We review the psychological literature on the organization of valence, discussing theoretical perspectives that favor a single dimension of valence, multiple valence dimensions, and positivity and negativity as dynamic and flexible properties of mental experience that are contingent upon context. Turning to the neuroscience literature that spans three levels of analysis, we discuss how positivity and negativity can be represented in the brain. We show that the evidence points toward both separable and overlapping brain systems that support affective processes depending (...) on the level of resolution studied. We move from large-scale brain networks that underlie generalized processing, to functionally specific subcircuits, finally to intraregional neuronal distributions, where the organization and interaction across levels allow for multiple types of valence and mixed evaluations. (shrink)

Dialogue, Philosophical Eroticism, Plato, Socrates, Power Dynamics, Episteme, Self-Knowledge, Eros.

In Charles S. Peirce: On Norms and Ideals, Potter argues that Peirce's doctrine of the normative sciences is essential to his pragmatism. No part of Peirce's philosophy is bolder than his attempt to establish esthetics, ethics, and logic as the three normative sciences and to argue for the priority of esthetics among the trio. Logic, Potter cites, is normative because it governs thought and aims at truth; ethics is normative because it analyzes the ends to which thought should be directed; (...) esthetics is normative and fundamental because it considers what it means to be an end or something good in itself. This study shows that Peirce took seriously the trinity of normative sciences and demonstrates that these categories apply both to the conduct of man and to the workings of the cosmos. (shrink)

Karl Marx has been portrayed in equal measure both as a political prophet who foresaw the end of capitalist exploitation, and as a populist Anti- Christ whose totalitarian legacy has cost millions of lives worldwide. This new biography looks beyond these caricatures in order to understand more about the real Karl Marx; about his everyday life and personal circumstances as well as his political ideology. The book tells the life story of a man of ideas, showing how his political and (...) economic thought developed alongside his life and practical work. Vincent Barnett seeks to paint Karl Marx not as a static, unwavering character, but as a man whose beliefs developed dynamically over time. The book explores his personal background, and problems of personal income and family health. It also examines the influence of Hegel's methods on Marx's work, and his relationship with Engels. This lively, up to date guide to the life of Karl Marx provides an excellent starting point for students in history, politics and philosophy, and for all those with an interest in Marxism and political ideas. (shrink)

People's desire not to limit the meaning of Hancang driving force, continuous development and self-transcendence, which is people from within and beyond the root driving force. The so-called "inner beyond" is not a process of idealism, which began with the desire, from the bottom of the body, and go up on the layer by layer through the heart of the development process裡and mental flexibility, and would therefore have to enhance and transform. We regard the body as I desire the presence (...) of mode. Significance by the driving force in the body and thus close to the appearance, at first non-verbal, and then eventually completed in the language of representation. Through a variety of different non-linguistic representation, the meaning of the body of the driving force to obtain specific and differentiation, as music, art, dance, drama art form ... ... and so on. These different forms of art of common origins, is made ​​to understand the forms of physical exercise, as they are each other's differences, then is made ​​to understand the form of different, such as voice, image, attitude ... ... and so the nature and rules lawyers, and the rise because of their differences on the artistic and cultural expressions of different, and even the formation of the various arts precinct. In order to film art integrated voice, image and body movement, presented at the time of the current moving image, to the above description of the story. Different types of art is "the desire of the induced mover", which provides clear instructions and guidance In order to man the desire for meaning. The meaning of desire is the driving force of development of art in different fields to cross-border basic driving force. Story has entered into a description of the classification of the appearance of language, its basic features is metaphorical. Cross-disciplinary domain of the past will pin their hopes on the concepts and logical reasoning and arguments permit. Today, the language of metaphor for understanding the nature, making metaphor and narrative clues as cross-domain, and in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and even among. The reason why life events, actions and circumstances can be constructed to the story, because there I am with the interaction between multiple otherness, its impetus came from one continuous extrapolation, and extrapolation of each other. And diversity of his stories were always the people the story, and always coming to the multivariate description of those who hear him. Through stories, we witness In order to the meaning of life, but always to witness the way metaphor and description of each story to each other through mutual enrichment. Description of the future, after all, the story, no matter real or imagined, there is established based on the relationship regardless of which I was with him who have the freedom in the relationship, a relationship in freedom. It is also across the world who can not break the fundamental driving force and field-based. This paper assumes that there is an undetermined dynamic energy for meaningfulness in human desire, which develops and transcends any particular realization. This is the original energy by which human beings could attain transcendence by way of immanence, which is not an idealist process, but rather originated from a body-based desire that develops upwards and fuller to integrate the mental and the spiritual. Representability, first non-linguistic and then linguistic, is the access to meaning for our desire that takes body as its mode of existence. Through different forms of representation, such as sounds, pictures and gestures ... etc., the project of meaning is specified. The movement of body in intelligible forms is the common origin of music, dancing and performative arts. Cultural difference and artistic boundaries are based upon differences in the nature and rule of these intelligible forms. The art of filming, which synthesizes image, music and body movement in presenting images moving in time so as to tell stories of various kinds. All forms of art are "inducers of desire" by articulating, determining and guiding our desire for meaning. This dynamic development of our desire for meaning is the common basic energy by which we can cross the borders of different arts. Story-telling presupposes linguistic representation accessible to our meaning dynamism. In the past, concepts and logical reasoning and argumentation were taken to be the hope for interdisciplinary research. But now, with the better understanding we have of the metaphoric nature of language, metaphors and narratives are taken to be the clue for a cross-bordering effort in different sciences, human , social and natural. If there are events, actions and plots in human existence to be constructed as stories, it is because there is always interaction with multiple others, the dynamism of it consisting in our incessant act of strangification and mutual strangification. Stories are always stories about one self with multiple others and told to multiple others. By telling stories, we witness a particular way of meaningful life, always metaphorically interpreted. We achieve mutual enrichment by telling stories to each other. The ultimate foundation of cross-bordering in arts and scientific disciplines consists in the ontology of dynamic relation, in which there is relatedness in freedom and freedom in being related, and this is the ground on which all our life stories, both real and imaginative, are based. (shrink)

Cet article propose une relecture de l’œuvre de Karl Rahner à la lumière des développements successifs qu’il consacra à la relation entre philosophie et théologie, dégageant ainsi la force inspiratrice d’une réflexion qui n’a rien perdu de son actualité. Les sources auxquelles puise et se confronte K. Rahner sont diverses, mais toujours maîtrisées, au service d’une tâche dont il s’est inlassablement préoccupé : dégager l’espace où puisse être audible et dicible la manifestation du "libre Inconnu" se révélant et se communiquant (...) à l’homme.This article proposes a rereading of the work of Karl Rahner in the light of the successive analyses he developed of the relation between philosophy and theology, thus revealing the inspiring force of his reflection that remains quite topical. The sources K. Rahner utilizes and confronts are diverse, but always masterfully utilized in the service of a task which continuously preoccupied him: creating a space in which the manifestation of God, the “free Unknown”, could be heard and spoken of, thus revealing Himself and communicating with man. (shrink)

The study presents a critical account of Confucius' life and undertakes a thorough analysis of his works and writings. Rather than the more usual examination of Confucius' teachings, the book examines the character and behaviour of the man himself, placed into contrast with the values he expresses in his works. For students and researchers in Chinese studies, The Ethics of Confucius will offer a fresh perspective on the life and character of a man whose writings have been very influential in (...) China and the wider world, for the last two thousand years. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception currently considers how perception relates to action. Some distinctions may help, distinguishing object perception from perceptual recognition, and both from that-perception. Examples are seeing a man, recognising a man, and seeing that there is a man. Perceiving an object controls self-location by its recognising an object, which depends on memory of how it looks, controls looking for it and interacting with it, or not, and that-perceiving controls saying that an object exists. Perception controls action. Milner and (...) Goodale, Jacob and Jeannerod, and Noe are considered. (shrink)

Ji Xia Shen Dao is the earliest, Mr., as his social life and political life of the "public" considerations, made ​​him by the Taoist ontology, cosmology and cultivation theory, turn out the Legalist political philosophy and legal philosophy. He was transferred by the Huang-Lao Taoism Taoist truth home, Legalism transferred by the Taoist key figure. Basically, Shen Dao importance of social and political life of the "public" level and its objective of building, on the one hand retain the Taoist understanding (...) of the objective laws of nature, but on the other hand is also man-made construction and attention to the law changes. For the "public" considerations, through the Shen Dao for the "potential", "Law," "surgery" view. It is noteworthy that Shen Dao is not a harsh legalism. Shen Dao, although noting that France, but that the law should not be rigid; although he stressed that potential, that is, the use of power, but do not like the arrogance of power; although he discussed "doing nothing" to the relationship between the monarch and his art, but he does not like secrets trickery, no later Legalism is so Machiavellian; These are mainly due to his political and social areas to achieve public nature. Shen Dao was among the earliest Jixia scholars, who, because of his concern of the "publicity" in social and political realms, moved from Daoist ontology, cosmology and spirituality to Legalist political philosophy. He should be seen as the crucial figure in the transition from the development of the Daosim of Laozi and Zhuangzi to the Huanglao Daoism and from Daoism to Legalism. Basically, Shen Dao put emphasis on the public aspect of social and political lives and its objective construction, in keeping the idea of ​​regularity of natural law in Daoism and the artificial construction of law and its process of becoming. The idea of ​​publicity penetrated all his philosophy of Law, Power and statecraft. He was not a severe legalist, not allowing law to be stringent, power to be arrogant and statecraft to be machiavellian, all because of his concern with publicity, objectivity and justice. (shrink)

Because the status of nature is ambiguous in Being and Time, we explore an ecological perspective on Heidegger’s early main work in this article. Our hypothesis is that the affordance theory of James Gibson enables us to a) to understand being-in-the-world as being-in-nature, b) reconnect man and nature and c) understand the twofold sense of nature in Being and Time. After exploring Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world and Gibson’s concept of being-in-nature, we confront Heidegger’s and Gibson’s conception of being-in-the-world and being-in-nature. (...) It will become clear that Gibson’s affordance theory enables an ecological reading of Being and Time, in which the relational character of being-in-the-world is stressed and the exceptional position of human being-in-the-world has to be rejected. Moreover, it becomes clear that an ecological reading of Being and Time enables us to reconnect being-in-the world with being-in-nature, which is rooted in “primordial” nature as its infinite origin. (shrink)

