Is the Ethical Demand Destructive on Account of Its Radical Character?

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-123
Author(s):  
K. E. Løgstrup
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Sense Of Obligation ◽  
Radical Character ◽  
Ethical Demand ◽  
As If

This chapter considers the relation between the ethical demand and natural love, understood as love which has a biological, psychological, or sociological basis. It is argued that while natural love may appear more reciprocal than the ethical demand, in fact this contrast is superficial, and is partly based on the misapprehension that the ethical demand is destructive for the person acting on it. Instead, it is argued, the ethical demand arises when natural love fails. Moreover, it is argued, if we are capable of responding to the other person with love, this is not due to our own efforts, as the self is inherently selfish and thus wicked; love is therefore the result of the goodness of life, rather than the goodness of human beings. This also makes the ethical demand unfulfillable, as if the demand arises, love has already failed, to be replaced by a sense of obligation.

From Container to Claustrum: Projective Identification in Couples

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Health ◽  
Projective Identification ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intimate Partners ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
As If

This paper is a contribution to the growing literature on the role of projective identification in understanding couples' dynamics. Projective identification as a defence is well suited to couples, as intimate partners provide an ideal location to deposit unwanted parts of the self. This paper illustrates how projective identification functions differently depending on the psychological health of the couple. It elucidates how healthier couples use projective identification more as a form of communication, whereas disturbed couples are inclined to employ it to invade and control the other, as captured by Meltzer's concept of "intrusive identification". These different uses of projective identification affect couples' capacities to provide what Bion called "containment". In disturbed couples, partners serve as what Meltzer termed "claustrums" whereby projections are not contained, but imprisoned or entombed in the other. Applying the concept of claustrum helps illuminate common feelings these couples express, such as feeling suffocated, stifled, trapped, held hostage, or feeling as if the relationship is killing them. Finally, this paper presents treatment challenges in working with more disturbed couples.

scholarly journals Intergroup Dialogues in the Landscape of Digital Societies: How Does the Dialogical Self Affect Intercultural Relations in Online Contexts?

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Chiara Imperato ◽  
Tiziana Mancini
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
The Self ◽  
Intergroup Bias ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intercultural Relations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Dialogical Self ◽  
Prejudice And Discrimination ◽  
Theory Research

The effects of intergroup dialogues on intercultural relations in digital societies and the growing conflict, inflammatory and hate speech phenomena characterizing these environments are receiving increasing attention in socio-psychological studies. Based on Allport’s contact theory, scholars have shown that online intercultural contact reduces ethnic prejudice and discrimination, although it is not yet clear when and how this occurs. By analyzing the role of the Dialogical Self in online intercultural dialogues, we aim to understand how individuals position themselves and others at three levels of inclusiveness—personal, social, and human—and how this process is associated with attitudes towards the interlocutor, intergroup bias and prejudice, whilst also considering the inclusion of the Other in the Self and ethnic/racial identity. An experimental procedure was administered via the Qualtrics platform, and data were collected among 118 undergraduate Italian students through an anonymous questionnaire. From ANOVA and moderation analysis, it emerged that the social level of inclusiveness was positively associated with ethnic/racial identity and intergroup bias. Furthermore, the human level of inclusiveness was associated with the inclusion of the Other in the Self and ethnic/racial identity, and unexpectedly, also with intergroup bias. We conclude that when people interact online as “human beings”, the positive effect of online dialogue fails, hindering the differentiation processes necessary to define one’s own and the interlocutor’s identities. We discuss the effects of intercultural dialogue in the landscape of digital societies and the relevance of our findings for theory, research and practice.

scholarly journals The Vulnerable (Post) Modern Self and the “Greening” of Spiritual Personhood through Life in the Spirit

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 194
Author(s):  
Mary Frohlich
Keyword(s):  
Human Existence ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Christian Perspective ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Social Esteem ◽  
Life On Earth

In the period now being called the Anthropocene, the fatal vulnerabilities of the modern way of constructing selfhood are becoming ever more evident. Joanna Macy, who writes from a Buddhist perspective, has argued for the need to “green” the self by rediscovering its participation in ecological and cosmic networks. From a Christian perspective, I would articulate this in terms of an imperative to rediscover our spiritual personhood as radical communion in both God and cosmos. In this paper, “self” refers to an ever-restless process of construction of identity based in self-awareness and aimed at maintaining one’s integrity, coherence, and social esteem. I use the term “person,” on the other hand, to refer to a relational center that exists to be in communion with other persons. How—within the conditions of the dawning Anthropocene—can the tension between these two essential aspects of human existence be opened up in a way that can more effectively protect human and other life on Earth? This would require, it seems, harnessing both the self-protective and the self-giving potentials of human beings. The proposed path is to give ourselves over into the rhythms of the Spirit, being breathed in to selfless personal communion and out to co-creation of our refreshed selfhood.

