Freedom and Culture

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuchen Xiang ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Self ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
The World ◽  
Book Of Changes ◽  
Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms ◽  
Symbolic Formation

Through a key passage (Xici 2.2) from the Book of Changes, this paper shows that Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms shares similarities with the canonical account of symbolic formation in the Chinese tradition: the genesis of xiang (象), often translated as image or symbol. xiang became identified with the origins of culture/civilisation itself. In both cases, the world is understood as primordially (phenomenologically) meaningful; the expressiveness of the world requires a human subject to consummate it in a symbol, whilst the symbol in turn gives us access to higher orders of meaning. It is the self-conscious creation of the symbol that then allows for the higher forms of culture. For both the Xici and Cassirer, symbols and the symbolic consciousness that comes with it is the pre-condition for the freedom, ethics and the cultivation of agency. As for both the Xici and Cassirer, it is human agency that creates these symbols, it will be argued that the Xici is making a Cassirerian argument about the (ethical) relationship between human agency, symbols and ethics/freedom.

Sex and the Aesthetics of Existence

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Dean
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
The Self ◽  
Preferred Basis ◽  
Principal Reason ◽  
The World

Leo Bersani's contributions to Queer Theory have been essentially traumatic. Ever since “Is the Rectum a Grave?,” with its startling opening sentence (“There is a big secret about sex: most people don't like it” [197]), Bersani's writing on sexuality has disrupted the conceptual coordinates of queer theory, a field that officially welcomes the disruptive. What has made Bersani hard to assimilate is less his psychoanalytic emphasis on the ineluctable masochism of sexuality (a principal reason for the aversion to sex) than his insistent conceptualization of sexuality in aesthetic terms. Although his work has never shied from the rebarbative aspects of erotic life, it is, in fact, Bersani's speculations about relationality as irreducibly aesthetic that have proved tougher for the field of queer theory to countenance. (Queer theorists take sexual variance in stride; we have a harder time dealing with art.) It is not merely that Bersani draws examples from literature, painting, sculpture, and cinema when discussing erotic relationality. More fundamentally, his earlier work claimed that art has effects on the human subject akin to those of sexuality, while his later writing proposes a specifically aesthetic subjectivity—rather than the sexual kind—as the preferred basis for relating to the world beyond the self.

Skinscapes

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amiena Peck ◽  
Christopher Stroud
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Landscape Studies ◽  
Future Selves ◽  
The World ◽  
Phenomenological Methodology ◽  
The Creation

The paper argues for extending linguistic landscape studies to also encompass the body as a corporeal landscape, or ‘moving discursive locality’. We articulate this point within a narrative of a developing field of landscape studies that is increasingly attentive to the mobility and materiality of spatialized semiotics as performative, that is, as partially determining of how we come to understand ourselves ‘in place’. Taking Cape Town’s tattooing culture as an illustration, we unpack the idea of ‘the human subject as an entrepreneur of the self, as author of his or her being in the world’ (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2012: 23), by using a phenomenological methodology to explore the materiality of the body as a mobile and dynamic space of inscribed spatialized identities and historical power relations. Specifically, we focus on: how tattooed bodies sculpt future selves and imagined spaces, the imprint they leave behind in the lives of five participants in the study and ultimately the creation of bodies that matter in time and place. The paper will conclude with a discussion of what studies of corporeal landscapes may contribute to a broader field of linguistic landscape studies.

Morphologie und Humanismus oder: wie man zur Katze wird

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Thomas Reinhardt
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The World ◽  
Specific Interpretation ◽  
Ontological Turn ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms

Though the relationship between Goethe, Cassirer and Levi-Strauss has been explored extensively, the focus usually lies on questions of genealogy. This article aims for a different course: Building on the notable similarities between Goethe’s discussion of morphology, Levi-Strauss’ structuralistic approach and Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms we will investigate the epistemological similarities between the three authors. They can be found in a specific form of humanism (or anti-humanism) which connects questions on the conditions of the world and its accessibility with the more global question of humankind and its place within the natural world, thus, by virtue of a specific interpretation of the concept of transformation, opening the door for new approaches which have recently been discussed as ontological turn

Monetäre »Grundformen des ’Verstehens‘ der Welt«? Von Simmels Substanzwert zu Cassirers Darstellungsfunktion

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 159-170
Author(s):  
Timo Klattenhoff
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
Cultural Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms ◽  
The Way

