“Atsumori” is a Noh play composed by master playwright Zeami sometime before 1423, featuring characters from the Tales of the Heike. Although popular to this day, the philosophical significance of the play remains underdeveloped and underappreciated. Prima facie, it features a ghost who is liberated thanks to the sincere prayer of the priest who killed him. Simplistic reading would yield simplistic understanding of the characters and their dynamism, and would fail to appreciate, for instance, the agency of the ghost or (...) the liberation of the priest. Accordingly, some regard the play as falling short of the highest aesthetic value, insofar as its protagonist fails to attain liberation through his own effort. Some even contend that the ulterior purpose of the play is to portray ghosts as powerless and desperate so that vanquishers need not fear vengeful ghosts. While it is possible that Zeami indeed held such ulterior intention and regarded it as second rank for the protagonist’s lack of agency, I shall present a different reading that would yield a richer appreciation of the characters and their dynamism. I do so by regarding the “friendship of dharma” that occurs at the culmination of the play as “existential communion” as presented in Tanabe Hajime’s later philosophy. That is, the play need not be read as a story about a living priest saving a dead warrior—it can be read as about two lost souls saving each other, through mutual acceptance, mutual sacrifice, and collaborative mediation of the Absolute. For this purpose, the paper first delineates Tanabe’s later philosophy with a focus on the idea of existential communion. Then it introduces “Atsumori” and discusses its philosophical significance. An impasse due to the scope of the play will be identified, which I call “the problem of epistemic authority,” and to fill the gap I will introduce and discuss another spin-off story featuring Atsumori. The paper intends to offer a philosophically richer reading of the play to invite readers to think deeply and creatively about Noh. (shrink)

The Cinematography in Whisky (2004) is essential in the directors’ efforts to explore existential isolation. The incompleteness of knowledge, the uncrossable gaps between people, and the impossibility of communion among individuals are some of the themes explored in this film, directed by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll. These are mostly absent in the scholarship about the movie, which tends to focus on the concept of small cinema. The present text aims to build on these discussions to propose (...) a reading of Whisky as a work of art that, although made within a very specific context of production, is not limited by it.Keywords: Cinematography. Uruguayan cinema. Small cinema. (shrink)

This study, the third in a series of three, draws on a broader Norwegian research project exploring the phenomenon of support for young persons with mental health issues. The aim was to explore and explicate the sense of “nourishing communion”, as a somewhat neglected aspect of support. Fourteen Norwegian young adults, aged 18-25, were interviewed about their experiences of support. Data was analyzed using van Manen’s hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to open up possible meanings of how nourishing communion is concretely (...) lived. Analysis was supplemented by in-depth reflexive dialogues between the first and second author, which fostered a nourishing communion akin to the processes and dimensions of our phenomenon of interest. Findings highlight five intertwined existential themes: a) trusting the other to hold vulnerability safely; b) flourishing in mutual participation; c) acceptance in a felt togetherness; d) feeling found and received; and e) feeling an attuned resonance. The notion of “nourishing communion” as a significant but neglected element of support challenges current practice, suggesting the need for a different approach to collaboration with young persons and their networks. From the perspectives both of individual professional engagement and of policy making, there is a need for further exploration of how young persons might be supported to create and maintain a broader range of nourishing relationships. (shrink)

This study, based upon empirical phenomenological research, explores an essential phenomenon of human existence: the interpermeating communion of self and world. In interpermeation, the supposed separation of self and world is transcended. The being, energy, life, and meaning of the world "flow into" one's self and become integrated as part of who one is; simultaneously, one's being, consciousness, awareness, and self "flow into" the world and become part of the world. Conscious of interpermeation, we tend to understand ourselves and (...) reality differently, and to be more aware and compassionate with others and the natural world: awareness of interpermeation generates love as love generates awareness of interpermeation. A hermeneutic dialogue is offered between existential phenomenology, transpersonal psychology, and the world's spiritual traditions. (shrink)

Religion is not an evolutionary adaptation per se, but a recurring by-product of the complex evolutionary landscape that sets cognitive, emotional and material conditions for ordinary human interactions. Religion involves extraordinary use of ordinary cognitive processes to passionately display costly devotion to counterintuitive worlds governed by supernatural agents. The conceptual foundations of religion are intuitively given by task-specific panhuman cognitive domains, including folkmechanics, folkbiology, folkpsychology. Core religious beliefs minimally violate ordinary notions about how the world is, with all of its (...) inescapable problems, thus enabling people to imagine minimally impossible supernatural worlds that solve existential problems, including death and deception. Here the focus is on folkpsychology and agency. A key feature of the supernatural agent concepts common to all religions is the triggering of an "Innate Releasing Mechanism," or “agency detector,” whose proper domain encompasses animate objects relevant to hominid survival - such as predators, protectors and prey - but which actually extends to moving dots on computer screens, voices in wind, faces on clouds. Folkpsychology also crucially involves metarepresentation, which makes deception possible and threatens any social order; however, these same metacognitive capacities provide the hope and promise of open-ended solutions through representations of counterfactual supernatural worlds that cannot be logically or empirically verified or falsified. Because religious beliefs cannot be deductively or inductively validated, validation occurs only by ritually addressing the very emotions motivating religion. Cross-cultural experimental evidence encourages these claims. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with the ethical nature of language. Contrary to most post-modern and post-structuralist accounts, I argue that a thoughtful examination of the intersubjective relations of interlocutors can be accomplished without unduly privileging the subject, and can open new paths of inquiry into the ethical bonds of the human situation. ;I begin from the existential-phenomenological perspective of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the self engaged with others in speaking, writing, and gesturing developed continuously over the course of (...) his writings. But this account is one which must be gathered piecemeal from his diverse written works, which range in topic through psychology, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and many others. In the first part of the dissertation, I provide a thematic exegesis of these passages collected from the earliest and latest periods of his work. ;In the second part, I argue that the notion of the self which emerges from part one provides a fruitful starting point for reflection in the domain of ethics. Contrary to thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, and Baudrillard, I contend that the individual engaged in language is best thought of as communicating subjectivity; and this subjectivity is already predisposed toward intersubjective communion. ;Next, I expand upon the work of Calvin O. Schrag. There is an ideality which is manifest in communicative praxis which points toward a radicalized understanding of responsibility, and which undergirds the proper critical standpoint for ethical as well as social philosophy. This can be achieved, I argue, only by rethinking the traditional notions of universality, particularity, and transcendence inherited from our Kantian practical tradition. ;Finally, I show that this notion of responsibility must emerge as distinct from a transcendental posture assumed by thinkers like Apel and Habermas, a volitional posture like Sartre's, or any traditional posture based upon a faculty psychology. The communion of communicative praxis is best understood from an existential-ontological inquiry standpoint, and is defined as care. Responsibility for thoughtful discriminations and discernment within the human ethical and social situation is shown to be an issue due to, and not in spite of, corporeality. (shrink)

