Notion Of Life Research Articles

‘Where are we?’: The ghost as interrogative haunting in The Others

The ghost raises fundamental questions of reality, identity and epistemology. The ghost is the shadow image of otherness that threatens our notions of life, humanity and permanence by intimating that if death is permanent and the afterlife eternal, then perhaps it is our present tangible reality that is the simulacrum. The ghost interrogates the quotidian, not vice versa. The fetishization, aesthesizing and ritualizing of death in the Gothic aims consistently to defer the final definitive ending of death and the state of non-existence. As a memento mori, ghosts remind us that our ruminations of death are not morbid, but life-affirming. This article will explore the depiction of the afterlife in The Others () in which the living are simulations of the dead and vice versa. Unlike the typical horror movie, the predominant discourse of The Others is a postmodern interrogation of belief, truth and doctrine. The haunted house is an in-between land of purgatory, a death space of self-loss and separation that plays out in the conflict between religion and the supernatural. The questions with which the films ends – ‘What does all this mean? Where are we?’ – is not just a geographical question, but an ontological one. The interrogation of Biblical narratives causes the audience to evaluate the reliability of the discourse of established religion and its doctrine of the afterlife. By defying audience expectations of the generic conventions of the ghost story, the movie relies on the viewer’s faith that what we see on-screen is real, when this cinematic reality is as deceptive as seeing dead people artificially propped up to appear alive. Suspended between being and nothingness, both absent and present, the ghost is a metaphor for the simulacrum of film. The cinematic thus serves as the Other by which the real can be defined.

Reincarnation Christology in African Christian Theology

The subject of reincarnation has been considered a reserve of primal (esoteric) religions or cultures. Therefore, it has not been thoroughly studied to decipher the philosophical and theological issues thereof. Notwithstanding, what seems to be the total neglect and lack of interest, the significance of christological parallelism that exists between reincarnation and resurrection as Christological parallels in both African Traditional Religion and African Christianity cannot be disregarded. Reincarnation Christology provides a paradigmatic christological framework that conceptualises Africa’s notion of life as a cycle of death, birth, and rebirth (reincarnation) similar to incarnation, death, and resurrection Christologies of the missionary (Western) Christianity and provides a competitive context that defines the identity, and significance of Jesus in African Christianity and Theology. Even though reincarnation provides a good context for the Christology of Jesus in African traditional religion, Christianity, and Biblical Theology, theologians and biblical scholars such as Mbiti, Bediako, Nyamiti, Wiredu, and Gyekye failed to give it any attention. Nevertheless, the article argued that, like incarnation, death, and resurrection Christologies, reincarnation Christology provides very powerful and strong philosophical constructs for the inculturation of the Christology of Jesus in African Traditional Religion, African Christianity and African Christian Biblical scholarship. The article further argued that, there also exists a strong parallelism between resurrection and reincarnation Christologies which can provide complementing philosophical paradigmatic framework for the christological nomenclatures in Christianity and African traditional religions. Keywords: Christianity, Theology, Reincarnation, Christology, Resurrection, Inculturation, Ancestor, Decolonisation.

Антропология холода: культура питания коренных народов Республики Саха (Якутия)

Reference to the food culture of the indigenous peoples of the North within the framework of anthropology of cold, where the peculiarity of the cultural landscape of the North is the life strategy conditioned by cold and permafrost, is caused by the increased interest of scientific community to the unique experience of life support of the northern ethnic groups. Anthropological understanding of the Cold is a request of the world science in terms of solving a wide range of socio-humanitarian problems related to comprehension, adaptation, cultural experience of life in the "permafrost". The authors of the article consider the food culture of the indigenous peoples of the North as one of the important aspects in the ethnic system of culture and values. The article interprets not only the physiological, but also the cultural foundations of the traditional food of the natives of the North. For the first time on the basis of interdisciplinary methodology the multidimensional phenomenon of nutrition among the indigenous peoples of Yakutia was considered as a conceptualization of the northern cuisine in an innovative direction - cryosophy. The study uses methodological innovations of environmental sociology and cultural anthropology, historical-cognitive and hermeneutic analysis. Based on the retrospective analysis of historical and ethnographic sources and modern sociological and expeditionary materials, the method of mapping analyzes food preferences, traditional technologies and recipes, as well as the symbolic meanings and meanings of food in the context of calendar time. Food occupied an important place and was endowed by the participants with a special semantic meaning. The process of daily and festive meals for the indigenous peoples of the North is a special ritual in which there is a spiritual connection with nature, with the higher deities. The notion of life and its symbolic representation was incorporated into food. At the same time fatty food had a special semantic meaning, which embodied not only the idea of "well-being", but also contributed to the body's resistance to extreme temperatures. Adaptive life-support strategy in the North formed a special dietary regime and food behavior actively using cryogenic resources of cold in the preparation and preservation of food. There is an important conclusion about the circular pattern of nutrition of northern communities in the projections of natural and social space. The authors conclude that the ecologically balanced diet of northern herders, reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen of Yakutia reflects the centuries-old experience of adaptation to extreme low temperatures and also acts as a cultural symbol manifesting the spiritual foundations of life and human destiny in the North.