Among many things, Simmel in his Philosophy of Money works out a cultural perspective on money. In reference to socio-historical examples, Simmel differentiates between the »Substanzwert« of those objects, which serve monetary purposes: Whereas the former quality stands for the equalization of material attributes and value, the later describes money's capability for universal exchange. With Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, we can argue that this a »revolution of the way of thinking«: Drawing a parallel between Simmel's »Substanz-« and »Funktionswert« and Cassirers »Ausdrucks-« und »Darstellungsfunktion« does not only point out characteristics of each thinkers cultural philosophy. It also shows how an argument for a monetary understanding of the world money as a symbolic form can be developed.

scholarly journals Geografia em Cassirer: Perspectivas para a geografia da religião

GeoTextos ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalvani Fernandes ◽  
Sylvio Fausto Gil Filho
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Ernst Cassirer ◽  
Geographical Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Geography Of Religion ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Symbolic World ◽  
Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms

Este trabalho busca na filosofia das formas simbólicas, do filósofo Ernst Cassirer, uma possibilidade de abordagem da religião que seja passível de análise geográfica. A virada lingüística nas ciências sociais possibilita um aprofundamento do geógrafo no mundo simbólico. O Homem, nessa abordagem, é entendido como um homo symbolicum que busca dar sentido a sua realidade imediata a partir das formas simbólicas, entre elas a religião. Essa perspectiva parte do sujeito, caracterizando-se como uma fenomenologia que se interessa em conhecer/compreender como a religião funciona e a conformação simbólica do mundo. Abstract GEOGRAPHY IN CASSIRER: PERSPECTIVES FOR GEOGRAPHY OF RELIGION This paper aims from the philosophy of symbolic forms, the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, a possibility of approach to religion which is subject to geographical analysis. The linguistic turn in social science enables a deepening of the geographer in the symbolic world. The man must be understood as a homo symbolicum that seeks to make sense of their immediate reality, starting from the symbolic forms, including religion. This approach is based on the subject, which is characterized as a phenomenology that is interested in knowing/comprehend how religion works and, symbolic conformation of the world.

Power of Darkness: Narrative and Biographical Reflexivity in A Series of Unfortunate Events

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-212
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH BULLEN
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Project Risk ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Earning ◽  
Textual Culture ◽  
Children’S Exposure ◽  
Central Claim

This paper investigates the high-earning children's series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, in relation to the skills young people require to survive and thrive in what Ulrich Beck calls risk society. Children's textual culture has been traditionally informed by assumptions about childhood happiness and the need to reassure young readers that the world is safe. The genre is consequently vexed by adult anxiety about children's exposure to certain kinds of knowledge. This paper discusses the implications of the representation of adversity in the Lemony Snicket series via its subversions of the conventions of children's fiction and metafictional strategies. Its central claim is that the self-consciousness or self-reflexivity of A Series of Unfortunate Events} models one of the forms of reflexivity children need to be resilient in the face of adversity and to empower them to undertake the biographical project risk society requires of them.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Nihilistic Thinking as the Self-Will of the Mind and the Projects of Its Overcoming

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Irina N. Sidorenko
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spatial Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Radical Transformation

 The author analyzes the conceptions of ontological nihilism in the works of S. Kierkegaard, F. Nietzsche, M. Heidegger, E. Jünger. On the basis of this analysis, violence is defined as a manifestation of nihilism, of the “will to nothingness” and hypertrophy of the self-will of man. The article demonstrates the importance of the problem of nihilism. The nihilistic thinking of modern man is expressed in the attitude toward a radical transformation of the world from the position of his “absolute” righteousness. The paradox of the current situation is that there is the reverse side of this transformative activity, when there is only the appearance of action and the dilution of responsibility. Confidence in the rightness of own views and beliefs increases the risk of the violent imposition of own vision of reality. Historical and philosophical reconstruction of the conceptions of nihilism allowed to reveal the following projects of its comprehension and resolution: (1) the project of “positing of values,” which consists in the transformation of the evaluation, which is understood as another perspective of positing values, leading to the affirmation of being; (2) the project of overcoming nihilism from the space of temporality, carried out through the resoluteness to accept the historicity of own existence; (3) the project of overcoming nihilism as the oblivion of being from the spatial perspective of the “line,” allowing to realize the “glimpse” of being. The author concludes that it is impossible to solve the problem of violence and its various forms of its manifestation without overcoming “ontological nihilism.” Significant role in solving the problem of ontological violence is assigned to philosophy as a critical and responsible form of thinking, which is capable to help a person to bear the burden of the world, to provide meanings and affirm being, as well as to unite people and resist the fundamentalist claims of exclusivity and rightness.

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