Epistrophe and Metanoia in the History of Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-210
Author(s):  
Pierre Hadot ◽  
Andrew Irvine ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Living Organism ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of

Crucial in Pierre Hadot’s account of ancient philosophy as a way of life is the phenomenon of conversion. Well before he encountered some of the decisive influences upon his understanding of philosophy, Hadot already understood ancient philosophy and its long legacy in later thinkers of the West as much more than a formal discourse. Philosophy is an experience, or at least the exploration and articulation of a potential for experience. The energy of this potential originates in a polar tension between epistrophe (return) and metanoia (rebirth). The two poles, which are grounded in primal experiences of the living organism, motivate and model the conversion which must be lived by the philosopher. The genius of Western philosophical experience lies in the effort to synthesize return and rebirth, and thereby recover the self as an ontological point of identification with and origin of the cosmos.

Drafted into a Foreign War?

Rhizomata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-217
Author(s):  
Matthew Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
Analytic Tradition ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rational Inquiry

Abstract This paper examines the central criticisms that come, broadly, from the modern, ‘analytic’ tradition, of Pierre Hadot’s idea of ancient philosophy as a way of life.: Firstly, ancient philosophy just did not or could not have involved anything like the ‘spiritual practices’ or ‘technologies of the self’, aiming at curing subjects’ unnecessary desires or bettering their lives, contra Hadot and Foucault et al. Secondly, any such metaphilosophical account of putative ‘philosophy’ must unacceptably downplay the role of ‘serious philosophical reasoning’ or ‘rigorous argument’ in philosophy. Thirdly, claims that ancient philosophy aimed at securing wisdom by a variety of means including but not restricted to rational inquiry are accordingly false also as historical claims about the ancient philosophers. Fourthly, to the extent that we must (despite (3)) admit that some ancient thinkers did engage in or recommend extra-cognitive forms of transformative practice, these thinkers were not true or ‘mainline’ philosophers. I contend that the historical claims (3) and (4) are highly contestable, risking erroneously projecting a later modern conception of philosophy back onto the past. Of the theoretical or metaphilosophical claims (1) and (2), I argue that the second claim, as framed here, points to real, hard questions that surround the conception(s) of philosophy as a way of life.

scholarly journals The sportification of judo: global convergence and evolution

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shohei Sato
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Global Convergence ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The West ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Olympic Sport

AbstractThis article re-examines our understanding of modern sport. Today, various physical cultures across the world are practised under the name of sport. Almost all of these sports originated in the West and expanded to the rest of the world. However, the history of judo confounds the diffusionist model. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a Japanese educationalist amalgamated different martial arts and established judo not as a sport but as ‘a way of life’. Today it is practised globally as an Olympic sport. Focusing on the changes in its rules during this period, this article demonstrates that the globalization of judo was accompanied by a constant evolution of its character. The overall ‘sportification’ of judo took place not as a diffusion but as a convergence – a point that is pertinent to the understanding of the global sportification of physical cultures, and also the standardization of cultures in modern times.

WHY STUDYING THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY MATTERS

Think ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (60) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Anna Marmodoro
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

The debate over whether and how philosophers of today may usefully engage with philosophers of the past is nearly as old as the history of philosophy itself. Does the study of the history of philosophy train or corrupt the budding philosopher's mind? Why study the history of philosophy? And, how to study the history of philosophy? I discuss some mainstream approaches to the study of the history of philosophy (with special focus on ancient philosophy), before explicating the one I adopt and commend.

Heidegger the Obscure and Heraclitus the Obscure

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 277-287
Author(s):  
John M. Rose ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Intermediate Level ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Philosophical Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Writer’S Block ◽  
Goucher College

Heidegger’s works are useful in teaching undergraduates in a variety of ways besides simply introducing Heidegger as an important figure in the history of philosophy. This paper outlines the role of Heidegger in the structure of my Ancient Philosophy course, an intermediate level requirement in the history of philosophy for the philosophy major at Goucher College. The thematic role of Heidegger in the course is illustrated with the intersection of Heidegger’s and Heraclitus’ philosophies and their related pedagogy of following language in a polysemic movement that can break the spell of sclerotic ordinary language about beings. Both Heraclitus and Heidegger move from the ordinary opining of the natures of things to the enigma at the heart of language. The paper also references the effect of this pedagogy on students with writer’s block, or graphophobia, when faced with their first attempts at serious philosophical writing. I conclude with describing the outcome of overcoming the fear of writing.

Features of social adaptation of ethnic groups in modern conditions

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-102
Author(s):  
N.S. Badalova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Adaptation ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Geographical Isolation ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Modern Era

Discussed are actual questions of a sociological analysis of the social adaptation of various ethnic groups, since globalization disrupts the natural course of this process. We consider it important to preserve the ethnic identity of each nation, subject to their active participation in modern general civilizational development, in order to make a worthy contribution. In order to identify the characteristic features of social adaptation of ethnic groups, two were selected: Khinalugs and Talyshs. The method of analyzing the history of the development and formation of these peoples and the modern conditions of their life revealed the characteristic features of social adaptation here. The considered facts and tendencies in the vital activity of the indicated nationalities gave grounds to draw the following conclusions. In the life of the Hinalugians, their geographical isolation from the rest of the world played a decisive role, which helped them to preserve their unique language and way of life. Now, thanks to the expanded possibilities of communication, this village is exposed to the active influence of the outside world, which fundamentally changes the nature and possibilities of social adaptation of each subsequent generation of people. The Talyshs, being a larger ethnic unit, were subjected to assimilation and other influences of the external world more actively. Despite this, they managed for many decades to preserve their originality. In the modern era of globalization, the general social processes actively influence the process of their social adaptation. Thus, the self-consciousness of the ethnos is destroyed, the self-consciousness of the national identity is formed.

