Object Of Enjoyment Research Articles

Explication of the Truth of PATHI in Saiva Siddhanta

Among the triple entities of PATHI (GOD), PASU (SOUL(S) and PAASAM Among the triple entities of PATHI (GOD), PASU (SOUL(S) and PAASAM (RESTRAIN(S) of SAIVA SIDDHANTA, this research paper deals with PATHI. All of these triple entities are eternal. PATHI, the God of Saiva Siddhanta is SIVAM. SIVAN is the same. That which is related to SIVAM is SAIVAM, says Thirumanthiram. The Ultimate God of SAIVAM is SIVAN. He is the SUPREME. SAIVA SIDDHANTA explains the way to reach him. PASU, the soul(s) released from its PAASAM, the restrain(s) and merges with PATHI, the Supreme is MUKTHI, the state of fullest potency - liberation. This is the Supreme Bliss SAAYUCHCIYAM of ULTIMATE LIBERATION – PARA MUKTHI, says Thirumanthiram. This is the state of those reached the feet of the Lord by realizing His Real State Itself – THAT-SIVAM. This state of non-dual union of the two is comparable to the conjunction of the two Tamil words THAAL(The feet of the Lord) + THALAI (Head of the devotee) becoming one word THAADALAI. The SUPREME LOVE (KARUNAI) of the God PATHI is the one that helps the souls to attain this state of their fullest potency - liberation. PATHI, the God provides the souls with THANU – the body, KARANA – the instruments, PUVANA – the place – universe and BHOGA – the objects of experience, to experience as per their individual twin karma to consume the fruits of it. All these are products of MAYA as such they are called MAYEYAM. Going through this, the sprit soul gains PAASA JNANA – the worldly intelligence, PASU JNANA – the spiritual intelligence and then reaches the states of equanimity of karma – IRU-VINAI-OPPU and ripening of the Restrains ready to be removed – MALA-PARI-PAAGA for the Descent of the Salvic Potency of the God – SAKTHI-NIPAADHA ultimately to attain the SUPREME INTELLIGENCE of SIVA – PATHI JNANA. PATHI, the God inseparable with His unblemished, unconditional, unlimited supreme Love – SAKTHI, bestows the souls with His state of Supreme Intelligence – PATHI JNANA. PATHI, the God both through his REAL FORM/NATURE – SWA-RUPA/ SOROOPA LAKSHANA and OFFICIAL FORM/NATURE – THADATHTHA LAKSHANA graces the souls. God in his real form - SWA-RUPA/SOROOPA STATE is all pervasive, neither of any form nor formless and no descriptions. This STATE OF SUPREME SELF IN ITSELF is called SUDDHA SIVAM – THE PURE STATE. The same God in his official form – THADATHTHA state, assumes nine different forms for three different actions – LAYA – bestowing immersion in him, BHOGA - bestowing worldly enjoyments and ADIGAARA – bestowing status of power for the souls. The same takes the form of our ultimate GURU to grace. 
 As per the concept of SAT-KARYA-VAADHA, there is no effect without a cause, as such PATHI, the God is the Intelligence behind the creation, sustenance and dissolution of the universe as the Efficient cause – NIMITHTHA-KAARANAM. He is the cause of all these (again and again) after recurrent cycles of complete destruction, as such He, the God of Dissolution is praised as the HEAD of ALL. As per the concept of SAT-KARYA-VAADHA, there is no effect without a cause, as such PATHI, the God is the Intelligence behind the creation, sustenance and dissolution of the universe as the Efficient cause – NIMITHTHA-KAARANAM. He is the cause of all these (again and again) after recurrent cycles of complete destruction, as such He, the God of Dissolution is praised as the HEAD of ALL. The Supreme PATHI described in Saiva Siddhanta stands out as Omniscient cause of the all causes and actions bestows the souls with His GRACE – THIRU-ARUL. It redeem the souls by making them one with Him. It Transforms the SEEVAN, the soul by bestowing SIVAHOOD – SIAVATHTHUVAM – the godly state of INFINITE BLISS – SIVA-ANANDAM under Him. This is the Ultimate State of Non-dual Realization – ADVAITA-MUKTHI. The Real role of God in Saiva Siddhanta is to provide the souls with respective bodies, instruments, objects of enjoyment and place in multiple births until they mature enough through experience - MALAPARI-PAAGA, to bestow SIVAHOOD – the godly state ultimately. This is the True Nature of God -PATHI in Saiva Siddhanta.

