Physicalism and the Incarnation

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-199
Author(s):  
Keith Hess ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
The Body ◽  
Trenton Merricks

Trenton Merricks holds to a physicalist view of the Incarnation according to which the Son transformed into a physical object (the body of Jesus) at the Incarnation. R. T. Mullins, in “Physicalist Christology and the Two Sons Worry,” claims that Merricks’s account is Nestorian since it entails that it is metaphysically possible for the human nature of Christ to be a person independently of the Son’s incarnation. While I am not a physicalist, in this essay I defend Merricks’s view against Mullins’s claim. I argue that if the Son is numerically identical to the body of Jesus, then it is not possible for the body of Jesus to exist independently of the Son’s incarnation.

scholarly journals Embodied Intersubjectivity and the Vitality of Cultural Meaning: Narratives of Communicative Musicality in Learning and Teaching

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Malloch ◽  
Jonathan Delafield-Butt ◽  
Colwyn Trevarthen
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Human Learning ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Meaning ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Structure Knowledge ◽  
Embodied Intersubjectivity ◽  
Motor Structure

Human learning is inspired with the purposes and feelings of individuals who seek conscious, in-the-moment cooperation. It is social and co-created through mutual attunement of the movements of body and mind. In school, the interested learner needs to be encouraged by a skilled teacher sensitive to the rhythms of the child’s friendly, open vitality. They co-create shared projects in play, with movement and language, developing meaning and learning in sympathetic collaboration. From infancy, projects of imagination are expressed by the body and voice with the creative forms of 'communicative musicality' – gestural narratives created in rhythms of movement, felt, seen and heard. They anticipate being responded to with love and care. Learning within these embodied narratives incorporates affective, energetic, and intentional components to produce schemas of engagement that structure knowledge, and become meaningful habits held in memory. The rituals of culture and technical skills develop from the psycho-motor structure of human nature, with its vital impulses of thought-in-action that express an integrated, imaginative, and sociable Self.

A Wojtyłian Reading of Performativity and the Self in Judith Butler

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Franks
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Power Of God

Abstract Drawing on Hegel, Judith Butler argues that the subject is the product of its desire for subject-ion. The subject, its gender, and even the sexed body itself come into being through reiterating or parodying preexisting norms and discourses of power (“performativity”). Butler rejects the realities of substance and a fixed human nature that would limit the possibilities of performativity. I summarize and assess Butler’s proposals, highlighting both the value and the drawbacks of her theory. I then show how John Paul II’s understanding of meaning and of the body as tasks takes up what is positive in Butler. He escapes the pitfalls of her thought, however, by retaining both metaphysics and revelation. He argues that the subject exists as substance or suppositum, which defends it against the encroachment of power. He also insists on the importance of human nature, which makes the human person to be the kind of substance who can form herself through the God-given task of creative action directed toward meaningful self-gift. Lastly, John Paul II emphasizes that the divine power of God enables the person to transcend the power dynamics of the culture of death.

ELOQUENT ACTION: THE BODY AND MEANING IN EARLY COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
External Action ◽  
The Body ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
Common Character

One of the things that strikes one most forcibly in surviving images of early commedia dell'arte is its enigmatic physicality, the manner in which its actors everywhere adopt postures and make gestures that seem not merely emphatic and exaggerated but almost hieroglyphic, full of some additional implication, laden with a figural and emblematic resonance that we sense but no longer see. In general terms, this quality is easily understood, as the body clearly served in commedia as a complex and polyvalent instrument of expression. Its gestures and movements were, as in all theatre, indexically linked to dramatic action, and they also served, as in much masked drama, as surrogates for the facial expression of affect, in that the movements and aspects of the whole body were enlisted to articulate the motions and mien of a veiled face and to overcome or play upon the sensation of estranged speech produced by the half-mask's bifurcation of the visage. Moreover, in a manner less familiar but illustrated well in Fig. 1, these movements and aspects also functioned as expressions in their own right, not articulating the affect or expression attendant upon immediate speech or situation or delineating the lines of external action but signaling the many impulses and various appetites of the world, the varied aspects of all persons and of the body itself, and invoking at times as their implicatory context human nature, common character, and identity rather than situation, attitude, or emotion.

