Love in dark times: Iris Murdoch on openness and the void

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
TONY MILLIGAN
Keyword(s):  
Iris Murdoch ◽  
Spiritual Crisis ◽  
Parallel Case

AbstractAfter situating Iris Murdoch's promotion of openness to love within a broadly Platonic ethic, I outline a familiar suspicion about such openness in the context of grief, where the finding of a new and intimate love may seem inappropriate. By drawing upon her treatment of spiritual crisis and grief as parallel instances of the void, I respond to this suspicion by arguing that love in the context of spiritual crisis offers a way to resist the dangers of the void and that similar considerations apply in the parallel case (grief). If we accept Murdoch's overall position we will then lack justification for rejecting love as a morally defensible pathway out of grief.

Context Aversion, Pavlovian Conditioning, and the Psychological Side Effects of Chemotherapy

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-124
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Hall
Keyword(s):  
Animal Model ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Conditioned Response ◽  
Behavioral Strategies ◽  
Contextual Cues ◽  
Anticipatory Nausea ◽  
Laboratory Rats ◽  
Anticipatory Nausea And Vomiting ◽  
Parallel Case

Patients who have undergone several sessions of chemotherapy for cancer will sometimes develop anticipatory nausea and vomiting (ANV), these unpleasant side effects occurring as the patients return to the clinic for a further session of treatment. Pavlov's analysis of learning allows that previously neutral cues, such as those that characterize a given place or context, can become associated with events that occur in that context. ANV could thus constitute an example of a conditioned response elicited by the contextual cues of the clinic. In order to investigate this proposal we have begun an experimental analysis of a parallel case in which laboratory rats are given a nausea-inducing treatment in a novel context. We have developed a robust procedure for assessing the acquisition of context aversion in rats given such training, a procedure that shows promise as a possible animal model of ANV. Theoretical analysis of the conditioning processes involved in the formation of context aversions in animals suggests possible behavioral strategies that might be used in the alleviation of ANV, and we report a preliminary experimental test of one of these.

Remembering Iris Murdoch

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Meyers
Keyword(s):  
Iris Murdoch

‘Strangers to themselves’: Ageing, the Individual, and the Community in the Fiction of Iris Murdoch, John Banville, and John McGahern

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-218
Author(s):  
Heather Ingman
Keyword(s):  
Social Experiences ◽  
Iris Murdoch ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
John Banville ◽  
The Individual

Irish literary gerontology has been slow to develop and this article aims to stimulate discussion by engaging with gerontologists' assertions that ageing in a community of peers is enriching. Juxtaposing the experience of ageing individuals in the novels of Iris Murdoch and John Banville with the more social experiences of John McGahern's protagonists, the article finds parallels between Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea (1978) and Banville's fiction with its emphasis on the ageing individual, invariably male, who attempts to fashion a coherent identity through narration. By contrast, McGahern's The Barracks (1963), is focused through the eyes of a female protagonist whose final months are shaped by interaction with the society around her, while in That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002) ageing is experienced through an entire community.

Islamic and Jewish Religious Feminists Tackle Islamic and Jewish Oral Law: Maintenance and Rebellion of Wives

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Ruth Roded
Keyword(s):  
State Policy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Parallel Case ◽  
First Time

Beginning in the early 1970s, Jewish and Muslim feminists, tackled “oral law”—Mishna and Talmud, in Judaism, and the parallel Hadith and Fiqh in Islam, and several analogous methodologies were devised. A parallel case study of maintenance and rebellion of wives —mezonoteha, moredet al ba?ala; nafaqa al-mar?a and nush?z—in classical Jewish and Islamic oral law demonstrates similarities in content and discourse. Differences between the two, however, were found in the application of oral law to daily life, as reflected in “responsa”—piskei halacha and fatwas. In modern times, as the state became more involved in regulating maintenance and disobedience, and Jewish law was backed for the first time in history by a state, state policy and implementation were influenced by the political system and socioeconomic circumstances of the country. Despite their similar origin in oral law, maintenance and rebellion have divergent relevance to modern Jews and Muslims.

Beauty, Morality, and the Promise of Happiness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Iris Murdoch ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
The Way

This chapter takes up the themes of Chapter 3—loving beauty’s formative power—in a dialogue with contemporary philosophers Alexander Nehamas and Elaine Scarry, as well as with (to a lesser extent) Iris Murdoch. It explores the nature of love, beauty, and morality through a dialogue across historical–contemporary, theological–philosophical lines. A number of prominent modern criticisms of Augustine focus on a fundamental feature of his thought: that everything in human life is ordered towards the promise of heavenly happiness. This chapter shows some of the resources Augustine offers contemporary discussions of aesthetics by arguing that the way he links beauty and morality accounts for the ethical demands of love elicited by attraction to beauty.

