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dialogues, a notion of life that needs to be thought along the lines of what Jacques Derrida began calling in an as-yet-unpublished seminar of 1974–75 life death.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

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.

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.)

scholarly journals DIMENSI-DIMENSI MISTIK TAFSIR AL-MIZAN (Studi atas Pemikiran Thabathaba'i dalam Tafsir Al-Mizan)

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusno Abdullah Otta
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Running Away ◽  
Life Itself

The multidimensional crisis has not yet shown that it will end even causing casualties, not only material victims, but also casualties and the threat of disintegration. So that the assumption and image of most people that Sufism as a teaching that focuses on individual piety and ritual is rejected. Because, Sufism should be an alternative answer to the problematic pluralist society and universal social change. Therefore the research will try to focus on the work of one of the influential figures of Thabathaba Sufism by examining the monumental work of al-Mizan. This research comes from primary and secondary data, the main source of course is al-Mizan's interpretation while indirect work is the work of others about Thabathaba`i thinking. The results of this study are Thabathaba'i who carry out the moderate life of Irfan Tasawuf. For him, spiritual life is not running away from life itself. This expression is addressed to those who practice Irfan radically and conservatively. This phenomenon is emphasized by Thabathaba'i to be reformed. Through some of his works, the interpretation of Al-Mizan, he opened his readers' insight while at the same time straightening out a sad understanding of various things, especially Irfan's life. Keywords:Sufism, al-Mizan, Thabathaba`i, `Irfan, Moderate. Krisis multidimensional belum juga menunjukkan akan berakhir bahkan telah menimbulkan korban, tidak saja korban material, tetapi juga korban jiwa serta ancaman disintegrasi. Sehingga anggapan dan image sebagian besar orang bahwa tasawuf sebagai sebuah ajaran yang menitikberatkan pada kesalehan individual dan ritual tertolak.Sebab, tasawuf seharusnya bisa menjadi jawaban alternatif atas problematika masyarakat yang pluralis dan perubahan sosial secara universal. Oleh karena itu penelitian akan coba fokus membahas karya salah seorang tokoh tasawuf berpengaruh Thabathaba`i dengan mengkaji karya monumentalnya al-Mizan. Penelitian ini bersumber dari data primer dan sekunder, sumber utama tentu tafsir al-Mizan sedangkan karya yang tidak langsung adalah karya orang lain tentang pemikiran Thabathaba`i. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah Thabathaba`i seorang yang menjalankan kehidupan Irfan Tasawuf yang moderat. Baginya, kehidupan spiritual bukannya melarikan diri dari kehidupan itu sendiri.Ungkapan ini ditujukan kepada mereka yang mempraktekkan Irfan secara radikal dan konservatif.Gejala ini yang ditekankan Thabathaba`i untuk direformasi. Melalui beberapa karyanya, tafsir Al-Mizan, dia membuka wawasan pembacanya sekaligus meluruskan pemahaman yang miris tentang berbagai hal, terutama kehidupan irfan. Kata Kunci:Tasawuf, al-Mizan, Thabathaba`i, `Irfan, Moderat.

Gerson’s “Moralized” Primer of Spiritual Grammar

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Dominic Longo
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The West ◽  
Christian Morality ◽  
Ten Commandments ◽  
Hybrid Genre

The chapter is a primer in “spiritual grammar” which provides a close reading of Gerson’s Moralized Grammar (Donatus moralizatus). This theological and literary exposition initiates the reader into how this unusual text’s hybrid genre works. With appreciation of the author’s pastoral agenda and the theological content of the text, this interpretation of Moralized Grammar illuminates the considerable skill involved in transforming into a sermonic moral catechism the grammatical primer written by Aelius Donatus (fl. 350 CE), which was foundational to education for 1000 years in the West. In Moralized Grammar Gerson accomplished a feat of literary creativity for the purpose of crafting a synopsis of the Christian moral and spiritual life that would have been extraordinarily memorable for the growing class of literate Christians of his time. Moralized Grammar is also an example of Gerson’s overall effort to place the Ten Commandments at the center of Christian morality.

Merchants from Sail to Steam: The West Australian Shipping Association and the Evolution of the Conference System, 1884-1910

1992 ◽  
pp. 273-302
Author(s):  
Frank Broeze
Keyword(s):  
Maritime History ◽  
The West ◽  
Line P ◽  
Conference System

This section of the journal is comprised of essays exploring international maritime history, in fields closely related to Professor Davies' own research. Frank Broeze examines the conferences of the port Fremantle; Anders Fon and Lewis R. Fischer explore Norwegian shipbroking; Helge Nordvik reviews the life of Norwegian shipowner, Lauritz Kloster; and Lars Scholl considers the 1920 re-establishment of the Hamburg-American line.

