A Reason and a Spirit: Body without Organs

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-126
Author(s):  
Ivan N. Belonogov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Cells ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Loss Of Autonomy ◽  
Body Without Organs ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Balanced Solution ◽  
Independent Individual

This article is devoted to possible types of organization of global AI and possi­ble measures to counter the loss of autonomy by individuals – their transforma­tion into HomoCell – human cells of a more global organism. The text of Im­manuel Kant What is Enlightenment? Was chosen as a guideline. The author emphasizes that as the goal of the Enlightenment, Kant sets the task – the acqui­sition of independence by individuals in the use of their own mind. The afore­mentioned work remains one of the main programmatic texts of the Enlighten­ment, which, according to the author, is not over yet. The article notes that an autonomous or independent individual is an exclusion from society, literally. However, the connection of such subjectivization with marginality introduces the binary opposition norm/abnormality. The idea is that this dichotomy creates two opposing areas in the field of culture, thus making it impossible to either indicate or think over a balanced solution to the problem posed by Kant. The author proposes to trace the genealogy of the development and addition of the concept of Cogito – from Descartes to Deleuze – as the basis for the interpreta­tion of the subject, to introduce it into the theory of systems, and, thereby, rised above oppositions.

scholarly journals Existential Features of Variety Numbers With a Puppet

2018 ◽  
pp. 205-215
Author(s):  
Ruslan Neupokoiev
Keyword(s):  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Classical Drama ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Empirical Level ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Clear Differentiation ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The dramatic principles of the variety art puppet are fundamentally different from the principles of classical drama, the application of the principles leads to the creation of not concert numbers, but etudes, or small performances. At the empirical level, there is an understanding of the difference between the number and the etude, but the lack of a clear differentiation between them and the lack the principles by which the existence of the number becomes possible creates serious problems for practical work. Principles of classical drama, formulated in the era of the Enlightenment on the basis of the Aristotle’s unity of place, time and action, continue to dominate in the view of dramaturgy to this day. Search of the principles difference from classical ones leads us to turn to a non-classical picture of the world in general and to the philosophy of postmodernism in particular. So we apply the postmodern method of deconstruction to the subject of the research. Speaking about the binary opposition “etude and number”, let us pay attention to the broader opposition: “performance and concert”. It correlates directly with the concepts proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, described in the work “Rhizome”: “tree” and “rhizome”. The linear narrative as a performance corresponds to the “tree” concept, the nonlinear narrative as a concert number corresponds to the rhizome. Linear narrative is created according to the classical principles of decalcomania, but nonlinear narrative is created according to the rhizomatic principles of cartography. “Tree” is centred on the root – ideas, “rhizome” is not centred. Rhizome is the sum of the relationship of its points. The idea in the rhizome is secondary and may arise as a result of the relationship between points of rhizome. Analysis and deconstruction demonstrate that the concert and the numbers from which it is composed, in contrast to the performance and the etude, are rhizomatic systems, and therefore require radically other principles of drama. Application to rysomatic systems of the cartography method proposed by Gilles Deleuze, when instead of proving meaning, meaning is born in the process of the research, may become the main method of non-classical drama. The subject of the study in the concert number is the behaviour of the function, which may be a metaphor of the phenomenon of life, embodied in a certain form in the non-inherent for this function of the proposed circumstances. The form-function and the proposed circumstances become points of the rhizome, and their interaction creates rise to the meaning of the concert number. Principles of rhizomatic drama, built on the cartography method, can be applied not only in the concert number with the puppet, but also throughout the art of the postmodern era.

