Lyrics of Life

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Keshavarz
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Persian Poetry ◽  
Communicative Role

Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love, Cosmopolitanism, and care of the Self is an accessible study of the lyrical, humorous, and social and education aspects of classical Persian poetry through the ghazals of Sa’di of Shiraz (d.1291) the poet, traveller, and ethicist. In six chapters and on epilogue, the author focuses on Sa’di’s worldly wisdom, his cosmopolitan perspectives, his sense of humour, his ethical legacy, and the lyrical quality that has made his work immune to the ravishes of time. The study provides hundreds of verses in English translation in order to enable the reader to experience Sa’di’s poetic art first hand. The discussions emphasize the relation between this poetry and lived experience, the central communicative role of poetry in the medieval Muslim world and the elegance of the poetic language as a social tool for ethical and political education. At the same time, it describes, in fine details, the lyrical strategies that the poet used in order to keep his poetry fresh, lyrical, humorous and entertaining.

scholarly journals The Role of Descartes’s Dream in the Meditations and in the Historical Ontology of Ourselves

2018 ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Edward McGushin
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Historical Ontology ◽  
Negative Power ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Positive Source ◽  
The Way

This paper situates the dream-hypothesis in Descartes’s First Meditation within the historical ontology of ourselves. It looks at the way in which the dream enters into and transforms Descartes’ relation to his “system of actuality.” In order to get free from his confinement within his system of actuality – an actuality defined by relations of power-knowledge, government, veridiction, and subjectivity – Descartes draws on the disruptive, negative capacity of the dream. But, while Descartes draws on the dream to get himself free and to establish a way of thinking and living differently, he also disqualifies the dream as a positive source of knowledge, truth, or subjectivity. Excavating this ambivalent place of the dream in the genealogy of our present, we aim to recover the dream not only in its negative power but also to open up the possibility of re-imagining its positivity as a form of counter-conduct, problematization, and element in the care of the self. This paper represents one piece of a larger genealogical study that examines the history of relationships between the arts of dreaming and the problematization of power-truth-subjectivity.

scholarly journals Beyond biopolitics: the importance of the later work of Foucault to understand care practices of healthcare workers caring for undocumented migrants

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Lafaut
Keyword(s):  
Role Models ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Healthcare Access ◽  
Healthcare Delivery ◽  
The Self ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Healthcare Ethics ◽  
Care Practices

Abstract BackgroundUndocumented migrants experience multiple institutional and legal barriers when trying to access healthcare services. Due to such limitations, healthcare workers often experience ethical dilemmas when caring for undocumented migrants. This article aims to understand how individual healthcare workers who regularly take care of undocumented migrants deal with these dilemmas in practice. So far, the role of healthcare workers in this context has mainly been theorized through the lens of biopolitics, conceiving of healthcare workers as merely obedient instruments of humanitarian government or gatekeeping.MethodsBased on semi-structured, in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations with healthcare workers in Belgium, we explore how they ascribe meaning, reflect upon and give shape to care practices in relation to undocumented migrants. We use Foucault’s later work on care of the self to interpret the accounts given by the healthcare workers.ResultsHealthcare workers in clinical roles exercise a certain degree of freedom in relation to the existing limitations to healthcare access of undocumented migrants. They developed techniques such as purposefully being inattentive to the undocumented status of the migrants. They also try to master their affective responses and transform their bodily attitude towards undocumented patients. They perform practical mental exercises to remind themselves of their role or position in the wider healthcare system and about their commitment to treat all patients equally. These techniques and exercises are inspired by colleagues who function as role models, inspiring them to relate in an ethical way to limitations in healthcare access. The developed care practices sometimes reproduce, sometimes transform the legal and institutional limitations to care for undocumented migrants.ConclusionsThe findings nuance the biopolitical analysis regarding the role of healthcare workers in healthcare delivery to undocumented migrants that has been dominant so far. Theoretically this article provides a reconceptualization of healthcare ethics as care of the self, an ethical practice that is somewhat independent of the traditional professional ethics.Trial RegistrationMedical ethics committee UZ Jette, Brussels, Belgium – Registration date: 18/05/2016 – Registration number: B.U.N. 143201628279

scholarly journals To-Do Is to Be: Foucault, Levinas, and Technologically Mediated Subjectivation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Peter Bergen ◽  
Peter-Paul Verbeek
Keyword(s):  
Self Care ◽  
The Self ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Technological Mediation ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
Technological Artifacts ◽  
Ethical Subjectivity ◽  
The World

