scholarly journals Freedom as the Antithesis of Commitment in Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Flies (Les Mouches)

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Wafaa A. Mostafa Hussein

In the mid of the twentieth century, French Existentialism was a predominant doctrine that significantly enriched and influenced the literary scene in Europe during the Post-War area. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), the founder of Existentialism, is both a professional philosopher and a talented man of letters whose literary achievements represent a declarative embodiment of his Existentialist philosophy. In his 1943 drama, The Flies (Les Mouches), Sartre puts the Greek myth into a drastically innovative structure, where contemporary issues and values are presented through classical outlines. The current study aims to present a critical analysis of Sartre's depiction of the Electra/Orestes myth in The Flies through demonstrating how Greek mythology becomes an essential substructure of the play's Existentialistic framework, on the one hand, and questioning the credibility of the Sartrean concept of freedom and commitment, as illustrated in the play, on the other hand. The study utilizes the Existentialist philosophy as a theoretical framework in order to elucidate that the Sartrean conception of freedom and commitment is paradoxically antithetical. The research investigates how Orestes has been theoretically free and the extent to which he strives, throughout the drama, to transform this abstract freedom into a concrete experience by committing himself to a specific action: murdering Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. However, as the study proves, this Existentialist freedom becomes an illusion in the sense that Orestes' commitment to the Argives makes him a captive of society; by choosing commitment, he dismisses his freedom. The researcher has chosen "Freedom" and "Commitment" as the main topic of the present study in order to expose Sartre's existentialistic awareness of modern human beings' dilemma under the influence of all forms of aggression and highlight the discrepancy between theoretical philosophy and real-life experiences. The study adopts an interdisciplinary analytical approach where myth, philosophy, and drama are dovetailed and fused in order to expand the scope of the analysis.

1974 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Toren

ABSTRACTThe casework method practised in social work is assessed from a sociological-structural perspective. Social workers are viewed as agents of social control who wield power and authority in order to change their clients' attitudes and behaviour. It is argued that the main weaknesses of casework as a technique for personal change lie in its dyadic structure and isolation from the client's real-life environment. These characteristics impede the operation of the basic processes through which control and influence are generally accepted. It is proposed to substitute small groups of clients for the one-to-one casework setting, to link the treatment situation to real-life experiences, and to emphasize learning processes. It is believed that this restructuring of the worker-client encounter will increase the effectiveness of social work therapeutic intervention.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. BB65-BB83
Author(s):  
Vanessa Joosen

Duet met valse noten (1983) started as a diary when Bart Moeyaert was twelve years old. After it was disclosed by an older brother, Moeyaert rewrote it during his teenage years as a novel about first love. This article studies the genesis and early reception of Moeyaert’s novel to reflect on young authors who fictionalize real-life experiences and desires. On the one hand, they are credited for being experts on youth and said to have a particular appeal to young audiences for that reason. On the other hand, when texts by young authors are published, they are often edited and mediated by adult professionals. For some scholars, such adult intervention compromises the authenticity of the young author’s voice, while others argue that having your work revised is an inherent part of being published. The genesis of Duet met valse noten displays a complex interaction involving several actors, including young voices. The deletion of controversial passages (a toilet scene, the longing for cigarettes and sexual scenes) illustrates this complexity: the decision to adapt them was only in part governed by adults, and while the young Moeyaert was dissatisfied with some revisions, they also contributed to his aesthetics as a poetic rather than explicit writer.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Luisito Nanquil

This article depicts the challenges of language teachers (and all teachers) in the delivery of the instruction and evaluation of the learning process. The author expressed his own views and perspectives regarding the present situations confronting language teachers and other teachers of different subjects. While technology provides the things we need in the classroom setting, there are considerable impediments teachers are facing. What could be the roles teachers in the academy have to fulfill and execute so that they can assist diverse learners? This paper discusses and explains imperative thoughts and reflections that can serve as a guide or framework for all teachers who need clear insights and sensible directions. The method used by the researcher is simply narration-description where he presented his heartfelt and life-relating experiences to the target readers and researchers. To support his claims, he intentionally inserted real-life experiences, observations, and testimonials of teachers and personnel whom he met in his academic journeys. From the thoughts of the author-researcher, it is hoped that readers would be get inspired whenever they fell down and stressed because this essay would remind all who are engaged in teaching that the one of the best professions (if not the best) in the world is being a teacher. Other careers are not possible without the caring and guiding hands of the teachers.


