundo]. (shrink)

A Post-Colonial Reconstruction of Africa surveys the significant reconstruction work undertaken in the social and political organization of sub-Saharan African society in the decades following the colonial interruption and subjects these efforts to rigorous criticism in order to establish whether they can carry the weight of modernization efforts in Africa. To examine the significant trends, it highlights the work of African intellectuals such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, Paulin Hountondji, Kwame Nkrumah, Anthony Appiah, Ato Sekyi-Otu, and Bernard Matolino. Pieter H. (...) Coetzee argues that reconstruction inspired by traditional communitarian systems of social organization, including the modified form presented by Matolino, do not adequately do justice to the liberty aspirations of individuals in an era when the demand for increased democratization has become globally paramount. Reconstruction efforts inspired by appeal to native traditions of liberalism, including native conceptions of individual rights, fare better in this regard. However, current reconstruction efforts have done little to rescue Africans from the negative economic effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism and fail to alleviate self-perception problems created by Western racism. Appiah’s cosmopolitan option and Sekyi-Otu’s left universalism are notable exceptions. (shrink)

Una de las manifestaciones más agresivas del aumento de las velocidades y del cambio social, característico de las sociedades aceleradas, se da en la creación de tendencias laborales basadas en la hibridación entre trabajo y tiempo libre. Proyectadas sobre una idea positiva de la flexibilidad y del autocontrol, mantienen una estrecha relación con niveles altos de autointensificación. Este artículo reconstruye los rasgos básicos de prácticas formalizadas como el bleisure o el workation para caracterizar un fenómeno de la aceleración más específico (...) dentro de esta tendencia, al que denomino “turistificación del trabajo”. Este concepto resalta la atribución específica de rasgos atractivos de la práctica turística al trabajo con fines productivos. Frente a los discursos positivos sobre la movilidad y el turismo asociados a este fenómeno, se sugieren las bases de un modelo de crítica para reconocer sus implicaciones alienantes negativas en relación con la vida buena. (shrink)

On trouve dans les écrits de Mill une légitimation circonstanciée de la révolution. Ce que doivent considérer celles et ceux que tente l’affrontement armé, c’est la nature des circonstances historiques, mais aussi leur propre force et leur degré de maturité politique, de manière à évaluer l’opportunité et la justice de la violence révolutionnaire. Il s’agira ici d’examiner les tensions et les évolutions de la pensée de Mill à l’égard de la « révolution », comme idée politique, comme événement historique, aussi (...) bien que comme processus long de transformation individuelle ou collective. (shrink)

Les rares réflexions de Karl Marx sur la société socialiste sont imprégnées de la volonté de se prémunir contre l’idéalisme du socialisme utopique. Marx pense l’émancipation à partir de la critique de la théorie économique classique et de celle des limites du libéralisme politique. Mill ne s’inscrit pas dans cette double critique marxiste. S’il radicalise certaines conclusions de l’économie ricardienne et affirme le caractère provisoire des rapports de production de son époque, il demeure prudent : il vise un dépassement du (...) salariat par le développement graduel de coopératives de production et se tient à grande distance du socialisme révolutionnaire considéré comme « davantage un produit du continent que de la Grande-Bretagne ». (shrink)

Selon son Autobiographie, c’est la révolution parisienne de 1848 qui a incité Mill à revendiquer plus clairement la désignation de socialiste dans l’édition de 1852 de ses Principes d’économie politique. On a pu voir dans les Chapitres sur le socialisme posthumes l’abandon de cette position. Mais ses craintes à l’égard du « socialisme révolutionnaire » ne sont en opposition ni à la révolution ni au socialisme : un « socialisme légitime », violent seulement s’il doit se défendre, n’impliquant pas la (...) disparition de toute propriété privée, préférant la coopération à la main mise de l’État, doit revendiquer tout ce qui de « liberté, égalité et fraternité » peut être réalisé dès maintenant et préparé pour plus tard. (shrink)

Mill n’a pas pensé la sécularisation comme un simple affaiblissement des religions traditionnelles, mais s’est préoccupé de leur remplacement comme fondement de la stabilité sociale. La Religion de l’Humanité doit réorienter sur le progrès humain les aspirations religieuses. Liée à la neutralisation de la portée morale des religions théistes et surnaturelles sur le plan métaphysique, en cohérence avec l’engagement pour une éducation nationale séculière, la dimension religieuse de l’utilitarisme éloigne aussi Mill de Bentham. La comparaison avec la version comtienne de (...) la religion de l’humanité permet d’aborder quelques difficultés soulevées par ce projet. (shrink)

