scholarly journals Elucidating Forms of Life. The Evolution of a Philosophical Tool

2015 ◽  
pp. 155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Boncompagni
Keyword(s):  
General Attitude ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Expression Form

Although the expression “form of life” and its plural “forms of life” occur only five times in Philosophical Investigations, and generally few times in his works, it is commonly agreed that this is one of the most relevant issues in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Starting from the analysis of the contexts in which Wittgenstein makes use of this concept, the paper focuses on the different interpretations that have been given in secondary literature, and proposes a classification based on two axes of debate: the monistic versus pluralistic interpretation, and the empirical versus transcendental interpretation. After placing some well-known readings in the resulting scheme, an attempt will be made to offer an evolutionary reading of Wittgenstein’s own ideas about forms of life. It will be argued that the empirical and plural view that seems characteristic of his writings in the Thirties, slowly appears to turn towards a monistic view, sometimes with transcendental tones, although within a pragmatic perspective. This turn remains nevertheless rooted in Wittgenstein’s general attitude towards philosophy intended as a conceptual inquiry with clarifying and therapeutic aims.

scholarly journals Forms of Life

2015 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Transformation Rules ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Varied History

The phrase ‘Lebensform’ (form of life) had a long and varied history prior to Wittgenstein’s use of it on a mere three occasions in the Philosophical Investigations. It is not a pivotal concept in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. But it is a minor signpost of a major reorientation of philosophy, philosophy of language and logic, and philosophy of mathematics that Wittgenstein instigated. For Wittgenstein sought to replace the conception of a language as a meaning calculus (Frege, Russell, the Tractatus) by an anthropological or ethnological conception. A language is not a class of sentences that can be formed from a set of axioms (definitions), formation and transformation rules and the meanings of which is given by their truth-conditions, but an open-ended series of interlocking language-games constituting a form of life or way of living (a culture). Wittgenstein’s uses of ‘Lebensform’ and its cognates, both in the Investigations and in his Nachlass are severally analysed, and various exegetical misinterpretations are clarified.

scholarly journals Playing ethics and teaching morality: how wittgenstein could help us to apply games to the moral living

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Janyne Sattler
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Moral Language ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Moral Engagement

ABSTRACT: In Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations the notion of a 'language game' gives human communication a regained flexibility. Contrary to the Tractatus, the ethical domain now composes one language game among others, being expressed in various types of sentences such as moral judgments, imperatives and praises, and being shared in activity by a human form of life. The aim of this paper is to show that the same moves that allow for a moral language game are the ones allowing for learning and teaching about the moral living, where persuasion takes the place of argument by means of a plural appeal. For this purpose, literature would seem to be one of the best tools at our disposal. As a way of exemplifying our moral engagement to literature I proceed at last to a brief analysis of Tolstoy's Father Sergius, to show how playing this game would help us accomplish this pedagogical enterprise.

Movement in Repose

Qui Parle ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-49
Author(s):  
Aaron Frederick Eldridge
Keyword(s):  
Modern Concept ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Crucial Question ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Philosophical Ethic ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract How does tradition, a transmission of body and language, disclose a form of life? This article takes as its point of departure Talal Asad’s methodological pivot away from the modern concept of “belief” to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of “form of life.” It elaborates the philosophical and anthropological implications of a rigorous notion of form of life through Asad’s concept of tradition and Martin Heidegger’s rereading of Aristotle’s physis. Interrupting this theoretical argument, a scene from the author’s ethnographic fieldwork with Orthodox Christian ascetics in Lebanon exemplifies the challenge (and insistence) of form of life. The article then turns to consider a powerful reading of form of life grounded in Baruch Spinoza’s theory of emanation and vitalist univocity. While echoing the concerns of this article, Spinoza’s philosophical ethic defers the central question posed by “form of life” by making the latter a world-producing apparatus. That approach to form of life foregrounds the possibility of being other than what one is, rather than the crucial question of “still experience” and its dynamic repose. The article concludes by reading this still experience alongside C. Nadia Seremetakis’s work in Greece, which details the work of stillness and memory, the deathly pain of history, as sites where the cultivation of noncontemporaneous forms of life are brought into relief.