Burying the superego?

ABSTRACT This essay unfolds in four parts. In the first part I argue that the struggle against apartheid must be understood as a war against war, namely a war that is waged with the superego of apartheid as war itself. In the second part, I consider J.M. Coetzee’s essay on The Mind of Apartheid in the context of the hypothesis put forth by Jacques-Alain Miller and others that racism is the theft of enjoyment. I show that the superego of apartheid is both a threatening and a threatened object and that working to produce the impression that the object of enjoyment is under constant threat is an essential component of the superego’s sadism. In part three I stay with Coetzee’s essay to consider the spatialisation of the superego under apartheid. I argue that this spatialisation should be understood in terms of Carl Schmitt’s concept of the nomos. Finally, in part four I reconsider earlier work on apartheid as enforced melancholia to argue for a burial of the apartheid superego that can release the subject of the postapartheid from enforced psychosis.

Armstrong on Justice, Well-being and Natural Resources

This paper argues first that Armstrong is led to see natural resources primarily as objects of consumption. But many natural resources are better seen as objects of enjoyment, where one person’s access to a resource need not prevent others from enjoying equal access, or as objects of production, where granting control of a resource to one person may produce collateral benefits to others. Second, Armstrong’s approach to resource distribution, which requires that everyone must have equal access to welfare, conceals an ambiguity as to whether this means equal opportunity for welfare, or simply equal welfare – the underlying issue being how far individuals (or countries) should be held responsible for the use they make of the resources they are allocated. Third, when Armstrong attacks arguments that appeal to ‘improvement’ as a basis for claims to natural resources, he treats them as making comparative desert claims: if country A makes a claim to the improved resources on its territory, it must show that their comparative value accurately reflects the productive deserts of its members compared to those of countries B. But in fact, A needs only to make the much weaker claim that its members have done more than others to enhance the value of its resources. Overall, Armstrong’s welfarist approach fails to appreciate the dynamic advantages of allocating resources to those best able to use them productively.

Socio-Historical Context and Dematerialization of the Art Object

The new socio-historical context of the world, multipolarity, the decentralization and, above all, rapid technological development, inevitably led to a change in the way art is shaped. The new socio-historical context meant putting an end to the linear interpretation of art, often marking it as the end of art. The world is fragmenting; the traditional ways of expressing creativity have been exhausted and perfected technological production is taking over this function. Considering the existing attitudes about the end of art as we know it, we could rather speak about the end of the material, i.e., the end of the art object, but not the end of the idea or the concept itself. Due to the newly emerged social context, the meaning of the artwork has shifted from the material, i.e., from the object to a discursive and abstract field. In other words, the concept, idea, and theory are primary; they form the essence of the artwork, not the object itself. It is about the fact that the world we live in and the discourses – within which artwork is created – have changed due to the aforementioned reasons, and accordingly, the design of the artwork has also changed. Conceptual artwork and related art practices are the best examples of this. Art itself has become an object of enjoyment and contentment in the world of a modern consumer society, globalization, complete commercialization, and popular culture, in which traditional artwork as an art object no longer exists. Instead, in the modern consumer society, all is about experiencing a sensual and pleasant event, whether it is a tourist visit to a museum or attending an exhibition. Article received: December 12, 2019; Article accepted: January 31, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2020; Review article

Incesto: el Tabú de Edipo. Cuando la función del “por lo menos uno que no” es fallida

Desde muy temprano Lacan supo resaltar los efectos devastadores del incesto, ubicando esta cuestión en términos del estrago (ravage). En general, esta parece ser la referencia más común que se utiliza en los casos de incesto para dar cuenta de la gravedad sintomática de los pacientes. Sin embargo, cuando Lacan desarrolla el nudo borromeo en Seminario 22 (Complejo de Edipo — realidad psíquica freudiana), le confiere a la interdicción del incesto un carácter estructurante y simbólico, por ser, al decir de Lévi-Strauss, la norma/intervención (universal y particular a la vez) que permite el pasaje de la naturaleza a la cultura. Estas referencias nos imponen entonces rever la question del incesto en términos lógicos de las fórmulas de sexuación y no ya tanto desde el sentido descriptivo del asunto, visibilizando la falla estructural de la función del “por lo menos uno que no” (desarrollada durante los Seminarios 18, 19 y 20) y sus implicancias a nivel del Complejo de Edipo (como cuarto que anuda los tres registros) y de las políticas de goce. Sin dudas, la mujer como objeto de goce, desarrollada en el Seminario 14, más los recientes aportes de Silvia Federici sobre las mujeres, el cuerpo y la acumulación originaria, será un pasaje necesario para entender el lugar de la mujer y del capital en toda esta question tan extraña como ominosa.

