Mellem asoteriologiske aforismer og sort gnosis: Emil Cioran, Peter Sloterdijk og Peter Sloterdijks Cioran

Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift ◽

10.7146/rt.v0i69.112756 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 187-206

Author(s):

Erik Sporon Fiedler

Keyword(s):

Human Condition ◽

English Abstract ◽

Left Bank ◽

The Public ◽

River Seine ◽

Peter Sloterdijk ◽

German Philosopher ◽

Emil Cioran ◽

The Human Condition

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This article presents an introduction to the Romanian author Emil Cioran’s life and work. Cioran lived most of his life in self-imposed exile in Paris, where he kept himself out of the public gaze. From his small attic at the left-bank of the river Seine he published numerous books of collections of aphorisms and essays dealing with his own miserabilism and permanent existential despair. Further, in his books he is reflecting on the human condition in a world where humans have no possibility of receiving nor acquiring salvation or redemption. This presentation of Cioran leads to an investigation of his influence on the work and thought of the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. I show that Cioran in fact plays an important and long-lasting role throughout Sloterdijk’s authorship by analysing texts from three different periods of his oeuvre. Thus, I seek to construct a picture of Sloterdijk’s Cioran and understand why he is important to him. DANSK RESUMÉ: I denne artikel gives en generel præsentation af og introduktion til den rumænske forfatter Emil Ciorans liv og værk. Cioran levede størstedelen af sit liv i selvvalgt eksil i Paris uden for offentlighedens søgelys. Fra sit lille loftskammer på den venstre bred af Seinen publicerede han løbende samlinger af aforismer og essays omhandlende sin egen miserabilisme og permanente eksistentielle ulykke. Endvidere reflekterer han i bøgerne over den menneskelige eksistens vilkår i en verden, hvorfra mennesket ikke har nogen muligheder for at blive forløst. Præsentationen af Cioran fører til en undersøgelse af hans indflydelse på den tyske filosof Peter Sloterdijks værk og tænkning. Gennem en analyse af tekster fra tre forskellige perioder i Sloterdijks forfatterskab viser jeg, at Cioran spiller en vigtig og vedvarende rolle igennem hele Sloterdijks filosofiske arbejde. Således forsøger jeg at konstruere et billede af Sloterdijks Cioran og at forstå hvorfor han anser ham for vigtig.

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Living machines in our cultural imagination

10.1093/oso/9780199674923.003.0061 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Michael Szollosy

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Science Fiction ◽

Public Perceptions ◽

Human Condition ◽

Cultural Imagination ◽

The Public ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

The Future ◽

Public Imagination ◽

The Human Condition

Public perceptions of robots and artificial intelligence (AI)—both positive and negative—are hopelessly misinformed, based far too much on science fiction rather than science fact. However, these fictions can be instructive, and reveal to us important anxieties that exist in the public imagination, both towards robots and AI and about the human condition more generally. These anxieties are based on little-understood processes (such as anthropomorphization and projection), but cannot be dismissed merely as inaccuracies in need of correction. Our demonization of robots and AI illustrate two-hundred-year-old fears about the consequences of the Enlightenment and industrialization. Idealistic hopes projected onto robots and AI, in contrast, reveal other anxieties, about our mortality—and the transhumanist desire to transcend the limitations of our physical bodies—and about the future of our species. This chapter reviews these issues and considers some of their broader implications for our future lives with living machines.