In this essay, we highlight 7 distinctives of EoC businesses which set them apart even from other humanistic approaches to management. Not that EoC’s distinctives make them a non-humanistic form of management, but they distinguish it with a unique set of goals and aims. These are: 1. Social and Economic Transformation Towards Unity; 2. The existential Self giving aspect—Creating a Culture of Encounter; 3. Redistributing Wealth for the Common Good; 4. Concern to Alleviate Poverty in All of Its Forms, (...) and to Participate in Poverty; 5. EoC Entrepreneurs Participate in Poverty (The Wound and the Blessing); 6. Fraternity and the Market as a Place of Community-Building (Communion); and 7. Competitors as friends—Acting as “Starters of Cooperation.”. (shrink)

Tanabe Hajime développa sa philosophie dans la perspective d’une « ontologie sociale » à travers la « logique de l’espèce » et la « logique de l’Amour ». La première, développée de 1934 à 1941, vise la rationalisation de la société japonaise en temps de guerre, la seconde le salut de la société japonaise après la Seconde Guerre mondiale dans le cadre d’une philosophie de la religion. Le but de cet article est de mettre au jour le développement de la (...) logique de l’espèce vers la logique de l’Amour et de présenter l’histoire de l’ontologie sociale tanabéenne dans le cadre de la « métanoétique ». (shrink)

This book is a discussion of Heidegger's, Sartre's and Marcel's rejection of Cartesian epistemology, the scepticism to which it leads and its objectivist conception of human existence. It compares this rejection with Wittgenstein's rejection of these conceptions of man, his relation to the knowledge of what belongs to the world in which he lives. It concentrates on the existentialist critiques of consciousness as a substance and of the self as such a substance, of each person's body as something external to (...) which he is causally related, and of others as at best indirectly accessible to us. It discusses Sartre's positive views on these questions and the way he falls into a form of solipsism himself. It then considers Sartre's rejection of determinism and his conception of freedom as our capacity for choice. In a concluding chapter the book sketches a non-objectivist account of the self, its development, its 'bad faith', its capacity to emerge from it, and its knowledge of itself, free from the objections considered earlier. It then considers some new objections directed at its own account. Contents: Man in the World; Man's Way of Being: Existential Dualism; The Personal Dimension: Emotions and Value Judgements; Sartre and our Identity as Individuals; Mind and Body: Rejection of Cartesian Dualism; Sartre on the Self and the Other: Rejection of Cartesian Solipsism; Human Separateness and the Possibility of Communion: Marcel's Rejection of Sartrean Solipsism; Sartre: Freedom as Something to which Man is Condemned; Self, Self-Knowledge and Self-Change: A Non-Objectivist View and its Defense. (shrink)

Epitomized in the bodily exhibitions of ‘fitspiration’, photo-based social media is biased toward self-beautification and glorification of reality. Meanwhile, evidence is growing of psychological side effects connected to this ‘pictorial turn’ in our communication. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche poses the question how ugliness and discord can produce aesthetic pleasure. This paper proceeds from an inverse relationship and examines why glorification of appearances and conspicuous beauty fails to do the same, and even compounds suffering. Drawing on the Apollo-Dionysus dualism (...) undergirding Nietzsche’s aesthetic philosophy, I posit a deeper relation between the saturation of visual self-exhibitionism typified in fitspiration and its empirical effects. Concentrating on the medium and self-representational photograph, I argue that Instagram is primarily an instrument of Apolline artifice and that the pictorial turn which defines the present centers Apolline mediation to the detrimental exclusion of meaningful communion with its Dionysiac antithesis. For users immersed in this Apolline sphere of visual self-representation, a fractured existence beholden to conditions of the image ensues—comprising surface-level appearances, deification of the moment, and loss of existential sustenance through myth. By positioning fitspiration not as an aberration but as the logical conclusion of the medium’s intrinsic Apolline property, it becomes a litmus test of the entire visual landscape and illustrative of the implications that uncritical participation in it may bring. (shrink)