Demos distracted

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-162
Author(s):  
Sergei Prozorov
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Being And Time ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Human Condition

In Chapter 5 Prozorov argues that the ontological contingency that defines democracy is accessible in our lived experience in states of distraction, characterized by the alternation between captivation and boredom. This alternation makes it possible for us to dwell within plural forms of life in a non-definitive manner, retaining our potentiality for being otherwise. He develops this argument by critically re-engaging with Heidegger’s discussion of curiosity and distraction in Being and Time. Prozorov argues that democracy is existentially experienced in the potentiality for perpetual alternation between captivation and boredom in whatever form of life we dwell in, which constitutes our lives as freeform, always manifesting the possibility of being otherwise than they are. In this manner he grounds the possibility of democratic biopolitics in the aspect of the human condition familiar and available to all, thus demonstrating its realizability.

Swansong biospheres: refuges for life and novel microbial biospheres on terrestrial planets near the end of their habitable lifetimes

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack T. O'Malley-James ◽  
Jane S. Greaves ◽  
John A. Raven ◽  
Charles S. Cockell
Keyword(s):  
Climate Model ◽  
Cold Trap ◽  
Sequence Evolution ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Earth Like Planets ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
End Stage ◽  
Micro Organisms ◽  
Host Stars

AbstractThe future biosphere on Earth (as with its past) will be made up predominantly of unicellular micro-organisms. Unicellular life was probably present for at least 2.5 Gyr before multicellular life appeared and will likely be the only form of life capable of surviving on the planet in the far future, when the ageing Sun causes environmental conditions to become more hostile to more complex forms of life. Therefore, it is statistically more likely that habitable Earth-like exoplanets we discover will be at a stage in their habitable lifetime more conducive to supporting unicellular, rather than multicellular life. The end stage of habitability on Earth is the focus of this work. A simple, latitude-based climate model incorporating eccentricity and obliquity variations is used as a guide to the temperature evolution of the Earth over the next 3 Gyr. This allows inferences to be made about potential refuges for life, particularly in mountains and cold-trap (ice) caves and what forms of life could live in these environments. Results suggest that in high latitude regions, unicellular life could persist for up to 2.8 Gyr from present. This begins to answer the question of how the habitability of Earth will evolve at local scales alongside the Sun's main sequence evolution and, by extension, how the habitability of Earth-like planets would evolve over time with their own host stars.

scholarly journals As Investigações Filosóficas Enquanto “Álbum” Cultural

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (39) ◽  
pp. 115-130
Author(s):  
Ana Falcato ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Arbitrary Group ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Forms Of Life

As it is well known, the Philosophical Investigations are formally structured as a set of paragraphs numerically sequenced (Part I), and a more arbitrary group of thematic remarks (Part II). In the Prologue and in a justifying way of putting it, Wittgenstein States that: «Thus this book is really only an Album». Taking it as an exhibition of a series of sketches, we can read (or see) the book as a collection of «pictures of thought». However, as I will argue, in a wider understanding of the Philosophical Investigations, the idea of an album has deeper implications than the methodological ones. With a somewhat spenglerian inspiration, the book follows a sort of cultural-transcendental perspective in accordance to the organic model of a philosophical approach to forms of life which have a primary linguistic configuration.

scholarly journals Beat. Augustine as an Exegete in «The Interpretation on the Gospel of John». Some Observations

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-218
Author(s):  
Павел Кириллович Доброцветов
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of John ◽  
Gospel Of Matthew ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
General Attitude ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Symbolic Approach ◽  
Large Work

