Ground For Reconstruction Research Articles

Ivan Karamazov’s rebellion in Albert Camus’ and Karl Jaspers’ interpretations

The aim of this study is to present Albert Camus’and Karl Jaspers’ interpretations of Ivan Karamazov’s rebellion as the diagnoses of the weakness of the human intellect in confrontation with the world and the criticism of rationalism. Therefore, in the introduction I will present those fragments of the novel that characterize Ivan’s rebellion as highly abstract and theoretical. At the same time, this common literary context serves as the ground for reconstruction and comparison of the basic philosophical assumptions of each author. The intention of the remaining part of the paper is, firstly, to reconstruct A. Camus’ and K. Jaspers’epistemology and, secondly, to analyse the arguments against Ivan’s attitude formulated by the writers. Their criticisms of the protagonist’s excessive trust in intellect is based on their own concepts of human epistemic capacity, which are related to the problems of the absurd in A. Camus’ and transcendence in K. Jaspers’ writings. The question of nihilism demands analysis of A. Camus’ idea of the nature of rebellion as both affirmative and negative, and of K. Jaspers’ notion of faith as pre-intellectual trust. Finally, their criticisms of the slogan “If there is no God, then anything is allowed” introduces the problem of freedom, which allows the comparison of the concepts of solidarity (A. Camus) and communication (K. Jaspers). In the conclusion these two philosophical attitudes are discussed together.

Poethical: breaking ground for reconstruction

Departing from a methodological experiment performed by the authors, this article reflects on and discusses issues of ethics and politics in poetic strategies of ‘representation’. In relation to the experiment the article questions how to conceive the notion of connectedness between empirical time and the reconstruction of it in poststructuralist research. In continued reflection the article elaborates on the meaning and status of body and emotion in poststructuralist, feminist research. The article digs further into questions of poststructuralist epistemology and validity, and asks if poetic, open‐ended ways of presenting lived experience are especially ethical. These reflections lead to a discussion of the possibility of complex and ambiguous poetic representations being politically influential, i.e. how this research can matter to others.