Existential Philosophy and Psychotherapy Ethics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Noyon ◽  
Thomas Heidenreich
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Existential Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Authentic Life

This chapter introduces five central concepts of existential philosophy in order to deduce ethical principles for psychotherapy: phenomenology, authenticity, paradoxes, isolation, and freedom vs. destiny. Phenomenological perspectives are useful as a guideline for how to encounter and understand patients in terms of individuality and uniqueness. Existential communication as a means to search and face the truth of one’s existence is considered as a valid basis for an authentic life. Paradoxes that cannot be solved are characteristic for human existence and should be dealt with to turn resignation into active choices. Isolation is one of the “existentials” characterizing human life between two paradox poles: On the one hand we are deeply in need of relationships to other human beings; on the other hand we are thrown into the world alone and will always stay like this, no matter how close we get to another person. Further, addressing freedom and destiny as two extremes of one dimension can serve as a basis for orientation in life and also for dealing with the separation between responsibility and guilt.

Pedagogika wobec problematyczności bytu ludzkiego. O konfliktach w życiu człowieka

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2 (252)) ◽  
pp. 70-85
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Rumianowska
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Existential Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
Complex Mechanisms

The purpose of the article is to outline the problem of widely understood conflicts in human life from the perspective of existential philosophy. Without questioning the importance of psychological research on complex mechanisms underlying conflicts, the author points to the issue of the problematic nature of human existence, the category of freedom, the problem of the authenticity of being and the sense of meaning. In the second part of the paper, the essence of educational process in the context of experiencing difficulties and conflicting situations by human beings has been introduced. The necessity of taking into account the problem of being oneself and constituting a human being in relation to himself, the world and others has been presented.

scholarly journals Two Conceptions of Second Nature

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg W. Bertram
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
The One ◽  
First Nature

AbstractThe concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future.

scholarly journals Universální život a život lidský. K ontologii přírody u Jana Patočky a Maurice Merleau-Pontyho

REFLEXE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (60) ◽  
pp. 29-63
Author(s):  
Martin Rabas
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Inorganic Matter ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

The present article has two objectives. One is to elucidate the philosophical approach presented in the so-called Strahov Systematic Manuscripts of Jan Patočka in terms of consciousness and nature. The other is to compare this philosophical approach with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theses on nature, as elaborated in 1956–1961, and to point out some advantages and limitations of both approaches. In our opinion, Patočka’s philosophical approach consists, on the one hand, in a descriptive analysis of human experience, which he understands as a pre-reflective self-relationship pointing towards the consciousness of the world. On the other hand, on the basis of this descriptive analysis Patočka consequently explicates all non-human life, inorganic matter, and finally the whole of nature as life in its own right, the essence of which is also a certain self-relation with a tendency towards consciousness. The article then briefly presents Merleau-Ponty’s theses on nature, and finally compares them with Patočka’s overall theses on nature. The advantage of Patočka’s notion of nature as against Merleau-Ponty’s is that, in Patočka’s view, nature encompasses both the principle of unity and individuality. On the other hand, the advantage of Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of nature as against Patočka’s lies in the consistent interconnectedness of the infinite life of nature and the finite life of individual beings.

Receptivity and Creativity in Hermeneutics

2016 ◽  
pp. 225-239
Author(s):  
Chung-ying Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Positive Projection ◽  
The One ◽  
Coming To Know

There are two aspects of the hermeneutic: the receptive and the creative. The receptive of the hermeneutic consists in coming to know and acknowledge what has happened, observing what there is as historically effected, foretelling what will happen as a matter of projection of future possibilities, and disclosing / discovering transcendental conditions, fore-structures or horizons of human understanding and interpretation; the creative of the hermeneutic, on the other hand, consists in realizing and demonstrating human sensibilities and human capabilities and needs, conceptualizing what is factual and real based on human cognitive and volitional faculties and experiences, developing values and pursuing regulative ideals of actions, and searching for best possible ways or methods to reach for individual and communal end-goals which will enhance human beings as autonomous entities and moral agents in the world. The receptive is represented by the phenomenological approach to Being and reality whereas the creative is conveyed by an ontology of reflection of human being for self-definition and self-cultivation of human faculties. This amounts to bringing out an existing distinction between ming (what is imparted) and li (the presupposed ground) on the one hand and xing ( human potentiality for being in oneself) and xin (human understanding and interpretation toward action) on the other in the tradition of Confucian metaphysics.Next, I shall focus on Heidegger and Gadamer as taking ontological receptivity (as a matter of fore-structures of Being or Language of human understanding) as the source of meaning of existence and meaningfulness of texts. Th ere are of course creative elements to be identifi ed with forming investigative projects of the Dasein for disclosing truth of the Being, but the main tone is to realize the Being or Language as base structures of our hermeneutic consciousness or hermeneutic space of understanding. Because of spacelimitation, however, I shall leave to another occasion the discussion of the creative formation and positive projection of a transformative cosmological philosophy in the Yijing tradition as represented in my onto-hermeneutics which takes experiences of ≫comprehensive observation≪ (guan) and ≫feeling- refl ection≪ (gan) as two avenues toward human understanding and hermeneutic enterprise of interpretation.

