Determination and Infinity (original) (raw)
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Review: A Poetics of Postmodernism
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A Phenomenological Critique of Existential Feeling: Affect as Temporality
Matthew Ratcliffe's model of existential feelings can be seen as a critical engagement with perspectives common to analytic, theory of mind and psychological orientations that view psychological functions such as cognition and affectivity within normative objective propositional frameworks. Ratcliffe takes a step back from and re-situates objective reifications within an interactive subject-object matrix inclusive of the body and the interpersonal world. In doing so, he turns a mono-normative thinking into a poly-normative one, in which determinations of meaning and significance are relative to the changing structural coherence of felt bodily and inter-socially shaped schemes of interaction. And yet, from the phenomenological vantages of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Gendlin and Heidegger, Ratcliffe's approach retains the metaphysical presupposition of subject-object dualism as interacting bodies, with a separate causative glue necessary to provide for the means of their relation. Ratcliffe re-purposed Damasio's concept of background feeling and dressed it up in the garb of phenomenology , but it remains a reciprocal causal model of psychological function. What Heidegger's Being-in-the-World, Merleau-Ponty's figure-background structure of corporeal inter-subjectivity, Gendlin's implicit intricacy and Husserl's reduced transcendental ego have in common is a radicalized notion of temporality that overcomes the split between subject and object informing Ratcliffe's understanding of being 'immersed in' and connected to a world, and thus abandons the need to posit bodily feeling as a 'glue' organizing and maintaining the meaningful structure of consciousness of a world. Temporality , not the empirically causal body, provides the basis of affect, cognition and the organizational glue for structures of meaning. Comments welcome at joshsoffer1@gmail.com
Meaning has been one of the primordial issues of concern because of its enigmatic nature not only in the Oriental Philosophy but also in the Occidental tradition. Initially rationalism and empiricism dominated the ambit of analytic philosophy, and it is not an exception to these impacts. Later on, the concept has been dealt with structuralist and post-structuralist perspectives. The paper undertaken hereby aims at conducting a contrastive study on the conception of the problem of meaning approached by two schools of philosophy: structuralism and post-structuralism. On one hand, it deals with the issues attempted by Saussure, Barthes, Bloomfield, Louis Hjelmslev and Jakobson, whereas on the other hand, those by Foucault and Derrida. Furthermore, it strives to delve deep into the points of contact, similarities and differences between them on the aforementioned issue. Whereas, for the structuralists, meaning arises from the functional differences between the elements (signs) within the system (langue). On the contrary, post-structuralists view the signification of meaning as an infinite and perennial process and meaning is the result of a play of 'différance'.
Reductionist interpretations of human experience : from modernity to postmodernity
SOTER: Journal of Religious Science
Žmogiškosios patirties klausimas yra antropologinis pačia savo esme. Tiksliau, integralios žmogaus vizijos praradimas neišvengiamai veda į redukcionistinę patirties sampratą. Šio straipsnio tikslas-pateikti patirties filosofinės sampratos istorinę apžvalgą, siekiant parodyti, kad René Descartes' o filosofijos suformuluotos proto / kūno, subjekto / objekto ir aš / kitas dichotomijos turėjo didžiulę įtaką filosofinei antropologijai ir paskatino žmogiškosios patirties redukcionistines interpretacijas. Jei modernistai, kuriems įtaką darė dekartiškasis dualistinis asmens suvokimas, nuasmenina patirtį ir redukuoja ją į jutiminio patyrimo, proto ar sąmonės fabrikatą, tai postmodernistai pristato vadinamąją "patirties be subjekto" sampratą. The question of human experience is essentially anthropological in its nature. That is to say, the loss of the integral vision of man inevitably leads to the reduction of the notion of experience. The aim of this article is to present a historical outline of the philosophical conception of experience seeking to demonstrate that by conceiving of dichotomies of mind-body, subject-object, and self-other, René Descartes has made a tremendous influence on the philosophical anthropology and opened the door to reductionist interpretations of human experience. Under the influence of Cartesian dualism, modernists depersonalize experience, reducing it to the 'product' of sense perception, reason, or consciousness, while postmodernists present the concept of so-called "experience without the subject".
