scholarly journals The Changing Meanings of āśraya in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa(bhāṣya)

Author(s):  
Szilvia Szanyi

AbstractThe term āśraya (“support” or “basis”) is used in manifold ways in the Abhidharmakośa and its bhāṣya (AKBh). This comes from the fact that its basic meaning, indicating anything on which something else depends or rests, is quite generic. Despite the plasticity of its usage, we can find some recurring and distinct technical applications of the term in the AK(Bh), which I explore in my paper. First, I look at its usage of characterising a member of various asymmetric dependence relationships on which the arising and sometimes also the persistence of the other relatum depends. Through examining the nature of various āśraya-āśrita dependence relations the AK(Bh) discusses, I show that āśraya stands for an entity that determines the fundamental nature of the thing it supports. In the second half of the paper, I move on to those occurrences of the term where āśraya has a specific referent. While āśraya can refer to the six sense faculties (indriya) individually, it can also stand for them collectively pointing towards its widespread meaning as ‘psychophysical basis’. In this context, the focus often shifts either to the material or the mental elements that make up a sentient being. I will dedicate special attention to the discussion of the transformation of the basis (āśrayaparāvṛtti), where, on my reading, it is more natural to interpret āśraya as referring primarily to the mind (citta), with its bodily connotations being marginal.

1859 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 381-457 ◽  

The necessity of discussing so great a subject as the Theory of the Vertebrate Skull in the small space of time allotted by custom to a lecture, has its advantages as well as its drawbacks. As, on the present occasion, I shall suffer greatly from the disadvantages of the limitation, I will, with your permission, avail myself to the uttermost of its benefits. It will be necessary for me to assume much that I would rather demonstrate, to suppose known much that I would rather set forth and explain at length; but on the other hand, I may consider myself excused from entering largely either into the history of the subject, or into lengthy and controversial criticisms upon the views which are, or have been, held by others. The biological science of the last half-century is honourably distinguished from that of preceding epochs, by the constantly increasing prominence of the idea, that a community of plan is discernible amidst the manifold diversities of organic structure. That there is nothing really aberrant in nature; that the most widely different organisms are connected by a hidden bond; that an apparently new and isolated structure will prove, when its characters are thoroughly sifted, to be only a modification of something which existed before,—are propositions which are gradually assuming the position of articles of faith in the mind of the investigators of animated nature, and are directly, or by implication, admitted among the axioms of natural history.


Philosophy ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (258) ◽  
pp. 517-521
Author(s):  
Katherin A. Rogers

According to David Hume our idea of a necessary connection between what we call cause and effect is produced when repeated observation of the conjunction of two events determines the mind to consider one upon the appearance of the other. No matter how we interpret Hume's theory of causation this explanation of the genesis of the idea of necessity is fraught with difficulty. I hope to show, looking at the three major interpretations of Hume's causal theory, that his account is contradictory, plainly wrong, or (at best) inherently impossible to verify.


Philosophy ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 25 (94) ◽  
pp. 225-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Emmet
Keyword(s):  

It is a sobering experience to be giving my first Sir Samuel Hall Oration in the line of succession of Samuel Alexander. Some of his Sir Samuel Hall Orations have been published in his book on Beauty and the Other Forms of Value and the Philosophical and Literary Pieces, and they must indeed have been a joy to his audiences. I think it is fitting that I should devote this first lecture to Samuel Alexander, taking one of the central ideas of his philosophy and considering it. If some of what I have to say is critical, I think he would have thought that was all in order. “Pitch into me,” he used to say. After all, the best tribute one can pay to a philosopher is to try to go on with one's own thinking helped by the stimulus of his ideas, and often not least helped by finding oneself impelled to criticize them.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512110285
Author(s):  
Tim Snelson ◽  
William R. Macauley

This introduction provides context for a collection of articles that came out of a research symposium held at the Science Museum's Dana Research Centre in 2018 for the ‘ Demons of Mind: the Interactions of the ‘Psy’ Sciences and Cinema in the Sixties' project. Across a range of events and research outputs, Demons of the Mind sought to map the multifarious interventions and influences of the ‘psy’ sciences (psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis) on film culture in the long 1960s. The articles that follow discuss, in order: critical engagement with theories of child development in 1960s British science fiction; the ‘horrors’ of contemporary psychiatry and neuroscience portrayed in the Hollywood blockbuster The Exorcist (1973); British social realist filmmakers' alliances with proponents of ‘anti-psychiatry’; experimental filmmaker Jane Arden's coalescence of radical psychiatry and radical feminist techniques in her ‘psychodrama’ The Other Side of the Underneath (1973); and the deployment of film technologies by ‘psy’ professionals during the post-war period to capture and interpret mother-infant interaction.


Philosophy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-114
Author(s):  
Andrea Christofidou

AbstractFirst, I offer a solution to the metaphysical problem of the mind–body relation, drawing on the fact of its distinctness in kind. Secondly, I demonstrate how, contrary to what is denied, Descartes’ metaphysical commitments allow for the intellect's clear and distinct conception of the mind–body union. Central to my two-fold defence is a novel account of the metaphysics of Descartes’ Causal Principle: its neutrality, and the unanalysable, fundamental nature of causality. Without the presupposition, and uniqueness of the mind-body union there can be no mind-body interaction; this throws new light on current concerns in metaphysics and philosophy of mind.


