scholarly journals Neoplatonism, The Response on Gnostic and Manichean ctiticism of Platonism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amer Dardagan
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Life Situation ◽  
The World ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Spiritual Reality ◽  
The One ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Dualistic Approach ◽  
Two Alternatives

Gnosticism and Manichaeism took some of Plato's ideas and shape them into their dualistic credo, thus setting off a storm of protest by the Neoplatonists who condemned Gnostic distortion of the teachings of Plato. Plotinus believed that the teachings of Gnostics were horrible because hey apparently followed the teachings of Plato and had some compatible views on the origin and nature of the cosmos with Platonism, but "Gnostic myth" actually twisted Plato's original teachings, and ultimately turned against him. Neoplatonists had a generally cheerful and optimistic view of the world as opposed to the Gnostics who despised it. Evil does not exist, it is just a "lack or deficit of Goodness" according to Neoplatonism. The only source of evil for Neoplatonists is being in the state of distance from the One, as a result of turning to the excessive material pleasures downwards and not toward superior spiritual reality upwards. Augustine became Neoplatonist in indirect way, and we know that Neoplatonistic texts helped in his transition to Christianity. He used the Platonic writings to attack Manichaeism, a sect which he once belonged. He came across Neoplatonic works of Plotinus and Ambrose written in Latin that helped him to change his Manichaean way of thinking about good and evil. Augustine said that Manichaean God is not true God because He is vulnerable to evil, stating that a true God is omnipotent and can't be affected in any way. After Augustine encountered Neoplatonic teachings he called Manichean teachings extremely simplified, pointing out that people are not found in every life situation torn between just two alternatives: good and evil, since people have multiple, complex and complicated desires and needs. According to Augustine we do not have two substances in us that are in war with each other, light and darkness, good and evil, but the problem is in our will that longs for a multitude of things that we want, of which only some are good. In this way he formulated his doctrine of good and evil influenced by Neoplatonism which was completely different from the dualistic approach we find in Gnosticim and Manichaeism.

On the nature of theoretical archaeology and archaeological theory

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Agency Theory ◽  
Concrete Structures ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Archaeological Theory ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
The World ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The One

In this paper I want to make some general comments on the state of archaeological theory today. I argue that a full answer to the question ‘does archaeological theory exist?’ must be simultaneously ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, there is, demonstrably, a discourse called archaeological theory, with concrete structures such as individuals and schools of thought more or less substantively engaged with it; no, in that the claims for a distinctive way of thinking about the world in theoretical terms specific to archaeology, to which most or even the largest group of archaeologists would willingly or knowingly subscribe, are over-stated. In particular there is a lack of correspondence between theoretical backgrounds and affiliations that are overtly cited by archaeologists, on the one hand, and, on the other, the deeper underlying assumptions and traditions that structure their work and condition its acceptance. These underlying traditions stretch from field habits to underlying paradigms or discourses. I will explore this latter point with reference to the manner in which agency theory and phenomenology have been developed in archaeology. My conclusion suggests some elements of a way forward for archaeological theory; it is striking that many of these elements have been addressed in recent issues of Archaeological dialogues.

Between the utopian imaginaries of literature and international law: The question of the insurgent child in international legal discourse and Kris Montañez’s Youth

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
José Duke S. Bagulaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Utopian Vision ◽  
The World ◽  
Realistic Representation ◽  
The One

Abstract This article argues that international law and the literature of civil war, specifically the narratives from the Philippine communist insurgency, present two visions of the child. On the one hand, international law constructs a child that is individual and vulnerable, a victim of violence trapped between the contending parties. Hence, the child is a person who needs to be insulated from the brutality of the civil war. On the other hand, the article reads Filipino writer Kris Montañez’s stories as revolutionary tales that present a rational child, a literary resolution of the dilemmas of a minor’s participation in the world’s longest-running communist insurgency. Indeed, the short narratives collected in Kabanbanuagan (Youth) reveal a tension between a minor’s right to resist in the context of the people’s war and the juridical right to be insulated from the violence. As their youthful bodies are thrown into the world of the state of exception, violence forces children to make the choice of active participation in the hostilities by symbolically and literally assuming the roles played by their elders in the narrative. The article concludes that while this narrative resolution appears to offer a realistic representation and closure, what it proffers is actually a utopian vision that is in tension with international law’s own utopian vision of children. Thus, international law and the stories of youth in Kabanbanuagan provide a powerful critique of each other’s utopian visions.

