Reflections of an Existential Crisis in Søren Kierkegaard’s Aesthetic Conception

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Antanas Andrijauskas ◽  

This article considers the principles of philosophical thinking in Søren Kierkegaard’s nonclassical aesthetics. Special attention is given to his radical critique of “false” and “impersonal” rationalism. This does not only mean the rejection of the traditional principles of classical metaphysics which claims “universality” and “universal meaning.” Kierkegaard also bases his philosophy on individual human life, or, in other words, personal existence with its unique inner world. His critique is more profound than that by Arthur Schopenhauer. Kierkegaard develops his own philosophy of “existential crisis,” opposing subjective will and internal changes to abstract thinking and external influences. Kierkegaard’s works initiate the critical or nonclassical stage in Western aesthetics. The main place in it is occupied by the idea of the disharmony of the world: its subjective reflection is “split” consciousness that has lost contact with the traditional concepts of harmony, humanism, goodness, beauty and philosophy of art.

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Norman

AbstractIn this paper I explore the role that the concept of the sacred can play in our moral thinking. I accept that the assertion that ‘human life is sacred’ can be one way of articulating the special value of individual human lives as in some sense inviolable. I cautiously allow that the idea of ‘sacred value’ might also apply to other things such as certain kinds of human commitments, uniquely precious art-works, and some other kinds of living things. In conclusion I offer reasons for resisting the claim, made especially by Roger Scruton, that the experience of the sacred, when properly understood, draws us ineluctably into a religious view of the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Csaba József Spalovszky

Beginnings are usually regarded as either hard or energizing times that set our inner world in motion. However, there is a beginning that is more important for humanity than any other: the origin of human life and of the world. The knowledge of our origin and the mystery concerning the beginning of the world have been the most intriguing and most engaging issues since man became aware of their own physical and spiritual existence. For many centuries, it was the duty of religion to provide humanity with a teaching about their origin and the foundation of human dignity. However, the 18th and 19th centuries were critical in the treatment of the biblical creation stories in Europe. The debate between misinterpreted creation myth accounts and scientific theories led to a sharpening confrontation between religion and science, but it also divided the believers and resulted in the birth of new theories. Emanuel Swedenborg, an influential theologist of the period, wrote detailed commentaries and genuine tractates related to the topic that influenced the ideology and art of William Blake, a versatile and ingenious artist and thinker of the era, whose influence is still significant today. The aim of this study is to highlight the parallels and contrasts between Blake’s Genesis myth and Swedenborg’s teachings, mainly through the unusual pairing of The [First] Book of Urizen and The Last Judgment, to show the connection between Swedenborg’s unorthodox views and Blake’s ideas about the creation of man and the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (Extra-B) ◽  
pp. 203-209
Author(s):  
Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov ◽  
Aleksandra Ivanovna Zakharova ◽  
Alexandra Fedorovna Bortnik ◽  
Maria Nikiforovna Romanova ◽  
Vladilena Romanovna Abramova

The processes of globalization and related integration that are taking place in the world, as well as the transition to the digitalization of all spheres of human life in the information society, adjustments introduced into people's lives, caused by unforeseen situations that cover the whole world, require a revision of the content of modern education. The relevance of the study is related to the need to search for stable support in a person in a constantly changing world, which inevitably leads to studying the role of the internal as related to the external factor in a person in the education system. The purpose of the article is to reveal the role of the inner world of a person in education. The leading research method was the analysis of the existing theoretical provisions and emerging practice in the spheres of pedagogy and education. The results of the study on the analysis of the role and place of the internal (motivation, impetus as the beginning of development, self-ordering) as related to the external (factors, causes, and conditions).


Author(s):  
Gulchehra T. Kabulniyazova ◽  

The article analyzes the ideas of the Sufi thinker, poet Jalaladdin Rumi, the prominent Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, and Henri Bergson about intuition and spiritual love. These thinkers, who lived in different historical eras, who were not familiar with each other’s creativity, expressed a number of similar ideas. These are ideas of spiritual love and intuition. According to Rumi, the idea of a person as God’s slave or servant is significantly lower than the idea of a person as a beloved of God, since it prevents one from seeing the im­age of God in the inner world of a person; the enlightened human soul strives to merge with the world soul. The highest goal of the integral yoga of Aurobindo is the unity of body, soul and spirit, thanks to which a latent spiritual force with a divine nature manifests itself in a person, a person turns into an instrument of action of divine will – Shakti. Rumi sees the meaning of human life in the dis­closure of creative abilities. Bergson defines intuition as the energy of benevo­lence, with the help of which the intellectual limitations of people are over­come. A person, according to Bergson, is a creative being, in whose activity a creative impulse is manifested; in turn, this impulse gives rise to intuition. Comparing the views of three thinkers, we find a pantheistic attitude that makes different worldviews comparable and provides a basis for their comparative study, which was pointed out in the 11th century. outstanding Central Asian en­cyclopedist Abu Rayhan al-Biruni. In our opinion, the ideas of spiritual love and intuition are the bridge that connects Western and Eastern cultures, which are very different from each other.