Dans The Subjection of Women (1869), Mill fait bien plus que prôner l’égalité civique des hommes et des femmes : il entreprend une véritable révolution épistémologique pour déconstruire les représentations naturalisantes du caractère féminin. S’il compare d’abord la condition des femmes à celle des esclaves, c’est pour ensuite l’en distinguer, car la persistance de l’inégalité des sexes est en contradiction avec les principes juridiques des sociétés modernes. Il est donc attentif à la situation singulière du problème de l’assujettissement des femmes (...) : il ne s’agit pas de chercher à faire une « révolution sociale au nom d’un droit abstrait », mais de déraciner les préjugés qui expliquent la permanence archaïque de l’inégalité des sexes. C’est l’occasion d’une réflexion sur la construction de la domination patriarcale comme habitude sociale, par l’influence de l’éducation sur le caractère féminin. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse conceptions of induction and certainty in Wolff and Crusius, highlighting their competing conceptions of physics. We discuss (i) the perspective of Wolff, who assigned induction an important role in physics, but argued that physics should be an axiomatic science containing certain statements, and (ii) the perspective of Crusius, who adopted parts of the ideal of axiomatic physics but criticized the scope of Wolff’s ideal of certain science. Against interpretations that take Wolff’s proofs in physics to (...) be based on empirical statements that are probable, we show how inductively established statements, coupled with assumptions concerning the uniformity of nature, can be certain according to Wolff. We further study Crusius’ little known work on physics and show that he attacked Wolff, arguing that many statements of physics are probable. We provide discussion of the reception of methodological rules similar to Newton’s Regulae Philosophandi, discussing different interpretations of such rules. We conclude by briefly hinting at how the debate between Wolff and Crusius provides historical context for understanding Kant’s philosophy of natural science. (shrink)

I first examine the context that led me to write ‘The Root if all Evil.’ A second section rehearses my present understanding of the significance and the inadequacy of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. A third section turns to the way my thinking has evolved, including a brief account of the way it has moved from Heidegger to the 15th century cardinal and philosopher Nicolaus Cusanus. I conclude with some remarks about what I take to be my place in today’s philosophy world.

According to Hans-Georg Gadamer, like any artwork, a musical performance has play in its essence: a non-teleological ‘to-and-fro movement’ that is independent of the musicians. Controversially, Gadamer claims that aesthetic understanding depends on recognizing the authority of the artwork over its observer. What is more unique to music than other forms of art, however, is that an independent, impersonal movement has been ascribed to it as an essential quality. Such musical movement, and particularly the musical personae that emerge from it, (...) have usually been described in terms of metaphor, thus detaching the virtual agencies of music from any real-world processes. However, Gadamer argues, in line with his principle of non-differentiation, that in the realm of play the distinction between literal and metaphorical meaning becomes meaningless.In this chapter, we pursue this idea across a number of case studies: the performance of instrumental western art music, the diffusion of musical ideas in musical improvisation, and the experience of playing along to video game music. Across these examples, in line with Gadamer’s insistence on the hermeneutic nature of aesthetic experience, we show that the experience of musical movement and agency is a means of interfacing with the social and technological practices from which music emerges. The interface shows important similarities to Gadamer’s concept of the horizon. The importance that Gadamer attaches to the authority of the artwork therefore appears to be more closely aligned with contemporary performance and media-based understandings of music than the work-centered approaches with which it is often associated. (shrink)

This chapter furthers recent reappraisals of Vladimir Jankélévitch’s music philosophy, working against Carolyn Abbate’s well-known claim that Jankélévitch’s ‘drastic’ thought opposes all hermeneutic methods. To do so, I illustrate how hermeneutic interpretation is itself a drastic act of doing, taking Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and outlining its drastic components through the prism of Abbate’s Jankélévitch-inspired terms. I then reconsider Jankélévitch’s music philosophy in the light of the drastic aspects of Gadamer’s thought, offering some surprising points of compatibility between the two (...) thinkers. I show how for both philosophers, musical interpretation is a temporal event, one that develops as an interplay between listener and music, perception and preconception. Additionally, both Gadamer and Jankélévitch consider this interpretive process as potentially infinite, given music’s ineffability.Towards the chapter’s end I shift focus slightly, to claim that products of interpretation, like musicological essays and books, are not only formed by the drastic process of interpreting, but are also responsible for further ‘doings’ – entering a meta-drastic process of ‘musical work’. Rather than just act as mere after-the-fact inscriptions of interpretative doing, these texts have an effect on both performance and our general conception of music, and as such, they ‘do’ something. To conclude, I acknowledge Jankélévitch’s regular denunciation of writing, yet also note the important exception he makes for poetry, offering a brief declaration of the important role poeticism must play in a drastic hermeneutics, with both Jankélévitch and Gadamer acting as key exemplars. (shrink)