It is now widely accepted that Research & Development in nanotechnology and biotechnology should be accompanied by research programs in ethics. This paper first critically assesses the initiatives that characterize this “ethical turn” by clarifying its underlying philosophical assump-tions and its consequences. Current trends in nanoethics enhance the concern for responsibility and develop an attitude of prudence. However nanoethics focused as it is on designers’ responsibility, reinvigorates the anthropocentric modern ideal of man as the lord of nature and master of (...) the future. Technological objects are viewed only as means for human needs and sources of profit. An alternative approach to nanoethics considers artefacts as individual entities with a life of their own and takes into account the specificities of the nanoworld. (shrink)

In this paper, the philosophy of mystical experience, assuming that the mystical experience of intelligibility, and its compatibility with the philosophy. In the previous issue, the article explores mystical experience is compatible with the appearance, mystical experience is a purely silent or have conversations, and the body in the position of mystical experience in three issues. In this regard, this analysis shows, first, to beyond the mystical experience, although the appearance and body together眞real, but does not exclude the appearance, on (...) the contrary, the symbolic representation of the mystical experience can come prepared, but also in mystical experience be after the performance; second, nor blindly mystical silence, no conversation. Instead, starting from the mystical experience to talk, peaked in conversation, and will ultimately be returned to talk; Finally, mystical experience is no need to reject the body, but there should not be assumed on the psychosomatic theory of binary, the ethical claims to wishes to keep justice, on the contrary in theology, "Incarnation," the truth. Negative, way beyond the body only has significance, just as sure to return the body also has a methodology and positive meaning. This analysis not only mystical experience and the broad role of rational consistency, but also coincide with the everyday life experiences. In other words, mystical experience can also serve as one form of human self-understanding, not only can not irrational or contrary to the confusing world of daily life, and humanity should be to deepen and expand its purpose. This article would like to proceed from the assumption that mystical experience has a rational basis and is compatible with philosophy. From this premise, this article would like to discuss whether or not mystical experience and representatiion are compatible, whether mystical experience is purely incommunicable or can there be dialogue and what is the status of the body in mystical experience. Firstly, this article would like to reveal that even though mystical experience transcends representation, it does not exclude representation. On the contrary, symbolic representation prepares the approach to mystical experience and can enhance representation after such experience. Secondly, mystical experience is not altogether incommunicable, devoid of any possible dialogue. On the contrary, mystical experience starts with dialogue and culminates in dialogues until it can finally turn into dialogues on a more mundane level. Finally, mystical experience does not entirely disregard the body and posit an ontological mind-body duality. In theology, it is the notion of "Truth complete in Flesh", an ethical belief that man has, desiring to be part of heaven. The renunciation and the transcending of the body have meaning only as instrument just as the returning to the body has positive value only on a methodological basis. This sort of analysis not only shows that mysticism can be rational in the broadest sense of the word, but that it is also in conformity to everyday existence. In other words, mysticism is not exclusively a non-rational mechanism employed to lead people into confusion, it should aim at the deepening of human development, thus helping people to achieve their ultimate goals. (shrink)

Li Zhen priest has repeatedly tried to clarify there are two basic problems of philosophy, there is one problem with the nothingness, there is one root of the problem. For the first problem, he believes there is the meaning of life is based on earnings instead of the full emptiness. For the second question, he thinks there is a God of the root. Li Zhen priest in one deeply experienced man's limited nature, on the other hand they found that the (...) driving force towards infinity. Although the constitution were limited, however, its intention to infinity. The meaning of human life are the cornerstone upon which to build, is built up from within, however, can not be limited to their own self-sealing inner nature, on the contrary, the primordial human tendency is inherent and can go beyond that, that is limited and can be infinite . Li Zhen is that there exists a final basis the full surplus. This will be for the Christian religion in the "no" to explore the concept of active surface, as well as Buddhist talks about "empty" comparisons, as Li Zhen of the basic study with and without supplement. "Beyond" and "there" are supported by ethics, the ethics of generosity and love. Go beyond him in person, he is certainly not only those, but also those who are not asking for anything good for his efforts. Li Zhen advocate and practice is an ethics of love and generosity. (shrink)

This article reviews the field of international human rights with particular attention to the way that the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the Human Rights Committee, and local domestic courts operate to resolve human rights cases. It first notes what internationally recognized human rights there are and the sources that give rise to them. It then explains how relativism enters human rights decision-making, especially at the domestic court level, in part because a common grounding for the human (...) rights pro-pounded was never adopted. Even at the level of the International Court of Justice, its failure to include an ethical modality in the way it interprets treaties generally, and human rights treaties in particular, can leave it floundering to present any consistent framework for its own human rights decision-making. The article then presents a philosophical theory to justify the human rights that are recognized, based on an objective criterion that can be developed to assist courts in deciding conflicts of rights cases. Especially with respect to state domes-tic courts, the International Court of Justice can serve as a model to be emulated were it to adopt this theoretical framework for future hu-man rights decision-making. (shrink)

‘Books are the work of solitude, and the children of silence.’ Thus Marcel Proust. The writer is not the same person as the man. The writer, if any good, is a different person, a higher person or at least one who distils something more worthy than is evidenced in the blunderings and fumblings and inadequacies of the everyday character who shares the same skin. This was the basis of Proust's own blistering attack on Sainte-Beuve, to the effect that the critic (...) substituted gossip for criticism and, incidentally, failed to recognize the genius of Baudelaire.In philosophy we have our own Proustian tendency, in the unlikely form of Karl Popper, For Popper, the provenance of ideas is supremely unimportant—and so, by extension is the biography of their authors. A healthy corrective, one might think, to the present day culture of celebrity, even at the intellectual level, and to the flood of philosophical biographies and title-tattle. At a more serious level, it warns us that we should not treat a philosopher's ideas with suspicion because (just because he was a Nazi in his lifetime or she was a communist when she was young or the apostle of equality is a snob living high on the hoof or the advocate of open discussion anything but its practitioner. (shrink)

Contemporary scholars in Chinese philosophy, Thaddaeus particularly concerned about Chinese philosophy and methodological issues. Of this paper is designed to make way for the study of Chinese philosophy, the discussion to commemorate him, the first part will describe Thaddaeus study of Chinese philosophy, methods and contribution to the idea, the latter part of the study will be my personal view of Chinese philosophy, methods to further to call upon and complement. Thaddaeus based on the fundamental principles of truth and goodness, (...) the dominant theme proposed research method will be grouped into eight themes of Chinese philosophy, including political, moral, dominate the day, nature and personnel mutual induction, root cause of all things, all things and personnel often said, heaven and earth and man were one, nature, etc., as the dominant theme. According to his own analysis, the subject of legislation contains several levels: first, tracing the history of philosophy, including research. Second, as stressed by modern hermeneutics domain blend method, should not abuse their own perspective on things not related. Third, the logic and meaning of words in semantic analysis. Fourth, and Western philosophy for appropriate comparison. Furthermore, I propose, study Chinese philosophy, Chinese philosophy begins with the reading and interpretation of the text. I was reading Chinese philosophy of the original Code's fundamental idea, known as "dynamic context ism", in this fundamental principle, read the philosophy of the original Code, one must first follow the general text interpretation of the principles, including 1, the context within the principles of, 2, Combines the same principle, 3, minimum change principle 4, the maximum reading principles. Secondly, to respect the characteristics of Chinese philosophical texts, as opposed to harass the landlords like to use the concept of metaphor in philosophy like to use the text; like to use relative Seeger argument, in philosophy like to use narrative, to show the image of the concept of root causes, rather than pure ideas. Finally, the text should also be considered provided by the author or school of their own interpretation of the principle. In accordance with the above method, after reading the text can be more broad philosophical texts on the historical context, and even on different philosophical traditions to be compared. The most important thing is to play the role of analysis and critique of reason, to make their own original ideas. Among contemporary scholars of Chinese Philosophy, Thaddeus Hang is most famous for his concern with methodological problems in studying Chinese Philosophy. This paper contains two parts: first, an exposition of Thaddeus Hang's own method of studying Chinese Philosophy; second, a deeper reflections on methodology in studying Chinese philosophy. Thaddeus Hang proposes a method of studying Chinese Philosophy by dominant themes. For him there are eight major dominant themes in Chinese philosophy: Politics, Morality, Heaven as Ruler, Mutual affection / response between All things and Human Affairs, the Origin of all things, the Constant Way of all things and Human Affairs, Unity of Heaven, Earth and Man, and, he added later, the Nature. For him, we can take these eight dominant themes as criteria to judge the difference and development of different schools and philosophers in Chinese philosophy. These eight dominant themes should be applied on the following four methodological lines: first, one should trace the origin in the history of philosophy, including the investigation by evidences; second, one should look for the fusion of horizons as emphasized by contemporary hermeneutics and avoid subjective arrogance by emphasizing one's idiosyncrasies on irrelevant matters; third, one should use logical analysis and semantic analysis; fourth, one should do some comparison with Western philosophy. In the second part, I redefine Chinese philosophy and propose several levels of methodological principles in reading and philosophizing on Chinese philosophical texts: First, on the level of general hermeneutic, I propose the principle of intra-textuality; the principle of coherence, the principle of minimum emendation, and the principle of maximal reading. Second, we should pay attention to the hermeneutic characteristics of Chinese philosophy: targeting Idea-Image rather than Pure Ideas, Chinese philosophy prefers to show the movement of meaning by metaphors more than concepts, narrative of inner connected events more than logical argumentation. Third, one should pay attention to the hermeneutic principles or philosophy of language proposed by the author or the school of thoughts under investigation. The historical contextualization and comparative studies should base themselves on the previous work. Most importantly, an original way of philosophizing, based on analytic and critical skills, is invited in any philosophical study, no matter Chinese or Western. (shrink)

This volume grew out of a conference held in 2016 at the Claremont School of Theology, while the conference itself grew out of "innovative conversations between philosophers, Erin Manning and Brian Massumi, and process philosophers, Roland Faber and Michael Halewood". Its title in effect conjoins a Whiteheadian conception of propositions and a Jamesian understanding of "things.". As such, a proposition is set forth on behalf of "a collectivity...