II. The United States of Lyncherdom

Prospects ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 139-150
Author(s):  
Mark Twain
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Single Sample ◽  
Chinese Christians ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

And so Missouri has fallen, that great State! Certain of her children have joined the lynchers, and the smirch is upon the rest of us. That handful of her children have given us a character and labeled us with a name; and to the dwellers in the four quarters of the earth we are “lynchers,” now, and ever shall be. For the world will not stop and think – it never does, it is not its way; its way is to generalize from a single sample. It will not say “Those Missourians have been busy eighty years in building an honorable good name for themselves; these hundred lynchers down in the corner of the State are not real Missourians, they are bastards.” No, that truth will not enter its mind; it will generalize from the one or two misleading samples and say “The Missourians are lynchers.” It has no reflection, no logic, no sense of proportion. With it, figures go for nothing; to it, figures reveal nothing, it cannot reason upon them rationally; it is Brother J. J. infinitely multiplied; it would say, with him, that China is being swiftly and surely Christianized, since 9 Chinese Christians are being made every day; and it would fail, with him, to notice that the fact that 33,000 pagans are born there every day, damages the argument. It would J-J Missouri, and say “There are a hundred lynchers there, therefore the Missourians are lynchers;” the considerable fact that there are two and a half million Missourians who are not lynchers would not affect their verdict any more than it would affect Bro. J. J.'s.

Digital International Governance

2011 ◽  
pp. 365-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Amoretti
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
World Bank ◽  
World Market ◽  
The State ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Up to 1980, development, which had been defined as nationally managed economic growth, was redefined as “successful participation in the world market” (World Bank, 1980, quoted in McMichael, 2004, p.116). On an economic scale, specialization in the world economy as opposed to replication of economic activities within a national framework emerged as a criterion of “development.” On a political level, redesigning the state on competence and quality of performance in the discharge of functions was upheld, while on an ideological plane, a neo-liberal and globalization project was to the fore. The quite evident failure of development policies in peripheral countries, on the one hand, has contributed to the debate on the need for reform of governing institutions in the world (de Senarcless, 2004); and, on the other, has pushed them, de-legitimized as they are, in the direction of finding new strategies and solutions. In the 1990s, considering their leading role in government reform, international organizations such as the United Nations Organization (UN), the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) classified e-government as a core issue on their agenda. Innovation through information and communication technologies (ICTs) (social and economic advancement among the peoples of the world has become increasingly tied to technology creation, dissemination and utilization) is at the core of the renewed focus on the role of the state and the institutions in this process. Redefining the state—functions, responsibility, powers—as regards world-market priorities and logics, has become a strategic ground for international organization intervention, and ICTs are a strategic tool to achieve these aims.

“I Am the One:” A Monist Looks at the Double Death and Life of Rabba bar Naḥmani

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-50
Author(s):  
Michael Baris
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
Dual System ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
Mode Of Transmission ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Dramatic Narrative ◽  
The One

Abstract The rabbis portray two arenas in which Torah is studied. Above the terrestrial academy of the sages, the Rabbis posit a transcendent, celestial yeshiva. This dual system seems central to the rabbinic doctrine of retribution in a sequential afterlife. In contrast to the standard dualist reading and accepted dogma, I propose a monist’s reading of these aggadic texts, which sees a single arena of human action and endeavor, with multivalent significance. My starting point is the dramatic narrative of the persecution, flight, and ultimate death of one of the leading Talmudic sages, Rabba bar Naḥmani. These esoteric stories go beyond familiar taxonomies as modes of concealment. Not cyphers to be cracked, they offer a nuanced way of thinking about the world, accessible through narrative as an adaptive mode of transmission.

scholarly journals The culture of press freedom

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 20-24
Author(s):  
John Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
The World ◽  
Good And Evil

It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil as two twins cleaving together leapt forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom in which Adam fell of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of evil?… since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely and with less danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason?. And this is the benefit that may be had of books promiscuously read.

scholarly journals Terrorism and the power of the state intelligence

2013 ◽  
pp. 277-292
Author(s):  
Milan Mijalkovski ◽  
Veselin Konatar
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
National Power ◽  
The One ◽  
Power And Powerlessness