This chapter examines Gadamer’s critique of the aesthetic theory of the phenomenologist Roman Ingarden regarding the relationship between musical works of art and their interpretations. If, for Ingarden, all interpretation relates to the work as a schematic structure, this relationship also implies distinguishing between the musical work of art and its interpretation, by virtue of an aesthetic differentiation that Gadamer criticizes in depth in Truth and Method. In what sense, then, can one think of the unity of the musical work (...) of art and its interpretations without falling back into the pitfall of aesthetic differentiation? It seems that only a hermeneutic of the work of art can answer this question. (shrink)

In this essay, I will highlight the role of music in the Gadamerian reflection. I claim that music helps show that Gadamer’s consideration of art is based on the paradigm of performance (as opposed to the misleading reduction of hermeneutics to a form of textualism). In particular, I will show how music emblematically represents such performative paradigm in three main aspects: (1) the concept of play as self-presentation and movements peculiarly fits the essence of music, which is such only insofar (...) as it is performed; (2) music perfectly manifests the temporality of art, as explained by the paradigm of the festival as what is both unique and repeatable; (3) music manifests a specific kind of interaction between the work of art and the audience. Having no permanent material medium as its essence, music can best show the reassessment of art as a social activity conceived in a horizontal direction rather than a mere product or object created by the artist and given to the audience. On this basis, it will be possible to show the performative character underlying hermeneutic itself, which unfolds in the continuous movement and actualization of hermeneutic dialogue and in the democratic openness it entails. (shrink)

Gadamer’s On the Relevance of the Beautiful makes telling reference to musical improvisation and the importance of musical listening in addition to foregrounding the need for justification (here including reference to musicological readings of Plato). Situating this discussion via Goethe and Plato along with Adorno’s late 1950s lectures on Aesthetics together with a discussion of Nietzsche and antiquity, what is at stake is attunement and a tension which invites a discussion of Anne Carson on the lover’s arrest and Heidegger on (...) tarrying. By reviewing Gadamer’s hermeneutic of musical programming and performance, including improvisation and the challenge of new music, Gadamer may be read on music culture in the context of social culture and thus the so-called ‘culture industry,’ together with his reflection not only via Plato and Goethe but also Hölderlin and Rilke on ‘the beautiful.’ At work is a cultural ‘conversation’ including the dynamic of response emergent in the energeia of improvisation for performer and listener. (shrink)

The tradition of modern philosophical hermeneutics could be told in such a way that from Schleiermacher to Gadamer the process of universalization can be seen (Grondin 1994). In Heidegger and Gadamer hermeneutics became universal in a way that now everything is a possible subject of understanding. Among those items of the hermeneutical universe are not only spoken sentences and books, but also pictures, movies, dance and other aesthetic phenomena. Gadamer himself has spelled out the insight that the universe of understanding (...) is broader than items that literally consist of language mainly with regard to images and pictorial representations (Gadamer 2013, 135ff). But among those items are also musical works, musical interpretations and musical improvisations. It is not only the meticulous reading of a musical interpretation of a symphony by Mahler or the hearing of something as music and not as mere noise in the world that embodies understanding. Already hearing the difference between something being an interpretation and something being an improvisation embodies understanding. (shrink)

This chapter represents an attempt to interpret a fundamental structure in Arabic music, maqām, in terms of Gadamer’s notion of the fusion of horizons. Often translated into English as “mode,” maqām goes beyond pitch set or scale. It is a musical reality, beautiful and fascinating, not well served by traditional theoretical tools, which deserves more attention. I argue, on the one hand, that Gadamerian hermeneutics can illuminate how maqām works, while showing, on the other, how maqām might contribute to a (...) better understanding of Gadamer’s thought. In the context of my overall argument, I deal with Gadamer’s key notions of play, imagination, indeterminacy, the centrality of the question and the notion of ethos. I show how Gadamerian hermeneutics applied to maqām can constribute to certain discussions in the philosophy of music. I suggest that maqām presents a challenge to Gadamer’s understandings of language and the musical work. Ultimately, it is appropriate to conceive of maqām as itself a horizon in which fusion of perspectives can take place. (shrink)

The reason why Gadamer’s Truth and Method opens with a discussion of ‘humanistic’ concepts—Bildung, judgment, sensus communis, tact, and taste—is that these ‘ways of knowing’ are basic to human knowledge and understanding. In this paper, I consider the role that religion (defined in a broad sense) played in helping human beings develop a common sense of understanding. Specifically, I examine some instances of religion in the form of song and dance—forms of religion that appear to date back to many thousands (...) of years ago. What emerges is that singing and dancing together provides an excellent basis for and ways to continue engaging in community. I conclude the paper by considering Gadamer’s notion of festival. Although Gadamer makes no reference in his discussion of festival to ancient forms of religion, such religious practice can be seen as something very similar (if not identical) to the celebration of a festival. (shrink)