This article seeks to clarify the value of the Christian faith improvements through well founded arguments, in order to protect it from a certain lessening to the immanent and temporal ideas, aiming to the existentiality of the Christian being who reads up on what is eschatological. The proposed itinerary is achieved by the authentic awareness of sin, so that the sinner recognizes himself as such one and experiences the saving presence of God, both personally and socially. The methodology used was (...) based on bibliographical and electronic researches related to the proposed theme. Basically there was the usage of some renowned authors like Zygmunt Bauman, on his expressiveness of the liquid modernity, Alonso Schökel, on his biblical approach, and also several pronouncements of the Magisterium of the Universal and Latin American Church, as well as references to Sacred Scripture. The route passed through the present liquidity in today's reality to the firmness of spirituality, more specifically the one concerning the people of Israel through the Psalms, in the revisiting of such spiritual genesis. Among these, one opted for the penitential sphere, with a greater focus on Psalm 32. A deep-rooted and permanent spirituality was achieved through the cultivation of communion with God, assuring master pilasters to live the faith extensively in the midst of the contemporary times swifts. (shrink)

The present study intends to offer another perspective over the inter-religious dialogue emphasising the spiritual state of exomologesis as an essential means of accomplishing a better and real understanding of a participant in dialogue. It makes some short analysis of penitential confession as homologation with the Logos, of the prayer as inner dialogue or confession or exomologesis with the Logos and of the confessions as a literary style, which all engages the deep, spiritual dimensions of communion with the Logos (...) and finally analyses and exemplifies the ecstatic and existential spiritual dimensions of the exomologesis as an absolute form of standing in dialogue. CONTRIBUTION: The study offers the necessary spiritual understanding and impulse for a more efficient inter-confessional and inter-religious dialogue, promoting HTS Journal as a herald of this dialogue essential and indispensable for the life of the world. (shrink)

This article describes a rhetorical characteristic of Kierkegaard’s thirteen Discourses “at the Communion” on Fridays, namely, their way of expressing religious truths, theological distinctions, and homiletic statements by a certain concept of space, place and movement, thus making them existentially accessible. It illustrates the fundamental meaning of this series of discourses and especially the last discourse for Kierkegaard’s entire work as an author. By focussing on the topological categories and correlations in the last discourse, the article demonstrates the constitutive (...) role of spatial terms and meanings and so discovers the theological topology of the series as a whole with its coincidences of soteriological, anthropological, liturgical, rhetorical, and existential movements—leading the listener/reader to the “place of rest at the foot of the altar.”. (shrink)

‘Uncanny’ works by a number of contemporary artists are analysed in relation to the themes and insights of both cybernetics and existentialist philosophy. This reveals that central ideas from these largely neglected fields remain current and potent within innovative art practices. Artists employ cybernetic systems to provoke aesthetic sensations of the uncanny, while simultaneously encapsulating existentialist concerns. Pierre Huyghe’s mysterious installation responds to the life-breath of visitors to mutate human cancer cells. Susan Collins and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer construct cybernetic worlds-within-worlds to (...) render us beings-for-others during intimate encounters with strangers. Urich Lau and TC&A involve and implicate the audience in eerie expressions of what existentialist term being-towards-death. These artworks prompt feelings of separation, alienation and existential angst; and emphasize human estrangement within a mysterious, incomprehensible or absurd world. But a cybernetic-existentialist reading also reveals that their evocation of human disquiet and isolation is tempered by an equal emphasis on positive notions of feedback loops, ‘separation with communion’, existential freedom and authentic interactions with the world and with Others. The artworks articulate cybernetics’ and existentialism’s shared interest in collapsing boundaries and erasing distinctions: between agents within a system; between the self and the Other; and between perceiving, feeling and acting. (shrink)

In his important work, Orthodox Spirituality, Father Dumitru Stăniloae considers that, besides the real existence of the subconscious, there exists in man another reality as well, comprising the superior divine energies found in the human heart and which he defined by using the modern notion of transconscious or supraconscious.Contribution: The present study emphasises on the origin, definitions and content of this concept in the work of Father Stăniloae and its great importance in defining a way to know God and his (...) salvation works, from the perspective of an anchorite and Christian mystic, engaged in the existential tension of communion with God. (shrink)

Man's Approach to God was the 5th lecture in the Wimmer Memorial Lecture Series (1947-1970) at Saint Vincent and was given in 1951 by Jacques Maritain. Maritain was one of the most influential figures in the Thomistic revival of the 20th century. Both in his personal life and in his prolific academic corpus, Maritain modeled the Church's commitment to the interrelationship between faith and reason. So seriously did he take his intellectual commitments in his student years that, along with soon-to-be (...) wife, Ra•ssa Oumansoff, he made a suicide pact that he would only break if he could find some meaning to life. This search ultimately led him to Catholicism. Maritain's works reveal an active mind capable of applying his speculative thought to virtually any subject. Every one of his works was an exploration of reason and its limits, and of how faith completes the natural desire to know. His Wimmer lecture is a model specimen of this approach. Maritain's Man's Approach to God is a three-part lecture. In it, he seeks to explain how man comes to know God existentially, as well as how faith responds to and completes this search for meaning. This lecture grew out of his desire to show that every human being, and not just philosophers, can penetrate into the depths of reality, for all bear within themselves the indelible image of God and are equally called to the communion of love for God and love for our brothers [as] a single love of charity. (shrink)

In this book, the contributors expand on their use of Mayes archetypal pedagogy in volume 1 to apply its principles to a wide variety of venues, purposes, and projects. Each essay explores from its own disciplinary angle the difference between what Mayes has called "educational processes" (which are those practices that take place in the dedicated space of the classroom, through the medium of the curriculum, and under the stewardship of the teacher) and "educative acts" (which are those deep transactions (...) between individuals in joint pursuit of existential truth, wherein one is alternately the teacher and student in conversation, and sometimes even communion, with one's dialogical partner"). (shrink)

Unravels the philosophical, literary, and personal theaters of faith, self-deception, communion, difficult reality, and existential crisis in texts by Kierkegaard, Melville, Henry Bugbee, and others.

