scholarly journals “The Handmaid’s Tale”: (de)personification as an epistemical-moral dimension, founder of the condition of subject of law for women

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oswaldo Pereira Lima Júnior ◽  
Edna Raquel Hogemann

The suppression of the moral and juridical status of the woman is discussed hereby, as an extension of the process of depersonification of the human being in the work The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Offred’s story unfolds in a dystopian future where women are the main victims of a new political order. In a United States transformed into the Gilead dictatorship, in the face of eventual loss of fertility by the female population, women are divided into castes and practically lose their rights over themselves, becoming the property of men. Personalization means more than observing rights to the biological being, it is a dialectical process in which individuality and rationality flirt with the inscription of moral importance. This process, being built in the instances of practical philosophy, is prior to the definitions of Law, characterizing itself as a moral construct. Personally, the human being happens to be accepted as the impregnable subject of the Law, which has precisely in the entity of the person its nucleus and the very meaning of its existence. This essay works with the idea of person as a complex being, as in the works by Immanuel Kant (1785), Lucien Sève (1994), Raquel Hogemann (2015) and Oswaldo Pereira de Lima Junior (2017).

Trictrac ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petru Adrian Danciu

Starting from the cry of the seraphim in Isaiahʹ s prophecy, this article aims to follow the rhythm of the sacred harmony, transcending the symbols of the angelic world and of the divine names, to get to the face to face meeting between man and God, just as the seraphim, reflecting their existence, stand face to face. The finality of the sacred harmony is that, during the search for God inside the human being, He reveals Himself, which is the reason for the affirmation of “I Am that I Am.” Through its hypnotic cyclicality, the profane temporality has its own musicality. Its purpose is to incubate the unsuspected potencies of the beings “caught” in the material world. Due to the fact that it belongs to the aeonic time, the divine music will exceed in harmony the mechanical musicality of profane time, dilating and temporarily cancelling it. Isaiah is witness to such revelation offering access to the heavenly concert. He is witness to divine harmonies produced by two divine singers, whose musical history is presented in our article. The seraphim accompanied the chosen people after their exodus from Egypt. The cultic use of the trumpet is related to the characteristics and behaviour of the seraphim. The seraphic music does not belong to the Creator, but its lyrics speak about the presence of the Creator in two realities, a spiritual and a material one. Only the transcendence of the divine names that are sung/cried affirms a unique reality: God. The chant-cry is a divine invocation with a double aim. On the one hand, the angels and the people affirm God’s presence and call His name and, on the other, the Creator affirms His presence through the angels or in man, the one who is His image and His likeness. The divine music does not only create, it is also a means of communion, implementing the relation of man to God and, thus, God’s connection with man. It is a relation in which both filiation and paternity disappear inside the harmony of the mutual recognition produced by music, a reality much older than Adam’s language.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (204) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Gabriela Dantas da Silva

The main topic of this article is to analyze the philosophical contributions on the subject and to criticize the State's actions as an entity that supports this family model. In a second moment, emphasis is given to the philosophical contributions of Immanuel Kant and Aristotle on morals and ethics, extending them to the family and social sphere. The concept of the Eudemonist Family with great Aristotelian influence, as well as some of the main contemporary family entities in brief contextualization, is also presented, to finally address the main problem of this article: the legal challenges of the Eudemonist family in the face of the majority understanding of biological bond as a characterizing element of the family entity. In conclusion, the philosophical nature is of great importance for the understanding of these new conceptions of the family, since the Brazilian legal system did not, in fact, contemplate the experience of society, not giving up texts that were expressly discriminatory and that excluded fundamental rights of individuals.


Author(s):  
Timothy J. Hargrave

This chapter compares paradox and dialectical perspectives on managing contradictions and engages the debate on the further development of the paradox perspective. This perspective provides guidance to managers on how they can increase organizational effectiveness in the face of seemingly irreconcilable tensions. It presents contradictions as persistent, stable, separable, and controllable. The dialectical perspective, in contrast, depicts contradictions as difficult to disentangle from their contexts, continuously changing, and transformed through oppositional processes. While paradox scholars have called for incorporation of dialectics into the paradox perspective, they have done so in a way that preserves rather than challenges or expands the conceptual core of the paradox perspective. This chapter advocates that scholars take a dialectical approach and experiment in establishing a new perspective that sublates the paradox and dialectical perspectives. This contradictions perspective would situate the experience of paradox as one moment in time within a never-ending dialectical process. I briefly discuss the possible outline of this perspective and highlight articles that have moved in its direction.