AbstractThe theory of technological mediation aims to take technological artifacts seriously, recognizing the constitutive role they play in how we experience the world, act in it, and how we are constituted as (moral) subjects. Its quest for a compatible ethics has led it to Foucault’s “care of the self,” i.e., a transformation of the self by oneself through self-discipline. In this regard, technologies have been interpreted as power structures to which one can relate through Foucaultian “technologies of the self” or ascetic practices. However, this leaves unexplored how concrete technologies can actually support the process of self-care. This paper explores this possibility by examining one such technology: a gamified To-Do list app. Doing so, it first shows that despite the apparent straightforwardness of gamification, confrontation and shame play an important role in how the app motivates me to do better. Second, inspired by Ihde’s schema of human-technology relations, it presents different ways in which the app may confront me with myself. Subsequently, it accounts for the motivation and shame that this technologically mediated confrontation with myself invokes through a Levinasian account of ethical subjectivity. In so doing, it also shows how Levinas’ phenomenology implies a responsibility for self-care and how nonhuman, technological others may still call me to responsibility. It concludes with a reflection on the role of gamification in technologically mediated subjectivation and some implications for design.

Contemporary Scottish Poetry and the Natural World

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
The World ◽  
Environmental Thought ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Animal

Contemporary Scottish Writers and the Natural World examines the work of four Scottish poets – John Burnside, Kathleen Jamie, Robin Robertson and Kenneth White – in the light of philosophical considerations of the subject’s relation to the natural world and environmental thought. Drawing in particular on the phenomenological work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty on embodiment and Martin Heidegger on dwelling, the study explores the organic intimate interrelation between the self and the world, including human and non-human relations. The poets’ work is discussed in the context of the main premises of the phenomenological tradition that address the self’s relation with the world, focusing in particular on the sense of place, the vegetal and animal worlds, and foregrounding the dialogue between poetics, the subject and the landscape. The study considers a chiasmic human-non-human animal intertwining as particularly important in the poetry because of its lived experience of the world. Proposing a theoretically-informed discussion, which includes various modes of ecocritical apprehension, it analyses the subject’s perception of intimacy with the materiality of the natural world and the role of language in the registration of perceptual experience as explored in contemporary Scottish poetry.

scholarly journals Practical Role of Philosophy in Sport: Case of Philosophical Consultation

2019 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-25
Author(s):  
Lukáš Mareš
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe process of philosophical questioning has the power to form not only our way of thinking, but also the way we live. Both my sporting and academic career have made me think about the importance of asking good questions and undergoing the process of answering them. I decided to create a profession of philosophical consultation in sport which works with athletes and coaches of various ages. Consultants and athletes (clients) engage in a dialogue about important and interesting questions/topics in client’s life. This dialogical process is called philosophical consultation. It focuses on critical evaluation and development of client’s thinking, self-cognition, and attitudes/worldviews. Philosophical consultation helps athletes and coaches to look for their identity and achieve better self-awareness. It can be argued that consultation offers what Patočka calls the “care of the soul” (epimeleia peri tês psychês) or what Foucault calls the “care of the self” (epimeleia heautou), which are based on Socrates’ kind of philosophizing. It helps to achieve ancient ideals of kalokagathia and gnôthi seauton. The potential of using philosophy in sport hasn’t been fully discovered. Philosophical consultation is presented as a process of self-cognition and inner development. It has the potential to influence the care for well-being of athletes and coaches.I aim to explore the practical role of philosophy in sport. I will present possible connections between philosophy and sport and the historical predecessors of the concept of philosophical consultancy in sport. As well, we will discuss what philosophical consultancy is, how philosophical consultant works, and finally what are the challenges in bringing philosophical consultation into sport. Methods that are used in this interdisciplinary article are critical textual analysis, description, and interpretation of data.

