Philosophie als performative Lebensform – als textuelle Praxis und mehr als textuelle Praxis

2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Shusterman
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Art Of Living ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Task ◽  
Linguistic Means

AbstractAlthough typically identified with discursive practices of writing and oral dialog that have long dominated its practice, philosophy has also asserted itself as something other and more than words; it claimed to be an entire way of life, an art of living dedicated to the pursuit of wisdom (as the word “philosophia” implies). After showing how discursive and non-discursive dimensions of ancient philosophy were designed to complement each other, this paper explains the reasons why even the basic philosophical task of self-knowledge requires discursive communicative tools. It then explores to what extent and in what ways philosophy can be practiced through non-linguistic means, by considering both Western and Asian sources.

Barthes and the Lessons of Ancient Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 137-153
Author(s):  
Lucy O’Meara
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Art Of Living ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
Pierre Hadot ◽  
Moral Perfectionism

Roland Barthes was a classicist by training; his work frequently alludes to the classical literary canon and the ancient art of rhetoric. This chapter argues that ancient Greco-Roman philosophy permits insights into Barthes’s very late work, particularly when we understand ancient philosophy not as an academic discipline, but as a mode of thought which prioritises an art of living. This chapter will focus on Barthes’s posthumously published Collège de France lecture notes (1977–80) and on other posthumous diary material, arguing that this work can be seen as part of a tradition of thought which has its roots in the ethics and care of the self proposed by ancient Greco-Roman philosophical thought. The chapter uses the work of the historian of ancient philosophy, Pierre Hadot, to set Barthes’s teaching in dialogue with Stoic and Epicurean thought, and subsequently refers to Stanley Cavell’s work on ‘moral perfectionism’ to demonstrate how Barthes’s final lecture courses, and the associated Vita Nova project, can be seen as efforts by Barthes to transform his ‘intelligibility’. Barthes’s late moral perfectionism, and the individualism of his teaching, corresponds to the ancient philosophical ethical imperative to think one’s way of life differently and thereby to transform one’s self.

Self-Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agent ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Synoptic View

In a tradition inspired by the Delphic injunction to ‘know thyself’, ancient philosophical works contain a variety of treatments of self-knowledge—of knowing the content of certain kinds of one’s own thought, or knowing one’s own status as a knower or moral agent. This book draws together contributions from an international collection of scholars working in ancient philosophy, and explores self-knowledge in ancient thought in Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic thinkers, and Plotinus, noting continuities and discontinuities with its contemporary counterpart. The nature and structure of ancient self-knowledge is investigated in different thinkers—whether it is higher-order or a kind of self-presence, consists in a synoptic view or is diachronic, is arrived at directly via self-perception or some other kind of grasp, or mediated by dialogue or friendship with others. So too the book enquires into the relation of self-knowledge to virtue or tranquillity, either as a condition on attaining that state, or a result of the agent’s development, resulting from a process of effortful reflection.

Drafted into a Foreign War?

Rhizomata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-217
Author(s):  
Matthew Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
Analytic Tradition ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rational Inquiry

Abstract This paper examines the central criticisms that come, broadly, from the modern, ‘analytic’ tradition, of Pierre Hadot’s idea of ancient philosophy as a way of life.: Firstly, ancient philosophy just did not or could not have involved anything like the ‘spiritual practices’ or ‘technologies of the self’, aiming at curing subjects’ unnecessary desires or bettering their lives, contra Hadot and Foucault et al. Secondly, any such metaphilosophical account of putative ‘philosophy’ must unacceptably downplay the role of ‘serious philosophical reasoning’ or ‘rigorous argument’ in philosophy. Thirdly, claims that ancient philosophy aimed at securing wisdom by a variety of means including but not restricted to rational inquiry are accordingly false also as historical claims about the ancient philosophers. Fourthly, to the extent that we must (despite (3)) admit that some ancient thinkers did engage in or recommend extra-cognitive forms of transformative practice, these thinkers were not true or ‘mainline’ philosophers. I contend that the historical claims (3) and (4) are highly contestable, risking erroneously projecting a later modern conception of philosophy back onto the past. Of the theoretical or metaphilosophical claims (1) and (2), I argue that the second claim, as framed here, points to real, hard questions that surround the conception(s) of philosophy as a way of life.

Nietzsche und die Philosophie der Lebenskunst

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 442-457
Author(s):  
Johannes Heinrich
Keyword(s):  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Art Of Living ◽  
Close Proximity

Abstract Nietzsche and the philosophy of the art of living. The books under review trace the network of relationships between Nietzsche and the ancient philosophy of the art of living. Further, Nietzsche’s idea of the art and style of living is placed in the context of existentialism and, above all, in close proximity to the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. It becomes clear that Nietzsche’s concept of the art of living cannot be reduced to the philosophical and historical context of classical concepts of self-care; rather, Nietzsche’s views have to be situated in the context of modern and current philosophical theories. In addition, questions such as the alleged naturalism in Nietzsche’s work, as well as the possible continuity between his early and late writings, are strongly related to the analysis of a Nietzschean art of living.

scholarly journals Contestation of Discourse on Alcoholism among Native Americans in Joy Harjo’s The Reckoning (2002)

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Shofi Mahmudah Budi Utami
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Joy Harjo ◽  
Discourse Production ◽  
The Subject ◽  
American Society