The qualities of great works of art, their profundity, their insight into the human condition, are epitomised in Brakhage's films, which are, I argue, from the beginning related to and inseparable from a philosophical attitude toward existence. His films emerge out of an authentic 'existential' mode of attunement, a mind-set wherein the potential for human transcendence is framed and filmed within its intractable relationship to death, the most extreme possibility of non-existence. Brakhage not only views existence in a philosophical (...) manner, beyond this, he engages in philosophical inquiry in a fundamental way through the medium of film. The films arise from and respond to what Karl Jaspers views as the ultimate source of philosophy, namely, 'the will to authentic communication,' which embraces 'wonder leading to knowledge, doubt leading to certainty, forsakenness leading to the self.' This amounts to the philosophical struggle to arrive at a sense of metaphysical coherence and existential familiarity, i.e., the precarious undertsanding of belonging to the world in communion with others. This essay seeks to elucidate and detail, through a series of interpretive gestures, the philosophical themes present to Brakhage's silent films by way of a reading that emerges from the phenomenological-ontological tradition in philosophy. In doing so, I hope to interpret Brakhage's filmic art as conveying a legitimate source of human understanding, which contributes to our interpreting and discoursing about the world and our lives in new and revelatory ways. (shrink)

Most religions share the belief that love is the supreme truth of the ultimate reality and also of all human beings. The ultimate reality is characterized by the absolute love for all beings. And authentic human life consists in embodying the divine love as far as possible. The religious-meaning of love can be interpreted in terms of the panentheistic conceptuality provided process philosophers such as Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Hartshorne’s mind-body analogy is helpful in particular. The ultimate reality (...) is the mind of the world. And the world is the body of the ultimate reality. Love as communion or mutualparticipation is experienced paradigmatically in the interaction between mind and body. Existential embodiment of the divine love is a necessary ingredient of authentic human life. And our love needs to be expanded more and more toward the limit of God’s cosmic love. If one expands one’s love to the greatest possible degree, one may be able to include the whole world as one’s body. (shrink)

The Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA) did not escape this existential crisis of conflict. It manifests in various ways resulting in the bleeding of congregations, the exodus of congregants and the closure of congregations, as many congregants that declare themselves as members of the Church do not attend worship services or participate in the Holy Communion and exit the church. The study was conducted in the NRCA to determine the effect and response formation of observed conflict by (...) ministers in their respective congregations. The results of the study indicate that pastors and/or ministers do suffer emotional trauma because of the conflict in the congregation which, according to their own statements results in a loss of role performance. We provide an overview of the problem statement and methodology of the study. We discuss an abbreviated, theoretical perspective on conflict as a social phenomenon. We present the findings of our study and conclude with an abbreviated process to equip pastors with the necessary emotional maturity and self-management.Contribution: This study uncovers emotional trauma experienced by ministers, affecting their role performance. We offer a succinct problem statement, research methodology, and propose a scientifically informed process to enhance ministers’ emotional resilience within the NRCA. (shrink)

The theology as enabler of a more human science Paul Karl Feyerabend conceives religion as a possible way to infuse meaning and humanity to the science. He asserts that when it has taken place historically a unity between science and religion, science has been able to transcend values of utility and efficiency. This happens because the religion confers meaning to scientific results within an image of the world that involves the person as a whole. In this context, the Viennese invites (...) to establish a dialogue with the science of ancient Greece in order to know more about more human ways of doing science and to be able to judge in perspective the achievements of scientific materialism. Our objective in this work will be to attend to this invitation of Viennese studying the relation that exists between mathematics and theology in the Ptolemaic writings. We believe that the Alexandrian is an emblematic case of this communion between science and theology and –in this sense– allows us to rethink contemporary science as a cognitive task more attentive to the human and existential implications of its theories and models. (shrink)