scholarly journals The Role of Descartes’s Dream in the Meditations and in the Historical Ontology of Ourselves

2018 ◽  
pp. 84-102
Author(s):  
Edward McGushin
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Historical Ontology ◽  
Negative Power ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Positive Source ◽  
The Way

This paper situates the dream-hypothesis in Descartes’s First Meditation within the historical ontology of ourselves. It looks at the way in which the dream enters into and transforms Descartes’ relation to his “system of actuality.” In order to get free from his confinement within his system of actuality – an actuality defined by relations of power-knowledge, government, veridiction, and subjectivity – Descartes draws on the disruptive, negative capacity of the dream. But, while Descartes draws on the dream to get himself free and to establish a way of thinking and living differently, he also disqualifies the dream as a positive source of knowledge, truth, or subjectivity. Excavating this ambivalent place of the dream in the genealogy of our present, we aim to recover the dream not only in its negative power but also to open up the possibility of re-imagining its positivity as a form of counter-conduct, problematization, and element in the care of the self. This paper represents one piece of a larger genealogical study that examines the history of relationships between the arts of dreaming and the problematization of power-truth-subjectivity.

scholarly journals Beyond biopolitics: the importance of the later work of Foucault to understand care practices of healthcare workers caring for undocumented migrants

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Lafaut
Keyword(s):  
Role Models ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Healthcare Access ◽  
Healthcare Delivery ◽  
The Self ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Healthcare Ethics ◽  
Care Practices

Abstract Background Undocumented migrants experience multiple institutional and legal barriers when trying to access healthcare services. Due to such limitations, healthcare workers often experience ethical dilemmas when caring for undocumented migrants. This article aims to understand how individual healthcare workers who regularly take care of undocumented migrants deal with these dilemmas in practice. So far, the role of healthcare workers in this context has mainly been theorized through the lens of biopolitics, conceiving of healthcare workers as merely obedient instruments of humanitarian government or gatekeeping. Methods Based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations with healthcare workers in Belgium, we explore how they ascribe meaning, reflect upon and give shape to care practices in relation to undocumented migrants. We use Foucault’s later work on care of the self to interpret the accounts given by the healthcare workers. Results Healthcare workers in clinical roles exercise a certain degree of freedom in relation to the existing limitations to healthcare access of undocumented migrants. They developed techniques such as purposefully being inattentive to the undocumented status of the migrants. They also try to master their affective responses and transform their bodily attitude towards undocumented patients. They perform practical mental exercises to remind themselves of their role or position in the wider healthcare system and about their commitment to treat all patients equally. These techniques and exercises are inspired by colleagues who function as role models, inspiring them to relate in an ethical way to limitations in healthcare access. The developed care practices sometimes reproduce, sometimes transform the legal and institutional limitations to care for undocumented migrants. Conclusions The findings nuance the biopolitical analysis regarding the role of healthcare workers in healthcare delivery to undocumented migrants that has been dominant so far. Theoretically this article provides a reconceptualization of healthcare ethics as care of the self, an ethical practice that is somewhat independent of the traditional professional ethics. Trial Registration Medical ethics committee UZ Jette, Brussels, Belgium – Registration date: 18/05/2016 – Registration number: B.U.N. 143201628279.

The Problem of Habitual Body and Memory in Hegel and Merleau-Ponty

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Magrì
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Body Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Phenomenology Of Perception ◽  
Regular Manner ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Habitual Body

AbstractIn this paper, I shall focus on the relation between habitual body and memory in Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit and Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception. Both Hegel and Merleau-Ponty defend a view of the self that is centred on the role of habituality as embodied activity situated in a context. However, both philosophers avoid committing to what Edward Casey has defined habitual body memory, i.e., an active immanence of the past in the body that informs present bodily actions in an efficacious, orienting and regular manner. I shall explore the reasons why neither Hegel nor Merleau-Ponty develops an explicit account of habitual body memory. This will shed light not only on Hegel’s account of lived experience, but also on Hegel and Merleau-Ponty’s common concern with the habitual body.

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