Boundedness and liveness enforcement for labeled Petri nets using transition priority

This paper deals with the supervisory control problem of discrete event systems modeled by labeled Petri nets. The system is originally unbounded. First, the solvability of the problem is confirmed. A necessary condition is given and proven for the existence of a feasible priority-based controller based on the notions of liveness and transition invariants. Next, a cyclic behavior graph is constructed, which shows the reachable markings that guarantee the maximum liveness of the system within a given bound vector. Finally, an on-line control strategy is proposed to enforce boundedness and liveness to the given system by appending priority relations to transitions. The dynamic priority relation changes flexibly according to the current state of the system and enforces the system evolving in a bounded and live manner. In addition, numerical examples are studied to verify the validity of the proposed approach that remains the structure of the plant net and is efficient for on-line control.

Hegel and Nietzsche on Self-Judgment, Self-Mastery, and the Right to One’s Life

Abstract Nietzsche’s views regarding suicide are usually interpreted as a response to Christian, Kantian, and Schopenhauerian ethics. Here, they are defended on the basis of his notion of life as an aesthetic phenomenon in order to provide extramoral responses to such challenges as the following: a) whether the self can deliver the right kind of judgment regarding her life, b) how suicide can be considered an empowerment of the will, and c) whether suicide can be considered an exercise of freedom by the subject who thereby cancels the very grounds and means for will and action. Reconstructed as a response to Hegel’s argument against suicide on the grounds that one is not the master of oneself and that one therefore lacks the proper means to judge one’s life, Nietzsche’s position provides the epistemic footing to ground an alternate notion of self-mastery as well as the necessary insight regarding one’s life. It is shown that this reading of Nietzsche’s argument is in alignment with his non-dualism and expressivist views regarding agency. Finally, a response is formulated to the socially-grounded arguments prohibiting suicide on the basis of this reading of Nietzsche’s position.

Koncept života u sovjetskoj istoriji umetnosti i slikarstvu 1920-ih

The article explores the concept of life in Soviet art history of the 1920s, as well as in the Soviet expressionism in painting. The notion of life was examined both by the art historians of the State Academy of Art Science (GAkHN) who adhered the classical art tradition, and the formalists (literary and art theorists of the left front) focused on the reduction of aesthetic values in line with their utopian social program. The two groups understood life differently: as a motion par excellence, in the first case, and as a simplified form (primitivism), in the second. However, elements of both perspectives were implicitly present in modern artistic practice, which manifested in the phenomena of Soviet expressionism. The painters combined fluid pictorial substance, motion in compositions, and dramatic conflicts in the plot, on the one hand, and simplified ("primitive") forms on the other. Although paintings of Drevin, Gluskin, Golopolosov and other artists associated with this movement did not receive support from either the traditionalist art critics or the formalist group, all of them were immersed in the semiosphere of the time, equally nourished by its creativity. While they rejected modern expressionism, the art theorists paradoxically professed its principles.

L’intuition, la vie : Réception et influence du bergsonisme dans la philosophie chinoise

This article examines the reception of Bergsonism in Chinese philosophy from the 1920s to the present day. We first examine the reception of Bergson in China during the period 1920-1949 and then in the period 1980-2020. Secondly, the method of intuition is examined. Intuition, as Bergson's philosophical method par excellence, is also preferred by Chinese philosophers. Thirdly, it is the notion of life that is examined, in its ontological and metaphysical dimensions, in both Bergsonian vitalism and Chinese vitalism.

Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology

Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology

Trekking the Amazon with Love and Care

This essay highlights the philosophical views of the Jotï, an Indigenous group from the Venezuelan Amazon. Daily Jotï behaviors are embraced by a notion of life in which everything is interconnected (mana jtïdemame) and should be respected given its sacredness (jkïmañe). Furthermore, life is in perennial movement (jkeibïae dekae) and is designed to be carried out together in groups (uliyena majadïka). The maintenance of life is related to engaging in solidarity, reciprocity, and amicability (me madöna), with these values being the key metaphor for hunting-gathering-farming-fishing rather than predation. The universe is populated by a myriad of entities with unique capacities, volitions, and motivations (budëkïmade)—like those of people, regardless of their nonhuman appearances—evidence that the universe’s inherent condition is subjective, and all life forms originated from the same root. Likewise, no landscape or life form is pristine or final; instead, everything is potentially subject to ceaseless transformation (jka ojtali ~ jkabaemade). Those reasons provide the basis for why every person should strive for righteousness (nï jti maudöna), endeavoring to be morally good and practicing love-care with all that surrounds us (jkyo jkwainï). Love-care is the translation of a praxis considered an innate essential constituent of all persons. It is also the fundamental strategy to sustain and protect life. Given that nothing prevents a person anywhere in the world from embracing love and care as their life motto while struggling to prevent the current path of destruction of the Earth, the enactment of love-care is an endless possibility regardless of location or time.

Is Michel Henry’s Radical Phenomenology of Life a Christian Philosophy?

This paper examines two fundamental claims by Michel Henry on his philosophy’s relationship with classical phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) and Christianity. It shows in what way Henry’s phenomenology is the radicalization and absolutization of classical phenomenology: pure phenomenological truth is the identification of appearing and what appears rather than the separation of the two. According to Henry, his notions of life and truth is fully in accordance with Christianity’s Revelation of God. In the last part, the paper challenges Henry’s claim that his phenomenology is a Christian philosophy from a Kierkegaardian point of view and argues that Henry’s phenomenology is, as a matter of fact, a philosophy without Christ. Contrary to a popular viewpoint that Michel Henry is a Christian thinker of our age, I would argue that Henry’s concept of God and Christ is essentially a scholarly philosophical invention. If Henry’s philosophy is an absolute and ultimate form of phenomenology, then it is reasonable to draw a conclusion that Christ as the Truth of Christianity is outside the boundary of phenomenology.

Candomblé and time

Different societies and cultures have their own concepts of time, of the passing of life, of past facts and of history. In societies with a mythical culture, ‘without history’, unfamiliar with writing, time is circular and life is believed to be an eternal repetition of happenings in the remote past as narrated by the myth. Afro-Brazilian religions, constituted from African traditions brought by slaves, still cultivate a notion of time that is very different from “our” time, that of the West and of capitalism (FABIAN, 1985). Because of its link with the notion of life and death and concepts of this world and the next, the notion of time is essential to the constitution of religion.

The Notion of Life

The Notion of Life

Rural emplacements: linking heterotopia, one health and ikigai in central Hokkaido

For over fifteen years the author has conducted fieldwork in a rural area of central Hokkaido. During that time the linkage between individualistic notions of life’s meaning, wellness and location or environment have been popular conversation topics among a wide array of interlocutors both native and newcomer. This article briefly outlines three distinct theoretical strands—heterotopia, specifically its concern with emplacement; the One Health paradigm, notably the importance of more-than-human effects and affects; and ikigai, often translated as what gives life meaning. It then disembeds these frames from their common limits and contextual moorings in urban studies and art interpretation, public and veterinary health, and Japanese studies respectively, in order to weave them together via ethnographic biographies that open for comparison concerns regarding health and well-being that vary yet collectively sustain the motivation, sometimes fleeting and often liminal, to remain in rural Japan

‘We must urgently learn to live differently’: the biopolitics of ESD for 2030

Recently, the new global policy framework for implementing education for sustainable development (ESD) – ESD for 2030 – was launched officially. Drawing on Foucauldian theory, this paper explores biopolitical elements in ESD for 2030. The paper contributes to previous research on ESD policy by employing a biopolitical perspective, and by highlighting problematic aspects of the framework’s will to include and to adapt to different contexts. The analysis brings attention to the framework’s notions of life and to how different human populations are separated. Furthermore, the analysis of the framework demonstrates how notions of transformative pedagogy, community, and the individual, assume the functions of biopolitical techniques. The findings point to a biopolitical differentiation where rich and poor populations are assumed to need different educational interventions, adapted to their socio-economic contexts, in the global educational policy quest for sustainable development. Ultimately, we consider the potential of Foucauldian ethics as an affirmative alternative to the current mode of biopolitical differentiation in global ESD policy

SummerWorks Leaders Interviews

This text is a compendium of interviews with some of the leaders of the SummerWorks Festival including Carol Pauker, Bryan Marrion, Franco Boni, Keira Loughran, Michael Rubenfeld, and current Artistic and Managing Director Laura Nanni. Each participant was invited to reflect on the same five questions, relating to the challenges they faced during their tenure, things they wish they had done differently, and their hopes for the future of the organization. Interviews were edited for length, clarity, and accuracy. The text touches on aspects of the program including the Parallel Lab, the shift to being a fully curated event, and the inclusion of performance forms beyond text-based theatre. The text also discusses the impacts of COVID-19 on the performance sector, how it is reshaping collaboration, notions of liveness, and reaffirming the need for the collective experience of live performance.

