Self-Knowledge as Non-Dual Awareness: A Comparative Study of Plotinus and Indian Advaita Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-148
Author(s):  
Binita Mehta

AbstractThe paper examines the problem of self-knowledge from the perspectives of Plotinus and the Indian Advaita (non-dual) school. Analyzing the subject-object relation, I show that according to both Plotinus and Advaita thinkers, full self-knowledge demands complete absence of otherness. Plotinus argues that if self-consciousness is divided into subject-object relation then one will know oneself as contemplated but not as contemplating (v.3.5) and no real self-knowledge obtains in this case. Śaṅkara, who constitutes an important representative of Advaita thought, points out that the self cannot know itself as an object because what is called an object to be known becomes established when it is separated from the self, the subject. I argue that at the level of the One, similar to the state of ātman consciousness in Advaita framework, the soul experiences itself in expansive non-dual consciousness. Lastly, I examine the role of non-duality as the foundation of knowledge.

Author(s):  
Iryna Paten ◽  
Ivan Zhygalo

The article provides a comparative analysis of phraselogical units with monetary component in Ukrainian, Polish and English phraseological pictures; it has been clarified that money is the subject of many sciences: economics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc., and it is an integral part of society, and therefore they are the part of a core value which indicates the importance of this concept. The article investigates and reveals universal and cultural-specific features of phrases with a component of money on the material of phraseological pictures of Ukrainian, Polish and English cultures. The relevance of phraseological units, sayings, proverbs, winged expressions with the money component in the modern world has been proved, because the phraseological picture better reflects the changes that are taking place in the sphere of economics, politics, culture etc., it has been found that money is associated with national self-knowledge; it has been revealed ambivalence regarding money: on the one hand, they arise as a value, and on the other, as a social evil. The most promising research is a comparative study of Slavic (Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Polish) and German (English, German) phrases to indicate people’s attitude to money.


2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 149-182
Author(s):  
Milan Brdar

What does Heidegger?s discussion of authenticity of Dasein, as presented in Sein und Zeit (1927), contribute to the completion of his program of fundamental ontology (aiming at the sense of being as such)? Aiming to answer to this question the author examines the way authenticity is constructed. The author specifically emphasizes the fact that the authenticity is completed within what is given in ?the One? (?das Man?), in the process by which Dasein realizes within its way of being his own specification or concretization. Furthermore Heidegger claims, on the one hand, that it is not possible to rank authenticity and inauthenticity as being something of ?higher? and ?lower? order, and, on the other hand, that the world has a transcendental status with primary role of the One (das Man). Therefore Dasein understands all from the world, builds its understanding by taking it from the world and constructing out of it its own specification. This has two important consequences: the first is the realization that authenticity has no significance for fundamental ontology, for the understanding of the Being that the Dasein has acquired is equally valuable whether it is authentic or not; and the second is that authenticity is of negligible significance, for the understanding that the Dasein has is obtained from the One, and because the world has a transcendental status, hence it is a priori as far as the understanding of all Being goes. Why then Heidegger deals with authenticity? Reason is to be found not in preparing work for fundamental onthology but in Heidegger?s anticartesianism. As he sketched the concept of Dasein in contrast to Descartes? subject, he created a problem for himself. Just as Descartes had a problem with finding the way to bring the subject to the world, Heidegger is facing a problem: How can the Dasein, as something integrated into the world as beingin- the-world and being-with-Others, come to itself? Finding the answer to this question does not engage fundamental ontology, for it must be obtained as a precondition for creating the starting point for it. Finally, the author discusses a problem that emerges from this perspective: What is the source of Heidegger?s turn (Kehre)? Emphasized as reasons are Heidegger?s anthropocentrism and remnants of the subject-object relation. Anthropocentrism, however, was already overcomed in SuZ with the thesis about the trancendentalty of the world and by de-centering the subject given the primacy of understanding as contained in the One. As for the subject-object relation, it was overcome through the very discussion of authenticity on the basis of the thesis that the Dasein and the world are in original unity. It follows, then, that Heidegger did not offer the real reasons for his turn, hence the question remains: Why Heidegger did not remain satisfied with those results? That remains to be uncovered by further analyses of his philosophy!