The Devil's Tabernacle

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Ossa-Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Ancient Religion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Identity ◽  
European Thought ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Huge Variety

This is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought. The book shows how the study of the oracles influenced, and was influenced by, some of the most significant developments in early modernity, such as the Christian humanist recovery of ancient religion, confessional polemics, Deist and libertine challenges to religion, antiquarianism and early archaeology, Romantic historiography, and spiritualism. The book examines the different views of the oracles since the Renaissance—that they were the work of the devil, or natural causes, or the fraud of priests, or finally an organic element of ancient Greek society. The range of discussion on the subject, as he demonstrates, is considerably more complex than has been realized before: hundreds of scholars, theologians, and critics commented on the oracles, drawing on a huge variety of intellectual contexts to frame their beliefs. A central chapter interrogates the landmark dispute on the oracles between Bernard de Fontenelle and Jean-François Baltus, challenging Whiggish assumptions about the mechanics of debate on the cusp of the Enlightenment. With erudition and an eye for detail, the book argues that, on both sides of the controversy, to speak of the ancient oracles in early modernity was to speak of one's own historical identity as a Christian.

scholarly journals Self-portrait of the philosopher in the context of the enlightement

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-217
Author(s):  
Vanja Radakovic
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Literary History ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Biographical Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

In the history of philosophy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is mainly considered as an atypical philosopher of the Enlightenment, as a pioneer of the revolutionary idea of a free civilian state and natural law; in literary history, he is considered the forerunner of Romanticism, the writer who perfected the form of an epistolary novel, as well as a sentimentalist. However, this paper focuses on the biographical approach, which was mostly excluded in observation of those works revealing Rousseau as the originator of the autobiographical novelistic genre. The subject of this paper is the issue of credibility of self-portraits, and through this problem it highlights the facts from the author?s life. This paper relies on a biographical approach, not in the positivistic sense but in the phenomenological key. This paper is mainly inspired by the works of the Geneva School theorists - Starobinski, Poulet and Rousset.

scholarly journals Deconstruction of Binary Opposition in Kritikus Adinan Story by Budi Darma

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Iswadi Bahardur
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Data Source ◽  
The Subject

<p><span lang="EN-US">Writing this article backed by mult</span><span>i</span><span lang="EN-US"> interpretation problems raised by a text, especially literary texts. Mult</span><span>i</span><span lang="EN-US"> interpretation is inseparable from the consciousness and unconscious of the subject of the author, as well as the process of reconstruction by the reader. Based on this article this article aims to describe the results of deconstructing binary opposition readings on the story of <em>Kritikus Adinan</em> by Budi Darma. The data source used is the story of <em>Kritikus Adinan.</em> The research method used is descriptive analysis with the theoretical perspective of deconstruction of Jaques Derrida. Based on the findings and data analysis, the results show the following. <em>First</em>, the deconstruction readings of the <em>Kritikus Adinan</em> can not be separated from the word-scoring process as Jaques Derrida puts it in deconstruction theory. <em>Secondly</em>, the reconstruction of Kritkus Adinan’s story leads to unfamiliarity but leads the reader to discover the marginalized texts.<em> Third</em>, based on the results of deconstruction reading in the story of <em>Kritikus Adinan</em>, there is a binary opposition that has been denied and broken by the author by presenting a reversal of fact.  Suggestions that can be recommended are many other literary works that are worthy and important to be reviewed by other researchers to uncover the phenomenon of reversing the facts by the author.</span></p>

The Mach-Planck debate revisited: democratization of science or elite knowledge?

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayo Siemsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Popularization Of Science ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First World

Is scientific knowledge the domain of the intellectual elite or is it everyman’s concern, thus making the popularization of science a democratic activity integrally required of science itself? This is a question whose history extends back even longer than the enlightenment period. As technology starts to permeate every inch of daily life, the issues involved for our future development become more pressing and a matter of socio-political development. Dostoyevsky brought this to the point in a fictional dispute between a Great Inquisitor and Christ. This was also the subject of fierce scientific debates, the most prominent of which was probably the debate between Ernst Mach and Max Planck at the turn of the century, before the first world war, when the new Physics (quantum theory and relativity) was discovered and its relevance for our view of the world and our place in it was hotly discussed. For Mach, the job of popularization should rest with science - an informed public cannot be manipulated as easily by ‘pop science’. This article focuses on the mostly neglected political epistemological level of the debate, its sporadic later flare-ups in different places with different protagonists (Wagenschein, Wittenberg), and its relevance for the popularization of science today.