The present study is not a series of disconnected essays concerning select ed Western philosophies. All its parts belong organically together and constitute one whole. For this reason, the reader is warned not to use it as a reference book for one or another philosopher here treated. The study begins with the declaration of the exposition of fundamental event in Western philosophy which prevails with a different hue in each of the major philosophies and which relates these to pre-philosophical or (...) mythical thought. The study then treats selected Western philosophies se parately with the tendency to disclose the major event of philosophy in them. Finally it approaches contemporary man from the perspective of the fundamental event in philosophy. An inquiry into Western man's greatness is maintained here all along as intimately bound up with the historical development of philosophy. Philosophy involves greatness - not one of many philosophies, how ever, but Philosophy as such. Philosophy as such is not a composite of the various major philosophies in history; it precedes these, and is present in each one of them in a concealed way. It holds sway over them, and they belong to it. Philosophy rules the thought of thinkers; it is the Ordinance which directs the way of thought, and which is responded to by the thought of the thinkers. In this way, the major philosophies in history are diverse phases which, like the bends and turns of a river, belong to Ordinance - to Nature's thought. (shrink)

This book examines the work of Ernst Jünger and its effect on the development of Martin Heidegger’s influential philosophy of technology. Vincent Blok offers a unique treatment of Jünger’s philosophy and his conception of the age of technology, in which both world and man appear in terms of their functionality and efficiency. The primary objective of Jünger’s novels and essays is to make the transition from the totally mobilized world of the 20 th century toward a world in which (...) a new type of man represents the gestalt of the worker and is responsive to this new age. Blok proceeds to demonstrate Jünger’s influence on Heidegger’s analysis of the technological age in his later work, as well as Heidegger’s conceptions of will, work and gestalt at the beginning of the 1930s. At the same time, Blok evaluates Heidegger’s criticism of Jünger and provides a novel interpretation of the Jünger-Heidegger connection: that Jünger’s work in fact testifies to a transformation of our relationship to language and conceptualizes the future in terms of the Anthropocene. This book, which arrives alongside several new English-language translations of Jünger’s work, will interest scholars of 20 th -century continental philosophy, Heidegger, and the history of philosophy of technology. (shrink)

This paper investigates the view that digital hypercomputing is a good reason for rejection or re-interpretation of the Church-Turing thesis. After suggestion that such re-interpretation is historically problematic and often involves attack on a straw man (the ‘maximality thesis’), it discusses proposals for digital hypercomputing with Zeno-machines , i.e. computing machines that compute an infinite number of computing steps in finite time, thus performing supertasks. It argues that effective computing with Zeno-machines falls into a dilemma: either they are specified such (...) that they do not have output states, or they are specified such that they do have output states, but involve contradiction. Repairs though non-effective methods or special rules for semi-decidable problems are sought, but not found. The paper concludes that hypercomputing supertasks are impossible in the actual world and thus no reason for rejection of the Church-Turing thesis in its traditional interpretation. (shrink)

La théologie contemporaine peut-elle encore recevoir quelque chose de ces « antiques » tentatives que représentent la Philosophie de la Religion de Hegel ou la Philosophie de la Révélation de Schelling ? On a beaucoup écrit sur le rapport complexe de Hegel à la théologie. Il est possible que les interprétations en cause se soient parfois centrées sur une évaluation trop abstraite de ce lien. Hegel a intégré à l’entreprise de refondation de la pensée les contenus de la dogmatique trinitaire (...) et christologique. Comment l’Être de Dieu et l’être du monde coïncident-ils ? Dieu est-il dépourvu de transcendance, son « éternité » est-elle marquée au sceau d’une carence ou d’une défectuosité exigeant que le divin accomplisse dialectiquement, dans le temps, sa propre essence ? Nous avons rencontré le vocabulaire de la défectuosité sous la plume du philosophe, mais que Hegel transpose immédiatement en un registre ontologique. Jamais il n’est attribué à Dieu, mais à l’homme immédiatement naturel, c’est-à-dire à l’esprit fini qui tend vers Dieu. Ce point délicat d’interprétation constituera l’objet de nos analyses.Is contemporary theology still able to get something out of those “ancient” efforts that Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion and Schelling’s Philosophy of Revelation represent? Much has been written about Hegel’s complex relationship to theology. It is possible that the interpretations concerned may have sometimes focused on an overly abstract assessment of this connection. Hegel integrated the contents of Trinitarian and Christological dogmatic theology into his enterprise of establishing a new foundation for thought. How do the Being of God and the being of the world coincide? Is God devoid of transcendence; is His “eternity” marked by a deficiency or a defect requiring the divine to achieve dialectically, over time, His Own essence? We have encountered the vocabulary of defectiveness in the philosopher’s writings, but Hegel immediately transposes it to an ontological register. It is never attributed to God, but to immediately natural man, that is, to the finite spirit that tends towards God. This delicate point of interpretation is the object of our analysis. (shrink)

Ernst Bloch is perhaps best known for his subtle and imaginative investigation of utopias and utpoianism, but his work also provides a comprehensive and insightful analysis of Western culture, politics and society. Yet, because he has not been one of the easiest writers to read, his full contribution has not been widely acknowledged. In this critical and accessible introduction to one of the most fascinating thinkers of the twentieth century, Vincent Geoghegan unravels much of the mystery of the man (...) and his ideas. (shrink)

In the unequaled and majestic contemporary technological phase of our cultural development, where democratic liberties and the means of well being are accessible to everyone; man is unsatisfied, insecure, rebellious, confused and lost. More than ever before he seems to lack the sureness of his way in life. The abundance of theories, doctrines and various philosophical, social or religious systems and moral teachings fails to provide the individual today with any clarity whatsoever. Lacking this, he turns to peripheral events, to (...) sensational occurrences; he turns his attention to more and to glaring new models of technological products. more new things, mostly Acquiring a great multitude of these and various other things, he seems to stress his own importance, thus making an inquiry in its fundamental validity superfluous. In this way he escapes the search of his very own mission; he betrays the superior powers which demand from him his existential contribution in finding his ideals and outlining the way of his life. (shrink)

No philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century or the opening decade of the twenty-first did more to recover the voice of philosophy in the conversation of humankind than John Edwin Smith (1921-2009). From The Social Infinite (1950), his landmark study of Josiah Royce, to "Niebuhr's Prophetic Voice" (2009), he has shown in compelling detail how philosophical reflection is relevant to contemporary life. Indeed, virtually all of the eventual developments within contemporary philosophy in recent decades worthy of our (...) unqualified support (above all, the acknowledgment of history, the abiding importance of the religious dimension of human experience, the hermeneutic character of all our intellectual understandings, including those of experimental inquirers, the irreducibility of persons, the ubiquity of symbols, and the cutting edge of philosophical critique) were ones to which Smith was committed at the outset of his career. He not only anticipated these developments but also pointed the way forward beyond the stultifying impasses of so much contemporary thought. In particular, his conceptions of subjectivity, symbolization, interpretation, experience and philosophy itself provide invaluable resources for twisting free from our present impasses. The essays in this volume make the salience and implications of Smith's writings on these and other topics manifest. The authors assembled here bear eloquent witness to the wit of the man no less than the depth of the philosopher from whom they learned how to take up the urgent task of philosophical reflection in a world riven by seemingly intractable conflicts and characterized by mutual misunderstanding. John E. Smith was a widely learned man; he was also a deeply wise one. Hence, it should be no surprise that he aids us in creating ways to address such conflicts and to counter such misunderstanding. (shrink)

King, C. R. Touching the earth. --Tracol, H. Thus spake Beelzebub. --Nicoll, M. On the formation of a psychological body. --Fullerson, M. C. Discovery of intimate order. --Halevi, Z. ben S. Order. --Dürckheim, K. G. von. On the double origin of man. --Guenther, H. V. Towards spiritual order. --Eracle, J. The Buddhist way to deliverance. --Blofeld, J. Return to the source. --Werner, K. Spiritual personality and its formation according to Indian tradition.

(1) (p. 31) (1.1) “Some things that are said are said with complexity, and others are said without complexity.”3 Those that are said without complexity are, for example, ‘man’, ‘animal’. Those that are said with complexity are, for example, ‘A man runs’, ‘An animal runs’.4 (2) It is plain from this that the incomplex is part of the complex.

Einleitung - 1 Erklärung und Referenz (1973) - 2 Sprache und Wirklichkeit (1975) - 3 Was ist ‹Realismus›? (1975) - 4 Modelle und Wirklichkeit (1980) - 5 Referenz und Wahrheit (1980) - 6 Wie man zugleich interner Realist und transzendentaler Idealist sein kann (1980) - 7 Warum es keine Fertigwelt gibt (1982) - 8 Wozu die Philosophen? (1986) - 9 Realismus mit menschlichem Antlitz (1988/90) - 10 Irrealismus und Dekonstruktion (1992) - -/- Bibliographie der Schriften von Hilary Putnam - -/- (...) Literaturverzeichnis - Register -. (shrink)

