Self within World

Author(s):  
John L. Culliney ◽  
David Jones

We describe the foundations of the fractal self in relation to the Chinese notion of personal development and enhancement of adeptness in the world and mutualism with the other. This seeking, described in the codified system of Daoism, is a pathway that may progress to the highest level of achievement of such a self: that which defines a sage. The chapter introduces the view that a sage is a fractal self that achieves a peak of intimacy and constructive interaction with the world. We detail the development of human beings on this pathway, emerging beyond the core embodiments of empathy, sympathy, and rudimentary morality observed in apes. The self for the early Chinese was always a being that was embedded in the world and dynamic flow of forces. This self was defined in intimate terms as adaptable and adept, seeking to be a microcosmic contributor to some holistic macrocosm. In this chapter, Daoism leads our thinking on how the fractal self engages with the world. In turn, this way of understanding selfness and its potential to enrich its system from within resonates with discussions of the interactive self of Buddhism and was also in the minds of Pre-Socratic thinkers in the West.

1966 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-209
Author(s):  
Robert H. King

“The causal model emphasizes priority in respect to efficacy, but that is by no means the only kind of priority God exhibits. The elusive priority of the self in relation to its action, as well as the priority of persons in relation to one another, is also important and characteristic of religious apprehension of God in some of its modes anyway. On the other hand, the two more personal models, Schleiermacher's and Barth's, include a feature that is conspicuously lacking in the causal model, yet equally important to religious experience, the aspect of immediacy. So there may be good reason for preferring one model to another, while not excluding one or another. It is, after all, with a model that we have to do, and not with the thing itself. The relation of God and the world is unique and mysterious. It is not surprising that several different models have been used to interpret it.”


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Megumi Yama

Abstract When Jung received the manuscript of the Taoist-alchemical treatise entitled The Secret of the Golden Flower from Richard Wilhelm he realized what his drawings of mandalas meant and received confirmation of his theories about the Self. At the same time, Jung realized that he had encountered ‘the East’ within, as he was digging into the depths of his own psyche. Today, thanks to the publication of The Red Book (RB) and Memories, Dreams, Reflections (MDR), we can understand that through that process, Jung held dialogues with the dead. This is considered to mean that he had contact with the world of death to reach another culture—the East. Yama argues that the indeterminate state between the determinate culture and another is chaotic and uncertain, a space which may possibly lead to the world of death. Nowadays, amongst rapid globalization, many people from diverse backgrounds have opportunities to encounter different cultures for various reasons, sometimes out of interest and sometimes out of necessity. In some cases, but not all, individuals simply step across into the other culture without the experience of ‘descending into the depth,’ as Jung had. Yama explores Jung’s inner journey and his childhood memories from the view of what was taking place while he was moving symbolically from the West to the East. For further exploration of the life of someone who is destined to live between different cultures, Yama introduces a Japanese old folk tale and presents clinical material, as well as her personal experience as one who spent her adolescence outside of her native culture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 311-320
Author(s):  
Asma Aldjia BOUCHAIB ◽  

The world has pictured in his vision, a very important,much discussed and researched topic under the names and concepts of the relationship between "the self" and "The other” or “the image of the other” which is one of the topics taken from the overall vision of the world ; since the topic of "the other" has become part of the global cultural system today, it is not possible to conceive of the self without conceiving the "other" in light of the relations established by globalization. Perhaps the most important literary genre that dealt with this problem is the novel, as it dominated the literary scene within the so-called new novel, so I saw the work on it, so my choice fell on the Moroccan novel, specifically the novel of "El Nekhas" by Salah El-Din Bouajah, as a Moroccan novelist with a modernist vision, and the aim of this study is to uncover the mystery that follow sit through a number of questions, which we formulate as follows: What is meant by the other? Can a Maghreb novelist ignore the other / the West in the exhibition of his speech and his identity? Why does his position on this other become tragic? Why does this other west take a hostile attitude towards the Arab ego? What is the vision or image that the Moroccan narration of this other and his authority presented to us? We have relied in our research on the psychological approach because it is concerned with studying the human being internally, mixed with description mechanisms in narrating the actions of "the I" and "the other".


