scholarly journals Tragedy, Pluralism, Agonism: Ancient Greek Tragedy as a foundation for pluralist theory, with an application to pluralist agonism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Xavier Lloyd Forde
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Political Rationality ◽  
The One ◽  
Diversity Of Life ◽  
The City ◽  
The Human Condition

<p>In Fifth Century B.C. Athens, the tragic playwrights took upon themselves the traditional mantle of poet-sage and responded to the cultural crisis of their time: the rupture within the Athenian mindset between on the one hand, an emergent Enlightenment-style discourse based on the juridico-political rationality of the democratic polis and on a confident assessment of the human condition, and on the other, the archaic discourse of myth and its “pessimism of strength”.  Their plays held the two in an uneasy yet creative tension, projecting a pluralist ethos grounded in the assertion of the ambiguity and limits of the human condition. The thesis seeks to elaborate on the nature of this pre-philosophical ethos through the exploration of ancient Greek history and thought and the plays themselves. It delineates the expression in this ethos of a dual movement of problematisation and renewal: a critical, problematising, attitude towards both “rational” and “mythic” discourses, and in the space of thought created by this self-questioning, the elaboration of a minimalist platform for claim-making compatible with both the tragic onto-epistemology of limits and moderation and life in the democratic polis.  This reading of the plays recognizes the problematisation of monistic claim-making in terms of truth, identity, values and politics. For instance, the playwrights call into question the archaic code of honour of the hero or the instrumental rationality adopted by some of their contemporary Athenian politicians: both systems of value are deemed too rigid and too simplistic to accord with the ambiguity and diversity of life in the city. It also outlines the values of moderation, reciprocity, and public-interestedness that are put forward by the tragedians as palliatives to the antagonism generated by monistic claim-making. These form a pluralist platform on which the democratic contest can be played out without reifying any singular and substantive account of politics, and with a lesser likelihood of dividing the city into factions that seek power at the expense of the city’s survival.  The thesis then concludes with an application of the pluralist ethos of classical tragedy to a contemporary pluralist theory. By maintaining the tension between rationalist and mythic discourses, classical tragedy presents to Athenians a “constructive deconstruction” of their worldview. Tragedy’s pre-philosophical and pluralist ethos can underpin the democratic theory of “pluralist agonism”, helping it to navigate a course between modern foundationalist and anti-foundationalist philosophical ethos and their expressions in democratic theory: the liberal reification of constitutionalism and the democratic privileging of popular sovereignty.</p>

scholarly journals Tragedy, Pluralism, Agonism: Ancient Greek Tragedy as a foundation for pluralist theory, with an application to pluralist agonism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Xavier Lloyd Forde
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Political Rationality ◽  
The One ◽  
Diversity Of Life ◽  
The City ◽  
The Human Condition

<p>In Fifth Century B.C. Athens, the tragic playwrights took upon themselves the traditional mantle of poet-sage and responded to the cultural crisis of their time: the rupture within the Athenian mindset between on the one hand, an emergent Enlightenment-style discourse based on the juridico-political rationality of the democratic polis and on a confident assessment of the human condition, and on the other, the archaic discourse of myth and its “pessimism of strength”.  Their plays held the two in an uneasy yet creative tension, projecting a pluralist ethos grounded in the assertion of the ambiguity and limits of the human condition. The thesis seeks to elaborate on the nature of this pre-philosophical ethos through the exploration of ancient Greek history and thought and the plays themselves. It delineates the expression in this ethos of a dual movement of problematisation and renewal: a critical, problematising, attitude towards both “rational” and “mythic” discourses, and in the space of thought created by this self-questioning, the elaboration of a minimalist platform for claim-making compatible with both the tragic onto-epistemology of limits and moderation and life in the democratic polis.  This reading of the plays recognizes the problematisation of monistic claim-making in terms of truth, identity, values and politics. For instance, the playwrights call into question the archaic code of honour of the hero or the instrumental rationality adopted by some of their contemporary Athenian politicians: both systems of value are deemed too rigid and too simplistic to accord with the ambiguity and diversity of life in the city. It also outlines the values of moderation, reciprocity, and public-interestedness that are put forward by the tragedians as palliatives to the antagonism generated by monistic claim-making. These form a pluralist platform on which the democratic contest can be played out without reifying any singular and substantive account of politics, and with a lesser likelihood of dividing the city into factions that seek power at the expense of the city’s survival.  The thesis then concludes with an application of the pluralist ethos of classical tragedy to a contemporary pluralist theory. By maintaining the tension between rationalist and mythic discourses, classical tragedy presents to Athenians a “constructive deconstruction” of their worldview. Tragedy’s pre-philosophical and pluralist ethos can underpin the democratic theory of “pluralist agonism”, helping it to navigate a course between modern foundationalist and anti-foundationalist philosophical ethos and their expressions in democratic theory: the liberal reification of constitutionalism and the democratic privileging of popular sovereignty.</p>