Author(s):  
Savchyn M.V.

The purpose of the article is a theoretical and practical substantiation of the test questionnaire “Fundamental worldview orientations of an individual” and a description of the stages of its creation. The following methods are used: a theoretical analysis, an empirical research. A variant of the test questionnaire, methods of its application and calculation of the quantitative data are described.Results and conclusions. It is stated that the diagnosing fundamental attitudes of an individual to himself, to other people, to life, the world and the spiritual sphere by a psychologist allows him to more effectively assist a client or a patient in strengthening his mental, psychological, social, moral and spiritual health. The article demonstrates the constructiveness of J. Powell’s idea that the integrity of human life depends on the perception and understanding of one’s own inner world and the world of others, the meaning of life, attitude to the nature and the spiritual reality. It is noted that the questionnaire created by the author for psychotherapeutic purposes cannot be used for diagnostic purposes due to the low reliability of the obtained quantitative results. The point adaptation techniques and the criteria of formulation of the author’s variant of the diagnostic test questionnaire “Fundamental worldview orientations of an individual” are characterized. PhD’s and Masters of psychology and pedagogy expertly tested the formulated scales and their points. The stages of its creation are described (adaptation of statements to the national realities, formation of criteria for selecting formulating statements; initial verification of validity and reliability of the questionnaire, statistical processing of primary data with determining relevant statistical indicators; improving statements and testing the improved version, checking the reliability and the constructive validity of the criteria), methods of checking the validity and reliability of the scales are suggested, relevant statistical indicators are characterized, stimulus material of the questionnaire is demonstrated, which includes the instructions to the subject, a list of five scales (“Views on life”, “Views on God”, “Views on other people”, “Views on nature”, “Views on oneself”), a form to fill in the answers, a list of direct and inverse statements in scales and the codes of translating answers into points. The types of respondents’ views are defined comparing with separate scales (1) positively constructive, harmonious; 2) positively disharmonious; 3) negatively disharmonious; 4) negatively destructive) and similar types of generalized worldviews of a subject. The obtained results can be used as data in counselling, correctional and psychotherapeutic activities of a practical psychologist.Key words: views of individual, validity, reliability, diagnostic scales, statistical indicators, view types. Мета статті – теоретичне і практичне обґрунтування тест-питальника «Фундаментальні світоглядні орієнтації особистості», опис етапів його створення. Методи. Використані такі методи: теоретичний аналіз, емпіричне дослідження. Описано варіант тестового питальника, методика його застосування й обчислення кількісних даних.Результати та висновки. Констатується, що діагностика психологом фундаментальних ставлень особистості до себе, до інших людей, до життя, світу та духовної сфери дозволяє йому ефективніше надавати допомогу тому, хто її потребуючому, клієнту чи пацієнту, у зміцненні його психічного, психологічного, соціального, морального та духовного здоров’я. Вказується на конструктивність ідеї Дж. Пауелла про залежність повноти людського життя від бачення, способів розуміння власного внутрішнього світу, світу інших, смислу життя, ставлення до природи та духовної реальності. Зазначається, що створений автором для психотерапевтичних цілей питальник не можна використати з діагностичною метою у зв’язку з низькою надійністю одержуваних кількісних результатів. Охарактеризовані напрями адаптації пунктів та критерії формулювання нових авторського варіанта діагностичного тест-питальника «Фундаментальні світогляди орієнтації особистості». У ролі експертів сформульованих шкал та їхніх пунктів виступили кандидати психологічних наук і магістри психології та педагогіки. Описано етапи його створення (адаптація тверджень до вітчизняних реалій, формування критеріїв добору тверджень та їх формулювання; первинна перевірка валідності та надійності питальника, статистичне опрацювання одержаних первинних даних із визначенням відповідних статистичних показників; удосконалення тверджень і випробовування вдосконаленого варіанта, перевірка надійності, критеріальної та конструктивної валідності), викладено методи перевірки валідності та надійності шкал, характеризуються відповідні статистичні показники, викладається стимульний матеріал питальника, що включає інструкцію досліджуваному, перелік пунктів п’яти шкал («Уявлення про життя», «Уявлення про Бога», «Уявлення про інших людей», «Уявлення про природу», «Уявлення про себе»), бланк для відповідей, перелік прямих і зворотних тверджень у шкалах, коди їх переведення відповідей у бали. Виділено типи уявлень респондентів за окремими шкалами (1) позитивно-конструктивний, гармонійний; 2) позитивно-дисгармонійний; 3) негативно-дисгармонійний; 4) негативно-деструктивний)), аналогічні типи узагальнених світоглядних уявлень досліджуваного. Зазначається, що отримані дані можуть бути використані в консультативній, корекційній та психотерапевтичній діяльності практичного психолога.Ключові слова: уявлення особистості, валідність, надійність, діагностичні шкали, статистичні показники, типи уявлень.