Early in his career, Valentin Asmus gave a polemical lecture on Descartes’s dialectics, and during the “Thaw” he published a book on René Descartes’s life and scientific work. Asmus was the guardian of classical philosophical culture in the worst of times, when it was attacked by ideologically biased and semi-literate “Red professors.” They proclaimed Descartes founder of “modern idealism” and of a “mechanical worldview” hostile to dialectics. Asmus responded by arguing that Descartes had contributed much to the development of the (...) dialectic and materialist view of the world—this was the only possible way to rehabilitate Descartes’s philosophical legacy from ideological accusations. In his 1956 book, Asmus gave an overview of Descartes’s philosophy as a whole. He was fluent in the philosophical techniques of Marxist histmat (short for “historical materialism”); at the same time, the portrait he draws of Descartes clearly shows the Kantian way of thinking, which Asmus learned from the schoolroom in the pre-revolutionary period. (shrink)

Value can be understood, analyzed, and created in various ways. In addition to more pragmatic modes of valorization, there are “ontological” processes that can be understood to increase value, which will refer as ontological valorization and progressively unpack. Ontological valorization generally works as a foundation for pragmatic valorization. David Graeber has pointed out that value rises out of a system of relations, and this is the level of ontological valorization. In this chapter, the authors explore ontological valorization for possibilities of (...) transformation at this foundational level. They explore the possibilities represented by blockchain technologies for both ontological and pragmatic valorization. The authors argue and try to show that, even with its present-day limitations and problems, the technology's innovativeness lies in its ability to create a foundation for ontological valorization, though not necessarily in certain practical applications per se. (shrink)

This text proposes an analysis of the phenomenon of faith in the tradition and spirituality of the Eastern Church. Starting from the relationship between phenomenology and theology, the article uses a theo-phenomenological method to depict the phenomenon of faith both theologically and phenomenologically. This article also argues that non-religious faith—either natural or philosophical—is the foundation of religious faith. According to Orthodox spirituality, faith is not reduced to a set of theoretical teachings and dogmas; they constitute only the first type of (...) faith, “simple faith”. At the same time, faith is also a form of experience, which has ascetical, ethical, and mystical dimensions; they characterize the second type of faith, faith as contemplative sight and knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I deal with Heidegger’s evolving account of metaphysics, since Heidegger’s persistent concern, the question of being, is a basic metaphysical question. To date, most Heidegger scholars have focused only on a particular stage of Heidegger’s philosophy: either his early attempt to deconstruct metaphysics, or his efforts to overcome metaphysics in the 1930s, or his late embrace of ‘releasement’ from metaphysics. However, these limited approaches fail to address Heidegger’s different understandings of metaphysics, which lie at the root of (...) his changing approaches to the question of being. They also fail to explain whether there is any inner connection between the various approaches. Further, given Heidegger’s unremittingly negative attitude towards metaphysics, some scholars have even maintained that Heidegger thought it both possible and desirable to leave metaphysics behind altogether. I address these issues first by arguing that metaphysics for Heidegger has three interconnected meanings: initially it is the representation of the totality of things that are present-at-hand, a view subsequently developed into subjective representational thinking, and finally radicalized into an expression of the will to power. At each stage, Heidegger critiques the metaphysical tradition but never claims that it can be fully eliminated, since it is a mode of Dasein’s being and ultimately possiblized by being itself. For this reason, Heidegger’s own philosophy of being remains inseparable from metaphysics. (shrink)

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir diagnoses “woman” as the “lost sex,” torn between her individual autonomy and her “feminine destiny.” Becoming a “real woman” in patriarchal societies demands that women lose their authentic, autonomous selves to become the “inessential Other” for Man. To better understand this diagnosis and how women might refind themselves, I rehabilitate the influence of Søren Kierkegaard and his concept of repetition as what must be lost to be found again in Beauvoir’s account of freedom (...) and, specifically, the liberation of women. Beauvoir offers a dual account of repetition, that of mundane repetition and sacrificial repetition, bringing them to bear both on her diagnosis of women’s oppression and her theorization of our liberation. Sacrificial repetition becomes a temporality for freedom—one must be able to repeat or retake their autonomy continuously toward an open future. For this to happen concretely, Beauvoir insists that we must sacrifice the (racist, classist) patriarchal ideals of the “real woman” and “real man” as we retake our autonomy and reconfigure the meaning of sex difference anew. (shrink)