The world has always been an arena where various conflicts, visible and invisible have been happening and unfortunately happen nowadays. The most frequent conflict is (was) the conflict of sovereign subjects (states), while the first decade of the 21st century was mostly marked by many asymmetrical conflicts, between a state (or states) on the one side and not sovereign terrorist subjects on the other side. Every imperilled state, as in any other conflict, has realistic prospects to successfully defend itself and win only when it is adequately informed about the aggressor which, in this particular case, implies terrorist collectivity. Guided by that knowledge, a state endeavours to develop adequate intelligence as an inseparable component of national power, whose success against aggressor, proven in practice, could be optimal, partially successful or weak (inadequate, unsuccessful etc). Accordingly, some aspects of national intelligence power and powerlessness against terrorism are considered in this work.

scholarly journals Security and Automation of Society Model Based on Advance Technology of Artificial Intelligence

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 11-14
Author(s):  
Aakash Tappe ◽  
◽  
Advita Dalal ◽  
Akshay Tembhurne ◽  
Samiksha Patil ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
The State ◽  
Innovative Technology ◽  
Advance Technology ◽  
New Era ◽  
Model Based ◽  
The World ◽  
Current Scenario ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Take All

The world is changing not only because of people’s way of thinking but also the increasing innovative technology. At first which seemed impossible is now both possible and safer. The enhanced technology has helped us make our life happier, better, faster and even safer. Increasing enriching technology is creating new era for science, medicine, luxury and many more things. We have witnessed progressing innovations which are helping us deal with the things human alone can’t deal with! As of the current scenario we are already aware of and that is the pandemic: covid-19. Due to the recent scenario of pandemic, things have gotten pretty different. Some may have adapted to it and living accordingly while others are still in the state of fear. The only pillar standing between the illness and healthiness is “taking precautions”. If we want to get out of the state of the fear and live peacefully again in worse cases possible, it will always be necessary to take all the necessary precautions.

THE POEM «THE EAGLE» BY N. GUMILYOV: REPRESENTATION OF THE PERFECT DEATH

2019 ◽  
pp. 20-38
Author(s):  
Arkadiy Chevtayev
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
Lyrical Subject ◽  
Spiritual Reality ◽  
The One ◽  
Alter Ego ◽  
The Universe

The article discusses the poetics of the poem «The Eagl» (1909) by N. Gumilyov in the aspect of mortal conceptualization of the poet’s literary worldview. It defines the meaning of his third book of poems «The Pearls». It is hypothesized that in Gumilyov’s poetic universe the death is a basis and guarantee of convergence found in the internal and external aspects of lyrical subject self-actualization. The study of this poetic text is carried out by combining structural-semiotic and mythopoetic methods that allow the researcher to detect deep semantic layers of Gumiltyov’s literary self-determination. The analysis of the the poem «The Eagle» narrative structure shows that the lyrical narration of the «ornithological» hero’s («the eagle’s») death represents death as an axiological ideal of N. Gumilyov’s lyrical subject. The sacrificial catastrophic nature of the «eagle» flight and the postmortem fusion of the bird with the cosmic universe becomes an ontological measure of existence. «The eagle’s» death is implicitly likened with an act of creative transformation of existance, due to which it is possible to comprehend secret movements of the world order and convergence of microcosm and macrocosm.In Gumilyov’s conception «the eagle» is presented as objectified outward incarnation of the lyrical hero. Therefore, the «the eagle’s» death is extremely alienated from the subjective «I» on the one hand, and it is inextricably assosiated with its thirst for magical overcoming of the universe laws, it is an act of ultimate existential heroism on the other hand. The bird’s sacral ability to posthumously exercise a «regal flight» in the universe gives this «ornithological » character status of an ideal «double» (alter ego) of the lyrical subject who wants to creatively get rid of death, thereby to achieve the world harmony. The author concludes that the ideal manner of the narrative hero’s death is entirely associated with the attainment of immortality in the light of the inviolability of the universe as a spiritual reality of the created world which possesses exceptional status in N. Gumilyov’s mythology.

From the Star to the Disaster

Paragraph ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 84-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Hart
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The One

Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption comes before the Shoah and Maurice Blanchot's The Writing of the Disaster comes after it. The one addresses itself with hope to the figure of a star; the other meditates on the state of being without a guiding star. The figure of Emmanuel Levinas stands between these two works, since Totality and Infinity is marked by Rosenzweig's critique of totality and The Writing of the Disaster is in part a response to Levinas's philosophy. Both Rosenzweig and Blanchot propose a new way of thinking, one that calls unity into question. This essay seeks to clarify what ‘thought’ means for Rosenzweig and for Blanchot. In what ways do Rosenzweig and Blanchot converge? In what ways do they diverge?

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document