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Marginalia as narratives of ordinary lives: Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s Down to This

The Journal of Commonwealth Literature ◽

10.1177/0021989420981115 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002198942098111

Author(s):

Silvia Julia Caporale-Bizzini

Keyword(s):

Public Perception ◽

Life Stories ◽

Human Condition ◽

The Other ◽

Political Issues ◽

Personal Journey ◽

The Public ◽

Big City ◽

The Human Condition

This article examines Canadian author Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s 2004 memoir Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown through the notions of marginalia and the ordinary in order to question dichotomic representations of homelessness. It explores how the author moves beyond binaries, interrogating the dichotomy ordinary/out of the ordinary lives by narrating his ethical encounter with the other (Butler, 2004). The text is written as a journal where Bishop-Stall describes his personal journey through homelessness; and more importantly, it gives a voice to the other down-and-out people in notorious Toronto’s Tent City. The characters’ unreliable and fragmented storytelling uncovers the lives of the faceless others. I contend that in Down to This individuals’ life stories are connected to realities which question binaries through the re/mapping of ordinary experiences and affects; they disintegrate the opposition materiality vs abstraction, or as I argue, exclusion vs inclusion (out of the ordinary/ordinary). Down to These bridges the private details of the residents’ life stories, and the public perception of the problem of homelessness, illustrating how everyday moments of precarity intersect with wider political issues. In the process, the narrative also questions the binary attitudes of exclusion (disfranchisement) and inclusion (privilege). This literary strategy gives the constellation of stories a profound illuminating vision of the human condition. I show my point by drawing on the of marginalia (Kistner 2014), and by analysing the characters’ narratives of precariousness through the notions of editing and affective assemblage (Gerlach, 2015; Hamilakis, 2017).

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On Hearing the Daughters’ Call

Philosophy and Global Affairs ◽

10.5840/pga2021285 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 123-155

Author(s):

Elva Orozco Mendoza ◽

Keyword(s):

Political Participation ◽

Human Condition ◽

The Political ◽

Public Performance ◽

The Public ◽

Northern Mexico ◽

Political Theories ◽

The Relationship ◽

Maternal Activism ◽

The Human Condition

This article offers an interpretation of anti-feminicide maternal activism as political in northern Mexico by analyzing it alongside Hannah Arendt’s concepts of freedom, natality, and the child in The Human Condition. While feminist theorists often debate whether maternalism strengthens or undermines women’s political participation, the author offers an unconventional interpretation of Arendt’s categories to illustrate that the meaning and practice of maternalism radically changes through the public performance of motherhood. While Arendt does not seem the best candidate to navigate this debate, her concepts of freedom and the child provide a productive perspective to rethink the relationship between maternalism and citizenship. In making this claim, this article challenges feminist political theories that depict motherhood as the chief source of women’s subordination. In the case of northern Mexico, anti-feminicide maternal activism illustrates how the political is also a personal endeavor, thereby complementing the famous feminist motto.

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Public Things, Shared Space, and the Commons

Public Things ◽

10.5422/fordham/9780823276400.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Bonnie Honig

Keyword(s):

Shared Memory ◽

Hannah Arendt ◽

Human Condition ◽

The Public ◽

Shared Space ◽

Long Line ◽

Lincoln Memorial ◽

The Commons ◽

Democratic Societies ◽

The Human Condition

This epilogue compares the public things model with that of two others, the commons (or undercommons) and shared space. It argues that while all three models respond to the democratic need, public things have their own specific and necessary contribution to make. The Lincoln Memorial is the sort of thing Hannah Arendt has in mind as the basis of shared memory and action in The Human Condition. The commons model identifies the losses caused by dispossession, appropriation, and accumulation, and public things may well look like one more enclosure in a very long line of them. This epilogue discusses the contributions that all three models can make to the project of preventing ever-increasing privatization and promoting justice and equality in contemporary democratic societies.

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Hannah Arendt on Eichmann: The Public, the Private and Evil

The Review of Politics ◽

10.1017/s0034670500047719 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 163-182 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Shiraz Dossa

Keyword(s):

Political Theory ◽

Critical Analysis ◽

Hannah Arendt ◽

Human Condition ◽

The Public ◽

The Core ◽

The Human Condition

Since its publication,Eichmann in Jerusalemhas provoked a storm of controversy. With a few exceptions, critics reacted to the substance of Arendt's thesis with considerable bitterness and hostility. This article argues that her detractors badly misunderstood Arendt because they were insufficiently conversant with, or unaware of, her political theory. Fundamental to this theory, articulated at length in herThe Human Condition, is the crucial distinction between the public and the private. None of her critics, including those who sympathized with Arendt, have understood that her critical analysis of Eichmann's conduct and of the response of the Jewish leadership to the tragic fate that befell their people makes sense on the peculiar terrain of her political theory and particularly in terms of the public-private distinction which lies at the core of this theory.