Spiritual Crisis of the Beginning of the 20th Century: From Philosophical to Religious Interpretations

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Alexander V. Koltsov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Spiritual Crisis ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The One

The paper is an attempt to narrow down the notion of spiritual crisis which is now widely applied in research on history of culture of the 19th–20th centuries, with respect to history of German philosophy and observation of modern reli­giosity. The shift from the history of philosophy to the religious context is ful­filled through analysis of texts of two religious thinkers, A. Reinach and S. Frank, whose thought clearly demonstrates strong interconnection between the both fields. Analysis of contemporary studies on history of phenomenological philos­ophy (C. Möckel and W. Gleixner) lets firstly observe ways of application of Koselleck’s notion of crisis to investigations in the history of philosophy. Sec­ondly it discovers two possibilities of philosophical contextualization of the con­cept of spiritual crisis – on the one hand, as a constituent rhetorical element of the philosophical statement (Möckel), on the other hand, as a term which de­scribes the uniqueness of an intellectual situation of the beginning of the 20thcentury (Gleixner). Then these aspects of the rhetoric of crisis are applied to reli­gious philosophy of Reinach and Frank, what leads to interpretation of their works as a particular statement discovering the divine (or the holy) as a new cat­egory of religious consciousness.

Eschatology and Religiosity of the People in Russia in the 17th Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Natalya S. Gurianova
Keyword(s):  
17Th Century ◽  
Church Reform ◽  
Christian Teaching ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Spiritual Crisis ◽  
Time Of Troubles ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
The Church

The article studies the religiosity of Russian population in the 17th century in order to find out the type of this state of public mind. Special attention is drawn to the acuteness of eschatological expectations in society, which intensified during periods of crises. After the Time of Troubles (Smuta), the Church, trying to bring society out of the spiritual crisis, had been exploiting the “end of the world” topic through publishing relevant texts. This trend was especially noticeable during the time of Patriarch Joseph. The decision of the Moscow Printing House (Pechatnyi Dvor) to extend the amount of eschatological publications was determined not only by the direction of church policy, but also by the request in society, the desire of the population to get a more complete picture of the Christian teaching about the ultimate destinies of the world and man, since the spiritual crisis had presupposed an increase of apocalyptic moods. This desire indicates that the population was characterized by the religiosity of the medieval type. The article scrutinizes in particular the 2nd half of the 17th century, which modern researchers rightly designate as the early Modern era. In a society with such a keen perception of the time, the church reform, initiated in the middle of the century by Patriarch Nikon, was naturally not supported by a part of the population. In the interpretation of the defenders of the Old Belief, the actions of the reformers turned into clear signs of the advent of the kingdom of Antichrist, as it was prophesied in Christian teaching. It was not some peculiarity of the worldview of the opponents of church reform, their behavior adjusted the religiosity of the epoch. To justify these thoughts the position of Patriarch Nikon could be mentioned. Nikon found himself in a situation of disapproval and, arguing to be wrongfully convicted and misunderstood, he also used the eschatological doctrine. Based on the analysis of such facts, the article concludes that the 2nd half of the 17th century was characterized by religiosity of the medieval type.

Effect of series and parallel combination of photovoltaic thermal collectors on the performances of integrated active solar still

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
G N Tiwari ◽  
Md Meraj ◽  
M.E. Khan ◽  
V K Dwevedi
Keyword(s):  
Water Depth ◽  
Electrical Energy ◽  
Solar Still ◽  
Packing Factor ◽  
Pv Module ◽  
Parallel Arrangement ◽  
Passive Solar Still ◽  
In Series ◽  
Parallel Case ◽  
Operating Temperature Range

Abstract In this paper, an analytical expression for hourly yield, electrical energy and overall exergy of self-sustained solar still integrated with series and parallel combination of photovoltaic thermal-compound parabolic concentrator (PVT-CPC) collectors have been derived. Based on numerical computations, it has been observed that the yield is maximum for all self-sustained PVT-CPC collectors are connected in series [case (i)]. Further, the daily yield and exergy increase with the increase of water depth unlike passive solar still for all collectors connected in series. However, overall exergy decreases with an increase of water depth for all collectors connected in parallel [case (iv)]. For numerical simulations, the total numbers of self-sustained PVT-CPC collectors has been considered as constant. Further, an effect of series and parallel combination of PVT-CPC collectors on daily yield, electrical energy and overall exergy have also been carried out. Following additional conclusions have also been drawn: (i) The daily yield of the proposed active solar still decreases with the increase of packing factor of semi-transparent PV module for a given water depth and electrical energy and overall exergy increase with water depth for case (i) as expected due to low operating temperature range at higher water depth in the basin. (i) The daily yield, electrical energy and overall exergy increase with the increase of water depth for all combination of series and parallel arrangement of PVT-CPC collectors for a packing factor of 0.22 as per our expectation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document