Die gegenwärtig unter dem Titel ›Realismus‹ geführten Debatten in der Philosophie befinden sich nach allgemeiner Ansicht in einem Zustand größter Verwirrung, so daß es nützlich erscheint, ein wenig Ordnung in die theoretischen Optionen zu bringen bevor man für die eine oder andere Auffassung Partei ergreift. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird dafür argumentiert, daß sich ein systematisch zusammenhängendes Zentrum dieser Debatten mit Hilfe des Begriffes der Referenz ordnen läßt. Nach der Analyse einiger klassischer Positionen soll ein Rahmen erstellt werden, innerhalb dessen (...) die Positionen eingeordnet und die zentralen Probleme fruchtbar diskutiert werden können. Zu diesem Zwecke ist es erforderlich, für die Einordnung der Positionen theoretische Kriterien zu benennen, die sich an den Problemen orientieren von denen hier argumentiert wird, das sie zentral seien. Sehr knapp ausgedrückt wird hier die Auffassung vertreten, Realismus sei als metaphysische These aufzufassen, welche eine von menschlichen epistemischen und semantischen Möglichkeiten unabhängige Existenz behauptet; in den gegenwärtigen Debatten typischerweise die Existenz einer Art von Dingen, nicht die eines individuellen Gegenstandes. Diese metaphysische These wird jedoch in der gegenwärtigen Debatte mit semantischen Argumenten untermauert, bzw. angegriffen und jene semantischen Argumente wiederum verwenden epistemische Erwägungen – die Frage betreffend, was man wissen kann und was nicht. Der Beginn der gegenwärtigen Realismusdebatten mit der soeben skizzierten zentralen Stellung semantischer Argumente ist, der hier vertretenen Auffassung zufolge, die Kritik am traditionellen Fregeschen Referenzbegriff durch Kripke und den frühen Putnam um 1970 (Kap. 2). Aus dieser neu zu bewertenden Kritik und der von den Autoren daraus entwickelten externalistischen realistischen Semantik für Artausdrücke läßt sich das erste Kriterium für eine Position in einer Realismusdebatte ableiten und klären (Kap. 3): Hält man die fragliche Art für eine natürliche Art und meint also, sie habe ihren ›Zusammenhalt‹ von Natur aus? Wenn ja, dann ist die fragliche Position eine realistische (das Kriterium ist dank des engen Zusammenhangs von Realismus und Externalismus sowohl hinreichend als auch notwendig). Hält man die Art nicht für eine natürliche Art, ist man Antirealist. Damit geht jeweils not- wendig eine bestimmte Semantik für den auf die Art referierenden Ausdruck einher. Es zeigt sich zugleich, daß es zwei Varianten des Realismus zu unterscheiden gilt, die hier als klassischer bzw. als moderater Realismus bezeichnet werden. Im folgenden (Kap. 4.1) wird argumentiert, daß der Begriff der Wahrheit nicht eigentlich der zentrale Punkt in den in Frage stehenden Realismusdebatten sein sollte, wie vielfach behauptet wurde, sondern seine Brisanz vielmehr aus zugrundeliegenden semantischen Fragen gewinnt die also in der weiteren Aufdeckung der Kriterien die zentrale Rolle spielen müssen. In der Analyse der Kritik an der in Kap. 3 entwickelten Position des ›klassischen Realismus‹ läßt sich ein zweites unterscheidendes Kriterium für Positionen in Realismusdebatten entwickeln: begriffliche Relativität. Nach der Ablehnung von Putnams Auffassungen zu diesem Thema, werden zwei Varianten vorgeschlagen, starke und schwache begriffliche Relativität (Kap. 4.2). Die Anwendung dieses Merkmals zwingt, so wird argumentiert, in einigen Fällen zu einer Kombination einer realistischen Auffassung von Arten als natürliche mit begrifflicher Relativität. Diese mittlere Position zwischen klassischem Realismus und Antirealismus wird als »moderater Realismus« bezeichnet. Der im ersten Kriterium verwendete Begriff der natürlichen Art, und damit die Optionen in den Debatten, wird schließlich mittels einer Dis- kussion des Phänomens der Vagheit noch weiter verdeutlicht (Kap. 4.3). Ab- schließend werden die drei Optionen zusammenfassend dargestellt und ein Versuch unternommen, ihre Fruchtbarkeit für diverse Realismusdebatten anzudeuten. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the concept of Heaven and St. Thomas Aquinas I "Summa Theologica" explained the basis of natural law and metaphysics. The philosophy, the I's "Road" was opened on their own, said that the ultimate reality itself; second source that can be raw, such as "Dawson, one two, two three, three things," a phrase below; again , then follow all the rules change. In this regard, I tend to "Heaven", "heaven" statement, basically all things to follow the (...) law is. I focus on is that all things are to follow the law is. As for the man-made law, I tend to be severely criticized, such as saying "Fa Wu Zi-chang, way more than a thief," and the like. Having said that, by Taoism Taoism Taoism and Legalism affect the development of the legislation is still based on natural law is human law theory. Thomas Aquinas's natural law, is given in accordance with the rational nature of God and the law of action, we can see, St. Thomas Aquinas's natural law focused on people, not only contains a real natural , but also ought to include , two related but different. There are words on the surface, natural law is that "people according to their nature are looking for is good." However, the surface should be made, the principle of natural law is: "People should do good to avoid evil." In this paper, to compare the Heaven and the ultimate source of natural law, I inquire of the non-personal God of the Trinity Road and Thomas Aquinas on how chemical and biological weapons or to create things, by the generosity or wisdom and love of order and law generated. Then, on the Heaven and the natural law itself for comparison. Finally, the two can be dealt with through the office, and, and related concepts in Taoism. The basic concern of this paper is to compare Laozi's Heavenly Dao and St. Thomas' natural law for the purpose of bringing them to dialogue. Philosophically speaking, Laozi's concept of Dao means first, the ever self-manifesting and creative Ultimate Reality; second, the Origin giving birth to all things; third, the law of becoming of all things in the universe. For this last meaning, usually Laozi uses the term "Heavenly Dao" to represent laws of nature that all beings in the universe, including human beings , must comply with. As to human laws, he takes a critical position, to the point of saying that "The more legal objects multiply, the more robbers and thieves there will be." Nevertheless, under his influence, Huanglao daoists and legalists have developed their philosophy of positive laws.In Comparison, St. Thomas' natural laws are principles of human action according to human rational nature. The emphasis of St. Thomas is put therefore on the rational nature of human beings, which includes both the aspect of "to be" and that of "ought to be," both being closely related yet distinct. Seen from "to be," the natural law says that all human beings desire goodness by their nature; while as their "ought to be," all human beings should do good and avoid doing evil.This comparative study will focus first on how the generosity of Dao's giving birth to all things in Laozi and the wisdom and love of God in St. Thomas become order and law. Then we will compare Laozi's laws of nature, to which human beings should also live accordingly, with techniques inspired from them, and the principles of St. Thomas' natural laws. We will discuss the possible compatibility and dialogue between St. Thomas thoughts, which are essential to Catholicism , and those of Laozi as followed by lluanlao Daoism and Religious Daoism. (shrink)

Airuijiena is a medieval philosophy in the ninth century AD, the rise of a peak, it is the essence of mystical experience with God or with God, God included two adults and people of God into history. This article focuses on the Gospel of John describes Airuijiena Introduction sermons, also known as "Eagle Spirit Music," which contains the secret Qisi think, to be explored, but also involves its philosophy, theology and intellectual history of some of the relevant problem. This article (...) will first discuss the Airuijiena inherited traditions, such as the Irish spirit, Seven Arts in humanities education, Augustine Xing Greek Fathers, etc., and in "On the distinction between natural" will include them in a large integrated system. His "Gospel of St. John preaching preamble", or "Eagle Spirit Music," is a delicate little synthesis, which contains a wealth of secret Qisi want. This article will focus on St. John that he admired the mystical soul, show the people must continue to run away, until all finite things out, into the infinite God. This is a "self out of the" meaning of "extrapolation" of the most extreme, the most profound example. Then this paper to discuss Airuijiena by Zhu Zhong Jing's knowledge of God, to God and experience God together with their philosophical significance, particularly to understand the basis of the theory of divine light and darkness, which indicates not only the Word is the light itself, and all things even one grain of sand stone, they are the beacon. However, their theory of the divine darkness, God is also revealed that he is the ultimate person. In short, Airuijiena extrapolation of ideas and filled with the spirit of comparison, the system's deep and majestic, worthy I inspired. In the development of mediaeval philosophy, Johannes Scotus Eriugena stood like a "lofty rock in the midst of a plain", as Copleston puts it. His mysticism emphasized the union of God and Man in the double process of incarnation and deification. This paper will focus on his mysticism and its philosophical and historical implications in his Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John, also know as Vox Spiritualis Aquilae. We will discuss, first of all, what Eriugena had received from his Irish tradition, Neo-Platonism as interpreted by Greek fathers and St. Augustine and how he synthesized them into his Periphyseon. His Homily, as a marvelous work of synthesis in miniature, is very rich of mystic insights. We'll focus fist on his understanding of St. John's speculative mind, as a mind always going beyond itself that finally reaches the divine and thereby becomes deified in order to know God in himself. For me this is an extreme case of strangification. Then we will proceed to discuss Eriugena's mystic and philosophical concept of gnosis and theosis, and also his understanding of Logos as Light and that all things, even so tiny and low, are lights too. By contrast, his notion of Darkness of God leads us to the concept of God as totally Other , or the Ultimate Other. In sum, Eriugena's system of mystical philosophy is always deep and magnanimous, enough to inspire more generations to come. (shrink)

L'œuvre de Jean Granier, aussi ignorée que monumentale, prend à bras le corps tous les grands problèmes de la philosophie, de l'ontologie à l'art, de l'anthropologie à la métaphysique, jusqu'à l'ultime question de la destination de l'homme. Cette philosophie, nommée Intégralisme, propose de fonder la philosophie elle-même, en méditant d'un côté la position transcendantale de l'être dans le discours philosophique, et de l'autre le statut du moi dans l'élaboration de ce discours, avec le désir et les valeurs, ouvrant la voie (...) à une compréhension radicale de l'essence de la philosophie comme interprétation égotiste du monde et de son au-delà, le « transréel ». Jean Granier's work, which, however monumental as it may be, seems to be so often unacknowledged, tackles head forward all the greatest problems in philosophy, whether it be from ontology to art, and from anthropology to metaphysics as well as the ultimate question of man's destiny. His philosophy — entitled Integralism — suggest grounding philosophy itself by taking into account, on the one hand, the transcendental position of being taking place within the philosophical discourse, whilst, on the other hand, it considers the status of the « I » while devising that very same discourse, using desires and values to pave the way for a radical understanding of the essence of philosophy, which may then be understood as an « egotistic » interpretation of the world and what lies beyond, i.e. the « transreal ». (shrink)

Einleitung 1 -/- Kritik des Positivismus: Realismus «Was kann ich wissen?» 1 Erklärung und Referenz (1973) 1 2 Sprache und Wirklichkeit (1975) 38 3 Was ist ‹Realismus›? (1975) 77 -/- Der dritte Weg: Interer Realismus statt metaphysischem Realismus oder Positivismus 4 Modelle und Wirklichkeit (1980) 112 5 Referenz und Wahrheit (1980) 159 6 Wie man zugleich interner Realist und transzendentaler Idealist sein kann (1980) 191 7 Warum es keine Fertigwelt gibt (1982) 218 -/- Auf des Messers Schneide: Interner Realismus und (...) Relativismus 8 Wozu die Philosophen? (1986) 259 9 Realismus mit menschlichem Antlitz (1988/90) 284 10 Irrealismus und Dekonstruktion (1992) 330 -/- Bibliographie der Schriften von Hilary Putnam 363 I Bücher 363 II Aufsätze, Vorträge und Vorlesungen 365 III Übersetzungen ins Deutsche 385 -/- Literaturverzeichnis 387 Register 413. (shrink)

