World and Words

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-147
Author(s):  
Jonas Grethlein
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
The World

This chapter considers the Ethiopica’s piercing reflections on narrative mimesis that can be found in the responses to embedded narrations and other passages. The Ethiopica certainly emphasize the capacity of narrative to enwrap the audience, but at the same time they do not fail to mark the limits to immersion. As parallels in ekphrastic literature and the theory of rhetoric indicate, this play with immersion and reflection bespeaks a broader sensitivity to the complex nature of aesthetic experience in the Imperial Age. Heliodorus also draws our attention to the different perspectives of readers and characters no matter how experiential the narrative is. Embedded audiences highlight the dynamics of narrative economy which privileges readers over characters. Moving from reception to the medium of narrative, one finds implicit reflections on the ontological and epistemological gap between words and the world they represent. The chapter yields the conclusion that Heliodorus artfully entwines immersion and reflection, therefore ironically providing a corrective to the post-structuralist assumptions that have guided some of the most fruitful explorations of the Ethiopica.

The Integral Nature of Ethnicity and Religion during Northern Ireland’s Troubles

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 9-18
Author(s):  
Peter Crowley
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
The World ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Religious Other

Northern Ireland’s Troubles conflict, like many complex conflicts through the world, has often been conceived as considerably motivated by religious differences. This paper demonstrates that religion was often integrated into an ethno-religious identity that fueled sectarian conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland during the Troubles period. Instead of being a religious-based conflict, the conflict derived from historical divides of power, land ownership, and civil and political rights in Ireland over several centuries. It relies on 12 interviews, six Protestants and six Catholics, to measure their use of religious references when referring to their religious other. The paper concludes that in the overwhelming majority of cases, both groups did not use religious references, supporting the hypothesis on the integrated nature of ethnicity and religion during the Troubles. It offers grounding for looking into the complex nature of sectarian and seemingly religious conflicts throughout the world, including cases in which religion acts as more of a veneer to deeply rooted identities and historical narratives.

Schopenhauer and the Paradox of the Sublime

2020 ◽  
pp. 237-255
Author(s):  
Bart Vandenabeele
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Aesthetic Object ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The World ◽  
The Aesthetic

Schopenhauer explores the paradoxical nature of the aesthetic experience of the sublime in a richer way than his predecessors did by rightfully emphasizing the prominent role of the aesthetic object and the ultimately affirmative character of the pleasurable experience it offers. Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the sublime does not appeal to the superiority of human reason over nature but affirms the ultimately “superhuman” unity of the world, of which the human being is merely a puny fragment. The author focuses on Schopenhauer’s treatment of the experience of the sublime in nature and argues that Schopenhauer makes two distinct attempts to resolve the paradox of the sublime and that Schopenhauer’s second attempt, which has been neglected in the literature, establishes the sublime as a viable aesthetic concept with profound significance.

scholarly journals Emerging Therapeutics Based on the Amino Acid Neurotransmitter System: An Update on the Pharmaceutical Pipeline for Mood Disorders

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 247054702110204
Author(s):  
Julia Hecking ◽  
Pasha A. Davoudian ◽  
Samuel T. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acid ◽  
Mood Disorders ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Novel Therapies ◽  
Amino Acid Neurotransmitters ◽  
Neurotransmitter System ◽  
Phase Iii Clinical Trials ◽  
The World

Mood disorders represent a pressing public health issue and significant source of disability throughout the world. The classical monoamine hypothesis, while useful in developing improved understanding and clinical treatments, has not fully captured the complex nature underlying mood disorders. Despite these shortcomings, the monoamine hypothesis continues to dominate the conceptual framework when approaching mood disorders. However, recent advances in basic and clinical research have led to a greater appreciation for the role that amino acid neurotransmitters play in the pathophysiology of mood disorders and as potential targets for novel therapies. In this article we review progress of compounds that focus on these systems. We cover both glutamate-targeting drugs such as: esketamine, AVP-786, REL-1017, AXS-05, rapastinel (GLYX-13), AV-101, NRX-101; as well as GABA-targeting drugs such as: brexanolone (SAGE-547), ganaxolone, zuranolone (SAGE-217), and PRAX-114. We focus the review on phase-II and phase-III clinical trials and evaluate the extant data and progress of these compounds.