Author(s):  
Nadiia Koloshuk

Actuality. The modern study of literature now does not give the answer for a question, if it is possible to create a character of a man from the life by facilities of nonfiction narration, however, it is convincing and full-blooded in the reader’s perception as an artistic image. Stating the Subject of the Study: forming of character-image of writer V. Petrov-Domontovych in the circle of the Ukrainian emigrants of the post-war wave due to their remembrances, letters, and essays. Research methodology: through the comparative hermeneutic interpretation of texts, and also later fiction texts that formed the character-image of V. Petrov. Stating the Aim of the Study. Other mechanisms of reader reception work in nonfiction genres, then in fiction, id est it becomes possible another result – the character of real V. Petrov. Results of the Study and originality. The image of Victor Petrov, formed in the memory of representatives of Ukrainian literary emigration and recorded in their memoirs and correspondence, is no less ambivalent, than images of characters in the fictional works of Victor Domontovych. Expatriate contemporaries saw their colleague differently and remembered in different situations, however, it is significant that people, in many respects disagree with moral assessments, hostile to others (as Ihor Kachurovsky, who always biased towards Yuri Sherekh-Shevelov and even repeated stereotyped allegations against him after his death) they were largely controversial in the estimation of V. Petrov. On the one hand, V. Domontovych deserved respect as a talented prose writer; on the other hand, V. Petrov was a mystery as a person. His collaboration with the Soviet special services did not cause unequivocal condemnation, since the circumstances of his "disappearance" from Munich in 1949 remained unclear. Most of those people who spoke about this event immediately after it was treated to the disappeared man with compassion because they suspected the "human beings"-brothers (Yuriy Lavrinenko) from the Soviet side. Image of V. Petrov mostly appears "split", as well as images of characters in the novels of V. Domontovich. The practical significance. In non-fictional texts, the researcher can trace the path of the formation of the image and stereotype, returning and approaching the prototype.


2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (244) ◽  
pp. 803
Author(s):  
Maria Clara Luchetti Bingemer

Na sociedade atual, onde convivem e se entrecruzam, por um lado, a secularização que parece minimizar e desvalorizar o sagrado e o religioso e, por outro lado, a explosão de novas formas de expressão religiosa, a celebração da Eucaristia pretende oferecer àqueles que dela participam uma experiência de Deus. Para isso, a Igreja vive hoje o desafio da fidelidade a toda a profundidade de significação contida no Sacramento da Eucaristia, mas ao mesmo tempo de comunicar o mistério que é seu conteúdo em novas palavras e por novas expressões, por meios que atraiam e seduzam os seres humanos modernos. Para isso, a Eucaristia conta com um elemento de novidade radical naquilo que concerne ao sentido do sagrado: o mistério da Encarnação de Jesus Cristo, Verbo feito carne, Mediador Único  da Nova Aliança. Abstract: In present-day society, where side by side and intersecting, secularization on the one hand seems to minimize and devalorize the sacred and the religious while on the other hand is the explosion of new ways to express religiousness, the celebration of the Eucharist intends to offer to those who participate in it an experience of God. For this, the Church today lives out the challenge of fidelity to all the depth ofmeaning contained in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, but at the same time to communicate the mystery which is its content through new words and by new expressions, by means which attract and allure modern human beings. For this the Eucharist counts upon an element of newness radical in that which has to do with the meaning of the sacred: the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ,Word made flesh, the only Mediator of the New Alliance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 157-175
Author(s):  
Wécio Pinheiro Araújo