Païdeia et Sport

1998 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Leo-Paul Bordeleau
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Education ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Can sport claim to be an educative means, and what becomes of Greek paideia in the world of sport? The author intends to answer these questions through the use of a semantic and historical clarification of the notions of sport and education. Indeed, on the one hand, sport appears like a social practice not much propitious to education; on the other hand, modern education seems to have deviated from the Greek paideia’s trajectory. Therefore, to take into account this deviation and, by doing so, to make precise the idea of education, and then demonstrate that sport carries all characteristics of modern rationality which has produced it, will allow the author to conclude that sport could be considered one of the preferential means of human beings’ formation. Nevertheless its educative function more likely belongs to the nature of "poïèsis" than to the nature of "praxis."

scholarly journals Modernitetens modsigelser. Konfigurationskonflikter og samfundstænkning i Grundtvigs »Om Mennesket i Verden«

1998 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-156
Author(s):  
Henning Eichberg
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Contradictions of Modernity. Conflicting Configurations and Societal Thinking in Grundtvig's »The Human Being in the World«A Worm - a God. About the Human Being in the World. Ove Korsgaard (ed.). With contributions of Niels Buur Hansen, Hans Hauge, Bosse Bergstedt, Uffe Jonas and Knud Bjarne Gjesing. Odense Universitetsforlag 1997.By Henning EichbergIn 1817, Grundtvig wrote »Om Mennesket i Verden« which can be regarded as a key to the understanding of his philosophy and psychology, but which is difficult to place in relation to his later folkelig, societal engagement. A recent reedition of this text together with some actual comments by Grundtvig researchers is an occasion to quest deeper about this relation.However, it is not enough to ask - as Grundtvig research has done for a long time - what Grundtvig wanted to say, but his text can be regarded as a document of how modem orientation in the world is characterized by conflicting linguistic and metaphorical patterns, which sometimes may tell another story than intended.On the one hand, Grundtvig's text speaks of a lot of dualistic contradictions such as life vs. death, light vs. darkness, truth vs. lie, God vs. devil, human fall vs. resurrection, body vs. spirit, nature vs. history and time vs. eternity. In contrast to the author's intention to produce clarity and lucidity - whether in the spirit of Christianity or of modem rationality - the binary constructions give rather a confusing picture of systematical disorder where polarity and polemics are mixed, antagonism and gradual order, dichotomy and exclusive either-or, paradoxes and dialectical contradictions. On the other hand,Grundtvig tries again and again to build up three-pole imaginations as for instance the threefold human relation to time, space and truth and the three ages of spiritual seeing, feeling and conceptualization resp. of mythology (childhood), theology (youth) and history (adult age). The main history, Grundtvig wants to tell in his text, is built up around the trialectic relation of the human being to the body, to the spirit and to itself, to the living soul.The most difficult to understand in this relation seems to be what Grundtvig calls the spirit, Aanden. Grundtvig describes it as Aandigt Samfund mellem Menneske og Sandhed, »the spiritual community between the human being and the truth«, and this may direct our attention towards samfund, meaning at the same time association, togetherness and society. Aanden is described by threefold effects - will, conscience and faith, all of them describing social relations between human beings resp. their psychological correlate. The same social undertone is true when Grundtvig characterizes three Aande-Livets Spor (»traces of spiritual life«): the word, the history and love. If »the spirit« represents what is larger or »higher« than the single human being and what cannot be touched by his or her hand, then this definition fits exactly to society or the sociality of the human being. Social life - whether understood as culture, social identity or folk (people) - is not only a quantitative sum of human individuals, but represents another quality of natural order. Thus it has its logic that Grundtvig places the human being in between the realms of minerals, plant and animal life on the one hand and the »higher« order on the other, which can be understood as the social existence.In this respect, the societal dimension is not at all absent in his philosophy of 1817. However, it is not enough to state the implicite presence of sociality as such in the earlier Grundtvigian thinking before his folkelig break-through. What was the sociality, more concretely, which Grundtvig experienced during the early modernity? In general, highly dichotomous concepts are dominating the modem discourse as capitalism vs. feudalism, materialism vs. idealism, modernity vs. premodemity, democracy vs. absolutism or revolution vs. restoration; Grundtvig was always difficult to place into these patterns. Again, it might be helpful to try a trialectical approach, transcending the dualism of state and market by civil society as a third field of social action. Indeed, it was civil society with its farmers' anarchist undertones which became the contents of Grundtvig's later folk engagement.

scholarly journals Liturgia: lugar da teologia – A relevância de um antigo princípio

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (261) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Sinivaldo Silva Tavares
Keyword(s):  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
De Se ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One ◽  
Relationship Of