HUNGER, REPLETION, AND ANXIETY

In our time, the hegemony of the discourse of the capitalist tends to impose a new illusion, different from those promoted by religion and positivistic thought: the illusion that the object of desire is embodied in the object of enjoyment, that is, the illusion that, by consuming the object of enjoyment, it is possible to heal the wound that runs through human reality and makes it structurally precarious and lacking, hence subjected to the enigmatic power of desire. The endless production of objects and gadgets captures the hypermodern subject in an environment of collective mania. The bond with the Other and the dimension of the erotic-amorous exchange that it entails is substituted by the unilateral relationship with an unlimited series of inhuman partners (drugs, food, alcohol, psychotropic drugs, the fetishized imaged of one’s body, virtual realities, and so on). From this very general perspective and drawing from Lacan, this paper considers anorexia and bulimia as two exemplary declinations of this substitution and of this new (post-human; monadic) version of the social bond.

Personalistic and Utilitarian View of Marriage According to Early Wojtyła

The main goal of this paper is to present the philosophical (i.e. attained by the light of natural reason) explanation of the marital relationship according to the Polish philosopher Karol Wojtyła. In our research, our attention was focused mainly on his book Love and Responsibility; the early philosophical work of a young, 37 year old Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University in Lublin, Poland. In his writings, Karol Wojtyła—the future Pope John Paul II—presents marriage as a monogamous, indissoluble relationship between a man and a woman, which grows out of mutual love for the purpose of procreation. Such a relationship is ruled by the „personalistic norm" which says that a person can never, under any circumstances, be a mere object of enjoyment for another person, but can only be the object (co-object) of love. Love is a self-giving for the good of one's counterpart, so Marriage as a personalistic unity persists as long as these persons are alive. Because love is fecund from its very essence, so it is fruitful from its nature. Thus, procreation belongs to the principle ends of marriage. Such an attitude—as K. Wojtyła proves—is opposed to the utilitarian point of view of man and Marriage. According to the utilitarian conception, a person can be used as a means for achieving the highest good, i.e., pleasure.

Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment

Abstract This paper takes on the broad theme of the relation between legality and morality in Immanuel Kant's practical philosophy. It aims, more specifically, at a clarification of Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment. I claim that Kant's statements in his later writings, especially in the Metaphysics of Morals, of the obligation of citizens of a state to subject themselves unconditionally to the sovereign in power, must be seen in connection with his earlier moral writings in order to maintain a proper Kantian conception of the relation between legality and morality. To this end, Kant's use of the concept of enjoyment is instructive, and looking at it closely makes it possible to spell out why obedience in itself does not suffice for a moral existence. Subjecting ourselves to the prescriptions of positive law might actually function as a way of escaping the insatiable demands of the moral law. In this case, the positive law not only sustains our enjoyment (by securing basic liberties), but also comes to function as an object of enjoyment itself.