scholarly journals The Idea of the Posthuman: A Comparative Analysis of Transhumanism and Posthumanism

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 132-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Kriman
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Influence ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Vitruvian Man ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The article discusses the modern philosophical concepts of transhumanism and posthumanism. The central issue of these concepts is “What is the posthuman?” The 21st century is marked by a contradictory understanding of the role and status of the human. On the one hand, there comes the realization of human hegemony over the whole world around: in the 20th century mankind not only began to conquer outer space, invented nuclear weapons, made many amazing discoveries but also shifted its attention to itself or rather to the modification of itself. Transhumanist projects aim to strengthen human influence by transforming human beings into other, more powerful and viable forms of being. Such projects continues the project of human “deification.” On the other hand, acknowledging the onset of the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene, there comes the rejection of classical interpretations of the human. The categories of historicity, sociality and subjectivity are no longer so anthropocentric. In the opinion of the posthumanists, the project of the Vitruvian man has proven to be untenable in the present-day environment and is increasingly criticized. The reflection on the phenomenon of the human and his future refers to the concepts that explore not only human but also non-human. Very often we can find a synonymous understanding of transhumanism and posthumanism. Although these movements work with the same modern constructs and concepts but interpret them in a fundamentally different way. The discourse of transhumanism refers to the Cartesian opposition of the body and the mind. Despite the sacralization of technology and the desire to purify the posthuman from such seemingly permanent attributes of the living as aging and death, transhumanism in many ways continues the ideas of the Enlightenment. For posthumanists, the subject is nomadic and a kind of assembly of human, animal, digital, chimerical. Thus, in posthumanism the main maxim of humanism about the human as the highest value is rejected – the human ceases to be “the measure of all things.”

Mythic symbolic type, utopia, and body without organs

Semiotica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (230) ◽  
pp. 425-445
Author(s):  
Mina Meir-Dviri
Keyword(s):  
Final Part ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Body Without Organs

Abstract A mythic symbolic type is a binary-structured, gender-oriented cultural mask. Whoever enters it will never exit and will behave according to the mask’s logic. The article focuses on the men of the semi-commune Little Home trapped in the mask. It will examine this cultural structure’s organization of binary-opposition in a unique kind of intensity, I called “masculine waves.” In the final part, a discussion will be presented in the context of Deleuze’s Becoming and Bloch’s utopia.

The investigator: on ‘life’ after death. Charles Lewinsky’s Andersen

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-225
Author(s):  
I. I. Reiderman
Keyword(s):  
Self Awareness ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Life After Death ◽  
Banality Of Evil ◽  
Human Type ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
The Subject

Devoted to Andersen, a novel by the Swiss-born writer Charles Lewinsky, the article sets out to interpret the book with a special emphasis on its protagonist, a Gestapo officer, whose image experiences a paradoxical reinvention in our time. In his analysis, the author is not limited to interpretation of the novel’s meanings. The article argues that Lewinsky’s novel explores contemporary cultural-philosophical problems: those of humanity in the postmodern situation. On the subject of the ‘banality of evil’ (using Hanna Arendt’s term), the author points out the severe estrangement of the main character’s consciousness, the existence devoid of life, substituted with insensitive functioning. The paper emphasizes that while the human type described in the novel formally conforms to ‘the Enlightenment project’, it demonstrates an egregious lack of moral self-awareness. The author refers to such a description as typical for a ‘hero of our time’ in the 21st c. and, therefore, problematizes the cultural-philosophical discourses invoked by Lewinsky in his book.

