scholarly journals Stylizations of Being: Attention as an Existential Hub in Heidegger and Christian Mysticism

Open Theology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-220
Author(s):  
Bernardo Manzoni Palmeirim
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Karl Rahner ◽  
Existential Phenomenology ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Christian Mysticism ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Philosophical Framework

AbstractThe assimilation of phenomenology by theology (namely of Heidegger by Karl Rahner) exemplifies how a pre-existing philosophical framework can be imported into a theological system by being suffused with belief. Although one would imagine that the incommensurability between philosophy and religion would thus be overcome, the two disciplines risk to remain, given the sequels of the ‘French debate’, worlds apart, separated by a leap of faith. In this paper I attempt to uncover what grammatical similitudes afforded Rahner formal transference in the first place. Uncovering analogous uses of contemplative attention, namely between Heidegger and Simone Weil, I hope to demonstrate the filial relationship between existential phenomenology and Christian mysticism. I propose that attention is a key factor in both systems of thought. Furthermore, I propose that: 1) attention, the existential hub between subject and phenomena, provides a base for investigating methodologies, as opposed to causal relations, in philosophy and religion; 2) that the two attentional disciplines of meditation and contemplation, spiritual practices designed to shape the self, also constitute styles of thinking; and 3) the ‘turn’ in the later Heidegger’s philosophy is a strategic point to inquire into this confluence of styles of thinking, evincing the constantly dynamic and intrinsically tight relation between philosophy and theology.

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.

scholarly journals The enchantment of archaeological sites and the quest for personal transformation

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. e021012
Author(s):  
Yael Dansac
Keyword(s):  
Personal Transformation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Archaeological Sites

Ethnographical studies increasingly testify the conversion of archaeological sites into places used for a myriad of spiritual purposes associated to the culture of personal transformation. Analyzing data gathered at contemporary spiritual practices held in Carnac, a megalithic site located in northwest France, this article argues that the resignification of ancient places as ‘sacred’ and ‘energetic’ is a strategy to develop and enact inner search and work on the self. Collected data provides understanding on the actor’s conceptualizations and uses given to this place, while also suggesting further inquiries to assess the relations between spirituality, personal transformation and the enchantment of archaeological sites.

Self-Knowledge in Personality Disorder: Self-Referentiality as a Stepping Stone for Psychotherapeutic Understanding

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Strijbos ◽  
Gerrit Glas
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
The Self ◽  
Stepping Stone ◽  
The World ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
Self Knowledge

This article provides a philosophical framework to help unpack varieties of self-knowledge in clinical practice. We start from a hermeneutical conception of “the self,” according to which the self is not interpreted as some fixed entity, but as embedded in and emerging from our relating to and interacting with our own conditions and activities, others, and the world. The notion of “self-referentiality” is introduced to further unpack how this self-relational activity can become manifest in one's emotions, speech acts, gestures, and actions. Self-referentiality exemplifies what emotions themselves implicitly signify about the person having them. In the remainder of the article, we distinguish among three different ways in which the self-relational activity can become manifest in therapy. Our model is intended to facilitate therapists’ understanding of their patients’ self-relational activity in therapy, when jointly attending to the self-referential meaning of what their patients feel, say, and do.

Namaste All Day

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-100
Author(s):  
Andrea R. Jain
Keyword(s):  
Self Care ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Self Actualization

This chapter focuses on the appropriating and commodifying practices of spirituality industries and asks how corporations, entrepreneurs, and consumers relate spiritual practices to ethical values through marketing and consumer activities. The author analyzes popular spiritual discourses, demonstrating how the powerful and subversive expressions appliqued across yogaware and the industry’s “do good” discourses are tied to a commitment to particular “yogic” or “spiritual” values. Yet, for all of the self-actualization it offers through PEACE LOVE YOGA the industry also plays a capitalist game that thrives on nostalgia about lost cultural norms, as well as neoliberal narratives about the capitalist market, self-care, and personal improvement.