This essay addresses one of the most concerning features of Russian thought: its claim to exceptionality. The author contends that the notion of Russian distinctiveness and exceptionality has reverberated consistently throughout Russian intellectual discussions. In contemporary Russia, these debates have heightened, often taking on a distinctly political character. The essay highlights the perilous consequences of believing in the exclusivity and superiority of one national tradition over others. Not only does this belief lead to national isolationism, negatively impacting the country’s intellectual (...) culture and diminishing its vibrancy and creativity, but it also erodes the foundation for a critical attitude and self-reflection, essential aspects of philosophical inquiry. Russia needs an open philosophy that is seamlessly integrated into the global philosophical process and actively engages in constructive dialogue with other philosophical cultures. Achieving this goal requires breaking free from the longstanding belief in exceptionality that has cast a shadow over Russia’s state, culture, and thought for centuries. (shrink)

The encounter of the medieval Muslims with Greek philosophy undeniably shaped the course of their philosophical and theological thought. This encounter led to the complex and contentious issue of ‘philosophy versus theology’. Medieval Muslim thinkers needed to develop a response to the issue of philosophy versus theology. The present article will first highlight the response of the Islamic theologians to their encounter with Greek philosophy in the form of three major trends in medieval Islamic theology: (1) strong opposition to the (...) application of reason and rationalist approach to Islamic doctrines, and strict adherence to the actual text of the Qur’an and the Hadith, (2) the adoption of Greek philosophy, and the application of reason and rationalist approach to explain and defend Islamic religion and (3) acknowledging the significance of reason in exploring the matters related to the natural world but, at the same time, stressing the subordination of reason to revelation. This article will discuss Atharism, Muʿtazilism and Ashʿarism as the representatives of the first, second and third trends, respectively. The response of the medieval Islamic theologians to the issue of philosophy versus theology serves as a context in which medieval Muslim philosophers carried out their philosophy–theology debate. The article will proceed to show that some medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Abu Bakr Al-Razi, subordinated religion or revelation to philosophy or reason. Other medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Al-Ghazali, subordinated philosophy to theology. The third group of medieval Islamic philosophers represented by Alfarabi argued for the reconciliation and harmonious co-existence of philosophy and religion. Contribution: This article highlights the response of medieval Islamic theologians and philosophers to the issue of philosophy versus theology that was caused by their encounter with Greek philosophy. (shrink)

들뢰즈와 아감벤은 철학의 영역에서 법을 사유하는 중요한 현대적 이론들을 제공하는 철학자들이다. 들뢰즈의 법에 대한 연구는 그 자신의 시간론과 밀접한 관계를 맺고 있다는 점에 그 특징이 있으며, 아감벤의 법에 대한 연구는 자신의 철학의 핵심 개념인 배제-포함 구조를 통해서 사유한다는 점에 그 특징이 있다. 그런데 두 사람은 모두 카프카를 경유하여 두 사람의 핵심적인 문제의식으로 나아간다. 먼저 들뢰즈는 카프카의 「법 앞에서」에서 우리에게 인식될 수 있도록 그 내용이 주어져 있지 않은 법이 우리에게 처벌을 내림으로써만 언표된다는 것을 읽어낸다. 더 나아가 『소송』에서 K에게 완전한 무죄판결이란 없으며 (...) 오직 판결을 ‘지연’시키는 방법만이 있을 수 있다고 말하는 화가 티토렐리에 주목하면서, 법과 시간의 문제를 탐구한다. 아감벤은 데리다의 「법 앞에서」에 대한 해석을 경유하여 카프카에 접근한다. 데리다는 열린 문 앞에서 들어가는 것이 ‘가능하지만 지금은 안 되는’ 바로 이 상황이 우리를 둘러 싼 법과 우리의 관계라는 점에 주목한 바 있다. 법에 대한 접근 가능성은 ‘지금은 안 된다’는 방식으로 무한히 지연된다는 것이다. 아감벤 역시 이러한 들어갈 수 있는 자유가 있음에도 불구하고 들어갈 수 없는, 그래서 자유롭지도 자유롭지 않지도 않은 법과 우리의 관계를 배제-포함 구조로 설명한다. 그렇기 때문에 아감벤의 카프카 읽기는 법이 그 내용이 주어져 있지 않음에도 우리를 강제하고 있음을 의미한다는 들뢰즈의 사유와 만나게 된다. 이 연구는 들뢰즈와 아감벤의 법 해석을 함께 탐구함으로써, 두 사람이 말하는 법의 강제로부터 우리를 해방시키는 방법과 그 의의를 밝혀본다. (shrink)