Meditation and the Modern Encounter between Asia and the West

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. King
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Body ◽  
The West ◽  
Eastern Culture ◽  
Asian Religions ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Colonial Encounter ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

In the West, meditation has been particularly associated with Asian religions and seen as illustrative of the mystical nature of eastern culture. This chapter explores the impact of the colonial encounter between Europe and Asia. In this context, Asian meditative practices became abstracted from their traditional cosmological, ritualistic, and cultural contexts and reframed in terms of key conceptual binaries and assumptions deriving from modern Western culture. These include a Cartesian distinction between mind and body (with mind being associated with meditation and Buddhist mindfulness, and the body linked to “Hindu” yoga and its modern postural forms). Asian forms of meditation were translated according to a modern psychological framework and encountered in relation to the dichotomies between science and religion on the one hand and religious tradition and a de-traditionalized notion of spirituality on the other. The approaches taken in the Western encounter with Asian meditation tell us as much about the intellectual grooves of the modern Western episteme as they do about the Asian meditative traditions to which they relate.

Music

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Burch Brown
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Response ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The West ◽  
Greek Myth ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Comparative Religions ◽  
Insight Into

Music has often been regarded as the most directly emotional of the arts and the art most intimately involved with religious and spiritual life. In the endeavor to understand music's relation to emotion and religion, a variety of approaches and disciplines are relevant. There are, for example, scientific and psychological studies that can yield insight into the character of musical and emotional response, and of music's access to the affective life. Thus, multiple disciplines are pertinent, from musicology (including ethnomusicology) and history to philosophy, psychology, and various branches of religious studies, particularly theology and comparative religions. This essay deals with historical perspectives, major theories, and current issues regarding music, emotion, and religion. It begins by considering classic and exceptionally enduring images and ideas of music, including the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus. It then considers musical ethics and metaphysics in the West from antiquity through the Renaissance. The essay also examines remaining issues and unresolved tensions about music, emotion, and religion.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Relevance for Communication Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raka Shome
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
The West ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Radical Alterity ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Spivak is one of the foremost intellectuals of the 20th and 21st centuries. Although a literary critic, her work can be seen as philosophical as it is concerned with how to develop a transnational ethical responsibility to the radical “other,” who cannot be accessed by our discursive (and thus institutionalized) regimes of knowledge. Regarded as a leading postcolonial theorist, Spivak is probably best seen as a postcolonial Marxist feminist theorist, although she herself does not feel comfortable with rigid academic labeling. Her work is significantly influenced by the deconstructionist impulses of Jacques Derrida. Additionally, the influence of Gramsci and Marx is prominent in her thinking. Spivak’s work has consistently called attention to the logics of imperialism that inform texts in the West, including in Western feminist scholarship. Relatedly, she has also written significantly on how the nation, in attempting to represent the entirety of a population, cannot access otherness or radical alterity. This is best seen in her work on the subaltern and in her intervention into the famous Indian group of Subaltern Studies scholars. Other related foci of her work have been on comprehending translation as a transnational cultural politics, and what it means to develop a transnational ethics of literacy.

scholarly journals Futures beyond ‘the West’? Autoimmunity in China’s harmonious world

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
ASTRID H.M. NORDIN
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Open Future ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Harmonious World ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
To Come

AbstractIt has become fashionable among International Relations scholars to draw on the concept of ‘autoimmunity’, which some call ‘the ultimate horizon in which contemporary politics inscribes itself’. To these scholars, most of whom draw on the thought of Jacques Derrida, such logics open systems up to a future to come. At the same time, they tend to identify such logics with Europe, America, Western modernity, and/or democracy. Implied, and sometimes explicit, in their accounts is the denial of autoimmune logics at work outside such an imagined configuration.This article challenges that denial through arguing that the system of ‘harmony’, deployed in contemporary China, also works on an autoimmune logic. If autoimmunity opens up a system to the future, this is not only so for European democracy or its derivatives. Moreover, the expulsion of ‘non-Western’ others from accounts of autoimmunity undermines their rethinking of difference by falling back on an immunitary logic, denying China an open future. This exclusion is their condition of possibility. At the same time, this exclusion is what keeps open their promise of its future to come. Paradoxically, the exclusion of the ‘non-West’ is what keeps the idea of an autoimmune ‘Western’ or European democracy alive.

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