Plato and the Invention of Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Naas
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Structural Relationship ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Immortal Soul ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Platonic Dialogue ◽  
Power And Authority ◽  
Being And Becoming

While the question of life (whether bios or zōē) is not the explicit focus of any Platonic dialogue, it is, this book argues, an absolutely central and structuring question for all of Plato’s thought and, perhaps especially, for his ontology. This is nowhere more evident than in the Statesman, where the central myth of the two ages sketches out not only two epochs of human life and two models of human governance but two very different kinds and valences of life. Plato and the Invention of Life begins by offering a reading of Plato’s Statesman in order to ask about the question of life in Plato’s thought more generally. By characterizing being (whether in the form of the Forms or the immortal soul) in terms of life, Plato in many of his later dialogues, including the Statesman, begins to discover—or, better, to invent—a notion of life itself, that is, a real ortrue life that would be opposed to all merely biological or animal life, a form of life that would be more valuable than everything we call life and every life that can actually be lived. This emphasis on life in the Platonic dialogues will, this work shows, at once illuminate the structural relationship between so many of Plato’s most time-honored distinctions (e.g., being and becoming, soul and body, etc.) and help explain the enormous power and authority that Plato’s thought has exercised, for good or ill, over our entire philosophical and religious tradition.

Conclusion: Life on the Line

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Naas
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
The West ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Line P

The conclusion argues that there is in Plato, in addition to the undeniable tendency shown in the previous chapter to think life in terms of life itself, that is, in terms of a Platonic form of life, another countervailing tendency, a less “Platonic” conception of life that is operating always in the margins of Plato’s dialogues, a notion of life that needs to be thought along the lines of what Jacques Derrida began calling in an as-yet-unpublished seminar of 1974–75 life death. The chapter suggests that what a Derridean reading of the Statesman and other dialogues on the question of life reveals is the necessity of thinking life otherwise, that is, life neither as bare, biological life, nor as real, spiritual life, as life itself, but as life death, that is, as a life that must always be woven together with and thought always in relation to death. Life death, it is claimed, is what the philosophical and religious tradition of the West has had to forget or repress in order for something like life itself to emerge, that is, a life completely detached from any life that is actually lived.

Plato and the Invention of Life Itself

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Naas
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Life Itself

The final chapter takes many of the insights from the previous chapters in order to show, through a more general reading of Plato’s dialogues, how Plato attempts always to move from what is commonly called life, that is, from a more biological conception of life, a life of the body or of the animal, to a spiritual life or a life of the soul, that is, from something like bare life to real life, from particular life-forms to an essence or form of life itself, the only life, in end, worthy of the name for Plato. This chapter thus concentrates on several later dialogues in which Plato begins to distinguish two different valences of life, human life in the polis (bios) as opposed to what Giorgio Agamben calls “bare life” (zōē), but also, and more importantly, human life as opposed to something like real life. It is the initial distinction between human life and bare life that allows for this reinscription or transformation of bare life into something like real life or life itself, a transformation, it is argued, that is decisive not just for Plato but for the entire neo-Platonic and Christian tradition that takes its inspiration from him.

The Culture of Criticism

PMLA ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey H. Hartman
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Social World ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
A Value ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Right

For those who approach literary studies with literary sensitivity, an immediate problem arises. They cannot overlook style, their own or that of others. Through their concern with literature they have become aware that understanding is a mediated activity and that style is an index of how the writer deals with the consciousness of mediation. Style is not cognitive only; it is also recognitive, a signal betraying the writer's relation, or sometimes the relation of a type of discourse, to a historical and social world. To say that of course words are a form of life is not enough: words at this level of style intend a statement about life itself in relation to words, and in particular to literature as a value-laden act. Thus, even without fully understanding it, one is alerted by a similarity in the opening of these two essays: The Right Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Bishop of Winchester, died on September 26th, 1626. During his lifetime he enjoyed a distinguished reputation for the excellence of his sermons, for the conduct of his diocese, for his ability in controversy displayed against Cardinal Bellarmine, and for the decorum and devotion of his private life. (Eliot, Lancelot 13) One afternoon, Walter Benjamin was sitting inside the Café des Deux Magots in Saint Germain des Prés when he was struck with compelling force by the idea of drawing a diagram of his life, and knew at the same moment exactly how it was to be done. He drew the diagram, and with utterly typical ill-luck lost it again a year or two later. The diagram, not surprisingly, was a labyrinth. (Eagleton, Pref.)

Consciousness: The Most Critical Moral (Constitutional) Standard for Human Personhood

1987 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 233-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Cranford ◽  
David Randolph Smith
Keyword(s):  
Medical Profession ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Vegetative State ◽  
Persistent Vegetative State ◽  
Major Premise ◽  
Definition Of Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
Appropriate Care ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Definition Of

For the past two decades, the medical profession and society have debated the definition of death. Some reasonable consensus has been reached on this issue, in theory and in practice. In the last few years, however, a far more important debate has been evolving — the definition of human personhood. Human personhood has been discussed extensively in the past with respect to the abortion question and other issues concerning the beginning of life. More recently, however, the definition of personhood has been raised with respect to termination of treatment decisions at the end of life and, in particular, on the appropriate care of patients in a persistent vegetative state.Our major premise is that consciousness is the most critical moral, legal, and constitutional standard, not for human life itself, but for human personhood. There is nothing highly original in our approach to this particular issue; others have advanced similar arguments in recent years.