Souster, Raymond (1921–2012)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conrad Scott
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Founding Member ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The City ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
The Human Condition

Raymond Holmes Souster has been described as a poet of place who invests Toronto, the city of his life-long residence, deeply into his writing. Having worked for some forty-five years at the downtown Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Souster’s immersion in a particular place certainly informed his poetic output; however, Souster the poet also ponders the human condition. On the one hand, he writes from a basis of experience: the destruction of war and the changes imposed by the rise of the modern era. On the other, his work seeks out and highlights that which is still precious despite the weight of the world he feels. Moreover, he clearly values poetry as a salve to the cacophonous imposition of modernity, and continually encourages poetic development: in addition to his substantial body of work, he has supported Canadian poetry by editing several anthologies, and as a creator of Direction (editor 1943–6); a founder of Contact (editor 1952–4); an editor of Combustion (1957–60); and a founding member of the League of Canadian Poets (president 1967–71).

scholarly journals SUNG POEMS AND POETIC SONGS: HELLENISTIC DEFINITIONS OF POETRY, MUSIC AND THE SPACES IN BETWEEN

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 597-615
Author(s):  
Spencer A. Klavan
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
Cosmic Order ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

Simply by formulating a question about the nature of ancient Greek poetry or music, any modern English speaker is already risking anachronism. In recent years especially, scholars have reminded one another that the words ‘music’ and ‘poetry’ denote concepts with no easy counterpart in Greek. μουσική in its broadest sense evokes not only innumerable kinds of structured movement and sound but also the political, psychological and cosmic order of which song, verse and dance are supposed to be perceptible manifestations. Likewise, ποίησις and the ποιητικὴ τέχνη can encompass all kinds of ‘making’, from the assembly of a table to the construction of a rhetorical argument. Of course, there were specifically artistic usages of these terms—according to Plato, ‘musical and metrical production’ was the default meaning of ποίησις in everyday speech. But even in discussions which restrict themselves to the sphere of human art, we find nothing like the neat compartmentalization of harmonized rhythmic melody on the one hand, and stylized verbal composition on the other, which is often casually implied or expressly formulated in modern comparisons of ‘music’ with ‘poetry’. For many ancient theorists the City Dionysia, a dithyrambic festival and a recitation of Homer all featured different versions of one and the same form of composition, a μουσική or ποιητική to which λόγοι, γράμματα and συλλαβαί were just as essential as ἁρμονία, φθόγγοι, ῥυθμός and χρόνοι.

scholarly journals Intensifying and De-intensifying Distinctions

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 493-515
Author(s):  
Marin Terpstra
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Cognitive Operation ◽  
The World ◽  
Material Space ◽  
The One ◽  
The Human Condition