Emotions and politics

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Rosa Ricci
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Relationship ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Individual

The theory of affections has seen a renewed conceptual interest both in the role played in the formulation of power structures in modernity, which remains important in understanding the present form of Nation State, and in the possibility to formulate a new interpretation of the social relationship useful to surpass the classical psychological lectures. We aim here to reconsider an affect which in contemporary language is tinged with theological nuances: the affect of fides. We can translate the word using the modern terms of trust and belief, but also loyalty. The choice of this particular affect is due to the centrality that, in our view, it occupies in modern contract theories, and to its ability to reflect, with its multiple conceptual stratification, different perspectives and political proposals. In order to clarify the terms of this discussion, we will henceforth use the term fides, alongside with different meanings which overlap within it, to illustrate two different and divergent proposals that have emerged during the seventeenth century. We consider, in particular, the thought of Spinoza opposed to the social contract theories by Hobbes in order to understand the modern theoretical break with previous political concepts; in particular, we will briefly analyze the different conceptions of Societas civilis that emerge from this division. The background of these considerations is the analysis of modern philosophy‘s use of the theory of affections. The XVII century witnessed the rise of social contract theory. It draws on the concept of the individual, conceived as isolated from others, located in the original state of nature (pre-social), unable to develop its rational part. It is therefore a victim of its own passions, but even more so those of others. The dominant sentiments emerging in Hobbes‘ Leviathan are therefore those of awe and fear. They derive from the constant uncertainty of one‘s power and strength; the uncertainty of being able to maintain everyone‘s domination over others and thus to suffer in turn the others‘ power. From the necessity to control these emotions in a rational way emerges the contractual proposal to transfer the power to an authority (singular or plural) whom all subjects must obey. Philosophical movements such as neostoicism and philosophical works such as Les passions de l‘ame by Descartes, testify in their „rationalist“ proposal the need to keep a constant control over the passions. They open the way for the famous dialectics of reason and passion, a central theme throughout the Enlightenment. This need to dominate the passions arouses from the complex Cartesian metaphysical theory and from its conception of the individual always split between body and soul, reason and instinct. These two models are the ones which have prevailed; this conception of individual and society and this approach to the passions still dominate common sense when we talk about human affections. The paper follows an itinerary across three authors of the modern age. At first we try to delineate the theory of affection by Descartes, and the birth of the dichotomy of body and soul through the focus of two of the most important works by Descartes: Méditations métaphysiques and Traité sur les passions de l‘âme. Then, by analyzing the works of Hobbes (Leviathan), and Spinoza (Ethic and Political treatise) we will describe in which terms the subject carrying his affective baggage interacts in a political space.

Cold Sun • Hot Planet

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
Amanda Boetzkes
Keyword(s):  
Solar Energy ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Energy Exchange ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Restricted Economy

This article considers how Georges Bataille’s account of solarity informs a planetary perspective. Bataille is credited with formulating a critical analysis of “solar societies” whose economies are shaped by the exchange of solar energy. However, a sometimes understated facet of Bataille’s reading of solarity is the way he positions living beings at the axis of the sun and the earth, and in the midst of elemental forces such as cold, heat, light, and darkness. Bataille deploys these elemental forces in his writing in order to disfigure the restricted economy of capitalism and its bourgeois subjects. Rather than considering it as a social or subjective predilection, this article emphasizes solarity as a critical form and disorganizing force. This article addresses Bataille’s elemental aesthetics and his positioning of the subject as both a capitalist predator that accumulates solar energy, and a speculative subject, a being who is preyed upon by its own accumulation of energy and that is ultimately disfigured and expended by it. I argue that solarity arises in Bataille’s writing as an aesthetic operation per se. He invokes a mythological language to dismantle the scientific and philosophical tradition of the Enlightenment. Solarity is therefore the antithesis of Enlightenment thinking and values: it entails the invocation of mythic force in order to dramatize earthly elements and their anarchical energy exchange. I connect Bataille’s mythic language to recent theorizations of planetarity and political ecology, from Gayatri Spivak, to Isabel Stengers, Bruno Latour, and Donna Haraway. I emphasize how his aesthetic maneuvers disfigure the restricted economy of concepts that accompanies the resourcing of the earth.

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