Author(s):  
John L. Culliney ◽  
David Jones

Chapter 2 diverges from science to follow some primordial strands of thought on origins. An intimate, participatory universe was anticipated before human beings began to articulate worldviews in philosophic or scientific terms. Our search for the fractal self begins by tracing prototypes recorded in myths and oral histories. Anthropologists, such as Levy-Bruhl, concluded that people in remote traditional cultures understood themselves as embedded with nature. Their demigods, such as Coyote, Maui, Hermes, and Dionysus, roamed their environs and instigated changes and events for good or ill. Shamans interpreted and engaged natural forces and negotiated with nature on behalf of humans. Such figures embodied qualities of the fractal self. The break came in the West. Early cosmogonies featured characters such as Gaia and Ouranos, avatars of intimacy with nature and exalted authority respectively. However, as influenced by Plato and Aristotle the development of Abrahamic religions situated humans apart from the rest of nature and under the rule of an omnipotent, transcendent God. The identity of the self at one with nature ultimately subsided and was brutally suppressed in much of the world. However, Daoism and Buddhism remained attuned with ideas of humanity as deeply interdependent with the natural world.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Camila Freitas ◽  
Marcia Benetti

In a theoretical reflection, the aim of this paper is primarily to discuss alterity in journalism. We believe that journalism plays a fundamental role in the construction of knowledge on similarities and differences between human beings, stressing social diversity as one of its purposes. We associate the concept of otherness, understood as a singular mode of existence of the “other”, with the purpose of journalism and with actions of empathy, sympathy and compassion. Based on a phenomenological perspective, we discuss the importance of the meeting between the "self" and the "other", as well as the ability of journalists to perceive and narrate on the aspects that shape the identities of human beings. Moreover, we discuss otherness in journalistic narratives, approaching the relation between the lifeworld and the world of text, taking into consideration the elements of perception, mimesis, textuality and interpretation.Este artigo tem caráter teórico e visa discutir a alteridade no jornalismo. Consideramos que o jornalismo tem um papel fundamental na construção do conhecimento sobre as semelhanças e as diferenças entre os seres humanos, sendo a apresentação da diversidade social uma de suas finalidades. Propomos associar o conceito de outridade, compreendida como o modo de existência do “outro” em sua singularidade, a essa finalidade do jornalismo e a ações de empatia, simpatia e compaixão. Adotamos uma perspectiva fenomenológica, indicando a relevância da experiência do encontro entre o “eu” e o “outro” e a capacidade de o jornalista perceber e narrar os aspectos que configuram as múltiplas identidades dos seres. Tratamos ainda da outridade na narrativa jornalística, abordando a relação entre o mundo da vida e o mundo do texto e discutindo os princípios da percepção, da ação mimética, da textualidade e da interpretação. Este artículo de carácter teórico analiza la alteridad en el periodismo. Creemos que el periodismo tiene un papel fundamental en la construcción de los saberes acerca de las similitudes y diferencias entre los seres humanos, una vez que la presentación de la diversidad social és uno de sus propósitos. Combinamos el concepto de otredad, que se entiende como el modo de existencia del "otro" en su singularidad, con la finalidad del periodismo. Adoptamos un punto de vista fenomenológico, lo que indica la importancia de la experiencia del encuentro entre "yo" y "otro" y la capacidad del periodista para percibir y narrar características de las múltiples identidades de los seres. También trabajamos con la otredad en la narrativa periodista, presentando la relación entre el mundo de la vida y el mundo del texto, así tratando de los principios de la percepción, de la acción mimética, de la textualidad y de la interpretación.