Understanding ‘Source’ and ‘Purpose’ in Processes of Democratic Change: Insights from the Philippines and Thailand

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Hutchcroft
Keyword(s):  
Effective Means ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Democratic Change ◽  
The World ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Formal Establishment

AbstractPrevious decades' celebrations of the triumph of democracy were frequently based on mainstream analyses that displayed two major theoretical problems. First, conceptualisations of democracy based on ‘minimal pre-conditions’ commonly conflated the formal establishment ofdemocratic structureswith the far more complex and historically challenging creation ofsubstantive democracy. Second, a deductive and generally ahistorical model asserting fixed stages of ‘democratic transition’ diverted attention from deeper and more substantive examination ofstruggles for power among social forces within specific historical contexts. By adhering to minimalist conceptions of democracy and simplistic models of democratic change, mainstream analysts quite often chose to overlook many underlying limitations and shortcomings of the democratic structures they were so keen to celebrate. Given more recent concerns over ‘authoritarian undertow’, those with the normative goal of deepening democracy must begin by deepening scholarly conceptualisations of the complex nature of democratic change. This analysis urges attention to the ‘source’ and ‘purpose’ of democracy. What were the goals of those who established democratic structures, and to what extent did these goals correspond to the ideals of democracy? In many cases throughout the world, ‘democracy’ has been used as a convenient and very effective means for both cloaking and legitimising a broad set of political, social, and economic inequalities. The need for deeper analysis is highlighted through attention to the historical character of democratic structures in the Philippines and Thailand, with particular attention to the sources and purposes of ‘democracy’ amid on-going struggles for power among social forces. In both countries, albeit coming forth from very different historical circumstances, democratic structures have been continually undermined by those with little commitment to the democratic ideal: oligarchic dominance in the Philippines, and military/bureaucratic/monarchic dominance in Thailand. Each country possesses its own set of challenges and opportunities for genuine democratic change, as those who seek to undermine elite hegemony and promote popular accountability operate in very different socio-economic and institutional contexts. Efforts to promote substantive democracy in each setting, therefore, must begin with careful historical analysis of the particular challenges that need to be addressed.

Figurations of the Ecstatic

Janus Head ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-221
Author(s):  
David D. Dillard-Wright ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

Descriptions of “aesthetic arrest,” those ecstatic moments that lift the common sense subject-object dichotomy, abound in Merleau-Ponty’s writings. These special experiences, found in both artistic and mystical accounts, arise from the daily life of ordinary perception. Such experiences enable the artist, philosopher, or mystic to overturn received categories and describe phenomena in a creative way; they become dangerous when treated as the sine qua non of aesthetic experience. Aesthetic arrest, though rare in consumer society, need not be overwhelmed by the flood of information and can still provide fresh glimpses into the world as lived.

Regarding Electronic Music

Tempo ◽  
1966 ◽  
pp. 2-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelio de la Vega
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Musical Composition ◽  
Electronic Medium ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Twentieth Century Music ◽  
Long Time

For a long time now—long when we consider the quick, changing time-scale of our days—electronic music has been with us. The public at large usually remains cold, confused or merely dazed when faced with any new aesthetic experience. Critics, musicologists and the like still seem, as usual, to be unable to predict what will happen to this peculiar, mysterious and often anathematized way of handling musical composition, while many traditionally-minded composers consider it a degrading destruction of the art of music. On the other hand, the electronic medium seems to attract a long, motley caravan of young, inexperienced and often unprepared ‘beatnik type’ self-titled composers, who believe that the world began yesterday and that you only have to push buttons and prepare IBM cards to obtain magical results. Probably not since Schoenberg proclaimed the equal value of the twelve semitones of our sacred but by now obsolete tempered scale has twentieth-century music been faced with such a bewilderment.

scholarly journals “Presence” in the Broad Present. Gumbrecht, H. U. (2020). Production of Presence. What Meaning Cannot Convey. Kharkiv: IST Publishing

Sententiae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-78
Author(s):  
Victor Chorny ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Complex Relation ◽  
The World ◽  
Satisfactory Account ◽  
History Of ◽  
Vague Concept

This review of the Ukrainian translation of H. U. Gumbrecht’s best-known work brings out the strengths and weaknesses of the translation and the peculiar reception of Gumbrecht’s key ideas (“presence” and “the broad present”) in Ukraine. It also critically assesses Gumbrecht’s own original and often contradictory points. I question the relevance of Gumrecht’s meaning / presence distinction for reconstructing the history of the philosophical tradition, as well as for analysing our complex relation to the world. I also demonstrate the weakness of his biased attempts to paint his opponents as relativists. Besides, I contrast Gumbrecht’s meaning / presence dualism with John Dewey’s theory of experience. The latter conceives experience as a dialectical relation between “doing” and “undergoing”. This juxtaposition shows that Gumbrecht’s theory cannot give a satisfactory account of the mechanisms of everyday or aesthetic experience due to its lack of consistent “everyday” epistemology. Moreover, his vague concept of “presence” and its unequivocal appraisal conflict with his own concept of the chronotope of “broad” or “complex” present, as presented in the selected essays of The Time Is Out of Joint. Eventually, I conclude that Gumbrecht’s eclectic terminological apparatus, as well as uncritical and biased reconstruction of the tradition preclude any serious philosophical engagement. However, it does not undermine the significance of his particular insights and theoretical instruments (such as “the broad present”) for cultural analysis.