1901 ◽  
Vol 47 (199) ◽  
pp. 678-679
Author(s):  
F. W. Edridge-Green

All the facts which can be gathered from the study of museums or literature point to the conclusion that the sense of light was developed first, then the sense of colour. The tendency has been to regard colour-blindness as “chromic myopia;” but this is not correct unless there is a defective perception of light as well, as shown by the cases which I have recorded. A man may be able to see light of all colours at twice the normal distance, and yet be colour-blind. I specially wish to emphasise the fact that there is no definite relation between light and colour. When light falls upon the eye it sets up a nerve impulse, which is conveyed to the brain. In the impulse itself we have the physiological basis of light, and in the quality of the impulse the physiological basis of colour. My contention is that these two factors are perceived by two entirely different sets of cerebral cells, those devoted to the perception of colour being developed at a later period than those conveying to the mind the sensation of light. All the evidence which can be obtained shows that all objects were first seen as in a photograph, that is, in different degrees of black and white. In the evolution of the colour sense those waves which differ most physically, namely, red and violet, were first recognised as different, the remainder of the spectrum appearing grey. Homer's colour vision was of this class, which represents the degree just preceding total colour-blindness. I have recorded a case of this kind of a man who was colour-blind with one eye, and who was therefore able to tell me exactly how objects appeared with this eye. He said that the spectrum appeared nearly all grey, but with a tinge of red at one end and a tinge of violet at the other; he could see very much better with the colour-blind eye than with the other.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-377
Author(s):  
Leonardo Niro Nascimento

This article first aims to demonstrate the different ways the work of the English neurologist John Hughlings Jackson influenced Freud. It argues that these can be summarized in six points. It is further argued that the framework proposed by Jackson continued to be pursued by twentieth-century neuroscientists such as Papez, MacLean and Panksepp in terms of tripartite hierarchical evolutionary models. Finally, the account presented here aims to shed light on the analogies encountered by psychodynamically oriented neuroscientists, between contemporary accounts of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system on the one hand, and Freudian models of the mind on the other. These parallels, I will suggest, are not coincidental. They have a historical underpinning, as both accounts most likely originate from a common source: John Hughlings Jackson's tripartite evolutionary hierarchical view of the brain.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (Special-Issue1) ◽  
pp. 208-214
Author(s):  
Moeid Farsa ◽  
Mahdiye Jahri ◽  
Mehdi Alirezai

Architecture and light are to that extent dependent on each other which body and spirits are.One for living and the other for physical presence in this world needs the other and while light is flown on the body of the space both two perceptible worlds become “ existed “.Since long ago, bright and shimmering materials which remind something living in the mind of individual were respectable and adorable. Being aware of the process of exploitation of sunlight is of importance as much as the process of materials formation or different fundamental forms of construction in order to design. Almost in all religions, light is the symbol of Devine wisdom and the Essene of all beneficence and purities and mobility from darkness to light, was considered as the main objective. Islamic Mosques which are ornamented with light are perfectly able to transmit this divine and moral sense. In such spaces which are lighten up with a shimmering light and by observance of the imprecise shadows of substances and masses, individual starts to complete the pictures in his mind and by such an activity gets in to an ecstasy and as a result a feeling of getting close to the source of existence and reality wakens up inner inside him. The present survey by depending on descriptive-analytic methods, studies light in Islamic and traditional architecture. This paper by case study of Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, aims to find out whether the presence of light and specifically natural light in architecture might have further meaning rather than brightness, and whether accessing an accurate pattern of application of light is possible or there is basically no compulsion in it ?


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-27
Author(s):  
Monica Manolachi

Censorship as a literary subject has sometimes been necessary in times of change, as it may show how the flaws in power relations influence, sometimes very dramatically, the access to and the production of knowledge. The Woman in the Photo: a Diary, 1987-1989 by Tia Șerbănescu and A Censor’s Notebook by Liliana Corobca are two books that deal with the issue of censorship in the 1980s (the former) and the 1970s (the latter). Both writers tackle the problem from inside the ruling system, aiming at authenticity in different ways. On the one hand, instead of writing a novel, Tia Șerbănescu kept a diary in which she contemplated the oppression and the corruption of the time and their consequences on the freedom of thought, of expression and of speech. She thoroughly described what she felt and thought about her relatives, friends and other people she met, about books and their authors, in a time when keeping a diary was hard and often perilous. On the other hand, using the technique of the mise en abyme, Liliana Corobca begins from a fictitious exchange of emails to eventually enter and explore the mind of a censor and reveal what she thought and felt about the system, her co-workers, her boss, the books she proofread, their authors and her own identity. Detailed examinations and performances of the relationship between writing and censorship, the two novels provide engaging, often tragi-comical, insights into the psychological process of producing literary texts. The intention of this article is to compare and contrast the two author’s perspectives on the act of writing and some of its functions from four points of view: literary, cultural, social and political.


Panoptikum ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 109-129
Author(s):  
Barbara Szczekała

The article is a theoretical proposal which aims to create an alternative framework for mapping postclassical cinema. This framework is based on establishing various modes of relations between narration and spectacle, especially those represented by mind-game films and post-plot films. Instead of considering narration and spectacle as opposition, I suggest redescribing their complementary dynamics. I argue that there is visible feedback between mind-game films and the cinema of digital attractions, which I see as complementary processes of making “spectacular mind games” and “mind-gaming the spectacles”. The article contains an analysis of similar types of cinematic experiences delivered by “narration” and “attractions” and indicates the mutual influences between these two phenomena. Both narration and attraction may bring similar, affective sensations: the notion of shock and dissonance, discomfort, astonishment, kinesthetic impulse or cognitive stimulation. As for the article’s conclusion: postclassical cinema variously reshapes the distribution of narration and attraction. Mind-game films are becoming cinematic spectacles. On the other hand, more and more “post-plot” blockbusters are introducing the “mind-gaming the spectacle” strategy, and are engaging viewers with “cognitive” attractions as well.


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