Ethnicity, Self-Knowledge and Literary Sensitivity: A Sociological Reading of V. S. Naipaul’s First Four Novels

2022 ◽  
pp. 003802292110633
Author(s):  
N. Jayaram

Taking a cue from G. S. Ghurye’s Shakespeare on Conscience and Justice (1965) this lecture in his memory explores the role of ethnicity in shaping the self-knowledge and literary sensitivity of V. S. Naipaul. Naipaul’s life traverses three distinct cultures: the Hindu culture brought by his ancestors who came as indentured migrants to Trinidad, the Creole culture of colonial Trinidad and the emerging modern culture of western civilisation. Much of Naipaul’s self-knowledge involved his engagement with these three cultures and his experience of the interplay between colonialism and ethnicity. In his first four novels— Miguel Street, The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira and A House for Mr Biswas—Naipaul describes the life and times of the descendants of Indian immigrants in colonial Trinidad and the making of a girmitiya diaspora there. The lecture delineates the rare sociological insights into this diaspora provided by these novels.

Author(s):  
Jaromir Jeszke

The Researcher and Their Interpretative Perspectives in the Studies on the History of Science A historian (also of medicine) should accept the values and canons of the studied culture, including medical ones, as their own. As Florian Znaniecki pointed out in his works, they should be the researcher’s highest authority. This means that the researcher should deviate from evaluating the ideas and practices of the studied culture from their own perspective. The category of minimal cultural imputation developed by Wojciech Wrzosek shows that it is not an easy process. However, the application of the subjective-rational perspective to the interpretation has already become an obvious approach. An open and much less obvious problem is the role of the historian of science when they venture to make comparisons between past and present scientific cultures. By doing so, do they still remain a historian, or – by undertaking such comparisons and evaluations – do they abandon the role, assuming the position of, for example, methodologist? The author of the article outlines the possibilities of separating these roles, presenting the attitude of a ‘methodologist’ who searches in the past for the roots and theoretical justifications for contemporary paradigms of their discipline, using the latter to evaluate the past. However, the possibility of a non-evaluative dialogue between the cognizing culture and the cognized culture is also shown, where the former also includes the specialist knowledge of a contemporary researcher interested in the past of their discipline. The historiography of a given science appears here as a record of the self-knowledge of a given generation of researchers – as their self-reflection. As Jan Pomorski calls it, a researcher assuming such a role appears as homo metahistoricus in their field of study.


1979 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 91-93
Author(s):  
R. S. Jacobson ◽  
G. Straker

The development of trust, pride and autonomy, initiative and industry in the first ten years of childhood is described. The problems encountered by the handicapped child and his parents are pointed out. The role the therapist can play and the self knowledge necessary for this role are briefly discussed.


2020 ◽  
pp. 114-118
Author(s):  
Olga Machkarina

The author reveals the views of I. M. Skvortsov, V. N. Karpov, P. I. Linitsky – Russian religious philoso-phers of the XIX century on the role of philosophy in the knowledge of the world around him in its integri-ty and comprehension of the "eternal law", on the connection of philosophy with private sciences and determination of the place of philosophy in the system of education, its influence on the formation of the thought culture of the student's personality, on the role of philosophy in the self-knowledge and upbring-ing of the moral personality.


Author(s):  
Laura Papish

Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform explores the cognitive dimensions of evil and moral reform in Immanuel Kant’s mature ethical theory. Its questions include what self-deception is for Kant, why and how it is connected to evil, and how we achieve the self-knowledge that should take the place of self-deceit. Crucial related issues discussed in the book include the role of hedonism in Kant’s practical philosophy, the adequacy of Kant’s theory of character, Kant’s accounts of moral weakness and moral strength, the alleged universality of evil in human nature, how social institutions and interpersonal relationships facilitate self-knowledge, and the role of the ethical community in moral reform. Working with both Kant’s core texts on ethics and materials less often cited within scholarship on Kant’s practical philosophy (such as Kant’s logic lectures), this book addresses a significant gap in the existing literature, which generally favors—but does not adequately discuss or defend—Kant’s repeat allusions to the idea that evil requires self-deceit. Through its exploration of how self-deceptive rationalization and self-cognition relate, respectively, to evil and its overcoming, this book investigates, defends, and provides a new lens for understanding Kant’s treatment of evil while engaging the most influential—and often scathing—of Kant’s critics.


Author(s):  
James Hill

This chapter investigates the relation between Berkeley’s active self and the faculty of perception, focusing on his Three Dialogues. First, it is shown how Berkeley is opposed to any perceptual account of self-knowledge because the passive ideas of perception disqualify them from representing the active self. Then, the role of this active self in perception is investigated. In the First Dialogue Philonous argues that perception is a thoroughly passive state, thus rendering it difficult to conceive how an active self can be the perceiving subject. It is argued, however, that Berkeley’s mature view relieves this difficulty by giving the self a participatory role in sensory perception, combining the elements of sensory input into a unified and coherent conscious experience.


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):  
Adam Leite

The very idea of psychic integration presents puzzles in the case of unconscious belief, both for the analysand and for the theorist. In many cases, the unconsciously believed proposition is one that the analysand knows perfectly well to be false. What could it be to bring such a belief to consciousness? What could psychic integration come to in this sort of case? Put bluntly, the task facing the analysand is to consciously hold the belief even while placing it within a broader perspective in which it is recognized to be false. Implications are drawn concerning a number of large issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind: Moore’s Paradox, the role of rationality in psychic unity and self-consciousness, the nature of the first-person standpoint in relation to one’s own attitudes, transparency accounts of self-knowledge, and the role of endorsement in the constitution of the self.


2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
DORA A. HANNINEN

The growing number of performances and recordings of Feldman’s music in recent years attests to increased interest among performers and listeners; yet his music remains an uncommon subject for detailed music analysis. Proceeding on the premise that this disparity is no accident, I argue that certain distinctive qualities of the music render it difficult to analyse with tools, methods, and practices developed in response to other repertories. This paper investigates the analytical challenges posed by Feldman’s music. A survey of such challenges as they relate to his output in general is followed by an account of two particular issues associated with his late work: scale and repetition. Two case studies address these issues in turn, advancing relevant conceptual and methodological approaches. In the first study, on Coptic Light for orchestra (1985), I suggest that analysts might reconsider part–whole relationships in music analysis, and use the idea of ‘populations’ (with their attendant features of range of variation and distribution) to develop a non-reductive (and non-constructive) approach to scale. In the second study, on Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (1987), I encourage analysts to rethink the role of repetition in music analysis, such that repetition is no longer (only) a goal, but becomes a point of departure. Throughout the essay I take the view that analysis is an investigation of experience; that a particular difficulty of analysing Feldman’s music is the self-knowledge it requires; and that the concerted inquiry that is music analysis can well be used to expand – not only condense – the realm of musical experience.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document