Philosophy Of Culture Research Articles

Дорога как предмет концептуальной рефлексии

This article is dedicated to making sense of the cultural term “road” in research literature. Also, the author makes a disclosure of different “road” term interpretations in various scientific articles. The necessity of this analysis is contingent on terminological variety, which leads to problems while using terms even in one and the same article. In this article we are trying to highlight a dominant term for different fields of knowledge for the word “road”. It turns out that in ethnologist articles specialists describe the road as an archetype, a mythologeme. The archetype of the road as a sort of spatial archetype appeared in the collective mind and outspoken in ethnic texts; traditions and rituals play an important role in the world view of different nations. Describing a road as a mythologeme allows to give it a sacral meaning, a road as a way to the “other world”, the borderland between ‘us’ and ‘them’, a dark place. In literary articles the road is viewed as chronotopos, assembling spatial and time relationship in literary texts. A number of researchers highlight that the “road” chronotopos as a storyline creator and organizer is reflected in Russian literature of XIX-XXI centuries and act independently in the texts of different periods and different authors. The analysis of the road as a metaphor can also be found in linguistic research. Authors suggest different ways of metaphorization, such as “way of life/way of death”, “way of perception”, “way of work”, “way of salvation/way of sin”, “way of creation/way of destruction”. The culturological method permits the authors to look at the road as a concept and divine the terms “road” and “way”. Within philosophy of culture a “road” had a meaning of a cultural universal relevant to different cultures, world models: mythological, religious, philosophical, artistical. Art science makes an accent on characteristic art’s image of the road. The article concludes about the importance of the phenomenon of the road as an integral part of culture at all stages of its development, as well as a fairly thorough study of the road as a cultural phenomenon, the formation of various conceptual schemes for its description in the domestic research literature.

Philosophy of School Multilingualism in the Era of Political Multiculturalism. French Experience. Case of France

Introduction. The policy of European multiculturalism includes the obligatory study of two foreign languages from elementary school. In France, the hours devoted primarily to mathematics are constantly decreasing for this. But fewer and fewer children are able to cope with such a “lightweight” and “interesting” program, and for many years there has been a decline in the level of general education. The aim of the study is to find out the connection of this level with multilingualis m, both objective and imposed on the school by political decisions. Methodology and sources. The study uses the methodology of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of culture, through which a philosophical reflection of the formation of personality is carried out. A philosophical understanding of the data of sociology, cultural anthropology, social psychology (on the example of France) on the problem of school education as one of the mechanisms for the transmission of culture in the context of multilin gualism is proposed. Results and discussion. Based on the data on the dynamics of the results of school education and academic studies of bilingualism and multilingualism, a hypothesis was formulated about the correlation of children's performance in school with their multilingualism and pedagogical support. It is shown that in France over the past hundred years as natural bilingualism (French and regional languages) was overcome, the level of general education increased. Its decline began and continues as a result of the reverse process – the spread of multilingualism since the 1990s as a result of the acceleration of immigration, but also European integration, within the framework of which a politica l decision was made on the compulsory study of two foreign languages in all schools. In the absence of the necessary pedagogical support, a growing number of children, especially from low-income families, cannot withstand this psychological, intellectual a nd cognitive pressure. Conclusion. Political activity in education in France is carried out in weak cooperation with science. Despite the fact that even among specialists in multilingualism there are opposite opinions on various aspects of personality deve lopment in childhood and adolescence. Further research is needed, as well as the study of potential and latent risks of the current educational policy.

A Study on Some Probability Problems in Proverb Situations

From the perspective of probability theory, this study makes a mathematical model of the proverbs themselves or the background stories reflected by them, carries out experiments and analyses, fully excavating the philosophical, scientific, and cultural connotations contained in the proverbs, and reveals the relationship between “mathematics,” “philosophy,” and “culture.” With the interpretation of probability theory, common sayings show their charm in traditional culture, and the application of probability theory has also been expanded and extended. In this paper, the problems reflected in the proverbs, such as “slanders three to, the mother does not love,” “In repentance, there is salvation., “Three cobblers with their wits combined exceed the mastermind of Zhuge Liang.,“ and “Gain the initiative by preemptive strike, otherwise you will be very passive.” are mathematically and modelically analyzed and tested from the perspective of probability theory and the philosophical culture, and scientific thought behind the proverbs are expounded. “One who sticks to his folly and does nothing to stand by a tree stump waiting for a hare,” “dripping water wears through a stone,” and “iron pestle grinds a needle” are a group of common sayings, which directly reflect the principle of small probability events and its two sides through the story behind them.