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Foreign travels

Notes and Records the Royal Society journal of the history of science ◽

10.1098/rsnr.1999.0082 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 53 (3) ◽

pp. 291-293

Author(s):

A. Cook

Keyword(s):

The State ◽

Human Condition ◽

Public Understanding Of Science ◽

Public Understanding ◽

The Public ◽

The Past ◽

Understanding Of Science ◽

The Human Condition ◽

New Millennium

Entering a new millennium the state of the public understanding of science is, and will continue to be, a key to the human condition; stories of the past may help to deepen it. In that hope we intend to mark the end of the present millennium in September 2000 or the start of the new one in January 2001 by an issue with millennial contributions, the choice of date depending on how rapidly potential authors respond to these hints.

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La pluralidad humana en tanto conditio per quan de la vida política

Revista de la Academia ◽

10.25074/0196318.0.42 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 ◽

pp. 85

Author(s):

Vanessa Kaiser

Keyword(s):

Public Sphere ◽

Public Space ◽

Human Condition ◽

Political Life ◽

Political Equality ◽

The Public ◽

Palabras Clave ◽

Vita Activa ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

The Human Condition

A juicio de Tocqueville, la igualdad implica dos tendencias en la democracia; una impulsa directamente a los hombres a la independencia y otra los conduce a la servidumbre, a una igualación que cabe denominar homogeneidad. El artículo tiene por objeto avanzar –desde el pensamiento arendtiano– en el estudio de la homogenización denunciada por Tocqueville. El argumento se divide en dos partes. En la primera, sostiene que la igualdad propiamente política ha colapsado bajo las dinámicas de la homogenización desatada tras el auge de lo social y la consecuente destrucción de la esfera pública denunciados por Arendt. Estamos, en el marco de su teoría, ante la igualdad de los modernos, la cual implica la destrucción de la condición humana de la pluralidad. Luego, en la segunda parte, se explica el vínculo entre la pluralidad, cuya realización está dada por la igualdad, en el primer sentido que le da Tocqueville, y la esfera pública. La tesis plantea que este vínculo es elaborado por Arendt en La condición humana, donde sostiene que la pluralidad es una conditio per qam de la vida política, un rasgo exclusivo del actor político u hombre de acción, la más elevada de las tres condiciones que componen la vita activa.Palabras clave: igualdad, libertad, servidumbre, espacio público, Tocqueville, Arendt. THE HUMAN PLURALITY AS A CONDITIO PER QUAM OF POLITICAL LIFEAccording to Tocqueville, equality involves two trends in democracy; one drives men directly to independence and the other leads to servitude, to an equalization that may be called homogeneity. The aim of the article is to advance the study of Tocqueville’s homogenization through Hanna Arendt’s thinking. The argument is divided into two parts. In the first part it argues that actual political equality has collapsed under the homogenisation unleashed after the rise of the social and the consequent destruction of the public sphere denounced by Arendt. In the context of her theory, we are facing “modern equality”, which involves the destruction of the human condition of plurality. Then in the second part, the link between plurality, whose realization is given by ‘equality’ in the first sense that Tocqueville describes, and the public sphere, is explained. The thesis argues that this link is worked by Arendt in her book The Human Condition, which states that plurality is conditio per quam from political life, an exclusive feature of the political actor or man of action, the highest of the three conditions that make the vita activa.Keywords: equality, freedom, servitude, public space, Tocqueville, Arendt.