This study aims at revealing how the discursive practices and the discourse on alcoholism in the Native Americans is produced and contested in a short story entitled The Reckoning by Joy Harjo. The problem in this study is approached by Foucauldian concept of discourse production procedure. The method applied here is the Foucauldian discourse analysis by examining the problem through the process of formation including external and internal exclusion. Central to the analysis is that alcoholism is produced as taboo through the mother character which limits the general understanding about alcoholism; hence this discourse is possible to produce by the subject whose credentials can validate the truth. This discourse is also affirmed by the contextual prohibition which authoritatively can state the truth about alcoholism. This is further contested in the current society of how being an alcoholic would be considered as a non-native American way of life. The result indicates that alcoholism among Native American society becomes the discourse within which constraints produce considerable barriers to expose or address to this topic

From Sufism to Universal Vision: Murat Yagan and the Teaching of Kebzeh

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-92
Author(s):  
Chen Bram ◽  
Meir Hatina
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The West ◽  
Art Of Living ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Caucasus Mountains ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
First Time

This article examines aspects of cultural exchange between the Middle East and the West in which Sufism, Christianity, the traditions of the Circassians and New Age concepts played a central role. It focuses on the teaching of Murat Yagan, of Abkhaz-Circassian origin who grew up in Turkey and immigrated to Canada in the 1960s, where he developed his philosophy, Ahmsta Kebzeh (“the knowledge of the art of living”). The Kebzeh way of life emphasizes modesty, mutual responsibility and compassion. Yagan linked these values to the ancient ethos of the Caucasus Mountains which he sought to revive as the basis of a universal vision. The nature of Kebzeh was influenced by the cosmopolitan environment in which Yagan was educated in Turkey; by his enrollment with Sufi circles in North America; and by the multicultural Canadian atmosphere. These diverse influences enabled him to devise an ecumenical model of dialogue between cultures. The article provides a first-time survey and analysis of Kebzeh ideological and communal features. It sheds new light on the role of ethnicity and cultural heritage in immigrant societies in the context of the evolution of spirituality in Canada, a relatively unexplored milieu in comparison to the United States and Europe.

scholarly journals Más allá de los cuerpos dóciles. El teatro de Eve Ensler como proyecto ‘boaliano’

2012 ◽  
pp. 131-161
Author(s):  
Marta Fernández Morales
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
Theatre Of The Oppressed ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Vagina Monologues ◽  
And Control ◽  
Eve Ensler

In an interview that was published in 2001, U.S-born playwright Eve Ensler stated that her mission as an author and performer was to raise the consciousness of her audience about atrocity and injustice. Most of her plays, including the well-known and often staged The Vagina Monologues (1998), are devoted to the denunciation of atrocity and injustice as they are inscribed on the female body. In Ensler’s production, women and girls are placed at the narrative and dramaturgical centre, and their bodies become the source of anger and rage, but also of self-knowledge, rebellion, pleasure, and sisterhood. Within a potentially Boalian framework which intends to transform the audience, encouraging it to assume the role of an agent, Ensler articulates proposals that give voice to the female body as sexed cultural matter, in the line of The Good Body (2001), Fur Is Back (2007), and I Am an Emotional Creature (2010). My objective here will be to try and prove that Ensler’s theatrical praxis has a place within Augusto Boal’s (1931- 2009) universe of the Theatre of the Oppressed, and that her work is also developed around the aim of overcoming the Foucaultian concept of a ‘docile body’, urging girls and women to empower themselves precisely from a locus that the dominant culture has tried to objectify and control through its discursive practices: their body.

scholarly journals LINGUISTIC MEANS OF IRONY REALIZATION IN ETHNIC STEREOTYPES ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION (A CASE STUDY OF „LES CARNETS DU MAJOR THOMPSON“ BY PIERRE DANINOS)

2020 ◽  
pp. 53-59
Author(s):  
Malvina MARINASHVILI
Keyword(s):  
French Literature ◽  
National Character ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Ethnic Stereotypes ◽  
The One ◽  
Rhetorical Questions ◽  
National Stereotypes ◽  
Linguistic Means

The study of ethnic stereotypes from the linguistic standpoint involves their investigation on the basis of language material including their depiction in fictional texts. Of special interest is comic, in particular, ironic representation of national typical character features, one of the most striking examples in French literature is the novel „Les carnets du major Thompson“ („The Notebooks of Major Thompson“) by Pierre Daninos. The dominant comic means of the novel is humorous irony. This paper focuses on an analysis of linguistic peculiarities used by P. Daninos to create the effect of irony when describing the French and British stereotypes. Depicting national character peculiarities, the way of life, behaviour, habits and customs of the French in comparison with the British, Pierre Daninos uses a variety of lexico-semantic means (antonyms, evaluative adjectives, anglicisms), lexical and syntactic stylistic devices (metaphor, comparison, antiphrasis, hyperbole, oxymoron, chiasm, rhetorical questions, parenthetical constructions). Along with the special structure of narrative instances, integration of „character’s irony” and „author’s irony“, these linguistic means create an effect of irony in separate fragments and ironic tonality of the whole text. On the one hand, significant differences between the stereotypical features of two ethnoses are the source of irony of the novel, and on the other hand, it is the contradiction of the French national character himself. Irony is based mainly on exaggeration and opposition. The general comic tonality of the novel forms the effect of targeting irony not only on stereotypical images of French and British peoples, but also national stereotypes as such.

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