Authenticities: A Semiotic Exploration1

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2-3) ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Janina Fenigsen ◽  
James Wilce
Keyword(s):  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Theoretical Tool ◽  
Generic Essence

Charles Taylor has called ours an “Age of Authenticity”, and authenticity is a popular object of scholarly examination, not least in anthropology. A considerable number of scholars have even proposed models for multiple “authenticities”. None, however, has brought a modified Peircean theoretical tool-kit together with ethnographic evidence that “the natives know” that there are many authenticities. This article seeks to fill that gap. Working with Peirce’s model of the sign and with postmodern theories of originals and replicas, we draw on Wilce’s Finnish fieldwork to analyze what we consider clear evidence of four authenticities arising in recent debates surrounding traditional Karelian lament and particularly highly organized attempts in Finland to “revive” the practice. We call performances arising out of the revival “neolaments”. We treat authenticities as strictly relational, metasemiotic, and ideological phenomena. Authenticities that appear salient to actors on the revivalist scene may involve the following relationships : that between any neolament performance and any particular Karelian lament performances, with the question being whether the former is adequately “traditional” (i.e. relationship between replica and original); between a particular lament performance and the generic essence of that which makes lament a lament (i.e. token and type); between a lament performance and emotion – a relationship ideologically construed as “expressive” (i.e. sign and object); and finally, a relationship between some sort of dynamic interpretant of particular old Karelian laments (lament1) and new dynamic interpretants generated in and through new lament performances (lament2 or habitual participation in such performance) that in some way replicates the old dynamical interpretant (interpretant1 and interpretant2).

Rebel Dignity

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Callahan
Keyword(s):  
Practical Application ◽  
Theoretical Tool ◽  
Praxis I ◽  
Political Praxis

In this essay I expand on John Holloway’s assertion that the Zapatistas have made dignity a critical and essential moment of struggle. However, I also propose that in the Zapatistas’ hands we witness its transformation from a term of solidarity into a strategic concept. As a theoretical tool it must be reclaimed by excavating it from specific struggles, acknowledging its several components, and engaging its practical application as a map for struggle. By highlighting the theoretical coordinates that the Zapatistas have made evident in their political praxis, I endeavor to advance dignity as a convivial tool that promotes autonomy. Indeed, my efforts with dignity parallel the task Ana Dinerstein suggests for autonomy: “the art of organizing hope.”

From Crusades to Colonization: Violence in Secular and Religious Political Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Xavier Scott
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
State Power ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Beliefs And Values

This paper examines the transition in political philosophy between the medieval and early-modern periods by focusing on the emergence of sovereignty doctrine. Scholars such as Charles Taylor and John Rawls have focused on the ability of modern-states to overcome conflicts between different religious confessionals. In contrast, this paper seeks to examine some of the peace-promoting features of Latin-Christendom and some of the conflict-promoting features of modern-secular states. The Christian universalism of the medieval period is contrasted with the colonial ventures promoted by the Peace of Westphalia. This paper’s goal is not to argue that secularism is in fact more violent than religion. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate the major role that religion played in early modern philosophy and the development of sovereignty doctrine. It argues against the view that the modern, secular state is capable of neutrality vis-à-vis religion, and also combats the view that the secular nature of modern international law means that it is neutral to the different beliefs and values of the world’s peoples. These observations emphasize the ways in which state power and legitimacy are at the heart of the secular turn in political philosophy. 

Human Double Embeddedness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Marandiuc
Keyword(s):  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Recognition ◽  
Authentic Self ◽  
Human Subjectivity

The chapter proposes that human beings are conditioned by a double embeddedness: humans are immersed in inescapable frameworks of meaning and shaped by relationships of significance. In dialogue with Charles Taylor, the chapter discusses how these two elements are constitutive features of human subjectivity and how they relate to each other. In order to operate, subjectivity needs a horizon of meaning, which accrues in relationships of attachment that, in turn, thrive under the canopy of common meaning. After discussing the specificity of one such framework, the culture of authenticity, the chapter delves more deeply into one of its paradoxical dimensions: recognition. It is shown how human recognition from loving others is an ineliminable trait for an authentic self, the implication of which is that relationships of significance constitute relational homes that “house” the human self as it grows and flourishes and as it heals when broken.

Timber

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Forestry Sector ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
Timber Market

During the civil war, Liberia’s forestry sector rose to prominence as Charles Taylor traded timber for arms. When the war ended, the UN’s timber sanctions remained in effect, reinforced by the Forestry Development Authority’s (FDA) domestic ban on logging. As Liberians waited for UN timber sanctions to be lifted, a burgeoning domestic timber market developed. This demand was met by artisanal loggers, more commonly referred to as pit sawyers. Out of this illicit economy emerged the Nezoun Group to provide local dispute resolution between the FDA’s tax collectors and ex-combatant pit sawyers. The Nezoun Group posed a dilemma for the government. On the one hand, the regulatory efforts of the Nezoun Group helped the FDA to tax an activity that it had banned. On the other hand, the state’s inability to contain the operations of the Nezoun Group—in open contravention of Liberian laws—highlighted the government’s capacity problems.

scholarly journals Cultural Diversity and Religious Reflexivity in an Intercultural Chilean Parish

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Felipe Orellana
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Religious Conviction ◽  
Peter Berger ◽  
Personal Belief ◽  
The Difference

This research aims to analyze cultural diversity and its relationship with the personal belief in an Immigrant Parish. The discussion is framed within the topic of intercultural churches and parishes, although in a setting that has not been researched (Santiago, Chile). The research was carried out in the Latin-American Parish placed in Providencia, Santiago, and a qualitative framework was used to obtain and analyze the data. Cultural diversity is understood concerning religious reflexivity and under the idea that pluralism leads to a weakening of religious conviction, as Peter Berger argued. The theoretical framework makes the difference between the vision of Berger on cultural pluralism (pluralism inter-religion) and the viewpoint by Charles Taylor (pluralism intra-religion). On the contrary to Berger, the findings of this research showed that cultural diversity and pluralism are elements that produce a strengthening of individual beliefs.

Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser on Transnational Governance and the Future of Christendom

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-411
Author(s):  
Brian C. Lockey
Keyword(s):  
Edmund Spenser ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Transnational Governance ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

This article considers the writings of Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser within the context of European religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, amid the perceived Ottoman threat to Christendom. In their fictional works, these authors imagine an overarching authority that might replace the traditional papal power of oversight and deposing in order to regulate temporal sovereigns and foster a unity of Christian princes within Europe. Even as they can be read as reimagining Christendom, their fictional works reflect what Charles Taylor has called the “disenchantment” of sacred spaces within his philosophical history of the emergence of secularity within European cultures.

scholarly journals Religion at Play

Pneuma ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Vondey
Keyword(s):  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
Secular World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Secular Age

Abstract Pentecostals do not fit the dominant narrative of a secular age constructed by Charles Taylor. Instead, Pentecostalism is a religion at play that engages with the secular without accepting its authority. A critical dialogue with Taylor’s foundational proposal of the central conditions of premodern life that have made room for our modern secular world demonstrates how and why these conditions are not met in Pentecostalism. The article then identifies the alternative mechanisms in place in Pentecostalism as a form of religion at play manifested in an enchanted worldview, sociospiritual attachment, the festival of Pentecost, the transformation of secular time, and a porous cosmos. A close examination of the notion of play in Taylor’s narrative illuminates in more detail the ill fit of Pentecostalism in the history of a secular age and reveals that Pentecostalism represents a condition of religion that resolves the tension between sacred and secular and that challenges the dominance of “secular” and “religious” as uncontested ideas of our modern world.

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