Self within World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Culliney ◽  
David Jones
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Dynamic Flow ◽  
The West ◽  
Self In Relation ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
Constructive Interaction

We describe the foundations of the fractal self in relation to the Chinese notion of personal development and enhancement of adeptness in the world and mutualism with the other. This seeking, described in the codified system of Daoism, is a pathway that may progress to the highest level of achievement of such a self: that which defines a sage. The chapter introduces the view that a sage is a fractal self that achieves a peak of intimacy and constructive interaction with the world. We detail the development of human beings on this pathway, emerging beyond the core embodiments of empathy, sympathy, and rudimentary morality observed in apes. The self for the early Chinese was always a being that was embedded in the world and dynamic flow of forces. This self was defined in intimate terms as adaptable and adept, seeking to be a microcosmic contributor to some holistic macrocosm. In this chapter, Daoism leads our thinking on how the fractal self engages with the world. In turn, this way of understanding selfness and its potential to enrich its system from within resonates with discussions of the interactive self of Buddhism and was also in the minds of Pre-Socratic thinkers in the West.

Moral sentimentalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Gert
Keyword(s):  
Wide Class ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Sentimentalism ◽  
Moral Judgements ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
Moral Talk ◽  
Sophisticated Version ◽  
As If

‘Sentimentalism’ is a name for a wide class of views in value theory. Sentimentalist views are unified by their commitment to the idea that normative or evaluative properties or concepts are best explained in a way that relies, in some fundamental way, on an appeal to the emotional and affective nature of human beings. ‘Moral sentimentalism’ is simply sentimentalism that restricts its focus to moral properties or concepts. Moral sentimentalism contrasts importantly with moral rationalism, according to which the foundation of morality is to be found in the human capacity for reason. Often this capacity is taken to be of the same sort that yields knowledge of the truths of logic, mathematics or physics. Hume can be taken as an arch sentimentalist, and Kant as an arch rationalist. Sentimentalism takes six primary forms: expressivism, quasi-realism, dispositionalism, fitting-attitude views, reference-fixing views and rational sentimentalism. Expressivism holds that normative judgements are expressions of attitudes such as approval and disapproval. Quasi-realism can be seen as a sophisticated version of expressivism that attempts to vindicate our thinking and talking as if moral judgements were truth-apt. Dispositionalism, on the other hand, straightforwardly makes moral talk truth-apt by understanding it as factual talk about our emotional dispositions. Fitting-attitude views are similar to dispositional views, but they replace talk of causing certain attitudes with talk of meriting them or making them fitting. Reference-fixing views use our sentiments just as an account of heat might use our capacity to feel heat: as detectors of objective and external properties, the essences of which we can then discover. Finally, rational sentimentalism holds that concepts such as the pitiful or the admirable are ones we use to help regulate, by reflection and argument, motivational attitudes such as pity and admiration.

The Ethical Demand and Its Basis

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-47
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter covers the ‘Introduction’ to K. E. Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand, and the first two chapters of the book. These provide the foundation for Løgstrup’s account of the ethical demand, by relating it to Jesus’s proclamation to love our neighbour, while showing how the demand grows out of the interdependence of human beings, an interdependence that can be illustrated through the key example of trust. Løgstrup also defends the claim that the demand to care for the other is ‘unspoken’ or ‘silent’, and begins to contrast the demand to social norms, while also responding to the worry that the demand might encourage us to ‘encroach’ on the lives of others, arguing in the second chapter of his book that we cannot escape this problem by seeking relationships that involve an intimacy which somehow does away with any mediation between individuals.

scholarly journals Absurdism in Atirikta Yatra by K. S. Yatri and The American Dream by Edward Albee

