scholarly journals POETICS OF THE TITLE OF JOHN BANVILLE’S NOVEL “THE NEWTON LETTER”

Author(s):  
Vladislav P. Gorodetskiy

The article examines the poetics of the title of John Banville’s novella “The NewtonLetter” (1982). There is a fundamental difference between this text and other novels included in the “scientific trilogy” of the writer, dedicated to the great geniuses of science: elements of a selfreflexive narrative, an introduction of an unreliable narrator-biographer, a departure from the main plot of the biography of the scientist). “The Newton Letter” appears as a postmodernist embodiment of epistemological and ontological doubt, a detailed self-reflection about the crisis of narration and nomination. The very act of writing a letter in its personal dimension emphasizes Banville’s recognition of the incomprehensible complexity of the orders of the universe, the chaotic mundane experience, the strangeness of human relations, and the impenetrability of the consciousness of the Other, as opposed to well-reasoned scientific report. The figures associated with the plot of the creative crisis are the narratorBanville; the narrator-Newton; Newton-Chandos; at different textual levels they all are expressing a deep language skepticism in the form of a letter.

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-157
Author(s):  
Dmitry Biryukov

AbstractThis article is a study of Pavel Florensky's philosophy of symbol in the context of his discovery of Palamism in the 1910s, when Florensky started to speak of symbol using Palamite language. It proposes a fundamental difference between Florensky's and Palamas’ teachings on symbol: Palamas views a natural symbol as the energy of an essence, while for Florensky symbol is the essence itself, the energy of which synergises with the energies of other essence. In this context the prehistory of the concept of synergy in Florensky is studied, leading to the identification of a further difference in the ontologies of Florensky and Palamas: while Florensky's ‘essence-energy’ has the property of necessary correlation with the ‘other’, following the tendencies of the philosophy of that epoch, in Palamas ‘energy’ does not presuppose any necessary correlation with the ‘other’. The author connects this difference in ontologies between the two thinkers with their respective teachings on symbol.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 188-189
Author(s):  
Daniela Hiromi Okido ◽  
Cristina Furlanetto ◽  
Marina Trevisan ◽  
Mônica Tergolina

AbstractGalaxy groups offer an important perspective on how the large-scale structure of the Universe has formed and evolved, being great laboratories to study the impact of the environment on the evolution of galaxies. We aim to investigate the properties of a galaxy group that is gravitationally lensing HELMS18, a submillimeter galaxy at z = 2.39. We obtained multi-object spectroscopy data using Gemini-GMOS to investigate the stellar kinematics of the central galaxies, determine its members and obtain the mass, radius and the numerical density profile of this group. Our final goal is to build a complete description of this galaxy group. In this work we present an analysis of its two central galaxies: one is an active galaxy with z = 0.59852 ± 0.00007, while the other is a passive galaxy with z = 0.6027 ± 0.0002. Furthermore, the difference between the redshifts obtained using emission and absorption lines indicates an outflow of gas with velocity v = 278.0 ± 34.3 km/s relative to the galaxy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (27) ◽  
pp. 1450155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Goran S. Djordjevic ◽  
Ljubisa Nesic ◽  
Darko Radovancevic

The significant matter for the construction of the so-called no-boundary proposal is the assumption of signature transition, which has been a way to deal with the problem of initial conditions of the universe. On the other hand, results of Loop Quantum Gravity indicate that the signature change is related to the discrete nature of space at the Planck scale. Motivated by possibility of non-Archimedean and/or noncommutative structure of space–time at the Planck scale, in this work we consider the classical, p-adic and (spatial) noncommutative form of a cosmological model with Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) metric coupled with a self-interacting scalar field.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (H15) ◽  
pp. 304-304
Author(s):  
J. C. Berengut ◽  
V. A. Dzuba ◽  
V. V. Flambaum ◽  
J. A. King ◽  
M. G. Kozlov ◽  
...  

Current theories that seek to unify gravity with the other fundamental interactions suggest that spatial and temporal variation of fundamental constants is a possibility, or even a necessity, in an expanding Universe. Several studies have tried to probe the values of constants at earlier stages in the evolution of the Universe, using tools such as big-bang nucleosynthesis, the Oklo natural nuclear reactor, quasar absorption spectra, and atomic clocks (see, e.g. Flambaum & Berengut (2009)).


Author(s):  
Jennifer Gurley

AbstractAgainst anti-realist readings of the Emersonian self, perhaps most influentially Cavell’s reading, this essay argues that Emerson is a devotional writer. Emerson’s notion of subjectivity is based in two complementary modes of action - one receptive and the other expressive - as one works to “align” oneself with the larger forces that constitute and order the universe. How the world is and how we humans make our way through it are not the same and must not be confused. Such confusion is the decisive mistake the anti-realist critic of Emerson makes. The Emersonian subject must experience the laws of reality directly, on one’s own, rather than “secondhand.” Emerson is a dramatist telling the story of how we come to ideas and learn to judge and to act: of how, that is, we come to have experience. Emerson seeks an unshifting ground through a moment of receptivity and a moment of activity. That he often rarely achieves insight does not make him an anti-realist. This essay demonstrates how, by showing - albeit briefly - that Emersonian experience is fundamentally religious: a work of devotion rather than aversion.