Emergent Forms of Life in Anglophone Literature: Conceptual Frameworks and Critical Analyses, 2015
The concept of ‘structure of feeling’ arose out of Williams’s lifelong reflections on the manifold politico-philosophical implications of literary style. The aim of this article is thus to explore certain conjunctions of style, structure of feeling, and emergent forms of life. I begin by stressing the inherent relationality of Williams’s conception of style, before going on to outline the two major philosophical issues pertaining to style which occupied Williams above all: transindividual experience and historical temporality. Having done so, I attempt to draw out the practical consequences of these reflections for literary-critical methodology. The final part of the article is then dedicated to demonstrating certain aspects of this new methodology for the analysis of literary styles by examining George Saunders’ recent short story collection, Tenth of December. I argue that there are certain ideological contradictions at work in Saunders’ fiction and non-fiction, that these are inherently linked to his conceptions of language and style, and that his short stories make visible a structure of feeling which I shall call ‘minimal humanity.’
Existence and Ephemerality: On Knowledge, Feelings and Meaning
The book explores the mystery of existence and the horror of ephemerality. It considers the ways in which people have been trying to respond to these perennial challenges with their narratives and activities. Existence brought about life, consciousness and death; in their struggle with the horror of death, people discovered immortal gods, immortal souls and the universal Self. Many sublime visions and impressive temples have been created and destroyed in people's endeavours to shape reality in the way they have desired it to be. The book gives a critical outline of traditional religions and of the human attempts to transcend the space of rational discourse. Science and technology have brought to people immense operative power, countless gadgets to play with and a huge amount of things to consume. People produce and consume all sorts of powerful means, trying to displace the awareness of their ephemerality. The book argues that we, as individuals and as humanity, can bestow meaning upon our lives and upon existence only by using our technological power in a way that promotes understanding, goodness and beauty. We must discover the charms of modesty and simplicity, and become the poets of existence and ephemerality, instead of being voracious consumers of the soil from which we grow.
Teología y Vida , 2019
The term 'apophaticism' (ἀποφατισμός) is one of the fundamental concepts for theological thinking in Christian East nowadays. In fact, it defines a fundamental gnoseological premise that directly affects the way in which thinking progresses in this tradition. In this article, we present the term's interpretation by the contemporary Greek philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras and the association suggested by this author regarding the contemporary Western philosophical enquiries, in particular regarding 'nihilism'. Yannaras, in his work, drafts an epistemology of the sensorial experience, based on what he calls 'relational ontology' (ὀντολογία τῆς σχέσης), in the context of which the language of art takes on a genuine ontological statute. Resumen: El término "apofatismo" (ἀποφατισμός) es uno de los conceptos fundamentales del pensamiento cristiano oriental en nuestros días. De hecho, este término define una premisa gnoseológica fundamental para el desarrollo del pensamiento en esta tradición. En este artículo, presentamos la interpretación que Christos Yannaras, teólogo y filósofo griego contemporáneo, hace de dicho término y la relación que establece con la tradición filosófica occidental, en particular con respecto al nihilismo. En su obra, Yannaras plantea una epistemología de la experiencia sensible, basada en lo que él llama "ontología de la relación" (ὀντολογία τῆς σχέσης), en cuyo contexto el discurso del arte asume un auténtico estatuto ontológico.
Structures of Feeling: A Curated Research Conversation
Structures of Feeling (ISRF Bulletin XXII), ed. Lars Cornelissen, 2020
Its final version carefully edited by Niall Gildea, this conversation took place in the context of an online series of research meetings with Louise Braddock’s essay on Raymond Williams (same volume, pp. 27-34) as the point of departure for a conversation about structures of feeling and their implications in psychoanalysis and beyond.