В статье представлен краткий вводный обзор до сих пор не изданного на русском языке крупного труда блж. Августина Гиппонского «Толкование на Евангелие от Иоанна» («In Ioannis Euangelium Tractatus CXXIV»), обстоятельств его написания и отражения в нём личности Августина как экзегета и проповедника. Автор напоминает читателю известное различие между так называемыми синоптическими Евангелиями и Евангелием от Иоанна и указывает на численное превосходство древнецерковных толкований на Евангелие от Матфея по сравнению с таковыми на Евангелие от Иоанна, а также, вероятно, первый образец толкования данного Евангелия в латинской традиции. Специфика Августиновского толкования на Евангелие от Иоанна определяется тем, что это скорее не научно-экзегетический трактат в собственном смысле слова, но собрание проповедейдля широкой, хотя и взыскательной аудитории. По мнению ряда зарубежных исследователей, «Толкование на Евангелие от Иоанна» было написано и произнесено в 406-418 гг.в Гиппонский епископский период жизни и деятельности Августина. Статья затрагиваетобщее отношение Августина к Священному Писанию и его в определённой степени вариативный символический подход к библейской экзегезе. Статья основывается на изучении текста блж. Августина и сопутствующей вторичной литературы по теме. The report provides a brief introductory overview of St. Augustine's of Hippo large work «The Interpretation on the Gospel of John» (In Ioannis Euangelium Tractatus CXXIV ) which has not been published in Russian, the circumstances of its writing and reflection the personality of Augustine as an exegete and preacher in it. The author reminds the reader of the well-known difference between the so-called synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John and points to the numerical superiority of the Old Church interpretations on the Gospel of Matthew compared to those on the Gospel of John, and also probably the first example of the interpretation on this Gospel in the Latin tradition. The specificity of Augustine's interpretation on John is determined by the fact that it is rather not a scientific-exegetical treatise proper, but a collection of sermons for a wide, though demanding audience. According to a number of foreign researchers the «The Interpretation on the Gospel of John» was written and pronounced in 406-418 in the Hippo episcopal period of Augustine's life and work. The report touches upon Augustine's general attitude to Holy Scripture and his variable symbolic approach to biblical exegesis in some ways. The article is based on the study of the text of the St. Augustine and related secondary literature on the subject.

scholarly journals Exploring Forms of Life in Player Development Pathways: The Case of British Rugby League

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martyn Rothwell ◽  
Joseph Stone ◽  
Keith Davids
Keyword(s):  
Football Player ◽  
Rugby League ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Development Research ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Rugby League Player

Social, cultural, and historical constraints can influence attitudes towards learning, developing, and performing in sport. A recent conceptualization of these environmental constraints in athlete development pathways is a form of life, which describes the values, beliefs, traditions, customs, and behaviors that contribute to an athlete’s development. Although a form of life can have a powerful influence on athlete development, research exploring this relationship is limited. In this article we explore the form of life in British rugby league football player development contexts to clarify how social, cultural, and historical constraints influence the development of rugby league players in the United Kingdom. Twenty-four coaches were interviewed through individual semi-structured interviews to collect the data. Findings show how forms of life in rugby league player development pathways are established and maintained by the complex interactions between the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem that shape and guide the development of players. We recommend that player development pathways in sport underpin practice with a theoretical framework of the learning process to protect athletes from social, cultural, and historical constraints that are not conducive to their development.

scholarly journals Wittgenstein on ethics: Working through Lebensformen

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet Floyd
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Significant Step

In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein conveyed the idea that ethics cannot be located in an object or self-standing subject matter of propositional discourse, true or false. At the same time, he took his work to have an eminently ethical purpose, and his attitude was not that of the emotivist. The trajectory of this conception of the normativity of philosophy as it developed in his subsequent thought is traced. It is explained that and how the notion of a ‘form of life’ ( Lebensform) emerged only in his later thought, in 1937, earmarking a significant step forward in his philosophical method. We argue that the concept of Lebensform represents a way of domesticating logic itself, the very idea of a claim or reason, supplementing the idea of a ‘language game’, which it deepens. Lebensform is contrasted with the phenomenologists’ Lebenswelt through a reading of the notions of ‘I’, ‘world’ and ‘self’ as they were treated in the Tractatus, The Blue and Brown Books and Philosophical Investigations. Finally, the notion of Lebensform is shown to have replaced the notion of culture ( Kultur) in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein’s spring 1937 ‘domestication’ of the nature of logic is shown to have been fully consonant with the idea that he was influenced by his reading Alan Turing’s 1936/1937 paper, ‘On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem’.

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