The linguistic theory of the Kabbala, as it is explained in the writings of the Kabbalists of the 13th century—or at least basically implied in them—comes to rest upon a combination of the above-mentioned interpretations of the Book of Yetsira with the doctrine of the Name of God as a basis of that language. What is essentially new in this is the way in which the scope and range of a divine language—as understood by the Kabbalists—is brought into unique prominence (...) over and beyond the realm of created man. In the Book of Yetsira there could still be some doubt as to whether the ten Sefiroth and the 22 letters were themselves thought of as created; and as we have seen, there is even considerable evidence in favor of this conception. In the doctrines and teachings of the Kabbalists, however, this is no longer the case. The ten original numbers have become ten emanations of the divine fullness of being. Where these are concerned one can only now talk in terms of creation in a meta-phorical sense. In the Sefiroth of the Kabbalists, God manifests himself in ten spheres or aspects of his activity. The 22 letters are themselves part and parcel of this area; they are configurations of the divine energies, which are themselves grounded in the world of the Sefiroth, and whose appearance in the world either beyond, outside or beneath this realm of the divine emanations is simply a gradual process of de-refinement and an intensified crystallization of those innermost signs of all things, as they correspond to the progressively evolving and increasingly condensed media of the creation. All creation, from the world of the highest angel to the lower realms of physical nature, refers symbolically to the law which operates within it—the law which governs in the world of the Sefiroth. In everything something is reflected—one might just as well say—from the realms which lie in the center of it. Everything is transparent, and in this state of transparency everything takes on a symbolic character. This means that every thing, beyond its own meaning, has something more, something which is part of that which shines into it or, as if in some devious way, that which has left its mark behind in it, forever. The Book of Yetsira was still far removed from this type of interpretation. For the Kabbalists, however, the Sefiroth and the letters, in which the word of God is explained, or which constitute the word of God, were simply two different methods in which the same reality might be represented in a symbolic manner. In other words: whether the process of the manifestation of God, his stepping outside under the symbol of the light, and his diffusion of knowledge and reflection is what is represented, or whether it is to be understood to be the activeness of the divine language, of the self-differentiating word of the creation or even of the self-explanatory name of God. In the last analysis, this, for the Kabbalists, is no more than a question of the choice between symbolic structures which are in themselves equally arranged—the symbolism of light and the symbolism of language. (shrink)

“Thy word (or: essence) is true from the beginning”; thus reads the Psalmist's passage, oft quoted in kabbalistic literature (Psalm 119: 160). According to the originally conceived Judaistic meaning, truth was the word of God which was audible both acoustically and linguistically. Under the system of the synagogue, revelation is an acoustic process, not a visual one; or revelation at least ensues from an area which is metaphysically associated with the acoustic and the perceptible (in a sensual context). This is (...) repeatedly emphasised with reference to the words of the Torah (Deuteronomy 4: 12): “Ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.” What precisely we are to understand by this voice and what is uttered through it is the very question which the various currents of Judaistic religious thought have constantly posed themselves. The indissoluble link between the idea of the revealed truth and the notion of language—is as much, that is, as the word of God makes itself heard through the medium of human language, if, otherwise, human experience can reach the knowledge of such a word at all—is presumably one of the most important, if not the most important, legacies bequeathed by Judaism to the history of religions. (shrink)

Anarchist aesthetics are virtually unheard-of today. As a reflection of the birth of a new anti-authoritarian sensibility, as well as of the somewhat mechanical application of the general theses of the philosophy of anarchism to the problems of literary and artistic creation, these aesthetics did, however, know an hour of glory in the 19th century. But at the turn of the century anarchism lost its sense of immediacy when it no longer held its position as the ideology of the international (...) worker's movement. Its fortune, like the fortune of any “political” aesthetic, depends very closely on the successes and failures of the ideology of which it is a point of reference. (shrink)

The standpoint of this article is, first and foremost, a historical one, giving an introductory outline of a general theory of thrift. More specifically, it aims at comparing the principle (or: principles) of economy of thought and the principle of “natural economy” to coin a short term.By way of a prologue, a historical and interpretative summary of events shows the consequences of a cultural fact which hallmarks the 14th century and, in itself, restores the first frank expression of a principle (...) of thrift, at once theoretical and practical, to its essential context, thus countering the in flation of abstract entities. Nevertheless, it would not appear, three centuries later, that the nosology of the Diafoirus, at which Moliere poked so much fun, had already adopted this precious standard for itself. (shrink)

In the contemporary Moslem-Arab societies, does the function of the intellectual recall that of the classic scholar, at once counsellor of the great people, honor of the city or of the village, and regulator, through the culture, through judicial consultation or through the education, of the social life? Any analogy too greatly stressed would be hazardous. After having sketched the constitutive movement of the Moslem civilization and its present state, we may then attempt to appraise the situation of the intellectual (...) between the power and the cultural system. (shrink)

Research into the psychological characteristics of a people in the context of its so-called literary production has been frequently criticized, and not without good reason. In an article published in the Revue de Psychologie des peuples, Mr. Brossaud of the Center for the Study of Civilizations at Nanterre—a department under the direction of Professor Guy Michaud—has emphasized the difficulties presented by the literary approach in the field of ethno-psychology. If the ethno-psychologist demonstrates a certain suspicion towards anything that does not (...) represent pure ethno-psychology, this is because the interest of a poem or a play is essentially of an aesthetic nature. It would certainly be a perilous task to look for the characteristics of the French mentality, for example, in the literary works of contemporary France. (shrink)

In the universal history of philosophy it is perhaps impossible to find a definition of truth which has not, to some extent, already been formulated by the philosophers of Ancient Greece. Conversely, however, it is also certain that the universal history of philosophy, in essence, simply consists in a permanent force of human thought, directed at certain times and from certain viewpoints at a redefinition of the nature and essence of truth. By virtue of this, we shall address ourselves to (...) this theme; we shall explore four conceptions of truth which appear to us to be representative and the most relevant in the context of an original philosophical culture, such as was the culture of Greece during the classical period. In this cultural context various concepts of truth will evolve; we shall call them ontological-existential, epistemological, logical (with specifications pertinent to this area) and pragmatic. At the same time we shall attempt to consider the degree to which each one of these concepts appears in other cultural contexts, with the emphasis and bias which they receive in a specific sense from the sensibility proper to these other cultures—Eastern and Western in the various periods—; the object being to indicate the common and distinctive features of their conceptions. (shrink)