Author(s):  
Sergei A. Kornev

The understanding of the value of human life and responsibility for everything that happens or can happen to a person is analysed in the article; ways of overcoming alienation and loneliness and building trust in oneself, in the world and in others are identified. A theoretical overview, where the connectivity of existential givens is traced, is presented; in works of psychology, we however do not find scientific-psychological and statistical substantiation of these connections, which were outlined as long ago as at the time of existentialist philosophers. The results of empirical research are obtained by using the following methods – the study of personal trust or distrust in the world, in other people, in oneself by Alla Kupreychenko; Milton Rokeach Value Survey; Multidimensional diagnostic of "responsibility" RESPONSIBILITY-70; Dmitriy Leont'yev’s Meaningful Orientations Test; "Death Attitude" questionnaire by Paul T. P. Wong; Kseniya Chistopol'skaya’s adaptation of the "Fear of Personal Death" questionnaire, Yevgeniy Osin & Dmitriy Leont'yev’s differential questionnaire on the experience of loneliness. 80 people between the ages of 18 and 61 took part in the study. Of these, 54 % were females and 46 %, males. 51 % of the respondents have a family; 49 %, do not; 50 % of the respondents have a higher education. It is established that the level of understanding life, accepting responsibility, loneliness and its consequences are largely determined by the individual's trust in oneself, in others and in the world as a whole; the "optimal measure" of trust allows a person to accept existential given and cope with the feeling of meaninglessness of existence and the fear of death; what becomes the logical continuation of the search and finding meaning in life and the struggle with existential crisis is the attitude towards death, which includes analysis of the reasons for fear.


KronoScope ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-126
Author(s):  
Erica Magnus

AbstractTime on the Stage - in its most pedestrian sense, the interval between an actor's entrance and exit - has also had a long history as a metaphor for an individual human life. More broadly, the theatre's imaginative conflation with the world at large, a notion of the "theatre of the world," was prevalent to the point of cliché from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century. Apart from well-worn analogy, does the detached time/space of performance have any salient relationship with quotidian experience? This study engages two moments in Western theatre history, Greece in the seventh to the fifth centuries B.C.E. when theatre first appeared, and the Middle Ages, when it reappeared in the practices of the Catholic Church after several centuries of ostensible absence. The analysis suggests that theatrical praxis emerges in response to psychic needs engendered by profound changes in notions of time and space and that performance itself, is ultimately a chronotopic technology which is mensural in nature. In the historicized stage setting and in the temporally coded body of the actor, time is found to be very much on the stage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Ainul Fithriyah

The variety of thoughts about the optimal attainment of human self and the satisfaction of human life is what may have made Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1868) deny all worldly phenomena. He saw that the world was full of suffering. Humans, as the supreme product of the basic activities of the world, are in fact the most unfortunate creatures. Therefore, humans will be able to achieve happiness when they are able to kill passions and cravings. Studies on the optimal achievement of humans and the meaning of human life from the two figures above, are still important and beneficial to do. Because the concept of the ideal human being is a model and example for us that we can emulate or maybe we can make it happen if we feel fit and believe in the truth. But the question might arise, is it still relevant to study the thoughts of long-dead figures such as Ibn Arabi and Neitzsche? in the opinion of the author, the study of their thinking is still relevant. Because in their thoughts are contained eternal pearls, and because of the peculiarity of each thought. This is evident if we pay attention today, where the thoughts of the two figures are still the subject of study in various countries, both in the West and the East. The works that examine Nietzsche's thoughts about the Ubermensch man include the work of Chairul Arifin, entitled The will to power: Briedrich Nietzsche. This book discusses Nietzsche's views on human beings and his anti-theism. These two thoughts are then connected by the author of this book with Nietzsche's main thought, namely the will to power. And in one of its chapters, the book also examines the concept of Ubermensch Nietzsche. Another work that addresses Nietzsche and Nietzsche's main ideas, including Ubermensch in a separate chapter is Nietzsche by St Sunardi. Besides that, there are other books. Of the books mentioned above and others to the best of the author's knowledge, there has never been found a work that specifically compares Ibn Arabi's insan kamil concept and Nietzsche's Ubermensch concept.


