The Logic of the ‘as if’ and the (non)Existence of God: An Inquiry into the Nature of Belief in the Work of Jacques Derrida

Derrida Today ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Wallace Stevens ◽  
Paul Celan ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Regulative Principle ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lost Object ◽  
As If

For Derrida, the ‘as if’, as a regulative principle directly appropriated and modified from its Kantian context, becomes the central lynchpin for understanding, not only Derrida's philosophical system as a whole, but also his numerous seemingly enigmatic references to his ‘jewishness’. Through an analysis of the function of the ‘as if’ within the history of thought, from Greek tragedy to the poetry of Wallace Stevens, I hope to show how Derrida can only appropriate his Judaic roots as an act of mourning that seeks to render the lost object as present, ‘as if’ it were incorporated by the subject for whom this act nevertheless remains an impossibility. As Derrida discerns within the poetry of Paul Celan, bringing a sense of presence/presentness to our experiences, and as a confirmation of the subject which the human being struggles to assert, is the poetic task par excellence. It is seemingly also, if Derrida is to be understood on this point, the only option left to a humanity wherein poetry comes to express what religious formulations can no longer justify.

The Logic of the “As If” and the (Non)existence of God

Words Fail ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Wallace Stevens ◽  
Paul Celan ◽  
Adrienne Rich ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Regulative Principle ◽  
Regulative Ideal ◽  
Mystical Traditions ◽  
As If

The first chapter explores Jacques Derrida’s rich reworking of the Kantian regulative principle of the as if in order to point toward certain potential movements of the as such in the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Adrienne Rich, and Paul Celan, as well as the various mystical traditions which Derrida himself took up on occasion. By taking this precise path and yet staying open to Derrida’s critique of any possible presentation as such beyond the as if, this chapter shows how Derrida’s work ultimately also points toward an encounter with the O/other as such, beyond the as if, though within language, very much within its failures—which is, in the end, the only real way to fully respect the encounter at all. In such fashion, an ethical imperative appears within the event of encounter, one that does not seek to reduce the singularity of the O/other’s presence before us to a regulative ideal as if to go beyond what has been (re)presented to us, but rather that which embraces what cannot be represented, bringing philosophy, politics, and religion to the threshold of a mystical-ethical imperative that we must take very seriously.

Gerry Knowles, A cultural history of the English language. London: Arnold, 1997. Pp. x, 180. Hb $59.95, pb $20.00.

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-133
Author(s):  
Richard W. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
English Language ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Language And Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
As If

In his preface, Knowles makes clear what his book is not. It is not a history of literary English, and it is not an account of changes in linguistic form; it is a “cultural history.” In the introductory chapter, he declares: “In view of the close connection between language and power, it is impossible to treat the history of the language without reference to politics” (9). Of course, books that purport to be histories of English have often “treated” the subject without apparent politics. Knowles is right in alleging that the politics of such books has often been implicit, since most of them provide information about the ascent of one variety of the language to the elevated status of a standard – as if that were an inevitable and desirable result of the spirit of goodness working itself out through speech.

scholarly journals J.H. le Roux�s philosophy of religion

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco W. Gericke
Keyword(s):  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

J.H. le Roux had a passion for philosophy. His writings contain recourse to the history of philosophy in a way that bespeaks a deep underlying interest in the subject. This much is relatively well-known. This contribution, by contrast, aims at reconstructing something hitherto mostly covert: Le Roux�s philosophy of religion. Of interest is what his writings presuppose about the nature of religion, religious language, the nature of God, the existence of God, religious epistemology, the relation between religion and morality and the problem of religious pluralism.

scholarly journals «Al aire» del to barroc

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 159
Author(s):  
Lola Josa
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Sheet Music ◽  
Xvii Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Musical Evolution ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
As If ◽  
Poetry And Music