THE VALUE DIMENSION OF A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE IN MODERN EDUCATION

Global changes in health factors in the information society are the most important reason to highlight the issue of healthy lifestyles as a priority area of research in the field of education. The principles of forming a healthy lifestyle follow from the responsibility of the individual for their own health and life and focus it on active independent activities to carry out the process of self-actualization. From the point of view of the socio-educational space of a healthy lifestyle, it is most appropriate to talk about the need for purposeful cultivation of its values as an independent aspect of the educational process. This raises the research problem of the value dimension of a healthy lifestyle in modern pedagogical theory and practice. From a methodological point of view, this problem is interdisciplinary and is associated with the use of such concepts as worldview, world picture, moral values and more. Accordingly, it is necessary to use comparative, systematic, structural and functional methods, as well as guidelines for such philosophical areas as philosophy of education, philosophy of health, philosophy of culture. It should be noted that a healthy lifestyle in the value dimension can be interpreted as a set of socially accepted values, which are realized by providing a set of conditions to form the needs and motivations of individuals to ensure their own health in the unity of all its species. The most important is the moral and spiritual side of a healthy lifestyle, which is formed in the process of moral education and results in the formation of the spirituality of the individual. In general, the value dimension of a healthy lifestyle as a subject of educational and socializing influences is the formation, development and qualitative transformation of moral and spiritual consciousness of man in the direction of health values, carried out under the influence of the whole system of educational and social factors socialization. A healthy lifestyle acts as a unifying and stabilizing factor of subordination to the purposeful influence of cultural values of natural determinants of human development. As a system of values, it is formed on the basis of the culture of health as an important goal of modern education and is represented in the appropriate content of the model of life of a particular person.

Unbalanced exposure: existentialism, Marxism, and philosophical culture in state socialist Hungary

Existentialism and existentialist thinkers enjoyed sustained interest in Hungary under communist rule. From the late 1940s to the late 1980s, this branch of “bourgeois philosophy” never ceased to generate renewed attention. However, this reception was not subsumed into the ideological orthodoxy, nor was it simply destined to fuel Marxist–Leninist criticism. Whereas Georg Lukács’s polemics with existentialism in the 1940s set the agenda to embrace a highly critical reception, it was precisely Sartre’s influence in the 1960s that had opened the door for a more open-minded Marxist reading of existentialist thinkers in Hungary. This paper seeks to reconstruct the intellectual motifs and contexts that underlie this uncommon development. In focusing predominantly on the period of the 1960–1980s, I am particularly interested in exploring Lukács’s role in the changing attitude towards existentialism in Hungary; the controversies between various Marxist approaches dealing with existentialist thinkers and the ways which the influence of Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus in literary circles influenced the tenor of their philosophical reception. Through this exploration, I will seek to provide a deep insight into one of the richest intellectual landscapes of the philosophical culture in state socialist Hungary.

Reflections on Lao Sze-Kwang and His Double-Structured “Intra-Cultural” Philosophy of Culture

AbstractIn his own time, Lao Sze-Kwang formulated his own intra-cultural approach to the philosophy of culture that begins from the interdependence and organic nature of our cultural experience. In this article, I will address three questions: Why did Lao abandon his early reliance on the Hegelian model of philosophy of culture and formulate his own “two-structured” theory? Again, given Lao’s profound commitment and contribution to Chinese philosophy and its future directions, why is it not proper to describe him as a “Chinese philosopher”? And why is the much accomplished Lao Sze-Kwang not installed in the Chinese University of Hong Kong pantheon as yet one more of the great “New Confucian” philosophers that are associated with this institution?