Ancient Concepts of Personal Identity

2009 ◽  
pp. 259-270
Author(s):  
Christopher Gill
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
True Self ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The City

The burgeoning science of human nature recognized the implications for human identity. In the later fifth or early fourth centuries BCE philosophers started to develop a systematically dualistic account of human beings as composites of body and soul. In this view, the body is something that embeds the person in a particular community, and the soul is the true ‘self’, the locus of desires and beliefs which those communities could shape. This article suggests that personal identity is for these thinkers social identity, and it is no coincidence that Plato's utopian designs for a polis in the Republic are largely structured around rethinking the educational curriculum, or, conversely, that Protagoras assigns the central role in moral education to the city as a whole.

scholarly journals THE ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCIL OF MANAZKERT AND THE DOGMATIC SYSTEM OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

2016 ◽  
pp. 106-129
Author(s):  
ARTHUR MATEVOSYAN
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Complete System ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Holy Trinity ◽  
Perfect System ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In the history of the Armenian Apostolic Church there is a dogmatic document of exceptional clarity and integrity in which its doctrine is set forth as a complete system. We mean 10 anathemas adopted in 726 A.D. by by the ecclesiastical council of Manazkert. This council was convened by the leaders of the Armenian and the Syrian Jacobite churches-Catholicos John of Odzun and Patriarch Athanasius of Antioch in order to overcome doctrinal differences between them. According to this anathemas, the dogmatic system of the Armenian Church can be described as follows. God is the Holy Trinity that has three Persons and one nature, and the Persosns are equally perfect. The one Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, incarnated Ban and became a perfect man, who had all the qualities of human nature- soul, body and mind. The human nature, accepted by Christ, was sinful and mortal like the nature of every human being. Christ had one, but not sole, divine nature. Between divine and human natures of Christ existed ontological, and not only moral connection. Christ's humanity, although it was not naturally incorruptible, was incorruptible owing to its unspeakable unity with divine nature. Christ suffered voluntarily, and not by the natural necessity. Christ was consubstantial by divinity to the Father, and by humanity to S. Virgin and all the people. The body of Christ was incorruptible since birth to resurrection. The Council of Manazkert made the doctrine of the Armenian Church solid and perfect system. It is important to note that the doctrine of the Armenian Church is quite unique, and does not coincide with doctrines of other Churches. The decisions of the Council of Manazkert still retain their importance for the Armenian Church.

scholarly journals On the Resurrection of the Body: Discussion with Trenton Merricks

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 451-454
Author(s):  
Peter Drum
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Recent Discussion ◽  
Trenton Merricks

In a recent discussion, Trenton Merricks concludes that we cannot understand how God might miraculously bring it about that there will be the resurrection of the body. It is contended to the contrary, that it is not utterly mysterious how God might give us our bodies back.

scholarly journals Embodied Souls, or Ensouled Bodies: A Critical Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willie Cox
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Invisible

Gender isn't a concept of being black and white or male and female. Times are hanging, and Americans no longer assume that everyone should fit into binary male or female categories. Globally, gender is determined by our genes and to be male or female is instilled in our nature, hence it is not just related to cultural indoctrination. Souls don't have a gender; they are the invisible sex. Life is made for us to face the challenges of human nature which have a certain control on our behavior, irrespective of the soul men perceive in a different way and women in a different way. Souls have no genitals, and certainly do not reproduce, thus they have no gender. Humans are more than just a body, the body is controlled by consciousness interconnected with the brain, denoting we have a soul. All the souls are made up of the same essence and substance but are verily distributed between individuals. We are not embodied souls, but ensouled bodies! This paper will focus on the belief of immortality and the arrival and presence of the soul and what happens to the gendered essence (the soul) when we die?