This book is a discussion of Heidegger's, Sartre's and Marcel's rejection of Cartesian epistemology, the scepticism to which it leads and its objectivist conception of human existence. It compares this rejection with Wittgenstein's rejection of these conceptions of man, his relation to the knowledge of what belongs to the world in which he lives. It concentrates on the existentialist critiques of consciousness as a substance and of the self as such a substance, of each person's body as something external to (...) which he is causally related, and of others as at best indirectly accessible to us. It discusses Sartre's positive views on these questions and the way he falls into a form of solipsism himself. It then considers Sartre's rejection of determinism and his conception of freedom as our capacity for choice. In a concluding chapter the book sketches a non-objectivist account of the self, its development, its 'bad faith', its capacity to emerge from it, and its knowledge of itself, free from the objections considered earlier. It then considers some new objections directed at its own account. Contents: Man in the World; Man's Way of Being: Existential Dualism; The Personal Dimension: Emotions and Value Judgements; Sartre and our Identity as Individuals; Mind and Body: Rejection of Cartesian Dualism; Sartre on the Self and the Other: Rejection of Cartesian Solipsism; Human Separateness and the Possibility of Communion: Marcel's Rejection of Sartrean Solipsism; Sartre: Freedom as Something to which Man is Condemned; Self, Self-Knowledge and Self-Change: A Non-Objectivist View and its Defense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:504 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Earle's position, needless to say, is a radical one. If taken seriously it appears to commit him either to a private language doctrine or, more likely, to silence. If the concepts embodied in our language are public, intersubjective concepts, then either a minimal characterization of singular human existence is possible or Earle is stranded in a hopeless, speechless solipsism. I shall mention just one other (...) paper, Natanson's "Alienation and Social Role." Natanson distinguishes role-taking from the more basic activity which he refers to as the intentionality of role-taking or, as he terms it, "role-action." He attempts to give a phenomenological grounding to the notion of role-taking, thereby showing the relevance of phenomenology to problems in social philosophy and sociology. Though a difficult paper, "Alienation and Social Role" is a helpful study of various structures presupposed in social interaction. Natanson's analyses go a long way toward dispelling the view that a phenomenological starting point commits one to subjectivism. I might have mentioned other, equally instructive essays. These, however, give some indication of the diversity of concerns inherent in the American phenomenological tradition. Phenomenology in America documents these concerns well. STEPHEN A, ERICKSON Pomona College Heimkehr ins Eigentliche. By Walter Robert Corti. (Amriswil, Switzerland, Amriswiler BiichereL 1969. Pp. 152. n.p.) This collection of essays written between 1935 and 1966 gives a fine example of the changes in the concern for the meaning of human existence during these thirty years both in the mind and emotions of an individual philosopher and in Western culture generally. The essay from which the title is taken dates from 1958. It is a charming, poetic autobiography, describing the growth of philosophic and scientific wonder from the author's childhood, when he was thrilled by the wonders of biology and chemistry, to his more general wonder at being in and of the world of wonders, culminating in a self-conscious wonder about the implications of a wondering being in a wonderful world. The early essay of 1935, entitled Zu den Dingen is a vivid statement of a Heidegger-inspired existentialism, which analyses the difference between the attempt of Husserl to understand Sachen by his search for the essence of an object ;rod his formulation of phenomenology, and the very different appreciation of things in nature, which demands a non-verbal familiarity or "communion" with another natural being in existential terms, not in terms of the concept of "essence." The later essay of 1958 contains a critical history of the relations between the theories of explication, evolution, and development as cosmologies. After the historical survey it describes the physiological and mental restlessness of man. In this context, the problem of the meaning of existence is explored, not as a question to be answered, but as a significant form of human restlessness which has implications for a kind of restlessness in nature and in cosmic process. Beside these essays which are contributions to the history of recent philosophy, there are several other essays related to the varied and remarkable interests and BOOKS RECEIVED 505 achievements of Dr. Corti, partly in his activities as a distinguished Swiss public leader, partly in connection with his work as director of the Archly fiir genetische Philosophie in Winterthur. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California BOOKS RECEIVED First Editions Adler, Mortimer. The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, I970. Pp. xiii+361. $7.95. Allen, Gay Wilson. William lames. Pamphlets on American Writers, Number 88. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota, 1970. Pp. 48. $.95. Bahm, Archie. Directory o[ American Philosophers. V 1970-71. Alburquerque: Archie I. Bahm, I970. Pp. 436. $I4.95. Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. Pp. 463. Paper. $2.95. A review of this book appeared in the Journal, ~ 4, Vol. 6. Cailliet, Emile. Journey Into Light. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1968. Pp. 117. $3.95. Cantore, Enrico. Atomic Order: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Microphysics. (~mbridge (Mass.): The MIT Press, 1969. Pp. xi+334. $12.50. Caponigri, A. Robert. Philosophy from the Renaissance to the Romantic Age. A History of... (shrink)

The book contrasts two approaches to anthropology: a "substantial" approach and a "personal communion" approach. The core of the author's argument is that personhood is an ekstatic and hypo-static mode of existence not subject to any predetermination or necessity--remains unwavering. A few key ways that the author approaches the "human phenomenon" with a personalist optic should be highlighted: he makes important references to the capacity of man for history (which is not due to his natural properties, i.e., memory, psychology, (...) etc.), to creaturehood as difference and not division from God, to the presence-in-absence paradox within the context of art, to a christological and pneumatological view of man in relation to God, and to eschatological ontology which liberates being from the past, sin, decay, and death. He also points out some of the ethical implications of these topics.--Publisher. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 39.1 (2006) 45-71 [Access article in PDF] Presencing "Communion" in Chaïm Perelman's New Rhetoric Richard Graff Wendy Winn Department of RhetoricUniversity of MinnesotaOver the second half of his long and distinguished career, Chaïm Perelman reiterated the central themes of his theory of rhetoric many times. As the audience for his work expanded, Perelman was repeatedly invited to summarize the principles presented in La nouvelle rhétorique, (...) his magnum opus authored in collaboration with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, which appeared in 1958. On these occasions, he would often attempt to clarify or refine the major concepts presented in that treatise. Nevertheless, even today many aspects of Perelman's work remain enigmatic. In outline, The New Rhetoric itself conveys a sense of structural and theoretical clarity, but for many readers this first impression evaporates when they confront the complexity and detail of the work's exposition. In the preface to their new study of Perelman, Alan Gross and Ray Dearin observe:The New Rhetoric is difficult to read, a task made even more difficult for American audiences because virtually all its examples and illustrations are from a literature in a foreign language.... Moreover, Perelman's later attempts to achieve clarity, in The Realm of Rhetoric, and numerous shorter articles, are equally puzzling. Consequently, some of Perelman's best ideas are virtually buried in a very long work, and therefore largely lost even to the most careful readers. In addition, on such central issues as the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy Perelman remains maddeningly obscure. (2003, ix) While Perelman's status as a pioneering figure in the rejuvenation of rhetorical study in Continental Europe is secure, as is his placement among the canonical twentieth-century theorists by American scholars, such difficulties constitute an impediment to contemporary understanding and future appreciation of his achievement; and the sprawling character of The New Rhetoric certainly has not helped to counteract the less [End Page 45] sympathetic reception his work has received in some corners of rhetorical and argumentation studies.1Gross and Dearin's volume joins several other recent studies that have contributed to the untangling of Perelman's thought and to the profitable application of his ideas.2 Still, some of Perelman's "best ideas" remain buried and sorely in need of excavation. Chief among these are considerations prompted by Perelman's use of the evocative yet mysterious term "communion." Although communion appears repeatedly among the panoply of concepts and argumentative techniques described in The New Rhetoric, explicit discussion of it there is brief and scattered, and the subject receives only glancing mention in Perelman's subsequent publications. In turn, communion has been all but ignored in the scholarship responding to or extending Perelman's work.3 This is even the case in studies where one would expect to see more serious engagement with Perelman's ideas on the subject—notably, in those that consider the status of values in argumentation and the role of rhetoric in the constitution and maintenance of community.4In this essay, we offer a detailed analysis of Perelman's conception of communion and, in the course of endowing the concept with greater "presence," aim to show its rich implications for these areas of inquiry. We argue that the idea of communion is a vital, if understated, component of Perelman's proposed "new rhetoric." Like other aspects of Perelman's theory, however, it is an expansive and somewhat slippery notion. In The New Rhetoric, communion is used in a very general sense as the term denoting a community's agreement on questions of value, but also, more narrowly, as an objective sought in certain forms of discourse and as an effect of specific linguistic-stylistic devices. The exegesis needed to indicate the subtle links between these senses will enable us to describe the manner in which Perelman endeavored to integrate the technical lore inherited from the classical tradition of rhetoric with a broadly social and determinedly pluralisticconception of argumentation.We begin by examining communion in relation to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's ideas... (shrink)