Esta reflexão quer resgatar a antiga intuição eclesial expressa no princípio: legem credendi statuat lex supplicandi (“a lei da oração estabeleça a lei da fé”). Assim sendo, a norma do culto cristão determinará a lógica do crer, explicitando que entre a Liturgia e a Teologia vige uma relação de intrínseca reciprocidade. De um lado, concebe-se a Liturgia como fonte da Teologia e, do outro, a Teologia surge como a instância de verificação da Liturgia. As interpelações que a Liturgia lança à Teologia se reúnem em torno de três elementos: a eclesialidade como o húmus da teologia; o evento pascal de Cristo como a seiva da teologia; a criação, a história e o ser humano como o espaço vital da teologia. A conclusão frisa a necessidade de se aceitar a sacramentalidade da existência humana e a contingência de suas manifestações, e sugere que tanto a Liturgia como a Teologia se tornem mais simbólicas e se aproximem mais da poesia.Abstract: This reflection intends to retrieve and preserve the old ecclesiastical intuition expressed in the principle: legem credendi statuat lex supplicandi (“the law of the prayer should establish the law of faith”). Thus, the norm of the Christian cult will determine the logic of the belief, making it clear that between Liturgy and Theology there prevails a relationship of intrinsic reciprocity. On the one hand, Liturgy is conceived as the source of Theology and, on the other, Theology appears as the instance that confirms Liturgy. The challenges Liturgy places before Theology centre around three elements: the ecclesiastical principles as the humus of theology; the paschal event of Christ as the sap of Theology; and the creation, history and human beings as the vital space of Theology. The conclusion emphasizes the need to accept the sacramental character of human existence and the contingency of its manifestations and suggests that both Liturgy and Theology should become more symbolic and closer to poetry.

scholarly journals The Joy of Being as Anthropological Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-73
Author(s):  
Agapov Oleg D. ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Human Condition

The joy of being is connected with one’s activities aimed at responding to the challenges of the elemental forces and the boundlessness of being, which are independent of human subjectivity. In the context of rising to the challenges of being, one settles to acquire a certain power of being in themselves and in the world. Thus, the joy of being is tied to achieving the level of the “miraculous fecundity” (E. Levinas), “an internal necessity of one’s life” (F. Vasilyuk), magnanimity (M. Mamardashvili). The ontological duty of any human being is to succeed at being human. The joy of being is closely connected to experiencing one’s involvement in the endless/eternity and realizing one’s subjective temporality/finitude, which attunes him to the absolute seriousness in relation to one’s complete realization in life. Joy is a foundational anthropological phenomenon in the structure of ways of experiencing the human condition. The joy of being as an anthropological practice can appear as a constantly expanding sphere of human subjectivity where the transfiguration of the powers of being occurs under the sign of the Height (Levinas) / the Good. Without the possibility of transfiguration human beings get tired of living, immerse themselves in the dejected state of laziness and the hopelessness of vanity. The joy of being is connected to unity, gathering the multiplicity of human life under the aegis of meaning that allows us to see the other and the alien in heteronomous being, and understand the nature of co-participation and responsibility before the forces of being, and also act in synergy with them.The joy of being stands before a human being as the joy of fatherhood/ motherhood, the joy of being a witness to the world in creative acts (the subject as a means to retreat before the world and let the world shine), the joy of every day that was saved from absurdity, darkness and the impersonal existence of the total. Keywords: joy, higher reality, anthropological practices, “the height”, subject, transcendence, practice of coping

Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism

2020 ◽  
pp. 327-341
Author(s):  
Richard J. Mouw
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
World Views ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Fundamental Relationship ◽  
The World ◽  
Other World ◽  
Princeton Theological Seminary

Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism make available in printed form his 1898 Stone Lectures delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary, locating ‘Calvinism’ amongst other major philosophies and religions. Given the erroneous manner in which each of these other world-views—Paganism, Islamism, Romanism and Modernism—depict the fundamental relationship between God and the world, they cannot help but fall far short in their understandings of the other two basic relationships: between human and human, and between humankind and the rest of created reality. Calvinism alone, then, with its conception of human life as lived directly (in an unmediated manner) in the presence of God, can preserve the all-important conviction that all of human life, including the relationships of human beings to the non-human creation, be carried out in obedience to the Creator who desires the flourishing of the whole creation.

scholarly journals Psychological obstacles to multiculturalism: how stereotypes and mechanisms of defence may cause adverse behaviours to multiculturalism.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Guido Amoretti
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human History ◽  
Defence Mechanisms ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
The World ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
The One ◽  
Advanced Development

Abstract Migration flows are part of human history. The process of globalization, if on the one hand it seems to favour the movement of human beings, on the other hand it is creating the conditions for the recovery of migratory flows, especially within some areas of the world and, in part, directed towards advanced development countries. This creates problems of acceptance on the part of the host with respect to the customs and habits of the guest. Resistance to reception, used for political ends by populist parties, has deep roots that have to do with psychological and social factors: defence mechanisms, stereotypes and prejudices. The article stresses the importance of training in overcoming these obstacles to building a society that is first multicultural and then intercultural.

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