The Intertexts of ‘Seeing’ and ‘Non-Seeing’ in Schnabel’s Le Scaphandre et le papillon

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enda McCaffrey
Keyword(s):  
Visual Impairment ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Herve Guibert

This article examines the complexity of the relationship between ‘seeing’ and ‘non-seeing’ and its connection to a knowledge of the Self in Julian Schnabel’s film Le Scaphandre et le papillon. It is argued that ‘seeing’ is an impediment to an understanding of the visible world, while variations on ‘non-seeing’ enhance knowledge of visibility and Self. In the context of the filmic text, knowledge is associated specifically with the act of retrospectivity in writing and in the mind. This reading of the film as a retrospective and visually veiled event is reinforced and enhanced by reference to the work of two contemporary French writers. Visual impairment is the subject of Hélène Cixous’s autobiographical text Savoir. For Cixous, myopia and its ‘seeing’ are linked to a knowledge that is only attainable retrospectively through nostalgia. The work of Hervé Guibert draws on the philosophical and literary implications of half-sightedness and blindness as gateways to a different expression of knowledge and ‘sight’ that take their inspiration, by contrast, from a ‘continuum’ of invisibility in which ‘non-seeing’ is represented as a continuous seeing in thought.

scholarly journals L’imaginaire d’images: une réflexion sur la photographie chez Barthes, Duras et Guibert

Çédille ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 565-591
Author(s):  
Antonella Lipscomb
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Marguerite Duras ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
The Self ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Fine Line ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Herve Guibert

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between autobiography, pho-tography and autofiction in a selection of 20th century French autobiographies, such as Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, L’Amant by Marguerite Duras, L´Image fantôme by Hervé Guibert. I will examine the complex relationship these auto-biographers maintain with the photographic portraits they choose to integrate or simply allude to in their autobiographies and show how the conflict between textual and visual images of the self reinforce the fine line between autobiography and autofiction.

scholarly journals Affective Aporetics: Complementary Contradictions in the Interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche

PhaenEx ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
NANDITA BISWAS MELLAMPHY
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
The Self ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
Karl Jaspers ◽  
Place Holder ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

In 1971, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter introduced his study of Nietzsche as an investigation into the history of modern nihilism in which “contradiction” forms the central thread of the argument. For Müller-Lauter, the interpretive task is not to demonstrate the overall coherence or incoherence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but to examine Nietzsche’s “philosophy of contradiction.” Against those such as Karl Jaspers, Karl Löwith and Martin Heidegger, Müller-Lauter argued that contradiction is the foundation of Nietzsche’s thought, and not a problem to be corrected or cast aside for exegetical or political purposes. For Müller-Lauter, contradiction qua incompatibility (not just mere opposition) holds a key to Nietzsche’s affective vision of philosophy. Beginning with the relationship between will to power and eternal recurrence, in this paper I examine aspects of Müller-Lauter’s account of Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction specifically in relation to the counter-interpretations offered by two other German commentators of Nietzsche, Leo Strauss and Karl Löwith, in order to confirm Müller-Lauter’s suggestion that contradiction is indeed an operative engine of Nietzsche’s thought. Indeed contradiction is a key Nietzschean theme and an important dynamic of becoming which enables the subject to be revealed as a “multiplicity” (BGE §12) and as a “fiction” (KSA 12:9[91]). Following Müller-Lauter’s assertion that for Nietzsche the problem of nihilism is fundamentally synonymous with the struggle of contradiction experienced by will to power, this paper interprets Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction in terms of subjective, bodily life (rather than in terms of logical incoherences or ontological inconsistencies). Against the backdrop of nihilism, the “self” (and its related place holder the “subject”), I will argue, becomes the psycho-physiological battlespace for the struggle and articulation of “contradiction” in Nietzsche’s thought.  

scholarly journals DUGME: POETIKA SIMBOLIČKE MINIJATURE U DNEVNIKU O ČARNOJEVIĆU MILOŠA CRNjANSKOG I HAMLETU VILIJAMA ŠEKSPIRA

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Časlav Nikolić ◽  
◽  
Nikola Bubanja
Keyword(s):  
Marital Relationship ◽  
The Self ◽  
Dramatic Literature ◽  
Modern Subject ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