Although a conventional environmentalism focuses on the health of ecological systems, Pope Francis’s 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Sí invokes St. Francis of Assisi to emphasize God’s love for the individual organism, no matter how small. Decrying the tendency to regard other creatures as mere objects to be controlled and used, Pope Francis urges our enactment of a ‘universal communion’ governed by love. I suggest, however, that Laudato Sí’s animal ethic, as focused on ordering human and animal need, is inadequate (...) to its overarching vision of cross-species communion. This vision requires the sort of cross-species relational bridge implicit in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s view of agency as an irreducibly ‘animate’ expression of choice and afforded further definition in Kenneth J. Shapiro’s conception of a ‘kinesthetic empathy.’ As the phenomenological epistemology underlying both discourses makes possible a rough correspondence, I put these in conversation to demonstrate that a Merleau-Pontyan and reciprocal agency is a constitutive aspect of the fullest sort of cross-species relation, such that recognition of this agency can both deepen our understanding of ‘universal communion’ and foster engagement in its practice. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for an extension of relational accounts of the imago Dei which includes a kind of priestly relation to the created order. In this relation, humanity is intended to ensure the independent flourishing of creation in a way reflective of the kind of communion we ought to have with one another. Through an analysis of the brokenness of these relationships, I argue human oppression of other humans and ravaging of creation are born of the same (...) brokenness in such a way that they contribute to one another as distortions of human teleological communion. By drawing on Social Identity Approach in group psychology, I can offer an account of shared human identity out of which humanity acts in distorted ways as a group. By describing oppression and ravaging in terms of broken communal telos and group action, I offer a way forward for relating humanity to the created order in a way that neither instrumentalizes creation, nor flattens the distinctiveness of human creation in the image of God. (shrink)

Cette note présente le contenu du document de Ravenne , dernier accord de la Commission mixte internationale pour le dialogue théologique entre l’Église catholique et l’Église orthodoxe, intitulé «Conséquences ecclésiologiques et canoniques de la nature sacramentelle de l’Église. Communion ecclésiale, conciliarité et autorité». On propose ensuite une évaluation de ce texte qui offre les fondements ecclésiologiques d’une réflexion commune sur la primauté de l’évêque de Rome.