Author(s):  
Iryna Rusnak

The author of the article analyses the problem of the female emancipation in the little-known feuilleton “Amazonia: A Very Inept Story” (1924) by Mykola Chirsky. The author determines the genre affiliation of the work and examines its compositional structure. Three parts are distinguished in the architectonics of associative feuilleton: associative conception; deployment of a “small” topic; conclusion. The author of the article clarifies the role of intertextual elements and the method of constantly switching the tone from serious to comic to reveal the thematic direction of the work. Mykola Chirsky’s interest in the problem of female emancipation is corresponded to the general mood of the era. The subject of ridicule in provocative feuilleton is the woman’s radical metamorphoses, since repulsive manifestations of emancipation becomes commonplace. At the same time, the writer shows respect for the woman, appreciates her femininity, internal and external beauty, personality. He associates the positive in women with the functions of a faithful wife, a caring mother, and a skilled housewife. In feuilleton, the writer does not bypass the problem of the modern man role in a family, but analyses the value and moral and ethical guidelines of his character. The husband’s bad habits receive a caricatured interpretation in the strange behaviour of relatives. On the one hand, the writer does not perceive the extremes brought by female emancipation, and on the other, he mercilessly criticises the male “virtues” of contemporaries far from the standard. The artistic heritage of Mykola Chirsky remains little studied. The urgent task of modern literary studies is the introduction of Mykola Chirsky’s unknown works into the scientific circulation and their thorough scientific understanding.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 793-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduard Bonet

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the boundaries of rhetoric have excluded important theoretical and practical subjects and how these subjects are recuperated and extended since the twentieth century. Its purpose is to foster the awareness on emerging new trends of rhetoric. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is based on an interpretation of the history of rhetoric and on the construction of a conceptual framework of the rhetoric of judgment, which is introduced in this paper. Findings – On the subject of the extension of rhetoric from public speeches to any kinds of persuasive situations, the paper emphasizes some stimulating relationships between the theory of communication and rhetoric. On the exclusion and recuperation of the subject of rhetorical arguments, it presents the changing relationships between rhetoric and dialectics and emphasizes the role of rhetoric in scientific research. On the introduction of rhetoric of judgment and meanings it creates a conceptual framework based on a re-examination of the concept of judgment and the phenomenological foundations of the interpretative methods of social sciences by Alfred Schutz, relating them to symbolic interactionism and theories of the self. Originality/value – The study on the changing boundaries of rhetoric and the introduction of the rhetoric of judgment offers a new view on the present theoretical and practical development of rhetoric, which opens new subjects of research and new fields of applications.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Postma

While the neoliberal order is associated with the economy, government and globalisation, as a form of governmentality it effects a particular subjectivity. The subject is the terrain where the contest of control plays out. The subject is drawn into the seductive power of performativity which dictates its agency, desires and satisfactions and from which escape is difficult to imagine. Neoliberalism is particularly interested in an education which provides it with the much needed powers of production and consumption. This dependency of the neoliberal order on a particular kind of agential subjectivity is also its weakness because of the indeterminacy of the self. Within this openness of the human subject lies the possibility to be different and to escape any form of subjectification. Foucault’s account of the critical agent portrays a form of difference that opposes and transcends neoliberal ordering. Foucault finds the principle of practices of freedom in the Greco-Roman ethics of the care for the self. It is an ethics where the subject gains control of itself through the ascetic and reflective attention in relation to available ethical codes and with the guidance of a ‘master’. Such as strong sense of the self is the basis for personal and social transformation against neoliberal colonisation. The development of critical agency in education is subsequently investigated in the light of Foucault’s notions of agency and freedom. The contest of the subject is of particular importance to education interested in the development of critical agency. The critical agent is not only one who could identify and analyse regimes of power, but also one who could imagine different modes of being, and who could practice freedom in the enactment of an alternative mode of being. The educational implications are explored in relation to the role of the teacher and pedagogical processes.


Author(s):  
Luise Li Langergaard

The article explores the central role of the entrepreneur in neoliberalism. It demonstrates how a displacement and a broadening of the concept of the entrepreneur occur in the neoliberal interpretation of the entrepreneur compared to Schumpeter’s economic innovation theory. From being a specific economic figure with a particular delimited function the entrepreneur is reinterpreted as, on the one hand, a particular type of subject, the entrepreneur of the self, and on the other, an ism, entrepreneurialism, which permeates individuals, society, and institutions. Entrepreneurialism is discussed as a movement of the economic into previously non-economic domains, such as the welfare state and society. Social entrepreneurship is an example of this in relation to solutions to social welfare problems. This can, on the one hand, be understood as an extension of the neoliberal understanding of the entrepreneur, but it also, in certain interpretations, resists the neoliberal understanding of economy and society.


