Oroonoko: Post-colonialism, Kant and Todorov

Postcolonial theory looks at history, and it links to culture, sociology, psychology, and even politics and law. This study aims to analyze Aphra Behn Oroonoko with respect to post-colonialism, in particular, investigation of the extent colonialism, slavery, and being other. Oroonoko displays literary fiction and reality at the same time; thus, Immanuel Kant’s concepts of the noumenal world and phenomenal world have significant meaning. It draws on these theories and worlds: while the phenomenal world is day-to-day life conditions, the noumenal world is impossible to experience. On the other hand, Tzvetan Todorov’s perspectives on stories and novels are different, and he puts them in scales such as fantastic, uncanny and marvelous. For Oroonoko, readers can decide the scales only if they are willing to understand Todorov’s aims. The aim of this study is to examine Kant's concepts of the noumenal world and the phenomenal world, and Todorov's scales, as well as colonialism, slavery and being other.

Oroonoko: Post-colonialism, Kant and Todorov

Postcolonial theory looks at history, and it links to culture, sociology, psychology, and even politics and law. This study aims to analyze Aphra Behn Oroonoko with respect to post-colonialism, in particular, investigation of the extent colonialism, slavery, and being other. Oroonoko displays literary fiction and reality at the same time; thus, Immanuel Kant’s concepts of the noumenal world and phenomenal world have significant meaning. It draws on these theories and worlds: while the phenomenal world is day-to-day life conditions, the noumenal world is impossible to experience. On the other hand, Tzvetan Todorov’s perspectives on stories and novels are different, and he puts them in scales such as fantastic, uncanny and marvelous. For Oroonoko, readers can decide the scales only if they are willing to understand Todorov’s aims. The aim of this study is to examine Kant's concepts of the noumenal world and the phenomenal world, and Todorov's scales, as well as colonialism, slavery and being other.

Das Verhältnis von Subjektivität und Zeit bei Kant und Schopenhauer

This paper focuses on Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s models of self-consciousness and their specific relation to time. It aims to show that genuine philosophical theories can explain the idiosyncratic relation between ourselves and the world without relying on pure metaphysical speculations or strictly empirical and phenomenally oriented conceptions, as many contemporary proponents of analytic philosophy entail. The first groundbreaking doctrine in this regard is Kant’s transcendental theory of apperception, which unfolds a new theoretical dimension of thinking, grounding the logical unity of thought in the pure, originally synthetic unity of the subject itself. In order to constitute a structural order within the appearing phenomenal world, Kant conceptualizes a theory of self-affection in the second edition of the Critique of pure reason, positing a dynamic relation between the spontaneously acting intellect and the purely receptive inner sense of time as a result of productive transcendental imagination. The problematic relation between self-reliance and empirical consciousness that Kant did not resolve completely led to various subsequent transformations of Kant’s transcendental principles, one of which boasts Schopenhauer as a prominent but rarely considered representative. Schopenhauer’s systematic approach consists in a modified version of Kant’s transcendental idealism, which ties the Kantian subject of logical and transcendental unity to an intuitive corporeal individual that can only conceptualize itself as an original, willing subject. The Schopenhauerian subject unfolds its empirical character in accordance with its own inner impulses and motivations, which manifest themselves in time but can only be interpreted as a phenomenal representation of a higher, metaphysical unity, which Schopenhauer calls the will as a thing in itself. Schopenhauer reaches his final metaphysical conclusion via a problematic analogy, positing another perspective on the corporeal nature of the individual which, by means of abstraction, can be extended to the whole phenomenal world. Therefore, Schopenhauer interprets the underlying (intelligible) character of the subject and the phenomenal world as a whole as a timeless, omnipresent will to live which can be temporally experienced within the nature of our own subjectivity.

På sporet af en post-human virkelighed

The article explores Danish literature that addresses a new understanding of the human in the more-than-human world and argues that the texts in question will be remembered as one of the most important trends in fiction of the 2010s. Since the texts, in line with new trends in philosophy going under the name of speculative realism, challenge the rationalist complacency that nothing exists beyond the phenomenal world and speculate on new forms of human-nonhuman entanglements, I propose to classify these texts as speculative fiction.

The Relation between the Consciousness and the Phenomenal World. A metaphysical understanding in the view of Advaitic tenet

"The inquisitiveness about the relation between Consciousness and the phenomenal world has long existed in the area of philosophy and science. Philosophy tries to understand it subjectively whereas science tries to understand it materially. The nature of inquiry differs in both fields. In this paper, I will try to explain the relationship between Consciousness and the phenomenal world from a metaphysical aspect in the view of Advaitic Tenet. The Advaitic tenet is the essence of the Upanishadic explanation. The Upanishads generally form the last portions of the Veda and are the positive culmination of its philosophy. The consciousness and its relation to actions can never be understood only philosophically unless the power and form of will are properly understood. According to the Upanishads, the whole apparatus of perception is distinct from the Self (Consciousness) and is a manifestation of the physical. Since superimposition of the spirit and non-spirit on each other is the root cause of transmigration , we are unable to distinct ourselves (Consciousness) from the phenomenal world. Philosophy, religion, and ethics deal with only human beings. The Upanishads assert their independence in action but since they are limited in their apparatus of perception and expression, they are limited as well. Knowledge is the limiting factor. With the help of knowledge, we will be able to remove misery and bring a happy and relaxed state. Since we are identified with our body-mind complex, we are unable to remove misery and bring a happy relaxed state. This ignorance leads us to misery again. Here comes the significance of the scriptures. In this paper, I will try to define, how to discriminate Consciousness from the phenomenal world? I will define the nature of Consciousness and the phenomenal world according to the Advaitic tenet. The main topic i.e., the relation between Consciousness and the phenomenal world will be discussed according to the Advaitic tenet. The main purpose of knowing this is to realize Self Consciousness. Hence, this paper will be concluded by introducing the methods to discriminate the Consciousness and the phenomenal world and to realize Self Consciousness. "