The paper is about the Soviet philosopher Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus (1894–1975) and his criticism of the fascist and Nazi appropriation of Hegel’s philosophy. The status of the Hegelian legacy was very controversial in Marxism-Leninism throughout the Stalinist era. Unlike the majority of Soviet academics of this time, Asmus did not recognize any valid intellectual legacy at the base of German fascism. Asmus heavily criticized attempts to portray Hegel as a pro-fascist thinker. When many Soviet philosophers defended only the method, dialectics, (...) Asmus defended Hegel’s social and political views as humanistic and liberal. The first part of the article describes the “official” Soviet philosophy within the context of which Asmus had to act. The second part offers a comprehensive analysis of the criticism of Hegel’s fascist interpretation in Asmus’ Fascist Falsification of Classical German Philosophy (1942). (shrink)

This essay will attempt a line-by-line reading of Lacan’s famous “The Mirror Image as Formative I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” (1949) published in the collected volume of essays, Ecrits (1966). The article attempts to show that Lacan’s essay opens a space of primordiality, whereby we can revisit Heidegger’s critique of subjectivity and the Cogito, terms that originate with Descartes and evolves to Kant’s Critiques of dogmatic metaphysics, particularly in Heidegger’s Being and Time. These are steps Heidegger takes to (...) set up his attempted critique of Hegel, who in turn tries to surpass the history of philosophy rooted in modern subjectivity, particularly in his Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). However, missing in Lacan’s essay and what remains unarticulated in Heidegger’s Being and Time is the following: relation between time, movement, and the space of primordiality where all notions of factical existence dissolve. Being born in time, developing in time, being in or at time, and being-towards-death, as Heidegger struggles to deconstruct – by way of his unique appropriation of phenomenology in Being and Time – can be questioned. Indeed, what Heidegger fails to develop, and he admits it explicitly, is the other side of his ‘one-sided’ treatment in the investigation: he only analyzed death as a possibility of Dasein’s greatest possibility to ‘be-Whole’ authentically (1962, 277) and completely neglected ‘being-towards-birth’ as the ‘other end’ of Dasein’s movement (1962, 425). We will argue that one is never born as a biological fact of existence, a social construction assigned at physical birth, like a gender or sex, or any religious notions of a created being from God the Creator, or any notions of rebirth, reincarnation, or resurrection, namely from religions in the West, like Roman Catholic Christianity, and the East, like Hinduism. Rather, ‘being-towards-birth’ in relation to the linear time of flowing now-points (past as no longer now, present as now, future as yet to be now), or ‘being-within-time,’ (Heidegger 1962, 457) is temporalized other than a dateable origin in spatialized time or history. (shrink)

This study aims to uncover the praxis of singularity and self-identity (kedirian) as presented in a short story titled Aroma Tanah Moncongloe (ATM). This research uses a descriptive-qualitative method by applying the post-marxist perspective by Antonio Negri and Jean-Luc Nancy. The results signified that there is a labeling of identity constructed by the state as a form of uniformity that is in line with the empire or external power. This uniformity can be seen from the identity of former political prisoners (...) who are isolated and find it difficult to find work. Through the concept of singularity and identity, the existence of political prisoner (ex-tapol) in turn is seen as bad, evil, and can pollute a clean society. On the other hand, this stigma forms a community of ex-tapol who were marginalized politically, socially, and economically. Furthermore, in the subject’s effort to grasp the singularity, there are two indications, shown by Nanni and the Moncongloe Tapol Community (KTM). Nanni is not tied to a single identity as a child (genealogical-biological), but tend to be an open-minded, rational, and trusting teacher (sociological). Meanwhile, KTM stands outside the global political order or empire which minimizes them being entangled in the global capitalist system. (shrink)

For Hans-Georg Gadamer and philosophical hermeneutics, Paul Celan’s poetry and prose have always been decisive in thinking through the possibilities and limitations of language and interpretation. Recently, important hermeneutic research has begun to point to an unavoidable liminal encounter between the body and language in Celan’s texts, which approaches an often-neglected theme in hermeneutic thought: the body and embodied experience. Yet in order for hermeneutics to engage Celan on matters concerning the body, language, and interpretation, it is necessary to understand (...) the profound role that the body and embodied experience plays in Celan’s works. In this essay, I offer three prominent instances of embodiment in Celan’s texts that contribute to such an account. I turn first to his preliminary notes from his 1960 Meridian speech in which he discusses the poem as ‘pneumatic.’ Second, I read Celan’s letter to Hans Bender in 1960 in which poetry is both a tactile Handwerk and a handshake. Third, I engage Celan’s reading notes from two physiology textbooks from 1967 and his poem, “Seelenblind.” While the first two instances affirm the possibility of an embodied encounter with the singularity of the poet, the third instance considers the body as a site of interpretive breakdown. (shrink)