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Tika Data Subedi
Keyword(s):  
American Dream ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Edward Albee ◽  
The Status

The purpose of this work is to study Edward Albee and K. S. Yatri’s approach regarding the status of respective societies of America and Nepal with absurd drama following their agenda. K. S. Yatri and Edward Albee seemed to be influenced by the absurdist mode of drama which concerns much about the modern existence of social human beings. Albee follows absurdist traces in the dramatization of uncertainty, alienation and the question of freedom in The American Dream. His characters do not have fixed identities, and they suffer from their individual problems. The notion of the characters and their activities too are uncertain. In the same way, the ambiguity of existence, whether the characters really are or not, is a problem for the characters in Atirikta Yatra. The characters are based on illusions, and the line between the reality and fantasy is missing. Alienation of the human being from the self and the other is existential theme that K. S. Yatri deals with in Atirikta Yatra. Alienation in the play is caused by the lack of communication, and as a result, the isolated self is entrapped in Yatri’s characters due to their own condition. Freedom becomes a confusing question in his works as it makes the characters anxious while choosing one option among various others on their own, and it renders the characters responsible for their free choices. Though, two texts belong to divergent space however both show how absurdism has affected individuals and society everywhere at present.

scholarly journals Disposisi Religio-Strategis Skemata Algoritma Mark C. Taylor dan Yuval Noah Harari

MELINTAS ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Mardohar B. B. Simanjuntak
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Breathing Space ◽  
The Future ◽  
To Come

Religion has probably been very influencial since the dawn of civilization. The next imperative question would be how something that has always been in the very discourse of human achievement stays in the centre stage for generations to come. To tackle this question, it is important to see what religion actually is related to its ability to manifest the self. The question can even be extended further by examining how the self – central to epistemological inquiries – be justified by the presence of consciousness. Constructing answers to this colossal undertaking of religious identity invites a thorough understanding of how human beings can be taken as conscious. The subsequent agenda is to determine whether consciousness lies within or – on the other way around – outside; whether it is naturally personal or else impersonal. Having dealt with these risky arguments allows us to slightly probe something in the future concerning the debatable fate of being a religious self. Both Mark C. Taylor’ rejuvenated schemata and Yuval Noah Harari’ reinvented algorhytms have provided an extra breathing space that facilitates broader chances for religion to further play a farther role in an even broader horizon of foreseeable possibilities.

The sovereignty of revelation: On Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutics of revelation

2021 ◽  
pp. 000842982110448
Author(s):  
Balázs M Mezei
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The One ◽  
Central Term

In this article I overview Paul Ricœur’s understanding of divine revelation on the basis of some of his relevant writings. I argue that Ricœur’s hermeneutics of revelation has two aspects: on the one hand Ricœur’s explains the complex ways of acquiring and interpreting divine revelation especially with respect to the Bible; on the other hand, he acknowledges that revelation, originating in God’s freedom, is immediately given. In Ricœur’s view, the understanding of this immediacy is tainted by the presence of evil in human understanding which hinders the realization of revelation itself. As a critique of this standpoint I argue that the immediate givenness of revelation is logically and phenomenologically presupposed in our interpretations. Any hermeneutics of revelation entails a phenomenology of revelation. This phenomenology contains both the self-founding of human beings and, at the same time, the recognition of the absoluteness of the divine. Husserl’s phenomenology offers a way to the understanding of the immediacy of revelation through his central term of Eigenheitlichkeit. Ricœur understands this term not as genuine reality but rather as appartenance, ‘belonging to’, and reshapes its meaning in line with a hermeneutical naturalism. This explains his difficulty to conceive properly the sovereignty of revelation and the importance of phenomenology in the understanding of its immediate character.

scholarly journals [Fana 'in the Sufi Discourse of the Archipelago: An Overview of the Sufi Thought of Sheikh Daud Al-Fatani] Fana’ dalam Wacana Sufi Nusantara: Tinjauan Terhadap Pemikiran Sufi Sheikh Daud Al-Fatani

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-32
Author(s):  
Nur Syazana Adam ◽  
Syed Hadzrullathfi Syed Omar
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
High Level ◽  
As If