Philosophy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Jacquette

Arthur Schopenhauer (b. 1788–d. 1860) was a private scholar and philosopher. Although Schopenhauer was largely ignored by the professional academic philosophical community during his lifetime, he exerted increasing influence on German and international philosophy, literature, and the arts later in life and more profoundly after his death. Schopenhauer’s philosophy can be explained as a distinctly original synthesis of Kant, Plato, and Eastern thought, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. Schopenhauer understands his philosophy as the true heir of Kant’s critical idealism, on some parts of which Schopenhauer develops his own brand of post-Kantian transcendental idealism. The world for Schopenhauer has two aspects: the phenomenal world we experience in sensation and perception, and a transcendental world of Kantian Thing-in-itself, which Schopenhauer identifies with Will. The world as Will is pure willing, for Schopenhauer, in the sense that it is uncaused, undirected, unmotivated blind urging. The Will is willing without willing anything in particular, or for any particular reason, and even without any cause, while lacking all logical and mathematical properties. The world as Will, lacking any specific object, is inevitably objectified in the world as representation in conflict, strife, competition, opposition, and suffering. The world in reality, identified by Schopenhauer as Will, because it must be objectified in conflict, is seen by Schopenhauer philosophically, for this reason, from a technically pessimistic perspective. The Kantian distinction between the mind’s experiential world (Vorstellung) and Thing-in-itself, the world as it is in itself and independently of thought (Ding an sich), interpreted by Schopenhauer not as Kantian noumenon but knowable intuitively and supported by metaphysical reasoning as pure willing (der Wille), links together all the several parts of Schopenhauer’s philosophical system, like spokes from a wheel’s hub. Beginning with his epistemology and metaphysics, and proceeding systematically to his philosophy of science, logic and mathematics; philosophy of religion; philosophy of art; ethics, moral, and political philosophy, Schopenhauer encourages the image of a flower opening when he describes developing the several related parts of his philosophy as the progressive unfolding of a single idea.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (193) ◽  
pp. 242-246
Author(s):  
Inna Pertsova ◽  

Vasyl Stus is a brilliant representative of Ukrainian existentialism, a person of tragic fate. Emotionalism and complexity of his poetic manner, «obscureness» of verses to his contemporaries and even the majority of readers are neither escape from reality, nor deliberate inversion of reality, of which the poet was blamed by the Soviet critics; it is more of a creation of Stus’s own reality, search of new ways for Ukrainian literature to move forward. Finding a solution to the existential problem of meaning in the person’s existence, inner world, spiritual experience in relations with the world is the object of Vasyl Stus’s creative concept. Guided by philosophical tenets of existentialism, the poet’s persona is in search of his identity within it. This search causes horror, despair, and a sense of existential tragedy. Thus, the poet’s existentialistic nature has determined the figurative method of expressing his philosophy. V. Stus’s existentialism, the depth of his philosophical thinking are brilliantly expressed in conceptual polysemantic images that fill his poetry. The main ones among them are oxymorons. The existentialistic spirit in his poetry is manifested in the form of oxymorons, which we associate with the peculiarities of the poet’s tragic worldview and great capabilities of oxymorons for its expression, as well as with the features of his poetic style that are unusual for Ukrainian literature: reach after condensed and concentrated imagery; poetical reproduction of the emotional charge of facts; search for new overtones in the words to convey new emotional and psychological connotations. Poet’s use of oxymorons represents the hard way he went from contradictory worldview, internal disharmony, complex and unconventional worldview to all these internal conflicts being reflected in his extraordinary imagery. This present article deals with the subject group of oxymoronic imagery with the joy/sadness semantic opposition in the poetry of the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus; analyzes the semantic connection of oxymoron with the peculiarities of the artist’s worldview. New figurative meanings acquired by the lexemes in oxymoronic expressions are the means used by the author to manifest his attitude towards reality.


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