The paper analyzes the narrative and symbolic values of the button in Miloš Crnjanski’s novel The Journal of Čarnojević. In the perturbation that occurs when the hero, during the meeting with his beloved, angrily but inadvertently tears the buttons off her dress, traces of the gap that will determine their marital relationship can be recognized. The button that falls and exposes the girl is a sign of overstepping and destabilization of the ontological union of two beings. This destabilization – the rudeness of the hero, the agitation, the withdrawal and fall of the woman – is determined by the self-challenging forces of the subject itself. The crisis as a state of the modern subject in Crnjanski’s novel is viewed against the relationship between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Ophelia. The button in Shakespeare’s dramatic literature, a sign of disruption of order and of the negation of action, is a sign of theatricality and dissembling; the unbuttoned Hamlet seduces Ophelia, and others through her, painting a coldness falling quite short of the lyricism of Crnjanski. In fact, it seems that only against this tense lyricism can Hamlet be made ready to be read as a lyrical misinterpretation of arid theatrical coldness. The lyrical force of modernity in Crnjanski’s novel transforms the torn off buttons into marks of nightmarish existences, upheavals of old ideas and concepts, the dismantling of the categories of subject, identity, history, metaphysics, language. A symbolic miniature, a button is a scene on which an entire poetics presents itself.

The Story and the Dilemma

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Clinical Aspects ◽  
Body Consciousness ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Theoretical Account ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Religion And Art

This section tells the story of my mother's stroke and what I have learnt from it about mind, body, consciousness, and the self, arguably the most cross-disciplinary topic of all. What gives us our sense of personal identity – our body? Our mind? Their union? And what if one of them is diminished – say, as a result of an accident; what then, do we stop being ourselves? This opening chapter sets the scene for the debate that follows, on this most fascinating mystery of all – our own self and consciousness. We question the still dominant dualist approach of the mind, seeking a more holistic view of the self; to this end, we believe that adding relevant experiential aspects will help complement the theory. Thus, an interdisciplinary, trans-theoretical account is needed in this endeavour. In this chapter, we introduce the dilemma and draw the main lines of argumentation related to it. In Chapter 2, we discuss the first experiential (in other words, the clinical) aspects of the mind, and neuroscientists' view of it, followed – in Chapter 3, by social aspects and psychologists' contributions to the subject. Chapter 4 will add more idiosyncratic aspects to the debate, such as the spiritual profile of a person, more often discussed in philosophy, religion, and art.

Setting the Scene

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
John Zerilli
Keyword(s):  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Basic Argument ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The modularity of mind has been understood in various ways, amended as evidence from neuroscience has forced the theory to shed various structural assumptions. Neuroplasticity has, for better or worse, challenged many of the orthodox conceptions of the mind that originally led cognitive scientists to postulate mental modules. Similarly, rapidly accumulating neuroscientific evidence of the reuse or redeployment of neural circuits, revealing the integrated and interactive structure of brain regions, has upset basic assumptions about the relationship of function to structure upon which modularity—not to say neuroscience itself—originally depended. These movements, developments, and cross-currents are the subject of this book. This chapter outlines the basic argument of the book and its motivation.

Desire and distance in Kaija Saariaho's Lonh

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Sivuoja-Gunaratnam
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
The Self ◽  
Environmental Sounds ◽  
Feminine Subjectivity ◽  
Love Stories ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Narrative Convention ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the relationship of desire and distance in Kaija Saariaho's Lonh (1996) for soprano and electronics. The subject matter of Lonh is desire and romantic pleasures, anchored to feminine subjectivity, represented on stage by a soprano singer. Electronics provide the environmental sounds and amplify the singer's voice. Through Lonh looms a medieval song in the Occitan language, ‘Lanquan li jorn son lonc en mai’ by Jaufré Rudel, a famous troubadour in twelfth-century Provence. Saariaho reverses the narrative convention of love stories by presenting the most intimate encounter at the very beginning. In their succeeding encounters, the lovers move further away from each other. Similarly, in the course of Lonh the distance to Jaufré's song also increases. Luce Irigaray's concepts of love are used for an analysis of the relationship of the loving pair. By the end of Lonh the borderlines of speaking, singing, electronics, language and music collapse in Barthesian jouissance (bliss). The electronic technology in Lonh enables the re-investiture of cultural values, and the construction of flexible identities, crossing boundaries between the self and the other.

scholarly journals From self to identity: a metaphysical shift

2020 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 16036
Author(s):  
Nikolay Rybakov ◽  
Natalya Yarmolich ◽  
Maxim Bakhtin
Keyword(s):  
Information Society ◽  
Selection Procedure ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Complete Loss ◽  
The Self ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Information ◽  
The Relationship

