Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-183
Author(s):  
Danielle Sands
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Forms Of Life

The Conclusion situates the findings of the book in relation to the current environmental crisis, arguing that effective responses to this crisis demand a plurality of approaches to nonhuman life, rather than an empathy which is restricted to certain living beings. It argues that literature is not a protected, apolitical space, but a world-making space, whose tools – metaphor, trope, allegory – should be evaluated as better or worse tools of being-with other forms of life, rather than merely in terms of their representational value. The Conclusion appeals to a mode of ‘noninnocent thinking’ which links the critical and imaginative, and advances ways of cultivating less violence, rather than eradicating it completely.

Dante Alighieri

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Bartoloni
Keyword(s):  
Dante Alighieri ◽  
The Political ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Artistic Process ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is invoked several times in the work of Giorgio Agamben, often in passing to stress a point, as when discussing the political relevance of désoeuvrement (KG 246); to develop a thought, as in the articulation of the medieval idea of imagination as the medium between body and soul (S, especially 127–9); or to explain an idea, as in the case of the artistic process understood as the meeting of contradictory forces such as inspiration and critical control (FR, especially 48–50). So while Agamben does not engage with Dante systematically, he refers to him constantly, treating the Florentine poet as an auctoritas whose presence adds critical rigour and credibility. Identifying and relating the instances of these encounters is useful since they highlight central aspects of Agamben’s thought and its development over the years, from the first writings, such as Stanzas, to more recent texts, such as Il fuoco e il racconto and The Use of Bodies. The significance of Agamben’s reliance on Dante can be divided into two categories: the aesthetic and the political. The following discussion will address each of these categories separately, but will also emphasise the philosophical continuity that links the discussion of the aesthetic with that of the political. While in the first instance Dante is offered as an example of poetic innovation, especially in relation to the use of language and imagination, in the second he is invoked as a forerunner of new forms of life. Mediality and potentiality are the two pivots connecting the aesthetic and the political.

The Political and Aesthetic Power of the Everyday in Beckett's Happy Days

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-66
Author(s):  
Julie Bates
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
First Century ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Last Man ◽  
Second World

Happy Days is contemporaneous with a number of seminal contributions to the concept of the everyday in postwar France. This essay suggests that the increasingly constrained verbal and physical routines performed by its protagonist Winnie constitute a portrait of the everyday, and goes on to trace the affinities between Beckett's portrait and several formulations of the concept, with particular emphasis on the pronounced gendering of the everyday in many of these theories. The essay suggests the aerial bombings of the Second World War and methods of torture during the Algerian War as potential influences for Beckett's play, and draws a comparison with Marlen Haushofer's 1963 novel The Wall, which reimagines the Romantic myth of The Last Man as The Last Woman. It is significant, however, that the cataclysmic event that precedes the events of Happy Days remains unnamed. This lack of specificity, I suggest, is constitutive of the menace of the play, and has ensured that the political as well as aesthetic power of Happy Days has not dated. Indeed, the everyday of its sentinel figure posted in a blighted landscape continues to articulate the fears of audiences, for whom the play may resonate today as a staging of twenty-first century anxiety about environmental crisis. The essay concludes that in Happy Days we encounter an isolated female protagonist who contrives from scant material resources and habitual bodily rhythms a shelter within a hostile environment, who generates, in other words, an everyday despite the shattering of the social and temporal framework that conventionally underpin its formation. Beckett's play in this way demonstrates the political as well as aesthetic power of the everyday in a time of crisis.

Green Statehood and Environmental Crisis

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
John Vogler
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Crisis

The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mutual Accountability

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.

A Scientific World-View of Nature and Environmental Problem with a Special Concentration on Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s Understanding of Environmental Sustainability (Perspektif Sains terhadap Krisis Alam dan Persekitaran: Pemikiran Seyyed Hossein Nasr tentan)

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-328
Author(s):  
Md. Abu Sayem
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
World View ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
World Views ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
European Renaissance

The present paper attempts to expose how the scientific world-view of nature contributes to the present environmental crisis. Alongside this, it relates European Renaissance, humanism, secularism, the scientific and industrial revolutions, modern philosophy, scientism, technology-based modern life, consumerism-based modern society, etc. with current environmental problems. By focusing on Nasr’s traditional understanding of nature, the paper explores how materialistic and mechanistic world-views are deeply connected with the present ecological crisis. It also offers a critical analysis of Nasr’s spiritual and religious world-view of nature and examines its relevance. In doing so, it aims to highlight some demerits of the present world-view, and to call to reform current perceptions of nature by revitalizing traditional wisdom in order to protect the environment from further degradation. Thus, the paper is scholarly addition to the ongoing discourse on the issue of religions and the environment. Keywords: Eco-theology, Environmental Degradation, Materialistic and Mechanistic Views of Nature, Scientism, Spiritual Crisis of Modern humans, Religious and Spiritual World-Views.   Abstrak Kertas kajian ini menerangkan bagaimana pandangan saintifik telah menyumbang kepada krisis alam sekitar semasa. Disamping itu, kertas ini akan menhubungkaitkan Gerakan Revolusi Humanisma di Eropah, sekularisme, revolusi  sains dan perindustrian, falsafah moden, saintisme, kehidupan moden yang berasaskan teknologi, masyarakat moden yang berasaskan consumerisme, etc. dengan krisis alam sekitar yang berlaku dewasa ini.  Dengan memahami pandangan Nasr terhadap alam sekitar, kertas ini akan merungkai bagaimana pandangan materialistik (kebendaan) dan mekanistik mempengaruhi krisis ekologi masa kini. Ia juga akan menganalisa pandangan spiritual dan agama Nasr terhadap alam sekitar secara kritikal dan akan menilai sejauh mana kesesuaiannya. Dengan sedemikian dapat menyedarkan manusia tentang kecacatan pandangan semasa, yang kemudiannya akan membawa kepada pembaharuan persepsi mereka terhadap alam sekitar dengan cara menghidupkan semula nilai-nilai tradisional demi mengelakkan kemerosotan alam sekitar. Kertas ini akan memuatkan idea-idea para cendiakawan dalam membincangkan isu  berkaitan agama dan alam sekitar. Kata Kunci: Eko-Teologi, Kemerosotan Alam Sekitar, Pandangan Materialistik dan Makanistik terhadap Alam, Saintisme, Krisis Spiritual Manusia Moden, Perspektif Spiritual dan Agama.

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