Resumo: Em O Capital, Marx nos alertou que a mercadoria tem um caráter misterioso que carrega “sutilezas metafísicas e argúcias teológicas”. Este artigo tenta decifrar um pouco desse mistério buscando decodifica-lo naquilo que denominamos como a estranha objetividade do valor. Para isso, analisamos a relação entre a ideologia e o valor a partir da crítica marxiana à mercadoria, consignada à lógica de Hegel. Vemos que o valor se constitui como razão ontológica da mercadoria enquanto produto do processo de trabalho que carrega uma racionalidade imanente, isto é, um espírito socialmente produzido que se objetiva à medida que é vivenciado pelos indivíduos como uma lógica social que rege as relações nesta sociedade. Isso se dá por meio de “sutilezas metafísicas” na formação da realidade social marcada por contradições estabelecidas entre, de um lado, o conteúdo objetivo das relações sociais, e de outro, a forma como essas relações são vivenciadas pela consciência na sociedade capitalista. Nesta relação entre conteúdo e forma, encontramos determinações de profundidade ontológica entre o valor e a ideologia, enquanto forma social que opera harmonizando as contradições constituintes da realidade social, a exemplo do que acontece no trabalho assalariado. A mediação ideológica se põe como uma progressão imanente à materialização da vivência concreta da relação entre capital e trabalho no salário, de maneira a naturalizar a exploração que se esconde na estranha objetividade do valor que se realiza na troca de mercadorias. Concluímos que a conexão ontológica entre o ser social e a mercadoria é socialmente ubíqua, precisamente por conta do seu caráter ideológico na formação da sociabilidade a partir do processo de trabalho subjugado ao capital.  Palavras-chave: Valor. Ideologia. Trabalho, Capital. Salário.  Abstract: In Capital, Marx warned us that the commodity has a mysterious character bearing "metaphysical subtleties and theological insights." This article attempts to decipher a little of this mystery by decoding it into what we call the strange objectivity of value. For this, we analyze the relation between ideology and value from the Marxian critique of the commodity, consigned to the Hegelian logic. We see that value is constituted as the ontological reason of the commodity as the product of the labor process that carries an immanent rationality, that is, a socially produced spirit that is objectified as it is experienced by the individuals as a social logic that governs the relations in this society. This is done through "metaphysical subtleties" in the formation of social reality marked by contradictions established between, on the one hand, the objective content of social relations, and on the other, the way in which these relations are experienced by consciousness in capitalist society. In this relationship between content and form, we find determinations of ontological depth between value and ideology, as a social form that operates by harmonizing the constituent contradictions of social reality, as in wage labor. Ideological mediation is seen as an immanent progression to the materialization of the concrete experience of the relation between capital and labor in wage, in order to naturalize the exploitation that is hidden in the strange objectivity of the value that is realized in the exchange of commodities. We conclude that the ontological connection between the social being and the commodity is socially ubiquitous precisely because of its ideological character in the formation of sociability from the labor process subjugated to capital.  Keywords: Value. Labor. Ideology. Capital. Wage.  REFERÊNCIAS  ADORNO, Theodor W. Teoria Estética. [Asthetische Theorie]. Tradução de Artur Morão. – São Paulo : Livraria Martins Fontes, 1988.  ADORNO, Theodor W. Três estudos sobre Hegel. [Drei Studien zu Hegel]. Tradução: Ulisses Razzante Vaccari. – 1. Ed. – São Paulo: Editora Unesp, 2013.  ARAÚJO, Wécio Pinheiro. Ideologia e capital: crítica da razão imanente à sociedade moderna. Tese de doutorado. João Pessoa, PB; Leipzig, Saxônia, UFPB/UFPE/UFRN-HGB, 2018.  ARTHUR, Christopher J. A nova dialética e “O Capital” de Marx. Tradução de Pedro C. Chadarevian. – São Paulo : Edipro, 2016.   DUSSEL, Enrique. A Produção Teórica de Marx: um comentário sobre os Grundrisse. Tradução de José Paulo Netto. – 1 ed. – São Paulo : Expressão Popular, 2012. GERAS, Norman. Marx and the Critique of Political Economy. In: Ideology and Social Science: politics, sociology, anthropology, economics, history. – Ed. by Robin Blackburn, Fontana/Collins, 1977, p. 284-305.  JAEGGI, Rahel. Alienation: News directions in Critical Theory. Columbia Uni. Press, 2014.  HERÁCLITO, de Éfeso. Heráclito : fragmentos contextualizados. Tradução, apresentação e comentários Alexandre Costa. – São Paulo : Odysseus Editora, 2012.  HEGEL, G. W. F. Fenomenologia do Espírito [Phänomenologie des Geistes]. Tradução de Paulo Meneses; com a colaboração de Karl-Heinz Efken, e José Nogueira Machado. – 5. ed. – Petrópolis, RJ : Vozes : Bragança Paulista, Editora Universitária São Francisco, 2008.  MARX, Karl. Das Kapital: Der Produktionprozess des Kapitals. Erster Band, Erstes Buch (Kapitel XVI-LII). Hamburg, Nikol Verlag., 2016.  MARX, Karl. Grundrisse: manuscritos econômicos de 1857-1858 : esboços da crítica da economia política. – supervisão editorial Mario Duayer; tradução Mario Duayer, Nélio Schneider (colaboração de Alice Helga Werner e Rudiger Hoffman). – São Paulo : Boitempo; Rio de Janeiro: Ed. UFRJ, 2011.  MARX, Karl. Manuscritos econômico-filosóficos. [Ökonomie-philosophische Manuskripte] Tradução, apresentação e notas de Jesus Ranieri. - 2. reimp. - São Paulo : Boitempo Editorial, 2008.  MARX, Karl. O Capital – Crítica da Economia Política. Livro 1 – O Processo de Produção do Capital. Vol. I – 10 ª. Edição, Tradução de Reginaldo Sant’ Anna. Do original em alemão: DAS KAPITAL – Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Buch I: Der Produktionsprozes des Kapitals, Quarta edição, 1890). São Paulo : DIFEL, 1985.  MARX, Karl. O Capital – Crítica da Economia Política. Livro 1 – O processo de produção do capital. Do original em alemão: DAS KAPITAL – Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Buch 1: Der Produktionsprozess des Kapitals.  – São Paulo: Boitempo, 2013.   NICHOLS, Bill. Ideology and the Image: Social Representation in the Cinema and Other Media. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.