2021 ◽  
pp. 019145372098786
Author(s):  
Tamara Caraus

The ancient Cynic Diogenes was the first to declare ‘I am a citizen of the world ( kosmopolitês)’ and the other Cynics followed him. In The Courage of the Truth, Michel Foucault analyses the Cynic mode of parrhēsia and living in truth, however, his text expands the cosmopolitical amplitude of Cynics since the Cynics’ true life contains an inherent cosmopolitan logic. Identifying the core of the Cynic true life in the care for the self that leads to the care for the others within the horizon of the possibility of another life and another world, Foucault shows how the Cynic establishes ‘an intense bond with the whole of humankind’, cares ‘for all mankind’ and for the whole world as a ‘functionary of humanity’ and, as ‘the scout of humanity’, the Cynic prefigures the future and exercises the ‘government of the universe’. This article argues that Foucault’s account on Cynics maps the very first moments of becoming cosmopolitan and offers an insightful perspective on the process of achieving a cosmopolitan subjectivity, a process displayed by different expressions of cosmopolitanism, and especially the ‘insurgent cosmopolitanism’ from the bottom up.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Syarifudin Syarifudin

Each religious sect has its own characteristics, whether fundamental, radical, or religious. One of them is Insan Al-Kamil Congregation, which is in Cijati, South Cikareo Village, Wado District, Sumedang Regency. This congregation is Sufism with the concept of self-purification as the subject of its teachings. So, the purpose of this study is to reveal how the origin of Insan Al-Kamil Congregation, the concept of its purification, and the procedures of achieving its purification. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method with a normative theological approach as the blade of analysis. In addition, the data generated is the result of observation, interviews, and document studies. From the collected data, Jamaah Insan Al-Kamil adheres to the core teachings of Islam and is the tenth regeneration of Islam Teachings, which refers to the Prophet Muhammad SAW. According to this congregation, self-perfection becomes an obligation that must be achieved by human beings in order to remember Allah when life is done. The process of self-purification is done when human beings still live in the world by knowing His God. Therefore, the peak of self-purification is called Insan Kamil. 


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Sepúlveda Ferriz

Freedom and Justice have always been challenged. Since the most remote times, and in the most varied circumstances of places and people, human beings have tried to clarify and put into practice these two controversial concepts. Freedom and Justice, in effect, are words, but also dreams, desires and practices that, not being imperfect, are less sublime and ambitious. Reflecting on them on the basis of an ethics of development and socioenvironmental sustainability is still a great challenge in our contemporaneity. This book is born from the need that we all have to reflect, understand what our role is in relation to the OTHER, understood as the other as Environment. Doing this from such disparate areas and at the same time as current as Economics, Philosophy and Ecology, is still a great opportunity to discuss complexity, transdisciplinarity and the inclusion of diverse themes, but which all converge in the Human Being and its relationship with the world. Endowing human beings with Freedom and a sense of Justice means RESPONSIBILITY. To be free and to want a better and fairer world is to endow our existence with meaning and meaning. Agency, autonomy, functioning, dignity, rights, are capacities that must be leveraged individually and collectively for authentic development to exist. Development as Freedom is a valid proposal for thinking about a socio-environmental rationality that interferes in the controversial relations between economics, ethics and the environment.


Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Chiara Imperato ◽  
Tiziana Mancini

The effects of intergroup dialogues on intercultural relations in digital societies and the growing conflict, inflammatory and hate speech phenomena characterizing these environments are receiving increasing attention in socio-psychological studies. Based on Allport’s contact theory, scholars have shown that online intercultural contact reduces ethnic prejudice and discrimination, although it is not yet clear when and how this occurs. By analyzing the role of the Dialogical Self in online intercultural dialogues, we aim to understand how individuals position themselves and others at three levels of inclusiveness—personal, social, and human—and how this process is associated with attitudes towards the interlocutor, intergroup bias and prejudice, whilst also considering the inclusion of the Other in the Self and ethnic/racial identity. An experimental procedure was administered via the Qualtrics platform, and data were collected among 118 undergraduate Italian students through an anonymous questionnaire. From ANOVA and moderation analysis, it emerged that the social level of inclusiveness was positively associated with ethnic/racial identity and intergroup bias. Furthermore, the human level of inclusiveness was associated with the inclusion of the Other in the Self and ethnic/racial identity, and unexpectedly, also with intergroup bias. We conclude that when people interact online as “human beings”, the positive effect of online dialogue fails, hindering the differentiation processes necessary to define one’s own and the interlocutor’s identities. We discuss the effects of intercultural dialogue in the landscape of digital societies and the relevance of our findings for theory, research and practice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg W. Bertram

AbstractThe concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future.


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