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Quién es quién en el espacio público: Política e identidad en H. Arendt

Revista de la Academia ◽

10.25074/0196318.0.49 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 ◽

pp. 103

Author(s):

María José López Merino

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

Political Action ◽

Human Condition ◽

Font Size ◽

The Public ◽

The Third ◽

The Human Condition

En lo que sigue presentamos el concepto de identidad del quién, que Arendt expone en su obra The Human Condition, ligado a la noción de acción política. Presentamos este concepto ligado a tres anomalías que registra la lectura de Arendt: la primera vinculada con la misma noción de política que explora la autora, la segunda vinculada a su posición como pensadora anti-metafísica, y la tercera relacionada ya no con sus ideas sino con su praxis como pensadora: las actividades que la sitúan en espacio público como un quién que tiene algo que decir. Específicamente, en dos momentos peculiares en su escritura: Los orígenes del Totalitarismo y Rahel Varnhagen. La vida de una judía.Palabras claves: identidad, quién, acción, narración, espacio público WHO IS WHO IN THE PUBLIC SPACE: POLICITY AND IDENTITY IN H. ARENDT This article presents the concept of the identity of the ‘who’, exposed by Arendt in her book The Human Condition, linked to the notion of political action. We introduce this concept related to three anomalies that appear in Arendt’s reading: the first associated to the very notion of politics that she explores, the second linked to her position as an antimetaphysical thinker, and the third related not with her ideas but with her praxis as thinker: her activities in the public space like a ‘who’ that has something to say, specifically, in two peculiar moments in her production: Origins of Totalitarianism and Rahel Varnghagen, the Life of a Jewess. Keyword: identity, who, action, narration, public space

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Hans Jonas and Vasily Grossman: Reflections on the Human Condition after Auschwitz

ETHICS IN PROGRESS ◽

10.14746/eip.2014.2.15 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 215-245

Author(s):

Roberto Franzini Tibaldeo

Keyword(s):

20Th Century ◽

Human Condition ◽

Human Freedom ◽

Jewish Origin ◽

Concept Of God ◽

Hans Jonas ◽

German Philosopher ◽

Similarities And Differences ◽

The Human Condition

The article endeavours to compare the reflections on the Shoah of two of the most celebrated intellectuals of Jewish origin of the 20th century, namely the German philosopher Hans Jonas (1903-1993) and the Soviet writer Vasily Grossman (1905-1964). Both Jonas’ essay on The Concept of God after Auschwitz (1987) and Grossman’s novels and reports, such as The Hell of Treblinka (1944), Life and Fate (1980), and The Sistine Madonna (1989), are characterised by a thorough enquiry into the ambivalence of the human condition, that tries to shed some light on the disturbing abyss of Auschwitz and the Shoah. Although neither Jonas nor Grossman considered themselves as religious believers, thanks to the Shoah they recollected their Jewish roots and developed peculiar and innovative thoughts on the meaning and vulnerability of life, human freedom, immortality, and God. The article endeavours to highlight the main similarities and differences between these two authors, who tackled the issue of thinking after Auschwitz.

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Civility – a discourse absent from pedagogy. An attempt at (re)constructing the concept

Filozoficzne Problemy Edukacji ◽

10.4467/25450948fpe.21.003.15168 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

Author(s):

Katarzyna Wrońska

Keyword(s):

Social Roles ◽

Human Condition ◽

Private Sphere ◽

Public And Private ◽

Pedagogical Discourse ◽

The Public ◽

Internal Goods ◽

History Of ◽

The Human Condition

This text is an attempt at analysing civility, an undertaking practically absent from the contemporary pedagogical discourse though amply discussed within the humanities. The (re)construction of this concept aims to restore the importance of civility as a form of civilised life and to advocate for the need to acquire this quality through education. To this end, I review the history of the concept of civility (as a part of the civilising process) and then establish its relation to social mores and morality. Finally, I propose a contemporary understanding of civility within the public and private sphere and in its interpersonal and social roles and how these relate to each other. I assume that a reconstruction of the concept, including a portrayal of civility as a useful good and simultaneously a manifestation of human morality or the human condition in general, warrants the placement of civility among the internal goods of education.

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