Fana’ is term for annihilation of the self-appreciation, a concept highlighted in Sufism represents the vanishing of the human wicked attributes that is embellished by various demands of evil desires. On the other hands, Fanā’ is also refers to the only concentration of the memory in appreciation of the perfection and the glory of Allah SWT. This is because fana' is a high level stage of consciousness and a precise focus attentions only on Allah SWT to the stage that other things to be blunt as if lost from seeker’s memory. Nevertheless, in the discourse of Islamic thoughts, many misunderstandings and misappropriation are correlated to the concept of fana’ that occurs in Sufis path. Therefore, this article efforts to high spot the concept of fana’ conferring to Sheikh Daud al-Fatani (d.1847) through his work to scrutinize the extent to which the concept of fana’ posed by him in line with other well-known Nusantara Sufi figures. This study uses the content analysis method by referring to the work of Sheikh Daud al-Fatani sufi entitled "al-Manhal al-Ṣāfī fī Bayan al-Ramz al-Sufi". The study found that the term of fana' presented by Sheikh Daud al-Fatani was in line with the meaning of fana' which was emphasized by the previous Nusantara Sufi figures such as Sayyid Abdul Rahman (d.1917), Sheikh Abdul Samad al-Falimbani (d.1788) and other ancient Sufis figures. However, the use of the term is somewhat different in explaining the fana's meaning since Sheikh Daud al-Fatani in his work emphases more on the aspect of the existence stage which he labeled as the seventh stages (Martabat Tujuh). The study concludes that the concept of fana' posed by the figure was an essential bridge in understanding the concept of fanā' adopted by the practitioners of Sufis path among society nowadays.   Keywords: Fana’, Syeikh Daud al-Fatani, Nusantara Sufi, Martabat Tujuh, al-Manhal al-Ṣāfī fī Bayan al-Ramz al-Ṣūfī.       Fana‟ menurut disiplin Ilmu Tasawuf ialah lenyap sifat manusiawi yang terbelenggu dengan pelbagai tuntutan syahwat dan hawa nafsu, hal keadaan tumpuan ingatan hati hanya tenggelam dalam menghayati sifat kesempurnaan dan keagungan Allah SWT. Hal demikian adalah kerana fana‟ merupakan kesedaran aras tinggi dan tumpuan ingatan yang jitu yang hanya terumpu kepada Allah SWT hingga ingatan dan perasaan terhadap perkara lain menjadi tumpul seolah-olah lenyap daripada ingatan. Walaupun begitu, dalam wacana pemikiran akidah, banyak ditimbulkan isu-isu yang berkait dengan kesilapfahaman dan penyelewengan terhadap institusi tarekat khususnya yang berkait dengan konsep fana‟. Oleh yang demikian, artikel ini cuba mengetengahkan konsep fana‟ menurut Sheikh Daud al-Fatani (w. 1847M) menerusi karya beliau untuk meneliti sejauh mana konsep fana yang telah dikemukakan oleh beliau selaras dengan tokoh sufi Nusantara yang lain dan tokoh- tokoh sufi silam lain yang muktabar. Kajian ini menggunakan kaedah analisis kandungan dengan merujuk karya sufi Sheikh Daud al-Fatani yang berjudul “al-Manhal al-Safi fiBayan al-Ramz al-Sufi”. Kajian mendapati bahawa istilah fana‟ yang dikemukakan oleh Sheikh Daud al-Fatani selaras dengan makna fana‟ yang telah diketengahkan oleh tokoh sufi Nusantara seperti Sayyid Abdul Rahman (w. 1917M), Sheikh Abdul Samad al-Falimbani (w. 1788M) dan tokoh sufi silam yang muktabar. Walau bagaimanapun, penggunaan istilahnya agak berbeza dalam memberi penjelasan tentang pengertian fana‟. Di samping itu, Sheikh Daud al-Fatani dalam karya beliau lebih banyak menumpukan perbincangan terhadap aspek peringkat kewujudan yang diistilahkan oleh beliau sebagai martabat tujuh. Kajian menyimpulkan bahawa konsep fana‟ yang dikemukakan beliau merupakan suatu jambatan asas yang penting dalam memahami konsep fanā‟ yang digunapakai oleh pengamal tarekat kesufian dalam kalangan masyarakat kini.   Kata kunci: Fana‟, Syeikh Daud al-Fatani, Sufi Nusantara, Martabat Tujuh, al-Manhal al-Safi Bayan al-Ramz al-Sufi.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document