The Great Debate

2018 ◽  
pp. 121-170
Author(s):  
Daniel Maria Klimek
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Academic Culture ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Spiritual Experience ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
Mystical Experiences

This chapter studies a major debate that has emerged in the second-half of the twentieth century between scholars of mysticism. The debate is between perennialist scholars and constructivist scholars. Perennialism sees mystical experiences as transcending culture, language, and time-period, and pointing to a unified spiritual experience among various peoples, while constructivism sees mystical experiences as a construction of the human mind and of culture. The epistemological philosophy of Immanuel Kant and how it has influenced the debate is analyzed, as is the contribution of attributional scholars like Wayne Proudfoot and Ann Taves. The chapter also considers how the linguistic turn has influenced this debate, pointing the ramifications of the debate have for academic culture. The chapter concludes with a survey of various forms of reductionism—neurological, psychoanalytical, and sociological—that have been used to denigrate the authenticity of mystical experiences in modern scholarship.

Metaphilosophical metamorphoses of analytic philosophy of language

Semiotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Szubka
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Current State ◽  
First Philosophy ◽  
New Millennium

Abstract The paper begins with an account of the emergence of analytic philosophy of language in the twentieth century in the context of the development of logic and the linguistic turn. Subsequently, it describes two examples of analytic philosophy of language in its heyday when the discipline was conceived as first philosophy. Finally, it provides, by way of conclusion, a succinct outline of the current state of philosophy of language, marked by modesty and fragmentation. It is claimed that even if one retains optimism about the prospects of philosophy of language in the first century of the new millennium, it would be unreasonable to disagree with the opinion that the present-day philosophy of language is a highly specialized and diversified discipline and no longer so central for philosophical enterprise as it used to be.

Voltaire, Philosopher of Human Progress

PMLA ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 74 (4-Part1) ◽  
pp. 356-364
Author(s):  
Virgil W. Topazio
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Single Addition ◽  
The One ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
Popular Consent ◽  
Positive Knowledge ◽  
Separate Discipline

With the emergence of philosophy in the nineteenth century as a separate discipline which stressed primarily questions insoluble by empirical or formal methods, Voltaire's reputation as a philosopher has gone into gradual eclipse. It has become unfashionable and degrading for philosophers to concern themselves with the practical aspects of philosophical enquiry. In eighteenth-century France, on the other hand, the identification of philosophy with science, which by twentieth-century standards had vitiated philosophical thought, produced the “philosophes” or natural philosophers who were on the whole more interested in human progress than in the progress of the human mind. And Voltaire was by popular consent the leader of this “philosophe” group, the one who had unquestionably contributed the most in the struggle to make man a happier and freer member of society. Yet, ironically, despite a lifelong effort in behalf of humanity, Voltaire's reputation as a destructive thinker has steadily grown even as the critics have pejoratively classified him as a “practical” rather than a “real” philosopher. Typical of this criticism of Voltaire is Macaulay's statement: “Voltaire could not build: he could only pull down: he was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to be called by his name, not a single addition to the stock of our positive knowledge.”

The Functionalization of Essential (A Priori) Knowledge

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (9999) ◽  
pp. 137-150
Author(s):  
Aivaras Stepukonis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Max Scheler ◽  
Special Mode ◽  
The Will ◽  
Essential Knowledge ◽  
Priori Knowledge

The article explores a special mode of the human mind outlined in the writings of Max Scheler under the notion of the functionalization of essential (a priori) knowledge. While the concept of a priori was given its profound elaboration in the writings of Immanuel Kant, Scheler applies it with a number of significant modifications. Along with the a priori of objective reality, which is the mind’s first step in grasping the autonomous world, Scheler comes to posit a species of a priori that is subjective. A person’s exposure to an objective essence exercises a special kind of influence on that person’s mind: what was once an objective a priori is appropriated as a subjective a priori, the thing thought becomes a “form” or pattern of thinking, the thing liked becomes a “form” or manner of liking. “Functionalization” characterizes precisely the mind’s ability to transmute the essential knowledge of autonomous reality into subjective a priori forms of knowing and anticipating that reality. This transmutation unfolds on three intuitive planes: that of meaning which is known, that of value which is perceived or apprehended, and that of existence which is encountered in the resistance of objects to the will of the percipient.

scholarly journals RIAK-RIAK POSMODERN DALAM CERPEN ABRACADABRA KARYA DANARTO

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Dudy Syafruddin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Historiographic Metafiction ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S

Literature is a product of culture keeping abreast of human mind. Literary works is a means for the authors to express the social phenomenon in his life. The discourses about postmodernism in the second half of twentieth century, as a part of the story of human mind, was a profound interest for the Authors. In Indonesia, the postmodern discourse has come up in the 1960s. This paper involves the elements of Postmodernism in the short story “Abacadabra” written by Danarto. The dominant elements in this short story are parody, fragmentary, and historiographic metafiction.

scholarly journals The Foucault Effect in Organization Studies

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sverre Raffnsøe ◽  
Andrea Mennicken ◽  
Peter Miller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Organizational Scholarship ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second Wave