К вопросу об использовании концепта "военная культура" в философии культуры: pro et contra

The purpose of the study is to analyze the concept of "military culture" for the correctness of its use in the philosophy of culture. The publication presents the positions of various authors regarding the essence of the "military culture" construct and their assessments on the issue of the correctness of its use in philosophy and cultural studies. The paper shows that all the studied studies on this topic can be divided according to the problematic principle into those in which this concept receives a status certainty in humanitarian knowledge and those in which the correctness of its introduction into scientific circulation is denied. The scientific novelty lies in substantiating the need for a cultural-philosophical analysis of the phenomenon of military culture. As a result, it was established that the concept of "military culture" has a significant heuristic potential for analyzing the transitional state of modern Russian society from the standpoint of the philosophy of culture.

BECOME A DOMINANT POSITION OF ISLAM AND DESCRIPTION OF BELIEFS, TEACHINGS AND ETHICAL STANDARDS

The Islamic scientific renaissance period was explained in the article with different concepts, and these concepts are the cause of debates between Western and Eastern scientists. Also, scientific conclusions about the influence of Islam as an ideology and the Arabic language as a scientific language in the fields of theology, philosophy, literature, and architecture of this new culture are given.

Wood, Stone, Thread: Aesthetics of the Most Ancient Archetypes in Modern Decorative and Applied Art

The article is devoted to the transformation of traditional folk culture archetypes of wood, stone, thread in modern decorative and applied art, as well as ways of using threads, wood and stone as materials for the manufacture of objects of modern art. The research does not aim to repeat classical ethnographic studies or to refer monographs on the history of culture. The article is an attempt at a comprehensive analysis of the modern practice of decorative and applied art from the point of view of the philosophy of culture and practical aesthetics. This approach is a unique experience in the analysis of jewelry and decorative practices of processing heterogeneous materials of natural origin. The cluster of masters of decorative and applied art in Russia is expanding, there are more and more opportunities and materials for creativity, but the authors of the products themselves are not engaged in stylistic, art criticism or philosophical understanding of their activities. Nevertheless, their works, according to researchers, reflect the oldest mythological images that are the cornerstones of Russian culture and represent the heritage of world culture, transformed by post-culture and man-made trends that have penetrated, among other things, into art. Archetypes of wood, stone, thread, preserved since ancient times, acquire new meanings and new forms of embodiment in the works of modern authors.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins Adrian Grafe (bio) Hopkins the metaphysician takes center stage in several recent studies of the poet—and rightly so. Hopkins's Oxford education, scholastic training as a Jesuit, serendipitous discovery of Duns Scotus, and speculative interest in metaphysics combine to make him the most philosophically engaged poet of the Victorian period. Relatively neglected by literary researchers who may be without the philosophical, scholastic, and theological background that Hopkins had, yet indispensable for an understanding of Hopkins, this is a demanding interdisciplinary topic, and the scholars concerned more than rise to the challenge. Atti Viragh's "The Grammar of Instress: Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian Philosophers of Mind" (New Literary History 51, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 501–522) draws on late nineteenth-century philosophical culture in Britain as a context within which to reflect on Hopkins's innovative thought. The article begins with Hopkins and his student essay "The Probable Future of Metaphysics" and goes on to describe some aspects of contemporary inquiry into problems of mind, philosophy, and psychology, especially those considered by the journal Mind, founded in 1876 (hence coeval with Hopkins's "The Wreck of the Deutschland," the poem that established his new poetics, begun in December 1875 and completed several months later). The article then explores two of Hopkins's key neologisms, "instress" and "inscape." Thereafter, in the light of what has been said so far, Viragh focuses on one particular poem, "Spring and Fall," in order to examine how the poem brings together the respective intuitions of the child addressee and the adult speaker, including the adult's insight into the child's intuition that death comes to all living things, including herself. The article thus delves into ways in which the poet understands and articulates experience. Viragh writes, "Terms like 'instress' and 'inscape' emerge here [in Hopkins's diaries] in the midst of his effort to understand the intensities of his experience of the natural world" (p. 505). This is perhaps truer of the poet's philosophical writings, since the diaries read as their author's spontaneous responses to natural phenomena, and he pens his terms equally spontaneously, since by the time he came to make his nature notations, he had [End Page 382] already fixed his terms. We are wholly in agreement with Viragh when he goes against the widely held view that "inscape" refers to "individuating design" (p. 506), a view long countered in many works by René Gallet, as well as when, drawing on John Henry Newman (as in the first half of Viragh's title, alluding to Newman's An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent [1870]), he makes the distinction, entirely valid for Hopkins, between the "lived experience" of something and the "logical concept" of it (p. 513). With regard to the idea of instress, given the foregrounding of grammar in Viragh's title, one might have hoped for more questioning of the terms "instress" and "inscape" as functioning as both nouns and verbs. They begin their written life as nouns in Hopkins's "Parmenides" text, and it would be enlightening to track down the first time(s) Hopkins used them as verbs. Surely there is a difference both philosophical and experiential between the instress or inscape of something (among other examples taken from Hopkins's diaries, Viragh cites the inscape of mountains and ash trees and the instress of the moon, bluebells, and roses [p. 505]) and, for example, the "beholder" (Hopkins's word) inscaping or instressing a phenomenon. To take but one example of each, Hopkins writes in his journal about how he usually looked at the sun and a sunset separately: "but today [March 12, 1870] I inscaped them together" (CW 2: 484),1 presumably meaning that he identified and took in the natural principle common to both. The occurrence of instress, whether as noun or verb, seems to be less common than inscape, but one finds an example of the verb in Hopkins's theological prose reflection "On Creation and Redemption" inspired by the Ignatian Exercises, in which "Michael and his angels instressed and distressed them [Lucifer and the disobedient angels] with the thought of their unlikeness to the Most...