Tulisan ini menggunakan teks cerpen Jangan Tanyakan Tentang Mereka yang Memotong Lidahku (JT2M2L) karya Faisal Oddang sebagai objek material dan konsep biopolitis modern Giorgio Agamben sebagai objek formal. Karya tersebut bercerita tentang seorang Bissu bernama Upe yang mengabdikan diri kepada Dewata. Bersama tokoh lainnya, mereka mengenang peristiwa berdarah yang pernah menimpa di tahun 1965. Didasarkan pada latar belakang tersebut, kajian ini bertujuan mengungkap state of exception yang dialami komunitas Bissu, serta menyingkap gambaran mereka selaku subjek usai dieksepsi dan menjadi bare (...) life (telanjang) dalam cerpen JT2M2L. Metode yang digunakan adalah kualitatif deskriptif dengan menganalisis data menggunakan teknik baca simbolik dan semantik, teknik catat kuotasi, dan teknik parafrase. Hasilnya ditemukan hadirnya eksepsi yang disengaja oleh negara melalui jalan operasi militer dan normalisasi dengan dalih keadaan darurat. Kedaruratan memungkinkan negara mengabaikan hukum dan prosedur demokratis yang pada akhirnya turut andil menciptakan homo sacer. Dari eksepsi tersebut, objektivikasi komunitas Bissu menyebabkan ditangguhkannya hak hukum, politik, dan asasinya seiring pemegang kedaulatan berhasil memproduksi bare life. Ketelanjangan tersebut berakibat komunitas Bissu dapat menjadi objek apapun bagi entitas manapun. (shrink)

This study aims to reveal the impact and response to the apartheid system in shaping the collective trauma of African society through symbolic representations of suffering and social performativity through political action in “Amnesty” short story by Nadine Gordimer. This study used the cultural trauma theory by Jeffrey Alexander with descriptive qualitative method. The results of this research found that social suffering is symbolically represented with a humanist and theocentric images. Even so, the two seemingly different treatments are essentially the (...) same suffering, disguised by social and cultural symbols. Then, as a response to this suffering, there was social performativy through the political actions of social agents carried out by the Labor Union. These actions occur after going through of socio-cultural processes such as gathering, organizing, rioting, speeches, demonstrations, and accommodating or representing pain as well as distributing social awareness to arrive at the point where the apartheid system is the cause of all forms of suffering they experience. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se abordarán los aportes de Nietzsche, Freud y Marx, como fundadores de discurso, desde la perspectiva foucaultiana. Para ello, se trabajará con la ponencia "Nietzsche, Freud y Marx" realizada por Foucault en 1964. Foucault condensa en esta ponencia una obra que resulta muy rica, debido a que sintetiza de manera clara los aportes realizados por los "maestros de la sospecha". La riqueza de la obra radica en que expone un giro en las técnicas de la interpretación (...) que permite comprender a la hermenéutica, lejos del descifrado oculto de signos, como una estrategia de producción de nuevos símbolos, en la creación de nuevos imaginarios que construyen diversos y variados sentidos (Grüner, 1995: 11). De esta manera, en el presente escrito se planteará un acercamiento al empleo de las técnicas interpretativas que han llevado a cabo Nietzsche, Freud y Marx, como una forma de acceder a la hermenéutica de la sospecha propuesta por este trío. Para el desarrollo de esta propuesta partiremos de la caracterización general de los tres fundadores de discurso, para puntualizar en la impronta propia de la hermenéutica de cada uno. (shrink)

Tarh poem in Persian and Towghi in Arabic are two kinds of modern poetry which are told in a meaningful way by using a few words. We can say that short classic poems in Persian and Arabic are replaced by Tarh and Towghi which are recognized by Persian and Arabic poets in early 70s of 20th century. History of Persian short poems goes back to the old short poems and then to “Khosravi-ha” and history of Arabic short poems goes back (...) to Towghi of Abbasi’s time. The most important reasons for the spread of this kind of poems are: Change of opinion about the world, speed and hurry, change in collective feelings, business and lack of time, traditions’ violation and being influenced by others. This kind of poem in Persian was started by Nima’s short poems and was followed by Bizhan Jalili, Zia’oddin Khaleghi, Mohammad Zahri, Mansur Owji and Sirus Nowzari. In Arabic it was started by Amin Al-Reyhani and Jobran Khalil Jobran and was followed by Ezzoddin Monasere, Ahmad Matar, Mozzaffar Navvab and Ebrahim Nasrollah. In this research, the properties of Tarh and Towghi like language, meter and rhyme, brevity and semantic norm breaking and attraction of subject are studied, and also it is shown that although this kind of poem is affected by foreign poems, it is not a copy of them, and it goes back to old poems of these two literatures. (shrink)