Diversität ist eines der zentralen Themen unserer Zeit. Sie durchdringt alle Lebensbereiche unserer Gesellschaften. Das Nachdenken über Diversität reicht von den Naturwissenschaften über die Geschichtswissenschaften, die Gesellschaftswissenschaften, die Philosophie bis zu den Künsten. Diversität ist zudem politisch und emotional beladen. Man denke an gesellschaftliche Minderheiten und ihre Rechte oder an das massive Artensterben unserer Tage. In diesem Buch wird nicht nur über Einzelaspekte von Diversität berichtet, es wird auch eine Synthese versucht. Drei einleitende Kapitel der HerausgeberInnen führen verständlich in komplexe (...) interdisziplinäre Problemzusammenhänge ein. Der Band versammelt 17 Beiträge namhafter Autorinnen und Autoren aus den Bereichen Kunst-, Kultur- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Medizin und Gesellschaftstheorie.00. (shrink)

Chapter 1 Introduction The man was coughing again. Shocked he was as he discovered that his saliva had a reddish taint. Would he have a lung disease after all? Cancer perhaps? Long ago, relatives of his had died from LC, lung cancer.

continent. 1.2 (2011): 129-135. Introduction Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei Successions of words are so agreeable. It is about this. —Gertrude Stein Nachoem Wijnberg (1961) is a Dutch poet and novelist. He also a professor of cultural entrepreneurship and management at the Business School of the University of Amsterdam. Since 1989, he has published thirteen volumes of poetry and four novels, which, in my opinion mark a high point in Dutch contemporary literature. His novels even more than his poetry (...) are criticized for being inaccessible, which I generally take to be a compliment. It would be like saying that Fernando Pessoa is inaccessible, which he is not. Neither is Wijnberg. When we think of the combination economist-poet we are immediately reminded of the American poet Wallace Stevens, who, as the story goes, had two stacks of paper on his desk, one for contracts, one for poems. We also know that Stevens wrote on the economy and that questions of economy and insurance surface at multiple points in his poems. The following text is a very preliminary attempt to point at the intersections between poems, novels, business, and poetry in Wijnberg’s work. On the back cover of his novel De opvolging ( The Succession , 2005), Wijnberg states the following: “[This is] a novel for whomever is interested in the workings of a company as much as in the workings of a poem.” Wijnberg thus claims that the way in which a company “works” may be similar to the way in which a poem “works.” The question is the obvious one, what does this similarity consist in? De opvolging tells the story of company in which bosses and company doctors, secretaries, children, clowns, and beggars have tons of meetings, recite poems, perform plays, tell jokes, and succeed each other, climbing up and down in the company’s hierarchy. De opvolging is a novel in which the career of people follows the career of words. It resonates with Gertrude Stein's sentences, "Grammar. What is it. Who was it" (1975, 50). The words in Wijnberg's poems are like he characters in his novel. And if we keep in mind this allegorical reading of De opvolging , which is obviously only one of the possible readings, we may be able to understand some aspects of Wijnberg’s poetry. A repetition is already a pun. Look, that word is trying it again, as if it is afraid that by not doing it it would give up the hope that it will ever be able to do something. A pun is the opposite of the first word coming to the mind of someone who shouts it when he suddenly discovers something. (104) The repetition, the succession of the same word, is already a pun, a joke. The succession of the father by the son after the revolution is a joke. "Look he's trying it again!" The essence of a joke is a repetition. Archimedes’ “Eureka!” is its opposite. Poems can easily become jokes, depending on the way the words follow and repeat each other. In De opvolging , the careers of the bosses, good and bad secretaries, and company doctors easily become jokes, as they are “afraid that by not doing it [they] would give up the hope that [they] will ever be able to do something.” Not only the repetition, but also the distance and difference between the words in a poem, their cause and effect relations can be read as company relations. This becomes clear when we, for example, read the first lines of the poem “Cause, sign” from Het leven van ( The Life Of , 2009). A sign lets know what is going to happen, a cause lets it happen. If the sign also lets happen there is no reason to isolate it, because then I would isolate some- thing only because it’s different for me. If I didn’t have to write this myself, but would have secretaries to whom I could dictate it, I would be able to say more about it. (49) Upon reading the first two lines we can already conclude that any word may be cause or sign or both. If a sign is also a cause there is no reason to discriminate it, yet to the poet they are still different. This difference only becomes expressible the moment he would have a secretary. Just like in De opvolging , the secretary introduces a distance; not in a company but in a poem. Hence the difference between “good” and “bad” secretaries in a company, where the good secretary of one boss may be the bad secretary of another one. The more we can say about the bosses of the company, or signifiers of the poem, the greater the distance we introduce between them and us. We should take serious the relation between Wijnberg’s novels and poems. Although they operate on different scales, they explain and converse with each other. Another example may be the novel Politiek en liefde ( Politics and Love , 2002), which deals with the relation, precisely, between politics and love. In the novel, Nicolai, a lieutenant in the Dutch army, is sent to Africa on a military mission. Upon leaving a receives a letter from his father. Dear son, Don’t do anything stupid before your father has advised you to do so. Your mother asked me to write a wise letter. I have been looking for wisdom for half a day and haven’t found much. If you borrow a small amount from a bank you become the bank’s slave, but if you borrow a couple of millions and spend them as quickly as possible the bank becomes your slave. What I want to say is that you have to return from Africa in good health, and before you know it the world will be your slave [....] Signed with a kiss from your father. (88) The line, “If you borrow a small amount from a bank you become the bank’s slave, but if you borrow a couple of millions and spend them as quickly as possible the bank becomes your slave,” returns as the title of poem in Het leven van: “If I borrow enough money the bank becomes my slave” (12-3), which elaborates this theme. So both in the way that these poems are structured and in their subject matter, they refer to the structures of our economy, to the ever-continuing line of CEOs succeeding each other like words, to the distance between them introduced by bureaucracy, and giving and receiving as economical and poetical acts. Poem and economy map onto each other, as in another episode from De opvolging : Edward reads two of the beggar’s poems about presents. Of a holiday nothing remains, except for memories, and if some of them are bad I’d rather forget them all; if I get a present I’d rather get something that’s useful to me for a long time. If I may choose, I choose what I can use longest, long enough to partially forget that this was the present, because it feels bad when nothing is left of it. […] Giving away becomes destruction in the stock destruction economy [ voorraadvernie -tigings-economie ], that is a gift economy [ geschenkeneconomie ], encountering for the first time an economy in which there’s selling and buying on markets. Instead of destroying supplies someone can also quickly say that they aren’t worth anything anymore; if someone wants to take them I’d gladly give him something extra. In a stock destruction economy he is someone who each day wants to work more hours than his colleagues. If around a company there is a gift economy in which someone’s rank is determined and made visible by the gifts someone can give someone else, a company will be more often character- ized by an invisible or unclear system of ranks. (152) Two poems about gifts present two different economical models, described by Wijnberg with the terms “stock destruction economy” and “gift economy.” Here we immediately recall the opposition introduced by George Bataille’s work on the concept of expenditure in The Accursed Share , where a “general economy” would surpass the stock destruction economy based on scarcity (capitalism) and become a gift economy (potlatch) and an egalitarian (communist) society. These claims are made both on the level of the poems and in their discursive explanation. They follow each other and on each other. I would like to finish this introduction to Wijnberg’s writing with a translation from his novel De joden ( The Jews , 1999), which develops the story of Hitler abdicating as chancellor of the Third Reich, appointing philosopher Martin Heidegger as his successor. In a conversation with two Russian actor-spies, sent by Stalin to figure out the situation, philosopher Walter Benjamin describes the abdication scene. Maimon: You were there when Hitler resigned? Benjamin: In the room we’re right now. The desk and the chairs are new. After his resignation Hitler would like to take his furniture to his new house. Martin naturally agrees. It is a sunny day. Martin is very nervous and complains about the heat. Martin is wearing his best dark blue suit, not his professor’s robe. Hitler is wearing his uniform. We enter the room and Hitler gets up and embraces Martin. Martin is not very good at embracing. Hitler shakes his hand. Hitler’s cap is on the desk. The cap has a metal lining. Hitler has strong neck muscles. Hitler says: A man is unclean. He takes a bath. Does he make the bath water unclean? I say: a man is unclean. He steps into a river. A little further a man steps into the river; does he become unclean? Hitler nods. I say: a man is standing in music. Another man hears the music but also sees the first man moving on the beat of the music in a way that he is certain that the music would excite different feelings in him if he wouldn’t to see the first man. Hitler says: a man is clean, listens to music, is suddenly touched and he doesn’t know by what. The conversation ends in the way you know it ends. Hitler picks up his cap from the desk and puts it on Martin’s head. (73-4) Aware of the never ending debate on the question of Heidegger’s involvement in the Nazi regime, Wijnberg has the audacity to present the arguments of complicity in the religious terminology of cleanliness and uncleanliness, while at the same time recalling overtones of Hitler’s supposed love for Wagner, suggesting a relation between Benjamin and Hitler, and so on. The space of this introduction is to small to treat a novel like De joden , a reading of which together with passages from Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's Heidegger, Art, and Politics: The Fiction of the Political , Jacques Derrida's Of Spirit , Christopher Fynsk's Heidegger: Thought and Historicity , and Avital Ronell's The Telephone Book would be extremely elucidating and potentially open new avenues in thinking Heidegger's emphasis on poetry after the fall of the Nazi empire. But at this point we will have to curb our curiosity and follow the poet himself. The themes of the relation between business and poetry, but also Chinese landscape painting, love, Indian and Japanese poetry, and Western philosophy are analyzed and assimilated in Wijnberg’s work without ever losing the clarity of expression. It may be that, according to Alain Badiou, the “Age of the Poets” is over, but its end (Paul Celan) has exactly brought a new balance between philosophy and poetry, and it is this playful, but nonetheless serious balance that makes one hope that one day Wijnberg’s complete oeuvre might become available to readers across the planet. Tiranë, Albania February 15, 2011 English translations (all of them translated by David Colmer, who is preparing an English collection of Wijnberg’s poems entitled Advanced Payment ): Poetry International Words Without Borders Green Integer Review from Het leven van ( The Life of ) THE LIFE OF KANT, OF HEGEL As if every day he takes a decision that is as good as when he’d been able to think about it all his life. The life of Kant, of Hegel, the days of the life of, select three or four of them. Tell what he has discovered during those days as if he were the last one who knew so little. Give me something that I can cancel against then I can prepare myself for it. The reward is that I may continue with what I’m doing, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. This has nothing to do with everything remaining the same if I say that I no longer want anything else. I wouldn’t be able to say in which one and the other occur in a way that I if I knew something to cancel that one against it wouldn’t be possible now. The stars above my head and being able to say what belongs to what if I’ve let them in. FOLLOWING MY HEART WITHOUT BREAKING THE RULES Observing the rules without observing the rules by going where the rules no longer apply. I could also observe the rules there by applying them to what at great distance may resemble what the rules are about. But why would I do that, not to confuse someone who is seeing me from a great distance? Behind this morning the morning prepares itself when the rules are everything I have. IF I BORROW ENOUGH MONEY THE BANK BECOMES MY SLAVE A bank lends me money, if I don’t pay it back they tell my boss that he has to pay them my salary. But they have to leave me enough to eat and sleep and an umbrella when it’s raining. They can also empty my house, the furniture isn’t worth a lot, but every little helps. Each morning I leave for work, if I don’t start early they’ll soon get someone else, no bank will lend me money when the sun is shining. My boss has given me a cat to raise as a dog. Of course I know that it won’t work out, but I’ve asked for a week—maybe the cat gets lucky, maybe I get lucky. My hands around a cup of coffee, before I leave for work, warm-empty, cold-empty, as if hidden in the mist over a lawn. What I make when there’s no work left for me, I’m ashamed to say how little it is. Once I’m outside I check it, if they watch out of the window they can see me doing it. Suppose it is so much that I’d stay counting for hours, it’s getting dark and I’m still there. They stay watching for a while once they’ve finished their work, but have to go home, I get that, sure, I could also go home and continue counting there. If it’s too little running back immediately won’t help, because nobody’s there anymore, and if I come back tomorrow I may have spent what’s missing tonight. Going somewhere where it’s warm enough to walk around without clothes during daytime, it helps me to know that something’s more there than here. For someone like me there’s work anywhere, it shouldn’t take a week to find work for me there. Three times work and a home close to work, I may choose one and try for a week whether I want to stay there. If at the end of the week I don’t want to stay I’m back on the next day, then it was a week’s holiday. RULES If that’s against a rule, it’s yet another one that I cannot observe, or only so briefly that I cannot re- member it later. Anyways the rules are only there to help me remember what I need in order to do better what I do. In that respect there’s no difference between the rules that I find in a book and the rules that I think of early in the morning. I know that because I’ve made a rule just now nothing has yet to observe it. CAUSE, SIGN A sign lets know what is going to happen, a cause lets it happen. If the sign also lets happen there is no reason to isolate it, because then I would isolate something only because it’s different for me. If I didn’t have to write this down myself, but would have secretaries to whom I could dictate it, I could to say more about it. If something is taken away from me I consider how it would be if the opposite had been taken from me. That is what causes or signifies what is farthest away from what is caused or signified by what has been taken away from me. note: For the translations of “The life of Kant, of Hegel” and “If I borrow enough money the bank becomes my slave” I was able to consult David Colmer’s wonderful translations. (shrink)