Speech Aggression in Corporate Communication: The Gender Aspect in the Philosophy of Culture

The article sheds light on the means of verbal aggression expression as used in the speech of female and male native speakers of English in corporate communication within the gender framework in the philosophy of culture. The means of expression are analysed using the transcripts of talks and business meetings to single out their common use patterns. Research methodology is premised on the philosophical approach to culture, statistical data analysis, methods of continuous sampling, definitional analysis, textual analysis, component analysis and complex analysis of vocabulary units, as well as lexical and stylistic analysis. Upon examining the peculiarities of speech aggression, the authors address gender differences in speech act production. The study demonstrates the significance of the gender factor in implementing verbal behaviour strategies in cases of verbal aggression within corporate communication while also revealing some significant differences in male and female speech aggression in corporate communication (negative connotations in women’s and men’s speech).

IKHLAS: A Spiritual Resource for Indonesian Muslim Wives in Accepting Their Husband's HIV-Positive Status

The religious and cultural values of the Muslim community shaped their coping mechanisms in facing various problems. Indonesian Muslim wives leaned toward both religious and cultural philosophies as resources in maintaining their marriage life. This research aimed to understand the spiritual perspective among Muslim wives in accepting their husband's HIV-positive status. This study used a qualitative study with 15 wives who had a husband with HIV-positive. The interview was run 2-4 times for each participant, and around spent 50-90 minutes for each interview. Data were analyzed simultaneously using a content analysis method. Three themes were articulated, including:1) the meaning of being a Muslim wife to a husband with an HIV-positive, 2) Life experiences after knowing a husband’s HIV-positive status, and 3) Philosophy of life in accepting a husband’s HIV-positive status. Muslim wives' experiences often depend on gender power relations, cultural and religious values, and family roles. The result of the study could be used in developing specific strategies with a gender approach to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS among Muslim wives.

Optimasi Metode K-Nearest Neighbor Dengan Particle Swarm Optimization Untuk Pengenalan Citra Batik Dengan Ragam Hias Geometris

Batik is an intangible cultural heritage that has been approved by UNESCO as an Indonesian cultural heritage. Batik is the art of drawing on cloth for clothing. This art of drawing is in the form of a pattern and has a philosophical meaning which is historically very closely related to the philosophy of Javanese culture. The various patterns of this batik need to be preserved, and one of the efforts to preserve this diversity is to maintain the special characteristics of the batik motif and continue to introduce it to future generations. Efforts to facilitate the introduction of batik motifs can be done through technology that is able to automatically recognize batik patterns according to the motif being tested, one of which is pattern recognition technology. This study aims to optimize the KNN method with PSO to increase the accuracy of batik pattern recognition, the research was carried out in several stages starting from data collection, preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification. The research was conducted using 310 data in the form of batik images in 7 different motifs and divided into 240 compositions for training data and 70 for testing data. At the feature extraction stage, the discrete wavelet transform method is used up to level 3, then at the classification stage, the PSO and KNN algorithms are used. The PSO algorithm is used to obtain the most optimal number of k which is used as the input parameter k in the KNN algorithm. The results of the research that have been carried out have proven that with the addition of the PSO algorithm, the accuracy of the KNN method can be increased by 6% compared to the standard KNN method.