Resum: El paisatge bucòlic es va convertir en una espècie de partitura i de joc metalíric en els tons barrocs de tal manera que sembla com si els intèrprets i les veus que els canten només tinguessin que seguir les indicacions que els tòpics poètics dicten des del text per a que la sonoritat, l’harmonia i la música fossin possibles. Resulta molt curiós també que, tan tardanament, fos a propòsit de l’amor bucolicopastoral el pretext amb què l’incipient art del to es mostrés més experimental. Només aquest motiu musical podria justificar, que, a principis del segle XVII, proliferessin les composicions de tons de temàtica bucòlica i d’aquells altres que estan centrats en una Natura, si bé no idealitzada, no advertida pel més tardà panteisme egocèntric. En aquest treball ens centrarem, per tant, en les causes d’aquest esforç d’originalitat musical i de llurs èxits, així com la repercussió que va tenir en la poesia musicada. També seguirem l’evolució poeticomusical del to bucolicopastoral de la mà dels millors compositors peninsulars (alguns encara desconeguts) per a terminar oferint les característiques més significatives que permeten fixar-lo com una de les importants tipologies de la història de la música peninsular del segle XVII.. Paraules clau: to barroc, poesia i música del segle XVII, bucolisme líric, estudi interdisciplinar, llenguatge poeticomusical.   Abstract: The bucolic landscape became a kind of sheet music and metalyrical game in baroque tonos in such a way that it seems as if the performers and the voices that sing them have only to follow the indications that the poetic topics dictate from the text so that the sonority, harmony and music were possible. It is very curious also that, so belatedly, it was on the subject of pastoral-bucolic love the pretext with which the incipient art of the tono was more experimental. Only this musical motif could justify, that, at the beginning of the XVII century, the compositions of bucolic tonos proliferated and of those others that are centered in a Nature, although not idealized, not noticed by the later egocentric pantheism. In this work we will focus, therefore, on the causes of this effort of musical originality and its achievements, as well as the repercussion that it had on musicalized poetry. We will also follow the poetic-musical evolution of the bucolic-pastoral tono along with the best peninsular composers (some still unknown) to end up offering the most significant characteristics that allow us to fix it as one of the important typologies of the history of the peninsular music of the XVII century. Keywords: Baroque tono; Poetry and music of the seventeenth century; Lyric bucolicism; Interdisciplinary study; Poetic-musical language.  

scholarly journals XIII.—On certain Salts and Products of Decomposition of Comenic Acid

1853 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-245
Author(s):  
Henry How
Keyword(s):  
Organic Chemistry ◽  
Organic Acids ◽  
General Formula ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comenic Acid ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Field Of Inquiry ◽  
As If

The study of the organic acids appears scarcely to have advanced of late years pari passu with the other branches of organic chemistry. It seems, indeed, as if the development of each of the different departments of the science had been, to a certain extent, periodical; each engrossing the labours of investigators to the temporary exclusion of the others, themselves to be renewed when some new experiments should reawaken an interest in them.However this may be, the subject of the natural and artificial bases has proved so productive of interesting results as to have recently become the chosen and almost exclusive field of inquiry, notwithstanding several investigations which have thrown much light on one class of organic acids, namely, that represented by the general formula Cn Hn O4. With the exception of this section, the history of the organic acids remains very imperfect, and in many cases we have but a meagre account of a few of their salts.

scholarly journals Name-strategies and antropoiesis discourse in the history of philosophy

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-16
Author(s):  
S. G. Selivanova
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definite Structure ◽  
Entire History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First Time ◽  
Modern Era

Onomapoiesis strategies actualize the distinctive sphere of human practice, which is a direct continuation of autopoiesis and anthropoiesis. They atomize and ontologize the Self by restricting it to definite structure-morphologic clusters of language expressions, such as personal name and pronoun. As a result, we have two completely different tactics: naming tactics and pronoun tactics, or ego-strategies. These practices refer to diverse complexes and can’t be considered within one species, each of them constitutes the autonomous entity. Any self-naming, self-calling, and indication through the name or pronoun, correlates with the innate eager and desire of a person to express himself, the world, and other(s). Thus, the anthropology of naming turns out to be the part of philosophical discourse, implicitly passing through the entire history of thought. Primarily, the philosophy of Stoics belongs to this kind of boundary marks, within the framework of which the distinction between the name and the pronoun was made for the first time. Plus, the discovery of deixis belongs to them. In the context of the modern era of philosophy, the doctrine of Rene Descartes is a kind of counterpoint when the Self, the Ego, first reveals itself to consciousness. Further, there is a fission inside the indicated complexes: I and not-I, My and not-My, I and You, We and They, I and the Other, I and Others manifest themselves inside the pronoun practices of naming. Their contents and meanings become the subject of philosophy and linguistic, as well as interdisciplinary studies. There are two conceptually framed strategies within one complex, which illustrates the praxeological character of the study: the Heideggerian Dasein and the polyphonic Ego presented by Bakhtin M.M. The first one unfolds as a monologue and first-person speech; the latter in turn, as a dialog, which expresses the subject’s being as a complicity in the polyphony of voices of the Other(s).

scholarly journals The pre-history of quantum computation

2004 ◽  
Vol 23 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 2-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Potgieter
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Quantum Computation ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The West ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Main Ideas

The main ideas behind developments in the theory and technology of quantum computation were formulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by two physicists in the West and a mathematician in the former Soviet Union. It is not generally known in the West that the subject has roots in the Russian technical literature. The idea, as propagated by Benioff and (especially) Feynman, is reviewed along with the proposition of a foundation for this kind of computation by Manin in the Russian literature. The author hopes to present as impartial a synthesis as possible of the early history of thought on this subject. The role of reversible and irreversible computational processes will be examined briefly as it relates to the origins of quantum computing and the so-called Information Paradox in physics. Information theory and physics, as this paradox shows, have much to communicate to each other.

scholarly journals ADAKAH ITU: VERITAS ET IUSTITIA?