Abstract In this article I explore different ways of imagining distinctions in the form of borders and on the attitudes that people assume towards them. A distinction is primarily a cognitive operation, but appears as such in human communication (people talking about differences and identities), and in constructions that shape the material space people live in (borders, buildings, and the like). I explore two extreme positions, the one de-intensifying distinctions by focusing on their logical and contingent forms, the other intensifying distinctions by making them a potential cause of conflict. The first one is exemplified by Spencer Brown’s and Niklas Luhmann’s reflection on the logical and sociological aspects of distinctions; the second one by Carl Schmitt’s theory of ‘the political’ and its key notion of the distinction between friend and enemy. Both positions are relevant to understand a major debate and struggle in the world of today between liberal cosmopolitans and authoritarian nationalists. I show in what way both positions are aspects of the human condition, and what makes that alternately the one or the other is stressed.

Anonymus Iamblichi, On Excellence (Peri Aretēs)

2020 ◽  
pp. 262-292
Author(s):  
Phillip Sidney Horky
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Social Emotions ◽  
Instrumental Reasoning ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Complete Translation ◽  
The Human Condition

“Anonymus Iamblichi, On Excellence (Peri Aretēs): A Lost Defense of Democracy” presents a comprehensive analysis and complete translation of the fragments of a lost treatise from the late fifth-century BCE, preserved in Iamblichus’ palimpsestic Exhortation to Philosophy. Its author is unknown; hence scholars refer to the work as “Anonymus Iamblichi.” And while Iamblichus included it because he thought its author was a Pythagorean, dialectical attributes and specific claims within the treatise point to someone conversant with Ionian philosophers, especially Democritus. Anonymus Iamblichi is a rara avis: it presents a unique view on excellence (aretē) and its parts; advances a defense of law and justice by appealing to both value and instrumental reasoning; provides an early reflection on social emotions, the weaknesses of the human condition, and the nature of true power; presents the first substantial “Superman” thought experiment; and develops the earliest extant and most philosophically sustained defense of democracy.

“Words crumbled in my mouth like rotten mushrooms”

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 521-549
Author(s):  
Jana V. Schmidt ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ingeborg Bachmann ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Hermann Broch ◽  
The One ◽  
Exclusive Focus ◽  
The Human Condition

A near exclusive focus on Hannah Arendt’s concept of forgiveness from her major work The Human Condition has obscured the equally important model of reconciliation in her writings on aesthetics and in her Thought Notebook. By engaging Arendt in a dialogue with her contemporaries and friends Ingeborg Bachmann and Hermann Broch, on the one hand, and with the classic thinkers of tragedy, Aristotle and Goethe, on the other hand, I show how reconciliation responds to the situation of fatherlessness after 1945 and, as a “reconciliation with reality,” offers a new basis for intersubjectivity. Having, as Arendt writes, “enough of origin within” ourselves to do without pre-established categories cannot mean that we must begin to “father” ourselves but that, on the contrary, our inception as beings born to begin anew leaves us radically forlorn and yet equipped with everything we need to “make world” with one another. The essay contends that imagination, judgment, and understanding build a network of thought figures in Arendt that are tied to reality through the work of reconciliation.

scholarly journals The Projection of Societal Evil in the Poetry of Hamid Khan

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 221-224
Author(s):  
Dr. Abdul Karim Khan
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Future ◽  
The City ◽  
The Human Condition

The concept of evil is foregrounded in most of the poems of Khan. This paper focuses on the theme of evil in its variant shapes that are foregrounded in Khan’s poetry. For this purpose, both the collections of Khan, “Velvet of Loss” and “Pale Leaf (Three Voices)” are used for the data under study. Only those poems are selected that bear the foregrounded theme of evil. The poems that foreground the evil are Octopus, I Won’t Talk, The Dawn, The City, In a Café, Labyrinth, Nostalgia, Nemesis, Eclipsed Moon, Space-Scape, and Inertia. The presence of evil that negatively shapes the human condition is indirectly projected for making the reader taking interest which, in turn, compels them to become conscious of their plight in the present and terrifying dangers in the future. This consciousness, ultimately, leads to the reformation of society. In this regard, Khan can be taken as a great reformer of the society who carries a sense of sympathy and empathy through his terse and stenographic style. Lastly, this paper will guide local researchers for furthering research in the area of Pakistani Literature in English. In this regard, local voices will be analyzed for local issues and problems.