Flesh, Vital Energy and Illness: A Comparative Phenomenological Study of Human–Nature Relations Inspired by the Contexts of Later Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi

The main aim of this paper is to illustrate human–nature relations from a comparative study of the contexts of later Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi. I argue that the Zhuangzi has its own phenomenology of the natural world, which is worth comparing to Merleau-Pontian later phenomenology. To compare the arguments on human–nature relations in the contexts of later Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi in detail, first, I briefly compare the cultural philosophies of nature in ancient Greece and China and their possible influences on our contemporary understanding of nature. Second, I compare the concept of “flesh” of Merleau-Ponty with the concept of “vital energy” in the Zhuangzi and point out the main roles of these concepts in their respective theories of the natural world. Third, I use the “reversibility thesis” created by Merleau-Ponty to analyze the ontological significance of illness in the arguments of Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi. Fourth, inspired by Merleau-Pontian and Zhuangzian ideas about language and expression, I expound on a view of illness as a primordial language of nature and its possible role in mediating human–nature relations. Ultimately, I conclude that the comparative study of thoughts on human–nature relations in the literatures of later Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi can help us reconsider and readjust our main attitudes toward nature, illness and nonhuman beings in the contemporary postpandemic era.

On the Concept of Good with Continual Reference to Economy. What is the axiological background of collaborative consumption society?

The rationale for choosing the object of research is the recognition of the socio-cultural validity of new ways of management (New Economy), interpreted as a response to the exhaustion of traditional ways in which societies function, i.e. those based on ideas of growth and ownership. The aim of the article is to analyse selected examples of redefinition of the concept of good in the context of new social narratives and the grounding of certain beliefs related to the idea of degrowth and sharing economy. The article is theoretical and references to contemporary research on cultural philosophy and social analyses of economic practice. A socio-regulatory concept of culture was adopted as a research perspective, and humanistic interpretation was used as an explanatory procedure. Qualitative data was analysed using atlas.ti, concept driven coding was used, and content analysis was limited to concept analysis and the creation of conceptual maps. The research results are supposed to show: 1. the impact of modern forms of economic practices using the Internet and IT technology on the redefinition of good, 2. how this redefinition builds the axiological background of society of collaborative consumption.

Э. В. Ильенков и борьба за подлинный марксизм: философское свободомыслие в позднем СССР

Introduction. The article deals with the life and philosophical work of the Soviet Marxist philosopher E.V. Ilyenkov. It emphasizes the importance of a thoughtful return to his philosophical ideas. Theoretical analysis. Based on selected texts by Ilyenkov and with reference to contemporary studies of his work, three subjects are examined: the philosopher’s struggle to preserve Marx’s ideas within Soviet philosophy, his ideas about the fate of socialism in the USSR, and his attitude toward the West and the influence of Western philosophical ideas on Soviet society. Ilyenkov is shown as a bearer of a different type of thinking, which is a challenge for contemporary philosophical culture. He associated his struggle for Marxism with the need to reform the party-ideological system through the return to authentic ideas of Marx and Lenin. He saw the future of socialism in the USSR in the transition from “rough communism” to a state of complete liberation of a man from the power of private property. He perceived the West as the soulless power of private property, and modern trends of Western thought as forms of its apology. Conclusions. It is concluded that Ilyenkov’s philosophical freethinking remained Marxist quixotry within the framework of Soviet reality.