2019 ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
P.V. Kuzenkov

The article offers a new evaluation of the wellknown phenomenon of cultural renaissance of the peoples of the Middle East and Egypt of the Syrians, the Copts, the Armenians, the Georgians, etc., in the first centuries AD. This period is commonly associated with the spreading of Christianity around the territory of the Roman Empire and the Parthian, later on Sassanid Iran. According to the author there are reasons to regard the genesis of the Christianity in the Middle East as a single yet multifaceted process of transformation of the Late Antiquity culture in its totality of the Eucumene, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pamir mountains. The essence of this process could roughly be defined as overcoming the Hellenistic culture crisis called forth by the ever deepening disparity between the transcendental intellectual environment it had given rise to, on the one hand, and its ideological nucleus rooted in the archaic Greek mythology, on the other. The only feasible recourse out of this crisis was the appearance of a new cultural nucleus, conventionally described as the canonized sacred text (The Holy Scriptures). This nucleus, together with the Hellenistic cultural and technological achievements (general literacy, school education, science, literature, symbolic culture, etc.) gave rise to religious civilizations with Christianity as the principal example. Thus, the author describes the historical transition from the Late Hellenistic and Post Hellenistic cultures of the Ancient Rome and the Ancient Middle East that resulted in the new nationallytinged in form but supranational in content cultures of the Christianity in the Middle East.В статье предлагается новая оценка известного феномена культурного возрождения народов Ближнего Востока и ЕгиптоСирийцев, Коптов, Армян, Грузин и др. в первые века нашей эры. Этот период обычно связывают с распространением христианства по территории Римской Империи и Парфянского, позднее Сасанидского Ирана. По мнению автора есть основания рассматривать генезис христианства на Ближнем Востоке как единый, но многогранный процесс трансформации культуры поздней Античности в ее тотальности Ойкумены, от Атлантического океана до Памирских гор. Суть этого процесса можно приблизительно определить как преодоление кризиса эллинистической культуры, вызванного все более углубляющимся несоответствием между трансцендентальной интеллектуальной средой, которую она породила, с одной стороны, и ее идеологическим ядром, коренящимся в архаической греческой мифологии, с другой. Единственным возможным выходом из этого кризиса было появление нового культурного ядра, условно описываемого как канонизированный священный текст (Священное Писание). Это ядро, наряду с эллинистическими культурными и технологическими достижениями (общая грамотность, школьное образование, наука, литература, символическая культура и др.) породило религиозные цивилизации с христианством, в качестве основного примера. Таким образом, автор описывает исторический переход от Позднеэллинистической и Постэллинистической культур Древнего Рима и Древнего Ближнего Востока к новым национально окрашенным по форме, но наднациональным по содержанию культурам христианства в Cредние века.