Sacrificing for

On Sacrifice ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Halbertal
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Potential Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Transcendence

This chapter analyzes how the movement of the self to self-transcendence has been articulated in different ways in the history of philosophy. In his phenomenology of the sacrificial aspect of political violence, Paul Kahn observes that the double aspect of sacrifice—self and other—continues to this day. The chapter considers the potential relationship between self-sacrifice and violence in war by briefly analyzing the laws of war. In addition, it studies how origin narratives of states and political or religious communities sometimes refer to heroic sacrifices performed by the founding generation. A past sacrifice can become a binding political constraint on present-day politicians. With the burden of an earlier sacrifice, the issue is not about withdrawing from a losing situation and maximizing utility but is instead a concern about retroactive desecration.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Michael Frede
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Factual Question ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Question

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the study of the history of philosophy. In general, there is an enormous difference between those who concern themselves with ancient philosophy, those who concern themselves with medieval philosophy, and the students of the history of modern philosophy. And, across this distinction, there is a great variety of approaches. One should not forget that the historiography of philosophy itself in many ways is a product of history and reflects the historical context in which it is pursued. Nevertheless, what this book is interested in is not the factual question of why historians of philosophy do what they do, but the theoretical question, the question of how one ought to conceive of and explain what they do; though they themselves in this work may not in fact be guided by these assumptions and principles, there must be such principles to the extent that their activity is a rational activity. It is also important to note that philosophers tend to criticize historians of philosophy as being unduly historical and not sufficiently philosophical.

scholarly journals The Philosophical Proof for God’s Existence between Europe and the Islamic World: Reflections on an Entangled History of Philosophy and Its Contemporary Relevance

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Rudolph ◽  
Roman Seidel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Cosmological Argument ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Ontological Proof ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

AbstractThe Argument for God’s Existence is one of the major issues in the history of philosophy. It also constitutes an illuminating example of a shared philosophical problem in the entangled intellectual histories of Europe and the Islamic World. Drawing on Aristotle, various forms of the argument were appropriated by both rational Islamic Theology (kalām) and Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna. Whereas the argument, reshaped, refined and modified, has been intensively discussed throughout the entire post-classical era, particularly in the Islamic East, it has likewise been adopted in the West by thinkers such as the Hebrew Polymath Maimonides and the Medieval Latin Philosopher and Theologian Thomas Aquinas. However, these mutual reception-processes did not end in the middle ages. They can be witnessed in the twentieth century and even up until today: On the one hand, we see a Middle Eastern thinker like the Iranian philosopher Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī re-evaluating Kant’s fundamental critique of the classical philosophical arguments for God’s existence, in particular of the ontological proof, and refuting the critique. On the other hand, an argument from creation brought forward by the Islamic Theologian and critic of the peripatetic tradition al-Ghazāli has been adopted by a strand of Western philosophers who label their own version “The Kalām-cosmological Argument”. By discussing important cornerstones in the history of the philosophical proof for God’s existence we argue for a re-consideration of current Eurocentric narratives in the history of philosophy and suggest that such a transcultural perspective may also provide inspiration for current philosophical discourses between Europe, the Middle East and beyond.

A History of Philosophy in the West

Thought ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-226
Author(s):  
F. A. Cunningham ◽  
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of

Substance and Selfhood

Philosophy ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (255) ◽  
pp. 81-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. J. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Change ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
Primary Substance

How could the self be a substance? There are various ways in which it could be, some familiar from the history of philosophy. I shall be rejecting these more familiar substantivalist approaches, but also the non-substantival theories traditionally opposed to them. I believe that the self is indeed a substance—in fact, that it is a simple or noncomposite substance—and, perhaps more remarkably still, that selves are, in a sense, self-creating substances. Of course, if one thinks of the notion of substance as an outmoded relic of prescientific metaphysics—as the notion of some kind of basic and perhaps ineffable stuff—then the suggestion that the self (or indeed anything) is a substance may appear derisory. Even what we ordinarily call ‘stuffs’—gold and water and butter and the like—are, it seems, more properly conceived of as aggregates of molecules or atoms, while the latter are not appropriately to be thought of as being ‘made’ of any kind of ‘stuff’ at all. But this only goes to show that we need to think in terms of a more sophisticated notion of substance—one which may ultimately be traced back to Aristotle's conception of a ‘primary substance’ in the Categories, and whose heir in modern times is W. E. Johnson's notion of the ‘continuant’. It is the notion, that is, of a concrete individual capable of persisting identically through qualitative change, a subject of alterable predicates that is not itself predicable of any further subject.

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