Philosophy ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-501
Author(s):  
Mikel Burley

AbstractPhilosophy as well as anthropology is a discipline concerned with what it means to be human, and hence with investigating the multiple ways of making sense of human life. An important task in this process is to remain open to diverse conceptions of human beings, not least conceptions that may on the face of it appear to be morally alien. A case in point are conceptions that are bound up with cannibalism, a practice sometimes assumed to be so morally scandalous that it probably never happens, at least in a culturally sanctioned form. Questioning this assumption, along with Cora Diamond's contention that the very concept of a human being involves a prohibition against consuming human flesh, the present article explores how cannibalism can have an intelligible place in a human society – exemplified by the Wari’ of western Brazil. By coming to see this, we are enabled to enlarge our conception of the heterogeneity of possible ways of being human.


Slavic Review ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenifer Presto

In this article, Jenifer Presto argues that the 1908 Messina-Reggio Calabria earthquake had an impact on Aleksandr Blok no less significant than that which the 1755 Lisbon earthquake had on writers of the Enlightenment and proceeds to demonstrate how it shaped Blok's aesthetics of catastrophe. This aesthetics can best be termed the “decadent sublime, ” an inversion of the Kantian dynamic sublime with its emphasis on bourgeois optimism. Following Immanuel Kant, Blok acknowledges the fear and attraction that nature's forces can inspire; however, unlike Kant, he insists that modern man remains powerless in the face of nature, owing to his decadence—a decadence endemic to European civilization. The decadent sublime is manifested in a host of Blok's writings, ranging from “The Elements and Culture” to Lightning Flashes of Art and The Scythians; it is intensely visual and is indebted to images of ruin by artists such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Luca Signorelli.


Author(s):  
Juha Hämäläinen

“Pedagogue” (παιδαγογος) was originally a term for a slave who was responsible for the care of children in the household. Later the meaning of the word expanded to mean educator and teacher. A pedagogic theory deals with the nature and structure of educational action, teaching, and upbringing. Pedagogic theories are connected with belief and value systems, concepts of man and society, and philosophies of knowledge and political interests. Thus, it is rather difficult to define a pedagogic theory exactly. In general, the concept of pedagogy refers to a systematic view of organizing education. It discusses the issues of how to educate and what it means to be educated. In this sense, a pedagogic theory is a theory of educational action, or a systematic view and reflection of pedagogic practice. Pedagogic theory is a systematic conceptualization of the process of education and conditions of human development in both the individual and the societal life sphere. It deals with processes of upbringing, teaching, learning, and social and cultural development. Aims and means, values and norms, and objectives and methods of education are systematically reflected therein. Pedagogic theory building starts with two fundamental anthropologic questions: What is a human being, and what should he or she be? Combining these questions, pedagogic theory examines educational aims and means of helping human beings to develop toward what they should be. Pedagogic reflection and theory building are based on the idea that—in the words of Immanuel Kant—a human being can become human only through education. Studying childhood from the vantage point of pedagogic theories focuses on the development of a pedagogic way of thinking over the course of time.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (XVIII) ◽  
pp. 145-157
Author(s):  
Dariusz Rozmus

The vast destruction of the heritage sites in Syria and Iraq caused by the activities of ISIS may not only be attributed to fanatical iconoclasm with a religious background. The ideologists of the jihad movements in the so-called Islamic State intend to introduce one, unified version of Islam. In their world, there is no place for democracy, secularity, nationalism (even for patriotism) and other “abominations” of the West. Monuments which constituted elements of local traditions were destroyed with the application of huge resources. In the face of the tragedy of people, considerations in the field of broadly conceived culture may only supplement a description of unspeakable tragedies which were caused by the wars in the Near East. However, we may examine this question in such a way as not to separate the people from their heritage, for a human being is an integral part of his or her culture. “This isn’t a choice between people or stone,” said Deborah Lehr, chair of Antiquities Coalition. “Culture is part of who these people are, and this, ironically, is the cradle of civilization.”. Due to the situation which occurred, the stock-taking and digitalisation of artefacts and architectural monuments assumes huge significance. These proceedings should be also conducted with the use of the most recent methods of satellite teledetection.