Author(s):  
João Carvalho ◽  

This paper presents two different, although related, approaches to the problem of the experience of the other person: E. Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and E. Levinas’ ethics. I begin by (1) addressing the transcendental significance of the experience of intersubjectivity in the broader context of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. I then turn to (2) Husserl’s solution to the paradox of constituting the alter ego, identifying and elucidating the key‑concepts of his inquiry. I hold that throughout his analysis there is a dominant underlying meaning in which the alterity of the other person is progressively suppressed and, ultimately, elided. Finally, I discuss (3) the consequences of Husserl’s analysis of the other in light of Levinas’ ethics. I hold that Husserl’s claim that there is a fundamental difference between the experience of myself and my analogical experience of the other is the basis upon which Levinas’ develops a new concept of experience, not as perception but as encounter. Upon close reading, I claim that Levinas’ revision of the topic of alterity is, ultimately, a consequence of Husserl’s transcendental analysis of intersubjectivity.


Semiotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Winfried Nöth

Abstract The paper argues that contemporary consciousness studies can profit from Charles S. Peirce’s philosophy of consciousness. It confronts mainstream tendencies in contemporary consciousness studies, including those which consider consciousness as an unsolvable mystery, with Peirce’s phenomenological approach to consciousness. Peirce’s answers to the following contemporary issues are presented: phenomenological consciousness and the qualia, consciousness as self-controlled agency of humans, self-control and self-reflection, consciousness and language, self-consciousness and introspection, consciousness and the other, consciousness of nonhuman animals, and the question of a quasi-consciousness of the physical universe. A detailed account of Peirce’s three modes of consciousness is presented: (1) primisense, qualisense or feeling-consciousness, (2) altersense (consciousness of the other), and (3) medisense, the consciousness of cognition, thought, and reasoning. In contrast to consciousness studies that establish a rather sharp dividing line between conscious and unconscious states of mind, Peirce adopts the principle of synechism, the theory of continuity. For him, consciousness is a matter of degree. An important difference between Peirce’s concept of qualia and current theories of qualia in human consciousness is discussed. The paper shows how consciousness, according to Peirce, emerges from unconscious qualia and vanishes into equally unconscious habits. It concludes with a study of the roles of qualia, habit, and self-control in Peirce’s theory of signs, in particular in qualisigns and symbols, and the question of signs as quasi-conscious agents in semiosis.


1978 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 409-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya B. Zeldovich

The God-father of psychoanalysis Professor Sigmund Freud taught us that the behaviour of adults depends on their early childhood experiences. in the same spirit, the problem of cosmological analysis is to derive the observed present day situation and structure of the Universe from certain plausible assumptions about its early behaviour. Perhaps the most important single statement about the large scale structure is that there is no structure at all on the largest scale − 1000 Mpc and more. On this scale the Universe is rather uniform, structureless and isotropically expanding - just according to the simplified pictures of Einstein-Friedmann……. Humason, Hubble…. Robertson, Walker. On the other hand there is a lot of structure on the scale of 100 or 50 Mpc and less. There are clusters and superclusters of galaxies.


Human Affairs ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Skowroński

AbstractIn the present paper, the author looks at the political dimension of some trends in the visual arts within twentieth-century avant-garde groups (cubism, expressionism, fauvism, Dada, abstractionism, surrealism) through George Santayana’s idea of vital liberty. Santayana accused the avant-gardists of social and political escapism, and of becoming unintentionally involved in secondary issues. In his view, the emphasis they placed on the medium (or diverse media) and on treating it as an aim in itself, not, as it should be, as a transmitter through which a stimulating relationship with the environment can be had, was accompanied by a focus on fragments of life and on parts of existence, and, on the other hand, by a de facto rejection of ontology and cosmology as being crucial to understanding life and the place of human beings in the universe. The avant-gardists became involved in political life by responding excessively to the events of the time, instead of to the everlasting problems that are the human lot.


Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Merlan

According to Aristotle all heavenly movement is ultimately due to the activity of forty-seven (or fifty-five) ‘unmoved movers'. This doctrine is highly remarkable in itself and has exercised an enormous historical influence. It forms part of a world-picture the outlines of which are as follows. The universe consists of concentric spheres, revolving in circles. The outermost of these bears the fixed stars. The other either bear planets or, insofar as they do not, contribute indirectly to the movements of the latter. Each sphere is moved by the one immediately surrounding it, but also possesses a movement of its own, due to its mover, an unmoved, incorporeal being. (It was these beings which the schoolmen designated as theintelligentiae separatae.) The seemingly irregular movements of the planets are thus viewed as resulting from the combination of regular circular revolutions. The earth does not move and occupies the centre of the universe. Such was Aristotle's astronomic system, essential parts of which were almost universally adopted by the Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages.


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