The affective logic of race: A cultural psychological analysis of racial signifying practices

In this article, we use the theoretical framework of affective logic to discuss the underlying cultural psychological aspects of racial signifying practices. We provide an analysis of the controversies around the music video “Vai Malandra,” by Brazilian pop singer Anitta, as a case study. Departing from the theoretical assumption that our primary relationship with the phenomenal world is affective (though culturally mediated), we argue that our personal trajectories and emotional reords provide our experiences with an affective dimension that both precedes and influences any logical assessment of reality and that makes our sense-making processes unique. Thus, we suggest that, in the arena of racial signifying practices, we must always look beyond the person’s ability to critically position themselves racially to consider the affective dimension of the relationship between the personal and the cultural as a fundamental element in the production of racial discourse.

Philosophical Background

This chapter provides a brief overview of certain elements of Kant’s metaphysics and epistemology that are essential background for understanding certain features of his ethical theory. In particular, it presents Kant’s distinction between the ‘world of sense’ or ‘phenomenal world’ and the ‘world of understanding’ or ‘noumenal world’ as a basis for explaining the limits of theoretical cognition which rules out theoretical cognition and knowledge of God, immortality of the soul, and freedom of the will, yet allows Kant to affirm their reality on moral grounds, needed to explain how the highest good is possible. Of importance for understanding certain claims in his work on virtue is the distinction between the phenomenal world and the noumenal world as it applies to human beings. The chapter concludes with reflections on the relation between Kant’s ethics and his metaphysical and epistemological commitments.

Unskilled beauty or ugly truth? A dialogic study of the indexical line

A skilled drawing elicits an elevated aesthetic pleasure that we tend to call beauty. However, conceptual approaches to art influenced by science in association with technology subverted the discipline of drawing and notions of skill and beauty by focusing on the phenomenal world, including the human mind, in a more abstract and schematic way through an indexical line. The displacement of skill and beauty through the notion of a ‘truthful’ and perhaps even ethical line may pluralize beauty (the eternal regulator) and disable – literally – traditional notions of what the body can or should do. This study follows dialogically a number of indexical lines, from the art historian Pliny the Elder twenty-one centuries ago, to the deaf contemporary artist Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980) whose work explores the notations of sound through drawing, including Etienne-Jules Marey’s (1830–1904) graphic recording machines and Irma Blank’s (b. 1934) conceptual drawn writings.

Transposing Metaphors and Poetics from Text to World

This article examines the use of Sufi lexicons (iṣṭilāḥāt) through the relatively unknown Mystical Commentary of the Love Lyrics of Ḥāƒiẓ by Abū al-Ḥasan Khatamī Lāhūrī. It resituates the iṣṭilāḥāt within the context of the philosophical-Sufi tradition, engaging theories of metaphor, imagination, poetry, and imaginaries from Ricœur, Castoriadis, Lakoff and Johnson, and Caputo. Rather than employing the iṣṭilāḥāt to produce a static correspondence between poetic terms and metaphysical realities, Lāhūrī’s theo-poetics transposes the metaphors and poetics of the poems into metaphors and poetics of this phenomenal world. This reading challenges previous criticisms of Sufi commentaries, particularly on the dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ. The critique that the application of iṣṭilāḥāt disembodies or allegorizes the poetic images is challenged when they are interpreted within the philosophical-Sufi tradition. Contrary to literary criticisms of iṣṭilāḥāt, the poem is not merely a formal suitcase for mystical meaning; rather, poetics, the poem’s content, and theology create a nexus of interpretation for Lāhūrī.

Ego and Self in Gestalt Theory

Summary The paper presents basic Gestalt theoretical concepts of ego and self. They differ from other concepts in the way that they do not comprehend ego and self as fixed entities or as central controlling instances of the psyche, but as one specific organized unit in a psychological field in dynamic interrelation with the other organized units—the environment units—of this field. On this theme, well-known representatives of Gestalt theory have presented some general and special theories since the early days of this approach that could partly be substantiated experimentally. They illuminate the relationship between ego and world in everyday life as well as in the case of mental disorders. Not only the spatial extension of the phenomenal ego is subject to situational changes, but also its place in the world, its functional fitting in this world, its internal differentiation, its permeability to the environment, and much more. The German Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Metzger emphasizes the significant functional role that this dynamic plasticity of the phenomenal world and its continuously changing segregation of ego and environment have for human life by designating the phenomenal world as a “Central Steering Mechanism.” In this article, ego and self as part of this field in their interrelation with the total psychological field will be illuminated from the perspective of the thinking of the Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Metzger, Mary Henle, Edwin Rausch, and Giuseppe Galli.