scholarly journals To Relieve the Human Condition. Bioethics, Technology and the Body

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-358
Author(s):  
K. Boyd
Paragraph ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSALYN DIPROSE

This paper develops a political ontology of hospitality from the philosophies of Arendt, Derrida and Levinas, paying particular attention to the gendered, temporal, and corporeal dimensions of hospitality. Arendt's claim, that central to the human condition and democratic plurality is the welcome of ‘natality’ (innovation or the birth of the new), is used to argue that the more that this hospitality becomes conditional under conservative political forces, the more that the time that it takes is given by women without acknowledgement or support. Women's bodies are thus caught within the dual poles of conservative government: regulation of the unpredictable expressions of ‘natality’ in the ‘home’ and management of the uniformity and ‘security’ of the nation. The limitations in Arendt's political ontology of hospitality are addressed by adding consideration of the operation of biopolitics and of the body as bios.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhani Pallasmaa

In our culture, intelligence, emotions and embodied intuitions continue to be seen as separate categories. The body is regarded as a medium of identity as well as social and sexual appeal, but neglected as the ground of embodied existence and silent knowledge, or the full understanding of the human condition. Prevailing educational and pedagogic practices also still separate the mental and intellectual capacities from emotions and the senses, and the multifarious dimensions of human embodiment.


Author(s):  
John Logan Schell

As the body of comics increases, so, too, does the variety of subject matter. Comics now address profound aspects of the human condition, especially through the genre of memoir. However, it is not enough to note the breadth of memoir topically; it is critical to explore how these stories are told. Memoir in comics creates a space for experiencing the past in a visually dynamic way that both reflects and rejects literal or factual reality, supplanting it with a kind of subjectivity that embodies personal truths. This chapter explores how the medium of comics, through its hybridity and materiality, reveals the fictionality of autobiography in a stylized manner that still connects to personal experience in a way that manages to supersede realism. In addition, through their transgressive nature, comics synergize with voices and identities that move counter to mainstream culture, giving voice to the voiceless.


Human Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles des Portes

AbstractAmongst the Arendtian scholars, there is almost a consensus on Arendt’s supposedly reluctance to the question of the body. The Arendtian body is said to belong to the unpolitical realm of necessity, in other words, the body is a private matter that should not appear in public. It is antipolitical. However, in this paper, I want to suggest that there is a possibility to outline a phenomenology of embodied political action in what I think to be Arendt’s hidden phenomenology of the body. To make my point, I will first show that what the scholars call the Arendtian body is in fact an Arendtian Body. Secondly, in the German version of The Human Condition, Arendt surprisingly used the Heideggerian term Befindlichkeit (disposition) that, I will argue, outline the basis of a political phenomenology of the body in Arendt’s work. More precisely, I will try to show that political action is embodied, that there is a hexis, a pathos and an ethos of action.


2018 ◽  
Vol 76 (301) ◽  
pp. 44-74
Author(s):  
Antônio Moser

Síntese: As discussões sobre gênero se encontram mais acesas do que nunca. Por isso mesmo, merecem atenção. Para uma abordagem equilibrada convém partir dos mistérios do corpo e da sexualidade. Apesar das aparências em contrário, corpo e sexualidade são realidades dinâmicas, sujeitas a mudanças mais ou menos constantes. As biotecnologias acentuam ainda mais essa possibilidade de mudanças até há pouco, ou espontâneas ou efetivadas através de meios mais ou menos convencionais. Por isso mesmo, não podem ser ignoradas. A questão mais importante parece apontar para um diálogo sereno, através do qual se consiga mergulhar um pouco mais profundamente na condição humana. Toda radicalização tende a distorcer a realidade. A busca de um equilíbrio é fundamental neste momento em que a tentação dos reducionismos se faz presente em todas as realidades humanas. E o equilíbrio é encontrado na medida em que se valoriza tanto o esse, quanto o fieri: o que muda e o que permanece.Palavras-chave: Gênero. Corpo. Sexualidade. Biotecnologias. Alterações.Abstract: Discussions on gender are livelier than ever. For this very reason, they deserve our attention. For a balanced approach, we should start with the mysteries of the body and of sexuality. Despite appearances to the contrary, the body and sexuality are dynamic realities, subject to more or less constant change. Biotechnology further highlights this possibility of changes that until recently were either spontaneous or effected through more or less conventional means. Thus, they cannot be ignored. The most important issue seems to point to a serene dialogue, through which we can dive a little deeper into the human condition. Every radicalization tends to distort reality. The search for a balance is crucial at this time when the temptation of reductionism is present in all human realities. But the balance can only be found in so far as we can value both the esse and the fieri: i.e, that which changes and that which remains.Keywords: Gender. Body. Sexuality. Biotechnologies. Changes.


Author(s):  
Giovanni Stanghellini

This chapter argues that gender dysphoria—a person suffering from an incongruence between experienced gender and assigned gender—is another illustration of the vulnerable duplicity inherent in the human condition. I am not merely the matter of which I am made. Rather, I am that matter plus the form that I impose upon it. In trying to shape my matter, I experience myself as an autonomous person and, simultaneously, as a person whose autonomy is limited by the matter itself. Between sex and gender there is the same relationship as between matter and form. We can shape the matter we are ‘thrown into’ and give it the form we desire, obviously within the boundaries delimited by matter itself and by our capacity for autonomy. Being the person that I am is a task and a responsibility that consists in becoming who I am through what I am.


Author(s):  
Richard Askay ◽  
Jensen Farquhar

This chapter argues for a rapprochement between Heidegger and Freud to gain a more unified, comprehensive, and holistic account of the human condition. While doing so, it explores the impact of Heidegger's philosophy on existential analysis and therapy by considering his global critique of Freudian psychoanalysis, and more specifically Freud's concepts of the Unconscious and the body. After a brief synopsis of his philosophy and its relevance for existential analysis, the chapter delineates Heidegger's critique of Freud's unconscious and considers how Binswanger, Boss, and Richardson try to preserve Freud's insights within the context of Heidegger's philosophy. The exploratory process then leads us to see bodily being as pivotal for the development of a truly holistic account of human existence. The chapter argues that Heidegger's humanism and neglect of the ontological primordiality of bodily being ultimately led him to a dualism he ubiquitously fought to avoid.


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