scholarly journals IDENTITY IMPLICATIONS: «FROM THE COUNTRY OF RICE AND OPIUM» BY SOFIIA YABLONSKA

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 251-266
Author(s):  
Tymofii HAVRYLIV
Keyword(s):  
Travel Literature ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Given ◽  
First Time ◽  
Ukrainian Society

This article is one of the first scholarly attempts to analyze the creative work of Ukrainian filmmaker and traveler Sofiia Yablonska-Uden. For the first time in the Ukrainian and the world literary studies, identical implications are analyzed in the «From the Country of Rice and Opium» by S. Yablonska. The purpose of the article is to highlight the complex nature of identity issues in travel literature. In terms of identity, the journey performs two fundamental, closely interconnected tasks: knowledge of the other and self-knowledge. Hermeneutic approaches are used in the article. The main results can be summarized as follows: 1) the journey has its own time-spatial dimension, consisting of two disproportionate moments: preparation for travel and travel itself, and begins literally and symbolically with the overcoming, or the crossing of the border; 2) the intention of the trip contains an identity challenge that affects the preparation, organization, realization of the travel, the way and the content of documenting impressions; 3) such parameters of travel as an accident, an adventure, a game which formed the world of traveler's impressions, are subordinated to the identity problem in the given work; 4) the essay character of the book makes it possible to talk about implications as a response to an identity challenge. The book of travel essays «From the Country of Rice and Opium» of S. Yablonska-Uden is a sample of a successful combination of the business and private aspects of travel, intentions of knowledge and self-knowledge, poetry and faculty; learning about another people and countries, the writer learns a lot of things about himself. Travel literature is an important study object of Ukrainian writing, which opens the prospects for further interdisciplinary studies. The study of travel literature, an identity issue, is extremely relevant both for the development of Ukrainian society and for the formation of optimal responses to the challenges of our time. Keywords travel, travel literature, identity, identical implications, time-space disposition.

Values and Corruption

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kravtsova ◽  
Aleksey Oshchepkov ◽  
Christian Welzel
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Ecological Effect ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Attitudes ◽  
The Relationship

Using World Values Survey data from several dozen countries around the world, this article analyzes the relationship between postmaterialist values and bribery (dis)approval in a multilevel framework. We find that people, who place stronger emphasis on postmaterialist values, tend to justify bribery more. However, the “ecological” effect of postmaterialism operates in the exactly opposite direction: A higher prevalence of postmaterialist values induces more bribery disapproval, and especially among postmaterialists themselves. In our view, this happens because the large number of people who internalized postmaterialist values generate positive social externalities which strengthen negative attitudes toward corruption. We outline a theoretical framework that explains why and how these externalities may emerge. Our results contribute to the literature on the sociocultural factors of corruption, provide a better understanding of the complex nature of postmaterialism, and also might be interesting in the light of ongoing discussions on whether moral attitudes are culturally universal or culturally specific.

Hearing the Contradictions: Aesthetic Experience, Music and Digitization

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-302
Author(s):  
Nancy Weiss Hanrahan
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Cultural Form ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
The World ◽  
Digital Environments ◽  
The Aesthetic

If, as Susan Buck-Morss (2003) suggests, aesthetic experience is an occasion for “making critical judgments about not only cultural forms but social forms of our being-in-the-world,” or if it is linked, in David Hesmondhalgh’s (2013) account, to the possibilities of collective flourishing, potential changes in the nature of that experience merit critical attention. This article reflects on the ways in which these social or ethical dimensions of the aesthetic experience of music are affected by digitization. It moves from a discussion of aesthetic experience as a form of encounter that refers to a common world, to consideration of recent work in music sociology that engages themes that emerge from that discussion: aesthetic judgment, and the question of difference and commonality. With illustrations from focus group interviews, I suggest that the quantization associated with digital environments is altering the cultural form of aesthetic judgment, just as personalization is changing the meaning of “difference” in this context. The essay is intended as a disclosive critique that takes as its primary object not the world observable through thick description or hermeneutic interpretation of actual cultural practice, but a world evoked through critical reflection on its actual and potential constellations of meaning.

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