continent. 1.3 (2011): 201-207. “Poetry is experience, linked to a vital approach, to a movement which is accomplished in the serious, purposeful course of life. In order to write a single line, one must have exhausted life.” —Maurice Blanchot (1982, 89) Nikos Karouzos had a communist teacher for a father and an orthodox priest for a grandfather. From his four years up to his high school graduation he was incessantly educated, reading the entire private library of his granddad, comprising mainly (...) the Orthodox Church Fathers and the ancient classics. Later on in his life he sold the library for money, only to buy a little more time before he went broke again: “I carry sorrow like a cage/ I got no birds/ as I come back from her hair/ I see the profit emptied/ cool from terror.” (1993, Ι, 101) Nowadays—and ridiculously recently—we are more than apt to speak of a certain insouciance pertaining to the Greek form of expenditure: expenditure without any type of investment, sometimes not (even) symbolic. In the vaults of the European unconscious, this imprudent stance still conjures a “capital punishment” in the form of de-capitation, reflecting back the fear of excess and the terror of its consequences.1 Thus the Greek way of living is very close to what a stranger could have termed as “the Greek way of dying.” Yet, what is not often understood is that the Greek esprit , the same one that invented the maxim μηδ?ν ?γαν (“nothing in excess”), does not experience death solely as an imminent fear of bankruptcy. For it miraculously combines its unconditional acceptance with the promise of a resurrection that is always there in the scents of Spring, from Dionysus to the orthodox Christ: “Everyone resurrects himself through dying [….] Resurrection is the switching of mortalities.” (2002, 94) Hence, if an entire library was imprudently traded for a plate with seven olives, a sliced tomato and some fresh goat cheese, let us not be fooled: this is not the meal of the pauper, but that of “an aristocrat from God” (1993, II, 491) feeding his eloquent loudmouth, ridiculously cut open in an otherwise rock-solid caput . *** To speak of the Greek experience is to speak about a half-dead language that still utters in life what is seemingly excluded from it and thus forbidden to be talked about: death. Death as anything that is out of this world, as something that will never return . Still, along with an experience of death that recently waned as a worn-out academic fashion, the Greek experience is dead too. Nearly 2300 years of written words separating Homer from the fall of Byzantium equal 500 books on a library traded for money: “I am with the killed. Hence my deepest solitude. I do not feel this tremendous macho society, beyond from the fact that it is a ruthlessly consuming one. It is me who pays all the time .” (2002, 57) Let us do the math and see how much this dealing with the Greek experience is costing the poet and how much dealing with the Greek experience might cost us today. *** “I do not guarantee a single word.” (Karouzos, 1993, II, 454) Through its various dialects and forms, the Greek language speaks through an incessant historical dissemination. Anyone who is aware of this terrifying polymorphy and still calls himself a poet, must stand against a white sheet of paper, pen-in-hand, with a very particular duty: to be as fully inconsistent as possible. In the formally ironic uniqueness of the poem, the poet functions as “a band-aid for lesser and greater antinomies.” (1993, I, 251) Of course these antinomies are not exhausted in language—they are historical, political and, alas, existential. Yet, beyond appearances , it is language that ruthlessly encodes them through history, submitting the poet to the temptation of placing them one next to the other on a single white sheet. The closer their neighboring, the greater the scattering of the writer in the ironic uniqueness of the paper. In a work where poetic license is described as a “freedom-impasse” (2002, 51), this task is undertaken in full conscience of its personal consequences: “what I am interested in is to escape my individuality (envisioning the non-ego) […] Nevertheless, my dissociations never achieve duration.” (2002, 74-75) Hence, though poetry is the “deserted direction of will,” (1998, 62) the stance of the poet is not that of a Nietzschean “great man.”2 Whereas drunkenness provides a thread between the poem and the excess it both presupposes and infuses (“Poetry always enlarges. ‘Drunkenness’ is nothing more than that,” (2002, 85)), whereas language flashes in loudmouth spurts of déraison (“When I am alone I do something else. I utter words. For example, while having my ouzo and listening to music I am most likely capable of randomly shouting ‘Electricity!’” (2002, 138)), the poet never gives in to the double affirmation that would eventually risk the “element of pleasure in discourse.” (2002, 80)” It is exactly because the gap of the antinomies is so vast that poetry is not meant to be written with a hammer. Neither does writing consist in a reevaluation of those elements. In short, poetry is not an affirmation of difference, but the surprising beauty of chiming antinomies. We might never transcend them, but it is up to us to put them together. Yet again, this voisinage is not to be identified with the necessity of chance as an eternal return.4 On the contrary it is a return from that very return : Let us treat Yes as a No to No and No as a Yes […] And let us not forget that this pissed affirmation crumbled down Nietzsche’s intellect in the dark paths of this world. (2002, 88) This return from the “vicious circle” should in no way be taken as a form of artistic prudence. Rather it can be seen as a dribble of demonic inconsistency as Dionysus transforms himself into a Christ that is in turn de-theologized: “Who can forbid that? Every man is capable of his own theology, nothing can stop him.” (2002, 73-74) This is a turn towards an existential vision of the world, historically coinciding with a particular political defeat of the Left, to which the poet devoted all his life: after the defeat of the popular front I raised the question “why do we exist?” while others were asking “why we failed.” (2002, 57)5 But most of all it is a return to poetry that exceeds the existential question itself, going beyond the issue of faith. Poetry comes in as a question of return after a defeat that is confessed in full profanity. Though it accepts the necessity of the defeat, it does not affirm it. Though it negates it, the negation is not in the name of a promise to be delivered in the kingdom of heavens. Following a historical and existential defeat, poetry is born post mortem . It signals a return to Christ as “groundless religiousness in the surprise of the real as such” (2002, 72) which is at once a return to the refuge of childhood. It is not a question of endurance towards an eternal return. Rather it is a question on the possibility of an existential return. Returning in a world as someone who cannot enjoy any returns exactly because he is averse to guarantees. A return without returns. *** PHOTOCOPY OF HAPPINESS When I was young I used to pin down cicadas and step on ant nests. I used to stand there silent for hours. With threads I decapitated bees. Now I am a dead man breathing. (Karouzos, 1993, II, 336.) The return to the “paradise of childhood” (2002, 68) constitutes the devouring refuge of its own memory when defeat becomes the synonym of adulthood. The political struggles of a young communist in a country torn up by a civil war right after World War II fraught with incarcerations and exiles. Historically they resulted in the defeat of the communist movement in Greece and opened up a long turbulent road that would peak in the dictatorship of 1967. Existentially they led to a series of disillusionments: mental breakdown, divorce, abandonment of studies in law school. To the question “why do we exist” the answer was poetry. Still this exposé should not be read as a sweeping chronography of a man. For it actually happens to coincide with the historical fate of a nation that after its modern constitution never stopped dreaming of the glories of its past youth, in a present that was (and is) sweepingly disappointing. But isn’t this return to youth finally a way of compensating for a loss of youth that necessarily results in a losing adulthood? Will Greeks, the eternal children of Plato and Nietzsche, ever learn? How to return without dying, how to remember without wasting time? WE ARE IN THE OPEN MEANING Living the coldest mauve night right across Parthenon I went to take a piss on some foliage and I was enjoying the foliage as it was steaming. (Karouzos, 1993, II, 340) Beyond the historical tragedies of modern Greece and away from any personal disappointments, the relation that this land holds with language and history is mediated through the Greek light—whose omnipresence is the very condition of its transcendence. All historical contradictions from Dionysus to Christ took place under this light; all those disseminated dialects were spoken beneath its warmth. To paraphrase Lévinas,6 light is both the condition of the world and of our withdrawal from it—a withdrawal towards the invisibility of God, of the dead, of meta-physics, resulting from the temptation that all is still here, behind this light the visibility of which they once evaded: “birds, the allurement of God.” (1993, I, 17) Under that luminous sky, if Greeks can do anything at all, it is to envision a return that will never come. All they can do is write poetry—which is doing nothing; other than lending an ear to a disseminated language whispering a unity that cannot be promised, as an adulthood in defeat is ready to recognize. Trying “to trap the invisible in visibility” (1993, II, 483) they forget that they have grown up and one day they die—with the promise of return. Hence an additional meaning must be given to this return to childhood. It does not signal salvation but rather its promise. To the ears of an aged continent it means that the return to/of poetry is a losing game, a return without returns. “Europe, Europe… you are nothing more than the continuation of Barabbas.” (1993, I, 295) *** “Life is not there to verify theories.”7 The records show that Karouzos was finally given a second-class pension from the Greek government, at the time when he was being recognized by the literary press as one of Greece’s major contemporary poets. Being neither a bourgeois nor a nobelist, he proclaimed himself to be an anarcho-communist, unconditionally faithful to the utopia of a classless society. He also drank, heavily. “Capitalism made an animal out of man/ Marxism made an animal out of truth/ Shut up.” (1993, II, 369) Perhaps one of the most scandalous divides of our times has been the one between the living and the dead, the latent prohibition that the living should not be concerned with the dead based on the mere impossibility of the dead to be concerned with the living in the first place. What adds to this scandal is that this divide abuses anything that cannot return to us by subsuming it under the same futility. Hence death is no longer “loss” in the usual sense. It no more refers to the things we lost but to our “loss” (of time, money and well-being) as we insist to dwell on them. Death is a waste —of time. It is this waste that we find in the insouciance of Greek expenditure; the waste in dealing with a language that most of its historical part is no longer spoken (a dead language); the waste in translating a poet who is ex definitio untranslatable; the waste of his vision, his money, his life. The waste of dealing with anything that cannot return and that cannot bring in any returns . But it is also the waste of life that poetry itself presupposes, the waste of dealing with invisibility, with anything that is out of this world and thus invokes the fear of death that is in turn—and surprisingly— nowhere to be found. Instead of death, what is there, beyond the light, is the being without us (to recall the Lévinasian il y a ), the mumble of our own nothingness which constitutes the price to be paid for writing poetry under an evergreek light. To understand this to-and-fro, is to realize that poetry is something out of this world that nevertheless takes place in this world, by virtue of this world. But to ridiculously equate this to-and-fro with death as non-existence, is to exile poetry along with its own possibility from this same old world: I do not believe that poetry will ever disappear from this world. […] But I am also sure that it does not have many chances of playing, as you say, a redemptive role in our vertiginous technological future. Without being endangered as a creative need, it will be placed on the side of history. (2002, 32) It is mainly there that we would like to locate the meaning of Nikos Karouzos’s poetry today. If we are willing to include the Greek original it is because we consider that it will be both a waste of time for us to do so (since most of you cannot read Greek) and because it might induce you to the even larger waste of learning it. We would additionally be glad if this small introduction served as an equally wasteful, academically useless piece of reading, gesturing towards a taboo of investing in anything Greek—that is in anything dead among the living, in anything that will never come back and maybe was never here in the first place. This is the only way to reserve for ourselves the possibility of poetry and preserve the light of its promise. “To return: that is the miracle.” (1993, I, 17) Athens, Greece July 10, 2011 NOTES 1 “ Capitale (a Late Latin word based on caput “head”) emerged in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries in the sense of funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money or money carrying interest.