Author(s):  
Elena Kravtsova

L. S. Vygotsky’s principal idea, lying in the base of cultural-historical theory, is the primacy of sense over meaning. There are serious reasons to believe that this part of cultural-historical theory was not completely understood both by his disciples and his opponents. That’s why many Vygotsky’s conclusions and discoveries remained untapped. while others were implemented in science and practice quite di˙erently from what he suggested. Vygotsky once wrote that features of the particular science deeply related to its method. That’s why he introduced the experimental-genetic method (projective method in modern psychology), which allows modeling the processes of development. One of the basic concepts of cultural-historical theory is the concept of “cultural de-velopment”. A Cultural person, for Vygotsky, is the person, who can control not only their own behavior and actions but also their own psychic processes. On the one hand, modern psychology doesn’t deny the role of volition in child’s development. But on the other hand, the volition itself is typically understood as one’s ability to submit to laws and rules. More than that – it’s rather easy to create conditions where a person will submit to laws and rules, but it doesn’t develop his ability to control himself. In Vygotsky’s opinion, there are natural psychic functions, which in the process of learning transform into cultural ones. In this context, the main goal of learning is to create conditions for developing person’s ability to be the subject of his own behavior, activity and psychic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 295-316
Author(s):  
Christopher Peacocke

Six issues are salient in discussions of the first person since 1900: immunity to error through misidentification; the possibility of survival without survival of one’s body; the elusiveness of the self; the role of the first person attitudes in the explanation of action; the first person component in mental concepts; and the role of the first person simulation in explaining the actions of others. Since 1900, there have been accounts both of the nature of the first person concept, and accounts of the nature of subjects of experience. This paper discusses the achievements and limitations of these accounts in addressing the preceding six issues. These issues are also assessed against a wider range of possibilities, both for the first person and for the subject to which it refers, than are considered in this literature.


1993 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kruger

Business ethics in business training: Oratory or the actuality. This article is the culmination of an in-depth literature study. On the one hand an attempt is made to incorporate the views of different authors, while on the other hand an attempt is made to take part in the debate which is initiated by the current renewal of interest in the subject Business Ethics. Within this framework attention is paid to the question of whether business ethics can be taught and if so, to what extent it's influence will be felt. Secondly, an insight into the teaching of business ethics in the future is provided. Within this context the approach to the teaching, the content, the role of the student and the responsibility of the educator in particular are addressed. Opsomming Hierdie artikel is die resultaat van 'n indringende literatuurstudie. Daar word gepoog om enersyds verskillende skrywers se standpunte saam te vat, maar andersyds ook kritiese kommentaar te lower en deel te neem aan die debat wat deur die huidige opiewing in die belangstelling in Bestuursetiek bestaan. Binne die raamwerk sal aandag aan die volgende geskenk word: Die beantwoording van die vraag of Bestuursetiek onderrig kan word en indien wel die trefwydte daarvan. Tweedens 'n toekomsblik op die onderrig van Bestuursetiek. Binne die konteks word die benadering tot die onderrig/ die inhoud en die rol van die student en die verantwoordelikheid van die dosent bekvk.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Adrijana Marčetič

Just after the end of the Great War Miloš Crnjanski wrote a poem dedicated to Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, in Sarajevo, on 28 June 1914. The title of the poem is “A Tribute to Princip” (“Spomen Principu”), and it was first published in Crnjanski’s early book of poetry Lyrics of Ithaca (Lirika Itake, 1919). Forty years later Crnjanski wrote a commentary on the poem, a sort of its prose paraphrase, and entitled it “On the Poem about Princip” (“Uz pesmu o Principu”); it was published in his Commentaries on Lyrics of Ithaca (Komentari uz Liriku Itake, 1959). Although by no means as significant as his famous poem “Sumatra”, and equally famous “Explanation of Sumatra”, that is considered a kind of Crnjanski’s personal poetic manifesto, as well as a poetic manifesto of Serbian modernism in general, “A Tribute to Princip” and its explanation represent an equally important testimony to Crnjanski’s poetic sensibility and his literary inspiration. The subject of the poem, the manner of poetic expression, on the one side, and the prose style of its commentary, on the other, clearly indicate what was considered by young Crnjanski the main role of the new, modern poetry he was advocating for: the break with the tradition, the rejection of the old and no longer productive poetic and national myths, and the affirmation of the new role of poetry in the everyday life. Therefore, opposing the standard interpretation of the poem, in this paper I argue that “A Tribute to Princip” is not a political poem but a “poem about poem”, which we could read as metapoetry or a poetry poem, providing that we apply the term with a little more freedom.


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