scholarly journals Presença e morte: o carácter efémero das artes do corpo.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Bessa ◽  
Mariana Assunção Quintes dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Performance Art ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Classical System ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
The Body ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Technical Reproducibility ◽  
And Performance

This paper aims to reflect on a hypothetical threshold-space between contemporary dance and performance art, questioning at the same time the prevalence of too strict a boundary between them. To this end, a range of works involving hybridization of artistic languages ​​were selected and analyzed, from Signals (1970) by American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham to Café Müller (1978) by German choreographer Pina Bausch. Both dance and performance art are ephemeral arts or, according to the classical system, arts of time as opposed to the arts of space - painting, sculpture and architecture. They have also been called allographic arts, performative arts or, perhaps more specifically, arts of the body (Ribeiro, 1997). Unlike traditional fine arts, which materialize in a physical object other than the body, unlike video-art and cinema, arts without originals, mediated by the process of “technical reproducibility” (Benjamin, 1992), performative arts require the presence of a human body - and the duration of the present - as a fundamental instrument for their realization. In that sense, the paper also focuses on the ephemerality factor associated with dance and performing arts, and the consequent devaluation these have suffered vis-à-vis other artistic practices, considered to be academic and socially more significant.

scholarly journals The Use of Aristotle’s Biology in Nemesius’ On Human Nature

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-189
Author(s):  
Teun Tieleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of

Towards the end of the fourth century CE Nemesius, bishop of Emesa in Syria, composed his treatise On Human Nature (Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου). The nature of the soul and its relation to the body are central to Nemesius’ treatment. In developing his argument, he draws not only on Christian authors but on a variety of pagan philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the great physician-cum-philosopher Galen of Pergamum. This paper examines Nemesius’ references to Aristotle’s biology in particular, focusing on a few passages in the light of Aristotle’s Generation of Animals and History of Animals as well as the doxographic tradition. The themes in question are: the status of the intellect, the scale of nature and the respective roles of the male and female in reproduction. Central questions are: Exactly which impact did Aristotle make on his thinking? Was it mediated or direct? Why does Nemesius cite Aristotle and how? Long used as a source for earlier works now lost, Nemesius’ work may provide intriguing glimpses of the intellectual culture of his time. This paper is designed to contribute to this new approach to his work.

The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Growth ◽  
The Body ◽  
Psychological Disorder ◽  
Psychoanalytic Treatment ◽  
Depressive Position ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Human Growth And Development ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Donald Winnicott

Volume 11 of the Collected Works, with an introduction by the British analyst Professor Steven Groarke, consists of two books of Winnicott’s writings, Human Nature and The Piggle, both published posthumously. Human Nature gathers together Winnicott’s own teaching notes on the subject of human growth and development with other unpublished writings from this period. Winnicott reflects on the vast subject of human nature from his own experience, returning throughout to certain topics of continuing interest for him, including psyche-soma and the mind, health and ill health, the body and psychological disorder, psychosomatics and emotional development, health and the instincts, the depressive position, repression, hypochondria, the inner world, intellectual function, illusion, creativity, the environment in psychoanalysis, withdrawal, and regression. The second half of Volume 11 consists of the case history The Piggle: An Account of the Psychoanalytic Treatment of a Little Girl, in preparation by Winnicott at the end of his life but completed and published after his death. This book includes an introduction by Donald Winnicott, a preface by Clare Winnicott and the British analyst Ray Shepherd, and a foreword by the American analyst Ishak Ramzy, who corresponded with Winnicott and, with his help, prepared and edited the book for publication. The Piggle collects Winnicott’s records of sixteen consultations with a toddler-age child, Gabrielle, and an afterword by her parents. Volume 11 is introduced by the psychoanalyst and Professor of Social Thought, Steven Groarke.

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