The article examines the problem of identity realization in the modern information society. The authors analyze the concept of identity in comparison with the concept of self, reveal the features of the manifestation and deformation of identity, and explore ways to generate multiple identities. The study of the concept of identity is based on the worldview principles inherent in different epochs. An attempt is made to give a complete (holographic) picture of identity, and the question is raised about the criteria for distinguishing genuine identity from non-genuine (pseudo-identity). The relationship between the concepts of "I" and self is studied, identification is presented as a process of predication of "I". In the structure of identity, such features as constancy and variability are distinguished. On this basis, the classical and non-classical identities are distinguished and their characteristics are given. It is shown that the breakup of these components into independent parts results in the complete loss of the object's identity, which leads to its disintegration and death. It is shown that in the conditions of fluid reality, identity turns from a stabilizing factor into a situational one, which encourages the subject to constantly choose an identity. The conditions of transformation of identification into a diffuse process that loses the strict unambiguous binding of the subject to something fixed and defined are considered. Due to this, the identity of the subject is "smeared" all over the world. As a result of this process, the subject loses the need to identify itself with anything: it "collapses" into itself. As a result, there is a contradiction of identification: the multiplicity of identities gives the subject a huge choice between them, at the same time due to the diffusion of identity (its smearing around the world) the selection procedure itself loses its meaning. But if the identity is lost, there are problems with the self, so it turns out to be the end of the existence of the person himself. Therefore, in all the transformations of identities in the modern world, it is important that it is preserved.

scholarly journals MODERN RATIONALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL IDEAS OF RENE DESCARTES

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-243
Author(s):  
I.P. Brekotkina
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Thought Process ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
Reliable Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship

The article discusses the main aspects of the paradigm of scientific thinking, which was created by Rene Descartes in the middle of the 17th century. The author focuses on the problem of metaphysical validity of the human mind, as well as the subject-object relations in the epistemological ideas of the French thinker. These questions are explored through the consideration of the “I”-God-nature triad, which is central to Descartes' philosophical concept. The idea of a created mind was for the philosopher the fundamental basis for obtaining reliable knowledge about the world and discoveries in the scientific field. Descartes defined the mind as an instrument of knowledge and paid great attention to the problem of controlling one's own thinking using the method he invented. The thought process becomes an object of observation and reflection on the part of the “I”. The article examines the relationship between freedom and necessity in Cartesian philosophy. One of the most important tasks set by Descartes is to free thinking from prejudice and build a new philosophy. The basic principle of the Cartesian philosophical system was total doubt. The act of doubt reveals the ability of thinking to manifest freedom. Free will is considered by Descartes as one of the registers of human thinking, through which the control of the thought process is carried out.

scholarly journals A Biosemiotic Modeling of the Body-“Self” Synechism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Asuncion L. Magsino
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Semiotic System ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Body Self ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship

As a counterargument to the Cartesian split that has impacted both speculative and practical fields of knowledge and culture, we propose Peirce’s doctrine of synechism to show the continuity in the semiotic activity that moves from the body as an Interpretant to the emergence of another Interpretant called the “self.” Biosemiotics, a nascent field of interdisciplinary research that tackles inquiries about signs, communication, and information involving living organisms is used as the framework in the discussion. The main question of whether a non-material “self” can emerge from a material body is tackled in many stages. First, the biosemiotic continuum is established in the natural biological processes that takes place in the body. These processes can be taken as an autonomous semiotic system generating the “language” of the body or the Primary Modeling System (PMS). Second, synechism is also observed in the relationship between the mind and the body and this is evident in any physician’s clinical practice. The patient creates a Secondary Modeling System (SMS) of how she perceives what the body communicates to her regarding its state or condition. Finally, the question about whether the emergence of “self” is synechistic as well is tackled. There is one organ from which emerges an Interpretant that is capable of generating a dialog between a Subject, that is the “self,” with its Object, and that is the brain. It is the primordial seat of specifically human activities like thought and language. The recent theory on quantum consciousness supports the doctrine synechism between the body as Interpretant to the “self” as Interpretant. This synechism is crucial for the creation of Secondary Models of “reality” that will, in turn, determine the creation of Tertiary Models more familiarly called culture.

Empires within and without: the conquest of the self and the Florentine avant-garde

Modern Italy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Bertrand Marilier
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Psychological Understanding ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Intellectual Formation ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Intense Debate

This article examines the relationship of the young Giovanni Papini to the notion of imperialism. The period of Papini's intellectual formation was a time of intense debate among the Italian intelligentsia concerning imperialism and its relationship to nation and culture. He joined the conversation with a distinctive interpretation of the idea, one that could at once make him heir apparent to the tradition of Umbertian nationalism, while also rejecting the positivist slant of his forebears. William James's porous conception of the subject and Papini's sense of his own fragmented subjectivity provided the ground for a psychological understanding of imperialism: one that relied on knowledge and appreciation, which translated into literature at the individual level, and into culture at that of the nation. Ultimately, however, disappointments abroad, the demands of nationalist politics, and Papini's own avant-garde posture, led him to abandon his intellectual empire in favour of a more concrete one.

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