This book explores society’s problems with interpersonal communication amid increasingly technological environments. The author argues that the work of Gabriel Marcel reveals the root of our issues with communication to be issues with being with others, ultimately suggesting that seeking communion is a way to bridge our disconnections.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Holy Communion: Altar Sacrament for Making a Sacrificial Sin Offering, or Table Sacrament for Nourishing a Life of Service? Paul J. Nuechterlein Emmaus Lutheran Church, Racine, WI The title spells out the alternative I would like the reader to consider: Is Holy Communion more appropriately considered the "table sacrament" or, as is more commonly accepted, the "altar sacrament "? I will make my preference clear. In Holy (...) Communion, I believe Jesus Christ to be offering nourishment for a different way to live —namely, the way offreely chosen service to others, as opposed to violent domination over others. "Table sacrament" more appropriately conveys the sense of nourishment toward a new life. I will support this positive reasoning in favor of "table sacrament" through an appeal to Christian scripture. I will also suggest a negative reasoning against "altar sacrament," by questioning whether the very reference to "altar" betrays a link to violence, with its base in the blood ofsacrifice. For this negative argument, the support will come primarily from the brilliant and far-reaching theories ofRené Girard regarding the relation between religion and violence. I would like us to consider whether the most obvious point of the relation between religion and violence—namely, rituals ofsacrifice—has been precariously intermingled with the church's practices and experiences of the "altar sacrament." Girard's theories force us to ask: Is not the altar ofsacrifice essentially the site for a ritualized form of collective violence? 202Paul J. Nuechterlein Girard contends that there are overwhelming cultural and anthropological forces that make it difficult for religions to free themselves from such violent underpinnings. He considers that all religions, in fact, are cultural manifestations ofa generative mimetic scapegoating mechanism, a natural human/social mechanism which contains an all-against-all, communitywide violence by means ofan all-against-one act of violence, i.e., a scapegoating. Religion is, according to this theory, the primary cultural institution that forms in the aftermath ofwhat Robert Hamerton-Kelly summarily calls the "Generative Mimetic Scapegoating Mechanism, or "GMSM" event (1994). Institutionalized religion fortifies the relative peace that the event has accomplished through a three-fold structure: (1) laws and prohibitions, established to prevent further outbreaks ofmimetic violence; (2) mythical stories of the GMSM event, told from the perspective of the perpetrators as a means to justify their violence and disguise it behind the veil of the sacred; and (3) ritual reenactments ofthe GMSM event, most commonly in the form of blood sacrifice, that channel any continuing violent impulses into structured, contained releases. We must be bold to ask of each religion, then, the ways in which it manifests and perpetuates the GMSM. This includes Christianity. To the extent that Christians practice religion, we can expect to find effects ofthe GMSM in essential aspects of the church, such as its practice ofthe "altar sacrament." Girardian support for my argument, however, does not end with this negative thesis regarding the "altar sacrament." Nor does Girardian criticism leave us with a wholly negative assessment of the Christian tradition. In fact, Girard himself experienced a conversion of sorts (see Golsan 129-30), as he began to see his basic premises and theories already revealed in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, especially the gospel narratives of Jesus Christ. He came to view the Christian faith—in spite of its susceptibility to the violent forces of religion—as unique in its core message ofrevealing the one true God. Contrary to the gods ofmythology, the Christian message, through Jesus Christ, reveals the true God to be on the side ofthe GMSM's victims. As such, the Gospel ofJesus Christ stands in opposition to the three-fold structure of religion: (1) it frees people from the oppressive systems oflaws and prohibitions;1 (2) it demythologizes the mythical stories told from the perspective of the perpetrators;2 and (3) it 1 A theme of St. Paul and his criticism of the Law? (see Hamerton-Kelly 1992). 2 A theme of St. John's emphasis on Jesus, the Lamb of God, as bearing witness to the Truth? Holy Communion203 makes obsolete the need for rituals of sacrificial violence.3 The Gospel opens up the way for new life, and for rituals that nourish the new... (shrink)

The author examines various strains in the wider historical tradition of Christian ethical thought that have obscured the moral excellence of mutual love. This examination presupposes that the communion between God, self, and other(s) is the highest ideal of Christian love. Moreover, several conclusions are offered that relate this examination to the writings of Gene Outka and other contemporary ethicists concerned with the meaning of love.

A number of thinkers in recent decades have argued that, in light of the Trinity, we can see that God's being is communion. Particularly effective was John D. Zizioulas, whose Trinitarian ontology centered on communion. Some skeptical of this claim have invoked Aquinas as a source for countering an ontology of communion. I argue that, while Thomas never explicitly affirms that the divine being is communion, he can give us deep resources for reaching this conclusion. Indeed, (...) he can ultimately lead us towards a divine being which is more thoroughly a matter of communion—and towards an ontology which is more radically Trinitarian—than anything we find in Zizioulas. (shrink)

The Greek term Koinǒnia has been for everyday usage, contextually meaning many things – relationships, fellowship, participation, and communion in usages. This paper situates koinonia within the context of communion, evoking a special usage in Christendom. It applies an intercultural and interreligious linkage of the term to an agelong practice of Ndi Igbo, a practice that predates their encounter with Christianity. Ndi Igbo are people living in the Southeastern part of Nigeria, West Africa whose indigenous religion is the (...) Igbo Traditional Religion – a subset of the African Traditional Religion. The encounter with Christianity introduced Koinǒnia from the Christian perspective, not as a new idea because there is an already existing idea of koinonia in their traditional everyday social and religious life. This paper investigates the religious and social dimensions of Koinǒnia from the Greco-Hellenistic period to the early Christian period, to the Pauline period, and the current usage of the term in the present time. This exploration is placed contextually to an age-long practice of Oriko in the Ogbako Umunna of the Igbo people that has the same meaning, effect, and practice model as the Christian communion, without an encounter between the two culture and religion. This paper explores the ontological, religious, cultural, and substantial relation of Koinǒnia as communion as reflected in Christianity and Igbo Traditional Religion. This investigation is an intercultural and interreligious exposé for enriching and fostering the ongoing mutual dialogue between Christianity and indigenous religions. A dialogue situated in bilateral and constructive exchange of experience for inculturation. (shrink)

The purpose of the book is to clarify the notion of existential dependence and cognate notions, such as supervenience and the notion of an internal relation. I defend the view that such notions are best understood in terms of the concept of metaphysical grounding, i.e. the concept of one fact obtaining in virtue of other facts, where ‘in virtue of’ has a distinctively metaphysical meaning.