Despair, Anxiety, and Sloth

Shadow Sophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 186-206
Author(s):  
Celia E. Deane-Drummond
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
The One ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
The Human Condition

Despair is a stronger form of sadness than envy because it reflects deep inner turmoil. While it is difficult to measure mental states of animals, many behavioural studies imply that at least some social animals can become despondent: but can they reach a state of despair? Søren Kierkegaard considered despair and anxiety integral to the human condition; for him, anxiety was the prelude to original sin and the state of sin was a state of despair. Ignatius of Loyola also recognized periods of desolation as well as consolation in the spiritual life, which suggests that desolation might have a place in the human journey to God. This chapter will explore how one might distinguish licit forms of desolation, which facilitate the journey toward God, from illicit forms, which lead to fear and sin. The vice of acedia has a fascinating history. In monastic communities, it was viewed as an attack of the noonday demon and in more secularized contexts it was seen as laziness. This chapter argues that struggles to interpret the presence of acedia through history are illuminating in working out the different sources of the vice of acedia and its explicit location in the human mind. Of all the cardinal vices, acedia is the one that is arguably the most explicit with respect to its damaging impact on the religious life and its distinctive appearance in the human condition.

Māyā in Relation to the Human Condition

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-93
Author(s):  
Gopal K. Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
The City ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter discusses māyā’s role as the deluding power that covers the memory of souls that desire to live in forgetfulness of God and causes them to identify as products of matter, living in the temporal realm. As with most Indic literatures, the Bhāgavata employs metaphors to explain its philosophical doctrines, and the dream experience is the primary metaphor used to describe māyā’s deluding power. The Bhāgavata considers the human condition to be a condition of dreaming, with the word svapna (dream) appearing well over sixty times throughout its pages. This chapter also explores the Bhāgavata’s largest and most complex allegory—that of Purañjana and the City of Nine Gates. The questions to be addressed by means of this allegory are of paramount concern to the Bhāgavata, and they are central to its account of māyā and the human condition: What is the self? Why does the eternally transcendent self misidentify with temporary matter? How does it come to do so?

Pathways to the Hero’s Journey: A Tribute to Joseph Campbell and the 30th Anniversary of His Death

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (Volume 2, Issue 2: Winter 2017) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Stephan Sonnenburg ◽  
Mark Runco
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Hero's Journey ◽  
Joseph Campbell ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
30Th Anniversary ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The One ◽  
Change Transformation ◽  
The Human Condition

Joseph Campbell is the mythographer of the last century who has congenially opened the mythological universe to both scholars and to a wide range of people searching for pathways to enlighten their lives. His elixir of life was to help people “see myth as a reflection of the one sublime adventure of life, and then to breathe new life into it” (Campbell, 2003, p. xiv). The hero’s journey is his gift, his “ultimate boon” (Campbell, 2008, p. 29) for the human condition and social world. It represents a universal motif which runs through virtually all kinds of change, transformation, and growth. The main objective of this special issue of the Journal of Genius and Eminence is to explore the multi-faceted potential of the hero’s journey and perhaps shed new light on it. The introduction gives an overview of Campbell’s ultimate boon and a summary of each of the 12 articles that follow. Distinguished scientists and outstanding practitioners have joined this journey in tribute to Campbell and the 30th anniversary of his death. The contributors take us far and wide, exploring different ways to explore Campbell’s thoughts, allowing insights into the nuances and subtleties of his mythological world, and striking new ways to illuminate the Campbellian universe.

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