Relations Along, not Between: Incorporating Becoming into Relational Sociology (via Life-Philosophy)

The article advances a type of relational sociology that is sensitive to the continually ongoing formation of beings and relations over the course of time. While the dynamic and fluid character of relations has been stressed by other relational scholars as well, the article suggests by drawing from the work of Simmel and anthropologist Tim Ingold that to attend to the coming-into-being and change of beings and relations, we need to alter the very grammar of considering relations: instead of fathoming them as connectionsbetweenentities, we had better examine them as lines of lifealongwhich things become, act, change, move, and grow. This is to interweave the concept of relations with the notion oflife, which the article conceptualizes by turning to the life-philosophy of Simmel. Instead of regarding life as encapsulated inside living organisms, Simmel considers it as form-giving immanent in the world’s incessant processes of becoming.

Dawn of the lively dead: Living queerly with rot in the sustainable city

ABSTRACT This paper presents stories of living with dead trees in Baltimore, MD, USA to explore where, how, and with whom tree remains become lively through art, farming, and sustainability practices. These stories serve as a lens into the diverse ways practitioners produce knowledge about death, healing, disease, and decay as they encounter and transform dead nonhuman bodies. I find that practitioners who work with dead trees develop a circular understanding of death, and propose that decay is needed to heal bodies and remediate land. However, when these everyday embodied knowledges are translated from the level of body to the city, death does not become lively for all. When circular ways of knowing death are applied to the city, death is displaced into vulnerable human and tree bodies showing that the sustainable city both relies on and (re)produces the binaries of life and death. As a contrast, practitioner knowledges of tree death suggest sustainabilities that trouble established notions of life and death, bodies and environments, health and disease, and decay and beauty.

The Postcolonial Bare Life: Reflections on Agamben and the Coronavirus

The ongoing pandemic has undeniably propagated an atmosphere of paranoia and discontent in both the West and the East, and it is in this context where Giorgio Agamben wrote a brief but controversial article where he argues that this pandemic enables governments to opportunistically decree a state of exception that will lead to tyranny. Critics have generally responded negatively to Agamben’s views, given that this is not the case in the West. It is becoming apparent, however, that the very thing Agamben feared is happening in post-colonial states. In this paper, I look at how the current pandemic enables a postcolonial state like the Philippines to define (or redefine) the notion of life through authoritarian measures as it claims a strong democratic mandate. My reflections on Agamben takes off from Rodrigo Duterte’s national speeches during the pandemic. I aim to show that his manifestly militarized response is a manifestation of the sovereign exception that politicizes and separates zo? (which is mere biological life) from bios (which is livable life that can participate politically), as Agamben might put it. Finally, I offer reflections on how the postcolonial legacy of the Philippines could potentially complicate how we might think about the notion of bare life—a figure that is neither zo? nor bios.

The Tyranny of Health: Juli Zeh's “Body Utopia” Corpus Delicti: Ein Prozess (2009)

Juli Zeh, who enjoys an international reputation, is one of the most gifted and productive writers of Germany today. Her dystopian tale Corpus Delicti: Ein Prozess (2009; English translation, 2012) represents a lively, intelligent, and innovative addition to the genre. It presents a picture of a benevolent dictatorship that demands good health as the highest duty of its citizens, in a sequence of dramatic scenes combining the virtues of a thriller with a dystopia focusing on the present-day preoccupation with health and the body. Most segments are presented as scenes of a trial against a biologist who is accused of rebellion against “The Method,” the ruling order of the future state, whose dominant ideology is “Health as the Principle of State Legitimacy.” Thus metaphysical morality and Enlightenment values such as freedom, democracy, and justice have been replaced by a scientific, secular notion of life as the ultimate criterion and value.

Living dead: Suspended lives during/after gender violence

This article takes up a distinction between two times commonly found in works on violence—the time in or during the violence and the time after the violence—and contrasts it with evidence gathered in field work conducted in Spain mainly with victims of gender violence. For these women, life after the violence is (or continues to be) a “living death.” With this characterization I seek to further the debate on the notion of life as perceived in sociology, bearing in mind that in that discipline life has been assumed as a given, and arguing instead that life should be understood as “making a life.”