In existential thought the thinking subject includes itself in its own thinking; this subject is not conceived as a substance that may be objectively determined, for its being lies in a making or constituting itself. Choice is thus the crucial concept of existential thought. Since choice involves awareness of the uncertainty of itspossible outcomes, anguish is inherent in it. Hence anguish in the face of our own freedom is essential to the human reality, and authenticity lies in facing (...) anguish rather than fleeing it. The term metaexistential refers, (1) to those systems that acknowledge absolute authenticity and truth to consist in going beyond existence in all its manifestations—those which are more unauthentic and less conflictive and distressful, as well as those which are less unauthentic and more conflictive and distressful—and (2) to those Paths of Awakening possessing the means for effectively going beyond existence and thus achieving absolute authenticity and truth. In fact, (1) only the Contemplation state of higher bodhisattvas and the state of Buddhahood, which are free from the subject-objectduality and thus beyond the bounds of existence and of the human reality, constitute a genuine surpassing of alienation and delusion, and hence only these conditions are true to our innermost nature; and (2) only a really effective practice of metaexistential methods such as Buddhist Paths can be conducive to these realizations. (shrink)

English-speaking research on morally right decisions in a healthcare context over the past three decades has been dominated by two major perspectives, namely, the Four Principles, of which the principle of respect for autonomy has been most salient, and the ethic of care, often presented as a rival to not only a focus on autonomy but also a reliance on principles more generally. In my contribution, I present a novel ethic applicable to bioethics, particularly as it concerns human procreation, that (...) I argue is a promising alternative to these two approaches. According to this new moral theory, an act is right just insofar as it treats people’s capacity to commune with respect, where communing is a matter of identifying with others and exhibiting solidarity with them. This ethic is inspired by relational ideals of communion and harmony from the African philosophical tradition, but is shown to be attractive to a broad, indeed global, audience, with regard to its implications for the morality of reproduction. (shrink)

Festival is a performative dimension of cultural praxis that strengthens bonds of cohesion in society. Festivals are also an integral part of religious praxis. They have the potentiality of bringing its adherents and non-adherents together thus creating and sustaining social communion among them. This reality of sustaining social communion confirms an important function of religion in society with particular reference to its social integrative effects. Therefore, this article assesses how religious festival, Christmas, fosters social integration among Igbos in (...) Nigeria. On a related note, many Igbos, see Christmas festival as unique occasion for them to visit their communities; attend meetings of their associations and/or town unions and consolidate family ties. These are opportunities for building social integrations, otherwise denoted as social communion in this research. This work makes use of critical analysis of relevant texts and questionnaire survey methods as means of gathering materials and data for this research. In view of understanding how Christmas festival aids social communion among the Igbo ethnic group, the theories of structural functionalism, social capital and social integration are being utilised as theoretical frameworks for this study. Finally, this study avers that religious festival cements social communion between the Igbos in Calabar Metropolis and their ancestral communities. (shrink)

A short review of the literature on the business initiative of 'Economy of Communion', plus a summary of the articles published in this issue. In Portuguese.

Since Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophers have grappled with the question of how to respond to nihilism. Nihilism, often seen as a derogative term for a ‘life-denying’, destructive and perhaps most of all depressive philosophy is what drove existentialists to write about the right response to a meaningless universe devoid of purpose. This latter diagnosis is what I shall refer to as existential nihilism, the denial of meaning and purpose, a view that not only existentialists but also a long line of (...) philosophers in the empiricist tradition ascribe to. The absurd stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and the universe devoid of purpose, man still longs for meaning, significance and purpose. Inspired by Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty, two modern existentialist masterpieces, this paper explores the various alternatives that have been offered in how to respond to the absurd, or as Albert Camus puts it; the only “really serious philosophical problem” and concludes that the problem is compatible with a naturalistic world-view, thereby genuine and transcending existentialism. (shrink)

The standard argument to the conclusion that artificial intelligence (AI) constitutes an existential risk for the human species uses two premises: (1) AI may reach superintelligent levels, at which point we humans lose control (the ‘singularity claim’); (2) Any level of intelligence can go along with any goal (the ‘orthogonality thesis’). We find that the singularity claim requires a notion of ‘general intelligence’, while the orthogonality thesis requires a notion of ‘instrumental intelligence’. If this interpretation is correct, they cannot (...) be joined as premises and the argument for the existential risk of AI turns out invalid. If the interpretation is incorrect and both premises use the same notion of intelligence, then at least one of the premises is false and the orthogonality thesis remains itself orthogonal to the argument to existential risk from AI. In either case, the standard argument for existential risk from AI is not sound.—Having said that, there remains a risk of instrumental AI to cause very significant damage if designed or used badly, though this is not due to superintelligence or a singularity. (shrink)

Abstract:The author considers the Eleatic Stranger's account of being as communing (κοινωνεῖν), an under-recognized aspect of the well-known "dunamis proposal" and Plato's unfolding of the notion of being in the Sophist. The Stranger calls being "the power to act upon or be affected" (247d7-e3), and shortly thereafter describes "being affected or acting upon from a certain power" (248b6) as "communing" (248b2). This marks a shift away from understanding being as capacity toward understanding it as activity. The author identifies two functions (...) of the "being-as-communion" account: (1) a critical response to the previous competing quantitative and qualitative ontologies, and (2) a new ontological notion that plays a key role in the great kinds discussion and what follows, capturing the sense in which to be is to engage actively in relations with structuring, causal kinds. He conclude by speaking to the account's valuable insight into the meaning of being as being-with and being-through. (shrink)

: Watsuji Tetsurō defined ethics as being generated by a double negation: the individual's negation of the community and the self-negation of the individual who returns to the community. Thus, ethics for him is based on the individual's sacrifice for the collectivity. This position results in the conception of the community as an absolute. I contend that there is a congruence between Watsuji's conception of ethics as self-sacrifice and the way he perceived the Japanese political system. To him, the imperial (...) system in Japan is based on the organic unity of the Japanese people, represented by the emperor, who embodies the general will of, and is therefore coterminous with, the Japanese nation. (shrink)