Modernist Documentary: Aaron Siskind's Harlem Document

Modernist Documentary: Aaron Siskind’s Harlem Document Joseph Entin* (bio) I. Introduction In his essay “The Author as Producer,” originally given as an address in 1934 at the Institute for the Study of Fascism in Paris, Walter Benjamin warns of the capacity of the dominant regime of cultural production to incorporate and de-politicize potentially radical materials and impulses. “[T]he bourgeois apparatus of production,” Benjamin argues, “can assimilate astonishing quantities of revolutionary themes, indeed, can propagate them without calling its own existence, and the existence of the class that owns it, into question.” As an example of the power of the hegemonic regime to subsume and transfigure potentially subversive materials into a confirmation of the dominant order, Benjamin cites trends in contemporary photography, which he argues have aestheticized images of dire poverty, turning representations of social inequality and oppression into artifacts of artistic appreciation and contemplative pleasure. The school of “New Objectivity” photography, Benjamin asserts, has become “ever more nuancé, ever more modern, and the result is that it can no longer depict a tenement block or a refuse heap without transfiguring it.” This highly refined mode of photography “has succeeded in transforming even abject poverty, by recording it in a fashionably perfected manner, into an object of enjoyment.” 1 Echoing the thrust of Benjamin’s critique of German photography, recent criticism of 1930s American documentary photography, particularly the images compiled under the auspices of the Federal Government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA), has argued that such photography “effaced its politics,” eschewing or mystifying the complicated political processes and material relations which underpin the production of documentary images and diluting the power of those images to provide meaningful social criticism. 2 Describing Russell Lee’s celebrated photograph depicting the gnarled hands of an elderly farm woman, Maren Stange asserts that FSA photography abstracted its subjects from their social and political contexts, playing to popular preconceptions about the poor: “[It] is exactly the absence of complex social reference—combined with telling graphic appeal—that makes the image[s] attractive and meaningful to a wide audience and that ensures [their] success as a popular symbol of humanitarian sentiment.” 3 According to Stange, these images narrow the interpretive possibilities, “encouraging categorical, rather than particularizing, interpretations.” 4 Along similar lines, Paula Rabinowitz asserts that documentary photography confirms the authority of the bourgeois gaze and middle-class [End Page 357] privilege. In her analysis of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Rabinowitz argues that “[no] matter what its political intentions, the documentary narrative invariably returns to the middle class, enlisting the reader in a process of self-recognition.” 5 Maurice Berger contends that images in the FSA file tend to downplay or diminish the trauma of Depression-era suffering, to confirm rather than to contest dominant social relations. “[On] the whole,” Berger argues, “the picture that emerges from the Historical Section is that of America’s perseverance and its triumphs over poverty.” 6 This essay examines Harlem Document, a compilation of fifty-two photographs of Harlem and its residents taken in the 1930s by Aaron Siskind, a white photographer working at the time with the New York Photo League, a left-leaning documentary photographic collective. Although several of Siskind’s Photo League images were published in periodicals and displayed in exhibitions during the late 1930s and early 1940s, none of his League work was published in book form until the release of Harlem Document in 1981. Siskind’s images are accompanied by interviews, stories, and rhymes about life in 1930s Harlem collected independently of Siskind’s project by four members of the Federal Writers’ Project and incorporated into Harlem Document for the 1981 publication. The book is divided loosely into five sections, on Harlem’s businesses, children, religious and social organizations, entertainment culture, and domestic life. As a whole, the images create a loose narrative that moves from exterior street scenes to interior domestic settings, bringing us progressively farther “inside” the Harlem community. The tone of the photographs is generally dark, with rich shadows and sharp contrasts; compositionally, the images are relatively formal, still and stiff rather than candid. Siskind’s Harlem Document falls within the bounds of what is conventionally considered “documentary” discourse...

Form and transformation: a study in the philosophy of Plotinus

The Platonic Form is often presented as an instrument of explanation and as a cause in ontology, epistemology, and ethics. As such, it is usually approached from the perspective of its relations to the particulars of the sensible world. Frederic Schroeder contends that Plotinus argues for the sovereignty of the Platonic Form both as a ground of being and as an intrinsically valuable object of intellective and spiritual vision. These two aspects coalesce in the thought of Plotinus, for whom the Form is, apart from its philosophical uses, an object of enjoyment. Schroeder argues also that the particular must be seen as having an intrinsic character, distinct from its relationship to the Form or to other particulars. The particular thus becomes a window on the world of Form. In the course of his exploration of the sovereignty of Form, Schroeder examines the themes of illumination, silence, language, and love. He undertakes an immanent interpretation of the Plotinian text, showing how Plotinian vocabulary displays intricate internal connections and genetic relationships. Schroeder shows that Plotinus' thought is not susceptible to organization into a closed, linear synthesis but has its own order, centred on the conviction that Form is of intrinsic value and that it is only from the perspective of this intrinsic value that we can understand its uses and significance in explanation and causation. Rather than trying to construct such a synthesis, Schroeder, starting from this basic insight into Plotinus' understanding of the Platonic Form, leads the reader to a greater understanding of Plotinus' manner of philosophizing.