Since the very dawn of its history, modern philosophical anthropology has been addressing the issue of the human body. As a result of those efforts, Descartes, de Biran, Husserl, Sartre, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty and others have brought forward a variety of conceptions concerning various aspects of human corporeality. Anthropological explorations concerning the question of the human body, appear in a particularly interesting way, when they are considered in the context of those points of view which, in an essential way, refer to the subjective character of the human being. It is a matter of reconstructing and analyzing how the subject's corporeality is given to the subject, originarily, according to the phenomenological rule zu den Sachen selbst. The aim of this paper is thus to put into some order the concerns of a variety of anthropologists with regard to the question of the human body, as it is given to, or experienced by, the subject. A metatheoretical analysis of this field proves it is possible to do so with the use of a tool, which is called here, a dimension of corporeality.
The author attempts to explore the status of truth in the works of Levinas. This analy-sis first requires a preparatory study of the status of truth in the works of Husserl and Heidegger. On the basis of these deliberations, the text then elaborates the Levinasian concept of truth with a reference to Totality and Infinity, as well as Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence.
The main character in the novel "Papa Sartre" (2001), written by an Iraqi writer ʻAli Bader, is ʻAbd al-Rahman, described as a philosopher famous in the intellectual circle of Baghdad in the 1950s and 1960s. ʻAbd al-Rahman gained popularity by familiarising the Baghdadian intellectuals with the existential thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. However, practicing of existentialism in his daily life seems to have more in common with moral nihilism. As for the Iraqi intellectuals shown in the novel, they appear as adopting fashionable philosophical and literary trends in a non-critical way. With reference to this literary fiction, the paper seeks an answer to the question whether ʻAbd al-Rahman’s understanding of existentialism was the only one among Arab intellectuals. The first part of the paper tracks circumstances of introducing the existential thought into the milieu of the Arabic poets after the World War II. However, in those days identification with national or social trends in Arabic literature was much stronger than with existentialism, which was perceived as socially harmful by many intellectuals. A brief outline of the psychological condition of the generation of Arab intellectuals after the World War II, with reference to the article ‘The Lost Generation’ published in the "Magazine Al-Adib" in 1950, as well as to the words of an Iraqi poet Buland al-Haydari, is also provided. The socio-political situation in Iraq which contributed to Buland al-Haydari’s social and existential alienation and alienation of other Iraqi intellectuals of the time (i.e. ʻAbd al-Wahhab al-Bayati and Nazik al-Malaʼika) is mentioned too. Finally, the article discuses the problem of reception of existential thought in the works of Buland al-Haydari ("Pulsation of Clay" 1947 and "Songs of the Dead City" 1951), Nazik al-Mala’ika ("Sparks and Ashes" 1949) and ʻAbd al-Wahhab al-Bayati ("Broken Pitchers" 1954), concentrating on their reflection on life and death with reference to some of the main existential ideas (eg. the absurd, the revolt) and symbols (eg. Sisyphe). The aim of this article is to demonstrate that through relating their feelings and reflections with the existential thought these poets had a powerful tool to express and describe their psychological condition in that difficult time for the Arab community.
It is thought that Schleiermacher used religious experience as a new kind of argument to safeguard Christian faith when he was faced with the failure of traditional arguments for the existence of God. This paper argues that such a view does not do justice to the newness of his approach in constructing a propaedeutic to Christian theology. It is further argued that, irrespective of whether one agrees with what Schleiermacher was trying to do, if religious experience is to become a contemporary preambula fidei to Christian theology, the focus should be on communicating a positive experience rather than on arguing for God's existence.
Stanislaw Lem is one of the most famous figures of the Polish science fiction in post-world war two Europe. Solaris. His most famous novel, was published in 1961, and was adapted twice for the big screen, first in 1971 by Andrej Tarkovski, and in 2002 by Steven Soderbergh. The plot revolves around the psychologist Kris Kelvin, who is sent on the planet Solaris to try to find out if it is possible to communicate with the alien ocean that covers almost all of its surface. Confronted with a strange phenomenon and colleagues turned paranoid, Kelvin tries at first to understand what is going on at the space station. The unexplained arrival of the döppleganger of his ex-partner, Harey, will little by little make him accept the absurdity of his task and possibly of life itself. As Lem himself refused any final interpretation of his novel, there has of course been a flourish of them. One can however choose this exegetic impossibility as a major theme in the novel, and reflect on the implications of the situation Kelvin faces, caught between a desire to understand the nature of Solaris’s ocean and the sheer failure of doing so. In this essay, we will try to suggest that, by showing the limits of language as the means to express a satisfying epistemic frame, Lem’s parabol could be seen as an attempt to show the reader the existential limits of our anthropocentrism and scientific hubris.
