Eroticism in Fr. Franciszek Sawicki’s philosophy of love

Father Franciszek Sawicki is considered to be one of the most important philosophers of the interwar period in Poland. The problem of love must be regarded as one of the most significant among many issues he focused on in his research. Sawicki, one of the precursors of personalistic thinking, understands the essence of love as it functions in a personal relationship. Above all, we should distinguish two areas for the realisation of love: love in relation to God and love in relation to another human being. In both instances, Sawicki emphasises the need to take into account the "erotic moment" for the sake of full and proper understanding thereof. The erotic moment elucidates love as a force that engages not only the emotional and volitional spheres, but also the categorical and existential ones. This approach enables us to appreciate the full dimension of human sexuality as it pertains to the human being and ameliorate the tendency to depreciate or idolise it.

Twelfth Night and Epiphany

This chapter explores William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Beyond any reasonable doubt, Twelfth Night is pervasively an Epiphany play; it calls for a set positively festooned with holly. Twelfth Night marks the end of a festive season in which there were other occasions alluded to by Shakespeare rather than Twelfth Night. But the correlations with Twelfth Night itself are salient: its customary activities provide plot material, and its emotional tone, as the last of festivity, can be sensed in the melancholy atmosphere of transience. Viewed as a seasonal mélange, the themes of Twelfth Night fall into place and gain coherence. The chapter then looks at the Platonic and Pythagorean content of Twelfth Night. Meanwhile, in Shakespeare’s unfolding of true love, narrative motifs are not the only resource; others range from implicit emblem to rhetorical explication. If Twelfth Night presents a philosophy of love, and traces the moderating of various erotic passions, there is nevertheless a focus on one excess in particular: love melancholy.

Argumentative Communication in Rawdat Al-Muhebben wa Nozhatt Al-Mushtaqeen’s Book by Ibn Al-Qayyem: The Foundations and Mechanisms of its Functioning

This research seeks to unravel the components of the argumentative discourse in the Book of ʻRawdat al-Muhebbeen wa Nozhatt al-Mushtaqeenʼ - The Garden of Lovers and the Promenade of Longing People – by Ibn Al-Qayyem Al-Jawziyah. This is because this book has a moderate discourse with a sound Islamic thought that is characterized by its sustainability, popularity, realism, and interaction with the successive developments of the new age. This reflects the intellectual maturity the composing process has reached in the philosophy of love and its educational bases in every place and time. To explore the componets, properties, and the working mechanisms of an argumentative discourse in Ibn Qayyem’s book, the present work has been conducted using a pragmatic closeness approach among the three communication polars: (sender, receiver, and message). Through the third pole, the researcher attempts to interpret the text internally, shedding light on its philosophical and aesthetic semantic significance. Such a type of analysis helps reveal the logical argument that conforms to the spirit of the age during which the book appeared. This can be clarified by exploring the sender’s employed emotional arguments that are connected to the recipient and his persuasive realistic experiences. All the above discussion reveals the secrets of a discourse and its hidden points, establishes the values of a dialogue and persuasion, accepts the differences, and reconciles between the different opinions. Accordingly, an argumentative entery has been chosen as it represents a communicative act that is based on a set of interactive rules orienting interlocuters’ intentions.

PHILOSOPHY BEGAN. BOOK REVIEW: TRAWNY P. PHILOSOPHIE DER LIEBE. [TRAWNY P. PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE]

The review examines a new bestseller by a famous German philosopher with an unusual theme of love.

The Theme of Love in Russian Philosophical Utopias of the 1920s and 1930s (Andrei Platonov and Stepan Kalachov)

The article discusses the role of feelings in shaping the society of the future using two concepts created in the 1920s and 1930s in Russia. These are the projects of Andrei Platonov and Stepan Kalachov, which can be attributed to the philosophy of love. The concepts reflect the features of the post-revolutionary era and are linked to the transformation of the period. Despite some similarities between the projects, each has its own characteristics. Platonov's conception is characterized by a transformation we witness at the end of the 1930s, which was connected with the change of the philosopher's attitude to the development of society and the relationship between the sexes, and was due to the construction of communism in the country and the methods used for this purpose. There is no such change in the utopia of Kalachov's eroica, and the basic precepts laid down in the 1920s continue to evolve further into the concept of life wisdom. The first period in Platonov's work is connected with the ideas of technocracy and asceticism in the relationship between the sexes. In this regard, the sensual aspect is suppressed and destroyed as an impediment to the grand transformation of society; hence the new techniques of destroying sexual instinct, preaching chastity. In the society to be created, the mind suppresses feelings, which determines the attitude to the woman and the feminine that become of secondary importance. Gradually, the philosopher becomes disillusioned with the ongoing transformations of the Bolsheviks, and his attitude towards women and feelings changes. Kalachov's eroica conception refers to erotic utopia and represents the synthesis of eroticism and heroics of the era. Kalachov reveals the sensual and bodily aspect of the society of the future. He has the ideas of technocracy, which relates him to Platonov's conception. However, Kalachov does not abandon feelings in the new society, and the theme of love is central to him. Some features of the conception echo the views of some members of the Marxist ideology (Alexandra Kollontai), but generally do not reflect the views of the official authorities. Both projects reflect the characteristics of the era that created them, offer a solution to the problem of gender relations, and reveal the importance of love in society. Love in these projects is a transformative beginning that can change the human being and society, and lead the world to universal harmony. However, in the context of the communist project, in which the spirit of freedom of the first post-revolutionary years was destroyed, they could not be realized and remained utopias.

The Augustinian Ascent

This chapter explores different pre-modern models of emotion. It surveys the sweep of pre-modern Western music, from chant to Monteverdi, in terms of four “flavors” of emotion: the Augustinian ascent, the Thomist descent, Neoplatonism, and Epicurianism. Augustine’s philosophy of love, epitomized by affection, resonated with the surges of chant. Aquinas’s relational model of emotion, based on reciprocity, chimes with “contrapuntal” models of emotion. Neoplatonism, exemplified by Ficino’s theories, resonated with the pneumatic flow of emotion through the cosmos. Petrarchan Epicurianism is reflected in the atomism of emotion, from madrigals to early opera. All told, the history of premodern emotion illuminates the changing musical styles from Hildegard, Machaut, Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin, and Willaert, to Monteverdi.