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Budiono Kusumohamidjojo
Keyword(s):  
Absolute Truth ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Violent Conflicts ◽  
Tremendous Challenge ◽  
As If

<p><strong><em>Abstract</em></strong></p><p><em>The idea of truth has gone through a path of a long history and will still be the subject of a long and complex discourse. It will even remain being the cause of violent conflicts, the more if it deals with the perception of absolute truth. The unfortunate problem befalling mankind is the fact, which is based on different perceptions of truth, let alone “absolute truth”, that a lot of people strive to uphold perfect justice as if the world has a place for such an illusion. The history of mankind has reached a stage, whereby we must learn to understand that we have to distance ourselves from thoughts of promoting absolute truth, the more if aspirations toward upholding perfect justice also piggy backs thereon. Or else the world will keep constantly embroiled in senseless conflicts, violence and wars, where people would fight each other for their respective absolute principles, while actually being unaware about its absurd logic. Therefore the newly launched journal <strong>Veritas Et Iustitia </strong>would have to confront a tremendous challenge because the editors should construct a platform for continuous dialogue leading to constructive efforts towards better understanding about truth which should be increasingly more true and justice which should be increasingly more just to be pursued by mankind.</em></p><p align="right"><strong><em> </em></strong></p><p align="right"><strong><em>Keywords:</em></strong><strong><em><br /> </em></strong><em>truth</em><em>, justice, history, absolutism, ideology, paradoxically</em><em></em></p>

Nacjonalistyczna Szwecja

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2 (461)) ◽  
pp. 61-68
Author(s):  
Karl-Olov Arnstberg
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Selma Lagerlof ◽  
As If

Karl-Olov Arnstberg in the text Swedish Patriotism discusses the issue of identity and national consciousness in Sweden. The starting point for his reflections is the interview he had the opportunity to conduct with a doctor from Sri Lanka. He approached him as if he was a Swede, they both had a similar worldview, but his approach changed when the subject of conversation became the history of Sri Lanka. Arnstberg felt as if his interlocutor was so rooted in the past that the past, not the present created who he is now. The author of the text notices a parallel linking this situation with how the national consciousness of the Swedes was described at the beginning of the previous century by Selma Lagerlöf and Verner von Heidenstam. However, he notices certain regularity that “when the history of Sweden is written in a scientific and objective way, with a keen pursuit of truth, it is not only the history of Sweden that loses its social grounding, but it is also much harder to build a national identity on it”. What affects most the nation are fantastic heroes and fantastic events. Arnstberg emphasizes that he does not need his country’s history to build his identity. He refers to Peter Englund, a member of the Swedish Academy, who on the one hand wrote that ignorance of history may cause a lack of sense and identity, and on the other hand, he believed that historical events and heroes should not be used as justification for nationalism. His interpretation of Englund’s words includes two approaches to history. The first – modernist, which does not look at history in the identity context, and the second – nationalist, according to which knowledge of history is important for a sense of community with the rest of the nation. Further, the author of the text analyzes the concept of Swedishness, referring to the articles of other researchers. The examples he gives more blur the term than allow us to understand what it really means. He demonstrates, on the basis of nationalism, the paradoxes of Swedishness and even undermines its existence.

Presidential Address: The Mission of Henry Legge to Berlin, 1748

1931 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Richard Lodge
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
As If

I have written a good deal about diplomacy during the War of the Austrian Succession, in defiance of Carlyle, who calls it “an unintelligible, huge, English-and-Foreign Delirium … a universal rookery of Diplomatists, whose loud cackle and cawing is now as if gone mad to us; their work wholly fallen putrescent and avoidable, dead to all creatures.” But I have never found occasion to say all that I wanted to say about a curious and little known episode that occurred just about the close of the war. Some interesting letters about Legge's mission to Berlin were printed in the first of Archdeacon Coxe's massive volumes on The Administration of Henry Pelham. But these letters serve to whet rather than to satisfy the enquirer's appetite, and there is a great deal more material in the Record Office and in the Newcastle Papers. Also it is possible in the present day to find in the sixth volume of Frederick's Politische Correspondenz ample accounts of the mission from the Prussian point of view. As I have had occasion to survey all this evidence, it occurred to me that I might fill an obvious gap in my studies of the diplomacy of the period by taking Legge's mission as the subject of my Presidential Address, and by endeavouring to bring out is connection with the general history of Europe and especially with the contemporary negotitations at Aix-la-chappelle.

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