Author(s):  
Ursula Coope

The Neoplatonists have a perfectionist view of freedom: an entity is free to the extent that it succeeds in making itself good. Free entities are wholly in control of themselves: they are self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing. Neoplatonist philosophers argue that such freedom is only possible for nonbodily things. The human soul is free insofar as it rises above bodily things and engages in intellection, but when it turns its desires to bodily things, it is drawn under the sway of fate and becomes enslaved. This book discusses this notion of freedom, and its relation to questions about responsibility. It explains the important role of notions of self-reflexivity in Neoplatonist accounts of both freedom and responsibility. Part I sets out the puzzles Neoplatonist philosophers face about freedom and responsibility and explains how these puzzles arise from earlier discussions. Part II looks at the metaphysical underpinnings of the Neoplatonist notion of freedom (concentrating especially on the views of Plotinus and Proclus). In what sense (if any) is the ultimate first principle of everything (the One) free? If everything else is under this ultimate first principle, how can anything other than the One be free? What is the connection between freedom and nonbodiliness? Part III looks at questions about responsibility, arising from this perfectionist view of freedom. Why are human beings responsible for their behaviour, in a way that other animals are not? If we are enslaved when we act viciously, how can we be to blame for our vicious actions and choices?


This survey of research on psychology in five volumes is a part of a series undertaken by the ICSSR since 1969, which covers various disciplines under social science. Volume One of this survey, Cognitive and Affective Processes, discusses the developments in the study of cognitive and affective processes within the Indian context. It offers an up-to-date assessment of theoretical developments and empirical studies in the rapidly evolving fields of cognitive science, applied cognition, and positive psychology. It also analyses how pedagogy responds to a shift in the practices of knowing and learning. Additionally, drawing upon insights from related fields it proposes epithymetics–desire studies – as an upcoming field of research and the volume investigates the impact of evolving cognitive and affective processes in Indian research and real life contexts. The development of cognitive capability distinguishes human beings from other species and allows creation and use of complex verbal symbols, facilitates imagination and empowers to function at an abstract level. However, much of the vitality characterizing human life is owed to the diverse emotions and desires. This has made the study of cognition and affect as frontier areas of psychology. With this in view, this volume focuses on delineating cognitive scientific contributions, cognition in educational context, context, diverse applications of cognition, psychology of desire, and positive psychology. The five chapters comprising this volume have approached the scholarly developments in the fields of cognition and affect in innovative ways, and have addressed basic as well applied issues.


Author(s):  
Colin Hoehne ◽  
Brittany Baranski ◽  
Louiza Benmohammed ◽  
Liam Bienstock ◽  
Nathan Menezes ◽  
...  

The Pathways and Resources for Engagement and Participation (PREP), an environmental-based intervention, is effective in improving the participation of youth with disabilities in specific targeted activities; however, its potential impact on overall participation beyond these activities is unknown. This study examined the differences in participation levels and environmental barriers and supports following the 12-week PREP intervention. Existing data on participation patterns and environmental barriers and supports, measured by the Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth, pre-and post-PREP intervention, were statistically analyzed across 20 youth aged 12 to 18 (mean = 14.4, standard deviation (SD) = 1.82) with physical disabilities in three settings: home, school and community. Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d. Following PREP, youth participated significantly less often at home (d = 2.21; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) [1.79, 2.96]), more often (d = 0.57; 95% CI [−0.79, −0.14]) and in more diverse activities (d = 0.51; 95% CI [−1.99, −0.51]) in the community. At school, significantly greater participation was observed in special school roles (t = −2.46. p = 0.024). Involvement and desire for change remained relatively stable across all settings. A substantial increase in community environmental supports was observed (d = 0.67), with significantly more parents reporting availability of, and access to information as a support (χ2 = 4.28, p = 0.038). Findings lend further support to the effectiveness of environmental-based interventions, involving real-life experiences.


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