Allegory is an indirect expression which is based on simile: In this trope, the person uses a concrete entity to suggest his mentality which is usually an abstract concept. In old and modern rhetorics, allegory has been considered as a tool for imagery. Considering books on old and modern rhetorics and by investigating the proverbs in which allegory is used to make meaning accessible for the reader, it can be said that allegory and imagery do exit not only in simile-based (...) proverbs but also in other types of proverbs. In other words, allegory is not just Tamsilia metaphor and it can be found even in ironic proverbs. Considering proverbs’ books, a proverb can have a simile orientation as well as metaphorical and ironic orientations. Even, a motto can become a proverb because of its prevalence among people. This article is a study about finding equivalence between Persian and Arabic proverbs. One of the findings of this study is that hyperbole in Arabic allegories is much more than Persian ones. Although many proverbs, have similar functions in the two languages, humane and animal fables have been produced in different forms like exemplum and equation format. In other words, if a proverb in Persian has a equivalence in Arabic, the two proverbs are not necessarily of the same kind. Also, using an image for a characteristic and hyperbole in the characteristic can be added to the content of allergies. (shrink)

Tarikh-e Baihaq by Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Zaid-e Baihaqi, known as Ibn-e Fundoq, is undoubtedly one of the most important and significant works on local historiography. As the title of the book indicates, it deals with the region of Baihaq (now: Sabzevar), as well as the biographies of the renowned persons who lived there. In fact, the book is a historical geography which illuminates many ambiguous dimensions of that area. Since Ibn-e Fonduq had unique knowledge of Persian and Arabic literature, (...) he cited many poems of famous and non-fomous poets of Beigaq in his work. Thus, this book has a lot of Arabic and Persian poems remained without any scholarly research so far. In this paper, I have dealt with the Arabic poems of the preamble and of the epilogue which demonstrated the current technical prose of the 6th century and also tried to give the meaning of the Arabic poems as well as distinguishing the poets. (shrink)

One of the famous translations of Sa’di’s Golestan into Arabic is Rawzat al-ward, written by Syrian scientist and literature, Mohammad al-Foraty. In this work, the translator masterly tries to choose suitable words and translate nice and fine points of Golestan into Arabic. However, Foraty sometimes, makes some mistakes in understanding the phrases. In this paper, we will survey and criticize some of the arguable verses and phrases of Golestan in its Arabic translation with regard to different explanation and opinions.

The present collection is an overview of the intellectual basis, fundamental orientations and different aspects of Islamic mysticism (based on religion) and postmodern mysticism (based on secularism). Mysticism, as an Islamic term, deals with an internal and heartfelt force and capacity for cognition, through which a mystic can reach the horizons of ascendancy in his relationship with God. Getting to such a capacity and obtaining this type of completion depends on quitting the worldly interests and ego-centricism. Taking steps in such (...) a direction, a mystic can find his real and godly entity combined with absolute and pure reality of existence. Nevertheless, mysticism as a term in new esoterique schools of thought and modern spiritualism in developed communities, particularly from the viewpoint of postmodernism, is merely a mental and imaginary process. In such a mystical approach, human heart is not considered to be a place for wisdom any more. In addition, in the instructions of this type of approach to mysticism, purification of inner nature from any attachment and getting to spiritual completion are not significant. Instead, this process is considered to be a strategy for preventing the deterioration of intellectual, spiritual and physical forces of human beings in a hasty path that today's men follow in their movement towards the pinnacles of materialistic advancements. Through using the instruments of mysticism, the developed man intends to temporarily alter the taste of life in order to avoid being trapped in the monotony of the materialistic enjoyments and to obtain the highest rate of pleasure from the natural life. Therefore, the postmodern mysticism is used as a spiritual strategy to serve the materialistic objectives. (shrink)

In any given independent Arabic clause, one could observe an ABSOLUE object in place of subject, or predicate. This kind of absolute object, having an elliptical action verb in its deep structure, is considereded to be grammtically over-dominated by this elliptical action verb. However, one question might be whether the "signified" for such an object equals with that of mentioned object, or else? Semanticians consider three "signified"s for such grammatical forms. Any such object's signified 1. can both iclude the concept (...) of the mentioned object and ellpitical action verb. 2. can solely include the concept of the elliptical action verb 3. can solely include the concept of the time,subject-free infinite verb In this article, whereas the first hypothesis is set aside as syntactically wrong, the second one will be more closely analysed. Although the third one, in our case, is correspondent with persian language, and is due have an equivalent, translators in their Quranic transltion has handled such an issue quite differently. (shrink)