[…] The word and the reality it stood for appear in the sermons of St. Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) ‘… quamdam seminalem rationem lucrosi quam communiter capitale vocamus ’, ‘that prolific cause of wealth that we commonly call capital’” (Braudel, 1992, 232-233). 2 “A great man – a man whom nature has constructed and invented in the grand style – what is he? First : there is a long logic in all of his activity, hard to survey because of its length, and consequently misleading; he has the ability to extend his will across great stretches of his life and to despise and reject everything petty about him, including even the fairest, ‘divinest’ things in the world.” (Nietzsche, 1968, 505, §962) 3 Cf. Deleuze, 1986, 186-9. 4 “Return is the being of becoming, the unity of multiplicity, the necessity of chance: the being of difference as such or the eternal return.” (Deleuze, 189)5 In this 1982 interview Karouzos refers to the defeat of the communist movement in Greece after the civil war of 1946-1949 between the Governmental Army and the Democratic Army of Greece, the military division of the Greek communist party. Karouzos’s father was a member of the communist National Liberation front (EAM) members of which formed the mainl resistance movement (ELAS) in Greece during WWII. The poet was a member of the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON), which was a youth division of EAM. After the end of the war, ELAS was called to disarmament in view of the formation of a National Army. The members of EAM resigned from the government of national unity and a series of protests led to a 3 year civil war between ELAS and the Government Army. After the defeat of ELAS the Communist party was outlawed and many communists were exiled in deserted Greek islands. Karouzos, who took action in the Greek resistance and was active during the Greek civil war, was exiled in Icaria on 1947 and in Makronisos on 1953 where he was called two years earlier to do his military service. 6 “Existence in the world qua light, which makes desire possible, is then, in the midst of being, the possibility of detaching oneself from being. To enter into being is to link up with objects; it is in effect a bond that is already tainted with nullity. It is already to escape anonymity. In this world where everything seems to affirm our solidarity with the totality of existence, where we are caught up in the gears of a universal mechanism, our first feeling, our ineradicable illusion, is a feeling or illusion of freedom. To be in the world is this hesitation, this interval in existing, which we have seen in the analyses of fatigue and the present.” (Lévinas, 1988,43-4) 7from a TV interview. THE POETRY OF NIKOS KAROUZOS From Redwriter [ Ερυθρογρ?φος ], in Collected Works, Vol . II, Athens: Ikaros. 1993, 463-4. [Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 9-10.] JESUS ANTI-OEDIPUS* Why were we once saving till the fifth day the Paschal lamb? The scriptures say: with this victim’s meat we ought to cleanse all of our senses. To give life to the whitest wave miraculous odors in the extension of the chest. Ideals to death. For us to witness the illustrious dawns of Absinthe and for the soul to be a deeply carved ornament on the fore we named will. Then many deer running amidst the evergreen growth with watery hymns, then, the unintended angels descending with heights spiraling in their momentum offer themselves to the luminous Adventure. Whence the need for speech and our sufferings covered with flags like the glorified dead. An incorporeal finger pointing at the flamboyant and fragrant holocausts within the tired horizons and the exhausted breadths with joys of the mistletoe on fire and shivering all of the green-leaved love. Something would have chirped again had we not driven it away— maybe the ewe’s grass. Something would have called us to the eternal resurrection— maybe the grace of spring. But now our heart is fiercely blinded, withdrawn to the appearances of Hades. Silence and ice incessantly cover the Infant Spirit in thatched times. While the cherry trees are dreaming faintly glowing in absolute darkness there’s nothing the Babylonians can contemplate in labs with automatic colored lights. How to rejoice now in the fifth day of the lamb? We have forked the stars. We’ve gradually become supposedly sublime with plucked chimeras in our hands. Avenged relentlessly by science. *Though the poem appears in a 1990 collection, it was actually written in 1968. Hence the reader must be aware in not associating Karouzos’ Anti-Oedipus with the famous 1972 work of Deleuze and Guattari, given that the former precedes the latter. ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΑΝΤΙ-ΟΙΔΙΠΟΥΣ Γιατ? κρατο?σαμε κ?ποτε ?ς την π?μπτη μ?ρα το πασχαλιν? πρ?βατο; Τα κε?μενα λ?νε: μ’ αυτο? του θ?ματος το κρ?ας ?πρεπε να καθαρ?σουμε ?λες τις αισθ?σεις. Για να δ?σουμε κ?μα στη ζω? λευκ?τατο θαυμ?σιες ευωδι?ς στην ?κταση του στ?θους. Ιδανικ? στο χ?ρο. Για να βλ?πουμε τα λαμπρ? χαρ?ματα του ?ψινθου και να ’ναι η ψυχ? στ?λισμα βαθυχ?ρακτο της πλ?ρης που την ε?παμε θ?ληση. Τ?τε πολλ?ς δορκ?δες τρ?χοντας αν?μεσα στην καταπρ?σινη φ?ση με τους υδ?τινους ?μνους, τ?τε, κατεβα?νοντας οι αθ?λητοι ?γγελοι με κυλινδο?μενο το ?ψος στην ορμ? τους χαρ?ζονται της αστραφτερ?ς Περιπ?τειας. ?θεν η μιλι? γι’ αυτ? χρει?ζεται και τα δειν? σκεπ?ζονται ωσ?ν τους τιμημ?νους νεκρο?ς με σημα?ες. Ασ?ματο δ?χτυλο δε?χνει τα φλογ?δη και μοσχοβ?λα ολοκαυτ?ματα στους κουρασμ?νους ορ?ζοντες στα εξουθενωμ?να πλ?τη καθ?ς αν?βουν οι χαρ?ς του νερα?δ?ξυλου και τρ?μει ολ?κληρη η πρασιν?φυλλη αγ?πη. Κ?τι θα κελαηδο?σε π?λι αν δεν το δι?χναμε— μπορε? της προβατ?νας το χορτ?ρι. Κ?τι θα μας καλο?σε στην απ?ραντη αν?σταση— μπορε? του ?αρος η χ?ρη. Μα η καρδι? μας ?γρια τυφλ?θηκε π?ρασε στα φαιν?μενα του ?δη. Σιγ? και π?γος αδι?κοπα σκεπ?ζει στους αχυρ?νιους καιρο?ς το Ν?πιο Πνε?μα. Την ?ρα που ονειρε?ονται οι βυσσινι?ς και λ?μπουν αμυδρ? μεσ’ στο απλ?τατο σκοτ?δι τ?ποτα δε στοχ?ζονται οι βαβυλ?νιοι στα εργαστ?ρια με τ’ αυτ?ματα χρωματιστ? φ?τα. Π?ς να χαρο?με πια την π?μπτη μ?ρα του προβ?του; Φουρκ?σαμε τ’ αστ?ρια. Γ?ναμε σιγ?-σιγ? δ?θεν υπ?ροχοι με μαδημ?νες χ?μαιρες στα χ?ρια. Μας ν?μεται σκληρ? η επιστ?μη. From: Redwriter [Ερυθρογρ?φος], in Collected Works, Vol. II, Athens: Ikaros. 1993, 472. [Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 18.] DIALECTΙCS OF SPRING Christ the straight angle; Christ the Pythagorean theorem. Christ the infinitesimal calculus from above the blessed Sets Christ. Christ the tessellation of massive particles Christ the zero mass. Hence we spray numbers and fields of lust. We are carabineers of diseased logic plus something— Observed means observer and Hekate The darkness luminous and light in the dark Astarte banqueters demons from today. ΔΙΑΛΕΚΤΙΚΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΑΡΟΣ Χριστ?ς η ορθ? γων?α· Χριστ?ς το πυθαγ?ριο θε?ρημα. Χριστ?ς ο απειροστικ?ς λογισμ?ς ?νωθεν ?λβια Χριστ?ς τα Σ?νολα. Χριστ?ς η ψηφιδογραφ?α στα μαζικ? σωμ?τια Χριστ?ς η μ?ζα μηδ?ν. ?ρα ψεκ?ζουμε αριθμο?ς και πεδ?α λαγνε?ας. Ε?μαστε τυφεκιοφ?ροι νοσο?σης λογικ?ς και κ?τι-- παρατηρο?μενο σημα?νει παρατηρητ?ς και Εκ?τη σκ?τος το π?μφωτο και φως εν τ? σκοτ?? η Αστ?ρτη συνδαιτημ?νες δα?μονες απ’ ?ρτι. From: Redwriter [Ερυθρογρ?φος], Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 18. [1993, II, 472]. CREDO (as we are used to say in Latin) Α I believe in one Poet expelled from heavens / fugitive from the god and vagabond, Empedocles / and here on earth / exile on the earth etc. of Baudelaire /. Β I believe in one Computer inside thunder and through matter. Γ Suffering undefiled / substantive / the Poet uplifts himself slow-burning suicidal implying lengthy sleeps. Δ Cutting down on prospective mistakes. Ε Of all things visible and invisible officiating the onion-peelings. Ζ The Poet has nothing / see the departed /. Η I believe in one Poet that says: madness I enjoy; he ridicules existence; let me light up from my mana. Θ Syntax he doesn’t care about when musicality commands him. Along with still more licenses, and Ts are played according to the concept sound anywhere. E.g. the winters here, he winters there; it will not come—I will not rest, etc. etc. Ι The Poet exercises thought until it’s stripped down. Κ And if he’s Greek he must always study the fineness of Attica, in light, mountains, fields and sea. For this fineness teaches language. Λ And if he’s deeply destined the Poet expresses the unexplainable of the explained; he happens to be a rightful heir to the scientist and his predecessor. Μ On the froth he does not last; the Poet blusters at the bottom of the pot. Ν Flamebred and never redeemed. Ξ The Poet must sometimes say: what a consumption of presence — be a bit lonely for a change! Ο The Poet is twilit. Π He is susceptible of deaths and resurrections. Ρ He looks from the corner of his eye and exists in a glance. Σ He follows behind the mother. Τ Eveningless when it comes to age. Υ I believe in one Poet who says: let the purities coincide. Until the Corinth of the Universe or even further. Φ In a higher despair. Χ In a brighter quintessence. Ψ In one sensation that lifts off. Ω Forgiving everyone. CREDO (ως ε?θισται να λ?με λατινιστ?) Α Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν εκτ?ς ουρανο? / φυγ?ς θε?θεν και αλ?της, Εμπεδοκλ?ς / και επ? της γης / εξ?ριστος π?νω στη γη κ.λπ. του Βωδελα?ρου /. Β Πιστε?ω εις ?να Υπολογιστ?ν εντ?ς κεραυνο? και δια της ?λης. Γ Υποφ?ροντας ?χραντα / ουσιαστικ?ν / ο Ποιητ?ς ανατε?νεται βραδυφλεγ?ς αυτ?χειρας εξυπακο?οντας πολ?ωρους ?πνους. Δ Τα υποψ?φια λ?θη λιγοστε?οντας. Ε Ορατ?ν τε π?ντων και αορ?των ιερουργ?ντας την αποκρομμ?ωση. Ζ Ο Ποιτ?ς ?χει τ?ποτα / βλ?πε τους αναχωρ?σαντες /. Η Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν που λ?ει: η τρ?λα μ’ αρ?σει· γελοιοποιε? την ?παρξη· ας αν?ψω απ’ τη μ?να μου. Θ Συνταχτικ? δεν το γνοι?ζεται στην προσταγ? της μουσικ?τητας. Μαζ? και μ’ ?λλες ακ?μη λευτερι?ς, και τα νυ πα?ζονται κατ? την ?ννοια ?χος οπουδ?ποτε. Π.χ. τον χειμ?να εδ?, το χειμ?να εκε?· δε θ? ’ρθει – δεν θα καταλαγι?σουμε, κ. λπ. κ.λπ. Ι Ο Ποιητ?ς γυμν?ζει τη σκ?ψη σε απογ?μνωση. Κ Κι αν ε?ναι ?λληνας οφε?λει να σπουδ?ζει π?ντοτε της Αττικ?ς τη λεπτ?τητα, σε φως, βουν?, χωρ?φια και θ?λασσα. Διδ?σκει γλ?σσα η λεπτ?τητα το?τη. Λ Κι αν ε?ναι βαθι? πεπρωμ?νος ο Ποιητ?ς εκφρ?ζει το ανεξ?γητο του εξηγητο?· τυγχ?νει ν?μιμος δι?δοχος του επιστ?μονα και προκ?τοχ?ς του. Μ Στον αφρ? δεν ?χει δι?ρκεια· στο πατοκ?ζανο μα?νεται ο Ποιητ?ς. Ν Φλογοδ?αιτος και ποτ? ξελυτρωμ?νος. Ξ Ο Ποιητ?ς κ?ποτε πρ?πει να λ?ει: μεγ?λη καταν?λωση παρουσ?ας – γενε?τε και λ?γο μοναξι?ρηδες! Ο Ο Ποιητ?ς ε?ναι αμφ?φλοξ. Π Επιδ?χεται θαν?τους και αναστ?σεις. Ρ Ακροθωρ?ζει και υπ?ρχει σε ξαφνοκο?ταγμα. Σ Ε?ναι ουραγ?ς της μητ?ρας. Τ Αν?σπερος απ? ηλικ?α. Υ Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν που λ?ει: να συμπ?σουν οι αγν?τητες. Μ?χρι την Κ?ρινθο του Σ?μπαντος ? μακρ?τερα. Φ Σε αν?τερη απελπισ?α. Χ Σε φαειν?τερη πεμπτουσ?α. Ψ Σε μια α?σθηση που πτηνο?ται. Ω Συγχωρ?ντας τους π?ντες. From Large Sized Logic [ Λογικ? μεγ?λου σχ?ματος ], Athens: Erato, 1989, n.p. [1993, II, 521-3]. (shrink)