Analysis of Local Wisdom Values in The Ghofilinan Tradition in Katimoho Village, Gresik Regency

The research departed from the phenomenon of the elimination of elements of local culture in society. One of the causes was the current modernization and globalization of all aspects of life, including traditions and culture. The formation of noble values that were able to pattern the behavior of the Indonesian people was due to the decisive role of customs, which became a culture in people's lives. Although the customs and culture of each region were different, in general, they had the same essential values. Traditional and cultural philosophies that have developed in various parts of the Indonesian nation, on average, instill good and positive moral attitudes and behaviors. This research objective was to find the local wisdom values and the Ghofilinan tradition in the Katimoho Village community. This research was a qualitative method. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Primary sources were carried out by direct observation (natural observation). For in-depth review, interviews were carried out. Secondary data was obtained through literature study and village documentation. The research results concluded that the Ghofilin tradition had religious, social, historical, and economic values that coexisted with Islamic values. Islam is a religion with a set of values that have influenced the cultural patterns and traditions of the Katimoho Village community. The meeting of Islamic values with the local wisdom values in the Dzikrul Ghofilin tradition was a process of cultural acculturation. It made the socio-cultural aspects of the local community not necessarily eroded by Islamic teachings.

THE ROLE OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE IN LIMITING CULTURAL DEVIATION IN THE ERA OF CYBERBULLYING

Today, some directions of cultural processes in the Republic of Kazakhstan have deviated from their natural nature and become propagandists of Western culture, which are only imitators. This process weakens national taste and consciousness, and at the same time begins to gradually displace the nation from its traditional culture. Imitation makes its conscious expansion into the national culture, especially the consciousness of young people. From the point of view of taking advantage of this moment, some public organizations, using elements of mass culture, adapt it to the sources of a single commercial project. If we note the reasons for allowing such a negative attitude, we should note the decline in cultural tastes, the regression of the formation and differentiation of value systems in culture and art, the lack of control by management organizations over the penetration and spread of foreign cultural movements. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the influence of the cyberbullying process, which is formed on the basis of information flow. These processes ultimately lead to the decline of real art and the deviation of national culture. Key words: philosophy of culture, western and eastern dichotomy, cultural deviation, western civilization, eastern spirituality, national consciousness, era of cyberbullying.

Images of the Soviet Era in the Perception of the Student Youth of the Post-Soviet Caspian Region

The article presents the results of a study of the perception of the Soviet era images by the student youth of the Caspian region (Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan). The main goal of the study is to identify the specifics of the attitude to the images of the Soviet era among Russian students and their peers from the post-Soviet Caspian states. The author proves that the images of the Soviet era among the students of the Caspian region were formed under the influence of natural circumstances and factors – family, education and, less often, politics. It is confirmed that the intercultural dialogue in the territory of the Caspian macro-region is rarely reduced to a simplified “We-They” (Ours – Alien) dichotomy and more often forms complex constructs. The results of the study show that the images of the Soviet era in the minds of the students of the Caspian region are of residual character, where the degree of intensity of memorizing the true meaning of the image is different: Russian students in comparison to foreign but Russian-speaking ones, showed a better knowledge of the connotation of images. The focus of nostalgic moods which were noted in our previous works remains characteristic of the older generation, whose youth falls on the Soviet era. The practical impact of the article is in proving that, when building the concept of a safe intercultural dialogue in the Caspian region, it is necessary to take into account not the common Soviet basis of the states, but the new discursive practices of the Caspian macro-region. The conclusions of this work can be used in general courses on social philosophy and philosophy of culture, anthropology and sociology of culture, as well as for the development of courses on semiotics of culture, visual culture, theory of intercultural communications. The systematized material, as well as the conclusions obtained during the analysis, can become the basis for further research work.

The Depth of Reason: Kant, Marx, and Heidegger in the Deconstruction of Christianity

ABSTRACT Jean-Luc Nancy’s so-called ‘deconstruction of Christianity’ is usually understood as both a philosophy of culture (in line with various other exercises in ‘post-secular’ thought) and a critique of metaphysics (in line with Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence). This article, however, argues that its primary concern is neither the Christian religion as a cultural formation, nor the exhaustion of the metaphysical enterprise. Instead, by looking at some of the philosophical sources on which Nancy’s project is built – namely, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Martin Heidegger –, the article suggests that its true aim is to develop a new understanding of reason, or to renew the experience of reason. Though these authors have largely been neglected by the growing discussion of Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity, the article shows how it is only by developing his occasional references to them that we can come to appreciate an important but neglected dimension of this project: namely, the fact that it is an exercise in philosophical anthropology, i.e. an inquiry into the exact nature of the reason that supposedly characterises the rational animal.