Since the establishment of Organization Studies in 1980, Michel Foucault’s oeuvre has had a remarkable and continuing influence on its field. This article traces the different ways in which organizational scholars have engaged with Foucault’s writings over the past thirty years or so. We identify four overlapping waves of influence. Drawing on Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, the first wave focused on the impact of discipline, and techniques of surveillance and subjugation, on organizational practices and power relations. Part of a much wider ‘linguistic’ turn in the second half of the twentieth century, the second wave led to a focus on discourses as intermediaries that condition ways of viewing and acting. This wave drew mainly on Foucault’s early writings on language and discourse. The third wave was inspired by Foucault’s seminal lectures on governmentality towards the end of the 1970s. Here, an important body of international research investigating governmental technologies operating on subjects as free persons in sites such as education, accounting, medicine and psychiatry emerged. The fourth and last wave arose out of a critical engagement with earlier Foucauldian organizational scholarship and sought to develop a more positive conception of subjectivity. This wave draws in particular on Foucault’s work on asceticism and techniques of the self towards the end of his life. Drawing on Deleuze and Butler, the article conceives the Foucault effect in organization studies as an immanent cause and a performative effect. We argue for the need to move beyond the tired dichotomies between discipline and autonomy, compliance and resistance, power and freedom that, at least to some extent, still hamper organization studies. We seek to overcome such dichotomies by further pursuing newly emerging lines of Foucauldian research that investigate processes of organizing, calculating and economizing characterized by a differential structuring of freedom, performative and indirect agency.

Steeped in Modernism: The Teapot as Manifesto in Early 20th Century Art

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Bielinski
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Small Window ◽  
Time Period ◽  
20Th Century Art

The art manifesto, a written political, social, and artistic proclamation of an artistic movement, surged in popularity among avant‐garde art groups in the first half of the twentieth century. Many of the manifestos featured declarations for the synthesis of art and life as well as a call for social and political power for artists of both 'high' and 'low' art forms. Concurrently, new artistic interpretations of the humble teapot became suddenly ubiquitous. This inquiry explores how the teapot emerged as a dominant symbol for the goals of Modern Art movements, and includes an analysis of the teapot's socio‐political history, its ambiguous status between high and low art, and its role in the commercial sphere. By examining the teapots of Suprematism's Kazimir Malevich, Constructivism's Mariane Brandt,and Surrealism's Meret Oppenheim, this presentation will track ideas of functionality, the teapot as symbol, and aesthetics from 1923 to 1936. This small window in time offers an analysis of the extraordinary developments in teapots, and perhaps a glimpse of the paralleled momentum that occurred more generally in design, architecture, and the other arts in this time period.

Two regimes of the symbolic: radical democracy between Romanticism and structuralism

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-88
Author(s):  
Warren Breckman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Constructed Dialogue ◽  
History Of

The ‘symbolic’ has found its way into the heart of contemporary radical democratic theory. When one encounters this term in major theorists such as Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek, our first impulse is to trace its genealogy to the offspring of the linguistic turn, structuralism and poststructuralism. This paper seeks to expose the deeper history of the symbolic in the legacy of Romanticism. It argues that crucial to the concept of the symbolic is a polyvalence that was first theorized in German Romanticism. The linguistic turn that so marked the twentieth century tended to suppress this polyvalence, but it has returned as a crucial dimension of contemporary radical political theory and practice. At stake is more than a recovery of historical depth. Through a constructed dialogue between Romanticism and the thought of both Žižek and Laclau, the paper seeks to provide a sharper appreciation of the resources of the concept of the symbolic.

Mysticism in the Twentieth Century

2018 ◽  
pp. 71-120
Author(s):  
Daniel Maria Klimek
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
William James ◽  
Hearing Voices ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
Mystical State

The chapter considers influential definitions of terms like “mysticism,” “mystical,” or “mystical experiences” as formulated by two of the most prominent scholars of mysticism of the twentieth century. The influence of William James to the study of mysticism and his famous four marks of a mystical state is observed. The influence of Evelyn Underhill to the study of mysticism and her defining characteristics of what is true mysticism is observed. The various forms of visionary experiences and locutionary experiences (mystically hearing voices) are studied and the nuances between mystical and visionary experiences are considered. Critiques of the work of James and Underhill are offered and brief case studies of three modern mystics—Maria Valtorta, Therese Neumann, and Gemma Galgani—are considered in support of the critiques.

Athens and Jerusalem

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Vincent P. Pecora
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
James Joyce ◽  
Thomas Hardy ◽  
Stephane Mallarme ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Medieval Europe

Autochthony is fundamental to ancient Greek notions of belonging to the land. While the motif had a negligible presence in the literature of European Christendom, it returns with some force in modern productions by Stéphane Mallarmé, Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and James Joyce. Martin Heidegger too draws on pre-Socratic Greek thought on the theme of autochthony. But there is a parallel tradition of belonging to the land that begins in the Pentateuch. In Exodus, God speaks to Moses about a Promised Land. In medieval Europe, Meister Eckhart reads Exodus as providing a special, mystical understanding of God’s soul, one that intertwines promised land with the human soul’s creative capacities, and lays the foundation for theologically infused politics in the German tradition. In Alexander Baumgarten, Immanuel Kant, and J. G. Fichte, nationalism is linked to Eckhart. In the twentieth century, Heidegger phenomenologically reinscribes earth, divinities, and dwelling poetically.

3. Historical views of infinity

2017 ◽  
pp. 32-53
Author(s):  
Ian Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Time And Motion ◽  
Potential Infinity ◽  
Zeno's Paradoxes ◽  
And Mathematics

‘Historical views of infinity’ focuses on historical attitudes to infinity in philosophy, religion, and mathematics, including Zeno’s famous paradoxes. Infinity is not a thing, but a concept, related to the default workings of the human mind. Zeno’s paradoxes appear to be about physical reality, but they mainly address how we think about space, time, and motion. A central (but possibly dated) contribution was Aristotle’s distinction between actual and potential infinity. Theologians, from Origen to Aquinas, sharpened the debate, and philosophers such as Immanuel Kant took up the challenge. Mathematicians made radical advances, often against resistance from philosophers.

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