World Soul – Anima Mundi: The Origins and Fortunes of a Fundamental Idea edited by Christoph Helmig

The idea of a world soul, first meaningfully explored in Western philosophy in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus, has been drawn on throughout its doctrinal history to explain the relationship between god and the cosmos with its ensouled life forms. It has played a fundamental role in accounts concerning the organization and nature of the physical universe and our human understanding thereof, and has thus featured in a range of cosmological, biological, and epistemological contexts. This collection of essays illustrates many such contexts, demonstrating that the world soul was a more or less continuous staple of ancient philosophical thought, at least until the time of the Neoplatonists. The volume follows its history chronologically, beginning with the world soul’s early stirrings in Heraclitus’ concept of universal λόγος, and ending with a glance at its Nachleben in Renaissance and early modern philosophy. Reviewed by: Christina Hoenig, Published Online (2021-08-31)Copyright © 2021 by Christina HoenigThis open access publication is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND) Article PDF Link: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/aestimatio/article/view/37728/28730 Corresponding Author: Christina Hoenig,University of PittsburghE-Mail: [email protected]

Deegoizacja jako cel wychowania – paradygmat duszy

Artykuł traktuje o człowieku jako istocie funkcjonującej w porządku wyobrażonym i zdolnej do tworzenia obrazów. Jednym z tych obrazów jest konstrukt ego przedstawiony w perspektywie psychologii krytycznej Kurta Danzigera oraz psychologii imaginalnej/paradygmat duszy (soul movement) Jamesa Hillmana. Autorzy wprowadzają te dwa podejścia celem zasygnalizowania obszaru badawczego, który potencjalnie może być wykorzystany we współczesnej refleksji nad kategorią wychowania. Analiza krytyczna wskazuje na swoistą redukcję natury ludzkiej i historii człowieka we współczesnej psychologii do historii „ja” i dominacji „ego”. Natomiast koncepcję Hillmana charakteryzuje misja deegoizacji, a więc pozbawienia siły tego fikcyjnego konstruktu, na rzecz realnie istniejącej duszy, która nie tylko ma wymiar przekraczający ego, bo zawiera w sobie wielość innych obrazów, ale także osobowość, a nawet osobę ludzką. Hillman uznaje bowiem za Platonem istnienie anima mundi, czyli ensouled world, która jest szersza i pierwotna wobec nie tylko ego, ale i duszy ludzkiej, a której owa dusza jest składową. Zgodnie z tą perspektywą, w procesie wychowania rolą rodzica i nauczyciela staje się deegoizacja jako warunek stwarzania duszy dziecka (soul-making).

“Imagination Is Now the World”: W.B. Yeats and the Staging of Visionary Experience

Throughout his literary career, the poet and dramatist W.B. Yeats displayed a keen interest in the phenomenology of the mental image as well as a deep curiosity about the possible mystical functions of the imagination. This article examines the impact of Yeats’s evolving set of beliefs about the power of imaginative vision, including those derived from readings in occult philosophy and personal experiences at séances, upon his dramaturgical decisions as a playwright, particularly in his Noh-inspired “plays for dancers.” Yeats’s convictions about the most effective kinds of acting, staging, and scenography for these dramatic works served an overarching aesthetic and spiritual project: to transform the theatre into a visionary medium that, through the power of the poetic word, could restore a sense of connection to the “world-soul” or anima mundi for audiences of his industrialized, scientific, objectifying age.

Politics as Soul Therapy

“The most important thing is that depression is a collective endemic disease and we feel it and think it’s just inside our brain. “In… my family, in my marriage, in my work, in my economy”… We have brought all this into a “me”. Instead, if there is an Anima Mundi, if there is a Soul of the World – and we are part of the Soul of the World – then what happens in the external Soul also happens to me and so I feel the extinction of the plants, animals, cultures, languages, customs, crafts, stories… They’re all disappearing. Of course, my soul necessarily feels a sensation of loss, of loneliness, of isolation, of mourning and nostalgia, and sadness too: it is the reflection in me of a matter of fact. And if I do not feel depressed, then I’m crazy! This is the real disease! I would be completely excluded from the reality of what is happening in the world, the ecological destruction” (J. Hillman)

Tomás de Aquino e a crítica à cosmologia de Varrão: notas sobre a relação entre anima mundi e idolatria

Este estudo apresenta como Tomás de Aquino ao ler a cosmologia de Varrão encontra justificativa cosmológica para o culto da alma do mundo (anima mundi), o que o autor entende como uma prática idolátrica. Para tanto, o texto analisa a articulação tomista entre as noções de divindade, anima mundi e culto. Mais precisamente, é evidenciado que, para Tomás, a forma cósmica não é idêntica com o divino, razão pela qual o culto da anima mundi prestado por Varrão e os romanos se configura como uma falha da razão natural.