THE VALUE OF DISPOSSESSION: RETHINKING DISCOURSES OF SELFHOOD IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHARLY J. COLEMAN
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The Self ◽  
General Will ◽  
Christian Mysticism ◽  
Saint Martin ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
The French Revolution

In Enlightenment-era France, theologians, philosophers, and politicians contested the nature and prerogatives of human personhood with particular vehemence. Yet historians have tended to reduce these struggles to a narrative of ascendant individualism. This essay seeks to recover non-individualist formulations of the self in eighteenth-century France, and, in doing so, to offer a more nuanced account of subjectivity during the period. Out of debates over Christian mysticism, radical philosophy, and republican politics emerged two distinct and conflicting modes of formulating the self 's relationship to its ideas and actions. On one side, mainstream philosophes joined Descartes, Locke, and orthodox Catholic theologians in elaborating the individual's capacity to accumulate existential goods in terms of a discourse of self-ownership. Opposition to this view, in contrast, challenged such claims by employing a discourse of dispossession, which stressed the human person's resignation to, and ultimate identification with, a totalizing force outside the self. The essay traces a specific genealogy of this discourse in the writings of Fénelon, Rousseau, and the Illuminist theologian Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, in the context of intellectual polemics ranging from the role of self-love in Christian devotion to the virtues of self-sacrifice in a republican polity. If the Fénelonian doctrine of spiritual abandon called on believers to surrender their particular desires in the love of God, Rousseau likewise demanded that citizens place their property and their persons under the direction of the general will. Saint-Martin, for his part, applied Rousseau's politics of alienation to his vision of a theocratic republic in the wake of the French Revolution, thereby posing the mystic ideal of dispossession as a means of transforming the self and its world along communal, rather than individualist, lines.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Justice of God with Asian Sensibilities

2019 ◽  
pp. 181-198
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
The Self ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
Asian Context ◽  
Biblical Justice

This article proposes the need to rethink the concepts of justice with Asian sensibilities. For centuries the idea of justice has been read and interpreted along and within the classical Greek philosophical framework. In some ways, this Greek categorial framework is also seen in the concepts of biblical justice. However, in an Asian context, the character justice and its application need to be explored in the light of restoring harmony, with the self, other, cosmos and God, which is integral in many of the Asian spiritualities. In modern times, the theories of John Rawls and Robert Nozick are much quoted in studies regarding justice. However, Asian sensibilities call for a deeper exploration of justice for the purpose of harmony and that is the intent of this article.

scholarly journals The Self-Fulfilling Discriminations and Mismatches for Old Workers and Poor Workers

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Weiguang Liu
Keyword(s):  
East Asian ◽  
The Self ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Skilled Worker ◽  
Social Bias ◽  
Asymmetry Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Working Performance

There exists very general discriminations and mismatches for the old workers and poor workers. This paper built a model to explain the reason of that phenomenon based on asymmetry information. A skilled worker may be mismatched with unimportant jobs because of the social bias towards old workers and poor workers, in that situation, the expense workers spend to become skilled will not be covered, which will be a big disincentive for workers to be skilled. The disincentive will lead to less skilled workers, so the working performance of certain kinds of workers in the whole society will be worse, which will confirm the discrimination. In that process, the expense to be skilled is a key factor. And we also try to use that model to explain some phenomena, such as East Asian miracle and class solidification.

The effect of brand authenticity on consumer–brand relationships

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyunjoo Oh ◽  
Paulo Henrique Muller Prado ◽  
Jose Carlos Korelo ◽  
Francielle Frizzo
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Intentions ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Brand Authenticity ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose This paper aims to explore the impact of brand authenticity on forming self-reinforcing assets (enticing-the-self, enriching-the-self and enabling-the-self), which subsequently influence the brand-self connectedness and consumers’ behavioral intentions. Design/methodology/approach The authors surveyed 347 consumers in the USA and Brazil and used structural equation modeling to test the relationship among brand authenticity, self-reinforcing assets, brand-self connectedness and behavioral intentions. Findings Brand authenticity was found to influence the self-reinforcing assets. In turn, the self-reinforcing assets promoted closeness toward the brand, thereby increasing the behavioral intentions of consumers to buy a product, visit a store/website in the future and recommend the brand to other people. Practical implications Marketing practitioners can use these results to promote better brand positioning by considering brand authenticity as a key factor in how consumers cognitively assess brands. Originality/value This paper shows that brand authenticity is a key antecedent of consumer–brand self-reinforcing assets.

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