1982 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Percy C. Hintzen ◽  
Ralph R. Premdas

Many communally divided postcolonial states rely almost exclusively upon an effective machinery of control to ensure political order. This has stemmed from two factors: (1) unrestrained communal competition for votes; and (2) inheritance of a highly centralized state apparatus. The first condition has tended to politicize sectional cleavages, exacerbating distrust (Premdas, 1972: 19-20). Without a body of shared values in the state, protection of a communal group's interest is perceived to reside on the capture of the government. The second condition under such circumstances facilitates “effective domination of one group over another” (Smooha, 1980: 257). Apart from a consociational arrangement, democracy in deeply divided societies is elusive, rendering authoritarian control seemingly necessary to prevent protracted communal conflict and political disintegration (Lijphart, 1969: 207; Milne, 1975: 413; Norlinger, 1972). As a legitimator of domination, stability is a controversial value, especially in the face of cynical and brutal abuses of human rights.


Author(s):  
Albert R. Jonsen

The problem that I will discuss in this essay is marvellously illustrated in the title given to me by the editors. The word “interface” is itself part of the jargon of technology, the technospeak needed by those who develop, use, and discuss functions, things, and relationships that had not existed previously in the human world. They must make up new words to describe new realities (and, unfortunately, allow new and ugly words to obscure old ones). An “interface” presumably describes the way in which one electronic system contacts another so that the first energizes the second. In the old world of human experience, an “interface” is impossible. The face of one human being is visible to another; two faces, smiling or frowning at each other, communicate. The mind behind one face can interpret the movements of another. Never does one human face interpenetrate or merge with another.


Author(s):  
Rodrigo Portella, Carlos Queiroz

A modernidade, e particularmente a pós-modernidade, tem colocado em crise a identidade humana, seu “porquê” e “para quê”. Diante de sociedades ocidentais cada vez mais descritianizadas e secularizadas, se faz necessário ao teólogo e ao cientista da religião o debruçar-se sobre as tradições religiosas para verificar o que veiculam em sua antropologia. No caso específico do presente artigo, a intenção é esclarecer como o cristianismo, particularmente o apóstolo Paulo, compreende o ser humano. Contudo, sendo esta tarefa que se encontra para além de um artigo, resta-nos esclarecer a visão de Paulo a respeito do ser humano a partir de um ponto que consideramos chave para sua antropologia: a ressurreição, o ser humano novo, particularmente descrito em 1Co 15. Entendemos que Paulo constrói muito de sua antropologia a partir da visão que tem sobre o futuro escatológico do ser humano, pois nele estaria a verdadeira medida do ser humano unido a Deus, isto é, sua realização plena. Contudo, para se chegar a esta visão prenunciada por Paulo, será preciso antes, ainda que de forma célere, percorrer alguns de seus conceitos ao referir-se ao ser humano, em várias situações, e compreender como tais conceitos constroem a antropologia paulina e apontam para sua concepção de ressurreição / novo ser humano.Modernity, and particularly postmodernity, has put human identity in crisis, its why and for what. In the face of ever more decritianized and secularized Western societies, it is necessary for the theologian and scientist of religion to dwell on religious traditions to verify what they convey in their anthropology. In the specific case of the present article, the intention is to clarify how Christianity, particularly the apostle Paul, understands the human being. However, since this task is beyond an article, we can clarify Paul's view of the human being from a point that we consider to be key to his anthropology: the resurrection, the new human being, particularly described in 1Co 15. We understand that Paul builds much of his anthropology from the view he has on the eschatological future of man, for in him would be the true measure of the human being united to God, that is, his full realization. However, in order to arrive at this vision foretold by Paul, it will be necessary, even if quickly, to go through some of his concepts when referring to the human being in various situations, and to understand how such concepts construct Pauline anthropology and point out for his conception of resurrection / new human being. 


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