S. Freud. Aggression: between Eros and Thanatos

2021 ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Vyacheslav N. Zhukov
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Death Instinct ◽  
Biological Phenomenon ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Inanimate Matter ◽  
Special Case

The article deals with the concept of aggression S. Freud. Aggression is shown as a biological phenomenon interacting with culture. According to Freud, biological phenomena (including human life) are permeated by two aspirations: the instinct of life and the instinct of death. The purpose of life is death, and life itself is a special case of inanimate matter. Aggression is a manifestation of the death instinct. Since the culture designed to restrain individual and mass aggression is itself permeated with both instincts (Eros and Thanatos), the outcome of the struggle between them is unknown.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mette M. High
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Asian Continent ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Strong Ties ◽  
Financial Investment ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Spirit Beings ◽  
The Sacrifice

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the Mongolian gold rush. The gold rush, which has grown to become the largest ever on the Asian continent, involves major risks, perhaps even the sacrifice of human life itself. Although national and international commentators rejoice in Mongolia's immense mineral wealth, which is expected to help ease the global crisis in financial investment markets, gold is locally regarded as a volatile and inalienable material that is not readily exchangeable and commodifiable. In contrast to other kinds of metal, it is seen to retain strong ties to the landscape and its many spirit beings. Since these ties cannot easily be severed and are particularly strong at the point of extraction, the fortune of gold is inseparable from the fears that surround mining.

Life

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-74
Author(s):  
Marc Crépon ◽  
James Martel
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Stefan Zweig ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Good For

This chapter discusses not only how the fabric of relations binds people to all others, but also how its fissures are a part of the “nature” or the “essence of life,” at least “human life.” If it is true that all life, however it defines its belonging, is protected by the ideals and the institutions that constitute a common good for humanity, and if it is true, more importantly, that no one can elude murderous consent, then the paradox of murderous consent is that humanity's common good turns against life itself. Rather than merely accept, encourage, and promote the destruction of life, the fabric of relations that should prevent such annihilation assists it. All wars, all acts of violence, whether civil or between states, trample on the ideals of humanity, even as those who are responsible for the abuse proclaim these same ideals as their own. Nothing that safeguards life is immune from being invoked and exploited so as to effect this kind of reversal. This was the bitter conclusion—as expressed in his Reflections on War and Death—that Sigmund Freud reached in 1915 after the first of four long years of mutual devastation by Europe's nations. Stefan Zweig—in The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European, a retrospective on the war—came to this same conclusion regarding literature, though twenty-five years later.

Attentiveness and Humor

2018 ◽  
pp. 195-214
Author(s):  
Homayra Ziad
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Institutional Pressures

This chapter focuses on two important practices that are essential to the work of shaping the stories of a human life: the cultivation of attentiveness and of humor. College students who are committed to a particular religious tradition face not only the usual distractions and demands that all undergraduates face, but also cultural, social, and institutional pressures to “perform” their beliefs in a certain way. If students are to narrate their own lives in ways that make space for these complexities, they will need to engage in certain kinds of spiritual practices that will help them re-center themselves and tell their stories in their own voices. Drawing on the Sufi tradition, the author suggests that by cultivating the practice of attentiveness, and by maintaining a lightness of perspective and a dose of humor, students may be able to navigate their undergraduate years more successfully.

scholarly journals Pengalihwujudan dalam Kerangka Konsep Hukum Hak Cipta

Humaniora ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Besar Besar
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Human Intelligence ◽  
Great Ability ◽  
Copyright Laws ◽  
Life Itself

Power of human intelligence and reasoning power as God's creation that has such a great ability and accompanied with such advanced technology to create or creation something, make something that is often beyond the limits of existing rules at the level of human life itself. The result of creativity and creations that appear either truly original creation or a form can not be separated from adaptations of copyright law. Copyright laws are made with the intent to regulate and protect the rights, in fact, considered to still have the weakness, therefore this paper tries to lift the adaptations within the framework of copyright law. In this article the author uses qualitative and descriptive methods are based on secondary data. From the results have not been found the regulations or laws that specifically deal about adaptations 

scholarly journals An Explicit Research on LENSCAM

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2S3) ◽  
pp. 520-522
Keyword(s):  
Life Style ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Parallel Form ◽  
The World ◽  
The Moment

The world of internet today has become a parallel form of life and living. Public are now capable of doing things which were not imaginable few years ago. Internet as enabled the use of website communication, email and a lot of anytime, anywhere IT solutions for the betterment of humankind. We pursue life style innovation. The very first product of us “LENSCAM” is the tool that innovate human experiences about photo shooting. We want to help people to collect authentic moments with “LENSCAM” that never let the moment pass in life and contribute human life wealth. We find FUN in life, develop it by small essence of TECH and realize in the society with ART .The principle of our business is the conjoined three elements, FUN, ART and TECH. We believe Tech is something contributes to human life but tech itself never be realized. It should be found from FUN stuff. And any products or services should be aesthetically valuable to customers and the society.

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