The paper introduces all the essays in the volume in the context of Affect Theory and the Theory of Existentialism. These two theories help explain some expected but slightly distressing zones in the enclosed texts. It seems that all these texts embrace inconspicuously the fear of the present and of the future. In their very well researched articles, dealing with various aspects of contemporary times, like jihadism, terrorism, the nature of Russian soul, the presence of the post Socialist ideology in Eastern Europe, kitsch, morality in the world of simulacra, the world of Barack Obama and the presence/absence of Jesus in pop-culture, the authors carefully explore their topics within the general theme of the volume, Social Unrest in History. Analyses, interpretations and representations in literature and visual arts. The author of this essay concludes her article with an argument that the area of affect should be paid closer attention than ever when analyzing the above topics today.
I argue that the following two claims provide us with sufficiently strong reason to conclude that God came into existence from nothing a finite time in the past: (1) that God is omnitemporal; and (2) that there is a first moment of time. After defending the possibility of God beginning to exist ex nihilo from various objections, I critique two alternative attempts at providing an account of the relationship between an omnitemporal God and the beginning of time (that of Alan Padgett and William Lane Craig). I show that these either fail to be an alternative to my own model or are less supported by the relevant evidence.
Arguments about the existence of a being who is infinite and perfect involve claims about a being who must appear in all the orders and dimensions of reality. Anything else implies finitude. Ideas about goodness seem inseparable from arguments about the existence of God and Kant's claim that such arguments ultimately belong to moral theology seems plausible. The claim that we can rely on the postulates of pure practical reason is stronger than many suppose. But one must show that a being who is infinite and perfect is even possible, and any such being must be present in the physical world as well as in what Pascal called the orders of the intellect and morality (which he called the order of charity). Indeed, locating God in the various orders without creating conflicts is problematic. Such arguments are necessarily difficult and sometimes self-defeating but I argue in this paper that there is a promising path.
Amerykański trapista i pisarz religijny Tomasz Merton jest autorem Siedmiopiętrowej góry, Posiewu kontemplacji, Wspinaczki ku prawdzie, Nowego człowieka oraz wielu innych pozycji z dziedziny duchowości. Jest on również dociekliwym myślicielem, który porównuje filozofię scholastyczną ze współczesnym egzystencjalizmem. W Domniemaniach współwinnego świadka podejmuje polemikę z Heideggerowską koncepcją śmierci. Merton rozpatruje to zagadnienie z punktu widzenia chrześcijańskiej aksjologii. Czymś nielogicznym jest dla niego dogmat egzystencjalizmu: idea „śmierci Boga”. Całą jego twórczość spina polemika z anglikańskim teologiem, zainspirowanym filozofią Fryderyka Nietzschego, Thomasem Altizerem. Merton pokazuje tu, w jaki sposób teologia bazująca na Objawieniu oraz teologia naturalna są nośnikami poznania egzystencjalnego, w sensie scholastycznym jako rozpoznanie Istnienia. Z niego wynika świadomość dobra moralnego jako uczestnictwa w istnieniu Boga, Dawcy dobra. W świetle tego poznania koncepcja „śmierci Boga” jest czymś nieprawdopodobnym.
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Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk and religious writer, is the author of The Seven Storey Mountain, Seeds of Contemplation, The Ascent to Truth, the New Man and many other works in the field of spirituality. He is also an analytical thinker comparing scholastic philosophy with modern existentialism. In Conjectures of a guilty bystander he takes up a polemic with the Heideggerian concept of death. Merton examines this issue from the point of view of Christian axiology. The dogma of existentialism is something illogical to him: the idea of “the death of God”. His entire work is linked to a polemic with Thomas Altizer, an Anglican theologian inspired by the philosophy of Fryderyk Nietzsche. Merton shows how theology of Revelation and natural theology are carriers of existential cognition, in the scholastic sense as the recognition of Existence. From it comes the awareness of moral goodness as participation in the existence of God, the giver of good. In the light of this recognition, the concept of “God’s death” is something unlikely.
The main followers of phenomenological-existential trend in the field of philosophy of God in Poland are: Marian Jaworski, Józef Tischner and Karol Tarnowski. Jaworski united thomistic arguments for existence of God with augustian philosophy of subject and personal-axiological experience. Tischner completely rejected thomism and his philosophy of God based on anthropology and personal values. Tarnowski also was critical toward ontological-cosmological arguments for existence of God. He is fallower of G. Marcel and therefore accepted religious faith as basis of theism.
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