Man's Approach to God was the 5th lecture in the Wimmer Memorial Lecture Series (1947-1970) at Saint Vincent and was given in 1951 by Jacques Maritain. Maritain was one of the most influential figures in the Thomistic revival of the 20th century. Both in his personal life and in his prolific academic corpus, Maritain modeled the Church's commitment to the interrelationship between faith and reason. So seriously did he take his intellectual commitments in his student years that, along with (...) soon-to-be wife, Ra•ssa Oumansoff, he made a suicide pact that he would only break if he could find some meaning to life. This search ultimately led him to Catholicism. Maritain's works reveal an active mind capable of applying his speculative thought to virtually any subject. Every one of his works was an exploration of reason and its limits, and of how faith completes the natural desire to know. His Wimmer lecture is a model specimen of this approach. Maritain's Man's Approach to God is a three-part lecture. In it, he seeks to explain how man comes to know God existentially, as well as how faith responds to and completes this search for meaning. This lecture grew out of his desire to show that every human being, and not just philosophers, can penetrate into the depths of reality, for all bear within themselves the indelible image of God and are equally called to the communion of love for God and love for our brothers [as] a single love of charity. (shrink)

Controversial cases in medical ethics are, by their very nature, divisive. There are disagreements that revolve around questions of fact or of value. Ethical debate may help in resolving those disagreements. However, sometimes in such cases, there are opposing reasonable views arising from deep-seated differences in ethical values. It is unclear that agreement and consensus will ever be possible. In this paper, we discuss the recent controversial case of Vincent Lambert, a French man, diagnosed with a vegetative state, for (...) whom there were multiple court hearings over a number of years. Both family and health professionals were divided about whether artificial nutrition and hydration should be withdrawn and Lambert allowed to die. We apply a ‘dissensus’ approach to his case and argue that the ethical issue most in need of scrutiny is different from the one that was the focus of attention. (shrink)

These two quotations encapsulate stories told on the same day, within hours of one another, to commissioners at an inquest into the sanctity of the itinerant Dominican preacher Vincent Ferrer . Both Katherina Guernezve and Oliverius Bourric had come before the commission in order to testify to Vincent Ferrer's miraculous resurrection of Johannes Guerre, an archer employed by the duke of Brittany. Both told how Guerre had been wounded in a fight with a fellow archer, how he had (...) been tended in the Guernezve household, how Bourric had been summoned to hear the dying man's confession, how Guerre had lost consciousness and died before confessing, and how he had returned to life following a vow to Vincent Ferrer. There are two key differences in their stories, however, apparent in the passages quoted above. First, Katherina Guernezve believed that the priest had left her house after finding Guerre unable to speak. Bourric, the priest, maintained that he was present throughout the drama that ensued. Second, Katherina asserted that she herself had urged bystanders to pray to Vincent Ferrer. Bourric insisted that this prayer had been his alone. These same differences are found in the testimony of other witnesses to the miracle. Women who were present remembered the events along the lines of Katherina's narrative; men's stories followed the priest's. (shrink)

Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction and the Nietzschian Superman!!!